Chapter 7
SEVEN
My finger is still twitching on the trigger when a tall, dark-haired man gets out of the car, stretches hugely with a jaw-cracking yawn, and then looks around him with apparent interest. I almost start to laugh. He’s wearing khakis and a polo shirt, and he looks like he came for a day out in the countryside. I can’t see a weapon.
What on earth?
I glance again at Daniel, and this time he shrugs back, a look of something almost like humor on his face. Neither of us was expecting someone like this. This guy is not a threat…but I don’t lower my rifle. There’s no point in being stupid.
The passenger door opens, and a woman emerges, glancing around more warily. She’s slender and blond, her hair pulled back into a low, sleek ponytail. She’s wearing expensive-looking workout gear—matching yoga pants and a zip-up hoodie in form-fitting teal Lycra. This is getting weirder and weirder.
“Come on, Ben,” the woman calls, sounding tired, and the back door on the driver’s side is flung open, hard enough to almost make it bounce back. I’m pretty sure a teenager is going to emerge, and I’m right. A lanky boy, maybe fifteen, comes out, shoulders hunched, shaggy blond hair sliding into his face. He shoves his hands into the pockets of his baggy jeans, which are half-sliding off his butt, revealing several inches of plaid boxer shorts.
“Where are we?” he asks in a disinterested tone, and a soft laugh escapes me like a hiccup. I’m incredulous, amused, angry . Who the hell are these people, and why are they here? More to the point, where have they been for the last seven months, that they can look so normal and sound so bored?
“Kawartha Highlands Provincial Park,” the man says. His tone is jocular, jollying, a man used to being in authority. “Pretty nice place, don’t you think?”
The boy shrugs, tossing his hair out of his face so I can see his dissatisfied expression, mouth downturned into something between a pout and a smirk. The woman fiddles with her rings, her hair. She seems nervous, but not in the way that we’ve been nervous, alert to every danger. These three people seem like they don’t know what to do in the wilderness. How did they even get here?
I glance at Daniel, who is looking surprised but thoughtful, and then at Sam and Kyle, who both seem entirely dumbfounded, their rifles lowered as they stare at these people as if they’re exotic creatures in a zoo, which they are . How can anyone be like this anymore? They don’t even look hungry; they’re all thin, but in a pre-apocalyptic way, when intermittent fasting was a choice and not because you didn’t have any food.
“Daniel,” I whisper, and he glances across at me, his expression sharpening. “What should we do?”
He shrugs in reply, which is no answer at all. We could wait for these people to leave, but they’re acting as if they’ve stopped for good and they’re only a hundred yards away from us. As soon as any one of us moves, they’ll hear us. Better to take the initiative, I think, and Daniel must think it too, because he steps away from the car, out into the open meadow .
“Hey there,” he says in a friendly voice. He’s still holding his rifle, but it’s pointed downward.
All three of the strangers turn, looking totally shocked, and then in unison, as if they’d rehearsed it, they throw their hands up in the air.
“Please, don’t shoot,” the man says, managing to sound commanding even when he’s basically begging for his life. “We don’t have anything.”
The woman’s face has drained of color, the boy’s boredom turned to terror.
“I’m not going to shoot,” Daniel tells them mildly. “But who are you, and what are you doing here?”
Slowly the man lowers his hands. “Will you put the gun down?” he asks.
“No,” Daniel replies, keeping his tone pleasant. “But like I said, I won’t shoot. Not unless you do.”
“I’m not armed.”
“Are there weapons in your car?”
He hesitates, and the seconds spin out before the woman blurts, “There are a couple of guns in the trunk, but we’ve never used them.”
“Okay,” Daniel says after a moment. He’s clearly trying to get the measure of this family and failing. “Let’s keep them in the trunk, then.”
No one speaks and it feels like a standoff, albeit one without any of the tension of that moment on the road I’m trying to forget. This feels more like confusion, like these people don’t know what to do .
“What are your names?” Daniel asks.
“I’m William Stratton, and this is my wife, Nicole,” the man says. “And our son, Ben.” They all stare at Daniel warily, clearly still worried he’s going to shoot.
“Where did you come from?” Daniel asks .
A second’s pause. “Cold Spring, about a hundred miles north of New York City.”
Daniel nods slowly. “Why here?” he asks.
The man hesitates, and then shrugs. “We followed the map.”
“What map?” The question comes sharp and fast.
William Stratton looks bemused. “Um, the 2022 AAA Road Atlas? I think?”
Daniel lets out a sound that is part laugh, part huff of disbelief. “You haven’t answered my question,” he says. “Why here ?”
William Stratton stares at him, blank-faced. I step out into the meadow. His wife lets out a little shriek, and I realize I’m still aiming my rifle at them. Slowly I lower it.
“Who are you?” I demand, and my voice sounds rougher than I meant it to, almost wild. “Where have you been these last seven months?”
“Alex,” Daniel says quietly. “Let’s put down the guns.”
I swing my head round to stare at him in confusion, until I realize how aggressive I seem, and how terrified this family is. I can feel Sam’s gaze upon me, boring into my back. I release a shaky breath.
“Okay,” I say.
Daniel takes my rifle as Sam and Kyle step out of the woods. William Stratton sucks in a breath. “How many of you are there?” he asks.
“Seven,” Daniel replies. He takes Kyle and Sam’s rifles and stows all our weapons in the back of the truck. I’m almost positive these people aren’t a threat, but I still don’t feel good about it. He turns to the Strattons, who are looking shocked by our presence. “Why don’t we all sit down, and you can tell us how you came to be here,” Daniel suggests.
William Stratton looks like he’s not sure he wants to agree, but then he nods. “All right,” he says, and he reaches for his wife’s hand, drawing her forward as the three of them follow us back to the campsite.
Mattie slides out of the car holding Phoebe, and Ruby follows. After a second when no one seems to know what to do, we all hunker down by the embers of the campfire, which Daniel pokes with a stick.
“Rubes,” he suggests with a smile, “do you want to make some tea?”
Smiling shyly, Ruby nods, and takes a bucket to fetch water from the stream. Everyone sits in uneasy silence until she comes back, and then fills a pot, sprinkling in some dried leaves—catnip, I think—and then sets it over the campfire, on the travel hook. Hospitality, Armageddon-style.
Then she sits down, and we all look around at each other.
“Maybe you could tell us your names,” William Stratton suggests. He has the stentorian voice of a doctor or a lawyer, someone who is used to feeling important but seems to have no idea how to navigate this new world. I know I’m being cynical, but I’m pretty sure I’m right.
As for his wife? I glance at her, my lip curling just a little. She’s so manicured , seven months after a holocaust. Her hair is sleek and shiny, her nails perfectly filed. Next to her, I feel like something chewed-up and dragged-over. Not that I’m envious. I’m just…disbelieving. It’s as if the Strattons have emerged unscathed from some alternate universe, where the United States wasn’t devastated by nuclear bombs and overrun by roaming gangs.
“I’m Daniel Walker,” Daniel says. For a second, he looks as if he might lean over and offer to shake hands, but nobody moves.
“I’m Alex, Daniel’s wife,” I chip in, and then the rest of us go through our introductions. It feels like a very weird dinner party .
“How long have you all been out here?” William asks. It seems we’re going to do chitchat.
“Just a few days,” Daniel replies. “We were at my wife’s family cottage about a hundred miles east of here, but we were attacked and so we had to move on.”
William nods, his expression turning somberly understanding. So they have some experience of the real world, I think, because he’s clearly not surprised by the concept of being attacked. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he says, and my chest burns with the injustice of it all—losing the cottage to those thugs, Kerry and Justine’s needless deaths…all neatly tidied away under the simple and indifferent sentiment of I’m sorry to hear that .
There’s absolutely no reason for me to be angry with William Stratton, who had nothing to do with any of it, and yet somehow I am.
“So where have you been?” Daniel asks. Although his voice is as mild as before, I hear a thread of challenge in it, a hint of the same anger I’ve been feeling. I can almost hear the questions clamoring in Daniel’s mind— why does your shirt look ironed? Why are your wife’s nails so polished? —because they’re the same ones in mine.
William hesitates, and then glances at his wife, who gives a twitchy little shrug in return. My curiosity sharpens; what is it they don’t want to tell us? Ben, I see, is hunched over, staring at his feet, not wanting to engage with anyone.
“We were staying in a bunker,” William admits.
“A bunker,” Daniel repeats neutrally. I picture something made of Cold War concrete, cold and damp. They don’t look like they were staying somewhere like that. “What kind of bunker?” he asks.
William sighs. “You remember those stories back before everything, about billionaires who had these luxury bunkers, underground? ”
Vaguely I recall reading an article about how a bunker was the latest outrageously expensive gadget for your average billionaire. I don’t remember anything about it, beyond my own internal eye-roll at the whole notion.
“So you were in some luxury bunker?” Sam asks, leaning forward, his voice rising with interest. “What was it like?”
“Pretty nice,” William replies briefly. He looks guarded, like he doesn’t want to tell us the details.
Daniel lets out a short laugh of genuine amusement. “I’ll bet. I was wondering why you looked so put together.” William gives a grimacing sort of smile, half apology, half embarrassment. “So what was it like?” Daniel presses.
“It was nice,” Nicole interjects. Her voice is terse, and she doesn’t look anyone in the eye. “We paid for a unit. It was not cheap.”
I glance at her curiously, wondering why she seems so defensive. If we’d had the money to buy a unit in a luxury bunker, we would have. That is, if we could have predicted a nuclear holocaust, which we couldn’t have, and in any case we didn’t have any money. But I don’t blame this family for trying to stay safe. That is the principle, the burning desire, that has guided me these last seven months. It’s why I still struggle to look my son in the eye.
“Yeah, I heard those units go for, like, two million bucks,” Sam continues with enthusiasm. William’s tight jaw is all the answer we need to know his guess is not far off the mark. “And then monthly association fees,” he continues. “Like, a couple of grand. I saw a YouTube video on it.”
YouTube videos . In this ravaged world, it feels like he might as well have said he read about it on a papyrus scroll. “And they have all kinds of stuff,” he continues, seemingly oblivious to our guests’ growing tension. “Like, a gym and a movie theater and even a swimming pool. And electricity and even internet…they used this special microwave satellite thing and wind and solar power. The doors to the place were three inches thick of reinforced steel. Nothing’s getting through that.” I think of the wooden door to the cottage and how that gang blew it right open. “They were able to grow their own vegetables and stuff,” Sam continues, his eyes alight, “and even breed fish. Aqua-something.”
“Aquaponics,” Ben says, the first time he’s spoken. He still sounds bored, but now I wonder if that is just a cover. The curve of his cheek and the tremble of his lips remind me of how young he is, how protected he’s been.
“Yeah, aquaponics!” Sam nods in enthusiasm. “That is seriously cool.”
“It does sound cool,” Daniel agrees, eyeing the Strattons consideringly. “And like a pretty good set-up.” Which is a massive understatement. I’m trying to imagine getting through these last seven months in such a place, and I absolutely can’t.
“It was,” William agrees, as terse as his wife.
“So why did you leave?” Daniel prompts. The question is an obvious one, yet with no apparent answer.
The Strattons are all silent for a long moment. “The guy who ran it died,” he finally says. “Heart attack. And then it wasn’t such a good set-up.” A silence falls like a weight on us. I’m afraid I think I know pretty much exactly what he means. Maybe a billionaire bunker isn’t so much better than a dilapidated cottage in the backwoods, after all.
“So you just left?” Daniel says after a moment, half question, half statement. Nicole is staring at the ground, and Ben is still hunched over, his arms drawn around his knees. I can almost see the cloud of sorrow and fear hovering over them, dark and deadening.
“We were kicked out,” William replies. “Someone else took over and they wanted their friends and family to have most of the units, so anyone who wasn’t their friend had to go.” He makes it sound like they sent them off with a gift basket and a friendly wave, but I doubt very much it happened like that. How it really went down, William doesn’t seem to want to say. I don’t want to think about how bad a situation like that might get. A three-inch door of reinforced steel is great until you’re on the wrong side of it.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Daniel tells him, and I wonder if he is deliberately parroting William Stratton’s earlier remark.
William nods, and we are all silent, no one looking at anyone else.
“So where was this bunker?” Daniel finally asks.
“In upstate New York,” William replies. “Just north of Watertown.”
We might have driven by it, on our way to the cottage. Maybe Daniel drove by it himself, when he went to get Sam, although I have no idea how he got Sam, or what his route was.
“So you left the bunker,” Daniel says, “and you just started driving?”
William grimaces, without looking anyone in the eye. “Pretty much.”
“Where did you get the car?” This from Mattie, her voice surprisingly suspicious.
“We’d left our cars on the facility site,” William tells her.
“And they weren’t stolen?” I interject, thinking of my dad’s truck.
William shakes his head. “These places are incredibly well resourced, everything behind a huge fence, watchtowers, security cameras…you can’t even imagine the level of security and technology they have at their disposal.”
“And they let you take your cars?” This again from Mattie, who is sounding seriously skeptical. “ And the guns in your trunk?”
William’s mouth tightens. “They did. We carried the ammunition separately, but…they weren’t totally heartless.” Nicole lets out a disbelieving huff, and he amends apologetically, “They didn’t want us hanging around.”
“That was pretty nice of them,” Mattie mutters, and I know she’s thinking of my dad’s truck, too. For being kicked out of a billionaire bunker, the Stratton family doesn’t seem to have suffered too much.
But then I see a flash of something like hatred across Nicole’s face, and I wonder if they have suffered, just in a way that isn’t obvious to us…yet.
Mattie subsides, seemingly satisfied, and again we are all silent. What now? I think. What are we supposed to do with these people?
“How did you get across the bridge?” Daniel asks suddenly, his tone abrupt. His eyes are narrowed; now he is the one who looks suspicious. “At Thousand Islands. You crossed there?”
William stares at him blankly. “Yes…we drove across.”
“Drove?” Daniel sounds disbelieving. “The bridge was closed by the Canadian Border Services, back at the beginning.”
William shakes his head. “Well, it isn’t now. There wasn’t anybody there at all. The whole place was abandoned. We didn’t see anyone.”
“Really?” I lean forward, eager now. If the Thousand Islands bridge is crossable, we can get to this base near Buffalo that way. It will be so much easier than attempting open water, never mind needing to find a boat. For the first time, I’m glad the Strattons showed up.
William looks between us all, his forehead furrowing. “How long have you guys been out here?” he asks. “Without any news?”
His tone suggests he thinks it must have been some time.
“I came across the border about a month ago,” Daniel says. “Crossed at Cornwall, but it was manned then. I was traveling up from Massachusetts. ”
“A month ago…” William’s frown deepens. “Then surely you saw some of the stuff I’m talking about.”
“What kind of stuff?” I ask. For the first time, I feel like we could get some actual news of the outside world…but do I really want to hear it?
William shrugs. “Just how…abandoned…everything is now. We got news while we were in the bunker, you know, from the satellite radio. We could communicate with some of the other bunkers, too, so we had a little bit of an idea about what’s been going on across the country.”
“I mostly kept to myself,” Daniel says. “On my own, with Sam here.” He nods toward our son. He sounds like he doesn’t want to say anything more about it.
“Okay…” William replies, like he can’t quite believe it, which makes me wonder, far from the first time, what my husband isn’t saying. What he’s hiding.
Ruby stirs from where she’s been sitting very still next to me. “The tea’s ready,” she says softly, and I rise to get some tin cups. It’s time to settle in and hear what William Stratton has to tell us…and find out what the world is really like.