Chapter 85
Claudia dropped the rifle and ran. She crossed the twenty yards between the inner fence and the gate where Mason stood gripping the posts, and when she reached him, she gathered him against her chest and held him there while the dog watched from beside the gelding.
Charlotte stood with one hand on the mare’s neck and her lungs burning behind the mask.
A burden carried too long had finally been set down.
Mason’s arms were around his aunt’s neck.
His voice emerged broken through sobs, carrying the exhaustion of a child who had only just been permitted to stop running.
“They said you’d come here,” Claudia was saying. Her voice cracked on each word. “Robert and Ellen, they told me if anything… They told me you would find your way. They said you would.”
Charlotte’s legs gave out. Her knees simply reached the point where standing required more strength than they contained, and she lowered herself to the road with her back against the mare’s foreleg. The infection took her then.
The cough came from deeper than before, and when it finished, she removed the mask with shaking hands and saw what had collected inside the faceplate.
Claudia was beside her. One arm still around Mason, the other reaching for Charlotte’s shoulder with the efficiency of someone used to assessing injury and acting before deliberation.
“You need antibiotics,” Claudia said. “Stronger than what you’ve been on. We have a medical station in the barn. Two doctors, one of them a military doctor. They’ve been running it since the first week.”
Charlotte nodded. She didn’t have the energy for words.
The farm absorbed them. People emerged from the house and outbuildings, bearing those who had organized themselves around survival.
A woman with a stethoscope helped Charlotte to her feet.
A man with a graying beard took the mare’s reins.
Mason walked beside his aunt with the dog pressed against his leg.
She was led to the barn, to a partitioned area where cots had been arranged beneath eastern windows. The medical station was basic but functional: antibiotics, bandages, a portable oxygen tank, and a table where the woman with the stethoscope already had a clipboard and pen.
“Name,” the woman said.
“Charlotte Meyers.”
“Infection duration?”
“Since the EMP. I lost track.”
The examination was thorough. Charlotte answered questions about symptoms, antibiotics, and exposure to the contamination zone. The woman listened, made notes, and chose new medications.
“You’ve got a secondary infection on top of whatever the gas started,” the woman said. “The antibiotics you had were fighting the wrong thing. These will be stronger. They’ll make you tired. Your body needs rest more than it needs anything else right now.”
Charlotte nodded. Rest was a weight she had not allowed herself to consider.
She was given a cot near the window. Clean bedding.
A cup of water. A plate of food with eggs, potatoes, and bread that had been baked that morning.
She fell asleep hearing the farm’s rhythms: voices in the yard, the generator’s hum, and distant cattle.
The days passed, and on the third morning, Charlotte’s fever finally broke.
Although her cough lingered, it began to change character, shifting from a wet rattle to a drier and more manageable sound.
For the first time since they had been by the shoreline, she slept through the night.
Staying active helped, while too much stillness worsened the infection.
In the morning, she fed the horses. The mare and gelding were kept in stalls in the south section of the barn.
Charlotte cleaned their hooves and brushed their coats.
The dog had taken it upon itself to follow Mason everywhere.
She also mended fences. Claudia’s farm had three miles of perimeter, and the eastern section required constant attention.
Charlotte worked alongside a man in his fifties who spoke very little.
Together, they replaced posts, stretched wire, and cleared underbrush from the firebreak.
In the afternoon, she helped in the kitchen.
The farm fed twenty-three people, and meals were prepared in shifts.
She peeled potatoes, shelled beans, and learned the rhythms of the place.
Mason found his place as well, working in the gardens alongside children from two other families.
In the evenings, he sat on the porch with his aunt, and Charlotte could hear his voice through the open windows as he described their journey in fragments.
The farm had a structured routine. Watchers rotated along the perimeter in six-hour shifts, and supply runs were made twice a week to neighboring properties and the settlement at Franklin.
Messages were exchanged between farms on horseback, and Claudia maintained a map on the kitchen wall, with routes and checkpoints updated in red pencil.
Charlotte studied the map in silence, noting the geography between the farm and the destinations listed in the letters in her saddlebags.
The saddlebags rested on a shelf in the barn, exactly where Charlotte had placed them on the first day.
She passed by them daily without opening them, fully aware of their contents.
One night, a week after their arrival, Charlotte found herself alone in the barn, illuminated by a lantern.
The animals were quiet, and the generators had been switched to conservation mode.
She lifted the saddlebags off the shelf.
The leather felt stiff from the river crossing, and the buckles opened with some resistance.
Inside, the messages were arranged just as she had left them.
Carefully, she removed them and laid them on the workbench.
Fifteen pieces of paper were spread out before her.
She knew each address without needing to read it.