The Survivors (Book 2): Autumn (26 page)

Tears blurred my vision as he spoke, making the rings in his hand seem to dance and sparkle
.  His logic made sense – and he was right.  What I felt for him was so much deeper than lust, deeper than anything I had ever thought I was capable of feeling for another human being.

“I don’t know what to say,” I whispered, feeling truly stumped for one of the few times in my life.

“Then just say yes.  We’ll work out the details later.” He smiled adoringly at me as he held the rings.  I sniffed and tried to blink back my tears so that I could see him clearly, but the harder I tried to keep from crying the more determined they were to come.

“I… I…”
Part of me was mad at him for getting me all emotional all over again, but a bigger part of me was so thrilled by the idea.  It felt so right.  He was The One.  Somehow, my instincts had told me that from day one, even if I had ignored them.  Now, things had changed.  I bit my lip for a moment longer, then drew a deep breath and nodded.  “…Yes.  Yes, I will marry you.  Thank you.”

“’Thank you’?
I wasn’t expecting that.” He laughed gently and reached up to place the delicate silver chain that supported my ring around my neck.  As he leaned back, he trailed his thumb along the curve of my jaw.  “No, sweetheart.  Thank you.  I don’t quite know how I know, but my gut tells me this is meant to be.”

“Mine too,” I agreed, fussily wiping the tears from my eyes
.  “It feels strange, though.  I mean, marriage is kind of an archaic ritual now, isn’t it?”

“It is, yes
.  But I think marriage now will be different to what it was ten years ago.  Everything is different.” His thumb followed my hands, brushing away a tear that I hadn’t gotten to yet.  “All the rules that defined our society are irrelevant now.  Now, we make our own rules.  No one but you and I can tell us what our marriage is supposed to be.”

“That’s true.”
The thought cheered me up.  “First rule – I’m not wearing a big, stupid white dress.  But there will be food, lots and lots of food.  And lots of snuggles, too.”

Michael laughed merrily, and eased himself up to sit on the bed beside me
.  With strong, gentle hands, he dragged me into his lap and cuddled me close, a situation that I was more than happy with given the circumstances.  Only once I was comfortably seated on his firm thighs did he take a moment to slip his own chain around his neck.

I found myself watching with interest as the ring it carried settled against his tanned skin
.  On an impulse, I leaned over and pressed a kiss against his collarbone right beside it.  A surge of simple joy passed through me, and I smiled in spite of myself as he arms closed gently around me.

“This does feel right,” I murmured, snuggling up contentedly in his arms
.  “I… I want you to know that I only have eyes for you, Michael.  I saw how nervous you were yesterday around all those other men.”

“Oh, you noticed that?”
I heard him sigh heavily, and felt his fingers running through my hair.  “I’m sorry, I was hoping you didn’t notice.  I did feel a little, I don’t know… jealous, I guess.  I caught Tane looking at you when you didn’t see, and I’ve caught Hemi at it a few times too.”

“There do seem to be a lot more male survivors than female
.  It’s bound to cause trouble one day, particularly with the likes of Mrs Merrit around.” I grimaced and tried not to think about the reason why there were more men still alive than women, but unfortunately I knew it well.  I was one of the lucky ones, but many were not as fortunate.  Without laws to protect us, women like me were vulnerable.

For a moment, we were both silent as we thought over that grim fact
.  An idea had been forming in the back of my mind, an unexpected idea but one that certainly had merit.  It was too early to say anything to anyone, but the more I turned the idea over in my head the more interesting it became.

“We should probably go get this tree sorted,” Michael said, breaking the thoughtful silence
.  I sighed, but he was right.  One step at a time.

***

By the time the sun cleared the hills, I was fed, dressed and out in the bush, picking my way carefully through the thick, verdant ferns.  Richard and Jim followed in my footsteps, letting me break the trail for them.  Jim’s arm was bound up in a sling, and Richard had insisted on carrying our gear, so it came down to me to lead.  I decided that was the way I preferred it.

“Should be up there a ways,” Jim huffed, out of breath from our walk
.  It had been an awkward trek for all of us, because we were following the line of the river through the heavy bush.  The ground beneath our feet was slanted down towards the water’s edge, so each step required careful balance.  Every so often, a spot that appeared to be solid would turn out to be a mesh of twigs and leaf-litter that gave way underfoot, so I had to choose my path with care.  Just to make matters worse, the ground was wet and slippery beneath us; as I’d predicted, it had rained overnight.

“When was the last time you came up here?” I asked, almost as out of breath as Jim was.

“Few years back,” he answered, “but we didn’t need it at the time, so we let it be.”

“Fair enough
.  Done that a bit myself,” I agreed amiably, trying very hard not to think about the bad news I might have to break to him at some stage.  Michael and I agreed that we would try to gently probe him for information when we could, to get a feel for how he’d react.  The last thing we wanted to do was put either of them in danger, even if we didn’t like what Rebecca had done.  We were both keeping an eye out for the right time to do it privately and gently, and if the opportunity arose then whichever one of us was there would take it.

Jim mumbled something unintelligible in response, which I took to mean he wasn’t interested in casual conversation
.  I was fine with that; it was hard enough to focus on where I was putting my feet.

Michael and I had also decided to keep our engagement a secret for the time being
.  I wore my ring on its chain around my neck, hidden beneath my clothing, but Michael had reluctantly taken his off since he was going to be spending most of his day underwater.  It was in my pocket now, nestled safely within the most secure compartment I had.

I suppose, in theory, carrying the rings went against my normal ethics
.  They were technically dead weight that added to our burdens while contributing nothing, but for once in my life I was okay with that.  Even in my most perverse moment, I couldn’t bring myself to resent the tiny added weight of an engagement ring from my beloved around my throat.  I couldn’t even feel it, but knowing it was there made me feel like I was connected to him even when we were separated.  When I thought about it that way, it was worth a hundred times its meagre weight in emotional value.

Hiding a secretive smile, I ducked beneath an overhanging branch and scrambled up a shallow ledge that was slippery with leaf mould
.  The debris was so thick that I didn’t even realise the ledge was made of concrete until I was standing on it.

“I think we’ve got something,” I called over my shoulder to the men
.  With great care, I negotiated the ledge to the far side, and found that it dropped sharply down to the river.  A narrow channel of filthy, clogged water ran into the hillside, terminating in a dark, ominous cavern.  The ledge turned to a walkway barely wide enough for one person as it wound into the cave’s mouth alongside the water.

Eternally vigilant, I brought my shotgun up and slipped the safety off as I made my way down the stairs towards the entrance
.  I moved with a smooth, practiced step, stealthy yet efficient.  When I reached the entrance, I paused to listen, sniffing the air while I waited for my eyes to adjust.

The only sound was the soft tone of water against wood and concrete, but the scent was much more complicated
.  I could not only smell the forest and the dirt, but also the faint odour of rusted metal, fuel, and decaying flesh.  When my eyes adjusted to the dark, I could make out the faint outline of something bobbing in the water below us, which eventually resolved itself into a small boat.

The cave itself was shallow, only just deep enough for the boat, with a slender walkway around the edge
.  A frayed old rope creaked morosely with the rise and fall of the water, keeping the boat tethered to its mooring.  Between the boat and the open river, an old grill gate stood half open, too crusted with rust to go anywhere without significant force.

“We’re clear,” I called to the men waiting on the walkway above me
.  I heard their footsteps crunching over the leaf litter, then changing timbre as they descended to join me.

“Hm
.  We’re going to need to get that gate open,” Jim pondered, absently rubbing his chin.

“There’s a lot of debris in the water, too,” I agreed, clicking the safety back on my shotgun
.  Since Jim couldn’t do much more than stand watch, I handed him the weapon and beckoned for Richard to follow me.  Together, we moved to the edge of the walkway and knelt down to inspect the junk floating in the water.  It was a tangled mess of branches, old trash, and even a few animal bodies.  At least, I really hoped they were animal bodies.

“See if you can clear some of this while I take a look at the boat, huh?”
I glanced towards Richard.  He nodded quietly and set our gear down on a ledge near the boat.  While he was busy hunting around for something to scoop the trash out of the water with, I turned my attention to the little bucket of rust that I was loathe to call anything remotely resembling a vehicle.  Frankly, I was amazed that it was still afloat.

With great care, I moved around to the side of the dock closest to where it was moored, and lowered myself down to sit on the edge of the concrete
.  Tentatively, I poked the bottom of the boat with my foot, half expecting it to sink at the lightest touch.  To my surprise, it didn’t.  In fact, the ‘rust’ came off all over my boot, leaving me a little bit filthy and more than a little confused.

I poked the boat with a wary finger and came away even dirtier; what had first appeared to be rust was actually a thick
layer of slime.  I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but under the slime, the little aluminium runabout appeared to be quite solid.

Settling back on my haunches, I considered the evidence I saw and came to the conclusion that the boat must have gotten swamped at some stage in the last decade, probably during a heavy storm or something
.  With no one to bail it out, the water just sat there until it evaporated, leaving behind a layer of all the crusty things that infested river water during a flood.  I judged that it must have happened recently, or perhaps even repeatedly – the gunk was still wet.

Luckily, we had anticipated a certain degree of filth and come equipped
.  Jim carried a light backpack full of cleaning rags and a few other small things, which he handed to me without a word.  I took it, fished out a grotty old towel, and set about the unpleasant task of de-sliming our boat.

Needless to say, it wasn’t my favourite task of the year, but at least I wasn’t fishing corpses out of the river like Richard had to
.  I could hear him gagging while I was wiping away the gunk, but he didn’t curse or complain at all.  I had to admit that I was impressed by his stoicism; in his place, I would have been bitching up a storm.

It took some time to return all of the slime to the water from whence it came, but at last the task was done
.  I sat back to admire my handiwork.  Beneath the slime, the little boat was in surprisingly good condition.  It was a small thing, probably only about four metres from bow to stern, with an inboard engine that powered not only the boat’s propulsion, but also a pair of light chain winches.

I inched towards the aft to examine the winches, and found that while they wouldn’t be strong enough to tear the
gates off Fort Knox, they should be more than adequate for what we needed.  The chains were rusted, but not so badly that they’d be useless.  The steel clasps on the ends screeched faintly with disuse at first, but they still worked.

“Hey Jim
.  Can you bring me a screwdriver, mate?” I asked, casting a glance back over my shoulder.  “Medium-sized, Phillips head.”

Jim grunted and went off to do my bidding, while I turned my attention to the housing that protected the motor
.  It appeared to be watertight, and the last person who’d used the boat had locked that box up tight.  The caution of some long-dead mechanic would be our salvation.

It took a bit of lubricant and a great deal of cursing to convince the screws to let me in, but when I finally lifted the lid I was pleased to find the motor in very good condition
.  The seal had held for all those years, through all those storms, leaving the important mechanical components no worse for wear than any other boat that had been kept in storage for a decade.

That is to say, it wasn’t perfect, but it would do for a start.

***

By mid-afternoon, courtesy of some fresh petrol and a new battery, the little boat finally roared to life
.  Although the noise of the sputtering engine was deafening in the closed space, it felt like the prettiest sound I’d ever heard.  Feeling pleased with myself, I reassembled the engine housing and sat myself down in the rear of the boat.