“Show me.”
Katrina hands me a map of the city—one that shows the lines of latitude and longitude on it—and writes down the simple equation she and her brothers had used in the past, and I shove it into my backpack.
“I’ll put it in that same desk where the notebook usually is,” she tells me.
“Won’t you need the map back?”
“I have another one back at the house,” she says.
“Perfect.”
“We need to move,” Christine says again.
I make sure Hannah’s all right on the back of the bike before I climb onto the seat. Marco and Sam gather up everything and start heading straight to their camp, leaving signs along the way.
Katrina and Christine are taking a long route to the house, backtracking a couple of times to hide their trail.
“Be careful,” I tell them. “Don’t take any chances.”
“We’ll be good,” Christine says.
I nod and place my foot on the pedal to get going.
“Falk?”
I look back to Christine, and she stares at me with narrowed, serious eyes.
“You raise that fucking baby like it’s yours.”
I clench my jaw. It’s not something I’m prepared to think about, but I understand her meaning. Hannah will need me now more than she ever has, and I’ll have to do anything and everything to help her, regardless of how I may actually feel.
“Yeah,” I finally say with a nod. “I will.”
“You better.”
*****
The bicycle and cart work wonderfully. My legs are killing me by the time I reach my destination, and I’m sure I never would have made it if I had to have carried her the whole time. I ditch the bike and the cart between a collapsed house and detached garage, help Hannah to her feet, and then carry her behind the house and into a small wooded area near a man-made lake. I’ve only been to this shelter once, but I find it again without too much trouble.
This shelter is far larger and more sophisticated than the one I had claimed as my own early on. It has been designed for nuclear fallout. The hatch drops down to a sloping ramp that ends with an airlock. There are four small rooms inside: a main living area with a food preparation center, a table and two chairs, a bedroom, a storage room, and a generator room. Off the main room there is a small shower, a decent-size washbasin on the floor, and a toilet.
I seat Hannah on a chair before going around and turning on some battery-powered lamps. There are some supplies in the storage area but not a lot. I think the shelter was never completely finished. There’s no fuel for the generator even if it would start up, which it likely would not. There’s some food and a few bottles of water as well as some toiletry items and extra batteries for the lamps.
Hannah hasn’t moved from the spot where I put her. She doesn’t even look around the room. I have no fucking idea what I’m supposed to do. She’s completely shut down. I’ve dealt with several guys in similar states but only long enough to get them some actual help. I’m not a therapist.
Start with the basics.
I get her to drink a little water, but she doesn’t respond to anything I say to her.
She doesn’t even look like herself, and it’s not just because of the pregnancy. I don’t know where the dress she is wearing came from, but I don’t think it’s something she ever would have picked out for herself. There are bruises on her arms and her cheekbone. She’s smudged with dirt, and her hair is greasy and unkempt.
Hannah has always been very neat and orderly. She likes her clothes comfortable and her hair clean and soft.
I have some of her clothes back in the other bomb shelter, but they don’t do me any good here, and they wouldn’t fit her now anyway. Digging through my own things, I find a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt.
She doesn’t look at me as I pull the dress off of her, but she does start to shake. It’s just a little but still noticeable. I speak to her quietly, reminding her that it’s me and that I’m not going to hurt her, but I don’t think she comprehends my words. When I finally get the dress over her head, I gasp at the sight of her body.
She has no undergarments at all, and though I’ve seen her body before, I hardly recognize it. It’s not just her stomach though I have to swallow hard to force myself to look at the bulge and what it represents. I’m reminded of jokes about women swallowing basketballs. That’s exactly what it looks like, and I wonder how far along she is or if she even knows.