Page 46 of Night of the Living Manny
Brenden chuckled softly. “You’ll make it up to me at some point.”
“I hope so. I hope I make it up to all of us.”
“You will.” Brenden disappeared back up the stairs.
Liam nodded. He had to. He had no choice. His kids needed him.
“HEY.”Brenden caught Liam at the doorway to the basement stairs. “We’ve got a bit of a problem.”
“What?” Liam was beginning to look like a mad scientist, hair wild and huge bags under his eyes.
“We’ve got propane and food, but we’re running out of generator gas.”
“Already? Damn. Okay. I’ll head into Ouray. Hit all the gas stations I can find.” Liam started making plans in his head.
“I don’t think you should go by yourself.” Brenden thought the cabin was safer than town, even if they hadn’t seen a thing yet up their way.
“I’m not leaving the kids alone,” Liam said firmly.
“I can stay here and you can go with Susanna. Or we can all go.” Brenden wanted to help, but he understood not wanting to leave the kids without one of them.
“We’ll all go. All of us. Together.” Susanna stood at the top of the stairs. “It’s important. I can’t do it alone.”
“Okay.” Liam sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. “Do you mind driving?”
Brenden smiled. “I can totally drive.”
“We’ll fill up every single container we can manage.” They had a good many cans they could take. The generator was just a gas guzzler.
“I’ll get them in the Hummer,” Brenden murmured, his heart racing. His adrenaline levels were insane.
Susanna was already upstairs, mobilizing her siblings, who were damn depressed. An outing might just perk them up. Peter was okay, but Britt was heartbroken. She wanted her friends, her school, her dance class.
Now, Susanna never said anything, but she and her best friend hadn’t even texted. Liam had mandated radio silence, and Susanna was holding to it.
At some point she was going to totally lose her shit.
He wouldn’t blame her at all. Brenden loaded all the gas cans into the Hummer, letting Moose out, leashed, to do his business. Soon they were all in the Hummer, Moose between Britt and Peter. They would get gas, see if there was an open store….
Though he would feel weird not warning people.
“Are we going to tell the people at the store to be careful, Dad?” Peter asked, echoing Brenden’s thoughts.
“I don’t know. Ask me when we’re closer.”
He got that. Depending on the situation, they could cause mass panic if they said the wrong thing.
“Careful about what, Daddy?”
“Let Daddy think, sweetheart.”
“Okay.” Britt began to sing a song to Moose. Most of the words were Moosey-Moose. It was either aggravating or charming as fuck.
Brenden coasted down into town once they got to the main road, conserving both brakes and gas by letting gravity do the work. He wasn’t sure how this was supposed to happen. Hell, he wasn’t sure this was supposed to work at all. He’d been keeping his head down and watching the kids.
They needed books and other things that didn’t need to charge. Badly. The stuff in the back room in the cabin was all from before Liam’s wife had died and totally the wrong age for everyone.
“Is there a library in Ouray, Liam?”
