Upcoming Book - Nowhere Is Home - Chapter 1

So many have been asking when the second book will be released that I decided to give you all a little teaser. :) So, without further ado - here is the first chapter (still kinda rough!!) of Nowhere Is Home:

Pant… pant… pant… in through the mouth… out through the nose… mouth… nose… as I skirt around the brush growing in the middle of the path my feet falter at the effort. I right myself and continue on at a slightly slower pace. The humidity in the jungle seems to be twice as bad as normal. I can feel my pink tank top sticking to my back as the sweat runs in rivulets down my spine. Even my bright blue running shorts are soaked from the moisture in the air.

I think to myself that rain is probably in the near future as I feel the now familiar tingle in the middle of my back. One of them is watching me again. I would sigh, but I don’t have the breath.

Pulling on the limited reserves I have left, I put even more effort into my run, wanting to make it out of the jungle before whoever it is decides to try and talk to me. The last thing I want is to have any sort of conversation with them right now.

The anger starts to bubble in the pit of my stomach and the hurt tightens my chest again as it does every time I think of what they did. I know that it has been two months and I need to move on and forgive, but my heart still feels betrayed. What happened was forgivable, just not yet.

I can see the edge of town through the thinning jungle and push myself just a little harder. I can hear them following behind me and understand that they want me to know they are there or I would never hear them.

As I burst through the boundary the jungle makes around town I can feel my breath coming out of me in sharp spikes. I slow knowing they will not follow me any further. I’m tempted to turn and look, curious if it is Haki or Kiwi that was in the jungle with me but I don’t want to give them the satisfaction.

 Jogging through this abandoned part of town, I look around at the area. It is amazing that so much has changed while still so much still stays the same.

In this part of town all the houses now have two ‘x’s on the doors. The red ones from the initial search for people trapped. On the uninhabited houses, there are newer black ‘x’s that mean they have been cleared of any usable items. These houses all but disappear in the grass that now waves in the breeze 6 to 7 foot tall. The stock of clothing, canned goods, and personal care items in the store should keep us quite a while, especially since so many survivors have started adapting to the area and using the natural items found here.

Survivors. Never thought I’d say that of my own hometown, but that is what we are doing, surviving.

The closer to the middle of town I can see more and more evidence of the adapting most have embraced. Almost all the houses now have gardens of native vegetable and fruits in the yards close to the street, the largest ones in the homes that are actually occupied and tended on a daily basis.

Many people have moved into the houses closer towards the middle of town. No one lives on the outskirts anymore with the threat of the jungle and the animals that live in it so close. Several people have also moved into the larger homes together just so they don’t have to be alone.

Staying in my own home seemed natural to me since it is out of what is now considered the danger area. Cam has moved in with me, taking over my parent’s room as his own. It was very awkward at first – knowing he was sleeping just across the hall in their room. Now it is just another part of this new life I have gotten used to.

The search teams ended up finding four young kids trapped in their houses and two young teenagers hiding in theirs scared of what was happening. There was a lot of discussion at first as to what needed to happen in regards to the kids. Finally a group of women that had moved into one of the largest houses in the center of town offered to take care of them.

I know at least two of the women left their own kids behind and I often wonder how they cope with the not knowing. A few people in town have not been able to handle the stress. Some of them have barricaded themselves into their homes, refusing to speak to or see anyone. We take turns putting food for them on their porches. So far, the food continues to disappear daily – not sure what we will do if it stops.

Others have walked into the forest and vanished. There was talk of going to look for them, and one group even tried. They didn’t make it very far before they came running back with extraordinary stories to tell about what they had seen. A lot of their stories were very familiar to Cam’s and mine, but most people seem to have already forgotten our stories.  Honestly, that doesn’t hurt my feelings much.

Slowing down to a fast walk as I head into the area of town that most now call Town Square, I look around and smile. It is actually just one of the bigger intersections in what was a residential area before The Move that several have made into a meeting place.

Since there is really no use anymore for the wide streets through town, it really makes sense to repurpose some of the areas. And here they have done just that. They gathered up several fire pits and metal trash cans from the surrounding houses and put them in groups of seating throughout the area. Around the fire pits they have placed a motley collection of seating – there are metal chairs, folding chairs, kitchen and dinning room chairs, and even a few hay bales scattered around. At the edges of the intersection there are piles of lumber to be burned. Most of it has been gathered from the worst of the houses that are beyond livable or the privacy fences and decks that were destroyed.

 Right now, in the light of day, it looks like a slightly organized mess. In the firelight at night though, it looks warm and inviting with people milling in between groups and the light sound waves of conversation and laughter floating on the air. Just about every night you can count on 20-30 survivors gathered here talking about their day.

When the evening gatherings first began it was just a scattered few that didn’t care if they were taken by the lights. They would sit in the dark with no light waiting, only talking a little and about nothing important. The first couple of nights the lights took 5 people from the intersection. The second, they took 3. Then it was an entire week before the lights came back and several more people had joined the original group in the street. That night we lost 9 people to the lights. After that the lights never came back, even so it still took several weeks before the large gatherings started.

I have never joined them. Instead I stand at the edge of the firelight watching and listening from afar. For the most part, I do my best to avoid the majority of those left. The exceptions are Cam, Jennifer, and Tom. Almost everyone has now heard that I had contact with the natives – the natives that no longer come into town. Some have even heard about Kaelyn and Jayvon and that they are living with a different set of natives. From the questions I get thrown at me any time I’m in public, I recognize that no one else knows the entire story except Cam and Jennifer. Tom is just respectful enough to not ask. I appreciate that from him.

Even though I understand why everyone else wants to know the story, I just don’t have it in me yet to rehash the sorrow I felt leaving Kae and Jay in that other village… or the pain and betrayal I felt at what Haki and Kiwi kept from me.

Slowing down even more as I come up to my house, I have to smile. In the last two months, Cam and I have put a lot of work into making this place livable again in between working in the gardens and learning about this new world.

All of the windows now have wooden shutters that actually open and can be closed and locked from the inside. Some we made from scraps of wood found around town, a few were taken from abandoned houses. They give the house a cute patchwork appearance with the different colors they all have. They are much more effective to block out the night than the taped curtains were and the gaps in the boards help ventilate for the fire we use for light every night.

On the roof, we used the techniques we saw in the village where we left Kae and Jay. Using vine found growing everywhere at the edge of the jungle, we strapped together the huge leaves growing in the tree next to my house and in most neighboring yards. Once we had large mats of five to six leaves, we hauled them up to patch the large holes made by the tornado. I want to continue placing the mats until the entire roof is covered just because it makes the house look like it belongs. Cam just frowns at me when I mention it though, so I don’t think it is going to happen soon.

As I walk up to the porch, I can hear hammering from inside. Curious what Cam is up to now – I forgo my normal cool down stretches and make my way up the steps and into the house.

As I enter the kitchen, I’m shocked again at how normal everything looks. The table still sits in the corner, the refrigerator is still against the wall by the door. Until you start looking closely you would never know anything had happened, then you see the freshly burned candles on the table, the lack of glass in the windows, and the absolute silence from the appliances and it all comes back.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

The pounding from the other room brings me back to why I came into the house. I make my way through the dining room and down the hall.

“Cam?” I can’t think what he would be building now, especially without my help. He knows I don’t want to be dependent on him so we made the to-do list together. I mentally go over the list again and still can’t figure it out.

“In here!” I hear him holler back from the bathroom. Now I’m really confused.

I walk up to the doorway and peak in, “what are you doing in here?” I find him standing on a ladder that is pushed up to a six-inch hole in the ceiling. He is in the process of nailing what looks like a bracket to the wall. Tubing is coiled on the floor and goes up the wall, through the bracket, and into the ceiling through the hole.

Now I am completely confused.

“I was hoping to have this done before you were finished with your run. But since you are here now, you can help.” I just raise my eyebrows. “Trust me, you will love this when it is done.” He gives me a sideways smile.

“OK then, what do you need me to do?”

He crawls down off the ladder and turns to me, “I’m going up on the roof and I’m going to need to pull up some more of this tubing. Make sure I don’t pull too much. I don’t want it to come through that bracket.” I nod my understanding. I’m still confused, but this sounds like an easy enough job.

He leaves the room and I am left by myself. I look around, trying to figure this out but I don’t see anything else different in the room. Eventually I faintly hear Cam yelling through the hole, “OK Rose – get ready.”

Not knowing exactly what to do, I just watch the tubing as it slowly moves up the wall. Well before the coil is even gone it stops again.

After a few minutes I hear Cam again through the ceiling, “Hey! Put the end of the tube in the tub for me and yell if anything changes.”

“OK” I yell back once the end of the tube is ready.

I’m starting to catch on and I’m getting pretty excited. As water starts coming out of the tube, my excitement goes into overdrive. “CAM!! There is water!!” As soon as I yell the water stops and I worry something went wrong. “CAM!” I listen and listen but don’t hear a response.

Just as I’m starting to worry, I hear footsteps behind me. I turn just as Cam comes through the door. “I think something broke. The water stopped.” I turn back to the tub to make sure there was still no water. The disappointment is a rock in my stomach.

I turn back around when I hear Cam laugh under his breath. “WHAT?” I frown at him. I’m starting to wonder what I’ve missed.

“I wasn’t going to waste a bunch of water, so I turned it off to come down here and finish.” He then walks over to the tube and starts snaking it up and over the shower rod. I can’t stop the grin that is spreading across my face.

The leaves Kiwi taught us to use are great - I have even learned how to get my hair mostly clean with one – but not much replaces a nice shower – even if it is a cold one. My confusion comes back when I see him connecting a shutoff valve to the end of the tubing – a shower will be great, but I would like more than just a stream of water on my head. Then I watch Cam as he loosens the showerhead off of the original plumbing and starts to connect it to the valve using duck tape and I start to understand.

“Where did the water come from?” I can’t contain my excitement.

“If you will think about it” he turns and gives me a sarcastic grin, “it does rain here about every afternoon. And even though we catch as much as possible for drinking, the majority of it goes into the ground. Gathering the water is the easy part. I just put a big tarp on the roof to catch the rain. Then I had to figure out how to get it down here.” He gestures to the tubing, “Tom found this in the back room of the lumber yard – but it is all he had, so don’t mention that part to anyone.”

As I watch, he uses the duck tape to attach the entire contraption to the pipe still sticking out of the wall from the original plumbing. It is the most beautiful sight I have seen in a while.

“So, how soon do I get to take a shower?” I say with a huge grin.

He laughs “let me go up and unblock the tube and you will be good to go.”

As he walks out of the room I start looking around for towels and the washing leaves. I find a towel in the cabinet and there is still one washing leaf from this morning on the sink. With that gathered, I run into my room for clean clothes. I find the jeans and t-shirt I set out before going running still on my bed. I grab them up and rush back to the bathroom.

As I’m dash down the hall I see Cam coming from the other end. “OK, you are all set. Just remember, you have a limited supply of water. If you run it out, you are done until it rains again.”

“Oh, yeah. I know… even a few seconds under running water will be wonderful!” A Thought hits me, “wait… maybe you should take the first shower… you worked all of this up and deserve it more than I do.” Hard as that is for me to say, I know it is the truth.

“What? No way. I did this for you.” Shaking his head he moves down the hall, “I know how much you’ve missed your showers.” And with a sideways grin he goes around the corner and into the living room.

So excited I can’t hardly contain myself, I move the rest of the way into the bathroom and close the door. I stand a few seconds just staring at the new shower.  Moving over to the edge of the tub, I tug the shower curtain until there is just enough room for me to step in. That done, I double-check the placement of everything - the towel on the hook beside the tub, my clean clothes on the shelf beside it and the cleaning leaf on the soap trey in the shower.

Everything in place, I walk back over to the edge of the tub one more time. It has been two months since I had a shower and I’m savoring every second of the ritual that I used to rush through and take for granted. Undressing, I slowly step into the tub and pull the shower curtain closed.

Reaching up, I take a hold of the shut-off valve and close my eyes. I have to keep my focus and remember to not use all of the water. As excited as I am, I have to save water for Cam to have a shower too.

Raising my chin and turning my face towards the ceiling, I turn the valve. Cool water rushes over my face in a chilly blast. I let out a little squeal and hurriedly wet down my hair and body. I reach up and turn off the valve while grabbing for the cleaning leaf. I start washing with the leaf, amazed by the amount of suds the leaf creates with the addition of water. Even though I know the leaves clean without water, my body already feels cleaner.

Saving my hair for last, I scrub down my entire body. Then I begin rubbing the leaf through my hair, starting with the roots and making my way down to the ends. Once I have everything suds up good, I do another scrub down using my nails to scour my scalp. It feels better than I even thought it would.

Once I have everything as clean as I am going to and I’ve wiped as many of the bubbles off as I can, I turn the water back on and start rinsing my hair. Watching it disappearing down the drain, I am a little bit disgusted by the nasty brown water coming out of my hair. I was so proud of how clean I thought I was staying, and this is proving me wrong.

Once I have my hair rinsed, I do a super quick rinse on the rest of my body. Turning off the water, I hope I left enough for Cam to have his own shower.

Stepping out of the tub, I am astonished at how amazing I feel. I didn’t notice the foul gritty feeling my hair had gained until now when it is gone. Drying myself off with the towel, I feel like a new woman.

After putting on my clothes, I make my way down the hall to find Cam dozing on the couch.

“Hey, wake up sleepy head!” I nudge his arm and he jerks fully awake.

“Done already? I figured you would be in there a while.” He gives me his oh so sweet smile and it makes me feel even better about not using all the water.

“As great as it felt, I hurried as much as I could… I wanted to leave some water for you.” His eyes immediately light up and it makes my heart feel good.

“You didn’t have to do that!” As he says this he is already rushing to get off the couch and making his way to the bathroom. I laugh to myself as he heads down the hall.

Suddenly, I remember what I am supposed to do this afternoon.  As I move through the dining room I yell down the hall “I’m headed to the store to help Jennifer! Enjoy your shower!”

Cam pokes his head out of the bathroom “What is she doing?”

“We need to inventory all of the fresh veggies and fruits coming in. I’m a little worried a lot of it might go to waste if we don’t figure something out.” I frown. It has been my worry since Kiwi told me about how the plants provide what is needed and if you take too much you will eventually kill them. I haven’t got everyone else in the town convinced yet though and they continue to pick everything in the gardens as it gets ripe.

Cam knows what I’m thinking and gives me a little frown. “It will all work out, Rosie. Try not to worry.”

I just smile back and give him a little wave as I leave the house.

I move down the steps and pause when I get at the bottom. I debate taking the long way to the store so I can check on a few of the bigger gardens. All that work – putting in new gardens, watering, tending, doing everything needed to get them to flourish – is going to go to waste. Unless I can somehow get everyone on board with not picking anything unless they are going to use it right then for a meal.

They all readily agreed when it came straight from Kiwi about the cleaning leaves, but for some reason they don’t listen when it comes from me. I don’t want to loose a bunch of plants before they realize I’m telling the truth.

I know most are worried about the seasons here and weather changes that might be coming in the future, I’m just not willing to talk to Haki or Kiwi about it yet. And so far the weather has stayed a pretty consistent mid 70’s with the only variation being an afternoon rain shower/thunderstorm almost every afternoon.

I sigh and start down the street headed for the gardens. I know Cam would shake his head at me, but I can’t help it.

Along the way I see several people, only a few of which acknowledge my friendly wave. I know I’ve made a lot of people mad with my refusal to talk about what happened. But right now I’m just not ready – and besides, it really isn’t any of their business. What happened then doesn’t affect anything happening now – I just wish they would see that.

As I walk along, I think back to that day. I went inside my house with Cam while Haki walked away after promising to come back. I had no idea what was about to happen with Cam and I was so scared of what he was going to tell me. What he said though, I would never have guessed before the conversation started.

I followed Cam into the living room and stood there waiting to see what he was going to say or do.

“You should probably sit down.” I eyed him warily wondering why he was being nice. He had not been happy with me the last time I had seen him. Something had to have changed drastically for him to change this much.

I walked over and sat on the edge of the couch against the closest arm. Cam sat across from me in the chair he slept in. Was that really only two nights before? So much had changed and happened since then it seemed like it was weeks or even months ago.

“Rose, I have a lot to tell you and I need you to listen to all of it.” He was gazing at the fire pit as he talked, “keep an open mind for me.” He looked up and stared me straight in the eyes. The look on his face told me this is serious so I nodded my head in agreement. Cam had let out a huge sigh as if he wasn’t sure I would agree.

“Look, while you were gone with your friends, some of their fellow villagers came to talk to us – well you precisely. But since you were not here, they talked to me. Evidently, Haki has been waiting and dreaming about you for a long time.” He paused to get my reaction. Since that was something I already knew I just motioned for him to continue. “That doesn’t bother you?!” Again, I just motioned for him to go on with his story. I wasn’t ready to tell mine yet.

He had then proceeded to tell me the story Haki told me, with one huge difference.

“Rose! Hey Rose!” I snap out of my memories with a jolt. I realize I am almost to the first large garden and Tom is walking out of it and towards me waving. I wave back and change my course to meet him.

“What’s up?” I’m still trying to bring my mind back from it’s journey down memory lane, but I don’t want Tom to know that.

“I’m worried what you predicted might be coming true. Some of the plants are starting to look bad.” This brings me back to the here and now with a forceful jerk.

“Oh, don’t tell me that! I was hoping I was wrong, but that is why I took the long way to the store. How bad is it?”

He motions me to follow him, “not too bad yet I don’t think, but I don’t know if it can be reversed or not. If they will stop harvesting the plants now, will that be enough to save them?” As he talks, we make our way into the garden and he is motioning to some of the bigger plants along the way, but I would have noticed them anyway.

One thing about this new world – all the plants are always green. Unless a leaf or a limb falls off of a plant or a tree, you will not see a brown leaf or a dead limb. The leaves on these plants are turning a dark shade of brown at the edges and there are very few that have anything on them to harvest.

I can feel all the good feelings from my shower leaving at a very rapid pace and my shoulders sag. This is what I had feared, but had really hoped I would not see. I shake my head as he continues to point out dying plants.

“What are we going to do now? They just cannot stop the long time habit of picking things when they are ready.” I look around the garden completely helpless. Even if this makes them understand, how many other gardens are starting to die? How much is going to be lost? “Have you looked at any of the other gardens? Are others starting to die or is these the first ones?”

“I’ve only looked at two so far and the other one still looks good. Maybe we will have caught it in time?”

“We can only hope. Would you mind looking at the other large gardens? If some of the smaller ones are starting to turn that isn’t a huge loss – bad but not devastating. The large ones could be a massive problem… I’m going to keep moving and see how things are at the store. I know Jennifer is feeling extremely overwhelmed.” Tom nods as he starts writing down which plants are dying in his notebook he always has on hand. I give him a little smile and wave as I head back down the road.