Fifty Falling Stars

by Wesley Higginbotham

  Will watched in amazement as Kirk fought his way through the throngs of enemy soldiers. They were so focused on reaching the town that most of them didn’t notice him until he was feet away, giving him an advantage of only having to fight a few at a time. Kirk made steady progress. Will knew that Kirk was a dead man. Even with the distraction, it was only a matter of time before a large enough group caught sight of Kirk.

  Will didn’t know why Kirk would make such a suicidal charge. The truck horn sounded again. Will shifted his focus toward it. Kirk fought his way toward it, only a few hundred yards away. My God! He thought to himself. Kirk thinks he can stop the truck! That’s what he’s doing! He going to use his pipe bombs to stop the fucking truck! Will looked back to where Kirk fought, not with grace and beauty, but with efficient, gritty determination to make it through the crowd and do what had to be done.

  Will understood now. Kirk had rushed in knowing that he would die but that stopping the truck would be worth it and give the rest of them a chance to save Celina. Kirk moved forward, but a man caught him across the lower back with an ax. He fell. Will screamed. When the man came to finish him, Kirk kicked his knees out from under him and scrambled away towards where the truck was headed. Will watched. He had heard the stories of Medal of Honor winners doing shit like this, jumping on grenades to save the platoon, picking up burning munitions to throw them from an airplane before they could explode, or charging fortified positions with no hope of living to tell the tale. Kirk was cut from the same material, yet he was somehow more to Will at that moment. He was something out of a legend. The damned hero like Leonidas, fighting to the last drop of blood in a hopeless battle to give his friends and loved ones a chance to survive.

  Will saw that the next group that Kirk would encounter would be the largest yet. He doubted Kirk would make it through. Jimmy and the rest of Kirk’s men had been covering him as best they could, but they were some seven hundred yards away now, well out of range. Kirk was only three hundred and some change from the defense. “All rifles to me!” Will shouted. Several men on the rooftop stopped firing and came over to see why Will wanted them. Several others on the front lines below looked up as well. “That’s Kirk out there, fighting those bastards by himself. Everyone concentrate fire on the group in front of him and try not to hit him. We have to make sure he keeps going forward!” The men looked to where Will pointed and scrambled to find firing positions.

  Kirk broke free from a man who tried to grab him and half stumbled, half ran forward to the next group. His mind barely registered that the group was too large for him to face. Several of the men spotted him and turned to attack or fire. Kirk yelled and charged at them. Bullets tore through the first line before he got within fifteen yards of them. He didn’t know why or how or care. He just charged.

  Vicio saw the lone man fighting his way, running toward the road. He couldn’t understand why one man had charged out into the troops. Maybe he was crazy, broken from the pressure of the attack. He saw the eighty or so men running out from behind the buildings to the south. They were trying to flank his major advancing force.

  He smiled. He knew he didn’t need to worry about them too much. Once the town’s fortified center was breached, the battle would be over. It would just be a matter of time. He looked around at the masses of men running beside his truck, trying to keep up. He was their rallying point. They may not love him, but they feared, respected, and obeyed him. He was their Messiah after all.

  Kirk threw his hatchet at a man who charged at him with a large piece of a two-by-four. The ax missed the man’s body but slammed into his knee. He fell over, no longer a threat. Kirk looked back toward the west. The truck barreled down the road, followed by more invaders. He stood some fifty yards from the road. A tight group of enemy soldiers gathered along the road, cheering on the truck. Up until now, the enemies he had faced had been fairly spread out, allowing him room to fight. That would no longer be possible.

  He was numb. His vision swam. He knew he had only minutes of consciousness left. His will reached out from the core of him and animated his body like a puppet on strings. He felt as if he controlled his body, this broken shell, from a distant place. He knew he only had one chance at this as the truck sped towards him. He reached down, pulled out his lighter and the pipe bomb. His first strike didn’t light. A man noticed him as Kirk tried again to light the fuse.

  The man charged Kirk, swinging a baseball bat. Kirk gritted his teeth and charged toward the man. He tucked his head down and took the full force of the blow on his left shoulder. The force spun him, but he recovered as the man drew back for another strike. Kirk kicked the man in the crotch. He tried the lighter again. The wick caught. Kirk yelled as he rushed the crowd, shoving his way another twenty yards into them, taking hits, cuts, and at least another bullet in his side as he did. The truck blew its horn as it sped toward the town. Kirk jumped up and launched the pipe.

  Vicio yelled in anticipation of his impending triumph as he watched the truck speeding down the road. Less than two hundred yards to go. The town wouldn’t stand a chance. He would have his base and grow his power until he ruled the whole damn state.

  A silvery object caught his eye as it flew from the crowd gathered by the road. The smoke trailing behind the slivery object worried Vicio as it landed in the road. The truck drove over it. The bomb exploded just before the truck cleared it.

  Shrapnel tore through the rear of the trailer, blowing out all tires and puncturing the fuel tank above. The truck began to jackknife. The truck in which Vicio followed swerved hard, sliding on the wet pavement before rolling into the ditch. Vicio and his guards flew through the air and landed in the wet grass and mud.

  Kirk struggled with an invader who was trying to stab him when he heard the bomb explode. Seconds later, the fuel truck exploded, throwing Kirk, his assailant, and hundreds of the enemy army back.

  Kirk felt the rain splatter on his face when regained consciousness less than a minute later. His ears rang, and the earth moved beneath him. He couldn’t see out of his right eye. He tried to roll to his right and stand up, but something was wrong with his arm. He craned his head around so that his left eye could see what was wrong with his arm. He looked down to see the bones of his forearm protruding several inches out from the skin. The remainder of his arm hung uselessly below it. He rolled to his left, vaguely aware of shooting pains in his left side. He knew he should be in much more pain, but everything felt dull and distant.

  He finally regained his fee and noticed just how far the bodies had been thrown. The explosion had been much bigger than he had anticipated. Another figure began to rise behind him. Kirk tried to focus on the man, but found that his eye wouldn’t cooperate. The man began staggering toward Kirk. When he came within ten feet, Kirk recognized Commander Vicio.

  Vicio saw the standing man and recognized him as the man who had charged in from the buildings to the south and blown up his truck, his only chance of taking the town. Vicio looked around and saw his army retreating, their will broken by the loss of the truck and the complete disaster that the battle had turned into. He focused on the man staggering around in front of him. If he lost the town and maybe his army, he could at least kill the asshole responsible for it.

  Vicio pulled out a five-inch hunting knife from his belt and lunged toward the dazed man. Kirk saw the blade coming and did the thing that he suspected Vicio would expect least. He stepped into the wild attack. Kirk felt the knife slide into the ribs on his left side. He clenched his muscles and grabbed Vicio’s hand with his working arm, anchoring the knife in his ribcage. Kirk saw the surprise in Vicio’s eyes. The man had no idea that he fought a man who had already accepted that he was dead.

  Kirk slammed his head into Vicio’s face, breaking his nose. The bare bone of his right eye socket cut a gouge in Vicio’s face. The blow dazed Vicio but he fought back, punching Kirk with his free hand. Kirk tried to block with his disabled arm while holding the knife in his ribs. Kirk kneed Vicio i
n the gut. The man bent over and rose back up to punch Kirk in the mouth. Kirk took the blow and lost some teeth. Vicio reared back to strike again. Almost by reflex, Kirk thrust the jagged bones of his right arm into Vicio’s face, ramming the end of one into Vicio’s left eye socket. Vicio let go of the knife in Kirk’s side as he stepped back, holding his ruined eye. Kirk yanked the blade out of his side and stepped forward to meet Vicio. He saw the realization and fear in Vicio’s eyes as he swung the blade in a wide, upward arc. The blade slid in under Vicio’s jaw, tearing the tender tissue beneath before imbedding in the back of the Commander’s throat. Kirk jerked the blade out. He crouched and swung the blade up again, aiming lower this time. The blade entered Vicio just above his right hipbone. Kirk yanked it up, tearing a foot-long hole in Vicio’s gut. Vicio fell to his knee, coughing up blood from the hole in his throat while trying to hold his intestines in.

  Kirk watched Vicio collapse, his own feet feeling less than sturdy beneath him. He collapsed to sit beside the commander of the enemy army. He tried to maintain consciousness as he listened to the gurgling sound of Vicio’s last breaths. He felt his strength fading, the vision in his good eye collapsing to a narrow tunnel.

  Kirk regained a sliver of consciousness as someone, a dark shape, loomed over him and lifted him. The face looked a lot like Clay’s. Another man, at least he thought it was a man, grabbed his legs and lifted them. He heard sounds of a truck door shutting and a tailgate closing. Blackness claimed him again.

  Light flooded Kirk’s vision as the woman pulled open his eyelid and shined the bright light in it. He groaned as he felt lifted again. They laid him down on something soft. It took his mind a second to register that it was soft. He shivered with cold, and his vision blurred again. A beautiful face appeared hovering above him. He raised his right hand, or would have if it still worked. He tried to brush the red curls out of the crying eyes above him. “Don’t cry, sweetheart. Everything’s going to be all right, Clarice.” He whispered before the blackness claimed him again.

  Chapter 33

  Kirk groaned as he woke. He found it difficult. He registered that someone had left the room. A hand grabbed his shoulder and squeezed. Kirk tried to open his eyes. One of them didn’t work. A bandage covered the right side of his face. He saw a man looking down at him.

  Dr. Williams spoke to him. “Welcome back, Kirk. I just need to do a few quick tests. That ok with you?”

  Kirk nodded as the doctor shined a flashlight into his eye. He checked Kirk’s pulse, his breathing, and blood pressure. “You seem to be ok, all things considered. You’ll still have to be in this bed for another two to three weeks, but you should survive. You have some visitors. Talking may be a little rough at first. You were on a ventilator for about a week. We also had to put a feeding tube in you. I took it out yesterday while you were still sedated.”

  The doctor took a step back. Will took his place and stood by Kirk’s side. He gazed down at Kirk, and his emotions got the best of him. A tear clawed its way out of his eye. He said the first thing that came to his mind, something Kirk had told him after beating the shit out of him in their unarmed training sessions. It was a quote from one of Kirk’s favorite movies. “Get up you son of a bitch, cause Mickey loves ya!”

  Kirk stared up at Will with his one good eye. Slowly, he began to chuckle, wincing as it caused him pain. His first attempt to speak came out as a dry rasp. His throat felt like it had been sandblasted. He cleared his throat and tried again. “The town must have held for you to hovering over me making Rocky references.” Will smiled. “So,” Kirk began again, looking around the room, “where am I and what happened?”

  “What’s the last thing you remember?” Will asked him.

  “Throwing the pipe bomb at the truck. Did it hit?”

  “Did it ever. Shook the whole town and turned the battle. After you blew the truck, most of the bastards attacking us gave up and retreated back out the west gate. Some surrendered, and a few fought on until we could put them down.

  “Man, what you did out there… that was absolutely insane. Some real Medal of Honor shit.”

  Kirk moved his right hand to wave off the flattery and noticed that his right arm now ended in a bandage half way down his forearm. There was a drip set up in his left arm. He looked back up to Will. “How long have I been out?”

  “Eleven days, man. You’re either the toughest son of a bitch I’ve ever heard of or the luckiest. I watched the whole thing, trying to cover you from the rooftop of the old city hall building. After the explosion and the main charge broke, Clay and some of his men from the west gate led a charge out of the middle of town to clear the field. I was able to direct him over to where I saw you last. You were barely alive when he found you. He got the docs over to you and moved you back to the hospital. The docs didn’t want to treat you at first. You know, triage and all. They black flagged you. They figured you were already dead. Clay knew what you had just done for the town and threatened to kill the guy if they didn’t treat you. Probably not the best way to get good medical treatment, but it worked.

  “We got you loaded up and moved back here. You’d lost so much blood that we all thought it was a losing battle. You would have died if the sheriff hadn’t made you guys give your blood type when you were in quarantine. You’re AB negative. So, we were able to collect volunteers and get some blood into you. We must have gone through nine people by the time the doc had finished with the surgery.”

  Kirk held up his stump and examined it. “How bad is the rest of me?”

  Will hesitated. “You sure you want to know?”

  Kirk fixed him with an intent stare from his working eye. “Ok,” Will said, “You lost your right arm, as you’ve noticed. The doc was able to patch up your leg and the other seven gunshot wounds. Like I said, you were lucky. Most of them passed straight through. They had to remove some parts of you though. You lost a spleen and a kidney. The cuts on your back and the other shoulder weren’t too deep. Your left arm is fractured, but the doc says it’ll heal fine…” Will took a deep breath. “You must have caught some shrapnel from the blast. It just about took off the right side of your face. Your right eye and ear were gone when we found you. The doc says you’re going to have a lot of scaring; but you should survive. None of us thought you would. But, here you are. You’re lucky one of the doctors that ended up in Celina as a refugee was a trauma surgeon for years. She’s the one who really saved you.”

  Kirk let the news sink in for a minute. “Well, I never was much of a looker.”

  Will couldn’t help but laugh. “Where are Sherry and Lucy?” Kirk asked.

  “They should be back in a minute. They’ve hardly left your side. Jenny just went to fetch them.”

  “So, now that we know I’ll live, how’s everything with the town? I bet the sheriff’s already got repairs and such underway.”

  Will shook his head. “He didn’t make it, Kirk. One of the pipe bombs went off behind the fence. It took out a lot of folks, including Sheriff White, Garry Smith, and a couple of others.”

  “Damn.” Kirk said. He hadn’t liked the sheriff, but he’d respected the man. Celina had lost a good resource when the old man had passed. “So, who’s running things?”

  “You are, kinda.”

  “How’s that work?” Kirk asked. “I’ve probably missed some things in the last week and a half.”

  “Well, word spread about what you did, charging out there like a madman and blowing up the fuel truck. With the sheriff gone, people needed someone to turn to. Tale of your actions kept getting bigger and bigger. You’re a legend now. The town council got together the day after the battle and decided that if it hadn’t been for you training the scouts, making the town’s defenses better, and blowing up the truck, we wouldn’t have made it. They decided to put you in charge if you survived. Since you pretty much treated me as a deputy before all of this happened, they decided I should run things for you until you recovered.”

  Kirk nodded. “Even Ma
yor Clemens agreed to that?”

  “It was his idea, if you can believe it.” Will said.

  “Well, that’s the first sensible thing that they’ve done on their own since I got here.” Kirk said.

  “Yeah, I think we’ll be better off with you in charge.” Will agreed.

  “It’s not me that I’m talking about… You, Will. You being in charge is right.”

  “Me?” Will asked. “But you’re alive. You should take over when you get better.”

  Kirk shook his head. “No. Not me. The men are going to need someone whole and tough to lead them. They need that man now. You heard the doc, I’ve already been in here for eleven days and will be for another few weeks. You’re already leading them. Just keep it up. Besides, I’m just a one armed, one eyed, old man now. It’ll be months, maybe years, if ever, before I’m useful again. I’ll never be back to full speed again. No, you’re the right man to lead Celina forward.” Will started to argue, but Kirk kept going. “I’ll still be around, doing what I can, giving advice, and being a general pain in the ass; but you have to step up now. I’m going to be pretty helpless for a little while until I adjust to all of this. Shit, I’ll have to get me someone in town who’s good at making things and see if I can get me a hook or something for the arm so that I can at least get some use out of it. Just don’t start calling me Captain Hook, all right Tinkerbell?”