SINK - Melt Book 2: (A Thrilling Post-Apocalyptic Survival Series) Read online

  The road and the trees and the occasional gas station and burger joint zipping on by had a soporific effect, and soon Midge was asleep in Aggie’s arms. Aggie reached around and turned the radio on, low. There was the usual: country music, a preacher, some rap, classic rock. How strange that the world—the regular world outside their bubble of pain and kidnapping—rolled on in the same old way. She kept on hitting buttons. She needed a news channel.

  “Switch it to the Emergency Channel,” said Petra. “There must be updates there.”

  Jo hit a couple of switches and they were in AM land. Aggie clicked past the weather report, the road conditions report, the shipping report, but it didn’t take long to find what they were looking for. The static turned to voices, the voices to debate.

  “I think they have to amend that order, don’t you, Clara?”

  It was talk news. Better than nothing.

  “I think they do, Gary. Shutting the bridges was a sound move when the first building collapsed, but now that three or four buildings have slid into the sinkhole, I don’t think they should restrict travel.”

  Petra gasped. “Four buildings? What the…?”

  Aggie shushed her.

  “Here’s the problem, Clara. We don’t know what brought the first building down. Reports have remained vague about this ‘chemical’ leak. We now know, based on the footage coming out of the city, that it wasn’t a simple gas leak.”

  “You think Manhattan should remain closed?”

  “I think it’s a tough call, but I can see why the Mayor’s office hasn’t commented yet. I think it’s prudent for them to look at this from all angles.”

  “If it were my family, Gary, and they lived on 38th or 39th Street… No, let’s get serious. If either of us had family anywhere in Midtown, we’d tell them to get out.”

  “Sure, sure,” he said, “But if we look at this dispassionately…”

  Clara cut in. “Your family, Gary. Your mother and your brother…let’s say they live right there where the buildings continue to collapse into a growing sinkhole. You’re telling me that you would sit back and look at this dispassionately?”

  “There have been so many bogus evacuations, Clara. After 9/11, I think New Yorkers got a bit jumpy is all.”

  “With good reason,” said Clara, perhaps a little more tart than she meant to. “We’re going to hear a word from our sponsors, then we’ll be back with more news on the Manhattan sink.”

  The jingly ad music jangled Aggie’s nerves, but she didn’t turn the radio off. She wanted to feel connected to the city, to her folks. She wanted to know what they were facing and how they were going to get out.

  “Stop!” Petra yelled.

  Jo pulled the car over and swung around to face Petra and Sean in the back seat. “Is he okay?” She leaned over and took his pulse. “Oh, thank goodness. You scared the stuffing out of me.”

  “What?” said Aggie. Her heart was in her throat. She didn’t need Petra screaming for them to stop like that.

  “I saw Floofyface.” Petra was grinning and jabbing her thumb over her shoulder and the side of the road.

  “You did not.”

  “Who?” Jo scanned the grassy verge. “Who’s Floofyface?”

  “Floofyface is our alpaca,” said Petra. “What’s she doing out here?”

  “You saw Floofyface?” Midge was fully awake and very excited. She’d gotten to name all the animals and she loved nothing better than to give them cutsie names that everyone was—or might be, given the right circumstances—embarrassed to say out loud in front of strangers. As witness “Floofyface.” Aggie had no such compunction. She didn’t care if Jo thought they were all bonkers.

  “She isn’t at home?” said Petra. “She’s out here?”

  Aggie nodded. “Dad opened the gates when we left. He wanted to give her a chance.”

  “Why didn’t he ask Sam and Julie to look after her?” said Petra. “They love her. And they’re less than a mile down the road. They would have taken her in, in a heartbeat.”

  “There wasn’t time,” said Aggie, unbuckling her seatbelt and shifting Midge to one side. “Which way did she go?”

  Petra pointed towards the tree line.

  Midge had her hand on the door. “Let’s go get her. She must be scared and lonely. I bet she misses us.”

  “We’re not stopping for an alpaca,” said Jo. “We need to keep going.”

  “It won’t take a minute,” said Aggie.

  “And when we find this alpaca of yours, then what?” Jo was irate.

  Aggie thought for a second. “Good point. Why don’t we swing by the house, get the trailer, and come back for her? She won’t have gone far.”

  “Yes,” Midge shouted. “Let’s go get her and take her back to see Pippylonglegs. She’ll be so happy.”

  Jo talked right over Midge. “Home, as in the cabin?”

  Aggie shook her head. “New Paltz isn’t that far out of our way. We could be there...” she checked the clock on the dashboard, “…in 30 minutes.”

  Jo turned the other way. When she turned back, her face was beet red. “You’re not hearing me, girls. We need to get back to the compound as fast as possible. If these clowns are right,” she pointed at the radio, “and the Mayor’s Office is going to lift the travel restrictions in and out of the city, there’s going to be a massive flood of people coming our way. Trust me on this one. I know what I’m talking about.”

  “How?” Petra was back. Her attitude flowed like a river of gravy from that one word. “How do you know what you’re talking about? Don’t get me wrong, you walk the talk and what you pulled off back at the hospital was impressive, but we barely know you and you’re asking us to make a fortress out of our home.”

  Jo took a deep breath. “I have already said what I needed to say. I was in the army. I did a few tours. I saw people who were in desperate straits. There’s a pattern to what happens next and it’s not pretty.”

  “Sorry,” said Aggie. “That’s not enough. Petra’s right. We shouldn’t follow you blindly.”

  “I did black ops. Do you know what that means?”

  The girls shook their heads.

  “Special forces. We go in, we do dangerous sh…” She stole a look at Midge, who was staring right back at her, waiting for her to trip up. “We do dangerous stuff. We get out.” She paused, weighing her words. “Usually. But that’s not always how it goes. There are times when the mission is more complicated and we’re required to stay on the ground for longer periods. These are never popular missions, which is why I’ve been on so many.”

  “If they’re not popular, why do you do them?” said Aggie.

  Jo gave a half smile. “So that no one else has to.”

  The girls waited, the radio droning on in the background. The ads took up more air time than the talk shows these days.

  “I was dropped into Kosovo. There had been heavy shelling. Many people were displaced. When you hear the word ‘displaced’ what do you see?”

  “People with no homes,” said Petra. “People who have to go to a new home.”

  “Right. And what if there are no new homes?”

  “Then they go to a refugee camp, I guess.”

  “And if there are no refugee camps. If the Red Cross doesn’t make it to this region. If there are no homes in either direction. No running water. No electricity. No gas. Then what?”

  “Then you’re looting, scavenging, making do with whatever you can hunt.” Petra was hooked into the argument now, though Aggie could see where Jo was going with it.

  “Your home is a pile of rubble. The shops are empty. Everything has been looted. You’ve been hunting in the woods, but so have all your neighbors. Your children are hungry, dirty, maybe even injured. What do you do?”

  Petra gave up with a dramatic shrug.

  “Then you take whatever you can get,” said Jo. “There is no right or wrong. There is only hungry children or not hungry children. There’s taking from anyone who has any
thing or dying. These are your only choices. Kill or be killed.”

  “Jeez,” said Petra. “I know it’s serious, but we’re talking about a few buildings in Manhattan, not the end of civilization.”

  “You can think what you want about what is likely to happen next,” said Jo. “I’m telling you, from my own experience that if people are pressed to their limit, they will come to your house and take everything you’ve got. They’ll hunt for your root cellar—which isn’t very well camouflaged, by the way—and take everything in there, too.”

  “We have a plan for dealing with thieves and looters,” said Midge.

  Aggie wished Midge hadn’t heard all that about Kosovo, but these were strange times. She was going to hear tough talk. She made a mental note to talk to her about what Jo meant, when they were alone.

  Midge was chipper, cheery, completely calm. “Daddy said we could put explosions on the door handles.”

  “Oh, he did not,” said Petra.

  “He did so. We were talking about how to keep people out of our cellar and I told him we could use poison, but he said he didn’t want to kill people, so I said we could just blow their hand off if they wanted to steal our stuff and he said he would think about it very carefully.”

  Aggie could imagine her dad smiling and nodding and telling Midge that he would think about it, but that was just to make her feel good. He wouldn’t really allow them to hurt people. That wasn’t his way. He was a peace-loving man. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.

  “That sounds like the Bill I know,” said Jo. “He knew he was underprepared. He knew your mom’s way was better. He said he would do his best, but you know how he was, he always dragged his heels.”

  Aggie’s anger flared up. No one got to talk about her dad that way. “He was the best. He is the best…”

  “Yes, yes,” said Jo. “He’s the absolute best dad ever. I know that. He talked about you girls—and Paul, he talked about Paul too—like you were the best thing that happened to him. He loved you. Loves you, no question. All I am saying is, he went easy on you. He wanted things to be ‘nice.’ But war’s not nice.”

  “We’re not at war,” Petra shouted. “We’re in a car on the freaking highway, arguing about whether to get Floofy. And I am sorry you’ve seen horrible things in horrible parts of the world. I am. But that’s not going to happen here.”

  “They were beautiful parts of the world before the devastation,” said Jo. “But, if you’re not convinced, you’re not convinced. Here’s what I am going to do.” She turned the key in the ignition and checked her rear-view mirror. “I am going to take you to Jim and Betsy’s and you can talk it over with them. I told your dad I would look after you, but I can’t be responsible if you girls won’t take at least some of the weight.”

  She pulled into traffic and pressed down hard on the accelerator.

  “I didn’t mean any disrespect,” said Petra. “I just think you’re overreacting.”

  Jo nodded, but didn’t speak.

  Aggie turned the radio back up. Clara and Gary were still debating the pros and cons of keeping the bridges and tunnels closed to traffic. The beech gave way to pines, which in turn gave way to elm and after 15 minutes of uncomfortable silence, they were at Jim and Betsy’s door.

  Aggie longed to take Petra aside and tell her to keep quiet. The best way to get adults to leave you alone is to nod, look like you agree, make some pleasant noises, then go do whatever it was you were going to do. But perhaps they were past that now that Petra had told Jo she was overreacting.

  Mrs. Betsy fussed her way out to the car when she heard there was a patient, took one look at Sean, and stomped back into the house, her heart on fire for a young man who needed her help. She would have the fold-away bed set up in no time, she said. Right by the fire. He’d want for nothing. She’d been a nurse, see, in the Vietnam war. “Yes, there’s plenty you don’t know about us oldies,” she said. “There are things I’ve seen that would make your hair curl.” She’d taken on a sterner voice and was commanding more space. It was as if Sean’s accident washed away the chit-chat of someone who had too much time on her hands and replaced her with a woman on a mission.

  Jim walked with a crutch. He couldn’t help getting Sean out of the car. He was crushed and channeled that frustration over not being able to actively help into giving them detailed instructions. Aggie smiled, but ignored him. It was down to her and Jo again to get Petra’s boyfriend from one place to the next. Getting him into the car had been easy enough. He’d been tranquilized and numbed out. This time, he was awake and the meds were fading.

  “Be careful.” His voice was hard, his eyes half-shuttered, and his mouth twisted as he tried to hold back the pain. “It’s throbbing.”

  Jo didn’t need to say it. Her face spoke volumes. Aggie heard the lecture, though not a word was spoken. It was a bad idea to move him. They weren’t equipped. It was too soon. He’d suffer either now or later. But Mrs. Betsy being a nurse made all the difference. She’d know what to do.

  “Oh, nooooooooo,” Sean groaned and twisted in their arms.

  “Set him down,” said Aggie. She didn’t want to drop him and make things worse than they already were.

  “What’s he on?” said Betsy.

  “He just had major surgery, not four hours ago,” said Jo. “They had him on a drip. Maybe fentanyl, maybe morphine, I’m not sure. Whatever you need, we have in the trunk.”

  Petra ran to the back of the car, dragging Mrs. Betsy behind her, and popped the trunk. She pulled out a pillow case full of meds.

  “I can’t say as I approve of thieving from a county hospital,” said Betsy.

  “They’ve taken enough money from us, Bets.” Jim was right behind her, ogling the meds they’d brought. “I say they owe us this. Think of it as Big Pharma doing us a solid, seeing as we’ve made millionaires out of their top brass.”

  Betsy laughed, nudging her husband with her hip. “You’re a bad, bad man, Jim Asher, but I love you to the moon and back and if you think this is fair I am not going to argue with you.”

  Sean moaned, spit leaking from his mouth, then tilted his head back and roared.

  “Please,” said Petra. “Help him. Make it stop.”

  Betsy dug through the bag like a pro, selected a vial of something, drew a dose, and had him out with the birds in under ten minutes. “Bring him in and set him by the fire. Then leave him with me.”

  Jo and Aggie carried Sean as gently as they could through the low front door, around the narrow corners, and into the front room.

  Betsy and Petra got him settled while Jo and Jim talked tactics in the kitchen. Aggie could only hear a word here and there. Didn’t seem fair that Jo got to present her case out of earshot. But she remained resolute. She was going to nod and say as little as possible, then she was going to go back to the woods to find Floofy.

  Jim hobbled into the front room and eased himself into the rocker the other side of the fire. “You’re not going to like what I have to tell you,” he said.

  Aggie nodded politely. He was going to take Jo’s side.

  “I got a call from your brother, Paul. Things do not look good. Manhattan has cracks the size of the Grand Canyon opening up all around him, but he insists he’s fine and he plans to be home by the weekend.”

  Petra sobbed, tears streaming down her face.

  “He said to tell you…” He pulled a notepad out of his pocket and read the words very carefully, “‘falanky wobbler and coloshna baa.’”

  Petra buried her face in her hands and wept.

  “What does it mean?” Jim looked to Aggie. There was no way Petra could answer.

  Aggie shrugged. “Their private twin language. They made it up when they were little and they would never translate for any of us. They used it to talk to each other, exclusively.”

  Petra looked up, her face a contorted mess of grief and anguish. “It means thank you for being such an incredible freakazoid and I’ll see you on the other side.”


  Jim raised his eyebrows. “Righto. Whatever floats your boat, I suppose.”

  “He doesn’t think he’ll get out of there. He’s telling me goodbye.”

  Chapter 15

  Paul sat on the sidewalk, a stranger’s phone gripped in his free hand and Angelina perched precariously over his knees. They’d outrun the water and the loathsome insects. For now. “Mind if I take a look online?”

  The stranger nodded. The faraway, iced-over look in his eyes said he was still in shock. Paul could have asked him for a kidney or a million dollars or a cabana on the beach in Cabo and he’d probably have given him exactly the same nod.