Darien turned, took Jon Boy by the elbow and cast a glance over his shoulder at the two convicts. The hesitation in their step told him everything he needed to know—they'd mind their manners. For now.
"Sure thing, Jonny. What’d you find?" Darien asked, feigning enthusiasm as one might with a two-year-old.
"Lookit,” Jon Boy said as he held up a small silver canister with pride. "I think it's lipstick."
Darien immediately recognized the can of mace. "Jon Boy…” he said slowly, “…can I have that please? That's not lipstick—that's dangerous."
Jon Boy stared at the tiny canister in his hand. "It's not lipstick? I can't draw on windows?"
Darien licked his lips. With no prospect of something to drink, let alone water to wash his face off, he pressed on. “That's right, Jon Boy, it's not lipstick. That's what we call mace. Smells bad, and it’ll make you cry. Dangerous."
Jon Boy pouted, but dutifully handed over the offending canister. “Will you take it, Mr. Darien?"
"I surely will, Jonny, I surely will." He gently plucked the unarmed can of mace from Jon Boy's grasp and slipped it in his pocket. A glance over his shoulder proved that the two convicts hadn’t noticed. Spanner lagged far behind but followed the convicts as they laughed about something. He frowned at the echo of their voices in the distance.
"I sure do like that you're nice to me, Mr. Darien," Jon Boy rumbled.
Darien clapped the taller man on the shoulder, stretching his arm almost vertical to do so. "You're all right, Jon Boy, you know that? You and me…we’ll have some fun together."
"Oh good! I hope we get to play soon!”
Darien continued to walk forward. His feet thumped in their mismatched boots on the asphalt. The sign grew closer in the distance: Bee’s Landing. Stupid name. Some kind of residential development, another burgeoning cookie-cutter neighborhood, one of dozens that had sprouted like mushrooms outside North Charleston in recent years. Darien frowned. A commuter neighborhood. Likely there weren't any shops or restaurants nearby.
A new thought occurred to him, and a smile spread across his face. With as few people as they'd seen on the way out of Charleston, maybe nobody had made it home after the waves?
"Hey Jonny, should we go see if anybody wants to play in that neighborhood up there?" he asked, and pointed through the pine tree barrier. Just visible through the trees as they walked, the edge of Bee’s Landing appeared in the distance.
"Can we?" Jon Boy asked, fairly bouncing on his feet. For a man so big, Darien had no idea how the giant managed to maintain his energy on the handful of crackers and bottle of water he'd found thus far.
If it was a neighborhood full of commuters who didn't make it back after the tsunami…well, they might very well find more than crackers and water. He glanced up at the sun as it beat down relentlessly on his bald head. They might indeed find a lot more than crackers and water—he'd settle for a hat, but he had a feeling they’d acquire some shelter, too.
“Can we, Mr. Darien?” Jon Boy asked again.
"We surely can, Jon Boy,” Darien said with a grin. “We surely can…”
Chapter 2
Lavelle Homestead
Northwest of Charleston, South Carolina
Cami stood and stretched her lower back. The warm morning sun relaxed the tense muscles of her shoulders, and she groaned. She and the kids had spent the morning on the vegetable harvest, to prepare for the end of the season. Several wicker baskets sat nearby, and she smiled to see them overflow with zucchini and tomatoes. Spaghetti sauce for the winter—covered.
"Think you guys planted enough zucchini?” Mitch muttered. He stood from behind the tomato plants, holding two massive zucchinis, one in each hand. "Got enough to sink a good-sized battleship…”
"Well, it's versatile,” Cami said. She squinted up at the midmorning sun. "You can chop it up and put it in spaghetti, eat it raw, add it to salads—you can even make pasta out of it. And my personal favorite, fried zucchini. And that's just scratching the surface. Not to mention the plants themselves are almost indestructible and will produce half a metric ton of fruit each season."
"There's no way we can use all of this," Amber said. “Even if we made a thousand loaves of zucchini bread.”
"Oh, yes we can," Cami said, as she stepped over to deposit her own harvest into the correct baskets. "Remember, we’re eating some of this now—but we need to preserve most of it so we can have food for the winter."
"Maybe we can share some of this stuff? Maybe with Mia Stevens?" Amber persisted.
Cami put her hands on her hips and looked at her daughter. “You seem to be taking a surprising amount of interest in the plight of Mia Stevens…what's up?"
Amber sighed and stood up from her patch of the garden. She stepped over some leafy squash plants, careful to avoid the still-green pumpkins in the far corner. "I don't know," she said as she brought over an arm full of zucchini. "I just worry about her, you know? She's got those two kids…and honestly, after meeting her, I don't really have a lot of faith in her abilities to get through this mess. "
Cami looked at the ground for a moment. "I have to admit, I was kinda thinking that, too. She's just young and inexperienced, that's all."
"Yeah, but even I knew to open the windows when the power goes out," Amber said as she gently placed her harvest in the baskets. She stood and wiped a stray lock of hair from her forehead. “I don't know, something just feels…I don't know.” She wiped the dirt off
