Eden Lost (Eden Rising Trilogy Book 2)

  Eden Lost

  by

  Andrew Cunningham

  Copyright © 2014 Andrew Cunningham

  All Rights Reserved

  Books by Andrew Cunningham

  Wisdom Spring

  All Lies

  Deadly Shore

  Eden Rising Trilogy

  Eden Rising

  Eden Lost

  Eden's Legacy

  Arthur MacArthur series of children's mysteries (as A.R. Cunningham)

  The Mysterious Stranger

  The Ghost Car

  The Creeping Sludge

  The Sky Prisoner

  The Ride of Doom

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you to everyone who helped in some way in the creation of this book: Charlotte and Alma for your constant support, your reading of the manuscript, and suggestions to make it better; Chris and Ashlee for correcting my misguided Marine-speak, getting the weapons to shoot correctly, and a few other items. Any errors are my own (hey, sometimes I just don’t pay attention); to Ms. Gager, my 8th-grade English teacher at Elvira Castro Junior High School, in San Jose, CA, who gave me an A- on my short story, with the words “Good dialogue.” Whether it was true, or you just knew how important it was to me (considering I was bugging you every day) and were being supportive, it had a major impact on my decision to someday become a writer. And lastly, thank you to Camden, who continues to show me just how capable, intuitive, and intelligent a six-year-old can be. You were the inspiration for Katie’s self-sufficiency.

  To Charlotte … forever

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  An excerpt from Eden’s Legacy, Part 3 in the Eden Rising Trilogy

  Prologue

  Seven years ago the world died.

  I often think about who we were before the catastrophe. I was seventeen, and Lila was a year younger. In so many ways we were both behind others our age in maturity. But then I wonder about that. Were we really? Because somehow we ended up alive when so many other “survivors” of the event couldn’t make it.

  We learned self-preservation in a hurry. We saw some of the worst of humanity and some of the best. Sadly, I think the worst overshadowed the best. But maybe that was what we needed to experience in order to gain the skills and the strength to keep going.

  Our story of overcoming adversity became a rallying cry for some. “The Legend of Ben and Lila” was a source of hope for so many. We became folk heroes up and down the east coast. And then we disappeared. We never wanted the folk hero label. It was thrust upon us by others—the scared, the needy, and those without hope. I often wonder how many of those people made it beyond the first year.

  It was a massive electro-magnetic pulse from a nuclear weapon originating from our own country—from our own (now late) president—that was the cause. So powerful, it wreaked havoc with the human electrical system, killing anyone who wasn’t lucky enough to be far enough underground—or in an industrial freezer, as Lila and I were. All electricity died along with the humans. We have to assume it was a world-wide event, because we’ve never seen a plane, or any indications that other countries fared better than us.

  So Lila and I faded into the background. Our journey away from the death and destruction toward a peaceful life was a hard one. We often had to bring ourselves down to match the lowest level of human consciousness in order to survive. But somehow we did, and we found what we were searching for—a remote cabin on the shores of a beautiful lake in the Great Smoky Mountains. Away from humanity—what was left of it—we could live our life in peace. That’s all we wanted.

  In the months following the great catastrophe, we developed the skills to live off the land, to defend ourselves, and to defend others when necessary. Often it was skill, and sometimes we were just lucky.

  But our luck couldn’t hold out forever….

  Chapter 1

  Something was wrong.

  It was the animals. There was too much activity. They were spooked.

  Ben leaned his crossbow against a tree and looked down at his daughter. Mimicking her father, Katie set her crossbow next to his. Katie was using Ben’s old pistol crossbow, a miniature version of the full-sized model Ben now used. It was still too big for her, and Ben carried it for her most of the time, but she could use it. At six, she had become amazingly accurate with it.

  Katie looked up at the sky through a break in the foliage.

  “Look at the birds, Daddy.”

  “I see them kiddo.” Flocks of them streaked across the sky. Too many. He pointed up the trail. “See the bears?” A mother and a cub. Normally he would try to stay hidden and not tempt fate by letting the mother see them. Not this time. The bears were ignoring them. They had other concerns at the moment. Animals possessed a great awareness of the earth. Could it be that another earthquake was coming?

  The ground hadn’t shaken since the devastating earthquake right after Katie was born. That one changed the landscape forever. No more earthquakes, but the weather was still violent on a regular basis. Ben wasn’t sure that would ever change. The cataclysmic event of seven years earlier—the one that had stripped the world of so much of its population—had also done something to the climate. An accelerated climate change was the opinion of their friend Nick, who had been working as a meteorologist at the time of the event and had warned them of the coming quake when they first met on the trail.

  Whatever the explanation, the violent storms had become a normal part of their life. In fact, Ben and Katie had had to seek shelter just an hour earlier when a fierce storm quickly passed through.

  Three deer burst out of the forest and crossed the trail right in front of them.

  “Something’s making the animals scared, Daddy.”

  Ben was constantly amazed by his daughter’s awareness at her young age. But he knew that it came from spending her whole life surrounded by nature. She knew nothing of the distractions he had grown up with—TV, video games, movies … noise in general. She only knew peace. She lived as one with the animals, the trees, and the lake. She sensed weather patterns and lunar activity. Nobody taught her these things.

  “I smell smoke.”

  Ben smelled it too. His heart sank. A fire. A forest fire. With the violent weather, it was a constant fear they had had to live with. Up until now, they had been spared.

  “We need to get back to the house … quickly!”

  Ben picked up the two crossbows. He didn’t have to worry about Katie. She was fast and was already way ahead of him. She knew her way in the forest. He hoped Lila could smell the smoke back at the cabin. If so, she’d start the preparation, carrying the essentials down to the beach. If not, they’d be there in twenty minutes. He could only hope that the fire wasn’t blowing their way.

/>   As he ran along the narrow trail, branches whipping his face, he thought of everything that needed to be done. They had made a checklist of items—in order of importance—that they needed to get down to the beach in case of a fire. But that was only the first step. The beach was close to the tree line and not totally safe from the heat the fire would generate. Step two was to load the boats. He and Lila had accumulated a few boats over the years, and the goal was to fill them with the important items and row the boats, all connected by rope, out to the center of the lake. If they couldn’t get everything into the boats, at least their things left on the beach had a chance of survival. This would have been a good time to have an outboard motor, but Ben hadn’t found any gas in well over a year.

  Ben arrived to find Lila transporting armloads to the beach. She had seen the black smoke in the distance and had immediately gone to work. Katie was already there, helping to carry some of the smaller items out, and Ralph, her dog and best friend, was running back and forth, barking at the smoke.

  “I saw the smoke and prayed that you and Katie did too,” said Lila.

  Ben detected the fear in her voice.

  “Katie knew before me,” answered Ben. “She sensed it.”

  They worked tirelessly, carrying weapons and ammunition, camping gear, emergency food, the few personal items they had accumulated, and other things on their list down to the beach. Ben also grabbed the antique meat grinder.

  One of their most joyous finds a few years earlier had been a crank meat grinder. They missed burgers, and the grinder allowed them to turn whatever meat they had—venison, bear, and even pork and beef from the occasional pig and cow they ran across—into burgers. One of the few reminders of their old life.

  The fire was getting steadily closer, the pungent smell of smoke becoming stronger. Ben started to load the boats while Lila looked for any items that might not have made the list. They had four boats large enough to carry their possessions. They pushed the kayaks and canoes out into the lake. They wouldn’t float far, but it might be enough keep them from being destroyed.

  Ben could feel the heat and see the flames above the treetops. The boats wouldn’t fit everything, so he dug a hole in the sand, threw the remaining items in, and covered them with the sand.

  “We need to go.”

  Lila had roped the four boats in a line. They pushed the first one out.

  “Take Katie,” said Lila, “and start rowing. I’ll push the others out, then swim to you.” She lifted Katie into the first boat with Ben and gave her a kiss. Up until then, Katie hadn’t shown any signs of fear, but now she could see the flames and hear the roar of the fire.

  “It’s okay, kiddo,” Ben assured her. “We’ll be safe and mom will be here in a minute.”

  Ralph jumped into the second boat where there was a little more room for him.

  Ben started rowing. It was hard work with the other three boats trailing behind. Over the years, though, he had developed a strong upper body. Besides, they didn’t have to go too far out onto the lake; just enough to escape the heat.

  Lila caught up to them and lifted herself into the boat. She stepped over the pile of belongings and sat on the bench next to Katie, in front of Ben, who was still rowing. Finally, they were far enough out and Ben retracted the oars and moved onto the bench next to his family and put his arm around the two of them.

  The fire was massive and seemed to be on all sides of the lake.

  “What about the animals?” asked Katie in a small voice.

  “I’m sure they made it out okay,” said Lila, glancing at Ben, and knowing it was a lie.

  They sat in silence as they watched the flames come closer to, and finally consume their garden—which was at the end of its summer production. Next came the smokehouse, the outhouse, and finally their home of the past six years. It was their Eden, their refuge from all the negativity they had encountered after the event. It was the only home Katie had known. It was where Ben and Lila had reveled in their new found love for each other. There would be no rebuilding it. Even if they could rebuild, it would be years before the post-fire new growth of the forest would support them.

  No, they were going to have to leave their paradise.

  Ben looked over at Lila.

  A single tear rolled down her cheek.

  Chapter 2

  The last three years hadn’t been kind to Lila. Somehow, I was able to skate through our years on the shores of Fontana Lake without any serious injury or sickness. Lila made it through the first three years unscathed, but the last three had been disastrous.

  It began with the miscarriages—two of them. We had decided Katie needed a sibling and were so excited when Lila got pregnant. But then she lost the baby. It devastated us both, but Lila took it particularly hard. When she lost the second one we stopped trying—I wasn’t sure we ever would again.

  Then came the broken ankle. She stepped in a hole that was camouflaged by grass. It was a bad break. I was twenty feet from her and heard the crack. We had books that instructed us on how to set it, but I wasn’t a doctor. There was only so much I could do. I set it as best I could, and eventually Lila healed, but she was left with an ever-so-slight limp—not really noticeable unless she was tired or stressed. But I could see it, and I knew that there was a residual pain that she had to live with on a constant basis, but that she wouldn’t admit to.

  But breaking her ankle paled in comparison to her accident a few months later. It was a freak occurrence. We were in the woods hunting mushrooms. Lila had just picked one from under a tree and was standing up when a deer crashed through the branches and ran off. Maybe it was escaping a predator, or maybe we startled it. All I know is that Lila’s scream will forever be imprinted in my memory. We never knew if it was the deer’s antler that clipped her or if one of the branches speared her and sprang back. She clutched her eye and I knew it was bad. The pain was unbearable, and there was blood streaming down her face. We did everything we could, but in the end, the eye was destroyed. Her right eye—her shooting eye.

  In our new life, our senses were everything. They were a vital part of our survival. To have her senses depleted like that was a terrible blow to Lila.

  And now the fire….

  Ben looked over at Lila, sitting in the boat, watching their cabin burn. She fiddled with her eye-patch, a habit she had picked up. A three-quarter inch scar peeked out from the bottom of the patch. A thin line, it was shaped like a backward comma and almost looked like a teardrop. Seeing that brought Ben back to the days and months following the loss of her eye.

  *****

  Lila had grown into quite a beautiful woman. But losing her eye made her feel like damaged goods. She retreated into herself, not talking for long periods of time. Sex became non-existent between them, as she felt she had lost any desirability. Nothing Ben said could convince her otherwise.

  He made a special trip into one of the surrounding towns to find a black eye-patch—to complement her long raven-colored hair—but it didn’t seem to change her opinion of herself or her outlook.

  Katie could see the difference in her mood, and Ben tried to use that as a way to bring her back. But it didn’t work. Lila was mired in a deep depression and didn’t show any signs of coming out of it. She went about her life without saying much. Ben took over many of the duties of raising Katie. Katie seemed to understand—or maybe she was just too young to know what was happening.

  This went on for over four months. Ben tried his best not to get frustrated with her, but seeing her lost in her own world was hard for him and he found himself snapping at her on an increasingly frequent basis.

  And then things changed. Ben wasn’t sure how or why they changed, but he wasn’t about to question it. Maybe she just got tired of being depressed, and the old Lila was trying to break through. One night Lila rolled over in bed and touched him—tentatively, as if trying to gauge his response. He gently touched her back, and then held her hand. They fell asleep that way. Each night over the ne
xt week he’d feel her getting closer and more trusting, until finally she let him embrace her fully. That was the night she cried—silently at first, then progressing into a long, mournful wail. It lasted forever.

  They made love the next night for the first time in months, and the healing began. Over the next few weeks, Lila started to come out of her shell—slowly at first, and then a little more each day. She began to re-establish her bond with both Ben and Katie. Katie was thrilled to have her mother back and Ben could see the connection between them returning.

  That was a year ago. Lila was almost back to being the strong woman who had supported and loved him for so long. She had finally accepted her impairment, and was even making the most of the eye patch. She styled her hair so that black wisps floated over the patch, giving her a mysterious look. To Ben, she was more beautiful than ever. She never talked much about her depressed period, but that was okay with Ben. It was the past. All he cared about was that he finally had Lila back.

  But now, yet another disaster. How was she going to react?

  *****

  They sat in the boat for hours. Ben would occasionally row them out further when they started to drift too close to shore. Little was said. They were all trying to deal with the loss in their own way.

  Night came, but still they remained on the water. The flames had long since extinguished themselves with little left to burn, but the heat was still uncomfortable and there were small pockets of fire in the stumps. Lila and Katie had fallen asleep in each other’s arms in the bottom of the boat, using the pile of belongings for support. Ben reached over and covered his family with a blanket. And then he allowed himself a cry.

  It was a quiet moment of grief—he didn’t want Lila or Katie to hear him. He cried for the loss of their home, the loss of the forest and its abundant life, and for the unknown of what lay ahead for them.