The Unexpected War
Page 20
I turned away from her, ignoring her moody rants, and started sorting through the weapons David had brought back. Carana comforted Lara as she continued to spit a barrage of insults in my direction. “It’s like no one even cares about me,” I heard her complain to Carana.
I slung a PSG sniper rifle around my shoulder and took a backpack, loading it with ammunition, a flare gun, grenades, and ration packs. David slung an M4 around his shoulder and packed his bag as well.
Carana already had her submachine gun slung around her shoulder. The only thing left from the pile was a 9mm handgun. I loaded it and went over to Lara, who was now dressed in her winter jacket but still on all fours, battling through another contraction.
“I’m sorry about arguing with you,” she grunted apologetically, avoiding my stare.
I gave her the 9mm, which she tucked into the back of her pants as the contraction subsided. I was a bit worried, and she must have read it on my face, because she gently rubbed her hand through my hair, messing it up. “Don’t we have to leave?” she asked me, giving me a light peck on the cheek.
“Is the baby already down in your pelvis?” I asked, thinking of a way we could all escape without getting killed. I knew that if she started giving birth once we were escaping, we would be screwed.
She nodded but stubbornly struggled to her wobbly feet and leaned against the dresser. “Let’s go, before Rashellia decides she wants to come out and play,” Lara urged me, holding the bottom of her bulging belly.
David took the dog tags off Tracy’s neck, and we all said our good-byes to her, with tears in our eyes. Then we set out the door, stealthily walking along the sides of the houses. Lara leaned against my shoulder as we bustled along the back alley as fast as we could. I heard a gunshot at close range—and saw it was Lara, who was holding out her handgun. She had shot a fiend in the head behind us.
“Nice shot,” Carana called out, and we started moving quickly again, finally reaching the fence. We rushed along it, looking for a hole that we could fit through. “Oh, no!” Lara gasped, clutching her stomach.
I covered her mouth as she was about to let out a scream. We were forced to stop as I rested Lara on the ground, and she thrashed around violently as the contraction shot through her belly. I heard the cracking of her pelvis as it expanded, getting ready to let the baby slide through.
“Is it crowning?” I asked her worriedly, kneeling down beside her. David and Carana looked over at us, fearfully.
“No, I’m fine,” Lara replied a moment later, catching her breath once the pain had subsided. “Sorry; that was a big one,” she muttered over the sound of gunfire that lit up the sky.
“It’s fine you’re so strong,” I replied, helping her up as we set off along the fence again.
We had to move a lot slower. Lara was forced to waddle, and I assumed from the way she was struggling to walk that she had pushed Rashellia almost to the point where she was going to come out. Luckily, we found a hole in the fence a few yards away and helped Lara get through. Then we all wriggled through, lying down on the other side of it, camouflaged in the snow. “We have to wait for Lara to get a contraction,” I told them as we stared at the two hundred meters of open field between us and the tree line. “If she gets one out there, we’re screwed.”
“You picked a hell of a time to have a baby,” David teased.
“Shut up!” she shot back playfully as we waited patiently in the snow.
“Whatever you do, don’t push, even if you have the urge to do it,” Carana told Lara.
“Think you can run that distance?” I asked her, staring out into the snow-covered field to the woods.
“Try to keep up with me,” she joked, giving me a playful nudge.
I nudged her back, and she smiled. She seemed about to say something when her face turned to pain as the contraction hit. She latched onto me, squeezing painfully as she sobbed silently.
“Don’t push; just let it pass,” I kept encouraging her. “Is it done?” I asked, once she had let out a sigh of relief.
She nodded. We all got up, running in a zigzag pattern, trudging through the deep snow, with Carana and David leading. Lara was slung around David’s shoulder, and I was in the rear. Fiends quickly noticed we were escaping as we got near the tree line. I heard the cracking of gunshots as a machine gun opened up behind us, but it overshot and hit the snow in front of us.
I made the mistake of stopping as we were almost to the trees to glance through the scope of my sniper, hoping to take out the machine gunner. A round hit my right shoulder, knocking me down into the snow on my back. I gasped in pain and heard Lara’s panicked cry as the gunfire started strafing around my body.
I shakily staggered to my feet and lunged deep through the tree line, out of range, as bullets hissed by me, narrowly missing. Carana helped me lower myself to the ground, as David kept watch around us.
“Don’t move. You’ll be fine. It’s not that bad,” Lara told me, crawling over to me, even while she was having a contraction. She clutched below her stomach, trying to fight off the wave of pain, as she dug out the bullet from my shoulder with a claw that emerged from her free hand. I covered my own mouth as I cried out in pain. Lara’s contraction had gone away, and her concern for me quickly took over.
“Stop being a pussy,” she joked with me as she operated on my wounded shoulder. She grabbed a handful of snow and cleaned out the wound. Then she cast a spell to heal it. I rotated the arm, testing it tentatively. It was a bit stiff, but Lara told me it would go away after I rested. “We have to find a hiding spot. They’re going to be looking for escapees and—” She winced and breathed heavily.
I rubbed her back, and David and Carana watched nervously for any movement beyond the trees.
“You’re going to be a father really soon,” Lara said.
“Let’s go,” I told them, grabbing the bag and getting up.
We trudged through the snow, deeper into the woods, for several hundred yards. Suddenly, David shouted, “Wait—I found something!” David pulled open a door that led to an underground bunker. It was fairly big—Lara and I could fit comfortably in one corner; David and Carana plopped their stuff in the opposite corner. I came to the conclusion that it must be the abandoned den of resistance fighters, judging by the random sketches on the walls that indicated how long it would be until relief arrived, along with individual kill tallies and stuff like that.
I placed all our bags against the wall. Lara was constantly moaning now, making me nervous. I loaded the sniper rifle, trying to take my mind off Lara’s screams. Carana and David both stood guard outside, wishing us luck as they stepped out.
I helped her get undressed, and she lay against me, trying to distract me with a kiss, whimpering as a contraction got too painful. She started to push, and I was no help at all, as I was scared stiff and wished I had a way out. I tried to hide my fright whenever she looked at me. I’d tell her what a great job she was doing, but she knew I was frightened.
“We … ugh … oh God … ugh … we … need firewood,” she told me, squeezing my hand as she pushed.
I knew she was giving me a way out, and I took it, feeling like a complete jackass. I awkwardly freed myself from her and kissed her belly as I got ready to go out into the cold night air. I grabbed the sniper rifle, giving her another kiss and whispering that I was sorry.
She wrapped her arms around me, taking me by surprise as she kissed me gently. “It’s not your fault. I wanted this baby and deceived you to get it,” she whimpered, plunging her face into my winter jacket and sobbing uncontrollably—it was probably from the contractions and her emotions. I patted her back until she finally stopped. “I love you, Lance,” she said through teary eyes.
“Me too,” I replied.
We kissed again before another contraction hit, and then I went outside into the snow.
I stared, as if in a trance, at the city in the distance—it was totally engulfed in flames. The constant roar of airplanes and gunfire ruined what could have been the best day of my life. Attacks like this made me realize that even if humans and fiends wanted peace, it would never be accepted. I guess we were natural enemies.
“Are you all right?” David asked.
“I have to go get firewood,” I muttered.
“I can help,” David offered, following me a few paces.
“No, stay here. Guard the entrance,” I ordered him sharply, whirling around.
He lifted his hands up peacefully. “All right.”
I stomped around in the woods and filled up the bag with the driest wood I could find. I deliberately took my time. When I returned, I knew that Lara had had the baby even before I stepped into the den. Carana was outside with David; they both were smiling. When they saw me emerge from the brush, they grabbed the bag of wood from me and bustled me inside the den.
Lara’s eyes were filled with tears of joy as she looked up at me when I entered. She was holding Rashellia across her chest, breast-feeding her while softly humming. I sat beside Lara, silently watching Rashellia’s feeding.
All my cares seemed to disappear as I looked at our little girl. She had blue eyes, just like her mother, causing me to smile. Rashellia looked like a normal human baby but after a minute, her eyes turned red, and she let out a tiny growl, sort of like a puppy would, and she bit into Lara’s breast, sucking blood from her.
Lara motioned to me that it was okay, and she massaged the baby’s jaw until she let go and resumed breast-feeding normally. Lara healed the bite marks. “Would you like to hold her, Daddy?” Lara finally asked me.
I held back tears and stroked Lara’s hair affectionately. I nodded. Lara wrapped Rashellia up in a blanket and handed her to me. I felt a tear roll down my cheek as I cradled Rashellia in my arms and rocked her back and forth.
The small baby yawned, looking up at me and blinking sleepily. She nibbled on my arm a bit, penetrating the skin and sucking some blood from it. It didn’t really hurt as much as I might have expected.
“She’s going to be a daddy’s girl; I can tell,” Lara told me, putting her clothes on and then leaning her head against my shoulder as she sleepily watched our child.
“You did a good job. I’m sorry for … well … you know,” I said.
She put her finger against my lips, whispering, “Shhhhhh,” and then she just nodded, accepting my apology. She tickled Rashellia’s belly, making her squirm around in my arms.
“Let’s let Carana and David have a look at her,” I whispered to Lara, who laughed groggily and nodded in agreement. We called them in, and the two of them pushed and shoved each other, trying to get in first to see the baby.
“She’s so cute!” Carana said, taking her from me and cradling her in her arms.
David beamed over her shoulder. “Congrats, man. You’re a father now!” David said happily. He reached down to pat Rashellia’s head, but Lara suddenly snapped at him unexpectedly.
“Get your filthy hands away from her!” she growled menacingly, baring her fangs and growling as she bolted upright, snatching Rashellia back into her arms and humming to her protectively. “Whoops,” she giggled, regaining control of herself. “Sorry. I guess my mother instincts sort of took over there.”
“It’s illegal for males to touch a newborn child for forty-eight hours—except, of course, the father,” Carana explained to David, who nodded understandingly and then apologized. “Lara needs her rest now,” Carana said, shooing David and me outside. “You two take first watch, and I’ll take care of Rashellia.”
I kissed both Lara and Rashellia on the head. Then I loaded my M4 before stepping out into the cold and taking a seat on a log a couple meters away from the entrance. David followed me, sitting down beside me.
“The sad thing is that the only place I’ve ever felt like I belonged was there,” he muttered, staring through the trees at the burning city.
Occasional sounds of gunfire would crack through the night air—probably from the few remaining residents trapped inside the blazing inferno. I felt rage building toward the fiends as David and I talked about Tracy. “I’m going to miss her, man,” I said.
“Same here,” he told me. He took Tracy’s dog tags from his jacket, dangling them in front of us. When I looked at him, he was crying silently. I placed a comforting hand on his shoulder.
And then, without warning, we both whirled around in shock as we heard the click of a safety being released and, seemingly out of nowhere, ten soldiers appeared through the tree line surrounding us.
I looked at the arm patch on one of them, as I pointed my M4 at the officer. They were resistance fighters.
“Whoa, whoa—don’t shoot,” the soldier beside him said, holding out his hand to the others. He took a step forward in the newly fallen snow, and the moonlight illuminated his face.
“Grant?” I whispered, not believing my eyes.
“Lance!” he yelled, throwing his AK59 to the ground and running over to me. We both hurled ourselves at each other, happily embracing for the first time in over a year.
“I thought you were dead!” I yelled happily, wrestling him to the ground.
“I thought you were dead!” he retorted, finally pinning me—he was always the stronger one.
Everyone lowered their weapons as Grant and I got up, brushing the snow off each other while laughing like two little kids. I signaled to David that it was okay, and he lowered his weapon as well.
“David, this is my friend Corporal Grant Benet from the PLF,” I told him.
David extended his hand, shaking Grant’s firmly. “Pleasure to meet you. I’m Private First Class David Legro, ex-NWO.
“You’re NWO?” the officer asked uneasily as he walked forward, keeping a hand on the pistol strapped to his waist.
“Easy, Philip, any friend of Lance’s is a friend of ours,” Grant told the officer, who took his hand from his sidearm and shook our hands.
“Were you residents of Monatello?” Philip asked, gesturing toward the burning buildings in the distance.
I nodded and asked, “Who did this?”
“Apparently, a radicalized rebel faction of fiends decided to break from the original invaders. They are opposed to any negotiations of peace that the fiends have come up with, as you can tell.” He nodded toward the burning buildings. “Is anyone else with you?”
“Yes, our wives,” David spoke up. “They’re both fiends, but they won’t hurt you.” He looked around at the uneasy stares the soldiers were giving each other.
“My daughter was born not even an hour ago,” I told them, gesturing toward the den.
“Damn! You shacked up with a fiend?” Grant grunted, giving me a playful nudge.
“Well, that den is our sleeping quarters,” a soldier muttered.
“Shut up, Luke,” Grant shot back at the soldier, giving him a warning slap over the helmet.
“You may stay with us, if you wish,” the officer told us, after thinking for a moment.
David and I both accepted his invitation, and then David went into the den to explain to Lara and Carana what had happened. He emerged a moment later, waving us in. As I lay down beside Lara, she watched protectively as the resistance fighters all noisily piled in, setting down their weapons and bags and joking with one another about a firefight from which they’d just escaped.
Once everyone was in and settled down, Carana and Lara became a little less tense. Lara cuddled closer to me, purring softly, as Rashellia slept safely between us.
“She’s cute,” Grant said quietly as people began
to go to sleep.
“Thanks,” Lara replied, seeming unsure whether to trust him or not.
“What’s her name?” Grant asked, taking off his boots and resting against the wall of the den.
“Rashellia,” Lara replied.
“Rashellia?”
I nodded, knowing that he was thinking of my old girlfriend Rachel.
“She was one of a kind, eh?” Grant said.
“Yes, she was,” I replied.
“It’s good to see that you made it, Lance. I thought I was the only one left from the good old Tenth Light Infantry,” he told me.
I nodded, sifting through all the memories of friends that Grant and I shared who were now dead. I rested my head against Lara’s, stroking Rashellia’s head fondly. “Where are we going to go now?” I whispered to her, once everyone had fallen asleep.
“Brawklin City,” she whispered back, toying with my hair. She pulled out a map from her jacket pocket, showing me roughly where we were located and then ran her finger along it to where Brawklin City was.
“How far away is that?” I asked her.
The fire in the middle of the den crackled, illuminating her face. “About a three- to four-day flight or a two-week walk,” she told me. “I won’t be able to fly for a couple days with all your weight until things settle down inside me from giving birth.” She folded the map and placed it in my jacket pocket.
“Don’t you need that?” I asked.
“Nah, I have a spare,” she said, ruffling up my hair.
“You should go to sleep. You must be tired after pushing out this little trooper,” I told her, bringing the blanket up to Rashellia’s neck.
“I walked around with her inside me for almost a year. Believe me, I’m glad she’s finally decided to come out,” she replied, looking down at Rashellia.
“I really am sorry for leaving you. I just couldn’t stand to see you in so much pain and not be able to do anything about it,” I told her.
“I know. You don’t need to keep apologizing. I know you love her. You were just scared; it’s understandable. Besides, I accidently swiped Carana’s cheek with my claw. If you’d been here, I might have hurt you badly.”