Work on the next A Warm Place novel continues. I’m nearing the climax right about now. It should definitely be published within the next seven days.
Anyway, here’s the first chapter preview. If you also want to read the second chapter, check it out on my Patreon.
Ideally I’ll be releasing the cover in the next few days, and then the novel itself a few days after that.
“What’s wrong with Megan, and where is she?” I asked, staring down into Delilah’s intensely blue eyes. I tried to force control over myself, but fear was already beginning to flood me. From the worried look in Delilah’s eyes, that fear was threatening to turn into panic.
“We don’t know anything for sure,” Delilah replied quickly, and she must have seen the terror she had cast onto me because she made a visible effort to collect herself and calm down. “She went with a team, away from the town, to track-” she hesitated and looked around, sudden aware of her surroundings, “-something. They’ve been gone too long.”
I relaxed slightly. Okay, so, she wasn’t presently dying or being held hostage.
Well, at least as far as they knew. Missing was almost as bad, though, but I knew Megan. She’d been tough when we had first met, and I’d seen her skills and tenacity sharpen and harden over the months we’d spent together.
Wherever she was, I figured there was a good chance she could handle it.
The fear came back into Delilah’s eyes. “Chris, Pine Lake got hit by one of those storms. One of the really, really bad ones we ran into on the highway.”
“Fuck,” I muttered, the fear coming right back. I hesitated, looked from her to the others, who had gathered in a loose knot nearby, looking uncertain and uncomfortable. My gaze shifted to Lindsay, who was approaching. I nodded quickly to her and she smiled nervously and nodded back. I needed a minute to think and get the details. I looked around, but there wasn’t any obviously good place in the room around us. “Um,” I looked at the others, “grab a seat and get your strength back. We might need to leave again. I have to figure this out. I’ll be back inside in a minute, okay?”
They all looked nervous, but Lara, surprisingly, appeared the calmest, and she seemed to step up and take charge. “We’ll be here, Chris. Go figure it out.”
“Thanks,” I said, then took Delilah’s hand and led her out the front door.
I guess it made enough sense. Although Lara wasn’t the best at dangerous survival situations, she’d no doubt navigated hundreds of socially awkward or uncomfortable or intense moments. The cold hit me as we stepped back outside. I looked around and saw no one in the fading twilight. There was a barrel near the front entrance that was alive with flames, left there for people to step out and catch some air and probably also as a beacon for travelers.
“Okay, Delilah, tell me everything you know,” I said.
She nodded and made another effort to compose herself. “We’ve had a run of really, really shitty luck. It started with a pair of hunting accidents about a month ago. A hunting team was mauled by a pack of wolves. No one died, but three of our best hunters were down for awhile with bad injuries, and two got an infection. A few days later, another hunter fell and broke his leg. The storm came just a few days after that. Since me and Elizabeth and Megan knew what to look for, we managed to warn Lisa, and we managed to get everyone into reinforced buildings and gather up supplies. Unfortunately, the storm was really bad, worse than the last one. It lasted for almost two days and I think it got colder. The people managed to survive, but it killed just about all the animals and all the plants for several miles around the town.”
“Fuck,” I muttered, the implications building in my brain. That would be a good way to kill the whole settlement. “But what about-”
“The hydroponic garden we were setting up around the time you left? It was ruined. The cold killed most of the seeds we had stored and we didn’t get a chance to properly reinforce the hydroponic building. Most of the equipment we’d found or cobbled together broke. They said it got too cold and snapped or cracked. Whatever happened, it’s gone now.”
“And the food stores?” I asked, the fear digging its frigid claws deeper into my guts.
She looked crestfallen. “The building they were in collapsed. We managed to salvage some of it, but a lot of it was lost in the rubble.”
“Holy fucking shit,” I muttered, turning away briefly, staring at the setting sun. Whatever I decided, I knew we had to make at least some more progress towards Pine Lake tonight. I looked back at Delilah. “Then what happened?”
“We spent a few days hunting and foraging, but that was when the full implication of what had happened really sunk in. Megan led a team to check out a big house that someone had seen while out exploring. It was about eight miles away and even out to there the storm had hit. She was searching the house and they came across a dead guy, and he had a map on him, with stuff written on the back. I don’t know all of it, we didn’t have much time to take with all that was happening, but basically it was supposed to lead to a bunker full of supplies. The guy had been on his way to it when he died in his sleep or something, I don’t know. But Megan left about two weeks ago with Melanie and a few others to track it down,” Delilah explained.
“And they never came back?” I asked.
She shook her head. “No. There were more storms, a lot more storms, but more normal ones, after they left, so Lisa thinks that might’ve slowed them down, but she’s...she’s really nervous, Chris. I am too, we all are. It’s really bad. I think she’s really desperate. When I reminded her that you probably would be back sometime soon, she ended up asking me and Lindsay to go here and wait for you, or see if maybe we could find you some other way.”
“How’d she know I was here?” I asked. “Or that I’d been here?”
“Some traders visited a week after you left and mentioned this place and you,” Delilah replied.
That made sense. Jesus fucking Christ, this was bad.
I felt all sorts of awful emotions rolling around in my guts, but mostly I felt guilt, and shame. I’d gone out to fucking ‘find myself’ and Pine Lake had been brought to the brink of extinction while I’d been off fucking around with Hannah and the others.
“Oh, Chris, I missed you so much,” Delilah said suddenly, and hugged me again.
I hugged her back, holding her tightly against me. “I missed you too, Delilah. Fuck, I missed you so much...how’s Elizabeth?” I asked.
“She’s doing okay. There weren’t any big problems or anything. Me and Lindsay have been hanging out with her a lot, especially since Megan left. She misses you too. So much.”
“God, I’ve missed you all a lot. More than I’ve ever missed anyone.”
She pulled back suddenly and looked up at me. “Did you...figure it all out? Are you going to stay with us?” she asked.
The question, the way she asked it, and the look on her face might have been the most vulnerable I had ever seen Delilah, and it threw me off a lot. She was always so confident and sure of herself, it was unreal.
“Yes,” I said, “I figured it out and I’m staying with you. I’m not leaving.”
The relief on her face was like the sun breaking through the clouds. She smiled broadly and kissed me on the mouth, holding me to her again.
“What are we going to do?” she asked as she pulled back once more.
“Um...if I remember right, there’s a house about a mile down the road, right? You can see it from the highway?”
“Uh...yeah. Yes. I remember that. We saw it as we came in.”
“Did it look like anyone was there?”
“No.”
“Okay, good. I want go there. But first, I want to get all the food this place is willing to trade to us. Tell me you brought stuff to trade,” I replied.
She nodded. “Yeah, I did. Lisa loaded Lindsay and I up with stuff to trade for food in case we ran into anyone.” She paused, and then a familiar small smile came onto her face. “Chris, was that four super attractive women I saw following you?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“Are you fucking them-”
“Yes.”
“How-”
“I’ll catch you up to speed later,” I replied. “We have to move now.”
My expression and tone seemed to sober her, bring her back to the moment, and she nodded. It was interesting seeing her like this. When we’d first met, Delilah had been very casual and laid back, and due to the nature of our original arrangement, pretty much happy to let me solve problems and run her life. That had changed slowly over the months that we’d known each other. She’d found a niche for herself and had settled nicely into it, though from what I’d seen, she’d largely seemed to switch to letting Lindsay make bigger decisions for them. Or me, depending on what was up. Now it seemed like she was the one stepping up.
We got back inside and I quickly scanned the interior of the inn’s main room. I saw my people sitting around the largest table off in one corner, talking quietly to each other. I saw Brandy, the woman with the facial scar I’d first hooked up with on my way out of Pine Lake, behind the bar, looking at me surreptitiously, no doubt curious about what the hell was going on. Two others were deeper in the room, also behind the bar, talking quietly. I vaguely recognized them as being part of the group that ran the place. There was another pair of people sitting at a table, seemingly trying to mind their business. Okay, so, two groups to trade with.
I walked with Delilah over to my group.
“What’s going on?” Hannah asked.
“Things are bad. The town’s in trouble. Right now, what that means is we’ve got another mile to cover and quickly, but before that, we need to trade for as much food as we can. Get all of our extra trading shit out on the table. Delilah, Lindsay, will you go to those other two and see if they have any food they’re willing to trade?” I asked.
“Yeah, we’ll get on it,” Delilah said. Lindsay got up and joined her, heading over to the unfamiliar pair.
I began to turn towards Brandy, prepared to ask for whatever food she was willing to give me, but then hesitated. I turned back. “Everyone, I’m really sorry to be short like this and just dump this all in your lap, but it’s an emergency. I’ll bring you up to speed once we’re at the house.”
“It’s okay, Chris,” Jessica said, “we get it. Go do what needs doing.”
I looked around and the expressions on Susan, Lara, and Hannah’s faces told me they seemed in agreement.
“Thank you,” I replied, and headed off to the counter.
That was one thing off my mind, at least. This situation was stressful enough as it was. Like the fact that I was going to have to ask Brandy for help. I genuinely didn’t know how it would go, or, fuck, if she even remembered me. I didn’t get the impression that she was a jerk from our brief time together, but I did get the impression that she was a hardass and might think I was trying to fuck her over with a sob story that I thought she was more likely to believe just because we’d fucked. That tended to piss people off.
“Brandy,” I said as I approached. “Uh…” I thought about how best to approach this, felt the press of time, and decided fuck it. “You remember me, right?”
She stared at me with a mostly flat expression for a few seconds, then grinned. “Yeah, Chris. I remember. After that night, I’m not going to forget you anytime soon.”
Well, off to a good start, at least. “Same, honestly,” I replied. “Uh, I need to trade. For food.”
“What’s going on, exactly?” she asked. I hesitated further because my thoughts were starting to get jammed up in my head. “Just tell it to me straight,” she added.
“The town I’m from got hit by a brutal storm that wiped out our food stores and killed off almost all the plants and animals. We’re fucked for food, I’m just finding out right now, and I have to grab as much food as I can and get back there pronto.”
“Shit, I remember that storm,” she replied. “Although I don’t think we got the worst of it. It wasn’t that bad out here. But yes, Chris, I’ll help you out. We’ve got some food to trade. Lemme bring it over to your table and we can figure it out.”
“Thank you, Brandy,” I replied. “I really appreciate it. Literally everything you’d be willing to spare.”
She nodded and went to talk with the others.
I rejoined my group and then took off my pack and started pulling out all the extra stuff I’d been gathering over the past few months that had potential trade value. Mostly it was jewelry, whatever was leftover of the weed, booze, and cigarettes I’d managed to come across, as well as that bottle of pain meds I’d found way back when I’d first moved in with Lara and Susan. Susan had talked up taking them, but she’d only had a few, and as much as I wanted to hang onto them, I knew they were powerful trading items.
By the time Brandy came over with two others, each carrying a plastic bin full of food, the table was scattered with an assortment of odds and ends. Rings and old batteries and cash (some people still valued it), drugs and office supplies and some paperback novels. We only haggled for a few minutes, and it went like how I hoped it would.
Brandy and her people took everything off the table. At first glance it might seem like a lot, but if this was a real negotiation, I knew she’d be holding out for something bigger and better, like guns and ammo. Or medical supplies. Fire-starting materials. Rare stuff. That she didn’t meant she really was giving us a good deal, especially given the amount of food she was offering. Between the bins, there were almost thirty assorted cans of food, a dozen jars full of pickles and peppers and seasonings and other foodstuffs, and probably about fifty pounds of meat either wrapped in wax paper or sealed in plastic containers.
It was a pain in the ass, but we managed to get it all stuffed away into our backpacks, as well as Lindsay’s and Delilah’s packs, when they came back. They reported that they managed to do some trading, but the two travelers just didn’t have as much to work with, so we put the leftover food into their backpacks.
“All right, is there anything else that needs doing here that anyone can think of?” I asked as I got my now overstuffed pack onto my back. No one had an answer for me and after a moment of consideration, I couldn’t think of anything else. The daylight was fading fast. Even as it was, I doubted we’d actually make it there before dark, but we had to try. Another mile traveled today probably meant we could make it back to Pine Lake by tomorrow night. “Okay, head outside and wait for me by the fire barrel. I’ll be out in a minute.”
They all nodded and headed outside. I moved over to Brandy. “Thank you, seriously. And I’m really sorry I can’t spend the night. Last time you said-” I hesitated, and couldn’t help but grin, “...well, I’m sure you remember.”
“Oh yeah, I remember,” Brandy replied with a grin of her own. “I remember everything about that night, Chris. You’re not as sorry as I am that you aren’t sticking around. And I don’t mind helping you. Listen, if I come across any traders, I’ll send them your way and tell them you need food. And the hunting isn’t too bad around here, from what we’ve experienced. We can’t feed a whole town, but I wouldn’t be against you sending some people up here and using this place to sleep for a hunting expedition, and also for trade, as we always try to keep a lot more than we need, as you can tell from the trade.”
“Thank you for the offer, I’ll definitely mention it to my people.”
I started to turn away but Brandy reached out across the bar and gripped my wrist. “Hey, not so fast. Give me a kiss before you go, I want something before you wander off with half a dozen attractive women.”
I laughed awkwardly, looking back at her. God, she was so wicked hot. When we’d slept together, I could tell that, although she tried to hide it, she was somewhat self-conscious about the big, obvious scar she had down one cheek, but I’d done my best to convince her I thought it looked good. And I did. She was one of the most uniquely attractive women I’d seen in a long time. I leaned across the bar and she grabbed my coat, pulled me closer, and kissed me on the lips for a long, wonderful moment. Then she let go of me.
“Come back sometime,” she said.
“I will,” I promised.
And then I headed back out into the cold, back to my life and my now desperate responsibilities.
