The Last Bastion [Book 5]

by K. W. Callahan

  “Believe me, things could be a whole hell of a lot worse than what we got going here,” Groush continued after his cronies had calmed. “Granted, supplies are running low, and our menu has been a bit slim lately. But that isn’t the end of the world. What we’ve got going on outside this town,” he gestured around him as he nodded with a devilish grin, “now that is the end of the world.”

  The others in the room laughed again.

  “Yeah, well anyway,” T-bag continued somewhat angrily after being minimized in front of his peers, “we’ve been in this town for weeks and…”

  “Yeah, you said that,” Groush roughly cut him to the quick. “So get to the goddamn point?”

  “Well, we’ve gone through almost all the supplies we took when we arrived. The stuff we brought with us too. And we’ve picked clean all the houses in the surrounding area, not that there was much to pick in the first place. I just think it’s time for a change.”

  “No shit, Sherlock,” Groush snorted.

  “It’s time for us to re-evaluate and select our next target,” T-bag went on, undeterred.

  Then he waited, and he waited, and finally, after no further response from Groush, said, “Well? Don’t you have anything to say, fearless leader?”

  Groush shrugged, as if the matter was unimportant. He sat up in his chair, stretched, yawned, and then made a lightening-quick grab for the gun resting in his shoulder holster. T-bag flinched, starting to go for his own weapon. But he paused halfway into his draw as he realized that not only did Groush have the drop on him, but that Groush had laid his weapon flat on the desk before him.

  “You’re right. It is time for a move,” Groush agreed calmly, as if pulling his weapon in such a manner was akin to sneezing or clearing his throat. “This place was a necessary stopping point until the weather broke…and now, well, the weather has broken. It has served its purpose. And your also right that you did what I said, how I said it. And while I don’t necessarily agree that you ‘took it up the ass’ as you so gently put it, I also don’t think we need to kill anymore time here. So where do you think we should go…since apparently you’ve thought more about the subject than I have?”

  T-bag looked somewhat stunned, and suddenly uncertain, having had the decision for where to go next thrust back in his face.

  “Oh, well, I, uh…” he hesitated.

  “Anywhere…you just name it,” Groush said. “I’m sure we can get it done.”

  Again, T-bag looked less than certain. “Well, I…I been hearin’ stuff about down south a ways. Maybe we could check things out down there. Might be a little more action if nothin’ else. Or maybe we could just make a sort of supply run or somethin’. I mean, this town is pretty secure. If we had more supplies and maybe could round up some more women, it might not be all that bad a spot.”

  “Oh, now that the weight of the decision is on your shoulders, you’re not so sure of yourself, are you?” Groush nodded smugly.

  “Uh, well, no. It’s not that. It’s just that we do have a pretty secure situation here,” T-bag backtracked. “I mean, it’s set up kinda like a fortress, so I guess it’s not that bad. We just need some things. I thought that maybe you had heard of something, Groush…maybe got wind of some better pickin’s somewhere else. Something like that. You know,” he shrugged uncomfortably.

  “No, I don’t know,” Groush shook his head as he stared steadfastly at the man.

  It was obvious to the others that Groush’s easy demeanor paired with his scathing gaze was making T-bag increasingly uncomfortable.

  “I hear about the same shit you all do. So what makes you think I know of a better spot? You think I’m holding out on you or something?”

  “No, no, it’s nothing like that,” T-bag stammered, on the defensive now. “I just thought, well, I guess I don’t know exactly what I thought. Maybe that you have some ideas on the matter or somethin’.”

  “Oh,” Groush nodded. “So now you want my input, huh?”

  “Sure, if you’ve got any thoughts on it,” T-bag nodded.

  “Yeah, Groush,” another member of the group seated in a semi circle around the desk nodded. Her name was Star – at least that’s what people had been calling her since the outbreak. The nickname hadn’t been assigned because of her shining personality or twinkling demeanor but more for her performance in the sack. But she could hold her own and she didn’t take any shit. In the bedroom or out of it, Star dictated the terms – except with Groush. She knew her place around him. Star was smart, and she was a good reader of people. But with Groush it was different. He was unreadable, and worse yet, unpredictable. “Any ideas on what we should do?” she asked him.

  “I’m all for heading for greener pastures,” Groush said amiably. “Course, I’m not exactly sure where those pastures are, but I’m willing to look if you all are.”

  There were nods and murmurs of confirmation from around the room.

  “What about this?” Groush offered. “Why don’t we send out a couple task forces to scout things out? We send them out in a couple different directions, see what they find when they come back…if they come back, and we go from there. Give them what, say three, four days at most? That’ll give them a pretty good radius of search area to explore. They ought to be able to come up with something for us in that time. Sound good?”

  It really didn’t matter to Groush if it sounded good to his minions or not. But he had to admit, there was far less bitching when he managed to get them on board with his ideas. And he didn’t have to watch his back quite as closely, although, with the group he tended to surround himself with, watching his back was an ever-present concern.

  There were nods and grumbles of agreement from around the room.

  “All right then,” he stood from his desk. “Star, Mick, Jackson, I’ll leave it to you three to form up a couple scouting parties. Get them the food, guns, ammo, gas, and transportation they need.”

  The group stood and prepared to adjourn.

  “And make damn sure they got maps and know how to read them,” Groush added as the council members turned to leave. “If they don’t, spell out the directions in detail. Remember, we aren’t dealing with brain surgeons here. Just because you know how to read a map, it doesn’t mean these assholes do. Got it?”

  “Got it,” came the murmurs and mumbles from the departing group.

  “Oh, and one last thing,” Groush added. There was an ear-shattering explosion an instant later.

  The council members whirled to find T-bag lying dead on the floor. They were both shocked and unsurprised at the same time. At this point, nothing that Groush did, as shocking or unexpected as it might be, really surprised them. It was what made him both a great leader as well as a terrible one. The others never knew what to expect, which made trying to form any sort of plot to overthrow the tyrant almost impossible. Therefore, most of them just bit their tongues, did what Groush said, and hoped they didn’t end up lying on the floor with a bullet in their head like poor T-bag.

  CHAPTER 5

  “This rain sure is something,” Marta said to Louise.

  “Yep,” Louise nodded matter-of-factly.

  The two stood staring out a window beside the shattered glass double doors that led from the roadhouse’s main floor out onto the deck overlooking the river. Marta had used garbage bags to cover the doors’ missing panes. They watched the large raindrops landing on the rain-soaked deck, exploding in rippled splashes like tiny bombs.

  “I get sick of this,” Marta said after a moment. “I wish it stops…just for while.”

  Almost as if it were a sign from above, as soon as she finished the words, the rain began to lessen. Half a minute later, it had stopped altogether.

  “If I knew was so easy, I would ask days ago,” Marta laughed, turning to smile down at Louise.

  “Really!” Louise agreed seriously with a vigorous nod of her head, as if such a request being granted was indeed possible.

  As soon as the rain stopped completel
y, Louise blurted out excitedly as she wrung her hands together, “Let’s go outside, Marty!”

  Marta shrugged. “Sure.”

  “I wanna see how high the river is!” Louise hopped back and forth from foot to foot as Marta opened the doors to the deck.

  The two joined hands and walked outside together.

  “Wow!” Louise breathed, seeing the river. “It’s so high!”

  “I know,” Marta breathed back. “I never see like this before.”

  The water was literally just a foot or two from the bottom of the deck and the two could hear the water sloshing and gurgling below them as it swirled around the deck pilings. The deck jiggled and bounced ever so slightly against the river’s mighty current. It made Marta nervous, but everything seemed secure.

  Louise let go of Marta’s hand and raced over to the deck’s edge. There, she peered between the vertical rail supports since she wasn’t tall enough to see over the railing’s top.

  The act momentarily terrified Marta, even though she knew the deck rail was secure.

  “River moves fast” Marta hurried over to join her.

  “Sure does,” Louise nodded. “It looks like a giant river of chocolate milk!” She turned to Marta. “Mmm, Marty…I miss chocolate milk soooo bad.”

  “I know, little one,” Marta stroked the girl’s blonde locks sympathetically. “I know.”

  Swirls of debris in clusters large and small – leaves, twigs, tree limbs, garbage bags, clothing, plastic toys, an occasional Christmas decoration, plastic lawn furniture, and just about any other sort of floatable debris thought possible – quietly slipped past in the river.

  “Gosh, it’s like a floating garage sale,” Louise observed. “Look at all that stuff. We should get your net and go shopping,” she laughed.

  Marta just smiled in response. Had it been food floating past, Marta would have agreed. But it wasn’t. And they didn’t need more stuff, at least not the type of stuff floating by them in the river.

  Louise did her best to get a better view over the deck rail by going up on her tiptoes. When this effort failed, she began trying to climb up the side of the railing, which instantly made Marta nervous again.

  “No, no,” Marta scolded softly taking the child around the waist and pulling her back, “don’t do that.”

  “Why not,” Louise let herself be slid back to the deck floor, sulking.

  “It can be dangerous. What if rail cannot hold you? You don’t want fall over side, do you?”

  “No,” Louise’s shoulders slumped and she hung her head. Then she lifted it with sudden energy. “Marty, can you lift me up so I can see better?”

  “Okay,” Marta nodded, liking the fact that the little girl wanted her help and that they would get to share this experience of watching the river together.

  A month ago, physical contact with a child was far from anything Marta thought she would enjoy, look forward to, and even hope for. It was as foreign and frightening to her as the thought of marriage. But now, with Louise, it was something that she welcomed. All it took was a few weeks around this wonderful little ball of life to change Marta’s entire being. And Marta had to admit, she liked the change. The only thing she didn’t like was the constant worry about the wellbeing of little Louise that came with it.

  She bent and hefted Louise into the air, resting the tiny girl on one hip. Louise instantly locked her legs around Marta’s waist, her small arms wrapping around Marta’s neck. Standing there holding Louise, Marta felt good. Few things in her world made her feel good these days, but Louise was a ray of sunshine tearing its way through all the rain in Marta’s life.

  “Wow!” Louise sighed, taking in the water rushing past. The river had overflowed the far bank, but the trees lining the area made it impossible to tell just how far the floodwaters stretched beyond.

  On the roadhouse side of the river, there was still room to spare before the river reached the top of the bank or the roadhouse itself. Marta knew the history of the roadhouse. And considering that it had been a fixture in the same spot since the late 30s, she was guessing that they were safe. If a flood hadn’t taken the building out since then, it was apparent that the opposing bank relieved enough of the river’s flow to keep the water from ever threatening the roadhouse’s riverside position.

  “Ooooh! Look at that!” Louise jabbed her little arm upriver. “That tree is stuck in the river! It’s making a big jam up! And look, Marty! There are boats…and people!”

  At first, Marta didn’t see any boats. She saw the tree across the river. She saw lots of what appeared to be trash and debris stuck in the tree. But that was it – at least at first glance. But as she scanned the rest of the river around the tree, she indeed saw what Louise had seen, boats – two of them. There was a kayak and a canoe. They were positioned toward the roadhouse side of the river. And it appeared that the people inside the boats were looking for something.

  “Marty! Those people are swimming in the river!” Louise cried.

  Marta strained to see the people in the canoe pluck someone from the river as they floated toward the roadhouse dock.

  “They’re coming this way!” Louise said excitedly. “Look! There’s another person just over there! It looks like he’s swimming this way!”

  “I know, I know. I see him,” Marta said, feeling anxious at the sight of people heading toward their secluded hideaway.

  “Should we help them, Marty?” Louise asked.

  Marta let Louise slide down from her to stand on the deck.

  Louise immediately ran over and mashed her face up between the rails again in an attempt to see through. Then she started hopping up and down trying to see over the top of the rail and get a better view.

  Both the kayak and what appeared to be a fully loaded canoe were now paddling toward the roadhouse deck. There were also several people swimming, doing their best to battle their way through the water. Yet it was obvious they were struggling mightily against the current.

  “Hurry and get net!” Marta suddenly instructed Louise.

  Without a word, the child obediently turned around and scurried back inside the roadhouse.

  Marta instinctively felt for the handgun she carried almost every waking moment in a shoulder holster beneath her coat. She had taken the holster off Dan’s body after he was killed.

  She unzipped her coat, pulled the weapon, ejected its magazine, checked that it was fully loaded, re-inserted it, and slipped the gun back into the holster. She wanted to be ready in case these people, whoever they were, ended up being less than gracious for the assistance she was willing to offer.

  She stood watching as the group of boaters worked to gather themselves. The kayak had maneuvered to collect another of the bobbing heads in the water. The person – who Marta couldn’t tell the age or sex of – was clinging to the side of the kayak. She could see several other swimmers making their way toward the deck, but with the way the current was moving them downriver, she wasn’t sure they were going to make it in time. And even if they did, with the gap between the water and the bottom of the roadhouse deck, she didn’t know if reaching the deck would do them any good. They might just be swept under it or be trapped beneath it, clinging to one of the pilings until they grew too weak to hold on any longer and were swept free.

  Less than a minute later, Louise was back outside, lugging Marta’s fishing net along. Portions of the net were spilling out of the child’s tiny arms and dragging along behind her.

  Without a word, Marta took the net from Louise, spreading it out to unfurl the length of rope she had attached to its end. As she worked, she glanced back and forth between the rope she was re-coiling in her hands and the boats and bobbing heads fast approaching in the river. The first swimmers in the water were less than 50 yards from the deck.

  Marta wondered who these people were, where they had come from, and why in god’s name they were traveling on the river in a flood like this.

  Holding her now coiled rope in one hand, her net re
ady to cast in the other, she knelt, making sure she made direct eye contact as she gave final instructions to Louise.

  “Go inside. Get all blankets and dry clothes you find.”

  Marta wanted to tell her to stoke the fire as well, but she knew that was too difficult and dangerous a job for Louise to handle.

  “Be ready to help when I need, but stay inside and out of sight,” Marta continued. “I’ll yell for you if I need. You hear gun, you know what to do.”

  Louise nodded that she understood and quickly threw her arms around Marta’s neck. “Be careful. I love you Marty.” Then she quickly kissed Marta’s cheek.

  Marta was pleasantly surprised by Louise’s words. It was the first time the little girl had told Marta that she loved her. It was a wonderful thing to hear come out of her mouth – so sweet, so innocent, so heartfelt. Marta wished she had time to revel for a moment in the meaning of the words, but she couldn’t.

  “I love you too,” she said back. It was all she had time for, but the words sounded so foreign, so strange coming out of her mouth that it shocked her. She felt it odd that those four simple words would so surprise her. But then she realized that it was the first time she’d told anyone, other than her parents or her brother when she was a small child, that she loved them.

  The revelation both saddened and inspired her. She was sad that no one in her adult life until now had been worthy of the words. At the same time, she was filled with awe and a sense of satisfaction that she’d finally found someone who was indeed worthy. But she didn’t have time to reflect on the momentous occasion.

  The first of the people floating downriver toward her was just yards away now and approaching quickly. They were swimming frantically, but were still a good 20 feet out and making very little progress toward where Marta had positioned herself near the front center of the deck.

  Another swimmer was about 30 yards upriver and also approaching fast. Marta knew the pressure was on. She had one cast to net the first swimmer, who she could now tell was a young man or maybe a teen. She knew that if she missed with her throw, the current would likely carry him past the deck and on downriver.