The Vines by Shelley Nolden (ebook and pdf reader .TXT) 📕

nerves, she pictured the crowbar stored in the supply closet adjacent to her room, along with gardening tools, seed envelopes, and other critical provisions.

If she had her scalpels with her, she could chuck a few into the gloom. Unfortunately, she’d hidden them with the other half of her supplies in the deserted lighthouse. Tomorrow she would retrieve them and begin perfecting her throw.

Holding the candle at arm’s length, she inched down the hall. Each time the flame illuminated another set of opposing doors, she braced herself for his sudden appearance. The heat, trapped beneath the roof, pressed into her. A skittering sound came from above, and she paused. Too light to be human steps, the intruder must be a rodent in the attic.

Passing her bedroom, she retrieved her key ring from her satchel. With shaking hands, she selected the one for her closet and unlocked the door.

Candlelight flickered against the walls of the now bare room and she gasped in shocked horror.

Closing her eyes, she spun, hoping that when she stopped and looked, everything would be where it belonged. It had to be a trick of her mind after a long day. Dizzy from the motion and heat, she cracked open her eyelids and saw only black. Her flame had gone out. She dug into her pocket for the matchbook. The first match wouldn’t light, nor the second or third. At last, the sulfur sizzled, and the room reappeared, still empty.

All that canned food, the sacks of sugar and flour, the tools, warm clothes, and pots and pans. Half of everything she’d squirreled away. Gone.

Cora screamed, and her rage reverberated throughout the empty space.

Snarling, she smacked her hand against the wall, and darkness returned. Cursing, she used a fifth match to relight her candle.

This couldn’t have been the work of the movers. She’d checked the grooves of her key against all of those on the board in the maintenance building. With 100 percent certainty, she’d been sure she possessed the only one to this room.

Ulrich must have hired a locksmith. Evidently, when he returned, he wanted her to be on her hands and knees, begging like a mutt.

Thinking of Mary and O’Toole, she vowed never again to plead for mercy from that monster; never again to roll over when he wished to slice into her.

Even though her new existence had just gotten much harder, she would not let him break her. After all, she still had the other half of her supplies. The lighthouse! But what if he’d cleared out that stockpile, too?

She lunged toward the hall, and her foot slid forward. Caught beneath her shoe’s tread was an index card, which she grabbed.

Written in his thin, slanted cursive were two words: “Trust me.”

Cora curled her fingers into a fist, crushing the note.

Fall 2007

October

he rubber bow bumped against the rocks as Finn jumped out to secure the raft. Rollie flashed a penlight to help Finn get his bearings. They’d chosen this night for its waning crescent moon—just enough light to see by, but not enough to be seen in their black wetsuits.

“Watch yourself,” Rollie whispered as Finn teetered on a moss-covered slab of granite.

If they woke the herons nesting in the nearby mulberry trees, Cora would be upon them in minutes.

Finn hopped down to the packed sand. The island felt no less foreign than it had the first time he’d beached his kayak.

A thick mist hung in the grove. Despite the neoprene, he felt its bite. This cool damp was nothing like the heavy air that had preceded the deluge six weeks ago.

The memory of those moments, when Lily hadn’t been breathing, still sickened him. During the quarantine that had followed, he’d dwelled on how close he’d come to losing her, and just how shitty Life After Lily would be.

Rollie grabbed Finn’s shoulder to keep his balance, and Finn helped him onto the sand.

“We need to get out of sight and into PPE,” Rollie said as he hoisted one side of the boat. Finn grabbed the other, and they dragged it over the rocks and into the thicket.

After removing two large pouches from the raft, Rollie sprayed a cloud of insect repellent around them and began peeling off his wetsuit.

As Finn quickly stripped down to his Speedo jammers and put on a hazmat suit, it occurred to him that Cora might be watching them. From her perspective, he would look no different from the other Gettlers who’d used her. So easily she could have killed him on the morgue roof. Or any time before then. Hopefully she wouldn’t do so today, either.

He exhaled slowly through the respirator. Last night, Lily had been on edge. To calm her, he’d outlined his dad’s protocol for operating in this hot zone. And for interacting with the most diseased human who’d ever walked the planet.

That was the perfect description to keep in his head as he prepared to meet with Cora. There was something about her vulnerability that he couldn’t shake. Unless Rollie and Kristian cured her, she would never have the chance to experience a relationship or even a one-night stand. If her old-fashioned morals would allow for such a thing. Then again, she’d been around heroin addicts in the early 1960s; she had to know that times had changed.

Regardless, she deserved a chance to live. If they were as close to perfecting her antidote as they claimed, then convincing her to tolerate a few more of their requests might make the difference.

The knotted muscles in his upper back tightened, and he rolled his shoulders. Only once had he spoken to his brother since their altercation on North Brother. Kristian had denied knowing anything about the bats. Irritated and not in the mood to deal with his brother’s attempts to wear Finn down through esoteric, scientific jargon, Finn had hung up on him.

Rollie flicked his penlight at Finn. “Do we need to review the plan?”

“You wait in the lighthouse while I attempt to undo a hundred years of mistrust.”

“You’re new