Who knew if the marks had been there, made by his key trying to find its way in.
And if there were cameras?
He hunched over the compartment as he put the key in and unlocked it. The metal cover popped up.
Jack held the flashlight in his hand as he opened the lid.
He tried to shield what lay below with his body.
The armory. His indulgence to his concerns and fear… and his paranoia.
He sure as hell couldn’t tell where legitimate concern ended and paranoia began.
Everything looked in place. The guns neatly nested in the foam. Boxes of shells on the side. The small, timed explosives. A larger flashlight.
Crazy, he thought, to be traveling with this.
But then he thought, Crazier not to.
Then back to his paranoia: If someone had gotten in here, saw this, what would they think?
Or had they only tried to get in?
Jack shook his head. No way he could answer that one, no possible way.
He turned around.
Sensing someone looking at him. His flashlight made a random pool of light in front of him.
The sound of the insects, cicadas—so rhythmic, so loud—could drown out a lot of sounds. How did they survive here?
No such summer sounds back home. They were long gone.
He took a breath, then went back to the compartment. All the goodies safe and sound. He shut the lid and heard it snap into locked position. He turned off the flashlight and put it in his back pocket
As he walked away, back to the main area of the camp, he pressed the electronic key and heard a chirp as all the SUV’s doors locked.
It was fully dark when he got down to the lake.
20. Night
“What—no marshmallows?”
Jack walked down to Christie and the Blairs. He looked at all the Paterville families gathered by the lakeside. Off to the left, the roaring fire sent glowing embers flying up to a clear night sky. Already, stars could be seen, way more than in the murky skies over Staten Island.
Tom laughed. “Marshmallows. Wouldn’t that be sweet.”
Jack spotted Simon sitting on the sand close to Christie. Too close, he thought.
Digging in the sand. Not playing with the Blair kids. Jack’s antennae went up. Something happen there?
And Kate?
He looked around and spotted her, a dark shape but recognizable to a parent, standing by the fire while some young guys fed the blaze pieces of wood.
“The fire’s nice enough,” Jack said.
Tom came closer, lowered his voice. “You know, we could blow it off. Head back to the cabins. Have a drink?”
“Drink?”
Tom grinned. “Doesn’t taste great but packs a wallop.”
Didn’t sound bad to Jack. He nodded. “Okay. Let me see if Christie and the kids are all okay.”
He went over to Christie.
“Tom and I going to go up to the cabin and talk.”
“Talk?”
Jack leaned close. “He has something to drink.”
As Jack said the words, he thought, How long has it been since I sat quietly, just talked to another guy? Shared a drink?
“You okay with that?”
Christie nodded. “Sure. If it’s drinkable—save me some?”
Jack laughed. “I will.” Back in the day, she liked her glass of white wine. Rare stuff now.
“Yeah,” he said. “I will.”
Jack was about to add, If Simon goes near the fire, keep an eye out.
As if Christie wouldn’t watch him like a hawk.
“All right. See you later.”
He turned back from the shoreline and joined Tom for the walk to the cabins.
Kate looked at the fire. The red glow painted the bodies of those tending the fire, the boys poking it, feeding in piece after piece of wood.
She stood so close to the blaze that the heat felt as if was toasting her face. The streaming flames reflected in the lake; the water so flat like a black mirror.
She caught one of the guys working the fire look right at her—and he smiled.
The same lifeguard, she thought. The same guy she had seen today. Skin all tanned, his hair bleached blond.
The boys where they lived, the boys her age, seemed so stupid, so immature.
This older boy was different.
She smiled back, and then quickly lowered her eyes down to the fire, right into the heart of the burning wooden coals sparking like reddish-yellow jewels.
“Go on. Take a hit of that.”
Jack brought the coffee cup up to his lips, first giving the substance a smell.
Alcohol.
The government hadn’t exactly banned the sale of it, but with anything that could be used for food or fuel, booze became both hard to find and amazingly expensive.
“And it’s okay to drink this?”
“Been having it every night. Under the stars. It’s a beautiful thing.”
Tom extended his cup for a toasting clink. Jack knocked his cup into Tom’s.
“Down the hatch,” he said. The smelclass="underline" gasoline. The taste: well… maybe this was what gasoline tasted like.
“Whoa. Nobody light any matches around us.”
“The cook brews it up. Somehow. The kitchen workers can get you a bottle. Supposedly Ed Lowe doesn’t know about it. Keeping this place all about family fun and stuff.”
Jack took another sip, suddenly less eye-popping than the first.
“I’m guessing… a little bit goes a long way?”
“Got that right.”
Then, quiet. The sound of singing began to echo from the lake below. The bonfire’s glow flickered in and out of the dense trees that shielded the cabins.
Jack turned to Tom. “So, Tom—what do you do?”
He tried to keep the cop-tone out of his voice.
“Do—or did? I used to work at a research center run by NYU in the city. Now I work at one of those government supply centers. Handing out food when we have it. Place is a zoo.”
“What kind of research?”
The question seemed to make Tom hesitate.
“Lots of things. You’ve heard of GM food? Genetically modified? My lab experimented with that a lot. All government funded. Modifying strings of DNA, playing with—oh, I’m just boring you.”
“Not at all.”
Tom didn’t continue.
The sounds rolling up from the lake were undecipherable. Voices, laughs, a squeal. The fire casting a reddish-yellow glow over the water.
“What happened?”
“Hmm?”
“Why did you leave?”
“The government shut the whole thing down. Actually, they cherry-picked a few of the team, brought them to Washington. Think they were disappointed in the rest of us. Like we couldn’t stop what was happening.”
“Then—this was after?”
Tom looked at Jack. “After? You mean after the world went to hell, after the food started disappearing? Yeah. After. But, you know, when the genie is out of the fucking bottle, damn hard to get him back in. Not sure any of us knew what might happen when we started playing with the GM stuff.”
Jack wondered if Tom had something do with what happened. So many theories. Experiments gone wrong. Tinkering with food production.
But already the shared sips of alcohol had lost their zing. Too many questions.
“Now, I just hand out what passes for food these days.” Tom said, closing the door on that part of the conversation.
It was something that Jack would like to get back to.
“And you—what’s your line of work?”
Jack took another sip. Almost done, and he didn’t think he wanted a refill.