Page 1 of Forever Frenzy
Seth, who’d been so down lately, burst into the cabin clutching a few sheets of folded paper. His contagious smile always lit up a room. “He wrote us! Finally!” His dark hair bounced with each step.
Ford left Blackwater five years ago, and only occasionally looked back. When he did think of us, he usually wrote a four or five-page letter telling us about his life and asking about ours. “Where is he?” I asked curiously.
Seth’s golden eyes scanned the letter. “Holy shit!”
“Language,” I warned. He was a typical teenage boy, lettingan occasional curse word pop out, but he still needed to be respectful.
The apples of his cheeks turned pink and he ducked his head. “Sorry, Mom. He’s married and his wife, Amy, is expecting their first child.” My heart leaped. How long had it been since he wrote?
“It’s been almost a year since we heard from him. They’re in a settlement called Sandstone, in what used to be called Ohio. It says he trains horses and that Amy is a nurse! He says she might even have to deliver the baby herself.”
Seth’s ecstatic grin was exactly what I needed to see today, even if I knew Ford was lying to him. Ford might be married and Amy might be expecting, but he wasn’t tending animals anymore; he was setting up colonies of former Infected. When the change happened – when Tage saved us all from the dual plagues – some of the Infected were too far gone mentally, and some of the ones who were fine mentally began to physically fall apart. Some were disfigured, horribly so.
As much as I’d like to say that people were kind and understood the hardships of living with these conditions, and had learned a lesson in humanity, some humans were inherently evil. Even after all we’d been through to get to this point, if someone didn’t conform, they were tossed aside. Ford was making it his life’s work to help those who couldn’t help themselves anymore, and thankfully he wasn’t alone. He met Amy along the way, and apparently things were going well with them.
Seth’s smile dropped from his face as he handed the letter to me. “Where’s Dad?”
“He’s not home yet.”
“But it’s almost dark and he left before I did.” It was getting darker by the minute, but Saul knew the woods like the back of his hand and he was just out walking. Saul had been getting headaches recently, and taking a long walk after work to get fresh air was his way of easing the pain and tension. The noise and sawdust bothered him. Walking, on the other hand, calmed him and eased the pain in his head. “He’ll be fine. He knows the way.”
Absently, Seth grabbed a lantern from the window, raising the glass and lighting the wick with a long, thin piece of wood nearthe hearth. “I’ll go meet him.” He eased the glass closed on the oil lamp. When the glowing, yellow light abruptly left the room with a slam of the front door, I clutched my chest.
When his footsteps crunching on the frozen ground faded away, I lit the candles in the windows and around the kitchen. The space was illuminated in no time, and I read the letter Ford wrote four times before Boots hissed from his perch on the rocking chair on the front porch. He did that whenever Saul came anywhere near him. Crunch, crunch. Crunch, crunch. Two sets of boots kicked the porch edge, knocking ice and snow away.
Saul and Seth, both smiling, stepped into the room. “He was worried about me. Can you believe I’m still his favorite?” Saul teased, trying to hug his son, but Seth wasn’t having it. Standing almost six inches taller, he ducked beneath Saul’s arm and then wrenched it behind him, somehow managing to capture Saul in a headlock.
“Say mercy!”
“Mer-cy,” Saul grunted. Seth let him go and the two exchanged fake punches.
Lord, there was far too much testosterone in this house. I smiled at both of them fondly.
“Something smells good,” Saul said, shrugging his coat off and hanging it on the peg beside the door. He toed off his boots and made a beeline for me. His kisses never lost their hunger. That was what I loved most. Seth was sixteen, but Saul still loved me like he did back when I asked him to marry me during my first rotation.
If you asked him if he would do it again, he’d say yes. No hesitation. Despite everything that happened, so would I. I loved him.
Sinking into his kiss, we smiled against each other’s lips when Seth groaned and headed back to his bedroom—a recent addition, courtesy of his father, and one that he helped build. Saul’s cold hands soaked in the warmth from my back, and then sank lower as he pulled me against him and deepened the kiss. The scruff of his jaw burned against my face in the most delicious way.
“Is that rabbit?” he asked, sniffing the air as he pulled away.
“Yep. Got the little guy this morning.”
He grinned appreciatively. “Still the best huntress around.”
“Damn right.” I swatted his behind as he grabbed a rag to lift the lid and peeked into the pot at the boiling stew.
“Snare or bow?” he asked, sniffing the rising steam.
“Bow.”
He replaced the lid and stood up to his full height, the familiar gleam in his eyes. He loved it when I hunted. However, while striding across the worn wooden planks, he lost his balance. Knees buckling, he fell to the floor in a heap.
The thump startled Seth, who somehow made it to Saul just as I did. “Dad? What’s wrong?”
As Saul’s head slumped forward, I tried to hold it up. “Is he having a stroke?” I shrieked. The noise must have startled him out of whatever spell he was under and he looked up at me, confusion wrinkling his face.
“What happened?” he asked. It sounded like his mouth was packed with cotton.
