Steven Konkoly - The Perseid Collapse

“We haven’t hit that yet,” she said. “Let me know if I need to slow down.”

Linda could sense that she was off. Kate saw it in her eyes. Maybe they all knew it. She didn’t think so. Only Linda would be attuned to what transpired after the shootout. Kate had momentarily shut down. At least she hadn’t frozen when it counted most. She pictured the gun draw in her head, and training took over when Linda’s bullet evacuated the kid’s skull. She barely remembered firing at the second kid—had no recollection of hitting him in the face.

“I know it’s .37 miles past the only cemetery on the road,” said Kate.

“We just passed that,” said Samantha.

“There it is, right?” said Linda, slowing the SUV in front of the entrance to an unmarked dirt road.

Kate squinted. “Yep. That’s it. It’s the only road on the left.”

I can’t believe I missed that.

She needed this funk to pass quickly. The group depended on her leadership—or so she had been told. Maybe she wasn’t the best person to make decisions for the group. Stupid thought. She couldn’t exactly put Linda in charge of the compound—but she would certainly put Linda in charge of their security.

Linda turned the car onto Gelder Pond Lane, taking the dirt road at a reasonable speed. Kate glanced back. They had five people jammed into the rear bench, which was two more than capacity. Samantha, who had given up the front seat to let Kate navigate, was crushed under her daughter on the right side, with Linda’s twins compressed on the left. This left Emily stuffed between them in the middle, buried under three of their backpacks.

“You should take Gelder Pond as slow as possible. It’s a private road, and everyone that lives back here is private about their money,” said Kate.

They turned left at the three-way intersection, a quarter of a mile into the thick forest, and headed down the eastern side of Gelder Pond Road, which formed a rough circle around Gelder Pond. The Fletcher compound had been built on the first of twelve planned lots along the road, facing the pond. Facing difficult economic times after the Jakarta Pandemic, the Gelders—one of the oldest families in the area, finally decided to yield on a five-decade-old commitment to do their part to keep the rich city folk out of Limerick. The Fletchers paid the asking price in cash for two of the plots in late 2014, and started clearing a two-and-a-half-acre area within the twenty-two-acre enclave as soon as the winter broke. The Fletcher family compound was fully operational by the end of the year, housing Alex’s parents and their two nephews.

“How far down is it?” asked Samantha.

“Half mile at most. It’s the only driveway on the eastern side of the loop. Impossible to miss.”

“We’ll have to do something about that,” said Linda.

She was definitely putting Linda in charge of security. At least until Alex returned.

“There it is,” she said. “There’s a gate about a hundred feet down the driveway. You can’t see it from the road.”

“Who plows this road in the winter?” asked Linda.

“Homeowners’ association pays the town. You can imagine what we pay to keep the road cleared up to our driveway.”

“You better hope the town gets their shit running again before winter,” said Linda.

“We have a plow for the ATV and riding mower,” said Kate.

Linda cast her a doubtful look.

“And snowmobiles,” added Kate.

Linda guided them onto a gravel driveway carved through the thick pines. Peering into the dense forest, she saw no hint of the clearing one thousand feet due west in the direction of Gelder Pond. The opaque stand of conifers would continue to shield them during the winter months when the leaves fell throughout the region. Tree type had been one of their primary considerations in selecting the plot.

The gate appeared after a slight turn, another purposeful design to keep the casual observer from drawing any conclusions about the driveway from the road.

“We’re here,” Kate announced. “Hopefully they’ll have the hot water working, or you can cool off in the lake. There’s a dock, a little beach, even a rope swing into the water. Whatever you want.”

Nobody said a word. She figured most of them would crash out as soon as they settled into the house. She wished she could do the same, but it wouldn’t be an option. Whatever they had left behind on the street in East Waterboro wasn’t finished. The apple rarely fell far from the tree. There would be little rest.

“I assume the punch code won’t work with the power down,” said Linda, lowering her window at the touch pad in front of the gate.

“Try it,” Kate said.

Linda pressed a few buttons, but the LED screen remained blank.

“No problem. It’s not connected to the auxiliary sources at the house, and power goes out all the time out here,” Kate said, fishing a set of keys out of one of the backpacks in her lap.

She stepped out of the vehicle and fought her way through the scrub on the left side of the black aluminum gate, emerging on the driveway behind the gate, and walked to the other side, locating the manual override box on the back of the gate’s electric sliding motor. She inserted the key and opened the box, which gave her access to a small handle. Kate pulled the handle to disengage the physical connection to the electro-mechanical operator and slid the gate far enough along its track to allow the SUV through. Once the SUV crossed the threshold, she reversed the process, locking the gate. No sense making it easy for an angry posse to drive up to the house.

Gravel crunched underneath the SUV’s tires as they eased left and entered a protracted stretch of shaded driveway. A bright patch of light appeared at the far end of the dark corridor.

“Christ. How far back is the house?” asked Linda.

“About a thousand feet.”

“You gotta be kidding me? How much gold did you buy before the pandemic?”

“A lot.”

“Wait till you see the compound,” said Samantha, uttering her first words since the shooting.

The road brightened as they approached another gate near the edge of the clearing. Through the trees to the right, Kate could see the outline of a gray house and red barn. An occasional shimmer of sparkling light penetrated the tree line toward the back of the clearing. Linda slowed to a stop in front of the gate, and Kate hopped down from the SUV with her keys. She stopped after several steps, craning her head in the direction of a soft rustling sound beyond the gate. She pocketed the keys and eased her pistol out of the holster.

“Kate? You made it!”

A man dressed in jeans and a gray polo shirt emerged from the foliage and stepped onto the road behind the gate. Tim Fletcher slung a scoped M-14 rifle over his shoulder and grabbed a green handheld radio clipped to his belt.

“Amy, they made it! They’re here!” he yelled into the radio, running toward them.

Kate holstered her pistol and hurried to the gate.

“Let me get the gate for you! Holy shit, I can’t tell you how good it is to see you. Now I’m talking like you. See what you’ve done. Oh, God—Amy’s gonna scream when she sees everyone,” he said, fumbling with the key to unlock the gate.

“We tried the satphone and—”

“Alex isn’t with us, Dad,” said Kate.

Tim stopped for a moment and continued without looking up.

“He left to get Ryan out of Boston.”

The gate slid open, and Alex’s father rushed forward to crush Kate with a hug.

“Everyone’s alive. That’s all that matters,” he said, his eyes watery and his voice pitchy. “We thought we lost all of you with the boat. We were going to give it forty-eight hours, and then I was heading to Boston on one of the ATVs.”