The Long Goodbye: A Post-Apocalyptic Medical Thriller Series (Graham's Resolution Book 7) Read online

  Then she turned to Graham. “Can I talk to you outside?” She fully expected him to refuse like all the other times before, but he looked at Bang once again with a lingering stare and then nodded.

  Bracing himself with the arm of the chair, he held onto Tehya with one arm and stood and readjusted her across his chest. Then she watched as he went to Bang’s side.

  “It’s okay, Dad. I’m fine,” Bang said, “and McCann will stay with me overnight. Please get some sleep.”

  Graham rubbed his shoulder and felt his son’s forehead for himself.

  Clarisse swallowed hard again as she waited by the door watching them. That’s when she noticed Sheriff had shown up beside her. “Oh, hi there. You’re just in time,” she said, rubbing between his ears.

  “Take care of your brother,” Graham said to McCann.

  “Of course,” McCann said. “See you in the morning.”

  Graham followed Clarisse out into the hallway.

  “Follow me to the door. Dalton’s waiting,” she said.

  “Good,” Graham said.

  “You must be exhausted.”

  “He’s okay now?”

  She nodded and took a deep breath. “He’s okay. As long as we keep the temperature down, he’ll heal fine. It was…hard to say there for a while.”

  Graham didn’t say anything then. She imagined there was a lot of emotions he was dealing with.

  “I…know Tehya will be okay, too. She just needs reassurance. We’ll get through this.”

  In a low, angry voice that she knew he barely kept under control because he held a damaged, sleeping child that he’d do anything to protect, Graham said, “But we’re not through this, are we? We’re still in it and there’s more to come. They’re here for revenge, Clarisse. They’ll come after us again. We kill them, they kill us back…and it repeats with a few breaks in between, but it never ends.”

  She didn’t take another step, causing him to turn to her. “Yeah, but if we stop, it will end, only not in our favor. And Graham...” she swallowed and let out a breath. “I can’t do it again.” She shook her head, seeing the glass shatter in her mind. The bits cascading across the floor. “I can’t. We got lucky before. It bought us time. But this time, we’ll ruin it all if we do. They won’t have a future in the end. It’s too much of a risk. There’s got to be another way.”

  To her surprise he nodded and said, “I know. But no one else wants to admit the truth.”

  Clarisse opened the door.

  “Gosh, it’s nice to see both of you out of that building for a change,” Dalton said, as he stood in the moonlight. “Is Bang okay?”

  “Yeah, he will be,” Clarisse said. “It’ll take some time before he fully recovers.”

  “Good. Paige is over there by the truck waiting for Sheriff, I think,” Dalton said.

  Clarisse spotted Paige leaning against her truck when Scout let out a little bark in greeting. Clarisse waved.

  “Cheryl’s asleep in the cab,” Dalton said. “Listen, Rick’s got some news for us. None of it good. We need to head over there. Are you both up for it? Maybe bring Paige over too?”

  Clarisse looked to Graham.

  He shook his head. “No, Paige does what Paige wants to do. She can go if she wants. You’ll have to ask her.”

  Dalton said, “I understand. I’ll let you know tomorrow what’s going on. Hey, why don’t you let us take Tehya tonight? You look beat, man. And we know you could really use a break. Get some sleep. Things will be clearer in the morning, especially now that Bang’s fever is over.”

  Clarisse expected the usual decline from Graham but instead, he nodded.

  “Oh, okay,” Dalton said, when Graham began handing over the sleeping child too big now to carry around.

  When Dalton had her in his arms, Graham reached over and placed his hand in the center of her back and held it there for a while longer.

  “Please get some sleep. We’ll see you in the morning,” Clarisse said.

  Graham took his hand away and put them in his pockets and stared first at Dalton and then at her, like he was settling something. He was just tired, she told herself then but later, she would look back at that moment, often.

  “What is it, Graham?” Clarisse asked.

  He shook his head and smiled a little. “We’re still here,” he said low with a little smile, the moonlight reflecting off his eyes as he began to walk away. “Oh,” he said, turning back, “there’s a wolf in the wheat field behind the building. He’s been there for days. Take care of that before he gets out of control.”

  They watched him walk slowly down the road into the dark with Sheriff by his side.

  “He’s punch drunk, right?” Dalton said.

  She looked at her husband and back at Graham and Sheriff, their images dimming in the moonlight.

  4

  Rick

  “It’s not that easy.” Rick splayed his hands out before him. “If it was, we would have done it a long time ago, Corey. And remember, just for the record, we’ve been at this for a lot longer than you have. You’re just now joining the game of who lives and who dies.”

  “That’s not fair. The tribe wasn’t aware of the extent of the atrocities they’ve committed since the pandemic. We lived on our own. Back in the old ways.”

  Rick began chewing the gum in his mouth a little faster. “Don’t give me that crap. You guys were listening in on radio waves. You’ve admitted it. You were hiding out when you could have done something to help over the years—in hopes, I suspect, that we would kill each other off.”

  “I think we’ve made up for that, mate. We lost a lot of men in that last battle and we kept them from gaining ground.”

  Rick nodded. “Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “You did, and we came damn near losing one of our own.”

  “He’s going to be okay, though. That’s what you said. Because that’s what I told Bob. He was really concerned.”

  “Yeah, it looks like he’ll recover. But listen, we’re not going to get that lucky next time. There’re be more of them when they hit again. They’ll come down like a hammer now. They didn’t know the numbers. Now they do. See? We have to be prepared.”

  “Okay, we’re committed to help with what numbers we have. What do we do?”

  “I don’t know, dammit!” Rick yelled and slammed his fist down on the desk harder than he intended.

  “Hey, what’s going on in here?” McCann said, holding a tray of food in his hands.

  Rick shook his head.

  “Hey, I don’t know why you’re feeding him. We’re not going to use him for his intended purpose, if you know what I mean,” Corey said.

  Rick watched the red rise in McCann’s face. He’d made it plain and clear he didn’t like Corey much.

  “We’re not animals,” McCann said.

  “And you think we are? Waste of resources if you ask me,” Corey said.

  “I didn’t say that,” McCann said.

  Rick tilted his head to the right, letting McCann know to just walk on and feed the prisoner.

  “So how long are you stuck with us?” Rick asked.

  “Until Bang recovers,” Corey said.

  “Well, he’s nearly recovered.”

  Corey nodded. “You know, there are more supplies where the lab equipment came from.”

  “I realize that,” Rick said, rolling up the map they were staring at before. “I know there was quite a lot of equipment in there because I helped put it there in another life, but it’s all gone now. You want to tell me where it went? Because I have a suspicion the tribe knows where it is.”

  “The tribe doesn’t want to use chemical weapons for the same reason you don’t want to use biological warfare this time.”

  “Corey…if there ever were an exception to the rule, this is it,” Rick said. “If they’re coming after us…you damn well better be sure that means you too.”

  Corey nodded and held out a hand. “Yeah, I know. I’m working on it as a contingency. I don’t make the rules or the decisions. But I’ll try to talk them into it.”

  “And again, we don’t have time. They’re not going to wait for us to get our act together,” Rick said and that’s when they heard McCann yell and saw him burst through the doorway. Rick was shocked to see him plow right into Corey’s middle, ramming him into the desk.

  “He was just a kid!” McCann seethed.

  “What? I didn’t,” Corey yelled back but it was too late. McCann pulled back just in time to ram his fist right into Corey’s face.

  Rick couldn’t believe his eyes for a second. He’d wanted to hit Corey so many times, but McCann had beat him to it. “Wait, McCann! Not again. Wait a minute.” On another upswing, Rick flung the map to the ground and wrapped his arm around McCann and dragged him backward just as Sam came through the door.

  “What’s going on back here?” Mark said.

  Corey leaned back against the desk and wiped the blood from his mouth while Rick held McCann back.

  “He killed him!” McCann yelled.

  “Killed who?” Rick shouted.

  “The kid…the prisoner,” McCann said.

  “The one that took Tehya?” Mark asked.

  “I did not!” Corey yelled and flung the accumulated blood to the ground.

  “You just sai…” McCann yelled and lunged for him again. “We needed him!”

  Corey began to say something, but Rick shouted, “Wait. Wait a minute. Stop it! I’m getting too old for this.” And the truth of it was that he didn’t care that the kid was dead; he just couldn’t hold McCann back from fighting any longer. He was losing his hold on him as it was, and Corey was being kind enough not to fight back.

  “I didn’t…” Corey said again when Rick eyed him. “I haven’t even been back there
.”

  “Okay,” Rick said.

  “He’s lying,” McCann said, and Rick let him go but Mark jumped in between the two of them and McCann finally stopped.

  “Show me,” Rick said and walked back to the room where they kept the prisoner behind the bar in a little building where they could keep an eye on him in a makeshift cell.

  The ebbing pool of blood at the entrance was the first clue of the death within. “Damn. Could he have done that to himself?” Mark asked.

  McCann shook his head. “No. It’s highly doubtful he could slit his own throat. And did he open the door on his own too? It was locked from the outside.”

  Rick let out a breath as a fly buzzed near the young man’s open eyes. He’d never given them a problem the whole time he was with them and seemed to enjoy the regular meals despite his imprisonment. Had the kid been from anywhere else, he would have been welcomed. But beyond the crime of being one of them, he’d kidnapped Tehya and tried to take her to his people. That strike against him was never going to make him one of them. Perhaps his death was the best alternative in the end. Returning him to them would have also been a crime.

  “Where’s the key?” Mark asked.

  “Right there,” McCann said pointing to the table where he’d laid the tray of food earlier. “Whoever did it knew where the key was and took an option away from us despite everything else we’re dealing with.”

  Rick shook his head. “Our vector making days are over. Clarisse made that decision for us.” But then his skin began to crawl with a tickle he’d come to hate. “Tah…everyone back inside, right away. Something’s not right here.” And they stepped away from the boy on the ground with the dull, dead eyes.

  5

  Paige

  She’d been waiting for this day. The day that Sheriff stayed with him and not with her. She knew it was coming but she didn’t know when that time would come since the war. And the moment she watched Sheriff walk down the road at Graham’s side instead of returning to her, she had her answer. He was ready then. Graham was ready. And besides the dog, she realized she was the only other person who knew what came next. In fact, she didn’t think Graham knew his next step himself. He was walking in the blind. She’d been there before, in that same obscure space.

  That’s when she got into her truck and saw how Dalton and Clarisse watched her leave in the rearview mirror. They were worried about him, but Paige was not. She knew exactly where Graham was and as she drove up Sherman Avenue, she saw him again as he and Sheriff walked home to the little yellow house they used to share.

  Paige looked ahead after that, her eyes a little wider. She swallowed and let the realization spread over her and then reached for Scout and scratched her back as she sat next to her in the seat, staring out the windshield at the cool blue moon. And then Paige took in another breath when she felt for Cheryl and rubbed the sleeping girl’s smooth calf. The world before the apocalypse was full of hard decisions. Where to go to college? Live in the dorms or live with your overprotective police officer brother? She choked up a little laugh then, with tears in her eyes. The thought of the arguments she and Lincoln used to have. God, she missed him. Wished to God she had someone there to tell her what to do now. But then she took a deeper breath. It was just her now and she was on the other side of the apocalypse and she was the one making the hard choices. And they were nothing as easy as the ones her brother had to make for her. Except, she reminded herself of that last one. Lincoln, up to the very end, looked out for her. And he was right. “You’ll find a way, Paige. Don’t make excuses. You’re her parent now. Take her and go.”

  His words echoed through her mind constantly over the past decade since she’d left him to die on his own in the middle of a highway. A kind of mantra that kept her going through the worst of times. Though she knew the truth. She knew there was no other way. There was nothing else she could do for him; his last act was saving her and a stranger’s child. And now she had to do something she didn’t want to do for the greater good because she was still heeding her brother’s words. You’ll find a way. Don’t make excuses.

  And if nothing else, Paige was done making excuses. There was hard work ahead and she knew what came next, even if no one else did.

  6

  Graham

  It would come as a shock to them. It was still a shock to him. But he couldn’t think of that now. “Come on, boy. Not much farther,” he said as they walked in the early morning hours, and when they got to Dalton’s three-story gray building tucked away behind the larger ones, he opened the gray metal door with the battery keypad just enough to let Sheriff squeeze through. His daughter’s form was there on the sofa coiled in blankets, her wild hair spilling out past the edge of the cushion. He longed to go to her. To give her one last kiss on the forehead. Instead he said, “Go on.” Sheriff turned back to him, once he was through, his brown eyes wide as if asking the question, Are you sure about this?

  Graham knelt down to him. “You are the best dog ever,” he whispered into Sheriff’s scruff and inhaled his scent. “Stay with her. Protect her when I can’t.” He backed out then as he closed the door with a soft click, just as Sheriff went and lay down next to Tehya on the floor beside the sofa, watching with one paw over the other and his chin resting on the mound. The last witness to Graham’s escape.

  Later, Graham shifted the pack on his back a little more and walked up what once was a forest road but reclaimed by the wild once again. On the other side there were supplies and a few vehicles that would start and get him where he needed to go. Not where he wanted to be, but where he had to begin again.

  And as if he’d drawn a line in the earth, he left one world for another in hopes the other side would stay safe because he had work to do in this one. It was as if he’d seen what the equation was for the first time since this all began, and there was only one solution to the overall problem. And it wasn’t going to be easy.

  He thought of them in the beginning as men. Individuals who’d gone horribly astray, led by greed and power that eventually hijacked a peaceful religion in their attempt to spread an ideology. That may have been how it all started but they’d become something more. Instead of individuals freely thinking, they’d become a thing. An interlocked unit, a nation, no longer human—not unlike injecting nanoprobes in the creation of a Borg from a long-gone science fiction series he’d watched as a kid. And that thought made him smile slightly and that’s when he’d noticed how the dark sky had turned, how slightly lighter dark blue it was upon the horizon ahead.

  7

  Dalton

  It was Finn who crawled into bed with them the night before. Dalton remembered now because his foot was braced into the small of his lower back like a jack post. How the boy slept with his knee locked in place like that, he’d never know. He had to be uncomfortable. It was like he purposely tried to keep his dad from rolling over on him. Defiance even at his young age. Finn was going to be a tough teen, Dalton could already tell. The stubborn streak that he admired in Clarisse ran strong through their son. But he didn’t have to deal with that for a long time still, so Dalton rotated off the side of the bed, even though the light had only just slipped through the cracks in the window. Another warm day at the beginning of fall. He wondered if they suddenly had air conditioning again, if they could stand it. Who was he kidding? He’d love to sleep in 64 degrees again. But then he remembered how damn cold the winters got there and decided against it.

  “Where’re you going?” Clarisse mumbled, her eyes mere slits.

  He whispered, “It’s fine. Go back to sleep, babe.” And then he rolled his shoulder in a big circle to stretch out the stiffness and felt the scarring there, long milky ropes stretching across his chest. He pressed against them. The bear. He remembered the bear every time he touched there. A mark and constant reminder that he shouldn’t be here today, but then again, there were other scars. Ones, old and new, that tried to take him out in other ways and when he noticed them, he remembered them all like old friends. I’m still here…bite me, he would say back to their memory and chuckle.