Isolation (Book 3): Starting Anew Read online

  Starting Anew

  Book Three of Isolation

  By Nathan Jones

  Copyright © 2020 Nathan Jones

  All rights reserved.

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  The events depicted in this novel are fictional. The characters in this story are also fictional, and any resemblance to anyone living or dead is entirely unintentional. While most locations are real some artistic license has been taken in describing them, and some locations are entirely fictional.

  Books by Nathan Jones

  BEST LAID PLANS

  Fuel

  Shortage

  Invasion

  Reclamation

  Determination

  NUCLEAR WINTER

  First Winter

  First Spring

  Chain Breakers

  Going Home

  Fallen City

  MOUNTAIN MAN

  Badlands

  Homecoming

  Homeland

  Mountain War

  Final Stand

  Lone Valley

  ISOLATION

  Shut In

  Going Out

  Starting Anew

  Holding On (upcoming)

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Books by Nathan Jones

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Alternatives

  Ellie was surprised to find herself feeling left out as she watched Gen join Nick a safe distance from the shed, both of them settling down to watch the sky. It had the feel of a daily habit, one they didn't want anyone to intrude on.

  Gen had been Nick's upstairs neighbor in Kansas City, and had volunteered to watch the kids when he needed a babysitter. Her six-year-old son Billy had quickly become close friends with both Ricky and Tallie, further cementing their relationship. Back before the Zolos crisis they'd all even walked together to a nearby park a few times a week so the kids could play.

  Ellie knew both her children were fond of the plump, kindly woman, and Nick had considered her a good friend before she fled north to Stanberry at the beginning of the pandemic to live with Billy's grandparents.

  But judging from the way they were watching the stars come out down by the shed, filling the air with warm murmured conversation, she had a feeling the two had moved on to something deeper than simple friendship.

  Which wasn't exactly easy to see, given Ellie and Nick's recent divorce after almost a decade of marriage.

  To be fair, she supposed her ex-husband felt the same about seeing her with Hal. Still, she hadn't expected to be impacted that deeply by the thought of him finding someone else. It was something she'd accepted would happen eventually once the divorce was finalized, but knowing it in her mind and being emotionally prepared for it were two far different things.

  That made sense, she supposed. They'd been married for a significant part of their lives. They'd had two children together. They'd been a team through thick and thin.

  And now that was over, and they were both moving on and finding new people to share their lives with. She wouldn't change that for anything now that she had Hal, but even so a part of her had a hard time seeing it. Maybe that was vanity, believing that Nick wouldn't be able to move past her and now stung when it seemed like he had.

  If Gen hadn't been such an absolute sweetheart, she might've been tempted to resent the woman.

  Anyway, whatever the couple across the yard was doing Ellie was just enjoying the opportunity to be with her son again, soaking in the joy of hearing his sweet voice. Like Gen, she was seated a safe distance away from Ricky's tent, listening attentively as her son talked about his hardships trying to care for Tallie on his own, then care for himself alone while trapped in his room after his sister got sick.

  It made her feel terrible, thinking of her mostly happy, purpose-filled days with Hal in the Colorado Springs quarantine camp while her children had struggled so much in Kansas City. If she'd been there she could've cared for Ricky while Nick cared for Tallie, and she'd be able to hold him now. She might've even been able to get back in time to take the kids while her ex-husband was in quarantine in his office, and her sweet girl wouldn't have gotten sick at all.

  Or she might've gotten sick along with Tallie, but things wouldn't have turned out so well in Ellie's case. You had to consider the bad possibilities as well as the good when indulging in hindsight.

  Or just not waste time with it at all, when dealing with the present and planning for the future should be her sole focus.

  Speaking of which, Ricky was starting to wind down with his story, looking sleepy. She was tired herself, and she wanted to say goodnight to Hal and make sure everyone was settling down in their new campsite. But on the subject of her boyfriend, she was well aware there were things she and her son needed to talk about concerning that relationship. The sooner the better, so Ricky knew what was going on between her and Hal and what to expect.

  Ellie would need to talk it over with Tallie, too, although the younger girl might need a bit more explanation of a situation she might have trouble understanding. Or less, if she was willing to accept the change with more aplomb.

  As Ricky yawned hugely she spoke in a quiet voice, glancing over at where Nick and Gen lay looking up at the stars. “What do you think of Hal, honey?”

  “He's pretty nice,” he replied, sounding sleepy. “It was fun to play with him and his brothers and sister, even if we couldn't get too close to each other. He reminds me of Mr. Patrick.”

  That was Ricky's soccer coach back home. “Yeah, he likes sports too.”

  Her son hesitated, then said, “It's weird that Todd and Denny and Linny are so much younger than him, isn't it? I mean he's almost as old as you, right?”

  Not quite. Ellie made a rueful face. “His family has gone through some interesting times, including his parents going through a divorce kind of like the one me and your dad went through. His mom got married a lot later, and his brothers and sister have a different dad than him.”

  “Oh.” Ricky's silhouette by his tent shifted around as if looking at her intently. “Linny says you're Hal's girlfriend.”

  Oh boy, just that quickly there it was. Well, no point beating around the bush; she took a deep breath and returned his gaze solemnly. “Yes, I am. We've been through a lot together, and we've become very close to each other.”

  “While you took so long getting home to us?” he said, almost accusingly.

  Ellie winced. She wanted nothing more than to wrap her sweet boy in her arms, insist that it hadn't been like that at all. That she'd done everything in her power to reach them as soon as possible, and he'd been in her thoughts the entire time.

  But she couldn't hold him, not with the threat of Zolos. The best she could do was try to reach him with her words, show her love in her tone and what she said. At least until he was done with his isolation and she could finally hug him tight and never let him go.

  “Yes, we got caught in the camp for a while, which gave us a chance to get to know each other,”
she said gently. “And now that we're here you can get to know him, too.” No response, which was less than she'd hoped for. “I like him a lot, Ricky. I hope you'll like him too.”

  There was an uncomfortably long silence while she waited for some sort of answer. Finally her son spoke up reluctantly. “He's okay, I guess.” He shifted, leaning towards the tent, and she heard the sound of the zipper as he opened the door. “Good night, Mom. Love you.”

  “Love you so much sweetie, good night,” she called back as he crawled inside. She'd sort of hoped for more of a discussion than that, but she supposed there was always tomorrow.

  She started back towards her camp, then paused when she noticed Gen's silhouette waving and making her way towards the house. Nick was on his feet, turned Ellie's way looking at her she thought, and she changed directions to approach the shed from a different angle.

  “Still on for talking to your scavengers in the morning about finding someone to watch Tallie for the 21 days?” she called as she got closer.

  “Yeah sure,” he replied. “I talked it over with them at dinner and they had some ideas. If it's really what you want, we should be able to arrange it.”

  She felt a bit bad about that; unspoken was her ex-husband's obvious sadness about being separated from their daughter. While he was scavenging he wouldn't be able to do his own three weeks of isolation to ensure he wasn't carrying Zolos, which meant he'd be separated from both his children for the foreseeable future.

  Meanwhile, in just a bit over a week she'd be reunited with Ricky, and she was insisting on arrangements to be reunited with Tallie, too. It felt selfish, but at the same time having their daughter go along with Nick's scavenging was needlessly dangerous, which he readily agreed.

  It would be hard for him, but this had to happen.

  “Good, then I'll visit your camp bright and early and we can get going on it,” Ellie said firmly.

  That seemed to be a good breaking point for the conversation, but as she was raising her hand to wave good night her ex-husband cleared his throat. “I hate to say it, but with all of us having to stay so far apart for safety, it's sometimes hard not to overhear things.”

  She bit back a sigh. “You mean the discussion about Hal.”

  “Yeah.” His silhouette shifted awkwardly. “I can talk to Ricky about it too, reinforce that we're not together anymore and both of us going on with our lives means we'll be bringing new people into our lives.”

  “I'd like to take another crack at it first.” Ellie hesitated. “How did he react to you and Gen getting together?”

  Nick jumped slightly, and when he spoke he sounded sheepish. “Oh. Well, we're not really officially together, and I haven't really talked to him about it.”

  She tried not to roll her eyes. “Well, maybe you can focus on that conversation with our son.”

  “Yeah.” He sighed, sounding almost morose. “It's hard to jump into a relationship when I can't get closer than fifteen feet to her. I know things are going that way, but I feel like bringing it up would be hasty since I don't even know how long we'd have to wait before it's safe to be with her.”

  Ellie did some shifting of her own. She could admit that listening to her ex-husband talk about the challenges with his new girlfriend was making her a bit uncomfortable. Something to consider when she was tempted to talk to him about Hal, she supposed.

  “Don't take this the wrong way,” she said gently, “but maybe the woman you recently divorced isn't the most tactful person to go to for relationship advice.”

  There was a brief, very awkward silence. “Right, yeah.” He chuckled ruefully.

  She gave him a conciliatory smile he couldn't see and waved. “Good night, Nick. See you in the morning.”

  “Good night, Ellie. I'm glad you made it here.”

  Ellie made her way back to her new camp, tucked into the same thicket Nick's scavengers were in but farther along, closer to Ricky's tent. Hal was the only one still up, seated by the dying fire on a log that was far too small and had to be uncomfortable.

  She settled down next to him, resting her head on his shoulder. “How's Ricky doing?” he murmured, putting an arm around her waist.

  “Fine.” She hesitated. “I tried to to bring up our relationship, but he might've been too tired to get into it tonight. I'll talk to him again tomorrow.”

  “Sounds good.”

  A comfortable silence settled. “You're okay with sticking around here, right?” she finally asked. “In all the bustle I never really had a chance to get your take on it.”

  “As opposed to sitting around in my apartment with no utilities, afraid to go out and look for supplies?” Her boyfriend chuckled. “To be honest, the fact that your ex is in the business of scavenging and is willing to make us a stockpile of what we need long term is a stroke of good fortune.”

  Ellie made a sour face. Good fortune that came at the expense of her daughter getting sick, although she knew Hal hadn't meant to imply anything of the sort. And he wasn't wrong, either. “Yeah, I think this might be a good place to wait out this pandemic until the world gets back to normal.”

  “Fine with me.” He pulled her a bit closer. “I'm glad we made it to your kids and they're both doing okay. Ricky's great, and Tallie's absolutely adorable.” His tone became playful. “Which is what you'd expect, considering her mom's a complete knockout.”

  “Mmm,” she said, shifting around on the small log and lifting her face as he leaned down to kiss her.

  Just before their lips touched, a sharp voice shouted from one of the tents. “Put a sock in it, lovebirds! Some of us are trying to sleep while you're out there dry humping!”

  Ugh. Leave it to Cara to ruin the mood in her typically outrageous and hyperbolic way, with zero consideration for the young kids within earshot.

  Grimacing at the idea of Hal's mom listening in on them, silently judging everything they said with her dark and bitter worldview, Ellie planted a quick peck on her boyfriend's lips and stood. “We'll have to find some time to ourselves tomorrow,” she whispered as she started for her tent.

  “Absolutely,” he whispered back, sounding equal parts exasperated and disappointed. “Good night, El.”

  ✽✽✽

  Ellie had to say that even though it was dangerous to be around Nick's scavengers, and hard to find excuses to talk to them since the Norsons discouraged them from entering the yard, they all seemed like good people when she visited them bright and early in the morning.

  Not exactly the most cheerful group, although that was perfectly understandable considering they'd lost most or even all of their loved ones. Val Brunswick, one of the latter, seemed the most bowed by grief. Lila Williams had also lost everyone, although her haunted demeanor almost seemed to be as much from trauma as sadness.

  Chet and Ben McCleese, two easygoing brothers in their early twenties, had surviving loved ones in camp. Even so, they had almost a hard edge to their grief, as if they blamed the world for everyone they'd lost.

  Or maybe blamed someone. Ellie had seen people in the Colorado Springs quarantine camp who'd focused their ire on any number of targets, from the government to fate or the universe or whatever deity they believed in, to faceless entities they seemed to think had originally created and spread the deadly virus, even though nobody knew exactly where Zolos had come from.

  In spite of the brothers' lighthearted banter, they reminded her of some of those people.

  Charlie Lyman, on the other hand, just seemed quietly determined. He had a surviving son in the camp, and it was obvious he was living for him and pushing everything else away with that focus. Possibly not healthy for his long term wellbeing, but it was getting him through this disaster.

  A few minutes of chatting wasn't enough to really get everyone's story, but she felt like she knew these people some by the time they got to the business of her visit. And it had to be said that their obvious respect for Nick, and more importantly their affection for Tallie, went a long way towards warm
ing her up to them.

  Especially Val, who was only a few years older than Ellie and seemed the most approachable. And it certainly helped that the lovely, auburn-haired woman had formed a strong attachment to Tallie, even after such a short time.

  Her particularly deep grief, and the fact that she doted on Ellie's daughter, were both probably due to the fact that she'd lost two daughters of her own. It was no surprise she'd latched onto Tallie.

  Although Ellie wondered if the poor woman wasn't a little too attached to her daughter.

  Mostly because with any luck Tallie would soon be going to the quarantine camp to go through her three weeks, so Ellie could finally be reunited with her. She worried that the grieving woman would take that separation hard.

  On a more selfish level, though, the petty side of her couldn't help but feel jealous that Val was able to hold her sweet baby girl when she couldn't. Oddly enough it didn't bother her as much when the teenager, Lila, cuddled Tallie; she almost wondered if it was because the grieving mother seemed to take such deep comfort from it.

  Did that make Ellie a terrible person?

  She shook those considerations aside and focused on the purpose of her visit, asking everyone if they had any friends or family in the quarantine camp southeast of Stanberry who might be willing and able to care for Tallie for so long.

  The brothers seemed like the best prospect there, since their dad Brant and Chet's girlfriend Aimee were survivors recuperating in the camp. If they planned to go through their 21 days, or had already begun but were willing to restart for Tallie's sake, they'd probably make good caretakers.

  Ellie just hoped the hint of bitterness she saw in the two men wasn't present in their loved ones.

  There were a few other options: Charlie's son was getting stronger, and planned to join a few other people going through their 21 days of isolation in about a week. And everyone had friends among the survivors who'd probably do a good job. She just felt like a long-term friend or family member of one of the scavengers would be a far safer choice.

  After all, these people would have her sweet baby girl for three weeks, without her or Nick being able to do more than visit from a distance.