Isolation , Jones, Nathan [top 20 books to read TXT] 📗

Jay, we've let our future plans fall by the wayside for too long.” He sighed. “All right, stay at the house. Just be sure to take off your shoes when you go in, or Winn will never let me hear the end of it.”

“We'll take good care of the place,” Nick promised. “I'll set up a rotation for chores . . . when you finally get back it'll be cleaner than when you left.”

“I suppose that settles it, then,” Ellie said. “Until we can join you in the house, we'll do what we can in town. Hal's great at construction, and he can start gathering materials for the new houses.”

“It's kind of miraculous to think about,” Gen said, tone thoughtful. “We've been so fortunate here that all the houses are still occupied by people untouched by Zolos, and we've also got refugees needing homes. Meanwhile over half the houses in the country are vacant.”

That was a sobering thing to think about . . . with all the trouble with Wensbrook Nick hadn't given much thought for a while about just how catastrophic the pandemic had been for the rest of the world.

“Well, unless we want to return to KC and hope the plague has died down there, and our apartments aren't burned down, we'll have to make do with building houses here,” he said.

There were solemn nods all around. “It's nice to be thinking of the future again,” Hal said, taking Ellie's hand. “Crazy as it sounds, I'm looking forward to diving into rebuilding our lives.”

“Three weeks,” Ellie agreed, leaning against her husband; Nick was surprised to find that the sight didn't bother him as much as he might've expected it to. “As long as Jay's really gone, we'll all be together and making a new start in three weeks.”

They spent a little while longer catching up and making plans, and then the group of survivors who'd come with Nick began clumping up to head back to camp, so he and Tallie reluctantly joined them.

It was good to think of the future, but for now he was looking forward to finally getting some decent sleep.

PART TWO

REBUILDING

THREE WEEKS LATER

Chapter Thirteen

Long Awaited Reunion

Nick paused to mop his face with his sleeve, using the opportunity to glance up from his weeding to check the position of the sun.

Just a few hours until their 21 days of isolation was finally done.

He was looking forward to this reunion with the anticipation he usually associated with childhood memories of Christmas mornings, and as an adult more important events like his wedding. That said, it was shaping up to be the oddest reunion he'd ever had.

Normally when you reunited with all your friends and family after a long time, you went to them. But in this case the Norsons' house and yard was finally going to be confirmed Zolos free, so Gen and Billy and his grandparents were all coming home, along with Ellie and Hal and their family.

Combined with pretty much all the scavengers and their loved ones who'd joined Nick in isolation in the house, all in all 26 people would be making the place their home. It had been a busy three weeks getting ready for them, starting with building more permanent shelter for Nick's group and Ellie's family.

And, of course, his current sweaty labor in the massive garden they'd cleared, planted, and were doing their best to nurture. Which was turning out to be a surprisingly challenging task, even though the McCleeses and a few others in their group were experienced farmers who were familiar with the local weather.

Nick would've thought that with plants managing to cover just about every bit of ground on Earth where they could survive, including on top of other plants a lot of the time as they competed for sunlight, giving specific desirable plants the royal treatment would be all that it took to produce a bumper crop.

But apparently it wasn't so easy, especially when they'd planted so late.

Speaking of local weather and planting late, today had to be the hottest day yet this year. Only a few days into summer, and it already had to be in the high 80s. Although with the humidity it felt like a hundred degrees out here, especially when he was working out under the sun.

A small, dirty hand abruptly shoved a clump of green at his face, making him jump. “This is a weed, right Daddy?” Tallie asked.

Nick nodded. “Yep, good job sweetie.”

She made a satisfied noise, tossed the weed away, and squatted to dig at another one with her little trowel.

At first she'd been as big a terror to the garden plants as to the ones they were supposed to be getting rid of as she “helped” with the weeding. But after some patient explaining, and several reminders along the way, she'd finally gotten the hang of the task and had thrown herself into it with her usual enthusiasm.

If watching the little plants poke out of the soil and slowly grow up towards the sun over the last few weeks had been satisfying, seeing his daughter's excitement at the process made it all new again. Sometimes when he was doing other work in the yard or just resting or eating outside, he'd see Tallie make her way over to the garden to talk to the plants, telling them to grow big and strong or just chattering to them about whatever was on her mind, as if they were her pets.

It was absolutely adorable to watch.

“Hey,” he told her, “Mommy and Ricky and Hal and everyone will be here soon. Want to make sure everything's ready for the party?”

She lit up like the sun in excitement. “Okay!” She turned away from the garden as if she'd completely forgotten what she'd been doing and rushed towards their camp, Nick walking quickly to keep up.

“Camp” was a bit of an unfair term, after three weeks of hard work. They'd cleared the wooded lot beside the Norsons' house back a