As soon as she reached the spot where she’d been standing when the Lawless thug booted in the front door, Dad appeared in front of her, transparent and glowing blue. Harper stared at him, almost wanting to make a Ben Kenobi joke about how he looked. That her first reaction to the sight of her father’s ghost was laughter set off a wild tangle of emotions, but she still ended up laughing more than anything else.
“Hey, kiddo.”
“Dad?”
Mom appeared beside him, also ghostly. “We’re proud of you, dear.”
“Very.” Dad smiled. “You are doing great. Much better than either of us could have hoped for.”
“That little blonde girl is so precious.” Mom smiled. “You are her entire world. It’s a big responsibility, but it’s totally worth it.”
“I don’t know what I’m doing, Mom.” Harper tried to hug her parents, but they had no substance.
Dad chuckled.
“That’s normal.” Mom made a silly face. “You didn’t pop out of me with a user’s manual in your hands. I had no damn idea what to do either at first.”
“You had Google though.” Harper frowned.
“The internet just makes things easier, not possible,” said Dad. “There are plenty of people around you with experience. Mrs. Wheatley for example. I understand you’re on the shy side, but talk to people. Don’t be afraid to call in reinforcements. Parenting can be rough. There’s no need to take it all on yourself.”
“We’re really proud of you.” Mom brushed a spectral hand at Harper’s hair, creating a faint electrical tingle down her cheek.
“You’re not even upset that I’ve had to kill people?” Harper fidgeted.
Dad shrugged. “We’re upset you had to, not that you did. Protecting yourself is nothing to be ashamed of. We hate that you’ve lost that innocence, but it’s much, much better than losing you.”
Rather than cry, Harper found herself feeling reassured. “Whew.”
“You know.” Dad put an arm around her shoulders. “Sometimes life throws you off a cliff and there isn’t a whole lot you can do about it.”
“Except grow wings,” said Mom. “Even if they’re little and only slow the fall.”
“Yeah.” Harper closed her eyes, imagining herself as a faerie. She’d been obsessed with them for most of her life, though not to the point she believed they really existed. I will fly.
“It’s time.” Dad’s hand on her shoulder gained solidity, offering a reassuring pat. “The only thing you will accomplish by clinging to the past is feeling bad about the future. Don’t compare where you are now to the world that used to exist. You got this, Harp.”
She bowed her head. “Thanks, Dad. I’m trying… I really am.”
“Harper?”
“Yeah?” She cringed.
“What happened here was not your fault. I’m proud to have raised a daughter with such a great respect for life that she couldn’t even kill a man pointing a gun at her. You went from a school to a warzone overnight. Don’t be ashamed of being normal.” Dad took a step back. “I’d take a bullet to protect you again and again and again. It’s what Dads do. I forbid you to feel guilty about it.”
Harper looked up, but the spirits had disappeared.
The silence in her old house hung on her shoulders like a lead apron.
She knew she basically talked to herself. These ghost parents weren’t really the spirits of her murdered mother and father coming back to speak to her. The apparitions had formed out of all the memories she had of them, said what she thought they’d say… and what she needed to hear. Even if the words came from inside her own mind, hearing them said in his voice offered a much-needed sense of absolution. She’d finally forgiven herself.
“Hope you guys are okay.”
One last time, Harper looked around at the dream world of her old house. “I really am gonna miss this place, but this isn’t where I belong anymore.”
11
Tracks
Tuesday, late morning, Harper took a short break from patrolling her usual area to visit the farm. Mostly, she wanted to check in on her siblings as well as Mila, Becca, and Eva. Over breakfast that morning, Cliff relayed that they’d found the two men dead in the road where they’d fallen, so they decided to burn the remains—much easier than burying them.
While the militia had made multiple scavenging runs into Kittredge prior to Harper and company arriving in Evergreen, they’d avoided going into the upper portion of the jet out of concern it would collapse or slide into the water if disturbed. Cliff, Dennis, Ken, and Marcie all came back loaded up with luggage, more clothing for the quartermaster to hand out.
The kids all seemed in good spirits. They resembled country bumpkins in dirty clothes, barefoot, and smiling—except Mila, who had a grim expression. Even Jonathan left his sneakers home today. Despite the haze in the air, the sun decided to work overtime, hot to the point that even Harper considered walking patrol in a skirt so she didn’t melt. However, skirts and dresses wouldn’t work too well if she got into a gunfight, foot chase, or brawl. They’d either tangle her up, slow her down, or result in her showing off more of herself than she wanted.
So, she suffered the heat of jeans.
Madison seemed normal, though Mila had a look about her like she’d done something really wrong and waited to get in big trouble. Harper pulled her aside from the group feeding chickens, standing at the edge of the crude fence made of scrap metal and wood.
“It gets easier,” said Harper in a low voice.
“I know.”
“You’re not going to get in trouble. You did the right thing. Good people have to do horrible things sometimes now. Don’t let it eat you up inside.”
“Mom was upset. She cried all night.” Mila jabbed her toes at the dirt. “Don’t know if she was more freaked out that I almost got kidnapped or that I shot two guys.”
Harper put a hand on the back of Mila’s head, pulling her into a hug. “You’re way behind. I’m at least up to twelve now.”
“It’s not a video game.” Mila squirmed. “And don’t hug me when people can see. They’ll think I’m girly.”
“Heh.” Harper let go. “You can tell them I hugged you despite your protest.”
Mila smiled, but didn’t let go of the hug. “So I’m really not in trouble?”
“No. You’re not going to get in trouble for defending yourself. People are just struggling to deal with a world in which a kid your age has to do that in the First World.”
“Umm, Harper… we’re not in the First World anymore. It kinda burned down.”
She exhaled hard. “Yeah. Good point.”
“The Shadow Man wanted me to kill someone to show him I could do it. I refused.”
“Yes, you told me.”
Mila looked up at her, a hint of worry in her eyes. “Am I an assassin now?”
“No. It’s completely different to kill someone who doesn’t deserve to die than it is to protect yourself and your friends. It’s very possible to pull the trigger on someone and still hate having to do it.”
“Okay. I’ll try not to get any more psycho then. I still don’t wanna kill anyone.”
Harper ruffled her hair. “Good.”
Mila ran back to resume tending chickens.
Satisfied that the kids appeared to be okay, Harper made her way east, intending to return to her patrol area… but detoured on a whim to the spot where Eva found Weldon’s body. Lacking the chaos of a crowd or the mental pressure of having a dead man right in front of her, she examined the area, trying to recall what Cliff had taught her about tracking.
Marks in the dirt suggested the corpse’s heels had been dragged along. She spotted a few broken leaves hanging from the tomato plants. Along with the drag path, they suggested a route someone took to reposition the body after death.
Maybe I watched too many cop shows, but I don’t think this happened here.
Harper crept along the trail she believed she’d found, out the end o
f the row and left. Though she lacked full confidence in her interpretation of the gouges in the dirt, she did follow the trail enough to get the feeling it would lead away from the farm, west into the hills. The farm occupied a swath of formerly empty field on the opposite side of Route 74 from the golf club, quite close to the school and the residential area she usually patrolled.
As she neared the edge of the farm area, the trail mostly disappeared under signs of more recent activity from those working on the farm. The line she’d walked pointed straight, so even without a clear trail, it hinted that the killing occurred off the farm.
“Why would a killer drag the body into the farm where it would definitely be found?”
She thought that point over on the walk back to her patrol route. Most killers went out of their way to prevent anyone from finding the victim’s body. It could be they had a total nut on their hands who wanted their work discovered to scare people or as a point of pride. Or, maybe Weldon had been killed in a location that would make the killer’s guilt obvious. That still didn’t explain why they moved the dead man into such an obvious high-traffic place. No one—as far as she knew—lived in the hills right to the west of the farm, so there went the idea that he’d been killed in his sleep.
It also didn’t sound plausible that someone would’ve dragged Weldon all the way up here from the area where farm workers who didn’t have kids lived. Perhaps if they had a cart or wheelbarrow, but the body had clearly been dragged, heels on the ground. A hunting accident also didn’t make any sense as people generally didn’t attack deer with knives at close range. Never mind the idiocy of thinking someone jumped on a guy, mistaking him for venison. Someone killed him on purpose out in the middle of nowhere and didn’t want him found near that spot for some reason.
That meant the place of death would either implicate the killer’s identity or had some other significance to the murderer that he or she wanted to conceal.
Okay. Not a random act of violence. I don’t think we’ve got a crazy person in town.
She mulled various explanations. Perhaps Weldon had gotten into a fight at Earl’s bar or had some other personal conflict with someone. Roy Ellis would no doubt be looking into that angle already, talking to everyone who might have seen Weldon on his last day alive. Considering how recently he’d arrived in Evergreen, the most probable source of bad blood would be the people he arrived with. Or, he might have been caught in the wrong woman’s bed, killed by a jealous man.
Harper chuckled to herself. Yeah, I’m not in a regency romance novel here.
Trusting that Roy would figure it out, she resumed walking her patrol route. Most of the residents were out at whatever jobs they’d been given or volunteered for, though she did run into a handful of elders. They all asked her about Mr. Beasley, mostly wanting to confirm the rumors that he’d been killed by the same guy who got Weldon on the farm. Apparently, fear had been spreading around Evergreen that they had a serial killer on the loose.
Harper did her best to assure everyone who approached her to talk about Mr. Beasley understood he suffered a heart attack—and had not become a second victim of a killer. As tightly wound as the guy had been, it made sense that he suffered such a fate. Plus, she suggested anyone who didn’t believe her could go talk to the doctors. Doreen Mack, the once-overweight former day care owner who now looked after Evergreen’s tiniest orphans, quipped that she ‘should probably lay off the cheeseburgers’ so she didn’t have a heart attack.
As if fast food still existed.
Harper laughed. “Yeah… all that grease will kill ya.”
12
Coping
Later that afternoon once her patrol shift ended, Harper decided to throw an hour at practicing with the compound bow. Her backyard offered limited range, so she set up a target out on Hilltop Drive in front of the houses at about fifty yards. The straight section of road didn’t exactly make for the safest or wisest place to fire a bow and arrow. However, if she missed, the shot would skip down the paving and hit either dirt or trees. She had enough visibility into the distance that she felt comfortable being able to avoid accidentally hitting anyone walking on the road.
The kids in the area, mostly just her siblings since school-age children all lived quite a ways north from her house, didn’t make a habit of darting randomly across the street. Her siblings and their friends presently ran around in the area behind the house, going back and forth between Carrie’s yard and theirs, playing soccer.
Harper still laughed at Lorelei’s idea for teams. Christopher suggested the old standby of ‘shirts and skins’ to tell teams apart despite girls outnumbering boys. Lorelei took that in a predictable direction and flung her dress off. Fortunately, Madison intervened and they didn’t start the Evergreen Nudist Soccer League.
Using a compound bow no longer felt utterly alien, though Harper still preferred the shotgun, considering she’d been training with and using the Mossberg since age twelve. However, she’d started to get a feel for the aiming the bow, albeit at a mere twenty-five yards. According to Cliff, the ‘expected’ range of a compound bow ended up being between forty and sixty yards, and accuracy at sixty tended to be equal parts luck and skill. That didn’t change much as the approximate kill range of twelve-gauge buckshot tended to be around fifty yards as well.
So, when the day came that she ran out of shells, she wouldn’t lose engagement distance. Defensive encounters didn’t often require firing on targets hundreds of yards away. That, she’d leave to Cliff and the rest of the militia who carried military rifles. Her father used to own an AR-15, Ak-47, an FN-FAL, and an SKS, which she’d all fired before, though not to the same degree of familiarity as the shotgun. His AR likely ended up taken by the Lawless. The rest of his weapons hopefully remained in the gun safe, where they would stay for the rest of time since the combination to open it died with him.
He might have written it down somewhere, but if he had, he’d never told Harper where to look. Nor did she think it worth the danger to risk a trip back to Lakewood to hunt for something that might not exist, merely to collect a few rifles and about a hundred rounds of ammo. They’d spend half that in bullets fighting their way in. Of course, killing Lawless would be worth it… but dying wouldn’t be.
Eyes narrowed in anger, Harper drew an arrow, aimed at the target, and pictured the bulls-eye as the face of a moron with a blue bandanna. She loosed, and put the arrow in the yellow ring an inch north of bulls-eye.
“Well, that’s pure luck. First shot at fifty yards and I almost hit the center?”
Her second shot had a more expected outcome—going straight over the target and skipping down the street. She methodically fired the rest of her eleven arrows, working on getting a feel for the behavior of the shots at a longer range. It required holding the bow higher and using a different sight post to aim. All but four hit the target, though only the first shot came that close to the center.
After collecting the strays, she loaded up her quiver and jogged back to her firing position to do it all over again.
Three full volleys later, Harper loaded her second arrow of the fourth barrage, but a distant 911 air horn call went off before she let it fly.
In a total moment of ‘oh screw it,’ Harper released tension on the bowstring and went running toward the call, carrying the bow rather than losing time to ditch it and grab the Mossberg from the house. She still had the .45 on her belt anyway.
The air horn came from the south, but didn’t sound too far away. She ran out onto Route 74 heading in that direction as more—and more distant—air horns went off. Ken Zhang rode past her on a mountain bike.
I need to grab one of those.
“What’s going on?” shouted Harper.
“No idea,” called Ken, pedaling faster.
Gunfire started up ahead, as well as a whole bunch of shouts, both angry and other militia coordinating movement.
Crap! Raid.
She slowed to a jog amid a momentary hesitation that
she ought to head back for the Mossberg, but decided to keep going rather than waste time. Her run down the highway came to a stop where Stagecoach Road crossed Route 74. Nine members of the militia had taken up positions behind cars left abandoned in the road ever since the war, trading bullets with a group of men in dusty handmade leather clothes. They kinda resembled a bunch of modern people dressing up like Frontier explorers.
Only three or four of them had rifles, the remaining twenty trying to rush the militia position carrying swords, hatchets, hammers, and other improvised melee weapons. One guy learned the hard way that a wooden shield didn’t do much good against an AK-47 bullet. Watching Leigh Preston, the bubbly woman with curly, fluffy hair, cut the guy down in the middle of the street struck Harper nearly as surreal as ten-year-old Mila killing two men.
Harper ran for cover behind a pickup truck on the right side of the intersection, not far from a Coldwell Banker sign on a tiny hill. The sign looked like it would make for a better shooting position, but flimsy plastic didn’t stop bullets.
She held the bow horizontal, pointed off to the side, and watched down the street as bullets sparked off other old cars where the invaders had hunkered down.
“What’s going on?” shouted Harper.
“Good question,” yelled Ken.
“They just started attacking,” called Leigh. “Ran in from the east. Anna saw them coming and sounded a warning.”
Harper looked around at the militia, not seeing Annapurna. “Where is she?”
“Med center. Took a bullet in the shin,” shouted Dennis.
Anger welled up. Harper liked Anna. These losers shot her friend.
“Same sons of bitches from the plane crash,” yelled Marcie.
They tried to kidnap Maddie.
Harper drew her bowstring back, popped up, zeroed in on the closest head poking up over a car, and fired. A man with long, shaggy black hair took the arrow in the cheek, a little under his right eye. He fell backward out of sight, screaming. She grumbled at putting a target arrow into him, but she’d left the bladed ones at home. No sense damaging or breaking those on practice. Still, the bow gave her more reach than a handgun, so she loaded another.
Evergreen (Book 4): Nuclear Summer Page 11