Darker Days

by A. J. Powers

  This is not good, he thought to himself.

  Just then, he heard a shout come from the clock tower—a man’s voice this time. “They’re breaching the corridor!”

  The corridor was the nearly eighth of a mile stretch of driveway that led up to the gates of Liberty. Cars, trucks, and anything else weighing more than a hundred pounds that could be pushed, dragged or carried outside of town was placed in the driveway to create a funnel for the enemy as they negotiated through the last patch of ground separating Liberty from the wild.

  The short stretch of debris and cracked asphalt would prove to be very costly to Arlo’s troops.

  Chapter 24

  Miraculously, Simpson was the only loss Liberty experienced during the first encounter between the two groups. Though seven others had been wounded, six of them never even left the battlefield before Arlo’s men retreated. The seventh, a young man named Victor, was still being tended to by Doctor Sowell. Though the man fought the good fight against death, the final decision would ultimately come down to whether death called heads or tails.

  All in all, the first encounter had not been as costly to Liberty as expected. The same could not be said about Arlo’s fighters; at least eighteen men and women lay lifeless along the Deadly Eighth, a nickname the long driveway had quickly received after the battle had ended. Kohler ordered a team to head out at nightfall to retrieve weapons and supplies from the bodies consumed in the Deadly Eighth. The team, however, was under strict orders to leave the bodies.

  “Let their fallen comrades be a horrible reminder of what’s at stake; that they cannot, and will not just walk in here and take our homes,” Kohler said in a post-battle speech.

  While most people understood that the tactic was nothing more than psychological warfare in its most pitiless form, others were disappointed, if not disgusted, with the decision.

  “They are still people!” one man shouted.

  “They deserve a proper burial, regardless of what they did in life,” another said.

  Kohler was empathetic, but firm in his decision. “When this war is behind us, I assure you that each of them will be dealt with respectfully, but until that day comes…” he said. There was no need to repeat his order.

  Clay wasn’t bothered with Kohler’s directive. In fact, he was impressed with the move. He had recently concluded that sometimes the only way to defeat your enemy is to play by their rules. Diplomacy had its place in the world, but the world had changed. If you didn’t play for all four quarters, if you weren’t as ruthless and hardhearted as the enemy, you were dead. It was that simple. And the voice in Clay’s conscience that often protested such ideas became quieter with each passing day.

  As darkness overpowered the sky, the small team of five prepared for their excursion into the driveway. Clay attached his suppressor to his rifle and put in a magazine of subsonic rounds. There wasn’t much anticipation for gunfire, but as his dad always said, If you’re not always prepared, you’re never prepared.

  Besides a rifle and a few spare magazines, the only other thing each member of the squad could bring was an empty duffle bag. The objective was straightforward: fill up the bags with supplies—ideally with guns and ammo.

  The team consisted of Clay, Robert, Morgan, Hicks, and Warren. With the exception of Robert, who was the centerfielder on his baseball team, Clay had just been introduced to the others as the recovery team was assembled. Robert used to be a librarian; Warren had been a butcher at HEB. Hicks…well, nobody really knew about him. He was a quiet man and the oldest of the group. Rumor was—according to Robert—he used to work for the NSA back in the day. Warren had heard he was an author. Nobody was sure what he had done before the ash blanketed the planet and the confusion only seemed to please the mysterious man. However, one thing was for certain, he was a good shot and a trustworthy brother-in-arms; the type of man you wanted by your side when the chips were down.

  Then there was Morgan. Last year, Morgan’s father and brother went out on a hunt and never came back—their mutilated bodies were discovered a few miles away a month later. Then her mother—the last living relative she had—was killed during Arlo’s surprise attack at the beginning of the month. Though Morgan had been encouraged to go back to Northfield with the others, she insisted that she stay and fight. With the number of volunteers as skimpy as they already were, nobody tried to talk her out of it.

  The team approached the gate, each one fighting waves of trepidation. The stigma of exiting the gates at night was heavy enough as it was, let alone after the kind of day they had had. In addition to the inherent dangers of walking around at night, there was no telling if any of Arlo’s men had stuck around, waiting to pounce on some easy prey.

  “I’ll take the front of the driveway,” Hicks said, taking charge of the operation. “I’ll cover from the box truck to the road. Robert and Warren, you guys cover the space between the dumpster and the box truck. Clay and Morgan, you two will have everything between that dumpster and the gate,” he said as he pointed to the large wrought iron gate in front of them. “And there is to be no talking, understood?” he added.

  There was unanimous agreement.

  The three guards on duty yanked the gate to the side as the group stared out into the dark abyss ahead of them. Though Clay had been up and down the driveway many times over the years, never had it felt so unsettling, so haunting.

  Without saying a word, Hicks walked past the gate and into the driveway. Robert and Warren, standing shoulder to shoulder, went next. Clay glanced over at Morgan, who was struck with fear.

  “Just stay close to the gate,” Clay said.

  The nervous teenager nodded as she swallowed. “Yeah, okay.”

  Clay walked out the gates, Morgan closely behind. The guards closed the gate, but kept it unlatched.

  It didn’t take long to find the first body; Clay and Morgan both tripped over it. With it being so close to the gate, Clay suggested Morgan start there and he would venture a little further out. He decided to work from the front of his zone back, so he walked out to the dumpster to begin his search. A few moments later he had found another body—a heavyset man from the feel of it. Clay knelt beside the unfortunate soul and patted around, searching for useful items. Between the near-black conditions and the growing numbness in his fingertips, Clay struggled to determine what was junk and what was valuable. His solution was to stuff every single item into his bag.

  Clay’s attempts to find a rifle came up empty. During the chaos of the retreat, some of Arlo’s men retrieved the guns from the dead. It was unknown how strong their armory was—and as Clay discovered today, it was already stronger than they had anticipated—but leaving any gun behind for your enemy to use was something that Clay would avoid at all costs, so it was no surprise that Arlo’s men had the same thoughts.

  Rolling the heavy man over required more energy than Clay had to spare. Settling for half way, Clay used his leg to prop up the body while he searched. The efforts were not in vain, however, as Clay discovered a pistol from the man’s holster. Finding nothing else, Clay grunted as he pulled his leg away from the body, causing it to stiffly roll back over onto the asphalt with an eerie sound. With the area around the dumpster clear, Clay started moving back toward the gate as he expanded his search.

  Having found three more bodies along the way, two of which carried revolvers, Clay finally started to feel better about being assigned this task. It wasn’t that he didn’t see the value in trying to scavenge as many resources as possible; he just wasn’t thrilled about being the one to do it—especially at night. But, as the search continued, so did the silence. There were no gunshots ringing out or screams of agony. There were no orders being barked or cries for medics. Only the soft, almost soothing sound of a cold evening breeze rolling across the area…

  And the whimpers of a dying soul.

  With his almost-relaxed state once again replaced with an adrenaline-fueled preparedness, Clay darted toward the sound of the stifled cries
, his rifle at the ready.

  “Please,” a woman’s voice cried, so softly Clay could just barely hear her.

  The cries grew louder as he got closer to a small SUV off to the side of the Deadly Eighth. With each step, fear’s grip on Clay’s breathing tightened. He could feel the perspiration building on his forehead. He wanted to flick on his rifle’s flashlight, but knew that decision could be costly to him as well as the others. He resisted.

  “Please, help me,” the invisible person pleaded once more.

  Clay finally found the source of the cries. His stomach twisted in knots as his brain processed the information repeatedly, as if hoping it would eventually come to a different conclusion. Though it was dark outside, Clay’s vision had adjusted well enough to know what lay there in front of him.

  Having no recollection of the prior few seconds, Clay found himself running toward the gate, a limp body in his arms. “Open the gate!” Clay yelled at a whisper as he saw Morgan crouched down next to a body.

  “What? Why?” she replied, trying to keep her voice quiet.

  “Just do it!” Clay repeated, without explanation.

  Morgan hurried back to the gate and passed Clay’s request off to the guards.

  By the time the guards realized what was going on, Clay was already running through the gate. “No bodies!” one of the guards stated firmly.

  Clay ignored the rebuke and went straight to the infirmary.

  ****

  “So, tell me what happened,” Shelton asked Clay from across his desk.

  Captain Kohler stood on the other side of the room awaiting Clay’s response as well. He had been emphatic that none of the bodies be moved, but even he couldn’t blame Clay for his decision.

  Clay’s eyelids drooped as he noticed the sun rising through the window. What started as a lengthy yawn ended in an exhausted sigh. “Uhm,” Clay said as he tried to organize his thoughts from the events a few hours ago. “While searching the bodies in the driveway, I heard someone nearby crying. At first, I thought maybe it was a woman, but when I reached the source of the sound, I saw it was a boy.”

  Kohler clenched his fists and shook his head. What kind of monster would send a little boy into battle?

  “Do we know how old?” Shelton asked.

  “Doctor Sowell’s best guess was ten or eleven,” Clay replied.

  “Is he still alive?” Shelton asked. “Unfortunately, I’ve not yet had a chance to speak with Doctor Sowell myself.”

  Clay nodded. “Yes. Well, he still was when I left the infirmary. I’m no doctor, but he wasn’t looking too hot, though.”

  Shelton took off his glasses and rubbed his temples with his fingers. Although Shelton and Kohler didn’t see eye to eye on everything, Shelton respected the man’s combat experience in Iraq and Syria and did not wish to question every decision he made. And though it was evident that Kohler was just as bothered by this situation as he was, Shelton wanted the responsible party reprimanded.

  “Daniel, you need to figure out who pulled that trigger and set them straight,” Shelton said, anger creeping into his voice.

  “Sir?” Kohler responded.

  “You heard me, Captain. We will not win this war over the dead bodies of countless children.”

  Kohler understood the point Shelton tried to make—and he didn’t disagree with it—but Shelton’s request was not going to undo the damage done to the boy’s body, nor would it prevent another child from being shot if Arlo were to heartlessly send more into battle. “Have you ever been to war, Barry?” Kohler asked, throwing formality out the window. “And I mean actual war.” It was a question Kohler already knew the answer to, so he didn’t wait for a response. “When the bullets start flying and the adrenaline is pumping, your mind tends to operate on instinct and reflexes. There isn’t always time to figure out who is trying to kill you; if you get shot at, you shoot back. It’s just the way it works.”

  “I understand that, but we need our guys to be better…”

  “It could’ve been me,” Clay blurted out, yielding a strange look from Shelton. “I was right there, Barry, shooting down that same corridor as everyone else. I took shots at dozens of different people over that hour, several of which I know I hit, and not once did I think I was shooting at a kid. Not once did I look through my scope and think there was even a remote possibility of that. So,” Clay paused for a moment as the reality of his words sunk in, “I could have been the one to shoot that kid. I may very well end up being responsible for his death.”

  Shelton sighed again—Clay’s distressing words supporting Kohler’s defense.

  “I killed a little boy, once,” Kohler said. The room fell eerily silent. Kohler’s eyes glazed over as he stared at the wall across the room, looking into a past nightmare he wished he could forget. “It was in Syria, in the closing days of the war. My platoon was sweeping an ISIS-controlled neighborhood near Aleppo. Predators had already flattened half the neighborhood by the time we got there, so we expected resistance to be minimal. After clearing the first block without issue we moved on to the next. And right as we stepped into an intersection, one of them ran out into the street and opened up on us, shooting my staff sergeant. We dropped him immediately, but right as two of my men ran out to try and save Sergeant Foster, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye…” Kohler’s expression went grim, his voice filled with a sorrow-filled rage. “My reflexes trumped my training and I engaged the target without processing all the facts. My three-round-burst clipped the kid in the neck and he died just a few feet away from the gunman that had taken out Foster.”

  The pain in Kohler’s word cut deep.

  “Experience told me the boy was headed straight for his dad’s Kalashnikov, ready to pick up where his old man had left off. But, then again, it’s also possible the boy was just running to embrace his dying father; just doing what any loving son would do.” Kohler cleared his throat before continuing. “I’ll forever be haunted by the decision to take that kid’s life—to let instinct overpower humanity. But that debilitating thought is always countered by a single what-if question: what if the boy was going for his dad’s gun? Or worse, what if he was attempting to flip that switch on his dad’s suicide vest filled to the brim with washers, nails, and ball bearings? What if the boy had taken out my entire squad because I hesitated to pull the trigger? Most of the agony is that I’ll never know what his motives were, because I never gave him a chance to show me. And I will have to go to my grave not knowing. But, I will say this,” he said as his dazed eyes narrowed and locked onto Shelton’s eyes, “after years of training and experience, if I made that mistake, or perhaps life-saving choice, solely on instinct, what do you expect from a bunch of traders and farmers just trying to survive?”

  Shelton’s shoulders slumped as he stared down at his desk. Kohler’s point was on the mark.

  “War is…well, it’s just about the only thing that hasn’t changed over the last ten years. It’s still just as ugly, just as brutal, and just as evil as it ever was. The only difference is that, now, nobody is exempt from living it.” Kohler ran his hand over his face, his palm pausing over his mouth as he once again stared at the wall across the room. “It’s never pretty and is seldom fair. And all we can do is try…try to do what is right and good. But gentleman, sometimes the enemy takes those choices away from us,” Kohler said, the grief dropping from his expression and leaving just anger. “And may God damn him when he does.”

  War was hell.

  Chapter 25

  When the dust had settled and smoke had cleared, Thomas Simpson was still the only fatality Liberty had suffered.

  That was the good—miraculous—news.

  The bad news, however, was that even though the recovery team managed to scrounge together a decent haul of guns and ammo from the Deadly Eighth, the income was far less than the outgoing. The level of consumption from that single battle would be unsustainable. Kohler reminded everyone of the importance of making each shot count. It wasn�
��t that he expected each pull of the trigger to result in a notch on the side of the rifle, but he did expect each trigger pull to have a purpose—a positive one for Liberty and a negative one for the enemy.

  Kohler’s words echoed in Clay’s head as he sat at the round breakfast table, staring at his disassembled ARAK-21. He had taken stock of his own ammunition after the first encounter: 117 subsonic rounds, 233 supersonic. Because of the very finite amount of ammo he had left for the .300 blackout, Clay would, once again, put his LaRue to work. He still had more than 400 rounds of 5.56MM of his personal ammo, and after that was gone, he could resupply from the town’s armory. He also knew there was at least a case and a half back at Smith’s bunker that he could retrieve if supplies really thinned out. However, since nobody in town used the .300 blackout cartridge, when Clay ran out, he was out. So, he would save the suppressed rifle for a rainy day—figuratively speaking.

  Clay grabbed a rag lying on the table and wiped the excess solvent and oil off the rifle. He quickly reassembled it and inspected his efforts. The candlelight glistened off the liberally applied lubricant just inside the ejection port, letting Clay know it was ready for storage up in his room until a need should arise.

  Setting the rifle down, Clay reached across the table and picked up a cup and put it to his lips. He hesitated for a moment before taking a sip. Though he was down to the last gulp inside the Styrofoam cup, he made the exact same wrinkly face he had made after the first sip. Unfortunately, Clay had never developed a sophisticated enough palate to enjoy the taste of black coffee. To him, it might as well have been 10W30. The lack of bean juice ingestion over the years, however, meant that it was a particularly effective way to keep him going long after his body hit its limit. Although supplies were very limited and most of the grounds were reused three and even four times before being discarded, Shelton agreed that it was a necessary resource to consume for a group that would only grow more exhausted by the day.