“No, Mister Briggs.” Karl raised his palms in the air, inviting the scents. “Fire. Grease. Sweat. Adrenaline. The filth of soldiers ready to fight.” The odor of gasoline stung at his nostrils. “Victory. That’s what it smells like.” His memory brought back the marches his army had endured. The battles, the slain enemies, the dry desert wind coating his dangerous hoard in a fine gray dust.
Various military ships were anchored on either side of the two-lane dock, and at the end of the trident point, the largest warship of them all floated like an island city. The men onboard were busy readying the munitions in the missile chambers and testing the various electronics and navigational equipment.
Karl looked to his side, his face stern as a group of soldiers said, “Sir,” as he passed. The gathering were shaving each other’s heads into mohawks, cigarettes dangling from their lips. He turned to Liam. “They’re ready,” he said. “They’re strong.”
“Yes, sir,” Liam responded. “Been doing drills since your first day back, and eat’n plenty.”
“Hasten departure by four days.”
“Sir?” Liam said. “You sure about that, sir?”
“Yes, Mister Briggs.” Karl turned to his second in charge, his gaze scolding the man for questioning a command. “The men are ready. The longer we wait, the more anxious they will become; the greater the chance for second thoughts, cold feet. They’re ripe for it now.”
“Sir, I’m sure you’re right …” Liam fidgeted with the buckle on his gun belt.
Karl sighed. “What is it, Liam? Spit it out.”
“It’s just that, well, you’ve had a rougher journey than most. And since you’ve been back, you’ve barely taken a moment to rest. Hell, you get more than an hour of sleep a night?”
“Yes, Mister Briggs, I certainly do.”
Karl bumped into the back of a soldier on his path who was in the process of lighting a cigarette. The man turned with a scowl. “What the fu—” He saw Karl and Liam breeze past him. “Sir,” the man said, his eyes snapping wide, standing straight and saluting.
Karl let out a laugh as they neared the massive wall that was the side of the warship. “I’ve never felt better in all of my life. That much, I can assure you.”
Liam nodded.
“Give the order,” Karl said. “Dole out the amphetamines. Let’s get this show on the road.”
“Yes, sir.” Liam unclasped a handheld radio from his belt and began delivering commands over the crackling airwaves.
Chapter Three
Beaded Necklace
The crowd standing before the stage at Alice’s firehouse was quiet as Jeremy cleared his throat and began his victory speech. He was no more than a few words in when a soldier came pushing through the crowd. “Simon,” the man said in a whisper, his breathing labored. “Simon, sir.”
Simon turned to the man, saw his weathered face and graying hair wet with perspiration.
“Yes?” Simon said.
“You’re needed at the hospital.”
A flash image of Bethany hurt stung him, and the same terrible feeling he’d endured during the battle pitted in his stomach. “What is it? Is everything okay?”
“Yes sir. It’s, umm, a person, sir. Someone’s here to see you.”
Simon was about to ask Brian if he could watch Winston when Brian said, “Leave him here. I’ll bring him to your place later,” and patted Winston’s back.
Simon thanked Brian, scratched his dog behind his ears, and followed the soldier through the crowd and out to the road, distancing themselves from Jeremy’s boisterous speech from the loudspeakers. When it was quieter, Simon asked, “How did he get here?”
“He was found, sir. About a mile and half west.”
“Is he all right? Is he injured?”
The soldier shrugged. “I dunno, sir. I was stationed in the hospital when he arrived. Looks skinny, malnourished. Dirty. He asked for you. Even out in the woods, he knew your name. You and Winston. Carolanne is with him now.”
Simon nodded and picked up the pace. “Was he alone?”
“Came to the hospital alone.”
The three blocks between the firehouse and the hospital were deserted, with everyone gathered before the stage. A half dozen injured, yet healing, soldiers stood before the sliding doors to the hospital, smoking cigarettes and scratching at bandages. The furniture from the lobby had been taken outside and heaped in a pile, replaced by occupied stretchers which now lined the entry room from one wall to the other. Simon was again taken aback at witnessing carnage on such a large scale, the little clinic of a hospital overflowing with the victims of warfare.
“This way,” the soldier said, weaving through the stretchers to an open door in the rear. Simon followed, trying not to stare at the injured, but unable to resist. Their faces blackened with soot, their clothing charred and torn, the floor splattered with dried and fresh pools of blood. One soldier looked Simon right in the eyes. “Sir,” the man said, lying on a gurney, half of his face bandaged up. “You did a hell of a thing back there at Nick’s house.”
Simon nodded and walked on.
The hallway was packed with more stretchers, and the medical staff were everywhere. They went further into the recesses, through a labyrinth of corridors, until they came to the door of an examination room. The soldier turned the handle, and there he was. The monk. The boy. Wrapped in a blanket and sitting on an examination table, with Carolanne standing before him.
The child’s eyes went large. “Simon!” he shouted, and jumped down from the table. Carolanne moved to stop him, but then relented.
“What happened?” Simon asked, kneeling down and squeezing the young boy, feeling the tickle of his shaved head against his chin. The boy smelled ripe, unwashed for what might have been weeks. “Are you all right?”
The boy didn’t answer. They stayed where they were, and it became apparent that the child was crying. His back heaved up and down, his frail rib cage rubbing against Simon’s fingers. Simon looked at Carolanne. Her lips were pursed.
When the tears subsided, Simon again asked, “What happened?”
Carolanne stepped forward and touched Simon’s shoulder. “He was just about to take a bath.” Turning to the boy, she asked, “Would you like to do that now? The water is nice and warm.”
The boy nodded and looked to the floor. Tears fell, the dirty water streaking down his cheeks. A nurse came and took the boy’s hand. “Come with me, love.”
“I’ll be right here, waiting for you,” Simon said. “Go on.”
As the nurse and boy left the room, Carolanne spoke to Simon, “They found him alone. Thought he was a small animal at first, crouched by a stream.”
“There were others with him. A group of monks. What happened to them?”
Carolanne shook her head. “They got to them.”
“Who?”
“The Red Hands. Judging by his current state, it must have happened a while ago. He said they were camped in a clearing, when, from what he’s saying, a whole army’s worth of soldiers emerged from the brush. I’m guessing it was when the bulk of the Red Hands marched into Alice.”
Simon instinctively felt in his pocket for the beaded necklace he still kept with him at all times, given to him by that same young boy.
“How’d he escape?”
“A woman in their group hid him under a blanket when the soldiers entered their camp. The boy couldn’t see anything, but he heard their voices. Says he heard arguing, and then a scream. And then more and more screaming. Someone picked him up, blanket and all, and dropped him down an embankment. He fell out, tangled in the brush, and the woman stood at the top. She said, “Run,” and he did.
“Were they all killed?” Nausea rose in his stomach.
“He has no idea.” She paused. “However …”
Simon looked to her.
“Those beads. The boy had a pair just like the ones you carry. And I’ve seen them before, just recently.”
“Where?”
“An injured soldier I stitched up was playing with them, trying to keep his mind off the pain. I thought it was a rosary, so I asked him about it, trying to keep his thoughts away from the needle, and he said he found them in battle. Taken off one of the Red Hands.”
“Christ,” Simon said. “Is the boy injured?”
“All in all, he’s healthy. He’s dehydrated and near starved, but he’s all right for what he’s been through. He was drinking stream water, unfiltered, so we’ll have to see if his stomach cramps up, but there’s no indication of poisoning. I don’t know what he was eating, or if he’s eaten anything at all since his escape. He mentioned finding some cattails, but I don’t how long ago he’s eaten them.”
They were quiet for a moment, and then Carolanne said, “I have to head back to the ward.”
Simon nodded. “Of course.”
As Carolanne left the examination room, Simon asked, “What are we going to do with him?”
She shrugged. “Put him in the orphanage with the other kids, I guess. I don’t know. He asked for you, so maybe you should talk to him.”
Simon nodded as Carolanne left. He sat in a chair on the opposite side of the room and thought in silence for a moment. Then he called to the soldier who was still in the hallway. “Hey, you mind doing me a big favor?”
“What’s that, sir?”
“You think you could run back to the firehouse, or find someone available to go?”
“I’m on duty, sir, but I’ll find someone. What do you need?”
“My dog.”
Chapter Four
New Life
Brian stood at the edge of the paved lot as trucks from Hightown rumbled past the gates and parked on the trade grounds. Following the war, little changed in the way of commerce. Hightown still needed water and food, and Alice still needed fuel. Now more than ever. The cranes, backhoes, and power generators were working twenty-four hours a day. Rebuilding the defenses was a priority, and the machinery drank combustibles like hot desert sand evaporates dew.
“Brian,” a soldier from Hightown said. “I hear the votes are official. Guess you’ll be keeping your post.”
“Reckon so. But the trade delegate wasn’t cast to a vote. Jeremy asked me to fill the post on my uncle’s—General Driscoll’s—suggestion. I probably would have kept the job regardless of who’s in charge.”
“True enough. Ready to start pumping?”
Brian nodded, and the soldier went to the rear of the petroleum truck and began attaching the unload coupler and hose. He wiped his palms on the thighs of his uniform, where the grease buildup had turned the material black.
“Hey, Brian.” He turned to the voice, and saw Bethany coming his way.
“Beth, there you are.”
“Sorry, sorry. I know. I’m late.”
“The trucks just got here. I was worried, is all.”
Bethany pulled a cloth from her rear pocket and rubbed at her grimy fingers.
“Worried?” she said. Before Brian could respond, she continued, “Got a sheet?”
He passed her a clipboard with the trade ledgers. She adjusted the rifle sling over her shoulder and pulled the pen from the clip.
“You’re doing a hell of a job,” Brian said. “Just make sure you don’t work yourself to death in the process.”
“I don’t aim to.”
They walked to the back of the truck unloading fuel into underground vessels. Three of Alice’s own liners were waiting to depart with Hightown’s convoy once the fuel was deposited.
“How’s Carolanne?”
“Busy,” Brian said. “Always busy.”
“Yeah. Who isn’t? We’ve been working such opposite hours; I haven’t seen her in days.”
“Opposite? Seems like you’re both working all hours. We need more nurses and medics. Sometimes she stays the night in the ward, catching a few hours of sleep on a cot when possible. She was hoping to see you at the ceremony at Nick’s mansion.”
“Yeah.” Bethany paused after taking note of the gallon stoppage. “I didn’t need to see that.”
“Might have brought some closure.”
“Closure?” She turned to face him, her cheeks flushing red.
“I’m sorry. I’m not trying to get you riled. I know …” He wasn’t sure what to say. There was nothing to say. There was no way to understand the mental torment she’d endured in that basement. Carolanne, along with a doctor, inspected her for signs of rape while she’d been unconscious, and according to Carolanne, she had been spared that brutality, but it was difficult to be a hundred percent certain. The thought that those men—those filthy, vile men—might have touched her, this woman who was practically his sister, made his blood pump hot in his chest.
Bethany turned around and exhaled. “No, I’m sorry, Brian. Maybe watching the mansion burn to the ground would have brought some relief. I just … don’t want to see any more destruction. I don’t want to talk about it—not Nick, not Karl, not the Red Hands, the fighting, or even Tom Byrnes. It’s all in the past. I want to move on.”
“Moving on sounds about right.” Brian wasn’t so sure Bethany was ready to get over her ordeal. It seemed that whenever peace was at hand, a new wickedness emerged to further threaten their survival.
They went to inspect their own trucks, double-checking the water fill and the haul of produce going out. Luckily, the gardens had remained unharmed during the fighting. They were somewhat depleted, with the Red Hands devouring more than enough to feed five times their numbers, but the citizens in Alice were not in danger of starving. The livestock took the largest hit. Eggs were still coming in, but it would be a while before they could afford to slaughter an animal.
All at once, Bethany looked to Brian with a smile. “You heard Simon saw a deer, right?”
“Sure,” Brian said, happy to see her face brighten. “Who hasn’t?”
“They’re coming back. I know it.”
“Where there’s one, there’s bound to be more. It’s a shame he lost its trail.”
Bethany glanced at him knowingly. “He didn’t lose its trail.”
“No?”
“He followed it to the creek.”
“Right. He told me as much.”
“He could have killed it, right then and there.”
“He let it go?”
Bethany nodded.
“I’ll be damned. Why? A deer’s the trophies of all trophies.”
Bethany shook her head. “If you think Simon wants any sort of trophy, you don’t know the man well enough.”
Brian had followed Simon into battle on the front lawn of Nick’s mansion. He’d seen the man fight in a manner he’d never seen before, and doubted he’d ever witness again. The way Simon flowed down the trenches, shooting, slicing, chopping with his machete, all the while shirtless, covered in the blood of his enemy. He was an animal, tapped into some wild part of his subconscious.
But after the fighting, once they got Bethany and Winston out of the mansion and found their way to the firehouse to recover, Simon doubled over in sickness. When the three of them found solitude in a room upstairs, as the sea of injured soldiers were tended to on the lawn, Simon wept. He and Bethany held each other tight, curled up on the carpeted floor with a blanket draped over them. It was evident that whatever he’d done—the bloodshed, the trickery he’d devised to kill Karl Metzger—was not part of who he was at his core. Simon was not a soldier. He was not a killer. He was a peaceful man who only accepted his rank as the leader of the Rangers because he genuinely believed that he could help others. He knew more about wilderness survival than anyone, and through his teachings, he imparted both knowledge and a form of awareness that bordered on meditation.
Brian returned to the conversation. “Still though, why would he let the deer go? We need as much meat as possible.”
“He let it go because it was one solitary deer facing the flood of humankind. There isn’t another soul alive that wouldn’t have killed that animal. But until th
ere’s enough to shift the population balance, Simon won’t kill it.” She paused, and Brian glanced over to see Bethany smile. “It’s decisions like this, to not kill when given the opportunity, that make Simon a leader.”
“I agree.” It warmed Brian’s heart to see his cousin happy.
“Where is he now, you seen him today? I left home early.”
“He’s at the graves. They’re planting the wildflower seeds.”
Bethany nodded. “That’s right.”
“You going to help?”
“I got to get back to the line after the transports leave. We were raising a beam for a watchtower when I left. We want to get two more set in concrete before evening. You?”
“I’ll be heading to scatter the seeds.”
“Tell Simon I’ll see him at dinner.”
“Will do.”
The hoses on the fuel trucks were disconnected and the ports resealed. The engines of the convoy came to life, and the procession left the gates. Brian said goodbye to Bethany and left to find Simon among the workers spreading seeds of new life. He smiled, thinking about Bethany’s cheerfulness, completely unaware that far out over the bounding swells of the ocean, a darkness was approaching with the ambition to eradicate everything the people in Alice held dear, and trample the seeds before the sprouts had the opportunity to taste the sun’s rays for the very first time.
Chapter Five
Ante Bellum
Simon held a bag of seed in one hand and scattered the tiny grains with his other. He stood up straight and stretched his back, looking over the two dozen or more people out there in the field along with him, spaced out so that most were alone or talking in small groups, and seeming to enjoy the easy work and the sun on their faces. Winston was a few yards away, getting his head scratched by a smiling worker. Compared to fixing the trenches and reconstructing the guard towers, this task of spreading seeds was welcoming.
Simon didn’t know many of them, since about half belonged to Hightown’s colony. Despite them living together in Alice since the war, he still hadn’t met all of the soldiers. Following the battle, a large force of Hightown’s military stayed behind, helping repair the front line and sending out expeditionary patrols to capture any escaped Red Hands. The town of Masterson was discovered, where a large enemy regiment remained. The patrol fell back, and a full-on assault rumbled into the town, tanks, artillery, and ground troops. However, the enemy had disappeared before their arrival, and little was left behind to suggest the town was ever inhabited. Scouts were sent to follow their trail.
Someday Soon Page 3