Chapter 4

That night, after the restaurant had emptied, the tables had been cleaned and the kitchen tightly locked up, Rachel carried an oil lantern up the stairs to the second level. She edged the door of the room she shared with Micah open a tiny bit, peered in to make sure his form was there under the blankets, then continued on up the stairs.

The third level rooms were empty. On the rare days that it rained the roof leaked, some of the windows were cracked and most wouldn't open or close. It wasn't nearly as livable as the second level so these rooms were reserved for storage. The last room on the left allowed access to the roof. She had climbed the rusted metal ladder with more than just the lantern in her hands before.

The hatch that kept the mice in and the crows out moved easily and quietly on its hinges and she stood in the cool, still night air of the roof, sheltering the lantern with a hand, listening to the town. She didn't come up as much as she used to. Most nights she was too tired to think, much less unwind in this quiet place.

Her meeting with Margaret had changed things however.

Rachel dug into her pocket for the small key she kept on her at all times. She crossed the roof to the shack that perched at the back of the building. More storage space. Not much bigger than what she imagined a porta john to be. But big enough for her purposes.

The padlock had sand in it. She scraped it out with the edge of the key then popped it open and pulled at the thin door. Three bags sat just inside, untouched. Rachel set the lantern on a shelf at eye level and knelt in the glow to look through what she had managed to gather.

Three duffel bags. Each could easily be carried on the back of one person. There were plastic jugs filled with clean water sitting near each one. There was a knife in each, and matches in plastic baggies, two blankets in each bag, one of them the shiny thermal kind that she had found in old first aid kits over the years.

Rachel checked to make sure the mice and bats hadn't burrowed there way into the bags. In the smallest of bags she put the collection of buttons that Nathaniel had brought along with the bone tools.

She had been fantasizing about escaping the town and hiding in the mountains since the day Micah started telling people he was six years old. She had tried talking Cookie into it early on. Cookie finally sat down with Rachel in the kitchen, a pad of paper and pencil in front of her, and listed all the things they would need to prepare if they were going to do such a thing.

Some of the supplies had been easy to gather. Others had come at a dear price. There were two books that were absolutely important, Cookie said. Rachel stared in disbelief as the older woman spelled out their titles, the names of the editor or author, a full bibliography at the end of the survival list. Those two final entries would have been all it took to break her of this plan until Cookie handed her a flat package wrapped in a towel a day later.

She'd had the books all the time. Cookie smiled softly when Rachel took the tomes with shaking hands, then threw her arms around the younger woman and whispered, "I have been reading these books since before we met. You need their knowledge too. Just in case."

Rachel understood what she meant then. Cookie might not be coming with them. Still Rachel made a point of collecting three of everything. The books were carefully packed between blankets in Cookie's bag. Rachel pulled them out, looking through each. The first book had a long title, most of which had been obliterated by exposure to sunlight and human hands. It was filled with 336 pages of line drawings and descriptions, edible plants, medicinal plants, all of them the most common to be found in what used to be called North America.

Every page was familiar to her but Rachel went over them again. She knew the book wouldn't last forever, she had to memorize what she could. There were also hand written notations inside. Preparations and combinations that made rough living a little better. Most of them were in Cookie's hand writing. Some, the ink a little brighter, were in Rachel's.

The second book was written by a man named Auerbach. 994 pages filled with illustrations of bodies torn to pieces, specifically geared towards treating any medical condition that might arise in the wild. Most of it was far beyond what Rachel could comprehend. And yet she read through the parts she had the most trouble with, mumbling softly to herself as the night grew colder and the lantern dimmer.

Cookie had asked her once why she didn't study the book inside. Rachel couldn't risk it. She couldn't risk losing it. Rex and his men had charged upstairs more than once hoping to find unregistered traders or take advantage of any unaccompanied females if they were drunk enough. Something as valuable as those books would be snatched up in seconds. Worse they would start the Boss to thinking that someone was planning to leave the town, and take something of value from it, and Rachel couldn't have that.

Even the presence of the stranger and the stir it was causing had Rachel nervous. Long after she had packed the books away and returned to her room she sat up by the window watching the town. Was the stranger still out there, or was he long gone? Was he dead, rotting somewhere, or was he even now in a stronghold reporting to the government that he still hadn't found the boy in the photo. Could Micah have really been the man's son? Was that really all he wanted in the world, to meet his boy?

Rachel glanced to the bed where he slept, sighed softly at the sight of the blankets that he had kicked off in his sleep and rose to replace them. As she sat on the bed beside him, Micah shifted, rolling onto his side and curling into the fetal position. His profile came suddenly into sharp relief against the pillow. The feathering of his hair, the curve of his eye lashes, the small crimson line of skin at his hairline. There was no denying it. This was the boy in the photo. This was the man's relation.

Why was he suddenly now interested in the boy when he had clearly not been around to care seven years ago? Anger started to boil and Rachel stood, crossed to her bed and pulled the top blanket off, wrapping it tightly around her shoulders. She couldn't sleep and there were chores she could start in the restaurant.

The moon was up and close to being full allowing her to see well enough without lighting a lantern. She moved quietly around the kitchen pouring water into her bucket, measuring out the lye then pouring about a quarter of a cup of ethanol alcohol in. She mixed the concoction with her face away from the bucket until it settled then reached for the tool she used to clean the windows. A long wooden spoon with a sponge strapped to either side of one end. It wasn't Windex but it cut through the sand and dust.

The first three windows were quick, smaller than the rest and facing away from where the wind usually drove the outside world at them. The front windows would take the longest and Rachel new she would have to go back for a second bucket before she could finish the job. As she passed by the doors the first time she tugged on the handle til she felt the doors stop and heard the chain rattle reassuringly. She was warm enough now to ditch the blanket and she set it on the counter, folded neatly, before she moved to the back door. This door should have also been locked but when she grasped the door handle to check it the knob came free in her hand.

She jerked back as if she had been electrocuted and the heavy metal piece clattered to the floor. Rachel turned a full circle in panic before she bent and scooped up the door knob. The screws that attached it to the door were still there. It wasn't broken. It had been dismantled. Anger, fueled by fear coursed through her and she jerked the door open picking up the other half of the knob and looking it over. This side was covered in smears of mud. No...not mud. She smelled copper and sweat and the knob was slippery with it...blood. How...when..where?

Who?

Rachel launched herself toward the counter, her hands shaking as she struggled to open the tin of matches, broke two before she could finally get a flame and forced herself to calm as she lit the wick of a candle. She searched for two seconds before she decided to simply hold the candle in her hands, up and away from her line of sight. She lit the wall mounted candelabra in the kitchen, ignoring the sting of hot wax on her fingers. With her free hand she located and brandished the largest kitchen knife Cookie owned.

Returning to the back door Rachel searched the floor for signs of blood loss, or footprints in the dust. Was it a vagrant? Or one of Boss Wilson's goons looking for...for what? They would hardly come here for medical attention. How could she not have heard someone entering? But then the door hadn't been busted down. The screws on the handle had been removed. Such entry would have been undetectable to someone not standing in the kitchen itself.

Her trip to the roof and the hour she spent reading. That would have been the perfect time.

Rachel's heart was pattering hard in her chest, the blade of the knife wavered with her pulse, she was breathing too heavily to think about stealth. Building up her courage she burst through the kitchen door into the restaurant, not even flinching when it banged loudly against the far wall. She didn't care who she woke now.

As she reached up a hand to light a second candelabra she felt something tug at her skin. She hadn't even noticed the building shell of wax at the base of the candle. It was probably the only thing preventing her from dropping it. She moved forward, leading with the blade of the knife, checking every corner.

What if the intruder didn't actually come this far? What if they only wanted something in the kitchen, then left? Could she possibly have missed someone coming up the stairs? Passing her bedroom?

She had reached the stairs, every candelabra in the room lit and burning brightly, before she noticed the beginning of a blood trail. Small droplets, leading up the stairs. The calm she had started to feel threatened to retreat and take her logic with it, but she held tight this time.  The blood on the doorknob meant the intruder was wounded.  But there had been none on the floor of the kitchen...had they found a towel or something to stop the blood flow? Perhaps, but not the rubbing alcohol. That had been in place and untouched, she remembered that distinctly.

So whoever it was didn't feel safe yet, at least not safe enough to stop and treat the wound. They made it through the kitchen and to the stairs before the blood started to drop again. It was a bad wound.  Or a fresh one. All the images in Auerbach's book came flooding into her mind's eye and she started up the stairs, the knife ready.

At the point where the wall fell away from the stairs and opened into the hallway, there was a bloody handprint. She had been walking without light but how could she have possibly missed it the first time? The palm was bigger than her own. A very large woman, or a man.

Her fear spiked. Cookie's hands were bigger than her own. She felt suddenly stupid, desperate and remorseful. Was she wasting time while Cookie died? She was rushing toward the older woman's room when the door swung open and Cookie, pulling on a robe, stepped into the hallway.

"What in heaven's na-"

"SHHHhh!" Rachel hissed, her knife hand flapping urgently. "Someone's here...someone bleeding."

Cookie tied the sash at her waist, her eyes focused on the knife blade. "Did you stab them?"

Rachel grunted in frustration shaking her head. She got in front of Cookie before the older woman could protest and continued down the hall. The lantern in Micah's room was still burning, the light glowing from beneath the door jam. Rachel checked just in case. The steady drip of blood didn't deviate from its path towards the stairs and Micah was still sleeping soundly.

"Rachel.."

"Shh...Cookie. Someone broke in. You see the blood? Someone is hiding upstairs."

Cookie's eyes finally widened with understanding and she reached around the dripping candle to grab hold of the knife. "Alright. Let's do this together then. Go up behind me."

Rachel released her white knuckled grip and nodded, swallowing air like a fish out of water. Cookie took the stairs slow and easy and Rachel followed behind. At the landing there was no way to deny the signs. Someone was injured, bleeding heavily, and not likely to last very long.

The first door on the left was dark and open. The blood trail widened and curved into the room. Cookie stopped and stepped to one side just outside the room, while Rachel stepped to the other. Their eyes met, then both shrieked at the sound of a voice.

"You both are the loudest whisperer's I've ever heard."

Rachel nearly set her hair on fire whipping the candle around and pointing it into the room as if it were a flashlight. The light glinted off a pair of eyes before the wick bent toward the collecting wax and the flame dimmed. Rachel righted the candle stepping into the room, keeping up with Cookie who was edging toward the corner the voice had come from.

She saw his boots first. Boots she had never actually seen before and yet she recognised them from Boss Wilson's description.

Halfway up his pant leg the blood soaked through the fabric and dust. Most of his shirt was soaked too and his hand and arm were slick with it. He smelled horribly and not just of blood, but of urine and filth as well. He was pale, quaking as he sat there, but when she finally met his eyes she didn't see fear.

She couldn't describe what she did see, but whatever it was it changed everything.

"You were shot?" She asked, avoiding stepping in the blood pooling around him.

"Stabbed...la-laceration." It was paining him even to speak, and she could hear the quaking in his voice.

Cookie reached forward with the tip of her knife, setting it against the stranger's chest before she ventured toward him with the other hand, moving cloth from the wound. Rachel recognized it as one of her kitchen towels. What she saw underneath explained why he hadn't stopped for the ethanol. Alcohol wouldn't have done much for him.

He was burning hot, sweating, going into shock. He should have been dead. Parts of him were being pushed past the abdominal wall and into the open air. Cookie was shaking her head even as she recovered the wound. The three of them in that silence knew that there was nothing that could be done to save him.

But something in her welled to the top. It brought with it tears, and the taste of bile, and the pain of a growing ulcer in her belly. She gasped and threw a hand over her mouth to stop the sickness, swallowed hard and grabbed Cookie's wrist.

To her startled reaction Rachel said, "He's Micah's father, Cookie."

The stranger grunted in surprise and Cookie stared at Rachel open mouthed and speechless.

"I need him."