Chapter 95
“The gas?”
“Yes. Eyes on me,” she replied.
She had kept both masks in the cabin closet since arriving, but the explosions had thrown everyone off balance. She had grabbed them on her way through the yard, one adult mask and one smaller one, which Claudia had found in a storage crate and fitted for Mason two days earlier.
People were running across the yard. A woman from the north paddock carried a child toward the main house. Two men from the fence crew abandoned the east gate and cut hard toward the barn. Someone shouted from the garden, and another voice answered with a sound that had more fear than words in it.
Charlotte dropped to one knee in front of Mason. Her hands stayed steady because they had no right to shake. She pulled the child-sized mask over his face, tightened the straps, and pressed along the edges to check the seal.
“Breathe through your nose,” she said. “Slow. Don’t fight it.”
Mason nodded. His eyes were wide above the mask, but he listened. The world narrowed behind her own faceplate. Her breathing grew loud in her ears, each breath harsh and closing in. The shouting around the farm dulled, not gone, only pushed farther away. The dog whined and bumped Mason’s leg.
The yellow haze reached the eastern fence line.
It poured through the woven wire and spread across the pasture.
The cattle had already bolted toward the western tree line, bunching together against the slope.
One went down near the trough and kicked hard at the dirt. Charlotte forced herself not to watch.
The creek path dipped behind the toolshed, shaded by sycamores and tangled brush.
The explosions had knocked loose leaves from the canopy, and bits of them drifted down as Charlotte pushed Mason ahead of her.
His small fingers stayed locked around hers.
The first edge of the gas slid between the trees.
They dropped behind the flat rock beside the swimming hole, the same place Mason had shown her two days before with quiet pride.
The creek curled around the stone, shallow and clear, no longer safe to touch.
Charlotte pulled Mason tight against her chest and pressed his faceplate toward the gap where air still moved.
The gas passed over them in a thick yellow wash.
It dimmed the trees and turned the creek into a strip of dirty brass.
Charlotte could hear the farm through it, broken sounds coming in pieces.
A horse screamed from the paddock. A man coughed until the sound cut off.
Someone pounded on the barn door. Someone else shouted Claudia’s name.
Charlotte lifted her head a few inches. The worst of it moved west in a slow crawl, thinning as it spread across the pasture and into the lower yard.
When the air ahead cleared enough to see the barn roof, Charlotte stood and pulled Mason up with her. She checked his mask again, running two fingers along the edge and watching for gaps. His breathing was quick but controlled.
“You’re doing well,” she said.
“Where’s Aunt Claudia?”
Charlotte didn’t answer. The farm had changed in minutes.
Figures moved through the open space between the house and barn, some upright, some bent over, some dragging others by the arms. A teenage boy stood near the toolshed with a rifle too big for him, guarding two smaller children who sat with their backs against the wall.
Near the garden, a woman crawled on one hand and both knees, her other arm tucked tight against her ribs.
Claudia should have been visible. She should have been at the fence, crossing the yard with her rifle, or snapping orders in that sharp, calm voice that made people move before they thought.
Claudia had turned this farm from a hiding place into something close to defended ground.
Her absence left a hole Charlotte could see as clearly as the yellow haze still clinging to the grass.
“Mason,” Charlotte said. “Stay behind my left shoulder.”
His eyes came back to her. “We have to find her.”
“We will.”
“She was at the east post.”
Charlotte’s hand tightened around the grip of the pistol at her hip.
She hadn’t known that. Claudia had not told her before the explosion.
Maybe she hadn’t had time. Maybe she’d seen something coming and moved toward it, because that was what Claudia did.
She put herself between danger and everyone else.
The eastern ridge stood quiet beyond the thinning gas.
She looked at Mason, then at the dog, then toward the barn where survivors who hadn’t gone to the cellar were starting to gather in scared, uneven lines.
“We go to the barn first,” she said. “We get you behind walls. Then I find Claudia.”
“No. I’m not leaving her.”
“You’re not helping her by getting sick or getting shot.”
“I can help.”
“You can help by staying alive.”
The words hit harder than she intended. Mason went still.
Charlotte softened her voice without weakening it. “I found you once already. I’m not losing you now.”
For a second, he looked younger than he had since she’d met him, not brave or composed. Just a boy covered in dust, standing in a poisoned yard, trying not to break. Then he nodded finally.
Charlotte stood and took his hand again.
Together, they moved up from the creek toward the barn, stepping around the low places where yellow haze still gathered in the grass.
Behind them, the eastern ridge remained empty against the pale September sky, and somewhere beyond the fence, whatever had brought the gas was still out there.