One Second After

by William R. Fortschen

  He broke her embrace and looked at her. Her features, though pinched and yellow, had not changed much.

  "Jennifer honey, I think Ginger needs to play," Jen said.

  Her voice was not a suggestion and Jennifer registered it.

  "OK, Grandma."

  "And make sure she stays away from those bodies out on the deck."

  The way Jen said it, the message of those words, struck John as yet an­other breakdown. Tell your kid to go out and play with the dog, but stay away from the men Daddy had shot during the night because your beloved golden might suddenly look at them as a meal.

  He followed Jen into the living room. Elizabeth and Ben were sitting together on the sofa, holding hands, and somehow at that instant John knew. To his surprise, Makala was standing in the corner of the room, half-turned, looking at him.

  Elizabeth looked up at him and took a deep breath.

  "Daddy, I'm pregnant."

  Absolutely thunderstruck, he couldn't speak. He looked at Ben, whose arm was now protectively around Elizabeth's shoulder. Ben tried to look him straight in the eye and then lowered his gaze.

  John turned away, fearful of what he might say or do, lit another ciga­rette, and walked to the bay window.

  Jen came up to his side.

  Behind him Elizabeth started to cry and Ben was whispering to her. "John?"

  It was Jen, standing by his side, whispering. "For God's sake, John, do the right thing." He turned and looked back.

  "How?" was all he could say, and he instantly realized the absurdity of it. At sixteen Elizabeth already so looked like her mother, and he remem­bered when they met she was twenty, he was twenty-one. Of course he knew how.

  But this was his baby girl, who used to smother him with "smoochies" and say she would love him forever.

  He walked towards them and to his horror he saw fear in Elizabeth's eyes. Ben then stood up.

  "Sir. If there's blame, it's mine." His voice was trembling and broke into an adolescent squeak. "It's my fault, not hers."

  "No, Ben. Both of us."

  She stood up and put her arm around him.

  "Daddy, we love each other."

  He slowly sat down, shaking his head.

  "My God," he sighed. "You're kids in high school. College ahead."

  "Not anymore," Elizabeth said, and now there was some strength to her voice. "Daddy, that's all over now. All over."

  He looked up at her.

  She had always been slender, like her mom, but was even more so now.

  Though he didn't want to say it, he did.

  "Maybe the lack of food. Maybe that's why you're late."

  "No, John," and for the first time Makala spoke. "I found a test kit. It's positive. She's going to have a baby."

  As she said the word "baby," Elizabeth and Ben, like so many across the ages, looked at each other and smiled.

  John looked at them, again how slender she was, losing weight. Though he was a Catholic, even a non-practicing one, the thought of abortion flickered, even though it was anathema to him. Having this baby might kill her.

  "I need to think," John said, and stood up, heading to his office.

  He stopped at the doorway and then looked back.

  "We have to evacuate in one hour. So start packing...." He couldn't say any more and left the room.

  He sat down at his desk. The bottle behind it, gone, damn it. He fum­bled in his breast pocket and pulled out the smokes. He took one out and lit it.

  Numbed, he looked out the window, at the backyard where Jennifer was throwing a stick to Ginger, who though moving slowly still was trying to play.

  "John?"

  He looked up. It was Makala. "Am I intruding?"

  "Yes and no."

  "Can I join you?"

  He nodded and she took the chair by his desk. "What are you thinking?" she asked. He sighed.

  "The whole world has gone to hell. You know I killed two men this morning?"

  "I saw the bodies. And they deserved it."

  "And Zach?"

  "I'm sorry, John, about him. He died well, though."

  John lowered his head. Was it only hours ago? he thought.

  "There's a barbarian horde coming this way and by tomorrow they might overrun us. If they do, all this will be moot. Jennifer out there will be dead, if lucky you and Elizabeth dead, all of us dead. The country ... dead."

  "That's why you have to accept what happened with Elizabeth."

  "What? She's a kid, Makala. She was going to be a junior in high school, that son of..." He hesitated. "Ben a senior. My God, Makala. Accept it?"

  "Kids younger than them have been getting pregnant for thousands of years. Especially in wartime."

  "Not my baby."

  "Yes, your baby," and she reached out and touched his knee.

  "Listen, John. You know and I know there isn't much chance. And they know it, too. They think they're in love. For God's sake I hope they are in love. They want that taste of life as much as you did, as I did, as any of us do."

  He looked at her and found he couldn't respond.

  "Give them your blessings. I know it will be hard. But do it. I know the risk she faces as much, maybe more than you do. Give her that blessing for her to carry with her and give her strength."

  He saw tears in Makala's eyes.

  "She's a good kid, John. You and Mary raised her well. Don't turn this into a moral question now. They were two scared kids, the world going to hell around them; it was all but inevitable it would happen. If not for this damn war, it'd of been different. But it's not. And you have to accept that."

  He nodded. "Tell Ben to come in here."

  A moment later Ben was at the door, standing straight, eyes wide. John motioned for him to come into his office.

  "Sir. You can do what you want to me, sir. Just don't blame your daughter."

  And at that moment John softened. He could see the kid half-expected to see a shotgun or face a damn good thrashing. He had the guts to take it. "You love my daughter?"

  "More than anything in the world, sir."

  "Well, so do I. Her and Jennifer."

  "I know that, sir."

  John nodded. He didn't want to think too much further about how Ben loved her; no father really would. But John could see that, though seven­teen, Ben was trying to be a man at this moment and would have to be a man in the days to come.

  John stood up, hesitated, then extended his hand.

  "Thank you, sir," and Ben's voice cracked a bit.

  John nodded.

  "Just don't call me Dad yet," he finally said. "I'm not ready for that."

  "Yes, sir."

  He knew Elizabeth, in the next room, had heard the exchange, and she came through the doorway and flung herself into his arms. "Thank you, Daddy."

  Now he did fill up. Her voice still sounded like his little girl. He saw Jennifer standing in the doorway as well, smiling. "So you're not going to kill them?" Jennifer asked, and that broke the tension for the moment.

  "No, of course not, sweetie."

  "Ok," and she was gone.

  He felt there was some sort of ritual required now, and as Elizabeth slipped out of his arms he took her hand and placed it in Ben's hand.

  "Once the next few days are over, well, since our priest disappeared, we'll ask Reverend Black to do the marriage."

  Elizabeth smiled and leaned against Ben's shoulder.

  "But we got other worries now. Like I said, we're leaving this house within the hour. Girls, you better pack what you can fit into the car. Ben, get down to your family and tell them to get out as well; have them come up to the Cove for now. They can stay with us if need be."

  Elizabeth and Ben looked at each other.

  "You can do your good-byes later; there isn't time to waste. Tell your folks I'll drive your family up to the Cove in an hour, so be ready."

  He hesitated and suddenly it truly hurt, what he was about to say next.

  "Ben. We're going to be attacked,
most likely early tomorrow morning. You'll have to fall in with the town reserve guard."

  "Yes, sir."

  Elizabeth started to cry.

  "Daddy, can't he stay with us in the Cove?"

  "Absolutely not," Ben replied forcefully.

  She looked at Ben and then back at John, eyes filled with tears.

  "It's his duty now," John said softly.

  Ben looked at Elizabeth, hesitated, then kissed her lightly on the lips.

  "I'll see you later, sweetheart."

  She couldn't reply, hugging him fiercely.

  "Elizabeth, go help your grandmother and Jennifer pack."

  She hesitated.

  Ben broke free from her embrace. "I'll be ok, sweetheart. Go on now."

  Crying, she left the room, and Ben turned back to face John.

  John opened his gun cabinet. Scanned the weapons and pulled out one of his best, an Ml carbine.

  "You know how to load and handle this?"

  "Remember, sir, you took me shooting with it last year."

  John checked the clip, it was full, and there was a box of extra ammuni­tion for it.

  "Take this; you're going to need it."

  Ben nodded.

  "Report to Charlie Fuller. Tell him I've assigned you to be one of his runners."

  "Sir, you are not keeping me back, are you?" John lied with the shake of his head. "You'll be in the middle of it, son."

  Ben nodded solemnly, hefting the carbine and looking at it. "Let me help Elizabeth first if you don't mind, sir."

  "Sure, you got a few minutes." He looked at John, eyes solemn. "If anything happens to me, sir ..." John forced a smile.

  "You'll be ok, Ben. Now go help Elizabeth."

  "Yes, sir."

  Ben left the room and Makala was standing at the doorway, smiling. "You did the right thing," she said. "Let me think about it."

  To his surprise she came up and kissed him on the lips. "I better get up to the conference center and evacuate the folks there. From what I just heard, I assume that will be in the middle of it." John nodded.

  "I'll drive you up there. Charlie should be sending up some vehicles to get people out. We're evacuating everybody from here clear back to the town. Once you get your patients out, report to Doc Kellor. I think you'd be most useful there."

  "Is it going to be bad?"

  John nodded again.

  "Real bad, I think."

  She squeezed his hand and went back to help the girls pack up.

  He looked around. What to take? The guns of course. Seven rifles, in­cluding the original Civil War Springfield and the replica Hawkins .50 flintlock. Throw them in the trunk of the car for now. He scanned his of­fice. What to take? The portrait of Mary of course, and as he picked it up he thought of Makala in the next room. Neither would mind, he realized with a sad smile.

  He took the picture out of its frame and slipped it into his pocket. He then checked the loads in the Glock and the shotgun and shouted for his family to get moving.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The entire mountainside north and south of the interstate was burning. He gazed at the inferno, feeling nothing, even though his home was somewhere within that blaze.

  Scattered shots still rang out. A holdout band of the Posse was barri­caded inside a single-story house facing the interstate on a side road a couple of hundred yards back from the gap. It was a key position because it looked down on both the interstate and the flanking approach of the aban­doned paved road and the railroad.

  Two of his militia sprinted towards the building, approaching it from a blind spot, where a truck was parked. They crawled under the truck, came out the other side, and rolled up against the side of the building. One opened her backpack; the other took out a Zippo, flicked it to life, and touched the fuse.

  Inside was a ten-pound charge of black powder, packed into three-inch PVC pipe, nails mixed in. The girl stood up and threw it through the smashed window, then collapsed backwards, shot in the chest.

  He could hear screaming inside the building, someone standing up, try­ing to throw the backpack out, a fusillade of fire dropping him.

  The explosion seemed to tear off the side of the house.

  With harsh, guttural screams a dozen militia were up, charging, push­ing through the wreckage and into the smoke-filled house.

  Seconds later several Posse poured out the front door; none made it more than a dozen feet.

  Two more houses to go at the top of the ridge. A couple of dozen hold­outs within, surrounded now on all sides. A barrage of Molotov cocktails rained onto the buildings; from within one there were bursts of automatic weapons fire.

  The assault teams waited. In just eight hours they were veterans, no dumb-ass heroics, no "follow me" charges. One of the buildings finally started to burn, and then the second, suppressive fire pouring in through every window to keep those within down.

  It took ten minutes, a dozen more Molotovs tossed against the side of the wooden structure to feed the flames, which finally went into the eaves of the house. It was ablaze now. Screaming from inside. The front door burst open and the militia was waiting. Half a dozen were gunned down as they came out. The last two out were women, falling to their knees, hands up.

  No one fired and they crawled away from the inferno, then fell on their faces, crying for mercy.

  One house left, the one with the automatic fire. John, watching the fight, had a gut sense of who was in there.

  He picked up a megaphone.

  "I want prisoners from that house!" he shouted.

  The house was ablaze.

  "Come out and we won't shoot!" John shouted.

  Seconds later the door burst open and six men and a woman staggered out, throwing weapons aside.

  "Down on your knees, hands over heads!"

  They did as ordered and the student militia circled in around them.

  The thunder of the battle was dying away now, a burst of shots from down near the second railroad tunnel, a volley from up on Rattlesnake Mountain, the louder sound now the forest fire sweeping both sides of the interstate, driven by a westerly breeze.

  He looked around, some of the militia coming out from cover, standing up cautiously, looking around, most ducking when a sniper round zinged down from the ridge atop the pass. It was greeted seconds later with an ex­plosive roar of fire and then silence. One of the militia then standing atop the ridge, rifle held high, waved the all clear.

  John rose up from the side of the bridge over the interstate, walked around to the side, and slid down the slope and onto the pavement of the interstate, his action almost a signal that the war was over. Dozens more were standing, dazed, silent.

  He looked up the road to the pass but a hundred yards away. It was a road paved with horrors. At nearly every step there were bodies twisted into the contortions that only the dead could hold, rivulets of blood pour­ing off the road into the storm gutters. It was a seething mass as well, hun­dreds of wounded.

  He turned and looked back down the highway towards Exit 66 and raised his megaphone.

  "Medics! Bring up the medics now!"

  They had been waiting several hundred yards to the rear while the last of the Posse were wiped out from the ridge, which they had successfully seized in the opening round of the fight.

  There must have been someone local with them, either willing or un­willing. Two hours before dawn fifty of them had emerged on the little-used Kazuma Trail, known only to hikers and mountain bikers, a path that led from the Piedmont below to the highest point on the crest over­looking the interstate and the flanking roads.

  Seizing the half-dozen houses up there, wiping out the defenders in a matter of minutes, they had enfilading fire down onto the gap itself, with the defenders there pinned, unable to fire back.

  Minutes later the main assaults came in, fifty vehicles up the flanking road, men and women on foot going through the railroad tunnel, and a col­umn of nearly two hundred vehicles roaring up from Old Fort,
led by a diesel truck with a snow plow mounted to the front.

  The forward barrier fell, and then the next fallback position, where he was standing now, the bridge over the highway, since the houses above were perfect positions to fire down on it.

  Though they were caught off guard by the surprise seizure of the houses and ridge above the gap, the rapid retreat had been part of his and Washington's plan all along.

  Washington was a superb marine, a superb trainer and leader, but John did realize now that all the crap about his being colonel .. . Washington had been right on that, too.

  Washington's plan was a classic defense on the high ground and John had vetoed it.

  "Almost as bad as losing would be our winning too easily," he had said. "We repulse them at the crest, they'll take losses, retreat, and then do one of two things: either head off somewhere else or wait until the time is right and get us, and I think it would be the latter. Whoever is leading that band cannot afford even a single defeat; his own people will turn on him, kill him, and then come back yet again."

  John's worst nightmare was that after a sharp defeat the Posse would pull back to Old Fort, simply spread out a bit, loot, probe, and keep them on guard twenty-four hours a day and wait them out. They'd make a mis­take; there'd be a weak spot; the enemy would catch a guard asleep, attack the position at night in the middle of a storm. No, John wanted them over the ridge—let them take the gap—and then to lure them into a classic killing ground.

  "The mountains to either side can give us a Cannae, or a classic Mon­gol envelopment," he argued, and students who had taken his classes and were now officers sitting in on the planning just the day before instantly grasped it.

  "Once in, I want them all in, and then I don't want one of them to get out alive."

  It was the plan that Washington warned would triple their casualties but John argued in so doing they would annihilate the Posse rather than just drive it back, with the threat of a return.

  The tragedy was that the first platoon of Company A, guarding the gap, was cut off in the opening move and not one of them made it out. That had nearly triggered a rout as the survivors of the second platoon gave way too quickly at the second defensive line, the bridge at Exit 66 and the nursing home overlooking it.