Marching As to War: A Post-Apocalyptic Novel

by Justin Watson

  “I know what you’re planning,” he said.

  “You do?” she said.

  “Yes. You’re going to keep on fighting. You’re going to get as many men as you can and attack the soldiers. Wreck the treaty and start the war again.”

  Jane said nothing.

  He knew. This was our plan. This was what Riley and I had told some other men in camp whom we trusted. We asked them to think about coming with us, to spread the word. Somebody had told Campbell.

  “Do not do this,” he said. “Do not. Please.”

  “You know this deal with the Government is a mistake. It’s a bargain with the Devil.”

  “Yes,” he said. “It’s a mistake. But back when all this began you asked me if I would defy Winslow to attack the Government.”

  “I remember.”

  “Do you remember what I said?”

  “Yes. You said wouldn’t divide our people.”

  “And only then did you agreed to work with me.”

  Jane was silent.

  “So what’s different now?” Campbell said. “Why are you willing to divide us?”

  Riley and I exchanged a look. I had forgotten about that. I could tell he had too.

  “I can only ask you, all of you, to trust me,” she said. “This is what I must do.” Then she looked at me, asking for my help.

  For a moment, I felt myself waver, letting my doubts rise. But I nodded.

  She looked at Riley. He looked away, squinting, scratching his beard. “You can count on me.”

  He looked sad. Maybe he could see, better than I, where this would lead us.

  “I’m sorry,” Campbell said. “The treaty is a mistake. The Government’s just playing for time. They’ll come after us again. And I’ve told Winslow and Jackson this. Many, many times.”

  “So why don’t you help us?” I said.

  He turned to me, “Because my duty, my duty, is to carry out the decisions our leaders make. Whether I like it or not.”

  “Even when they are dead wrong?” I said.

  “Yes, because we have to stick together. David Winslow made us a people. We were united. When we really needed it, we were strong.”

  He turned back to Jane. “Do this and you’ll be giving the Government just what it wants. They want us divided. They want us weak.”

  Jane stood up and reached for her rifle, David Winslow’s rifle. For a long moment, she looked at it, holding it in both hands.

  She walked around the fire to Campbell and handed him the rifle. “Please, give this back to Winslow. Thank him for the loan of it.”

  Then she stepped back. “You can tell him I’m going home. You can tell him I’m going to fight. Tell him whatever your duty requires. But I’ll do what God requires of me.”

  Campbell looked at the rifle in his hands. Then he stood and walked away, leaving the three of us at the fire, surrounded by darkness.

  CHAPTER 25

  I grabbed Jane by the arm and shouted in her ear, “Pull back!”

  Just then, a burst of .50 caliber started tearing up a nearby tree, showering us with dust and splinters. Terrified, I closed my eyes and pressed myself as flat as I could against the ground.

  When I opened my eyes again, Jane’s face was just inches away. She was screaming, “No! No! Attack!”

  There was an odd look in her eyes. I had seen it before in men fighting hand-to-hand, men straining to choke or drive a knife in deep. She wanted to hurl herself, to hurl all of us, at the soldiers. She wanted to destroy the soldiers, consequences be damned. I could not let her do that to herself, or to us.

  We had to get out of there before the soldiers sent men up to finish us. I shouted, “Pull back! Pull back!”

  No one hesitated. They all began crawling away. I grabbed Jane by the arm and started pulling her in the direction we had to go. She shook her head, whipping it back and forth, and wrenched her arm away from me. For the briefest instant, I wondered if she might shoot me. But she didn’t, and I grabbed her by the arm again. This time, she came with me.

  As soon as we could, we got up and started running. We were sloppy about looking for soldiers following us, about covering our retreat. We just ran.

  When we got back to the rally point, I was amazed that we hadn’t lost anyone. We were all shaky, sweating, and gasping for breath. Two men had dry heaves--nothing coming up because we hadn’t eaten much lately. Slumped against a tree, my heart pounding, I knew that another man, perhaps two, would slip away in the night. Gone home.

  Things had started well enough. We had fewer men than we hoped, but still enough for three squads. It was enough to begin. Jane believed that word of what we were doing would spread that others would join us, or start fighting the Government on their own.

  At first, we surprised the soldiers working on the road. They had been told the fighting was over. So it was easy to hit them and get away. Then, of course, the soldiers got careful, posting more guards and using heavier weapons, like the big machine guns. Still, we held the initiative. We attacked when and where we chose. We had the advantage.

  But soon, lots of folks stopped helping us. They started turning us away when we asked for food or shelter. People were tired of war, sick of fear and death. They wanted some peace.

  Then the Government did something very clever. They sent doctors with loads of medicines into our mountains. And it was all free. The few soldiers who came with the doctors didn’t point their rifles at anyone. Our people would walk for days and wait for hours to get medicine for their children and grandchildren, and for their old folks. The Government also sent trucks full of food, clothing, and shoes. They gave it all away, free. And they gave out radios, like the one Jackson had showed Jane. The Government wanted our people to hear news of the world beyond our mountains, the news the Government wanted them to hear.

  While the Government was giving all these things to our people, it sent special soldiers to hunt us down. These were not like most of the conscripts, who had been forced to fight. These were the soldiers who were good at war, who had a taste for it.

  Like I said, we started with three squads, but soon, one disappeared. When we found it, every man was dead. The bloated bodies were lined up in a neat row. A message.

  After this, men began to leave. In the morning, they were just gone. We lost so many that we had to combine our two remaining squads. Then more left.

  I wondered how it had gotten this bad. But I knew. I had always known.

  Our men had followed Jane because she was so sure of herself, so sure she would make just the right choice at just the right time, so sure she would triumph against impossible odds. She did that so often that they came to believe far more than luck was at work. They believed God was with her.

  But then she began to make bad choices. Failure made her courage and certainty seem foolish. The men who had slipped away in the night had decided God was not with Jane. They reckoned she had just run out of luck.

  That’s what had happened this time. If we had not pulled out when we did, we might all be dead. No one said it, but we all knew Jane had almost killed us. If not today, then tomorrow. It was just a matter of time.

  We moved deep into the woods to hide for the night. We could not have a fire. It would give away our position. We sat in the darkness, slapping at insects, while we ate what little food we had left. In the silence, I sensed a cold anger among the men. God knows, I felt that way.

  I thought how nice it would be to eat a meal, a real meal, with my family again. To sit in church next to Maggie. To dance with her. If I hadn’t left home to follow Jane, Maggie and I would be married by now. We would be in bed together. I had ruined all that, of course. If I ever made it home, Maggie wouldn’t be, shouldn’t be, waiting for someone like me.

  The sound of Jane’s voice brought me back.

  “I know,” she said. “I know you’re tired. You’ve every reason to leave. But I’m asking you to believe, just a little longer. God is at work in this, all of this. Please h
ave faith.”

  There was a long silence. I couldn’t see the faces of our men in the dark. I could feel them fighting to have the faith Jane asked for, fighting the pull of something in their past or their future.

  I wanted to tell Jane she had asked too much for too long. She had gotten too many of us killed, killed for nothing. She had no right to ask us to follow her again. The price was too high.

  I wanted to say all these angry things. Instead, what came out of my mouth was, “I will.”

  A moment later, I heard Riley’s voice in the dark. “I will too.” Then one by one, all of us agreed with a “Me too,” or a “Yeah,” or a “Reckon so.”

  When they were done, Jane just said, “Thank you. God bless you.” I felt her hand touch my arm for just a moment. She had gotten what she wanted from us. We would go on fighting, and I had made it possible.

  When I woke at first light, all the men were still there, one on watch, the rest still sleeping. Jane was up, kneeling in the woods, as she always did, whispering her insistent prayers. I wondered if she had been as close to the brink as the rest of us, as I had been, the night before.

  I would never know.

  CHAPTER 26

  When it happened, I was half asleep, plodding along with my head down, dumbly watching the boot heels of the man walking about ten feet in front of me. I was tired and thinking about food. The man in front of me stopped. I stopped too and looked up to see why. Just then, his head exploded. A sudden spray of blood and meat.

  I remember feeling rather than hearing the roar of automatic rifles, and bullets ripping up the air around me. As I lifted my rifle, there was a huge white flash a few yards in front of me.

  The next thing I remember is being face down in the dirt. I raised my head just a little and saw several soldiers walking slowly out of the trees, stepping over the torn-up bodies of my friends. I could see the soldiers were talking to one another, but couldn’t hear them. I couldn’t hear anything. None of them seemed to take any notice of me.

  There was movement to my left, and I looked that way. Two soldiers had Jane. One was pulling the rifle out of her hands, and the other had an arm around her throat, a chokehold.

  I tried to get up, but the ground seemed to tilt and slide away, and I went down hard on my hands and knees. The soldier had gotten the rifle away from her, and she was struggling, using both hands to pull the arm from around her throat. That’s when she caught sight of me, pulled hard on the arm, and managed to shout something while shaking her head.

  I was almost on my feet again when a soldier stepped out from behind a tree. He brought a rifle butt toward my head. I could see it coming, so fast yet slow enough for me to remember the scratches on the stock. I just watched it come closer and wondered why I wasn’t trying to duck.

  When I opened my eyes again, it was night, and the world was tilting first to the left, then to the right, and to left again. I was slumped against a tree with my hands bound behind me, and my ankles tied together with a leather strap. My arms and legs hurt. Everything hurt. I could see the light of a fire off to my left, but when I turned my head to look, I felt a brilliant flash inside my head. I closed my eyes and tried to slip away from the pain and hide in the darkness.

  It was morning when I came back. I was still slumped against the tree with my hands and ankles bound. Everything still hurt, especially my wrists and hands, but I didn’t feel sick or dizzy anymore. I was tired, hungry, and thirsty. In front of me was a small patch of muddy ground about ten feet across with trees on the other side. I didn’t see anyone.

  Then the memories: The ambush. Jane. The rifle butt. For a moment, I had to fight a helpless panic. That’s when a soldier walked into view and squatted in front of me. He didn’t say anything, but looked at me close, studying me. I just stared at him, feeling unsure and slow in the head. Without looking away, he called to someone I couldn’t see, “He’s awake.”

  A voice off to my left said, “Good. Give him some water.” The voice was familiar, but I couldn’t place it.

  The squatting soldier stepped away and came back with a canteen. He screwed off the top and tipped some water into my mouth. I swallowed, and he gave me some more. As I swallowed that, he poured some over my face. The water helped me feel more like myself. More awake anyway. Then that soldier stepped back, and another squatted down in front of me. It took a moment to recognize him.

  “Remember me, boy?” he said.

  “Lieutenant Hobbes. Jane let you go.”

  “Right. That got me a promotion. I’m a Captain now.” He smiled.

  “Is she alive?” I said,

  “Yeah. The others are dead. You’d be too, but I wanted to talk a little.”

  “Before you shoot me?” I said. I knew, knew for a fact, Hobbes was going to kill me. The strange thing was it didn’t bother me, not near as much as other times I thought I might die. Maybe it was losing Jane and Riley, maybe it was being angry, or maybe it was getting busted in the head, but somehow I didn’t care.

  He shrugged. “Yeah. I’m going to shoot you. That’s what you were going to do to me, wasn’t it?”

  “We were. Too bad.”

  He smiled. “I ought to tell you there is a way to stay alive. Just swear allegiance to the United States--”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Of course, you’d spend the next few years at hard labor, maybe working in a mine. We call it rehabilitation. But most die before their time is up.”

  “Glad I made the right choice. What’d you want to talk about?”

  “You in a hurry to get shot?”

  “Can’t say as I’m enjoying your company much.”

  He laughed. “Okay. Why did she do it?”

  “She told you.”

  “You mean God? God told her to fight us?”

  “Yeah, God.”

  He shook his head. “You believe God talked to her?”

  “I don’t know. I really don’t. But she believes.”

  “If you don’t know, why’d you follow her around like some trained dog?”

  “None of your fucking business,” I said. “But I’ll tell you this. Fighting you sumbitches was the best thing I ever did.”

  “But your leaders made peace with us. And Jane didn’t. Your friends are dead because of her.”

  “No. My friends are dead because of you. She kept fighting because you slaughtered women and children. She kept fighting because you won’t leave us alone. She kept fighting because your ‘peace’ is just another way of making war.”

  “There’s only room for one government on this continent. We’ll do whatever is necessary.”

  “No matter how many folks you have to kill.”

  He shrugged. “Whatever is necessary.”

  We looked at each other for a long moment. I don’t know what he saw, or didn’t see, in my eyes, but I couldn’t find the least glimmer of a troubled conscience in his. I wondered if he lost it back in the dark hungry days after the Plague, or if the Government took it from him later. Or maybe he never had a conscience. Anyway, it didn’t matter.

  I said, “What’s going to happen to Jane?”

  “She’ll be tried for her crimes.”

  “Crimes? What crimes?”

  “Treason. Murder. Terrorism. War crimes. You know, she killed a lot of innocent people in that Waynesville fire. Anyway, I’m sure they’ll think of something good.”

  “Why don’t you just shoot her and be done with it?”

  “No, a public trial of someone like Jane can be useful for reminding people of an important truth.”

  “Truth? What truth?”

  “You can’t fight the future.”

  “If you’re the future, I don’t want to live in it.”

  “Don’t worry,” he said, smiling. “You won’t.”

  Hobbes stood up and called the soldier who had given me the water. This man took the strap from my ankles and then grabbed me by one arm and hauled me to my feet. I thought my shoulder would pop out of the
socket, and I shouted, “Shit!” Then he pushed me forward, and I fell hard, landing on my side in the mud. The man gave me a kick in the gut to knock the wind out of me. Then he hauled me up again and dragged me along, stumbling and gasping, until we got to the edge of a gully. At the bottom, a stream rushed past over rocks.

  “This is good,” Hobbes called out loud enough to be heard over the stream. The man threw me down on the ground and stepped away. I looked up and saw Hobbes holding a pistol.

  Now like I said, I knew this would happen. I knew Hobbes he would shoot me, and I accepted it. But it was still a strange thing to watch the last moment of your life unfold. What I saw was a man, dressed in black, standing in a beam of morning sunlight under a bright canopy of trees. He had a smile on his face as he raised the pistol. I couldn’t hear anything, save my gasps for air and the hissing roar of the stream behind me. It may sound strange, but I didn’t bother to pray. I reckoned God had long since made up His mind about me.

  The shot hit Hobbes in the neck. A jet of blood flew out in front of him, and he stumbled forward. The pistol fell from his hand as his knees buckled. Hobbes pitched forward and hit the ground with his face.

  The soldier and I were so surprised that we didn’t move. But after a moment, he went for the pistol Hobbes had dropped. My hands were still bound, and I was on my side. All I could do was kick his knee as he went past. He cried out and stumbled. He still got the pistol, but I had slowed him down enough for the next shot to find his chest. Just left of center. The heart. Pistol in hand, the soldier stumbled backward until he went over the edge into the gully.

  I lay on my side, breathing hard. I saw some brush pushed aside. It was Riley. He went to Hobbes and kicked him, checking for signs of life. I rolled on my belly so Riley could free my hands. Then he helped me up. My legs shook, and I almost fell down.

  “Can you travel?” Riley said.

  “Can’t stay here.”

  To make it harder for the soldiers to track us, we went down into the gully and moved upstream for a while before cutting into the woods. We kept going until dark and never saw any sign the soldiers were after us. Then we hid in an old tumbledown house.