Eden's Promise Read Free

overnight. John Rayburn and Marcus Wayne joined them most nights, hoping for a sign of their sons.
    Eden wanted to throw up every time she thought of how she could have prevented those young men from leaving, and the other men who’d gone to search for them, leaving families behind. What had happened? What had they found on the other side of the channel?
    A few weeks after the television signal went out, the sound of a motor carried across the water, and the townspeople gathered on the shore despite the cold of the late November day. They’d fallen into routines—some the same as always, others markedly different, with no communication with the outside world—but an arriving boat caused a stir.  
    Damien moved to the head of the crowd, watching the boat approach, a rifle braced casually on his hip. Eden moved to stand beside him, tense with the possibility of what he might do. She’d gotten to know him better the past few weeks, since he and her father began working more closely together, and she didn’t entirely trust his judgement. He was more militant than her father, and if he had his way, she feared they’d have martial law. He glanced at her, as if he sensed her intentions, and headed toward the dock. She followed.
    The approaching boat was small, but carried seven people that she could see, including three children. Too many people for a small craft crossing the expanse of water. She scanned their faces. None were familiar, not Candace’s grandchildren or Mary’s son Aaron.
    Not her sister.
    The newcomers powered up to the dock, looking at the sunken boats around them which had yet to be removed. They looked at Damien and his friends, armed and alert. Eden could only imagine their fear.
    “What are you doing here?” Damien asked.
    “We’ve come for shelter. We thought this would be a safe place,” one man said.
    “We’re not taking refugees.”
    “Please, we brought food to share, medicine, whatever we could manage,” one woman said, holding the smallest child against her.
    “We’re not taking refugees,” Damien repeated.
    Eden put her hand on his arm. “Let’s at least hear what they have to offer, and maybe they can tell us what’s going on.”
    Damien looked at her a long minute, then nodded curtly before turning back to them. “Just because I’m letting you off your boat doesn’t mean you’re staying,” he cautioned them.
    The pilot powered the boat to the dock, tied it up and shut off the engine. The resulting silence was deafening. The entire town watched as the seven climbed out of the boat and made their way up the dock, the women putting their bodies between the children and the guns.  
    Veronica Rayburn ran forward and caught one man’s arm. “Have you seen two young boys? Two teen-aged boys, one scrawny and one a farm boy? They left here two weeks ago on a boat. We don’t know—we don’t know what happened to them.”
    The man shook his head, and Eden was close enough to see his eyes were haunted.  
    “No, ma’am, I’m sorry.”
    “Is it bad there?” someone else asked. “What happened?”
    “Let’s get them to town hall and we can hear what they have to say there,” Eden said.  
    Damien sent Patrick, one of his friends, for her father and led the way into town. She helped herd the newcomers toward the building. The rest of the town filed in, oddly silent, anxious to hear news.
    “What happened?” Eden asked the man who had piloted the boat, the apparent leader. “We haven’t had any news since early November. What caused this?”
    He shook his head. “We have no communication, either, so all we know are rumors. But apparently the satellites are out. Some places are without power, but some still have it. The places that do are being overrun by people leaving the cities. There’s no gas, grocery stores are empty, so are drug stores. People are losing their tempers, fighting, turning against each other. Neighborhoods are being overrun, there are home