Come Whatever Storms

Chapter 1-3

The basket was a bear to push when full, but with Adam’s help, Court managed to wrangle it around the twisted remains of the station wagon. The minivan would be a harder nut to crack—the windows along the sides of the vehicle were tinted, the interior dark, and even with his hands cupped around his face, he couldn’t see inside. He didn’t want to swing the bat and hit someone on the other side of the window, even if they were nothing more than rags and bones by this stage. Minivans said kids, to him, the same way station wagons said soccer moms. Today’s scavenging was already gruesome enough.

Leaving the cart on the minivan’s left side, Court circled the vehicle as he looked for a way in. Back doors were locked, of course. The sliding side doors wouldn’t slide, which meant they were locked, too. Front passenger side door was also locked, but at least here he lucked out a little—the window was rolled down, not much but enough to allow him entry. Or so he hoped. The only other option was to crawl onto the hood of the minivan and try to get through the broken windshield without slipping and slicing open something vital on the remaining glass. Which would mean getting up close and personal with the dead driver, and that was something Court didn’t want to do.

So he stood on the step beneath the passenger side door and reached through the open window. There were a row of buttons on the handle inside the door, but after pressing each in turn, he found one that unlocked the doors. “Bingo,” he said with a smile at Adam. “Open sesame.”

Adam gripped the handle on the side of the minivan and slid the door out of the way. The interior was hot, but not unbearable. The dark still retained a hint of the previous night’s coolness, and it was a relief to be out of the glare of the sun. Court wasn’t looking forward to winter—how would they keep warm in their tents, without electricity or heat? But a few cool autumn days weren’t asking too much, were they? It was September already. Dial back the heat, you hear? he thought as he climbed inside the van. He wasn’t sure such a demand constituted a prayer, but he’d take his chances. What was God going to do, strike him dead?

Too late. You missed.

There were no bodies inside the minivan. Hey, thanks for that, Court thought, then realized he was maintaining a one-sided conversation with nobody and stopped. The apocalypse had come and gone, the rapture was over, the end had washed right over them and he—along with Ronnie, and Adam, and a handful of others—they were all still here. Fighting to survive. Fighting to get by. And who did he have to thank for that?

“Talk to me,” he said out loud, if only to chase away his gathering thoughts. He’d followed Adam into the minivan, and though it took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dim interior, he could hear his friend rummaging through what sounded like plastic shopping bags. “Adam? What’d you find?”

“Porn, mostly.”

A magazine came fluttering toward Court, who caught it and glanced at the cover. Playboy. Court laughed as he leafed through it. “Of all the things to take with you when you go.”

Adam’s smile was evident in his voice. “There are some DVDs, too. All raunchy stuff. Really, where’d he think he was going to watch these? On whose TV?”

Before Court could answer, movement from the corner of his vision caught his attention and he turned to see someone’s face pressed against the outside of the back window. Hands cupped around it, blocking out the sun and turning the visage into a ghostly grimace. “Christ!”

Instinctively, he reached for the baseball bat, but he’d left it inside the cart. Then the person pulled back enough to let some light shine on his features, and Court’s racing heart galloped in his chest. He raised his voice in mock anger. “Ronnie! What the hell, man? Are you trying to give me a f*****g coronary?”

“Ronnie?” Adam glanced up from the back of the minivan and watched their friend disappear from the window. “s**t. What’s he doing here?”

A few seconds later, Ronnie appeared in the minivan’s open doorway with an answer to that question. “Hey, guys. Guess whose water just broke.”

Adam shook his head. “No.”

Ronnie shrugged in response. Court sank down heavily in the nearest bucket seat, and turned it to face the door. For a moment he allowed himself to savor the sight of Ronnie’s careless hair, the warm brown depths streaked with highlights from the sun. His hands fisted in his lap as he resisted the urge to reach out and run them through Ronnie’s bangs, just to brush them back from Ronnie’s piercing, pale eyes. God, those eyes…

Then Ronnie glanced from Adam to Court, and Court looked at Adam so Ronnie wouldn’t catch him staring. “Well?” he asked, his voice suddenly gruff. “You going to help, or what?”

“I’m a vet, not an OB/GYN,” Adam groused, but it was an old argument and wouldn’t get him out of this. “I don’t even know what you expect me to do. If she was having puppies, that’d be different.”

“Not much,” Ronnie remarked. “Same equipment, different species.”

Court nodded. “Yeah, just hunker down between her legs like a quarterback waiting for a pass. The kid’s probably going to come with or without help from you, anyway.”

“Then why do I even need to show up?” Adam complained.

Ronnie gave him a look that allowed no room for argument. “You’re the closest thing we have to a doctor. Go on. I’ll finish up here with Court.”

Something deliciously hot flashed through Court at those words. With me. He’s staying here with me. He bit the inside of his lower lip to keep from grinning like a fool. Go on already, Adam. What the hell are you waiting for?

Still, Adam hesitated. He looked at Court, lines of worry etched into his brow above his thin glasses. In a quiet voice, he asked, “What if it…?”

Ronnie brushed the question aside with an irritated wave of his hand. “Deliver it first. Then we’ll worry about it getting sick.”

Adam gave one long, last sigh, then took off his glasses to wipe them on the bandanna around his neck. “Fine. I don’t like doing this alone—”

“The other women are with her,” Court pointed out.

Adam shot him an unreadable look. “Just you two hurry back, you hear? If anything happens—”

“It won’t,” Ronnie said.

Court wondered how he could be so sure.