Abandon (8 page)

“Annalise, are you okay with that?” he asked, pulling her out of her internal thought process.

“Huh?”

“I asked if you were okay with us using your car for anything we need a car for.”

“Oh yeah, that’s fine.”  

Upon Annalise’s response, Cort began speaking again about various teams and what assignments were.  Annalise and Jenna were the first scouting pair, while Jake and Kevin were to reinforce the house as best they could.  Cort and Katy would be taking Annalise’s car to Cumberland to see what was going on with the power and the world outside.  

Handing Cort her keys out of her jeans pocket, she began to clear the table and move to the sink.  “I’m gonna do the dishes and then we’ll get ready and go ‘scouting’,” she told Jenna, turning on the water in the sink.   It came out blissfully hot and she mentally thanked her client for having the foresight to have the water heated by gas instead of power.

“Sounds good, I’ll go get dressed now.” Jenna replied, moving some more dishes towards her.    Annalise looked out the sliding glass doors at the lake as she scrubbed the dishes clean.  There were worse places to be stuck, and worse people to be stuck with.

Chapter 10:  Cort

Deep Creek Lake, Western Maryland
December 14, 2012

There were two things that were causing Cort to be on edge on the drive to Cumberland.  The first was he was driving Annalise’s car.  In the history of them dating Annalise’s car had been her baby and as such, she had never let him drive it.  One of the things she often joked about was the fact that she missed her calling as a precision driver in a heist team, and her car showed it.  It was tricked out to provide the most capable handling at high speeds including tightened steering and a turbo on the engine.   In truth, he had never driven a car like Annalise’s as he preferred safe, comfortable and most of all, affordable.  He didn’t know how much she had spent on her car, but it he imagined it was more than he was willing to spend, or really anyone should spend.  A car was to get you from point A to point B with minimal fuss.  There was no need for all the bells and whistles.

The second part that unnerved him was the fact that Katy was sitting next to him.  There wasn’t anything she was overtly doing to put him on edge but it felt strange, being that this was Annalise’s car.  It smelled like her, a mix of cotton candy and cigarette smoke that had haunted him in his dreams.  There were personal touches, like the football that hung from her rearview mirror and the little alien figurines that were stuck on her dash.  He had bought those for her on one of their vacations out of a 25 cent machine and they had stuck them up there almost immediately.  It seemed bittersweet that she had never removed them, and he wondered why should would keep such a permanent reminder of him in something that was so important to her.  

Katy reached for one of them, poking it with her manicured finger.  “I wonder where she got these?”

Cort inhaled deeply, trying to focus on the road.  “Probably one of those 25 cent machines you see outside grocery stores,” he responded, hoping Katy wouldn’t put the pieces of the puzzle together in her head.  He didn’t think he had ever bought her something from a machine, so she would have no way of knowing it was a habit of his.  Hopefully.

Katy relaxed and looked out the window at the trees as they passed by.  “They’re cheesy.  Why would you waste money on something like that?  Who carries change around these days anyway?”

Cort didn’t respond, instead letting his mind wander back to the days that he and Annalise were dating.  He had never carried change, probably something that Katy thought made them a good pair.  The truth was, Annalise had always been prepared for his random adventures into cheap toy machines.  It didn’t matter what store they stopped at, in her pocket, in her car, in her purse, she would always manage to pull out those two magical quarters for him to indulge.  It was one of the things he had always adored about Annalise.  She had let his childish side take over and never judged him.  She had always just smiled as if she was in on some kind of secret that was only between them as she handed him the quarters.

Katy would never be that kind of girlfriend, but then again Katy was never supposed to be his girlfriend.  Katy was supposed to be a one night stand.  His baser instincts to get laid had eventually caved under the pressure of her texts and calls though and eventually she had become a multiple night stand.  The multiple night stand that just happened to be at his house that morning.  He supposed in a way it might have been the hands of fate that caused him to dial her number that night, it was entirely possible he saved her life by having her spend the night given the current state of her apartment complex.  He just didn’t understand why she had come back to him instead of running to her family and friends.

Pulling into Cumberland was like coming into a ghost town.  The streets which should have had people teeming on them doing last minute Christmas shopping were empty.  All the storefronts had big signs that read closed on them.  There were no cars, or any sign of life.  Cort could feel his own anxiety level rising even more.  Even with the power out there should be people out.  Turning the corner onto the main road through Cumberland he saw a police officer standing in front of a cruiser which was blocking his way.

“There’s a cop!” Katy exclaimed pointing at the car.  “We can ask him what’s going on.”

Cort rolled his eyes at her excited outburst.  Somehow Katy had the ability to annoy him with everything she said since they had left Ellicott City.  Maybe it was because everything she said was so obvious, and he was hoping eventually she would discover a deeper layer in the world around her.  He understood on some level that Katy just wasn’t built that way, so he suppressed the urge to say what he was thinking and instead slowed the car to halt in front of the officer’s car, and stepped one foot out, leaning on the open door.  

“Excuse me sir, can you tell me what’s going on?”

The officer had been staring at their car with a dazed look in his eyes, and Cort realized his voice had brought him out of a trancelike state.  “Son, you can’t be here,” the officer responded finally, pointing at the car.  “You best get in your car and head back to wherever you came from.  Haven’t you heard what’s going on?”

Cort shook his head, noticing that the officer looked like hell.  His eyes were bloodshot, and his body looked weary like he had come to work off a three day coke binge.  Things were obviously worse than they had initially thought, and he wondered how none of them had noticed on the drive out to Deep Creek.  “No, my friends and I, we just got to our vacation home last night,” he lied.  “There was no power and we hadn’t been watching the news.”

The cop sighed, taking off his hat and running his hands through his silver hair.  “Y’all should probably get back there then, the word from the President is to stay in your house until they figure out what’s going on.  Essential personnel on the roads only.”

Katy stepped out of the car, looking at the cop.  She had pulled down her shirt a little to reveal some additional cleavage and was twirling her hair around her finger.  “Until they figure out what’s going on?” she asked sweetly, leaning up against the door of the car.  Cort was impressed by the way she maneuvered herself to get more information out of the man almost effortlessly.  

The officer looked Katy up and down, oblivious to the assets which she was trying so hard to display, and continued to run his hands through his hair.  Cort noticed that the hair was actually coming out in small chunks and he wondered how stressed the officer was before the events of yesterday.  “Look kids, I don’t know.  There’s something goin’ on out there and until the powers that be figure it all out you better stay inside.”

Cort opened his mouth to ask additional questions and the officer interrupted him.  “You deaf boy?  Go home!  Skedaddle!” he barked, reaching for his weapon.  Cort slowly sat back down in the car and stared at the officer, who had his weapon drawn and pointed directly at them.  He had never had a police officer pull a weapon on him before, and certainly not for asking questions.  Things must be bad.  Things must be really bad.  He looked over to the passenger seat to see Katy had already scrambled back in the car and had her seatbelt on.  Putting the car in gear, he quickly backed up from the officer who relaxed a little upon seeing the car move, and appeared to start scratching something in on his chest and wavering against the car.

Katy was leaning forward on the dash watching his behavior.  “He looks sick Cort,” she said slowly.  He knew she was asking him if they should stop and help the officer.  He did look like he was wasn’t going to last out there much longer.  Cort wasn’t in the habit of sticking around after people who pulled guns on him though.

“He told us to go Katy, so we’re gonna go,” Cort said as he rounded the corner back onto the highway.  The engine rumbled, accelerating the car quickly down the highway.  He silently thought that he was glad they had Annalise’s car instead of his because of the speed with which he could get away from Cumberland as fast as possible.  “If someone reaches for a gun while I’m talking to them it’s probably not a reason to stay.”  

Katy braced herself against the door watching the speedometer climb as Cort continued towards the house.  “We didn’t find out anything though, what about the power?”

Cort let go of the wheel with one hand reaching over to squeeze Katy’s free hand.  He could hear the apprehension in her voice and understood how difficult this situation had to be for her.  She hadn’t been preparing for this moment her entire adult life like he had.   “We’ll figure it out.  We’ll keep to the plan.”

Katy’s hand wasn’t squeezing his back, instead she was staring at the road in front of them with a resignation that he had never seen in her before.  She looked like a person who had lost their way and was unsure of how they would get back.  He supposed, in a way, they all were.

“I’ll figure it out Katy,” he repeated.

His voice broke her out of the vacant state she was in with a jolt, and from the corner of his eye he could see her looking at him.  “What if you don’t?”

Cort pressed down on the pedal to make the engine speed up towards the house.  He would talk to everyone about it.  They would figure it out as a team.  They had to.  Survival was the name of the game right now and that was what he intended to do.

Part II

The Storm

“Courage is not the towering oak that sees storms come and go; it is the fragile blossom that opens in the snow.”

Alice M Swaim

Chapter 11:  Annalise

Deep Creek Lake, Western Maryland
December 16, 2012

It had been two days since Cort had arrived from Cumberland and discussed the events of the trip.  He had done so in a factual manner, calm and collected, but the news had still left the entire group in a stunned silence.  Each person sitting around the table and had retreated into their own heads while they digested Cort’s information.  For Annalise, she was thinking about Meredith and wondering if she had made it to Tennesse.  That drive was significantly longer than the one Annalise made and she was concerned she got stopped somewhere.  Meredith could be somewhere she didn’t know anyone, holed up unable to leave.   Annalise mentally chided herself for her thoughts.  Since it didn’t look like communications or power would be coming up anytime soon and she wasn’t likely to be able to get an answer to those questions, and worrying wouldn’t do anyone here any good.

Katy’s emotions had been on the surface for everyone to see, which was disconcerting as well.  For the first time since they had arrived, Annalise saw her as a person instead of something that was standing in her way.  The trip had obviously scared Katy by the way her eyes stared at the table, and her hands clenched tightly in her lap. After explaining everything, Cort had immediately dismissed her towards their bedroom leaving Annalise, Kevin, Jake and Jenna to come up with a plan.  After hours of debate, some of it fairly heated, the decision had been to stick with the original plan.  They would stay at the house until they heard something else.  In a week or two they would make another trip to Cumberland to see if there was any movement from the government if the power didn’t come back on.  

Looking back on the conversation, there was something that seemed not quite right about the whole story though.  When Cort had been talking about the officer they encountered, he seemed to be holding something back.  His eyes had darted away from everyone at the table, and his voice had almost cracked.  There was something, maybe just a suspicion that he wasn’t telling the group and Annalise filed that information away in the recesses of her mind to ask him about later.  

That night, Katy finally emerged from the bedroom and they told her the plan they had come up with.  She seemed to go along with it, and in the past two days everyone in the house had fallen into a comfortable routine.  They scouted every two hours, and they took turns cooking and cleaning.  For the most part, everyone managed to give other people space during the day, which Annalise deemed a necessity.  If they didn’t, they would probably be at each others throats by the end of a week.  That was one of the reasons why Annalise was out on the dock at seven-o-clock in the morning.  She needed time to think about what her next move was, independent of the group.