CHAPTER NINETEEN

It was dark and wet and crawled with life. Sarah slapped at the tendrils of roots and worms clinging to her hair, her clothes. She tilted her head up to see the moon through the tree branches above. She screamed, flinging the creatures and the dirt from her hair, the terror and revulsion grabbing her like a living thing. She didn’t dare touch the dirt walls of the pit—dark and invisible in the evening light. Her foot touched something soft. An animal. And her scream retched out of her in one agonizing wail.

“Sarah! Lass! What happened? Where are you?”

“Mike! I’m in a hole! Don’t fall in! Don’t—”

The light from the moon blinked out as Mike’s form filled the opening of the pit, his cursing trailing him as he fell with a heavy thud beside her. She reached out to touch him. It was too dark to see more than shadows.

“Mike, there’s something in here…”

The sound of the gunshot thudded into the thick walls of the pit and Sarah screamed. Mike reached for her and pulled her into his arms. She was shaking violently.

“What…what was it?” she stuttered.

“We’ll find out in the morning,” he said gruffly.

“Oh, my God, do we have to stay here all night? I hate things that belong in the earth crawling on my skin! You’ve got to get us out of here!”

“Steady on, love,” Mike said soothingly. “We’ll get out. Just let me think for a moment.”

“I’m flipping out, Mike.” Sarah saw the rim of the pit was at least five feet above her. “I can’t do this. I can’t do this. I’ve got to get out of here.” She felt his hands sure and strong holding her firmly around the shoulders as if he could somehow help her keep it together, keep from flying apart.

“Whoever built this pit is likely to have heard my gunshot,” Mike said reassuringly. “We won’t have to wait long. I’m sure.”

“You’re just saying that so I won’t freak out! Where’s your gun? Shoot some more in the air. Help! Help!”

“Sarah…”

“No! Give me your gun!”

“Sarah, stop it, lass.” Mike shook her gently. “Take a breath.”

She sucked in a noisy breath and squeezed her eyes shut.

“Let it out, darlin,” he said softly, rubbing her back. “It’s going to be all right.”

“I just really don’t think it is,” she said, fighting back a sob as she covered her face with her hands.

“Nothing is ever going to be all right again, Mike. If I can’t find him, if I can’t hold him, I just don’t think I…” She broke down in agonizing howls of pain and loss, finally letting go of the reserve and the strength she’d needed to go on. There was no going on now. Now she was done.

“Sarah, please, love…” He held her tightly, rubbing her shoulders and back, his hands warm and firm.

“Oy! Whoever’s down there,” said a voice from above. “If you don’t throw your weapon up here right now I’ll shoot ye like fish in a barrel!”

Mike squinted up at the opening of the pit.

“Gavin? Is that you?”

 

*****

Shane walked down the long corridor to O’Reilly’s office. It had rained on and off all day and night. Not that it mattered. He lived like a fecking mole these days, spending more time underground than out and about. And what was out and about anyway? Watching the riff raff burn rubbish in the streets? Was this the Ireland he and O’Reilly had inherited? O’Reilly didn’t seem to see any difference between the country they’d lost—the country before the EMP went off over the Irish Sea—and the one they had on their hands right now.

And yet. The idea of starting over in the old parliament building had its merits. Problem was, O’Reilly knew it would be just the carrot for Shane that it was. O’Reilly didn’t give two shites about where the seat of power was located. He didn’t care about history, or how Ireland looked on the world stage or where it was poised to be in a year’s time.

Jaysus. How could the man be so obtuse?

He passed a cadre of Garda Síochána guards and noticed their shirts were hanging out of their trousers and their dress shoes were replaced with trainers.

How close to losing the support of the Garda were they? Or am I just being paranoid? He forced himself not to look at the men’s faces as he passed. The last thing he wanted to do was convey any nervousness or hint of insecurity to them. Like effing pit bulls. Everything is fine until they smell your fear.

His phone vibrated in his slacks pocket and he pulled it out and studied the screen. He took a long breath and deleted the received text. No guts no glory. But no sense in being foolhardy.

He went into his office. The door to O’Reilly’s office was open.

“That you, Shane?” O’Reilly called.

Shane walked to the door that separated the two offices. O’Reilly was smoking a cigar and squinting at his computer screen.

“Why is our Internet bollocks?” O’Reilly said.

Maybe because our infrastructure got fried about four years ago? But Shane didn’t answer.

“Sometimes it works great,” O’Reilly said. “Other times it’s rubbish.” He looked up at Shane. “Did you hear any more about those wankers over in Cows Lane off Lord Edward Street?”

It seems the Garda had broken up a rally late yesterday afternoon that was annoyingly well attended. The rally—mostly people who would normally be in college and not causing trouble—was the first grassroots effort to promote the idea of storming the government compound and bringing rule back to Ireland.

Two dozen people had been rounded up by the Garda.

“Apparently they don’t want whatever government they currently think they have. They’re frustrated with the rate of rebuilding in Dublin.”

“Shite. They’re not the only ones,” O’Reilly said, tossing his keyboard down with disgust.

“What’s your intentions with them?” Shane asked.

“Jaysus, you’re a formal berk, Shane,” O’Reilly said, shaking his head. “Take ‘em to the camps. We need the manpower and I need this pain in my arse here in Dublin gone.”

“It’s probably just the beginning,” Shane said. “The people are unhappy. There’ll be more.”

“That’s grand. We’ve plenty of work in the mines. More is good. Now. The bigger problem at hand.”

Shane nodded.

“The plague is definitely in Ireland. Do you have any idea how far from a cure they are in the UK?”

“Well, since I’ve been paying good money to ensure the finding of a vaccine was indefinitely stalled, I’d say we’re not close, wouldn’t you imagine?” O’Reilly said sarcastically. “Which village is it affected?”

“On the western coast.”

“How many people?

“Five hundred maybe.”

“I’m thinking I’ll send a Garda contingency down there. Fast. Effective. Make this problem go away. As if it never happened.”

Shane pressed his lips together. Did the bastard really think there was no more accountability? Is that what he was counting on?

“But if they’ve got it,” Shane said patiently, trying not to telegraph his frustration, “it got in and if it got in then it’s only a matter of time before it comes at us from another direction, so…what you’re suggesting, it’s not a solution.”

“Few things absolutely are, Shane, but it’ll buy us some time.”

“Look, why don’t we quarantine them? Throw up fences and keep it top secret.”

O’Reilly’s mouth fell open in exaggerated astonishment and Shane felt his own anger building deep in his gut.

“I’m not being squeamish, Liam,” Shane said. “You know I’m not. But sooner or later, if we do something like this…someone’s going to talk.”

“Someone like you maybe?” O’Reilly’s face was impassive as he said the words. His eyes dead, his mouth pressed in a straight line.

“Are you serious?”

“No, no,” O’Reilly said, rubbing a hand through his hair and turning back to the computer on his desk. “I’m just knackered. I trust ye with me life, Shane. You’re right, sooner or later some wanker will start a newspaper and then we’ll be in the shite. No, we’ll create a walled compound. Anybody gets sick, we put them there. Top secret. It’ll be our very own Area 51. No one will ever know.”

“Except eventually they will. Or are you counting on Ireland never getting cell phone towers again?”

“Not any time soon. Besides, by the time word spreads, we’ll have the cure.”

“Change of tactics?”

“You do give me points for flexibility, don’t ye, Shane?” O’Reilly said with a dry smile. “Things have changed and so must we. If there’s a cure, we need to have it. And we need nobody else to have it.”

Shane sighed. At least that made a little more sense than paying not to find a cure.

“Lotta people dying out there, Liam,” Shane said as he walked back to his own desk.

“I’m not a monster,” O’Reilly called after him. “If they have enough money, the cure will be available to them. That’s only free market enterprise. America was bloody built on it.”

 

*****

 

Sarah was sure it must have taken everything Mike had to allow her to climb up the rudimentary ladder of branches first. But maybe not. Perhaps just knowing his boy was there, alive and laughing was enough. It would have been for her. She hugged Gavin briefly before Mike made it up the ladder. She saw the intense delight on his face as he gazed on his son, lost for so long. Father and son held each other in a brief but forceful bear hug until Mike pounded Gavin’s back several times and stepped back with an enormous grin of pure joy flooding his face.

“We found ye, lad. By God we did. Where’s the gun ye nearly took me head off with?”

Gavin laughed. “Would I be trying to trap food if I had a gun?”

“I can’t believe we found you,” Mike said, shaking his head in wonder.

“I’m so sorry, Da. One thing led to another. I never meant to be gone so long.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Mike said, and Sarah could see that it really didn’t.

Mike held his hand out to Sarah.

“Young John’s missing,” Mike said. “Gone looking for you.”

“Aw, shite, no,” Gavin said, shaking his head. “I was afraid of that.”

As they walked to Gavin’s campsite, he told them his story. From Father Ryan’s lie to Gavin marrying his beloved in the woods to…everything that had happened after. When he and Sophia fled the Italian campsite, they’d run until Sophia collapsed. Gavin had found a dry crofter’s cabin to stay the night. They’d walked all the next day too—heading due south and keeping in the woods and off the roads. They’d been at their present campsite two nights because Sophia wasn’t ready to go on. Yesterday, when he was out looking for something to eat, he found the pit and covered it up, in the hopes of snaring food.

“I think you bagged a fox,” Mike said. “He was none too pleased to be sharing his place with us.”

Even Sarah could tell Gavin had changed in the six weeks he’d been gone. A boy had left and a man now strode into the rough campsite where a young girl sat waiting. And not just a man because he’d married—that in itself was enough to shock anyone—but in the manner that he’d been forced to rescue her.

That had changed him.

When they arrived at the campsite where Sophia was waiting, Sarah couldn’t help but notice how much the girl looked like her mother—right down to the hunted look of fear and sadness in her eyes.

“Sophia,” Gavin said, “this is me da and stepmum.”

“Hello, lass,” Mike said. He didn’t reach out to shake her hand. She sat with her mangled hand roughly bandaged and held to her breast.

“You look like him,” she said in a strong Italian accent. “Like Gavin.”

She’s still in shock, Sarah realized as she sat down in front of the campfire. There was a rabbit on a spit over the flames. Sophia turned away to stare into the fire.

“Are you in pain?” Sarah asked. She had no pain relievers with her but they were well equipped back in Ameriland.

Sophia shook her head and smiled sadly, still only looking into the fire. “I am good,” she said.

“I didn’t want to rush her,” Gavin said, sitting down on the other side of Sophia, his feet wrapped in rabbit furs.

“I like what you’ve done with your footwear,” Mike said grinning.

“Aye? Just like the American Indians, so it is,” Gavin said.

“I can’t believe we’ve found you,” Sarah said. She reached out and gently touched Sophia’s uninjured hand. Sophia continued to stare at the flames but slipped her hand into Sarah’s. Sarah was struck by how childlike the girl was. She couldn’t be nineteen years old and she’d already suffered so much.

“You’ll be okay now,” Sarah said softly.

Sophia nodded. “I know. I know this from the moment I first see mio cara.”

 

The next morning, Sarah was awakened by the sounds of Mike and Gavin breaking camp. She felt guilty about not being able to fully revel in Mike’s elation. She felt like a bad wife and a mean-spirited soulmate to allow her own desperate sadness to seep into these moments of rare joy. But she couldn’t help it. They were all going to bundle up their pathetic belongings and limp the last fifty miles of cold, wet road to the compound—where there would be warmth and hot toddies and going to bed every night with full stomachs.

And John would be nowhere near any of it.

The thought of the journey was almost more than Sarah could bear. She watched Sophia as she slept by the fire. How nice to be oblivious, Sarah thought. How perfect it would be to just close your eyes and wake up when this nightmare had played itself out instead of having to endure every miserable, agonizing moment of it.

Mike left Gavin and came to sit down next to her in front of the fire.

“Thank God,” Sarah said. “One down.”

Mike took her hand. “Aye. One to go.”

“I can’t go with you,” she said, surprising herself that the words were on her tongue, let alone in her head. She hadn’t known before she spoke that that’s how she felt.

“I can’t go back without him. Not even to restock or get the other truck. I’m sorry, Mike. I can’t.”

Mike squeezed her hand and they watched Sophia wake up and look around the campsite in a growing panic until she saw Gavin, a backpack on his shoulders, come out of the nearby bushes. Then her face relaxed.

“Ye know he’s nowhere in Ireland,” Mike said gently.

“I know.”

“All right then.”

Gavin sat down next to Sophia and gently lifted her wounded hand.

“Are ye about ready?” Gavin said to Mike and Sarah. “We should make it by nightfall tomorrow if we put our minds to it.”

“We’ll not be going with ye, lad,” Mike said. “You two go on. Your Auntie Fi will see to your bride. You’ll both be well. And we’ll be along anon.”

Gavin gaped at them. Sarah turned to Mike in stunned surprise.

“Where the hell are ye going?” Gavin asked.

I would love to know that too, Sarah thought, as Mike’s big calloused hand squeezed hers.

“We’re going to Rosslare,” Mike said.

The minute he said the name, Sarah’s shoulders relaxed and the tension she’d been holding dissipated.

Yes. That is exactly where we’re going.

“Rosslare?” Gavin said, frowning. “Blimey, why? Didn’t you say he’s in Wales?”

“Aye, but we can’t get to Wales,” Mike said, smiling sadly at Sarah. “So Rosslare is as close as we can get.”

“That makes no sense,” Gavin said.

“It will when you’re a parent.”

“You’d go to Rosslare when you know he’s not there? Instead of coming to the compound where there’s comfort and family and safety?”

“It’s a different kind of comfort,” Mike said. “Did I ever tell you the story of the Irishman, many years ago, who worked as a day laborer and had five bairns?”

Gavin slowly shook his head.

“He was a good father and loved his children dearly but the one lad—the youngest—was his favorite, as much as you’re not supposed to have those.” He smiled.

“This lad was smart and cheerful—a grand little fellow and everyone loved him. One day, the lad took sick and died as bairns do. The father was devastated, so he was. After the child was laid to rest in the parish kirkyard, the man found it hard to carry on with his life as it was before. He ate little and began to disappear for hours several times a week. His wife became worried and decided to see for herself what he was getting up to.

“One day she followed him to the church graveyard when he was too focused on his own grief to know she was there. She watched hidden from the bushes as her husband lay down on the grave where their lad lay buried, his head by the gravestone, and he stayed that way for half an hour or more.”

Mike paused as if bolstering himself for the telling of the rest of the story and Sarah’s eyes filled with tears as she pictured the heartbroken father.

“After her husband left, the wife went to the grave of their little lad. She walked around it and saw a rock that shouldn’t have been there next to the headstone. She picked it up and saw there was a hole underneath.”

“A hole?” Gavin said. Even Sophia had turned toward Mike to listen.

“Aye. A hole just big enough to fit a man’s arm into. And just deep enough that when the grieving father lay on his stomach and pushed his arm into it his fingers could touch the wooden coffin that held the child he loved so much.”

They were all silent for a moment. Finally Gavin took in a long ragged breath and spoke to Sarah. “You need to be near where he last was.”

Sarah nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

“We’ll go too,” Gavin said, reaching for Sophia’s hand.

“Nay, Gavin. Take your lass home. Take her to the compound.”

“It’s my fault he’s in Wales. If I hadn’t left that fecking note…”

“It’s doesn’t matter, lad. Your coming can’t change the past.”

“How about the future?” Sophia said softly. Three heads turned to look at her, her eyes clear for the first time since the attack. “We are a family now. We should stay together.”

Gavin looked at both Mike and Sarah. “Sophia’s right. Families stay together. We’ll all go to Rosslare and wait for John there. Together.”

Tears gathered in Sarah’s lashes as she realized that in the space of fifteen minutes she’d begun to hope again for a miracle. And that miracle began with a walk to Rosslare with these three people on a cold, wet Christmas Day.