The No Where Apocalypse (Book 4): Searching No Where Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Opening Words

  Title Page 2

  Fall - 3 full years in, no end in sight - beginning of year 4 Day 1,130

  Day 1,138

  Day 1,141

  Day 1,144

  Day 1,145

  Day 1,145 - continued

  Day 1,145 - continued

  Day 1,145 - continued

  Day 1,145 - continued

  Day 1,146

  Day 1,152

  Day 1,152 - continued

  Day 1,153

  Day 1,153 - continued

  Day 1,154

  Day 1,154 - continued

  Day 1,155

  Day 1,156

  Day 1,156 - continued

  Day 1,157

  Day 1,157 - continued

  Day 1,157 - continued

  Day 1,157 - continued

  Day 1,158

  Day 1,158 - continued

  Day 1,158 - continued

  Day 1,160

  Day 1,161

  Day 1,161 - continued

  Day 1,161 - continued

  Day 1,161 - continued

  Day 1,161 - continued

  Day 1,163

  Day 1,165

  Day 1,166

  Day 1,166 - continued

  Day 1,166 - continued

  Day 1,166 - continued

  Day 1,167

  Day 1,167 - continued

  Day 1,167 - continued

  Day 1,168

  Day 1,168 - continued

  Day 1,169

  Day 1,169 - continued

  Day 1,170

  Day 1,170 - continued

  Day 1,171

  Day 1,171 - continued

  Day 1,172

  Day 1,172 - continued

  Day 1,172 - continued

  Day 1,172 - continued

  Day 1,172 - continued

  Day (or days) Unknown

  Day 1,184

  Day 1,184 - continued

  Day 1,194

  Day 1,194 - continued

  Day 1,194 - continued

  Winter and Spring of the Lost Year

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  About the Author

  SEARCHING NO WHERE

  e a lake

  Copyright © 2016 e a lake

  All rights reserved.

  Exclusive Kindle Edition.

  This is for all of the people who have made this series possible — my readers. Thank you, one and all.

  “No idea is so outlandish that it should not be considered with a searching but at the same time a steady eye.”

  —Winston Churchill

  SEARCHING NO WHERE

  Fall - 3 full years in, no end in sight - beginning of year 4

  Day 1,130

  The stabbing pain in my back made me twist and turn as I searched for the cause. Feeling something just around the right corner of my back, I pulled it out, gasping in pain as I removed the source of my pain. A knife covered with blood…my blood.

  Behind me, I heard my assailant let out a loud cackle at my predicament. I turned and stared at her, the knife grasped tightly in my right hand.

  “Problem, Bob?” she said, giggling as she spoke.

  “You little bitch.” She took off as I lunged toward her. She and I both knew my next move.

  “Oh come on,” she called out as she met me behind the cabin. “It’s just a little foreplay. I know how you like it rough. You get all banged up and I patch you up. Every. Single. Time.”

  Catching up with her, I grabbed a handful of flowing, mid-back length auburn hair, except it was blonder now. That was it. I was done with her and her games.

  Holding the knife in front of her face, I nodded several times. I was serious. She was still giggling, trying to lean in and kiss me on the lips.

  “Today, it ends,” I growled. “Today, I finally get rid of you.”

  But she shook her head, wiping some of the blood that had dripped from my hand onto my forearm. Licking the blood from her fingers, she smiled to show several crimson-colored teeth.

  “You say that every time,” she joked, leaning her head to the left so I’d have a clear shot at her neck. “Go ahead. I know you want to. And I just want to make you happy.”

  I thrust the knife with all of my strength. It should have buried to the hilt in the soft flesh, diving deep into a vital area. Instead, it came to an abrupt stop, not even making a mark on her pale skin. I’d failed…again.

  “You know you can’t hurt me,” she said, taking the knife from me and tossing it aside. “You may want to, but you can’t. You want to blame your whole miserable time here on me, but you can’t, because I haven’t done this to you. And believe it or not, you haven’t even done it to yourself. It just happened.”

  She leaned over and kissed my wound. When she rose, I expected to find her face covered in blood. Instead, it was as clean as ever. “There, all better,” she said, kissing me again. “You were hurt and I fixed you. Just like always.”

  My breathing became shallow and I felt as if I might faint.

  “You look pale,” she cooed. “Come sit down on the bench out front, out of the sun. You work too hard, Bob, do you know that?”

  I sat and exhaled several long, forced breaths. I closed my eyes, but only for a second.

  A hand dropped on my shoulder. “Bob,” a sweet voice called from somewhere far away. “Bob, are you okay?”

  Forcing my eyes open, I looked for the kind feminine soul. She hovered above me, the sun directly behind her head, illuminating the outline of her hair and creating a beautiful golden-white halo that forced me to squint and cover my eyes. I expected someone else, someone I loved, someone I missed. Instead, I found her.

  “Are you okay, Bob?” she repeated. “I heard you murmuring out here and came to check on you.” She moved out of the sun’s angelic rays and I saw her face plainly.

  “Hey, Violet,” I replied, barely able to hide my disappointment.

  No words were spoken as we sat together for a long time. Earlier, I yelled various epithets her way, after which she took my hand and then my arm. Not long after, she laid her head on my shoulder and began to sniffle.

  The past few weeks had been like this. A fight every other day, harsh words at bedtime and meals, and me falling asleep midday, only to be awakened by Violet from a terrible nightmare…or premonition.

  “I know you still blame me,” Violet whispered as we watched Libby push Hope around the yard in an old stroller Grandpa Wilson had found. “I would have done anything to have the Weston’s take me instead of Daisy,” she paused, just like she always did at that part.

  “But they didn’t, Bob. I wish you’d quit hating me for something I tried to stop from happening,” Violet paused and sucked in air deeply. “I know it will still take a while to get over it. I understand. Just let me know when you’re ready to start anew.”

  Yep. Same shit, different day.

  “You mean go find Daisy,” I replied. “I’ll let you know when I’m ready to go find Daisy.”

  I felt her head lift off of my shoulder and knew she was staring at me. Most likely looking hurt, again.

  “If that’s what you want,” she said forcefully, “then that’s what we’ll do. You and me will go find Daisy.”

  I turned to face her, not believing a word she said.

  “You’ll do that?” I asked doubtfully.

  Wiping away a stray tear, she smiled. “I’d do anything for you. You just haven’t figured that out yet.”

&nb
sp; I nodded slightly. “Then we should start planning our trip.”

  She sighed and her face went tense.

  “You know we’re never going to find her, right?” Her sad, young eyes tightened on mine. “We don’t even know where to start.”

  Yeah, that part. I always kept forgetting that minor detail.

  Day 1,138

  We didn’t speak about Daisy for more than a week. I’m not sure why Violet didn’t bring the subject up, but I had my suspicions. Maybe if we didn’t talk about it, she figured, it would go away. Or maybe the discussion about finding Daisy never happened in her mind. But it had.

  My reason for not talking about it was simple: I didn’t want to jinx her generosity. She’d offered to help, and that was good enough for me. Traveling together, we could cover the camps faster.

  It came up again one night at dinner. Violet and I had just sat down to a hearty plate of venison stew. The girls were sound asleep on the couch and I dug into my plate as she offered thanks to whatever God may have been left presiding over our helter-skelter world.

  One advantage Violet held over Daisy was cooking. Lettie had worked hard, I mean real hard, trying to teach Daisy the basics of food preparation. And try as she might, Daisy failed miserably every single time. Everything she served was as tough as a bear’s hide and tasted like the inside of an old boot.

  Violet seemed to come by cooking naturally. She threw things in a pot and decent, consistent meals appeared on the table. Piling whatever ingredients she could find, cookies magically sprang to life. I think I even put on a few pounds in the month after Daisy’s disappearance — abduction.

  “Okay, here’s the way I see it,” Violet said, setting her fork on her half-eaten plate. “This is going to be a tough task. An impossible task, if we’re honest.”

  After shoveling another spoonful of stew in my mouth, I focused my full attention on her. “But we have to try.”

  She looked pissed, but only for a second. Nodding thoughtfully, she pulled her hair away from her face and into a ponytail. “I know you always felt bad about not trying harder to get back to Shelly. And now with Daisy, you have a chance at redemption. But remember, we don’t know where we’re going.”

  “But we’ll try…”

  “Yes, we will try,” she paused looking back at the sleeping angels on the couch. “They’ll have to go by Mr. Wilson and Grandma Lettie while we’re gone. That will be different for them, hard for them. And I know we need to leave soon, but we have to give Libby a chance to digest all of this. She’s only five.”

  I held up two fingers. “We leave in two weeks, agreed?”

  Several deep breaths came and went before she answered. “Two weeks. And we give it a month. Agreed?” She stuck her thin hand in my direction.

  I shook her hand. “Deal.”

  She tugged me a little closer. “And if we don’t find her in that time, we’re done with it. I know you want her back, Bob. But I can’t put my life on hold waiting for a ghost to reappear. Okay?”

  I nodded my agreement and went back to my plate. Violet had plans and she wanted to move forward in life. And her plans included an “us”. That wasn’t at the top of my list of priorities.

  She was a good girl, young woman. But she wasn’t Daisy. She wasn’t Shelly. And even though she was only 10 years my junior (now that I knew her actual age), she and I had no future.

  The easiest way to break that news to Violet was to find Daisy. The rest she’d then figure out on her own. She knew how Daisy and I felt about each other and would graciously bow out upon Daisy’s return.

  Daisy not returning was problematic. Not for Violet. No, she had a plan. But it was a problem for me.

  I’d spent the better part of two weeks trying to figure out what to do with Violet if we couldn’t find Daisy. Most scenarios ended with a great deal of bodily harm to me. Even if I tried to sneak away, I knew Violet would do everything in her power to track me down.

  I had to let her down easy…or I might just die in the process.

  Day 1,141

  “Well, you two are about the dumbest pair of people still alive here in the UP!” Wilson shouted at us a few days later. Apparently, he didn’t think our plan was all that good.

  For a moment, I considered his reaction. Finding Daisy — bad idea. I glanced at Violet as she fetched Wilson a cup of water and some kind of raspberry cake. She thought finding Daisy was a good idea. Wilson no, Violet yes, me yes. Was I missing something?

  We all ate cake and I watched Wilson lick his plate clean. “This one of Lettie’s recipes?” he asked, poking at a few crumbs that had fallen on the table.

  “Sort of,” Violet replied, wiping her mouth with her forearm. “It’s a combo of Lettie’s and Marge’s.” She became serious and tried to garner Wilson’s attention. “Why do think it’s a bad idea going to look for Daisy?”

  Wilson licked his lips and stared longingly at the pan on the stove containing the last slices of cake. Finally, his eyes settled back on Violet. “Another piece of cake and I’ll tell you everything on my mind.” He gave Violet a wink; she grinned and rose. She knew how to get what she wanted from this man, perhaps any man.

  Evening found Violet and I sitting on the front bench swatting mosquitos. The week had been hot and humid. It was simply too hot to sit inside the cabin. Ever since the breeze disappeared a month back, the air inside was stale and sticky.

  The girls were sleeping. How they did that in the heat was beyond me. I had hardly slept an hour a night during this latest hot spell. But since they all slept nude — well, Hope wore some type of crude diaper — they had the advantage.

  Though I would have preferred not to, I had to keep a long-sleeved shirt on when outside at night. You could keep those blood-sucking bastards off of your face and neck easily, but if I left that much open skin for them to drill into, they would’ve bled me dry. Violet wore a light long-sleeved sweater and an airy, flimsy skirt most evenings. And she had to wrap the skirt around her ankles to keep the bugs away. Ah, paradise.

  Wilson’s main objection to our plan, Violet summarized, was that it was just plain stupid. It wasn’t much of an objection, fairly thin actually. But we needed to get past his outright refusal to listen, because his help was essential for our success.

  Wilson held the key. Without his blessing, Violet and I couldn’t even leave. Hell, we couldn’t even consider leaving. He played the most important role in our highly unlikely-to-succeed scenario: he provided the child care.

  “I wish he wouldn’t have kept telling us how stupid we were,” Violet said. The words came out staccato as she batted wildly at our tiny vampire visitors. “My God, don’t these things ever die?!”

  I saw one plumping up on the back of her neck and carefully popped it between two fingers, showing her the bloody result.

  She sprang from the bench. “That’s it, inside.”

  Once back in the cabin, I shed my thin shirt. The heat, coupled with the moisture sitting stagnant in the air, made it almost unbearable.

  “Can you get that back window open any further?” Violet asked, disappearing into the bedroom. I noticed she was already peeling her shirt off. I guess she was as uncomfortable as I was.

  I worked on the sticky window, managing to give us another three inches of potential air circulation. Now if only the breeze would cooperate.

  She reappeared in a thin gauze nightie, one that was threadbare and came down only midway to her navel. She took a spot on the couch and I tried not to stare at her sweat soaked panties. They were, in my defense, on full display. Along with everything else the tiny coverlet failed to hide.

  She stretched and pulled her hair behind her head.

  “God, this stuff is so hot,” she complained, twirling her hair into braids.

  “Maybe you should cut it.” I averted my eyes, afraid she would notice my staring.

  She looked up at me and watched me a moment. Surely my blush crept in before she looked down at her nightshirt. Busted, d
efinitely busted.

  “First of all, I like it long.” I’m sure she only said that because she knew I liked long hair on a woman. “Secondly, you’ve seen me naked; I know you have. You don’t need to be embarrassed if I catch you looking. It’s not a big deal, Robert.”

  That was something new — Robert. In the last few weeks, together and alone, she started calling me by my full given name whenever the discussion turned serious.

  “You had short hair for a while back at the beginning,” I said, noticing her grin. Yeah, I liked to change the subject anytime it got close to anything about us.

  “Mom cut it a couple times that first year. But after that, I wanted to grow it out. It was something I hadn’t done before,” she paused, pulling on her lower lip. Something serious was coming.

  “We’re probably not going to find her, you know,” Violet continued. “It’s probably just going to be you and me from now on.”

  She stared at me, waiting for my slow-to-come response. In my heart, I begged to differ with Violet. I wanted to find Daisy. I needed to find Daisy. But my head sang a different tune. Still, I was set on carrying out my plan.

  Day 1,144

  A few days later, Violet and I packed up the girls to make the trek to Wilson’s place. We left mid-morning, knowing that by the time we got there, unpacked, and got Libby and Hope settled, night would be upon us. Our trip would begin at sunrise the following day.

  It wasn’t really a long trip, something we’d need to pack a lot of equipment and supplies for. This was more of an excursion. And the plan was simple. One day walk to Covington to find out where the Weston’s had taken Daisy, followed by a walk back the next day. Once we knew the “where”, then we’d plan our larger, more involved trip.

  While I loaded the few supplies we’d need for our short jaunt, Violet worked at packing up the girls. Libby broke into immediate tears hearing that we’d be gone for a stint. Too much change, I figured.

  “Please take me with you,” she begged. “I don’t want to stay there. I want to come and help find Momma.”