Page 62 of A Wilderness Within

South Carolina, three months later

“How much farther?” Caroline asked. Lincoln turned their car up the wooded dirt road toward a distant cabin by a shimmering lake.

“It’s over there.” Lincoln nodded at a small log cabin, his heart hammering. Ellie sat in the back seat in her car seat, making small random chirping noises that made him laugh most of the drive to his parents’ cabin. Now he was too nervous to think beyond what lay in that cabin.

“Stay in the car. Kirby and I will take a look around. Odds are…” His voice roughened suddenly.

Caroline reached over and covered his hand where he rested it on one of his thighs.

“We know the odds,” she said. “But a little faith doesn’t hurt, either.” Her lips curved in a hopeful smile. How could he not have faith when he looked at her? In the last three months, Caroline had helped get the power back on around Georgia, and now they were looking toward the surrounding states. Lincoln had organized an effective security force, making Julian, Miles, and Jason team leaders. They had kept her people safe from any dangers still lurking out there, but there were fewer and fewer crazed bandits every day it seemed. Many tried to come in from the cold, so to speak, hoping to make amends.

They’d found another ten thousand people in the last couple of months, and all were now connected on the CB radio system until the cellular network could get back up and running. Caroline and the others sent out daily broadcasts, bringing together news to connect survivors, create supply depot stations, and a way to gather information about those who were ready to join society again. Caroline had the only radio that could reach the entire United States on the emergency channel, the one that Lincoln had carried out of the bunker from Adam’s last moments alive. But Holt and the others had worked extensively to get the CB radio system up despite the limitations of the range. So far, the plan was working.

It was a start. A good one.

“Go on, we’ll wait here.” She nudged him, and he slowly climbed out of the car, the Irish setter quickly following him out. The dog kept sniffing the air and clung to his side as they walked the last fifty feet.

The oak trees around the cabin had grown taller and thicker since he’d last been there. How long had it been? Lincoln couldn’t remember, maybe when he was twelve? The lake just beyond was small but always well stocked with fish, and a person could survive here for a long time if they had to.

Lincoln reached the front steps of the cabin and looked up toward the open screen door. A woman stood there, staring at him with wide, tearful eyes.

“Mom?”

“Oh my God. Lincoln! Harry, Lincoln’s here!”

Lincoln winced when she said his father’s name, but she shoved the screen door open and rushed into his arms. He caught his mother, her body still slender and delicate. Once a dancer, always a dancer. Her gray hair was cropped short, and she still smelled of lavender. The scent brought back a wave of memories, good memories, ones he’d sometimes thought he didn’t actually have. Then she pulled back and looked up at him, smoothing her hands over his chest and then touching his face tenderly, her lips quivering.

“I knew you’d be alive,” she whispered. “I knew it.”

A shadow darkened the doorway of the cabin, and Lincoln looked past his mother to see his father. His old man was now indeed old, his hair completely silver and his eyes softer than Lincoln remembered them being.

“Sir,” he said stiffly.

His father looked from him to the dog wagging his tail beside him. “So you finally got a dog, huh?” There was a twitch to his lips that made Lincoln think the old man was on the verge of smiling.

“Yeah…and a wife and a kid.” He nodded toward the SUV at the edge of the clearing.

His mother almost shrieked. “What? Don’t make them stay in the car! Get them inside! I want to meet them!” His mother rushed back into the house, muttering frantically about guests, where her tea bags were, and for Harry to get the coffee brewing. Lincoln stood there on the porch, the scent of the woods and the lake wrapping around him as he stared at his father and his father stared back at him.

“I…” his father started. “I’m glad you’re here, son. We’ve been worried sick, gave up hope, really.” He leveled his gaze at Lincoln. His chest ached as he stared at the man he’d hated for so many years. “The world ending makes a man realize how many mistakes he made, you know?” Harry said quietly. “How many times I let you down, hurt you. I…” Harry cleared his throat and looked away. Lincoln did too. He could barely breathe, so he turned to wave Caroline inside. She was already halfway out of the car, carrying Ellie in her arms.

“Mr. Atwood?” Caroline greeted him, all smiles as she stepped onto the porch. “It’s so nice to meet you. I’m Caroline.”

For a second Harry just stared at her, and then he looked between her and Lincoln. “You’re not…not Caroline Kelly from the radio?” His voice deepened as he struggled to contain himself.

“I guess I am.” She blushed a little. Lincoln knew she’d never get completely comfortable with people recognizing her.

“Son, you marriedher?” Harry asked, mystified.

“I did,” Lincoln said. They had stood in a small church in Georgia last month with a pastor, who’d married them. It had been one of a long list of best days of his life since he’d found Caroline all those months ago.

Harry stepped aside, and Lincoln led Caroline inside. “Glad to see you have your mother’s good sense.” Ellie fussed a little in her arms, and Lincoln reached for her, giving Caroline a break. When his mother came back into the living room with a tea tray, she nearly dropped the tray on the coffee table before she rushed over to coo at the baby and demand to hold her. She bustled Caroline off to the kitchen, leaving him and his father alone again. Just what he didn’t want.

Harry shifted restlessly as he sat down on the couch. “So…you’ve been busy.” His father might have asked him how he wanted to take his tea, the question was so mundanely spoken, yet Lincoln knew what his father was asking. How the hell had he survived?

“We’veallbeen busy. I found Caroline, and we…well…” He wasn’t used to talking this much, not to anyone but Caroline, and certainly not about what he was doing. “We’ve found so many survivors. Most of them were able to get to Atlanta, but we’ve got nearly forty states with listed survivors who have reached out. We’re getting the power up and running, and we have a vaccine.” He patted his pocket and pulled out a vial from the stash Erica had given him before they’d left Atlanta, plus a couple of syringes. He and Caroline had been working their way through the small towns on their way here, providing the combination cure and vaccine to anyone they encountered in order to prevent a secondary outbreak.

“This is for you and Mom. It works.” He didn’t tell his father about how they’d almost lost Ellie, or the pain he’d felt as he realized he was a father watching his child suffering and fighting for her life. Instead, he simply handed over the vial and syringes.

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