Reawakening Eden

  Dedication

  For my dad, the most capable guy I know. If an apocalypse is coming, I hope I have him in my corner when it comes time to rebuild the world.

  Chapter One

  Eden came awake abruptly, snapping to consciousness with one hand automatically reaching out to check the kids. Waking slowly was a luxury she hadn’t had since the end of the world.

  Hannah Rose lay quiet under her palm, breath whispering softly in and out, deeply asleep, but Lucas held himself stiff, eyes open, too still, too eerily contained for an eight-year-old. He gave a small nod Eden could hardly see in the pale gleam of moonlight trickling through the window.

  He’d heard it too. Whatever the hell it was that had woken her.

  Eden acknowledged the signal with a silent nod of her own, careful not to rustle the layered blankets as she slipped out of bed, the shotgun clenched firm in her grip.

  Tonight they were squatting in a doublewide trailer perched high on a hillside above a lake, but she hadn’t chosen it for the pretty views. The linear layout meant only one door to guard. The narrow window above the bed was plenty wide enough for two small kids and a bone-thin woman to wiggle through if they needed an escape hatch and high enough off the ground not to be an entry point from the outside.

  The worn soles of Eden’s hiking boots didn’t make a sound on the threadbare rug as she crept down the hallway, shotgun at the ready, her breath puffing little clouds in the icy air.

  Winter came early in the mountains. She’d kept track of the days as best she could—it was harder now to mark the time but she was pretty sure it was barely October. Not even a year since the first epidemic hit. Things had changed so fast.

  The nights were already too cold for the kids. They needed to start heading south again. Since the power grid failed, Idaho was still too far north for easily survivable winters—and much too close to the dangers of Seattle for comfort. Arizona, Nevada, maybe New Mexico. California’s sunny beaches held a fantasy appeal, but she’d heard rumors that things were bad in California. High population density meant more survivors, more mutated attempts at society like the Seattle commune.

  Eden shuddered at the thought, instinctively glancing back toward the bedroom to check on the kids.

  No, cities were too risky. Better to be on their own. Safer.

  Though on nights like this, the completeness of their isolation stung. It meant no one to guard her back as she slunk down the hall, shotgun in hand, and only Lucas to comfort Hannah Rose and keep her quiet if she woke.

  The knot of guilt Eden carried in her stomach tightened. Sweet Lucas. He’d grown so silent, so ancient in the last eight months. No normal childhoods for children of this new world. It was hard to remember laughter when you’d seen so much death. At least laughter that wasn’t the hysterical cousin of sobs.

  When six point eight billion people died in a three-month period, there was no way to avoid looking Death in the face, being scarred by his scythe. Over ninety-nine percent of the world’s population wiped out by a virus. Quick, lethal and indiscriminate. And then more deaths in the aftermath—insanity, starvation, exposure… So many ways to die and suddenly so few reasons to live.

  She couldn’t fault those who’d given up. Without Lucas and Hannah Rose, who was to say she wouldn’t have wanted to? They were her purpose.

  The meaning of life meant something different now. Carrying forward the legacy of human history. Adapting. Rebuilding. Tonight it just meant survival.

  The front room was layers of darkness, but her eyes had adjusted to the distinctions of pitch against tar. Eden kept low, easing along the wall to the front window, and peered out into the murky glow of the moon. She didn’t bother searching the shadows. She’d just wind up hyperventilating over every roughly man-shaped bush if she did. Instead she kept her focus broad, trusting motion to catch her eye. Survival lessons courtesy of the National Geographic Channel.

  She waited for some indication of what had woken them, some foreign sound or movement, but nothing came. Knee-high grass swayed in the breeze. She carefully flexed her fingers to keep them from cramping on the shotgun. Had to be something out there. Lucas had heard it too.

  A dark grey blur streaked across the corner of her vision. Eden’s head snapped around, the gun barrel tracking the figure as the grey menace froze at the edge of what would once have been the lawn. Hellhound. Eden shook away the nightmare fancy, correcting herself. Wolfhound. An Irish wolfhound the size of a small pony. Heavy enough to sound like a man rustling through the bushes outside, but no threat unless it’d gone feral. Domestic animals hadn’t fared well. The survivors weren’t always the sweetest pets that waited obediently for their kibble. Eden didn’t want to think of what this dog had been living off of for the last nine months.

  The dog bolted into the woods, and Eden held herself still and steady for a while longer, just in case the hound had a master, but nothing else disturbed the predawn quiet.

  A floorboard down the hall creaked. “Mom?”

  Eden whipped around, tipping the shotgun barrel to rest against her shoulder. “I’m here.”

  After the moonlit vista, it took her eyes a moment to pick through the denser shadows at the mouth of the hallway. Lucas stood, feet braced, the rifle cradled in his arms like an overgrown, overly lethal baby. Eden’s heart lurched at the sight with a mix of pride and aching remorse.

  “It was nothing. A dog. Go back to bed.” Put away the gun, she wanted to add. Never pick it up again. But this wasn’t that world anymore.

  “’Kay.” He walked as silently down the hall as she had. Hannah Rose still thumped and bounced everywhere—somehow more immune to the harsh lessons of the new world, or just more blissfully oblivious to them—but Lucas stepped carefully now, testing out a minefield. It wasn’t the chaos of the new society or the violence of the disease that had corrupted him, but the lethal silence of it.

  Eden turned back to the window, watching again, but after a few minutes the initial adrenaline jolt she’d woken with was long gone and her eyes began to feel itchy and heavy. She would need the sleep tomorrow. More than she needed five more minutes of paranoia.

  She eased away from the window and back down the icy hallway. Lucas was already out again, Hannah Rose snoring softly at his side. Eden slipped in beside them, fully clothed, one hand still holding the shotgun, and offered up a prayer to whatever divinity still existed that tomorrow be a good day.

  The hound faded through the shadows of the night and circled to face the little house, lowering her haunches to sit beside a tree. She leaned her bulk against the leg of the man standing there and whined softly until he reached down to idly scratch behind her ears without taking his eyes off the house. When he stopped petting, she cocked her head, shivering with eagerness, waiting for the signal to give up their vigil and go home, but he said a different word, a much less welcome command, and she flopped to lie on the ground with a heavy sigh, resting her chin on her paws to wait out the night.

  Chapter Two

  It was a beautiful day. Sunny and clear, gorgeous and hopeful. One of the days when it was hard to remember the world as she knew it was over. Grey clouds and ominous nights were more suited to a post-apocalyptic nightmarescape. It was just confusing as all hell to hear birds chirping cheerfully as she walked along a hilly, sun-kissed road threading through a crisp evergreen and birch forest.

  Eden watched Hannah Rose dart forward to thrash a pile of leaves into submission and bit her tongue on the urge to tell her not to. Don’t rustle the leaves, babygirl. Don’t waste your energy. Don’t make so much noise. But there was no one around to hear them, and if kicking leaves was the only bit of fun the five-year-old would get today, Eden would carry her later when she ran down.

&nb
sp; God, she missed the Hummer. The kids asleep in the back as the miles ticked away. No heavy packs to carry. No worries about little legs wearing out before they made it to the next shelter.

  The Hummer had taken them safely from Anchorage through Canada and into Washington. She’d worried for weeks, planning every detail, but the trip had been surprisingly easy. Anticlimactic.

  Most gas pumps were modernized to the point of uselessness—no electricity, no gas—but Eden had taught herself to siphon fuel from abandoned cars. Don’t ever do this, Lucas, she would say before putting her lips to the hose. They’d stock up on water and canned goods at convenience stores where broken windows announced she wasn’t the only one snitching their wares.

  At the oddest moments her memories would kick in and it would feel like theft—like when she’d raided REI for top-of-the-line outdoor wear and camping gear before they left Anchorage. Another little sprout of guilt tried to take hold when she’d broken into the Army base to commandeer the Hummer, but it was easily weeded out with practicality and the guilty days grew fewer and further between.

  Occasionally on the road south they would trip across other survivors—some desperate for company, some holding them at bay with shotguns and rifles of their own, but all of them, universally, staring at the children with a disturbing fixation. I didn’t think any children had survived. Over and over again, that same refrain. Weaker immune systems…more vulnerable to disease…a miracle…

  Personally, Eden thought the excuses were bullshit—people had been so damned focused on their own survival no one had even looked for stray kids—but after the first few disastrous attempts, she didn’t bother to enlighten the other survivors they met. They never stayed more than one night and always moved on early in the day—somehow that seemed to make the goodbyes go down easier. Less likely the hospitality would mutate into an attempt to keep one of the miracle children.

  Then there was Seattle. A chill slithered down Eden’s spine.

  “Hannah Rose, don’t go so far. Stay on the road where I can see you.”

  “Yes, Mama.” Hannah Rose’s blonde pigtails bobbed as she galumphed toward another pile of leaves.

  They’d taken the Hummer again when they fled from Seattle in the dead of night but only made it as far as Spokane before the commune soldiers had caught them, and they’d had to abandon the car, sneaking out the back door of their house of the night as the commune men were banging down the front. Luckily the “soldiers” hadn’t had much in the way of actual training, or common sense, and they hadn’t created a perimeter around the house before trying to break in.

  Without the time or equipment to charge a battery, they were lucky to find a car that would start at all. Eden had been sure their luck was changing, but then the Hyundai had only taken them a few miles past Coeur d’Alene before breaking down. Since then they’d been on foot, leaving the main highways behind to take smaller roads where nature was already starting to take back what had once been hers, which made them harder to track, but also made their progress excruciatingly slow. Eden had a keen empathy for the original American pioneers. This was a shitty way to travel.

  “I’m hungry,” Hannah Rose whined, her leaf-kicking becoming more petulant. “Is it lunch yet?”

  “Not yet.” It wasn’t even ten, by Eden’s watch. “Eat your granola bar.”

  Hannah Rose heaved a long-suffering sigh as only a five-year-old drama queen could, but fished into her coat pocket for the granola bar and peeled the wrapper. Eden offered up a silent thanks to whatever gods were still living that she didn’t have to deal with a tantrum. After her three a.m. vigil, she was too tired for But I don’t feel like granola! this morning.

  On another day they might sing songs as they walked, or go over times tables in a halfhearted attempt at post-apocalyptic homeschooling, but she just didn’t have the energy today. Eden shook her head to clear the low-level buzzing of an oncoming headache.

  Lucas trudged at Hannah Rose’s side, more personal bodyguard than playmate, his small shoulders hunched under the weight of his backpack. Eden tried to keep the kids’ packs as light as possible, but he wanted so badly to carry his own share, and she liked knowing if anything happened to her he would have supplies for himself and Hannah Rose.

  The rifle strap slipped, and Eden hitched it higher on her shoulder. During the day, she took the longer-range rifle and gave Lucas the scattershot gun, but at night, ever since they’d lost the night-scope rifle that had been in the Hummer, they traded and she took the gun that would hit the widest possible target area.

  Who carried which gun—just another decision she’d never expected to have to make in her lifetime.

  The high-pitched whine rose in her head, and Eden pinched the bridge of her nose. Please, not a migraine. Not now.

  Then Lucas paused, looking back over his shoulder, and realization smacked her through her exhaustion. The buzzing wasn’t in her head. Not a headache at all. An engine in the distance. Small. Motorcycle or ATV.

  Or one of the motocross-style dirt bikes the Seattle soldiers rode, closing fast.

  Adrenaline slammed her heart into high gear. She pointed toward the dense forest. “Go!”

  Lucas bolted toward the woods without hesitation. Eden grabbed Hannah Rose’s hand, which was sticky with granola, and nearly lifted her off her feet as she dragged the little girl into a run. After five of the slowest yards of her life, Eden shifted her grip and swung Hannah Rose up into a basket carry. She couldn’t run far like this, with the massive pack on her back and Hannah Rose in her arms, but speed was more important than distance. They just had to get far enough from the road to avoid being spotted by the driver.

  Ahead of her, Lucas stumbled on the uneven ground and skidded to his knees. She caught up to him but couldn’t spare a hand to pull him up. “Are you hurt?” Please, nothing broken. Nothing sprained. Her first aid was amateur at best.

  Lucas shook his head once and scrambled to his feet, but they couldn’t keep running like this. The next fall may not be so forgiving.

  Eden flicked a glance back toward the road. Through the lattice of trunks, it was distinguishable only as a brighter strip where the trees didn’t provide such heavy shade. If the driver was looking this way, he would easily see the trampled undergrowth, but hopefully he was expecting a car and wouldn’t even glance this way as he passed.

  The engine was louder now, but she couldn’t tell how far it was—sound could echo strangely in the mountains. No telling how much time they had.

  Eden scanned the area near them, searching for any sort of cover. “There. Lucas.” It was more a dip in the ground behind a tree than an actual hiding place, but anything that would get them out of sight counted as the Taj Mahal of hiding places right now.

  Lucas got there first and instantly flattened himself on his stomach, shrugging off his backpack. He was already rolling and tugging the shotgun out of its makeshift holster on his pack when Eden dropped to her knees beside him and set Hannah Rose down. Her chin wobbled, eyes huge, but she didn’t make a sound.

  “Good girl,” Eden whispered, wrestling with the shoulder straps of the rifle and backpack that had somehow gotten tangled as she ran. She was seriously considering slicing the damn things with her hunting knife when they finally jerked free of one another. Her pack hit the dirt beside Hannah Rose, and Eden stretched out with the little girl’s huddled form beneath her, rifle held at the ready. Lucas lay on his back at her side, the shotgun hugged in his arms like a teddy bear. “You did great, kiddo,” Eden said softly, reaching out one hand to squeeze his shoulder and keeping it there, that hand holding them all together as they waited.

  It wasn’t long. She could hear every cough and grumble of the engine now, not just the indistinct whine. It had to be close, but she kept her head down, tempted to close her eyes as if that would make them invisible.

  Drive past, drive past, drive past, she silently urged. Nothing to see here.

  She hummed Hannah Rose’s favorite
lullaby, not loud enough to carry beyond their little hollow. The engine noise would easily drown her out even if she sang at full voice, but quiet was so intertwined with hiding she couldn’t bring herself to raise her voice.

  Then the engine noise cut out and she choked the lullaby off mid-note. No. Why had he stopped?

  The first crunch of boots in leaves sent her heart into overdrive. No, no, no. Please God, let it be a pit stop. He’s just taking a leak. That’s all.

  “Eeeee-den. Come out, come out, princess. I know you’re there.”

  Her body jerked involuntarily at the singsongy call. She didn’t recognize the voice, but the tone of arrogant taunting was a familiar memory from the commune. One of Jonah’s soldiers had found her. How? Eden adjusted her grip on the rifle but otherwise didn’t move as Hannah Rose began to shake beneath her. He’s fishing. He doesn’t really know we’re here.

  But the leaves kept crunching under heavy feet. Closer and closer.

  “Jonah misses you, Eden. He’s worried about you, darling.”

  The voice was just feet away now. Any second he’d pass the tree that shielded them and they’d be totally exposed. Eden kicked herself for not chambering a round before the engine cut off. At this point he’d hear her cock the rifle.

  “You can’t hide from me, pretty girl.”

  Pretty girl. Princess. She identified the speaker seconds before he rounded the tree trunk walking straight into the sights of her rifle and stopping five feet away. Ben thought his oily brand of charm made him a ladies’ man, oozing endearments and leering invitations. He was a big man—heavyset, linebacker big—but Eden had never been afraid of him because no one touched Jonah Carter’s property, and Eden had been clearly labeled as belonging to the self-proclaimed leader of the Seattle cult from the first day she drove into the commune.

  But Jonah wasn’t here now.

  “There you are, sugar.” Ben’s smile could have been friendly, but Eden chambered a round. Beside her, Lucas leveled his teddy-bear shotgun at Ben’s chest. Lucas was under strict instructions to never, ever pull the trigger unless Eden was bleeding or dead. She would do everything in her power to keep him from having that on his conscience, but Jonah’s man didn’t know that, and the icy stare of an eight-year-old could be an unnervingly effective deterrent. Sometimes.