by James Hunt
“Wasn’t sure if you made it out alive,” Charlie said.
“Likewise.” The stranger rubbed his fingertips, then noticed the blood staining his hands. He paused, looking back to the fighter he’d just dropped off. He lowered his hand then turned to Charlie. “I need to get back to my people. Make sure they’re all right.”
“How many men do you have left?” Charlie asked.
“A few dozen,” the stranger answered. “That’s all I could find.” He exhaled, adjusting his footing, and squinted back out onto the field of battle. “So much blood in such a short amount of time.”
Charlie stepped toward the stranger, unsure if he should tell him what he knew about Dixon. The last thing he wanted was to make an already bad situation worse, but Charlie felt the man had a right to know what happened. He’d lost just as many men as Charlie did, but Charlie was unsure of what the stranger would do with the news.
“I understand,” Charlie answered. “We’ll take care of your wounded.”
“Thank you.”
“Good luck.” The pair shook hands, and Charlie watched the leader disappear. Once he was gone, Shelly stood next to him.
“Why didn’t you tell him?” Shelly asked.
“It’ll only make things worse.” Charlie turned back to the wounded. “And we don’t need any worse.”
Everyone kept an eye toward the sky for the next hour, Charlie included, as anyone who wasn’t injured or hurt helped sift through the bodies of the dead. Charlie didn’t request help from the tree line, knowing that many of the dead had family members waiting for them. There would be time for mourning and identification, but right now it was more important to keep the bulk of his community hidden in case the terrorists decided to come back.
While Charlie had hoped to find more survivors, they only discovered more death. The pile of bodies grew higher and higher as the day grew longer, and while he kept a close eye on the surroundings, he was surprised at the quiet.
No planes. No gunshots. Nothing.
Granted, Mayfield was some distance away from The Orchard, but with the kind of weaponry that Charlie had seen on both sides of the battle lines, he expected faint pops in the distance. But the more time passed and the longer that silence lingered, the more confused Charlie became.
Why were they waiting so long to strike an offensive? Surely they had enough men to make their last stand, so long as Dixon’s number of one thousand was correct. But still the silence persisted.
“What in the hell are you waiting for?” Charlie asked, talking to the horizon.
“Charlie?”
He turned, finding Liz standing there in a bloody apron, gloves on her hands, her hair pulled back in a tight bun. She’d been helping Doc with the injured. She was one of the few Orchard members with professional medical training. He walked to her, wanting to kiss her, but knowing that it was only business that mattered now.
“We’ll need more supplies from Mayfield,” Liz said. “We’re running low on morphine, and half of these guys aren’t going to be able to handle surgery without it. They’ll go into shock. Plus after treatment, we won’t have—”
“We can’t get it,” Charlie said.
“What happened?” Liz asked. “Did—”
Charlie took a step toward her and grabbed her shoulders, and she shuddered from his touch. “We’re on our own.” He looked back to Doc’s ER unit and the rows of fighters that still needed to be tended to. “Do what you can.”
Liz nodded and returned to work, while Charlie returned to the pile of dead. The sun was already baking the corpses, the flies starting to circle. This wasn’t how it was supposed to end. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be, but again the world told Charlie that what he wanted and what he believed in didn’t matter. What he wanted was irrelevant.
The sun dropped lower and lower in the sky, and by the time evening was upon them, Charlie and the remaining survivors of the attack had cleared the battlefield of their dead. Two massive piles had been erected on the side of the road.
“The plans of mice and men,” Charlie said, whispering to himself.
“Boss,” Shelly grabbed his attention, her sleeves rolled up and her body armor removed, though she still kept her rifle on her person. It was the unwritten law of the crew. “People in the forest are getting restless. They want to see what they can salvage from their homes.” She hesitated. “And they want to know if their family members are still alive.”
Charlie turned back to the piles of the dead. “Get a list of names of the injured from Liz. I don’t want a stampede of people out here. It’ll be easier to tell them who survived than who died.” He looked to Shelly. “And don’t let them come out. No one leaves until I know this is over.”
And as Shelly left to carry out his orders, Charlie wondered how long they’d all have to wait until it was finished. Sitting on the sidelines after a year of being in the shit wasn’t something that Charlie had grown accustomed to, and it was making him antsy.
Wanting to make himself useful, Charlie walked the list over to the tree line himself. He weaved through the smoky wreckage of the fields, examining the few bits of life that remained in the place. But like the field of dead he just cleared, what survived was few and far between.
Charlie heard the murmur of conversation from the rest of the orchard before he even arrived at the tree line. He kept the list of names in his hand, the short piece of paper folded over. He’d written the names down, but he already had them memorized. The list was short enough for him to do that.
He stared at the ground until the last minute, and when the world around him was so quiet that it was noticeable, Charlie glanced up.
The tree line was crammed with people, each one of them waiting with bated breath, hands clasped together, waiting on the man who would once again change their lives.
“I have a list of names,” Charlie said, clearing his throat, his voice scratchy and raw, then repeated himself so everyone could hear. “I have a list of names! They’re the survivors of the battle on the road. I didn’t have time to write down if they were injured, or how they were injured, but as of my walk over, each one of these fighters was alive.”
Whimpers rippled through the crowd as they held onto one another, dreading and hoping for it to be over quickly and to come out the other side unscathed. But when Charlie unfolded the list, a few burst into tears before he even spoke.
“Miles Cunningham,” Charlie said. “Jared Levan. Carol Seethers—”
Charlie read from the list, keeping both hands on the flimsy piece of paper to help conceal the trembling of his hands. He kept his eyes on the paper, reporting each name as loud and clear as his voice would allow.
When he neared the end of the list, Charlie struggled to hide the quiver in his voice. Because the number of people that would be devastated when he stopped outnumbered those that exhaled in relief ten to one.
“—And Sharon Walker.” Charlie’s eyes lingered on that last name, and he waited for the rush of exhale from the held breath across the line of people. But when it didn’t come, he folded the paper back into his pocket and addressed the crowd. “We’ve gathered the bodies—”
“That’s it?” A man stepped from the crowd, eyes red and fists clenched. “That was less than thirty people.” He shook his head. “There has to be more.”
“There isn’t,” Charlie said.
“Are you sure?” A young woman stepped from back behind a cluster of people. Her hair was long and curly, tangled in knots, her joints too large for her small frame. “What if someone ran off in another area of fighting, or what if they’re hurt and you just thought they were dead?”
Charlie watched the fear and desperation catch along the herd like wildfire. One after another they stepped forward, each of them clinging to the hope that Charlie was wrong, that the people they cared about, their fathers, and brothers, sisters, and mothers were still alive. But none of the ones they loved had survived. Charlie hadn’t deceived them, no mat
ter how much they wanted it to be true.
“Shelly will break everyone into groups,” Charlie said. “You will be able to retrieve their remains—”
“Oh, god!” The skinny, wild-haired young woman dropped to her hands and knees in the dirt. She balled her hands into fists, clumping up patches of dirt, her entire body trembling. “Oh my God!” She spit the words out between horrifying sobs, and for a minute everyone around her just stood back and watched the grief and rage pour out of the young woman’s soul.
Charlie had been the one to deliver bad news like this before. But he had never delivered so many names at once, or at such a horrific time. He turned to look back at their shattered homes, trying to think of anything that he could say to ease the pain, the fear, the uncertainty. But the wisdom eluded him.
“Dixon and the military are throwing everything they have left to defend the power plant in Mayfield,” Charlie spun back around, the faces of rage and grief staring right back through him. “If they lose that fight, then all of this will have been for nothing. All of the loss we experienced, not just today, but over the past year. Maybe even over the course of our entire lives.” Charlie shook his head, dropping his gaze to his boots. “I’ve tried to keep this place going. I tried to rebuild. And I will be damned if I’m going to let a bunch of assholes with machine guns ruin what future I still might have.” He looked to the crowd, tears forming in his eyes, and no longer caring about acting as their leader, or being the man with answers. “It’s a future that you can have too. But it only works if it’s what you want. What you really, truly want. There isn’t room for anything else anymore. And if you want to honor the loved ones you lost today? If you really want to make sure that their memory lives on? Then you must live. You must create a future where their names are remembered. Because the only way they truly die, the only way that they really disappear, is when there isn’t anyone left to remember them.”
And as much as Charlie didn’t want to, he knew that there was only one last path for him to take. And that was to fight the enemy at Mayfield. But not for Dixon, or the military, or even the crowd that had stepped closer, drawn to his words. It was for a nurse and a little girl who had become a daughter to him.
He would fight for two people. That was something he could manage.
19
By the time Charlie had finished handing out the weapons, there was another seventy men and women at his back as they marched toward Mayfield. He hadn’t expected so many, and he wasn’t sure what they’d find when they arrived at Mayfield, but he knew that it was better than sitting at the orchard and just waiting to hear the news of their battle. At the very least they’d know whether there was any hope left at all.
It was an anxious hike, and while there was a plethora of new fighters, Charlie felt better about the decision to head back to Mayfield when the twins and Nick decided to join him. It didn’t take much convincing. The fact that Lee had died and they knew the enemy who killed him was on their way or currently already at Mayfield, it was the easiest decision that any of them had ever made.
The sun dropped lower against their backs the farther they walked, bathing the world in that beautiful golden hue that Charlie loved so much. His eyes lingered on everything the light touched, his mind soaking in the beautiful sight as though he might never see it again.
It was a thought that crossed his mind several times. Despite all of that big talk about living for tomorrow and creating a future, Charlie understood that he was walking into the lion’s den. He was about to enter a world of blood and fire, and the only way out was to make sure that neither of those elements touched you.
Mayfield’s sign came into view on that final turn around the bend, and Charlie’s muscles and joints ached. It had already been a long day, and with night descending upon them, he knew it was only going to get worse.
“You think they already came?” Shelly asked, keeping stride with Charlie.
“Yeah, you think that anything is still left?” Jason added.
“They better be,” Nick answered. “I didn’t walk all this way not to fucking shoot something.”
But while the crew chatted, Charlie kept his gaze ahead, squinting into the distance, the fading light making it harder and harder to determine the situation that they were about to encounter.
“Eyes up,” Charlie said. “I want everyone to stay sharp.”
The crew barked the orders down the line, and the greenhorns all nodded nervously, unsure of what they were even supposed to be looking for. But Charlie wasn’t sure himself.
They entered the town at twilight, the dark reach of night reaffirming its grip on the world around them, and Charlie raised his rifle in preparation for a fight.
There were no signs that anything else had happened since Charlie had left earlier in the day. But that didn’t mean they were safe. Not by a long shot.
Once they cleared the bulk of the rubble, Charlie stopped, causing the crew and everyone else that had followed him to stop too. The fact that they hadn’t run into a guard or anyone on duty didn’t sit well with Charlie. And the fact that it was so quiet didn’t sit well with him either.
“Boss,” Shelly said. “What—”
“You really do have a death wish, don’t you?”
The voice came from somewhere in the darkness, and Charlie narrowed his eyes to get try and locate Dixon’s position. “The fact that you haven’t opened fire tells me that you need the help.”
After a pause, a figure emerged from the shadows, and Charlie lowered the weapon when Dixon was finally revealed. He wore no smile or expression of gratitude for Charlie arriving with seventy armed fighters at his back.
“Planning on taking the town from me?” Dixon asked.
Charlie stepped closer toward the commander, a man who he had, at the very least, considered a peer. The pair understood that choices had to be made in order to ensure the survival of their people, and Charlie wasn’t going to let their squabble get in the way of that.
“I know you had your reasons,” Charlie answered. “If I were in your shoes and had to make that call, I probably would have done the same thing. But that doesn’t mean you won’t be judged for it one day.”
Dixon nodded. “I suppose there will be a lot that both of us have to answer for.” He finally looked behind Charlie to the armed men and women that had come to fight. “They know how to use those weapons they’re squeezing just a little too tight?”
Charlie nodded. “Most of our fighters were taken out in the blast, but everyone on the orchard was trained to handle a weapon.”
“Well,” Dixon said. “We’ll stick them in the back. They’ll only see action if our front lines fall. God help us if they do.”
Charlie followed Dixon through the streets, the pair moving quickly back toward the power plant, and on their walk, Charlie noticed the number of men that emerged from the darkness. They had snipers all over the place, and Charlie wondered how long he and his people had been in their sights.
“You got here just in time,” Dixon said. “During the first couple of hours after the initial attack, we had prepared for an all-out assault, but when that final hammer swing never came, we did a recon scout of the area and found it clear of the enemy. Nothing but empty woods and abandoned homes for miles.”
“What about your intelligence?” Charlie asked. “You said they were mounting an attack, an offensive that was meant to be the final blow.”
“They still are,” Dixon answered, then gestured to the darkness and the night sky around them. “We shot down two of their planes, which means they’ve only got one left, and it’s their best chance of obliterating the power plant.”
Charlie frowned, but then caught on quickly. “It’ll be harder to see the plane at night.”
Dixon scoffed. “We’ve got everything but goddamn spotlights.” He shook his head, and the power plant and the hospital came into view. “We’ve tried to light up the ground, reflection and all that, but I don’t think it’s goin
g to help.”
“No, but it’ll paint a hell of a target for the bomber,” Charlie said.
Dixon stopped, placing his hand on Charlie’s chest, forcing both men to stop. “I admire you returning. Especially after what happened. It takes a different kind of man to do that, someone who sees the bigger picture. It’s one of the reasons our relationship has worked so well and lasted so long. But if you want to come back and help, have more of your people killed, then they’ll be following my orders.” He made a point to look to the heart of Charlie’s crew, making sure that they understood it as well.
But Charlie wasn’t fazed by Dixon’s words. He simply looked back to the crew, and then turned back toward Dixon and laughed. “Well, they barely follow my orders.” He clapped Dixon on the shoulder. “So good luck.”
With their interaction over, Charlie allowed Dixon and his lieutenants to break up the fighters that had followed Charlie to Mayfield, but while they were led to different sections of the town, Charlie headed toward the front lines by the power plant. If he was going to make a stand, then he was going to do it in the only place that he knew the enemy would want to get to. It assured him the best opportunity to make his journey a useful one.
Shelly, Jason, and Nick came with him, ignoring the orders of the military officers, and seeing as how they had another dozen or so to deal with, they let him pass without incident.
The foursome caught a few glares as they carved out their own patch of space around the power plant near the south side, which Charlie figured would be the most logical point of attack. And since it was where the bulk of Dixon’s forces were, it helped reinforce that theory.
The energy that hummed through the soldiers was tense. It connected everyone to each other and heightened the anticipation of war. Everyone hoped for and dreaded the moment of the first gunshot. Charlie had never wanted something to start so quick and end so soon in his life.
The night dragged on, the level of anxiety remaining high through the trenches outside the power plant. Faces were glued to the night sky and chatter was low, knowing that since they were blinded by the night, they were forced to rely on hearing the planes.