Chapter 25

THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY, VIRGINIA

Infection Date 31, 1500 GMT (11:00 a.m. Local)

Noah kept the SUV’s radio loud enough to hear, but not so loud as to attract the attention of Natalie, who stared out the window at the passing Virginia countryside. “The UN Security Council abandoned plans to sanction the North Korean government for its use of nuclear weapons after the Hermit Kingdom’s regime in Pyongyang, according to reports, simply vanished.” Noah reached for the knob to lower the volume, but Natalie’s hand found his, held it for a moment, then turned the radio up.

“Meanwhile, reports are coming in from South Korea of massive bloodshed along the DMZ, which has been breached in multiple locations by people desperate to escape the radiation, the collapse of the North Korean government and the mysterious disease that increasingly appears to have been the cause of the crisis in the Far East. US forces in Korea are reportedly engaged in fighting, although it’s unclear whether that fighting is against remnants of the North Korean military or refugees streaming across the DMZ. Immediately before our bureau in Seoul was taken off the air by South Korean authorities in a replay of the telecommunications blackouts in China, it reported that the infection had broken out in the capital and that panic and violence were widespread.”

Noah turned the radio off, and they drove the rest of the way to the gate in silence.

During their subsequent ascent of the mountain, the SUV precariously traversed the recently repaired ridgeline-hugging road, which was deeply rutted anew from the passage of heavy trucks. “They didn’t do too good of a job fixing this road,” Natalie mumbled. The muscles in her trim arms were flexed as she braced while peering over the cliff.

“I told ‘em not to spend money here,” Noah said, manhandling the steering wheel and telling her of his plan to blow the road when the virus hit the Valley. “An engineer at the Highway Department is helping me out off the books. All I do is push a button.”

“Jesus, Noah,” she said. He concluded she didn’t disapprove of his plan, just registered it as another shock. When they finally reached the open gate and pulled up to the house, the contractor came out to greet them. With a deep, twangy accent, he said, “H’lo, Missus Miller,” and reacted like most men did around Natalie, lending her an arm as she climbed down. Natalie shook his hand, smiling on reflex under movie-star sunglasses. Passing workers checked out her long blond hair, which fell to her black yoga pants.

The Old Place hummed satisfyingly with activity. They might actually complete it on time. The contractor walked them around, giving Noah cheery progress reports. Natalie sidled up to Noah and asked, sotto voce, “How much is this costing?”

He waved her question off as if it were unimportant, which it was. Natalie allowed herself to be satisfied with a non-answer and seemed to take comfort from the changes, asking questions that bolstered that comfort as if the right home improvements would solve all her concerns about the apocalypse. She was especially impressed by the tall metal fence encircling the house and its outbuildings. She even caught Noah’s eye and smiled.

When the tour ended, Natalie fixed her makeup in the SUV’s mirror as Noah tried to disengage from the contractor. But the man followed, so Noah opened the tailgate. Two rifles lay under a blanket. “We’re doing some shooting up by the cabin.”

The contractor said, “I’ll radio my guys up there not to get shot. Say, this is all about that Chinese flu, right?” Noah nodded. “It’s gonna get bad? Here?” Another nod.

“I got more calls,” the man said, “about buildin’ places like this, but I have some preppin’ of my own to do. I’m already spendin’ the money you’ll owe when we finish. You’re gonna pay, right?” Noah held out his hand, which the contractor shook.

Noah next had to break through Natalie’s resistance to strapping her rifle across her chest. Workers watched them parade through the construction site toward a small gate on the far side of the compound.

“I feel very fucking weird,” Natalie whispered under the stares from the men.

“They’re looking at your ass, not the guns.” On hearing that, she relaxed.

They headed uphill. “Noah,” she said after some distance, “we aren’t exactly the kind of people who thrive in the wild. Like, I’ve never even watched Duck Dynasty.”

“You’ll get the hang of it,” Noah said. “That’s one reason we’re up here.”

Natalie held the rifle to keep it from bouncing against her breasts as the terrain grew uneven. Despite the chill, Noah was sweating by the time they heard sawing at the secluded cabin, which in the old days had been a hunting lodge. You couldn’t see the rustic stone structure until you crossed the last of three finger ridges. It was nestled amid the hills, shielded from the weather. The workers packed up as the foreman gave them a quick tour. The cabin had many of the same features as the main house, minus most of the security. Its defense depended on staying hidden. But it had its own well. Solar panels for hot water. Wood-burning stove for cooking and heat. Old-fashioned, removable kerosene lanterns mounted to sconces like from centuries past. And storm shutters inside and out.

It fell quiet as the workers disappeared. Natalie stood in the single room wearing black Lululemons and holding her assault rifle’s pistol grip. “So this is where we’ll come if we’re run out of the main house?” Noah nodded. “Where do we go if we’re run out of here?” Noah resented the question. Who the hell had a backup to their backup plan?

The sun was getting lower. “We’d better get started,” he said.

Natalie didn’t object, but she looked pale, as if she were being led to an execution. She followed Noah back up the ridge without objection, but seemed a million miles away.

They spread a blanket on the dirt and lay on their bellies beside their weapons. Noah dispensed a running stream of instructions, but he wasn’t sure Natalie followed anything. “This is 5.56 millimeter ammunition.” He pushed a cartridge from the thirty-round magazine and handed it to Natalie. To her credit, she studied it from pointy tip to flat base. He pressed the round back into the magazine. She watched in silence. They donned ear and eye protection. Natalie said not one word, and only nodded in reply. She was treating this outing like a root canal—necessary, but lamentable.

He showed her how to slap the magazine into the rifle’s receiver. How to pull the charging handle to the rear to chamber a round. How to rest the butt plate in the hollow of her shoulder. How to lower her eye to the scope. How to take the safety off by feel.

“It’s ready,” he said. “Aim for that white tree trunk over there.” She did as he suggested. “And shoot it. The tree trunk.” He waited. “Just pull a little harder and . . .”

The rifle cracked. A spent cartridge flew out. The muzzle smoked. After a little encouragement, she hit the tree on the fourth, tenth and twenty-second shots, then lay the AR-15 on the blanket as Noah was warning her to engage the safety, which he did for her. She rolled onto her back and looked up at the sky through her amber shooting glasses.

“Is this gonna work?” she asked. “The house? The cabin? The guns? I mean, we’ll have propane for what? One winter? Two, maybe? And we’re gonna become farmers raising pigs and chickens and rutabagas? I can’t even get houseplants to grow. Aren’t starving people gonna try to take everything from us? And what do we do when our supplies run low, or someone breaks a leg? March down the hill and start trading with infected people? A chicken for some medical care?”

“Nobody knows what it’s gonna be like.”

“What if none of it happens?” She sat up and shook Noah’s arm with both hands. “What if this is all just a crazy overreaction? Nobody else we know is doing any of this.”

“You heard the contractor,” Noah said. “People are starting to prepare.”

Natalie ignored him. “We’d be ruined. We’d never get our money back out of this place. But I’d accept being broke, so long as . . . the world doesn’t come to an end.”

They packed up in sullen silence and headed down the hill. Noah said, “Now don’t get mad at me, but I don’t want you to harbor any guilt or anything, so do you think you oughta maybe tell your father what we know about what’s coming?”

Natalie stared at him in disbelief and snorted. She was pissed that he’d brought the man up. “No, Noah. I think we should just let God sort that out. I can’t believe you.”

He still didn’t know what the deep, dark secret with her family was. But given how upset he had made Natalie, it should probably stay that way.