Sarah looked at her mother, and she was suddenly a child again. “Even if it’s not easy to hear?”
Liz squeezed Sarah’s hands. “I can handle anything. The only thing I can’t handle is you beating yourself up over something that wasn’t your fault.”
Sarah was long past her teenage angst phase, but she could be stubborn like her mother. And she looked more like Liz every day. They had the same hair, same fair skin, though Sarah had inherited her father’s dimples. Her biological father’s dimples.
“Thanks,” Sarah said.
Liz let her go, and Sarah walked ahead. “Listen, when we get back, I need you to start planning the funerals,” Liz said, changing the subject.
Sarah frowned. “But we’ve already buried them.”
“We buried them because we didn’t have anywhere to stash the bodies,” Liz replied. “We thought it best to get them into the ground as soon as possible so the bodies would decompose. That’s not something their loved ones needed to see.”
“So you want to actually have some type of ceremony?” Sarah asked.
“I think it would be a good opportunity for people to properly say goodbye and for the community to pay their respects,” Liz answered. “With everything that’s been going on, I think people need something to grieve.”
“So to lift everybody’s spirits and to give the community something to look forward to, we want to throw a funeral?” Sarah asked.
“You know what I mean,” Liz said.
“I guess it wouldn’t hurt for people to take a moment and reflect on everything that’s happened,” Sarah said.
Liz thought that keeping Sarah busy would be a good thing. People needed a distraction, now more than ever.
When they finally reached the river where they would cross, Liz and Sarah started loading the supplies onto the canoes they used to ferry themselves across the water.
Once all the supplies were loaded and they had crossed the river, they began the process of pulling their goods up the final hill where the training facility was perched. It had been nothing but luck that allowed the facility to survive the fires that had ravaged most of Asheville, including their home.
The facility was enclosed by a chain-link fence complete with barbed wire wrapped over the top. In addition to the fence, there was also a large tower centered inside the property. It was used for running drills, carrying fire hoses and equipment up several flights of stairs to get the firefighters conditioned for possible scenarios of fighting fires. But it also doubled as a watchtower now that they had sought refuge in this place. The watchtower was the center of the entire facility, and it gave them a bird’s-eye view of any threats heading their way. The tower was always manned with someone who could handle a sniper rifle.
The community they had built at the fire training facility had grown considerably over the past few months. What had started as a small group of about a dozen had now almost tripled in size. The increase in the population had caused a strain on their supply of food, medicine, and living space. It had also begun to put a strain on everybody’s mental state. There was only so much space to go around.
But everybody was still alive, and so long as Liz could keep everybody fed, she knew that they could maintain a level of civilized discourse. Or at least, she hoped.
Liz and Sarah brought the food into the mess hall, which was the main building of the fire facility. Inside was a working kitchen and massive food coolers where they stored their goods. The coolers weren’t operational because they had no power, but they still provided a central location for their supplies.
Because of the security breaches they’d had since the beginning of their occupation of the facility, Liz and Ben both made the decision to keep a person stationed at the coolers to guard the food, just to make sure no one was skimming.
“Hey, guys,” Cole said.
“Hey,” Sarah said coldly.
Cole was Sarah’s biological father. Cole had gotten Liz pregnant in high school and then took off after Sarah was born. But the past few years, Cole had tried to become a fixture in Sarah’s life. Up until the EMP, they had started to mend their relationship, but when Cole had come clean about secretly dating Liz’s sister, Rachel, for the past six months, their progress had stalled.
The relationship between Cole and Rachel had been a surprise to everyone who knew them, and no one was more shocked than Sarah. And while Liz had been upset about the relationship initially, she had come to terms with it. Her sister and Cole seemed to really care about one another, and it was the first time she had seen either of them really commit to anything.
Cole blushed, still embarrassed by his daughter’s cold shoulder, and he stepped aside as Sarah started carrying the boxes into the storage locker.
“You want to give us a hand?” Liz asked when she noticed Cole just standing around.
“Oh, yeah, of course.” Cole set down his rifle, and then the three of them set up an assembly line, feeding the boxes of food and grain into the storage locker. “Oh, did you see the chickens?”
Liz frowned. “Chickens?”
“Yeah, the Percy’s found some chickens on their scouting mission today,” Cole answered. “Isn’t that great?”
“Yeah,” Liz answered, but she didn’t share the same level of enthusiasm as Cole when it came to the Percy family.
They had a history with her husband, one that was even darker than Ben’s history with his brother.
“Where did they find them?” Sarah asked.
Cole perked up, eager to pick up a conversation with his daughter. “I think they said they found them north of the woods. There was an old barn they were sheltering inside.”
“Good thing we have grain and corn,” Liz said.
“Yeah,” Cole answered. “All we need now is a pig for some bacon, and we’d have a nice breakfast.” He laughed, but neither Sarah nor
