“Sure, kitten. I promise. And you really, truly, don’t have to tell me a thing. I know what life’s been like.”
“No, you don’t. That’s the point. You don’t know at all….”
THE SHORTAGE OF FOOD.
The government control over the television and phone systems.
Starvation riots and the trekkers coming out into the Hollywood Hills. Armed bands of hired guns patrolling the canyons, ready to mercilessly shoot down anyone attempting to get at the houses of the rich and privileged.
Power going down. And the total lack of any communication.
Driving to the reservoir to carry up water. Trying to fill their swimming pool but finding that it wouldn’t stay fresh.
“Mom got sick. We’d heard about sickness from neighbors along the road. Cholera and typhoid. Ramon came around but then Maria died. We had a couple of handguns ready in case there were street thugs coming out into the hills.”
“You have to use them?”
“Ramon fired once at three men in camouflage jackets. Didn’t hit any of them. You killed anyone since you landed, Daddy?”
Jim Hilton shook his head. “Not something I want to talk about, kitten.”
Heather still wouldn’t look at her father as she sat cross-legged on the dead grass, voice flat and unemotional.
“Mom got worse. Then… sissy got it.”
That had been the twins’ nickname for each other when they’d been smaller.
Lori Hilton had died from cholera, a dreadful sickness when there are no doctors and no kind of medication. Not even clean water.
It had been Andrea’s rapid decline that had proved the final straw for Heather.
“The way Mommy went was…and I knew that Andrea would be the same. I kind of starred out in my head. Just ran. I was away for three or four days. Lost count. Slept rough. Came back to see if she was still alive. And found you… burying her. Couldn’t believe it, that you’d come back.”
He hugged her tightly. “Take more than the end of life on the planet as we know it to keep me away from you, kitten.”
JIM HAD BEEN pleasantly surprised at how his daughter was coping. It gave him an insight into the horrors of life under Earthblood, the strength growing out of such extreme circumstances enabling a child of eleven to witness deaths, including her own mother, and still be able to function.
Carrie spoke to him that evening about it.
“Kids are resilient, Jim. In the old days I suppose that Heather would have been rushed off to a fashionable shrink, for some infinitely tiny problem. I’m not saying it’s easy for the kid. But she can take it.” She hesitated. “You think you can, Jim?”
“Reckon so.”
“We going to take her back to this ghost town with us?”
“Course. Why not?”
“Wondered if you might want to stay here and try and…you know, make some sort of life together. Just wondered.”
“No, Carrie. City’s no place now. Probably never will be again. Life has to be radically different. It’s almost like going back to the Middle Ages. Little villages. If the plants and trees really start to grow again, next year, then there’s a chance.”
“And Zelig?”
He smiled. “Zelig! Who knows. Just got to go and find out. We’ll take it easy. Weather’s getting worse, so we can’t go into the hills too much. Get back to Calico and see who else turns up there.”
IN HOLLYWOOD, even the early days of November are mild and clement. Jim went out in the evenings among the budding shoots of grass and killed rabbits with the big .44, its boom contrasting with the snap of Carrie’s Smith & Wesson six-shot .22 revolver.
Eventually it was time to set off for Calico.
They all stood together in the front garden of the house on Tahoe Drive in the cool morning air.
“Ready, kitten?” said Jim.
His daughter half turned to Carrie, eyebrows raised, chin tilted in a way that reminded him of Lori.
“I wish Daddy wouldn’t call me ‘kitten,’ ” she said.
Chapter Thirty-Five
It was a standoff.
Kyle stood in the doorway, the Model V Mannlicher rifle braced against his right hip, finger on the trigger. He was trying to remember whether he’d taken off the safety, mentally cursing himself for his stupidity.