The Fall

by E S Richards

  As they’d run away from their attackers, Len hadn’t spoken much with Harrison. The prepper seemed to be deep in thought and to an extent, Len was too. He thought a lot about the man he killed, about his arrows curving through the air and landing in his chest. Len had imagined he would feel terrible guilt at what he had done and was surprised when what he felt was almost the complete opposite.

  He wasn’t proud of killing someone, but he was proud that he had stepped up to the plate. That he’d done what he needed to do to survive and to get him one move closer to his son. There had already been so many things that Len couldn’t have imagined himself doing before the collapse that he’d somehow got through. This was just another one of those things. If his options were kill or be killed, Len knew what had to be done.

  Reaching the powerboat, Len nodded to Harrison as he climbed aboard and started checking for fuel and a working engine. Len now moved his focus up and down the shore, watching in both directions as he prayed Harrison could get the boat started. Len knew nothing about boats, so this was yet another scenario where he was forced to just wait and rely on Harrison.

  “Uh oh.”

  “What?” Len spun around to look at Harrison, the man’s words not filling him with much confidence. “What is it?”

  “There is fuel,” Harrison replied, “but not nearly enough to get us where we want to be.”

  Len swore under his breath, frustrated at how his luck kept turning out. “Well how much is there? Where will it get us?”

  “Depends on the wind,” Harrison mused for a second, “and the current. But if we’re lucky we could—”

  Shouts in the distance cut Harrison off and both men turned to look down the shore. Neither could believe their eyes when a large group of gang members appeared, each one of them carrying a weapon.

  “They’re still following us?” Len yelped at the sight of the men, roughly twenty of them giving chase and now sprinting towards the boat where the two of them waited out in the open.

  “Get in,” Harrison said immediately, reaching down and unfastening the rope that held the powerboat in place. “We need to go.”

  Len obediently did as he was told, unfastening his backpack and laying it in the rear of the powerboat. The small relief he felt from the lack of weight did little to calm his nerves as the group started to move ever closer to their boat.

  “Better get that bow ready!” Harrison called to Len from beside the engine, the older man twisting knobs and pressing buttons in order to get the boat started. “They’ll be in range soon enough.”

  Len grit his teeth and exhaled loudly. It was time to fight again and finally he wasn’t afraid of doing so. As the first bullet from the attackers pinged off the side of the powerboat, Len was ready. He strung the bow and fired arrows in quick succession, never pausing when one of them found a home in the flesh of a shaved head. He worked quickly and efficiently and as the boat finally roared to life and started to pull away from the shore, Len sat back on his heels and smiled. They had made it. Slowly but surely, they were going to reach his son.

  Chapter 9

  Amy’s head was pounding, her eyes fuzzy and unfocused as she peered around her. The air was full of dust, smoke and debris, forming clouds of gray in her vision that she struggled to see through. Lifting a hand to her head Amy felt the warmth of blood running down her face. The cut she’d suffered only a day earlier as she ran towards James’ school had re-opened, crimson liquid gushing out from her forehead.

  James! Panic swelled within her. Amy took a sharp intake of breath as she realized she couldn’t see her son anywhere. The room they had stood in had completely given way, the contents of it now lying in a heap on the ground below. The air was not only thick with dirt but also hot and sticky. A fire had caused the country club to fall apart and Amy knew that same fire would be itching to consume the remains. She had to get out of the wreckage. She had to find her son.

  Her throat protested as Amy cried out James’s name, thousands of dust particles scratching at her voice box and making her voice crack and break. It was almost impossible to move around the splintered beams of wood, the fallen furniture, and every other piece of broken rubble. Already Amy couldn’t make out what was what; the fall or the fire had destroyed everything.

  Still she pushed her way through the debris, calling her son’s name and then waiting in silence to listen for any reply. Amy was relieved to not feel any other injuries other than her head, her limbs somehow avoiding injury during the fall. Her head was throbbing though. A painful ache that beat in time with her heart—fast and frantic.

  Pushing aside splintered floorboards Amy heard the unmistakable sound of fire crackling behind her. She had completely lost her sense of direction, blinded by a hazy mix of dust and smoke and with no way of knowing how to escape the ruined building. The fire was now creeping along behind her, demolishing what could have been a possible escape route. There would have to be another way. Amy had witnessed so much already, she wasn’t going to let a country club defeat her.

  With James’s name on her lips, Amy continued to force her way through the rubble, every piece she moved causing more dust to swirl up in the air and obscure her vision. Everything looked the same. Everything was gray and dirty, the walls crumbled and reduced to old brick and mortar, an old-fashioned build that had probably allowed the foundations to deteriorate so easily, but may have been what was keeping the fire from overtaking her.

  Suddenly a flash of color caught Amy’s eye. A glint of blue in the sea of mundane darkness. James had been wearing a blue T-shirt and in an instant Amy was tearing her way towards the color, shouting her son’s name into the distance. Her heart hammered in her chest, causing the thump of her headache to increase as adrenaline began to work its way through her veins, pushing her forward toward her son.

  Amy’s heart sank as she reached the swash of blue, her eyes landing on the corpse in front of her, tears immediately pricking her eyes. Deborah’s body was motionless, not a shred of life remaining in the old woman as her blue shawl fluttered gracefully around her neck. Amy could see where her head had smashed against a brass grandfather clock that lay behind her, her neck still slightly upright against the giant structure. Deborah would’ve died instantly, a tiny saving grace.

  Amy reached down and tugged at the pale blue shawl around the old woman’s neck, pulling it up slightly so it covered her face. She didn’t want to stare into the woman’s dead eyes any longer, the knowledge that minutes ago she had stood beside Amy’s son too real to ignore.

  That meant James should be nearby. He had stood frozen beside Deborah and Charles as the room started to collapse. Charles had, in fact, been between her son and his wife. James had to be nearby.

  With bile threatening to rise in her throat Amy continued pushing forward, trying to move herself in the direction she thought her son would be. She couldn’t believe how close the old couple had been to safety and yet they stopped to try and help save her son.

  Amy thought of Giles and where he would’ve landed. She had turned back to save him upstairs, to try and help him move to safety. She hadn’t noticed him when Amy came to minutes earlier, her mind only focusing on her son. But now that she had seen Deborah, Amy hoped that Giles was okay. He had definitely seemed the most resilient out of all the people upstairs.

  This time she knew she wouldn’t turn back for him. As the temperature around her continued to gradually increase, Amy could tell she was running out of time. Pretty soon the fire was going to completely consume the fallen building—Amy didn’t even know how bad the collapse had been. Was it just the room they’d been in that gave way, or had the entire country club given way around them? With a fire burning viciously just outside of Amy’s vision, she knew it wouldn’t be long before the whole building was taken.

  “James!”

  Amy cried out her son’s name once more, her voice laced with desperation and panic. How much longer would she be able to stay and search before she would become
trapped herself? Would she escape before that happened, or remain in the rubble in an attempt to find her son? She didn’t want to know the answer; she didn’t want the decision to come to that.

  With blood and now tears marking their way through the dirt on her face, Amy continued to push objects aside, tearing a path through the destruction ahead of her. When another flash of blue broke through the gray in her vision, Amy didn’t let herself be too hopeful. She increased her pace, charging towards the color with a single word on her lips as she finally saw who was lying amongst the rubble.

  “James,” Amy sighed as she sank to her knees beside her son, loud sobs shaking her body as she looked down at his small form. His eyes were closed and Amy slowly lowered her head to his chest, listening for the sound of her boy’s heartbeat. More tears fell as Amy noticed the signs of life within her son; his chest slowly moved up and down and there was a faint puff of air as he exhaled.

  Her joy was impossible to contain as Amy hugged the still-unconscious form of her son, whispering a silent prayer into the top of his head. Patting him lightly on the cheek, Amy began to try and wake her son, shaking him with her other hand as she did so.

  She was nervous about moving him; afraid of how badly he may have been hurt in the fall. Only when Amy fully regarded her son’s body did she realize it would take more than James waking up to get him out of the wreckage.

  His arm was caught between two metal bars that had fallen down with the floor, the support beams rusted but still looking strong and durable. James’s arm had somehow found its way between the two of them, his tiny forearm now pinched between the two pieces of metal.

  Amy struggled to move her body around her son, positioning herself next to his arm while he remained unconscious on the ground. She put both hands on James’s arm and forced it to bend at the elbow, giving her some space to work it out of the bars. But the metal was too strong. The pressure of the room falling down above them had crushed the bars closer together than they were supposed to be. Further down the bars Amy could see a giant pile of rock that was holding them in place, forcing the steel rods to bend in the wrong direction.

  Amy couldn’t believe what was happening. She refused to let her son be trapped as the familiar sound of a blazing fire crackled just out of Amy’s line of sight. James’s body twitched in response to the sound, his eyes fluttering slightly behind the lids. Amy held her breath at the motion, reaching forward and taking her son’s cheek in her hand.

  “James,” she spoke loudly to be heard above the creeping fire and the creaks and cracks of the still moving building around her. “James, wake up!”

  Her son twitched again as he heard his mother’s voice, his eyes slowly opening and then closing again, before finally opening and squinting in the dark and dusty air.

  “James!” More tears threatened to fall as she moved into her son’s field of vision, leaning down and planting a kiss on his forehead.

  “Mom?” James spoke in a groggy voice, his head slowly lifting from the ground in an attempt to sit up. “What happened?”

  “Stay still, darling,” Amy spoke as she placed a hand on James’s chest, holding him in place. “The building collapsed. Your arm is stuck.”

  James’s eyes widened in panic as he moved his head to the side and noticed his arm stuck between the metal bars. He tugged on it slightly himself, barely managing to move it more than a fraction of an inch.

  “I can’t even feel it,” he spoke quietly, Amy only just able to hear him. “Help me, Mom!”

  Amy shushed her son, stroking his hair with one hand while the other remained on the top metal rod. She had no idea how she was going to get James out of his cage and she could hear the panic increasing in his voice. Doing her best to soothe him, Amy turned slightly, facing the metal with her body and attempted to force the bars apart.

  It was an impossible labor. Try as she might, Amy simply wasn’t strong enough to force the metal apart, her hands growing wet with sweat and sliding off the bars before she’d even fashioned a good grip. The sound of the fire was growing louder and Amy had no idea how they were going to escape. Even with James free, she didn’t know which direction to move in, didn’t know where would be safe and where would be further into danger.

  But she kept trying. There was never any doubt in Amy’s mind about what she would do. Even if the opportunity arose where she could save herself, Amy was never going to leave her son to die. She’d known even before she found James that she would stay in the wreckage forever searching for him if she had to. Now, if James were truly trapped by the metal bars, she would stay with him until the very end. No fire or fallen building was half as strong as the love she had for her son.

  Unless… Amy winced as she grabbed hold of the metal bars once more, their temperature slightly increased by the creeping flames that threatened to surround them. Amy knew the fire would never be hot enough to melt the metal bars, but perhaps it could weaken them. A tiny shred of hope began to form in her mind as an idea started to take shape. Amy would try anything to save her son and this was probably the last chance she had.

  Reaching around in the rubble, Amy searched for a small rock or something she could use as leverage against the metal bars. She hummed a familiar lullaby under her breath as she moved, too quietly for James to hear, but it calmed her all the same.

  Slowly pieces of her plan started to come together and Amy leaned forward to touch the metal bars. One of them was definitely warmer now and James had started whimpering beside her from the heat of it against his skin. Leaning back and ripping at the T-shirt she wore, Amy tore off a long piece of fabric and folded it between James’s arm and the top bar, offering him as much protection as she could manage. Next she ripped off two more strips of fabric, leaving her top in tatters as it hung loosely from her chest. That didn’t matter though; the important thing was finding a way to free her son. The fire was so close now; if this didn’t work then neither of them would be escaping the ruin at all.

  Gritting her teeth, Amy forced the piece of rock in between the metal bars, desperately trying to create a wider gap that James could pull his hand through. The heat of the metal gradually continued to rise until Amy could smell it burning through the fabric she had wrapped around her hands. She could deal with the pain, but she couldn’t stand to have James suffer the same fate.

  Letting out a grunt from the effort and the increasing pain, Amy pulled harder on the metal bar, watching as James slowly started to acquire more movement in his arm. Amy nodded down at her son to encourage him to help pull himself free, his body now twisted away from the bars. James let out a scream from the heat almost at the same time as she did, but Amy kept pulling. She refused to let go until she felt both of James’s hands on her arms, begging her to let go and for them to escape. Amy’s vision started to spot as she released the bars, the smell of her charred skin wafting into her nostrils as her head started to spin. James was free, but somehow the two of them still had to escape.

  Chapter 10

  “Reporting for duty,” Dixon raised his arm in a salute as he stood in front of Corporal Lawson, Farley and Croft standing just behind him. “General Shepherd has cleared one of the Ospreys for launch. We’re to do a reconnoiter of the city and then report back to base.”

  Corporal Lawson raised her eyebrows as she looked from Dixon to Farley and Croft behind him. “And the three of you are coming with us?”

  “Yes sir,” Dixon nodded, “General Shepherd said to take three pilots, yourself, and three more for a team of ten.”

  “Did he now?” Corporal Lawson mumbled under her breath, casting her gaze around the hangar to where several of her men were still checking the helicopters or waiting for additional orders. “Very well,” she continued slightly louder, “head over to the first bird; we’ll be wheels up in ten.”

  Dixon saluted again—as did Farley and Croft—before marching toward one of the Ospreys with a grin on his face. He’d never worked with Corporal Lawson before and he got the
feeling she didn’t like him and the others being a part of the team flying in the bird, but he wouldn’t let that dampen his excitement.

  Standing next to the enormous helicopter, Dixon felt like he was back in the field. It had been years since he’d flown anywhere during active duty and this had to be one of the biggest events on American soil in many years. Just to be a part of it on the ground was all he’d ever dreamed of as a boy. To go up and see everything from above was even better. Any small shred of doubt or fear he’d felt when he saw the yellow cab being consumed by flames dissipated steadily, leaving him standing upright and at attention when Corporal Lawson returned a minute later, six other soldiers following closely behind her.

  ***

  General Shepherd paced as he waited for the next runner to report back to him. Even though some of the emergency power was up and running again, all radio communications remained fried and General Shepherd was forced to rely on verbal updates as he sent soldiers off in every direction. He hated being so out of touch, but he knew that without a clear picture of what was happening, there was very little he could do.