The Ocean in the Fire Read online

  And neither would she.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CONNOR

  They ran inside like rats fleeing a burning building, only in reverse, as if instead, the outside world was on fire. All of the new people clustered together in the entryway, sticking to the familiarity of one another. Connor noticed that they subconsciously put the women and Jackson in the center of the circle, and was mildly insulted.

  I could have killed any one of them a thousand times by now.

  But no matter. They would learn what the rules were soon enough. And in a way, he hoped they’d have to learn the consequences of breaking them.

  As the new recruits ran in, Kate pulled him aside, away from prying ears. “You weren’t really going to send the child out there, right? Please tell me you weren’t…”

  He had thought about it, though he would never admit it to anyone, especially Kate. For Connor, Hammurabi’s code of “an eye for an eye” was a principle that time should not have left behind eons ago. If it hadn’t been, the people of present day might have been a little more kind to each other: people are more likely to behave well when they know they will receive the same treatment they inflict on someone else. Of course, it would have been terrible for the child: he had done nothing wrong. However, his banishment would resonate with those who witnessed it like nothing else could: show the care to the children of others as you would for your own, or find them lost to you. The ones he had picked had surely heard what Drew had done to him so many years ago, and the lesson would stay with them as they learned to adapt.

  And maybe, just maybe, the child’s mother would have hardened herself enough to keep her child alive. The necessity to hide him from death could have very well made Blake a little more like Connor, and in those times, there was no better gift that he could have given her. He admitted to himself what he couldn’t admit to Kate: he wasn’t sure if he had spared the child because he wanted to save him, or because he knew she would never forgive him if he didn’t. He hoped, for his own soul, that it was the former. And not because he believed in God: he didn’t, or at least he didn’t think he did. He didn’t want to think of himself that way for his own sake alone: so darkened by experience that the death of a child was something he could deal with if it lead to something else.

  But, as he had many times before, he told Kate what she wanted to hear: “Of course not. I just wanted to make that sonofabitch sweat…just for a minute.”

  He saw Kate let out a sigh. With a small smile she said, “Well let’s go inside and welcome them.” He felt her hand on her shoulder, and knew that at least for the moment, her delusion of the kind of man he was remained intact.

  He would welcome them, but perhaps not in the way she had envisioned. He had to establish authority early on, and he knew just how to do it. He had been silent for long enough, standing in the background, staying quiet while the town turned him into something monstrous. Now was his chance to speak, and he couldn’t wait to see their frightened faces as they stood there quietly, listening to his voice ring out confidently and triumphantly.

  Their supplies were strewn all over the main floor, suitcases having flown open in the chaos, bins with their lids half ajar showing off the canned goods inside. A couple of them had family photos inside, crunched by the rest of the contents, or folded into an almost unrecognizable mass of color. Between the antique furniture and plethora of vases and silver trinkets that Kate loved now lay the only possessions that the strangers had left from their previous lives.

  Connor nodded at Poe, Harper, and Gabriel, and they knew instantly to gather the newcomers’ supplies and disperse them to their appropriate storage areas. For the canned goods, they opened up a large metal supply cabinet, and arranged the cans in alphabetical order, so that they would know exactly how many of each item that they had in stock. The cabinet was seven feet tall, thick, heavy, and completely immovable. Once they were finished, they locked it tight. It was Connor’s wish that even if somehow a group of invaders got into their home, that cabinet would remain impenetrable, and they would have a means to begin again.

  Next, the three of them gathered as many guns as they could and headed upstairs, dividing them up amongst their parents’ room and their own. He smiled to himself as Harper chose the guns that looked like they belonged in Al Capone’s hands to stay with her. Those were always her favorite, and he remembered ordering one for her birthday a few years back. Evidently, her tastes hadn’t changed.

  Each room had a gun safe that could only be opened by the fingerprint of a family member. Connor would never have let any new people in without that precaution. The only person he knew well was Drew, and as their situation illustrated, knowing someone for years didn’t imply they should be trusted.

  Once Harper, Poe, and Gabriel returned, still carrying the weapons that wouldn’t fit in any of the safes, he announced, “Everyone, I require your attention.” His family seemed to know that they were exempt from his statement, and started going through the pockets of the clothing they found in the bins, making sure no one had smuggled in a weapon. After they finished, they did a pat-down search of all their new recruits, including the child. One never knows how far someone will go to take control in a situation where their own survival was at stake, even to the point where they may hide a weapon in the clothing of a four year old. Of course, if someone were to make an attempt on his life, they would be out-skilled and outgunned, but that didn’t make a potential stab wound any less lethal. In their situation, an infection could be just as deadly as the pandemic sweeping across the country. Though he hated to admit it, Drew did have the potential to be a valuable asset to their group, perhaps more essential for the future of the compound than even Drew himself realized.

  But he didn’t need to know that.

  “We have several sleeping bags set up in the far living room.” He pointed to the room at the back of the kitchen, surrounded by windows with bars on the outside. “You will be situated in a room with a vantage point that covers a large area of the property, and I suggest you use it accordingly, sleeping in shifts. One person at this post needs to be awake at all times, especially now, when people are starting to realize just how, excuse my language, fucked they really are. Decide among yourselves how you will schedule your sleep, because if I find out no one is watching, I will decide for you, and you may not like it.”

  He glanced around the room, waiting for someone to protest. They had the sense not to. Even the doctor, whom he could tell fancied himself the leader of the new people, stood quietly and waited for him to continue his orientation. “The sun is about to go down, so we will assign you your duties tomorrow morning. Each of you will help with one aspect of keeping this place safe and secure, whether it be working on the food supply…” he looked at the doctor. “…or teaching us more advanced medicine.” He wondered if the doctor would be clever enough to realize that if he taught one of his family members everything he could, he may wear out his value. He would have to be vigilant of that. Of course he couldn’t teach anyone to do major surgery, but in the circumstances they found themselves in, anything too invasive was already out of the question.

  “As you will learn, one of our cardinal rules is that no one leaves the house after dark except in very special circumstances, as decided by myself or, if I am occupied, the decision rests with my wife until I am available.” Kate shyly raised her hand and gave a slight smile. Connor loved that about her: the lack of wanting to be the center of attention despite how much she deserved it. To him, she deserved to be gazed at, admired for the beauty that he knew she was even if she herself did not.

  Again, no one argued, just stayed huddled together like the scared little children that they were. “As for some of the other house rules: all of you will perform the duties assigned to you, without question or protest. If you knew what you were doing, you wouldn’t be here. Remember that. Second, no one goes in mine and Kate’s room under any circumstances. Third…” he laughed, “and third is my favori
te…if you are all thinking you might just come into our home, organize and kick us out of the place we’re worked so hard to build, I beg you to reconsider.” He walked over to Cassius. “You are a police officer, correct?”

  Cassius nodded. “Ten years next month.”

  “Ah,” Connor laughed, causing an expression of barely-contained rage to spread across Cassius’s face. “So, it would be safe to assume that you are the most skilled fighter of this new gaggle of recruits we have here, correct?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Slowly, methodically, Connor removed the handgun that he had in his holster, watching as the rest of them stiffened in fear. “I want you to take this gun from me. Go on…if you can, the compound is yours. No protest, I promise.” He grinned.

  Cassius, overconfident little egomaniac that he was, hesitated at first, probably wondering what the catch was. Connor smiled, knowing full well that there didn’t need to be a catch. “Come on now. Take it.”

  Connor breathed slowly and easily as Cassius, someone probably fifteen years his junior, lunged forward at him, hands reaching toward his weapon. Within seconds, Connor had knocked him toward the ground. “Again,” he said.

  Cassius got up, muscles tightening. Connor guessed that Cassius did not want to let the opportunity to get violent with him pass him by. Instead of lunging forward, this time, he wound up for a right hook. Connor had his gun back in his holster, and Cassius’s arm bent backward against his chest before it was anywhere near Connor’s face. “That’s enough. Thank you for helping me demonstrate.” He nodded to Darius who stepped forward and gently guided Cassius back toward the rest of the group. “As you can see, in preparation for the end of days, I have prepared my body as well as our home to stand up against adversaries. So have the rest of us.” Poe and Harper grinned, both fixing their gaze on Cassius. “If I can beat your best, it would probably be in your best interest to behave yourselves.”

  He turned to his children and pointed to the extra weapons, which they had put back in the duffel bags. “Take these to where we keep the backup weaponry.” They nodded, threw the bags over their shoulders and disappeared around the back of the stairs. Connor stood in the sightline of his new arrivals. “Maybe someday I will tell you where they are headed. But today is not that day.” He watched them looking at each other. When Harper, Poe, and Gabriel returned, he said, “Family?” Kate and their children fell in line at Connor’s side. He handed Gabriel two bags. “Gabriel, go down to the cars that our guests left behind. Poe can tell you where they are. Get there quickly before the ones who didn’t make it in go back for their stuff. Make sure there’s nothing there that they could use against us later.” He watched as his son’s face hardened. Before Gabriel could undermine him in front of the group, he took him and Poe outside, leaving Harper and Kate to guard the group. “What is it, Gabriel?”

  His son glared at him. “You really don’t want them to have any chance at all, do you? Now you want us to take their supplies? Why didn’t you just shoot them here? It would have been better than letting them starve to death or suffer from whatever that thing is that’s killing people out there.”

  “Gabriel…” Poe started.

  Connor stepped closer to his son. “You just don’t get it, do you? Those people know exactly where we are now. We don’t need them coming back here.” He inched closer still. “Is it that you want someone to hold a knife to your sister’s throat? Is that it? These people owe us nothing. And now they have nothing to lose.” Gabriel stood silently. Connor turned to Poe. “Show him how to get to the cars, then come back for dinner. I need you in here to help me keep an eye on them.” She nodded and started back down the mountain, her brother following closely behind her.

  After Gabriel and Poe were out of sight, Connor went back into the house. “I think our guests would love to make us dinner to show how grateful they are for our hospitality.” He felt his wife’s stare, the one that meant she did not approve. She tried to hide it, but they’d been married for far too long for her to be able to slip it by him. He ignored it, knowing that though she concerned herself far more about what others might think than he did, he relished in their obedience enough for the both of them.

  “I’ll help them, Connor. Why don’t you go read one of your books? They don’t know where anything is in the kitchen yet.” He considered arguing with her, but relented. She was, after all, right, and he did want to have dinner sooner rather than later. He felt the other women staring at him, as if gauging his relationship with his wife by that one conversation. Let her have her fun, he thought. They may have thought they had an ally in Kate, but he knew she was forever devoted to him and him alone. She was merely being polite, a habit she couldn’t seem to break no matter how much he told her there was no need for manners when you had the upper hand.

  “Sounds lovely, Kate. You can help them familiarize themselves with the layout of the house and where the supplies are located.” He walked over to the living room where all the sleeping bags were. The room had been completely cleared out of furniture, except for a large wooden trunk. He threw the lid open to reveal several books, and grabbed one of the ones off the top. He’d read it at least ten times, but the book itself wasn’t the point.

  He carried the book over to a chair that sat at a small desk in the kitchen. “Wouldn’t you rather read upstairs? It will be very noisy while we cook.” Kate said. A part of him suggested that she was trying to get rid of him, but he ignored it and shoved it away.

  “I think I’ll read right here. Thank you. Always better light down here.” He smiled pleasantly as he sat down, pointing himself away from the kitchen area and resting his hands on the desk as he propped open the book. He didn’t need to see their new arrivals; he just needed to hear them. He needed to be silent, because if he was, perhaps a part of them would forget he was there, and he would learn something about the new people under his roof, things that people reveal when they forget someone’s watching.

  The rustling of pots and pans being moved. “Vera, right? I’m Kate.” The slip of skin in a handshake. “Yes, very nice to meet you.” The sound of pleasantries hidden by a nervous voice, the kind of voice that says ‘in another life, we would have been in a parent-child playgroup together, or maybe a book club that used reading as an excuse to spend a summer afternoon drinking chardonnay in the sun. But this is not that life.’ “I’m happy to meet you too. We wondered if we would be the only survivors. I’m glad to know that there is life beyond our walls.” A laugh. Then awkward seriousness. “Maybe not. Not anymore.”

  With Kate’s assistance, the new group put together quite a feast: an hour after they started, they were all in various places around the downstairs with a steaming hot bowl of venison stew, with a triangle of homemade bread wedged onto the edge of it. Gabriel returned just as dinner was served, and told him that the remainder of their supplies were locked safely in one of the many caches they had buried outside the property.

  “Good thinking. We need more in those now that there’s more people,” Connor told him, more so that Kate would see him praising his son than for Gabriel himself. Connor remained in his chair, but he had set the book gently on the corner of the desk, and turned around to face his family and the strangers. He watched them all, paying attention to which people gravitated toward one another. Mostly, it was family with family, but a couple groups co-mingled. The youngest Melone brother sat close to Blake and her son, all three sitting cross-legged on the floor between the sleeping bags. Their interactions didn’t seem to have a romantic element, so Connor could only assume he was being protective. Forever a cop, he thought. He watched as Blake’s serious expression temporarily cracked, and both of them smiled at each other as they shoved the food provided by Connor and his family into their mouths. So ungrateful…acting like they had the audacity to expect to be here, he thought. He was the one who let them into his home when he didn’t have to. They should be thanking him, but not one person had.

  Not one.
>
  He wondered why he would have expected anything different. They came from the same group of people that he had repeatedly asked for help (or even just the benefit of the doubt) ten years ago and who had all denied him. Instead, they turned little bits of words and phrases into something ugly, and made him out to be the devil. Perhaps it was they who were the devil. If letting a whole family be destroyed through pettiness and judgement wasn’t classified as evil, he wasn’t sure what would be. They had convicted him with hearsay and nonsense, assaulted his children with words and violence, and no one had stopped it.

  And now several of them had already paid the price.

  Connor had trouble keeping their names straight: Cassius and Darius. He thought it ridiculous to be so uncreative when naming one’s children. Their names sounded like near copies of each other, so much so that they even rhymed, and he wondered if they equated their own identities similarly. His own children were born of the classics, with names that would make them stand out in amongst the rest of the world throughout time: Harper Lee, Gabriel Garcia Marques, and of course, the godfather of all things twisted, Edgar Allen Poe. Their names would help them stay strong when others were weak, and that would get them through whatever was coming next. He shouted to the brothers, and the crowd grew quiet. “Cassius, Darius, tell me, why did your parents name you such similar names? I can barely tell them apart. They are so alike that they seem to negate any importance that they would carry on their own.”

  Darius opened his mouth to answer, but Cassius cut him off. “Now, I have to tell you how wrong you are.” A sly grin slid across Cassius’ face. His brother looked at him, begging him with his eyes not to rock the boat that they barely just boarded. Connor wouldn’t have been surprised if that particular expression hadn’t crossed Darius’ face hundreds of times before that night.