Love in the Dark

Chapter Thirteen

He stared hard at her now, seeing clearly everything he had been missing for months. She'd changed a lot since high school. The round, childish face he remembered was now more defined, with high cheekbones and a slender jaw. Her once small and shapeless body had been altered by motherhood, leaving generous curves. Her hair was different, longer, thicker even. But even with the changes that years and maturity had brought, he felt like an ass for not recognizing his childhood friend on the spot.

Zahara rushed to her mother, and wrapped her arms around her mother's waist. Her little face was pinched with worry.

Laura patted her daughter's head absently, smoothing out her dark curls. "It's okay, baby," she mumbled. "I'm okay."

George hurried over with a stainless-steel water bottle; his dark face clouded with concern. She accepted the bottle and took a swig of the water. She rubbed her head and moved out of the plowed area, lowering herself to sit in the long grass on the edge of the woods. She dribbled some of the water in her hand and patted it over her face.

She sighed and looked up, squinting her eyes at Seth. "I guess you remember me now?"

Seth rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah... you still have them? The seizures?"

She took a breath and blew it out slowly. George came and sat down next to her, sprawling his legs out in front of him. "So, what is it this time?" George asked.

The child crawled up into her lap and curled her arms around her mother's neck, pressing her small face into her mother's chest as though she didn't want to hear what her mother would say.

"Wait..." Seth squatted down. "You still... see things?"

She bowed her head and rubbed her temples. She ignored Seth and his question. "Its the sickness," she said, sounding suddenly very tired. "Its spreading."

"You are sick?" Seth asked, not understanding.

"No I'm not sick!" Laura snapped.

George cut Seth a look. "No, man. There's a sickness. It started in the Community Hospital, and it spread to the Camp at the Eastside Highschool camp."

Seth looked back and forth between the two adults. "What kind of sickness?"

George shook his head, "We don't know. We haven't gone into town to see it for ourselves. It starts with a cough." He cut his eyes to the little girl with a meaningful expression. He indicated that they didn't speak about it in front of Zahara with a slight shake of his head.

"Let's just finish here," Laura grumbled. She kissed the top of Zahara's head and got back on her feet. She picked up her hoe and went back to work. Seth followed her, carrying the sack of seed potatoes.

After a few minutes of working in silence, Seth couldn't hold his curiosity any more. "Why didn't you tell me who you were?"

She shook her head and kept working. "I didn't want to."

He stopped and stretched his back. "But why not?"

She gave him a glare. "I don't even know you anymore. So, we were friends when we were kids? It doesn't matter now." She jabbed at the dirt one more time and then kicked at the dirt. "We're done here. Lets go back."

Seth finished filling the furrow with the last of the potatoes and then followed her. Going down the hill should have been easier than going up, but he still found himself stumbling on trembling legs. Every step seemed to jar his emaciated frame. "It must matter a little bit," he grumbled at her back. "You brought me here."

She spun around, eyes flashing. "Yeah, I did. Don't make me regret it." Her stormy expression held a clear threat. She brought him into the camp, she could take him out of it, one way or another.

By the time they reached the cabin, Seth could do nothing more than sink onto the steps in utter exhaustion. People moved around him like he wasn't even there.

"Here baby, you go collect the eggs. Watch out for Lucy, she's brooding." Laura handed the little girl a padded basket. The girl took it and swung it merrily, headed in the direction of the barn.

"What's for lunch?" George was banging around in the kitchenette of the cabin. "We got some leftover soup, but probably not enough to make a meal."

"Add more broth," Laura called as she stepped around Seth, "And a box of macaroni. That's what my dad always does to stretch a soup."

"How is your dad?" Seth asked, pulling himself to his feet with great effort. "Is he still at the farm?"

Laura gave him a withering look. "Dad is old and cranky, but he's still kicking," She said shortly. She went to the sink to wash the dirt from her hands. She used a little brush to clean the soil out from under her nails.

"Where does the water come from?" Seth asked, peeking over her shoulder at the water running from the faucet. "How are you running a pump?"

She ducked around him, careful not to touch him as she did so. "There's no pump. It wouldn't work even if there was. The water is gravity fed from a spring up the mountain."

"Oh. That's genius."

"Dad rigged it up," she said with a slight smile.

George had the leftover soup on the stove to reheat. He added a carton of store-brand beef broth. "So," he glanced at Laura with a concerned expression. "What about that vision?"

She winced and sank into one of the kitchen chairs. "We need to go to Pastor Bill and warn him not to accept any strangers into the camp."

George wagged his head, "I don't know if that will fly. He has a strict open door policy for anyone who comes seeking sanctuary."

She sighed and scratched at the tabletop with her fingernail. "It's either that or he risks losing his whole congregation. He needs to protect the flock that he has."

"Hey, now that we've got an extra adult here, does that mean you can take someone with you?" George's dark face lit up with excitement.

"You really going to spend 8 hours on horse back, George?" Laura asked skeptically. "Because it's a round trip and we ride hard."

George reached back and rubbed his backside at the mere memory of the last time he'd spent hours in the saddle. Still, the prospect of getting out of the cabin and seeing the outside world again held a lot of appeal. "If I do it enough times, I'll toughen up, right? I mean, you don't get saddle sores." The soup had come to a boil, so he dumped a box of macaroni into the bubbling brew and stirred it around.

The little girl came running back in, with straw sticking in her hair, and a basket full of eggs. "Look what Lucy did!" she said indignantly, sticking her hand under her mother's nose.

Laura grabbed the hand and inspected the red mark where the banty bird had pecked at her daughter. "Mmmhm, and why did she do that?"

"I just wanted to see how many eggs she was sitting on," Zahara said with a pout.

"And how many did you find?"

"Seven!" She danced around happily. "We could have seven new chicks!"

"And how many eggs did you collect?" The little girl looked into her basket. Her lips moved silently as she counted them. "Eight," she said matter of factly, "But two of them are banty eggs."

"What's a banty egg?" Seth asked curiously.

Laura shook her head at him. "You really are a city boy now, aren't you? Bantams are miniature chickens, and they lay little eggs." She reached in and lifted an egg that was only half the size of a normal chicken egg. "Pint sized eggs for pint-sized people." She said, replacing the egg in the basket and winking at her daughter.

"Yay! Can we have them boiled?"

"We'll see," Laura answered in a non-commital way. "Put them in the cupboard."'

"Wait. Don't eggs have to be refrigerated? How do you keep them fresh?"

"I asked the same thing when I got here," George said with a broad grin. "Turns out you don't have to refrigerate eggs as long as they aren't washed."

"Serious?" He thought of all the horror stories he'd heard of people getting salmonella poisoning from bad eggs.

Laura nodded. "The shell has a natural protective coating to keep the inside of the egg sterile. The only time the egg goes bad is if the shell is broken, or you wash away the coating."

"Huh." Seth sank down in his chair and raked his fingers through his hair. "A lot to learn."