Edge of Valor: A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival Thriller(66)
The attack had destroyed several buildings. Only a wall or a caved-in roof remained in the rubble. Tresses Hair Salon. The bank. Patsy’s Pizza.
The elementary school was so riddled with holes, it looked like a Swiss cheese sculpture.
Roads bitten to hell. Chunks of concrete and drywall everywhere.
Winter Haven’s precious electricity gone—maybe for good.
Eleven townspeople dead. Four gravely injured.
Quinn knew their names, but the impact of their loss barely registered.
The only person who mattered was Gran.
Quinn rode her bike home with rubbery legs that didn’t belong to her, every movement rote and mechanical.
Her clothes were filthy. Stiff with dried blood. Her skin caked in dust, dirt, and soot. Red flakes beneath her fingernails.
Her numb hands unlocked the front door, fingers fumbling with the key a half-dozen times.
Hannah hadn’t wanted her to go home alone. But she got busy helping everybody else. Slipping away was easy. As easy as it had been when she’d snuck to the warehouse.
Quinn felt no sense of satisfaction. She felt nothing but the Gran-sized hole in her chest.
Inside the house, dust motes spiraled through the shafts of sunlight bathing the wood floors and worn furniture in warm bright light.
The house was chilly; the flames in the woodstove reduced to ashes.
Five cats rushed her with aggrieved yowls, winding around her ankles, gazing up at her with doleful feline expressions. Even Hel, Ruler of the Underworld, who seldom left her perch atop the fridge.
The stench of cat piss assaulted her nostrils. The cats had been inside since yesterday morning. No food, no kitty litter. They’d held it as long as they could, then used the back doormat in the kitchen.
Quinn set her rifle on the kitchen table and refilled their water bowls from a jug sitting on the counter. Hel and Valkyrie squeezed in first, with Loki not far behind.
She threw the soiled mat outside and left the door cracked open so the cats could do their business and find breakfast.
Valkyrie darted outside to hunt. Loki sauntered across the kitchen, pounced on a chair, and hopped onto the table.
Affronted, he sat on his haunches and stared at Quinn with that pointy, cunning face, as if daring her to yell at him.
“Git!”
He let out an incensed yowl, glancing past her as if searching for his real owner.
“I said go!”
He didn’t move, just stared at her as if she’d offended him.
Maybe he expected Gran to come barreling in, waving her cane, shouting that she was gonna skin him alive if he didn’t get his ugly butt off the table.
Quinn didn’t yell. She didn’t do anything.
Loki stayed on the table.
Thor and Odin wandered the house, meowing plaintively, searching for their mistress. They sensed something was off.
“She’s not here,” she said, barbed wire in her throat.
Quinn went to the backyard and drew a bucket from the well, lugged it to the bathroom, and stripped off her soiled clothing. She used a cold washcloth to wipe the grit and blood from her body.
Gran’s blood. She bit back a whimper. Once she’d finished, she dumped the bucket of dirty water and her clothes in the backyard. Clad in her bra and underwear, goose pimples broke out on her skin. She barely noticed.
She’d take care of the clothes later. Maybe she’d bury them. Or burn them.
She would never wear them again.
When she re-entered the house, Thor and Odin were waiting dejectedly by the door. They’d always been the needy ones. The ones Gran loved the most.
Odin waddled over and pressed his furry head against her shin, meowing mournfully like he was begging for a treat. Only it wasn’t a treat he wanted.
A sudden, irrational fury shot through her. “Go away! I can’t help you!”
With startled yowls, both cats scurried for the safety of the sofa. Fat Odin couldn’t fit beneath it but clambered onto the armrest. He settled his furry bulk and offered her a wounded look.
“She’s not here!” Quinn said in a strangled voice. “Can’t you see that? She’s not here!”
She stumbled down the hallway in her underwear to her bedroom and moved to the dresser, pulled out sweatpants and an oversized Lions hoodie, and tugged them on.
The dressings on her right hand had been filthy; she’d thrown them out with her clothes. The scabs needed topical antibiotics and fresh bandages.
The mere thought was overwhelming.
Quinn moved to her bed and lay atop the unmade covers, stiff as a board, arms at her sides, her head full of cotton.
Time passed. She didn’t know how long. She drifted in a dull, numb haze.
47
Quinn
Day One Hundred and Fourteen
A distant thud sounded. The front door opened and closed.
For a heart-clenching instant, Quinn thought it was Gran.
Reality clobbered her like a sledgehammer to the chest. Gran wasn’t shuffling through the front door because Gran was dead. Dead, dead, dead.
Two sets of footsteps padded through the hallway toward her bedroom. One human, one the click, click, click of paws on hardwood.
She did not lift her head. She did not move or breathe.
“Quinn?” Milo said.
Quinn opened her eyes and stared blindly up at the ceiling.