Chapter Eight
The man drove the car as close to the exact
slip as he could. Veronica grabbed the boat key from the glove
compartment box, got out of the vehicle, and slung her satchel over
one shoulder. She put a gun with a silencer where she once sat,
closed the door, and reminded the family she’d remained true to her
word. “The safety is off. Don’t do anything to make me regret
this,” she said, her gun still trained on the man.
“Never,” he answered. “You saved our lives.
And, again, thank you.”
She nodded. “I hope you make it to
Pennsylvania, Richard.” She wasn’t certain what had caused her to
humanize him. “Take care Eve and Marissa.”
She watched the woman and child wave to her
as the family drove away. She felt her first stirrings of humanity,
of caring for the welfare of someone other than Victor or herself,
for the first time in years. She hoped they made it to
Pennsylvania.
The sound of a low growl broke her from the
solemnity of the occasion. Her heart racing, she whirled
around.
Between her and Victor’s boat lay one, lone
eater. What used to be a man was now nothing but rotting, emaciated
flesh and was definitely dying. It found the strength to raise its
hands toward her, still growling, as if beckoning its meal to come
to it. Yeah. Like that would happen. Spotting its broken leg,
Veronica ignored its growls as she turned in all directions to look
for other eaters. As she suspected, the dying eater was alone. Just
like in the wild, carnivorous eaters travelled in packs until they
could no longer keep up with the group.
She stood emotionless as she raised the gun
and trained it toward the infected man’s head. Doing it a service,
she pulled the trigger, putting it out of the misery of a
continued, slow starvation. She lowered the gun on a sigh, walked
past the freshly dead corpse, and toward her brother’s boat. The
key sank into its lock and the vessel’s protective shield went into
hiding.
“Nice,” she murmured to no one. The boat was
a ‘71 state-of-the-art cruiser with more bells and whistles than
she could have hoped for. “Good work, bro.”
Now to board and get the fuck out of here
before a pack of eaters became aware of her presence on the docks.
She prayed to God the water would allow her some semblance of peace
after four years of having to be on constant vigil.
She was tired. So very tired.
*****
Lachlan watched as she set sail on a
contraption he knew to be a boat, but which looked like naught he
could compare it to. ‘Twas fair in size without being overly large,
white, and a bit shiny. Doors opened and closed on it upon their
own accord whenever Veronica took to pushing specific buttons.
“She has to make it out of Lake Erie before
she’ll be able to let the boat drive itself. Until then, she won’t
be able to concentrate on learning Gaelic or much of anything
beyond navigating the boat.”
He still wanted her to see him, to know he
was there. Lachlan had already sent Finn and Ramsay away to train
the Gunn warriors this morn in his stead. He—wait! What? “The boat
kens where to sail on its own?!”
“Yes.” Victor pushed those things he called
glasses up the bridge of his nose. The mon did that whenever he was
nervous or excited. “That boat is a wonder even in my time. It does
a lot of neat things!”
The laird didn’t want further explanation at
present. Victor’s speeches tended to give his head the ache. “I
give you one day to return the scanner to me. I would speak with
Veronica on the morrow.”
“But she doesn’t know Gaelic yet. And,” he
pointed out, “you don’t understand English.”
“I ken English,” he rumbled. “I just prefer
not to speak it.”
“The English language has changed throughout
the centuries, significantly so.”
He grunted.
“Don’t worry,” Victor assured him, “at least
you have a base to work from.”
He grunted again.
*****
“So far so good,” Veronica informed her
brother. She had reopened the laptop and set it beside her before
she began steering. “I’ve never driven such a large boat before.
Thank God this one is easy peasy.”
“Easy peasy? You sound like you lived fifty
years ago.”
She grinned. “You know how much I like
old-timer movies.”
“Then you should be over the moon in a few
weeks when you arrive here and join me.”
Her grin faded. There was old-timer stuff
and then there was the ancient. Victor was talking about the
latter, which caused her to think back on the brooding giant and
the whole time travelling thing. She wasn’t quite ready to wrap her
head around any of it. She had already gone through so much to
reach her brother and now she had to endure even more.
“Everything will be okay, sis,” Victor
reassured her. Apparently her distress was obvious, at least to
him. “We’ll make it through this.”
“I’m not exactly a world history buff, but I
remember enough from school to know that women didn’t have it so
good back then.”
He sighed. “I can’t deny that. But you’re
tough as nails,” he quickly added, “and you’ll be just fine because
of it.”
“Why 1155 A.D. in the Highlands?” Veronica
asked. She couldn’t hide her exasperation. “Why such a primitive
time?”
“I chose the Highlands because of its remote
location and sparse population even in our time. The year I didn’t
have as much control over.”
“Time travelers can’t be choosers?”
“In a nutshell, and without a longwinded
explanation, yeah, pretty much.”
“The Victor/Veronica is ready for
auto-pilot.”
The disembodied female voice identical to
the one at Victor’s compound startled Veronica. She hadn’t known
that piece of AI was aboard.
“Already?” Victor asked. “You’re not even
out of Lake Erie!”
“There aren’t any boats out here that need
maneuvered around,” Veronica told him. “I guess she—the boat I
mean—feels it can navigate itself from here because of it.”
“She can maneuver around almost anything
anyway, but really? No boats? I expected Lake Erie to resemble
I-77.”
“Not even one broken down cruiser so far.
Can’t you see that for yourself, oh Omnipresent One?”
“Funny,” he said drolly, otherwise ignoring
the slight jab. “I guess survivors with electric boats didn’t
bother trying to escape by water because of the downed grids.”
“And the few people with boats like the
Victor/Veronica are already wherever they fled to.”
“Exactly.”
“Yep. That’s what it looks like to me. How
did you afford one of these much less two of them anyway?”
“Not important,” Victor sniffed. Oh
yeah—there was a juicy story there, Veronica realized. She’d goad
him for more info at another time. “What’s crucial right now is you
engage the auto-pilot and let the boat do its thing. You probably
need some rest anyway.”
Now that he mentioned it…
“True,” she admitted. She turned the ship’s
navigation system onto auto-pilot. Now everything else, including
the course it ultimately took, was up to the boat. “Plus I’m
getting hungry and thirsty again.”
Exhausted, she engaged the ship’s protective
shield against would-be pirates and made her way down into the
belly of the boat. She kept her satchel with her, never letting it
out of her sight. Perhaps Veronica no longer needed to be
ultra-vigilant, at least not until she docked on the Highlands’
shore, but after all she’d been through she couldn’t seem to let
her guard all the way down. At least not yet.
“It’s okay to relax,” she told herself in a
monotone. Her eyes, unblinking, stared at nothing. “You’re safe.
For once you’re actually protected.”
Taking a deep breath, she absently ran her
hands through her hair as her gaze flicked around. Feeling secure
in her surroundings was a difficult transition after years of
necessary hypervigilant paranoia. Every sound, every shadow, every
movement out of the corner of her eye—all of it had mattered and
meant the difference between being a survivor and becoming one of
the infected.
It dawned on Veronica for the first time
that the shift from being on constant guard to proverbially letting
her hair down was not going to be an easy or automatic adjustment.
The process was going to take mindfulness and purposefulness. Even
now she could hear the tormented cries of the bitten, see their
tortured faces in her mind’s eye as they waited to turn. She
squeezed her eyes closed and forced the memories away in as much as
she could. She took several calming breaths before reopening
them.
Veronica remembered from meditation that
mindfulness required being present and staying in the moment. She
eyed her surroundings with intention, calling out the amenities she
saw. “Big bed,” she muttered. “Nicely sized gourmet kitchen. A
fully stocked bar that I likely won’t use much of.” There was
relaxation and then there was stupidity; indulging in inebriation
reeked of the latter. “A bathroom. I can see the shower from here.
It's a nice one, very modern.” She walked toward said bathroom. “A
bidet-toilette: mom and dad would consider that a luxury. They
mostly only had toilets with wiping paper when they were growing
up.”
She blew out a breath. Feeling calmer and
more centered, Veronica walked into the gourmet kitchen and
familiarized herself with its contents. Before long she knew where
everything—from the Foodmasters to the utensils—was located.
Thankfully, Victor had spared no expense back when money had meant
something and he’d purchased the boats. She would be eating easily
and well during the voyage. Opening the freezers and food
cupboards, she chose faux roast beef with mashed potatoes and corn
for her meal. She threw the sealed bags into the Foodmasters
and waited for them to be cooked, spiced, and served.
This was nice. So long as she could stay in
the moment and continue to be mindful then this voyage would prove
itself a much needed reprieve from what the world had become. That
meant a lot.
When the food was done, Veronica picked up a
fork and her hearty meal and set them on a tray. She put a bottle
of water and a bottle of cranberry juice beside the foods and
carried it all to the big bed aboard ship. She ate. She drank. She
slept. But mostly, and thankfully, she slept.
*****
Victor decided to tell his sister about
their—well her—bridal predicament later. Like much, much
farther into the voyage when there was no turning back. Not that
there was anywhere to turn back to. What was left of the human
race, a scarce remnant of its former glory, grew smaller every
day.
He could only pray that Veronica came around
to Lachlan enough to at least give the giant a fighting chance. She
had always been the type to erect an emotional wall around herself
that was practically impossible to breach. Maybe having virtual
talks with the laird would help her come to trust him. When next he
spoke with his sister, Victor would make learning ancient Gaelic
her top priority so the two could converse. With technology being
what it was, that chore shouldn’t take too long.
Truth be told, Veronica wouldn’t have a
choice in the matter of her impending marriage once she arrived in
1155 A.D. What the laird wanted he took and he wanted his sister
very badly. It was the way of things in this century. Hopefully
virtual talks between them while the boat made its way to Scotland
would help facilitate at least a basic respect between them.
If Victor hadn’t believed Lachlan to be a
decent man who would care for his sister then he would already be
planning their escape from the castle before Veronica’s arrival.
That wasn’t the case. He knew he’d chosen the right clan and the
right chieftain. He’d done his research after all.
Yes, having the two of them get to know each
other while Veronica was at sea was of the utmost importance
because his sister would have to bend to Lachlan’s wishes whether
she wanted to or not. If Veronica didn’t realize it by now, she
would soon: the future held no future.
The future lay only in the past.