The Departing (The End Time Saga Book 4)

by Daniel Greene

  “You know Hacklebarney has survived worse.” He rested a wrinkled hand on an well-used leather pommel. “My father, Fulton, used to talk about the famine of 1912. Crop went bad three years in a row. No one had food and no one had money to buy any. Then there was the flood of ’49. Whole town went under water. Twenty-six people drowned.”

  Gwen gave him an endearing look. She had heard all these stories before, but she humored him out of love.

  “Wasn’t that the time you saved Gram from atop the grocery store?”

  The old man smiled and nodded. “Yes, it was. She was trapped up top of Archie’s. You see, she used to work there when she was right out of high school. Me and Nathaniel canoed right up to the rooftop. She jumped into my arms and—” he stopped when she interrupted.

  “The next fall you were married,” Gwen finished with a smile.

  “That’s right,” he said. The horses swayed beneath them.

  His voice wavered a bit. “Nathaniel left us that next summer.” The old man stared out. “Died in Korea.”

  Her grandfather never talked about his brother much. His death still haunted the old man.

  Pa shouted loud and gave a wave. “Hey there, Van.” A dirty farmer in the field gave a wave with one hand, the other leading a team of horses by the reins.

  Van used a team of horses to pull a wagon of hay. A young man and woman assisted him as he goaded the team along. Shotguns and rifles hung off their backs. The presence of firearms on the farmers struck Gwen as out of place for home where guns usually only came out during hunting season.

  Van’s hand cupped his mouth and he hollered. “Hiya, John.” He shaded his eyes. “Who’s that you got there?”

  “Gwen’s back in town,” her grandfather yelled. His face brightened as he said it. He pulled his horse to a stop and Patsy followed suit.

  “Gosh darn, that’s great to hear. She stayin’ this time? You know the city don’t have everything.”

  “God willing and the creek won’t rise,” Pa yelled.

  “Hi, Van.” Gwen gave him a friendly wave. She covered her eyes so she could see him better.

  “Good to have you back, Gwen. Might be you save me a dance on Friday,” Van yelled.

  “I’ll always save a dance for you, Van,” she said and smiled in his direction.

  Van went back to work leading his team of horses.

  Pa goaded their horses back into a walk with a soft flick of his reins. He stared ahead as he spoke. “We’ve been lucky the Amish had a good year. Got plenty of draft horses for rent. They be good folk.”

  “Seems like we’re going backwards in time,” she said.

  The old man smiled as if he remembered his childhood. “The past ain’t so bad. Simpler. Harder in some ways. Easier’n others.”

  They steered their horses onto a better maintained paved roadway. The horses seemed to know the way as their hooves resounded hard off the pavement.

  “Not too much farther now,” her grandfather said. The old man didn’t turn at the rustling in the trees, but Gwen heard it. A tattered figure in hunting camouflage shambled up the ditch and onto the road.

  “Pa, look out!” she yelled. He looked at her, startled, not having heard the man prior to her yelling. She drew her compact Glock in one hand. Pa saw the man and steered his horse in his direction.

  “That’s Dan Macintosh,” he said, oblivious to the danger. With a snarl, the infected man made for him. John’s horse neighed and tossed its head as it got closer.

  “Watch out,” Gwen shouted. She pulled her reins hard, putting herself between her grandfather and the infected. Her horse breathed hard and smacked its lips, nervous.

  The infected man swiped at Gwen’s horse and it reared up. She struggled to hang on, using her thighs to squeeze the horse’s sides while leaning closer to the horse’s neck. When Patsy let her down, Dan grabbed her leg and Gwen stretched out her arm, putting a bullet into the top of his skull with her Glock. His lifeless body dropped onto the road and lay unmoving. Dark-red blood leaked out the exit wound.

  She turned her horse in a circle, holding her gun in tight to her chest with the reins in her other hand, scanning for more infected. None in sight, she guided Patsy back toward her shocked grandfather. “Are you okay?” she breathed.

  Pa sat on his horse and stared at her in disbelief. His eyes barely blinked.

  “Pa,” she said louder. She worried the scare may have given him a heart attack.

  He shook himself. His lips trembled. “Gwen, you shot Dan Macintosh.” His eyes blinked rapidly as he tried to digest what had happened.

  She scanned the trees before she holstered her weapon. She grasped for him, resting a hand on his arm. “This is the way it is now. He’s infected. They either kill us or we kill them, but only one of us walks away.”

  “I’m-” Pa shook his head. His mouth clamped closed. “I’ve never seen you act like that. You rode up and put a bullet in Dan’s head.”

  She gave him a sympathetic look. “Things have changed more than fuel shortages and power outages. It’s worse than a famine or a flood. It’s violent out there and I won’t be a victim.” Not again. Flashes of Puck’s ugly face desecrated her mind.

  Her grandfather visibly calmed down. “You’ve never been a victim, dear. You got Lydia’s genes in ya. Forgive me if I’m a little shocked that my granddaughter shot somebody as causal as asking for a glass of water.”

  She gave his arm an extra squeeze. “No one is more surprised than me. You should have seen Mark during the beginning.” The thought of her love brought sadness into her heart and worry into her gut. “He’s the reason I made it.”

  Pa nodded. “He always seemed to treat you nice. Just lives too darn far away.” A smile settled on his face. “Me and Gram sure are happy to have you back.”

  “I am too.” She meant it. Being back with her family gave her some hope that things could be okay.

  “About another half-mile.” He gestured with his hand holding the reins.

  Within a ten minutes, they rode into Hacklebarney. It felt as if they had stepped back in time. Horses pulled carts behind them. The only modernity, a pickup rolled down the street with a group of young men in the back. They waved guns in the air as they drove by, giving Gwen stares like they’d never seen a woman. A beer can rattled across the pavement.

  Her grandfather shook his head. “Should be helping their fathers get ready for harvest, and instead, they’re out burning fuel looking for the crazy ones.”

  “They think it’s a game,” she said softly. The infected population was light enough in Iowa that they weren’t facing endless hordes of the dead, only the unlucky few that drifted in from cities.

  “We’re gonna have a hard enough time as it is. We’re gonna lose a lot of crops without help,” Pa said. They passed small shops with wide windows in late 19th-century-styled two-storied buildings.

  Pa nodded to a balding man outside his shop wearing grease-stained clothes. “Morning, Kenny. How’s Jenny?”

  “She’s doin’ all right. Better than yesterday. That Gwen?”

  “Yes, sir,” she said. She grinned down at the hardware store owner.

  “By golly. Been a long time.”

  “Say, you wouldn’t have any old kerosene lanterns or anything?” she asked.

  The man’s eyes rolled upward as he thought. “I’ll have to check in back. Been a bit picked over lately. You seen Jake?”

  She tried to mask her displeasure with a smile. “Yes, I have.” No matter how long she had been gone or how many other boyfriends she had dated, everyone always assumed that she and Jake would be together. The Bullises. Living on a farm with a dozen kids and never leaving. If not now, eventually they would be together, or everyone around town assumed they were still together.

  “I’ll stop by later,” she said. She clicked her tongue and Patsy started back down the street. Her pa said hello to a host of people along his self-imposed parade route. There was Nowlton and Millie Gebert, both in
their late thirties, who inherited a family farm north of town. Bill Thornburg, the town dentist. The DeVaults, dairy farmers, waved on the way by as they talked to B.B. Palmer’s wife, Annie.

  They passed a post office with an American flag hanging out a window. The next building was a single-story with an old police Bronco outside. The truck had rust on its bumpers and wheel wells. A gold sheriff badge hung on the wall of the office and an American flag hung from a silver flagpole in front.

  “Whoa, Cline.” He tugged the reins a bit and the horse stopped. “I’m gonna meet with Sheriff Donnellson and tell him about Dan Macintosh. Might want to ride up that way and check out the farmstead. He had a wife and two older boys.” He pointed. “Mayor’s got an office right over in that building yonder. Should be in.” He swung a stiff leg off his horse and gingerly stepped down. Stretching his back, he gave her a tired smile.

  “Not quite as limber as I used to be.”

  She gave him a sad smile. “You look good, Pa.” Her grandparents’ age was always something that worried her. It was a fear that she wouldn’t have time for them and then one day they would be gone. They would fade and become only memories of when she was young.

  She gently pulled the reins, leading her horse back to the street. Clop-clop, Clop-clop. Each hoof lazily sounded off on the ground. She stopped her horse in front of a brown-brick, two-story building with a well-swept sidewalk. An American flag hung off a pole that stuck off the side of the building. A sign on the door read Mayor Dobson’s Office in black and gold lettering.

  “Guess this is it,” she said to the horse. She gave Patsy a pat on her thick neck.

  She swung one leg off her horse and then the other, noticing how sore her inner thighs were from having not ridden in years. She squeezed her legs together. I’m gonna be hurting tomorrow. Been away too long from the farm. She wrapped the reins around a light pole that had lost its purpose with no power.

  “Now, don’t go nowhere, Patsy,” she said, patting the horse’s white nose. Patsy smacked her lips and nestled at Gwen’s hand. Gwen stuck her hand in her pocket and pulled out a white square sugar cube. The horse’s lips greedily curled together and tickled her hand as it took the cube.

  “There. That should hold you for awhile.” Patsy flicked her nose in the air. Gwen gave her a frown. “Geez, Patsy. Later.” She playfully swatted at the horse. Patsy tossed her head in return.

  Gwen walked over the sidewalk and grabbed the brass door handle, twisting the knob. The door opened to an old staircase. The steps groaned on her way up. At the top was another door. She knocked on it.

  “Well, come on in, already,” shouted a man.

  KINNICK

  Northern Mississippi River

  Water whipped up from the behind the small unit riverine craft as they plowed down the center of the brownish waters of the Mississippi River. The spray from the river was cold and damp, and the sky was a menacing fall gray. It was as if the heavens were whispering, “Harsh times ahead.”

  The river ahead was the color of a chocolate milk shake that had been left in the sun too long.

  The roar of fourteen pairs of engines sounded off as they moved in tandem down the river. Kinnick had left four of the craft with Major Alvarado to assist in her ongoing operations, not wanting to rob the major of one of her most valuable assets. The SURCs were spread out about sixty yards from one another in a long chain of riverboats. The engines were loud enough where Kinnick couldn’t hear the men around him speaking.

  Kinnick had taken a partial Marine rifle squad composed of two fire teams and a mean-looking sergeant with a permanent scowl on his face along with the remaining Skins ODA 51. Two Marines stood posted on the bow machine gun and a minigun, but nothing had been remotely close to threatening Kinnick’s flotilla of riverboats.

  Kinnick stood in the pilothouse paying close attention to the radio so he could issue orders as they moved down the river. “Ride of the Valkyries” played in the back of his mind as they cruised. His flotilla would soon shrink in number as boatloads of his Marines and Special Forces soldiers would peel off to their respective towns and cities along the Mississippi. His men would be on their own organizing and training civilians to do the dirty work that the United States military couldn’t undertake on their own. It was a long flank, but it was home field, the homeland, the motherland, their land.

  The pilot, Coffey, was an average-looking corporal with a mustache, who loved to stick out his tongue as he focused on safely navigating the craft down the river. Kinnick left the corporal to his work of dodging trees, bodies, and rocks alike, and walked for the bow of the ship with the Marines. He used the starboard side of the SURC to steady himself as he stepped toward the bow. He took a seat near the helm next to the senior enlisted Marine in charge of the rifle squad. The Marines were all sizes and races, clean-shaven, and tough-looking. They were multi-ethnic and multi-sized clones of one another and that was the point, to decrease individualism and increase group cohesion. It was never us and them with the Marines, only us.

  “Sergeant,” Kinnick said.

  “Sergeant Volk, sir.” The Marine’s face bordered on a sneer, and by the looks of him, Kinnick assumed that was his natural state. “Corporal Washington and Lance Corporal Boone are my fire team leaders.” A thick African-American showed Kinnick some teeth and his counterpart looked like he came straight from the backwoods. The thin white man dipped his helmeted head toward Kinnick.

  Boone shouted over the motors in a thick Tennessean accent. “Colonel.”

  “Then there’s Hanger, Duncan, Gore under Washington and Whitehead, Ramos, Tran under Boone.”

  The Marines nodded, waved, and smiled at Kinnick.

  Kinnick shouted. “You boys look ready.”

  Volk looked at him, mouth tight. “We are. We were wondering where our first stop is?”

  “We’re headed to Lansing, Iowa. It’s about forty miles from here. When we stop there, Captain Boucher and six of the SURCs will head further south of our AOR near St. Louis. I’m going to stay with Captain Heath for the first phase and then move down to St. Louis and reconnect with Boucher. We’re going to be isolated, but this is where our nation will make or break itself.” He nodded out at the land. “On these riverbanks.”

  “I see, sir.” Volk shook his head in almost disgust. He snorted, looking down at the ground.

  Kinnick cocked his head. “Is that a problem, Sergeant?”

  “No, sir. We are always down for a fight. Permission to speak freely, sir?”

  “Granted.”

  “Is this really going to make a difference? I mean, there’s only a few hundred men and you are talking about defending a river that runs a couple thousand miles.”

  Kinnick stared at him coldly. “We don’t have a choice. Our hope rests on the backs of these brave people. If we cannot get them to hold this river, then we will fall. Whatever remains of our nation will be overrun, extinguished like the rest of the world.”

  Volk’s mouth tightened up more like he was going to spit. “Yes, sir. We’re it? I mean. No one else is out there. In the world?”

  For a moment, Kinnick watched the trees along the river disappear behind them. Their leaves were mostly gone, and now, they looked naked and dead as if they were preparing to join the infected dead.

  He brought his focus back on the sergeant. “As far as I know, we are the only nation left and Operation Homefront is our effort to mobilize the remainders of America into a fighting force.”

  “Mad Isabel always is getting us into a scrap.” His brownish-yellow eyes were hard.

  “Old girl always puts out,” laughed Hanger.

  Washington shook his head and grunted. “She be crazy.”

  Boone grinned. “Madder than a raccoon on crack.”

  Volk yelled at the Marines. “You hear that Marines? We’re it. We are all that’s left on earth. This fight is not just for America. It’s for humanity. We lose here and we disappear like a group of virgins on prom night. Except for
Whitehead. He’s still jerking off in the corner.”

  Whitehead shook his head. “I ain’t a virgin,” he whined. A chorus of laughter and Oorahs echoed from the Marines. Then they proceeded to ream Whitehead for his lack of sexual experience.

  “I swear, there was a girl from back home. We did stuff.”

  “Bah, haha,” Ramos chimed in. “You wouldn’t know a chocha if it fell on your dick.”

  Kinnick ignored the berating of their comrade. He spoke softer to the sergeant. “I have a question for you, Volk.”

  Volk clenched his jaw, thinking he was going to get reprimanded for the way his men spoke about their commanding officer. “Yes, sir.”

  “Why do the men call Major Alvarado ‘Mad Isabel?’”

  The watercraft skipped over the currents, causing the men to readjust their grips on weapons.

  Volk’s brow crossed before he answered as if he were angry to have to speak. “She’s meaner than dirt, sir. Got a lot of feistiness in her like the little Latina she is. Ain’t that right, Ramos?”

  “She spicy,” he said with a smirk.

  Volk turned back to Kinnick. “Tough as shit on us. Fair, but all discipline. Asks a lot from us and gives her all for us. Pulled a lot of us out of some shit near McCoy, fought like a Marine possessed, and expects us to do the same. There’s a reason we haven’t lost a Marine in sixteen days.”

  “Let’s keep it that way, Sergeant.”

  “Oorah, sir.”

  The land skimmed by as they sped downriver, everything along the shore dead or dying. Two hours later, their engines slowed to a low rumble. On the Iowa side of the Mississippi, nice waterfront homes lined the shore. A thick beamed bridge the color of a blueish-gray sky grew larger in the distance. Kinnick’s flotilla of SURCs drifted closer, easily passing beneath the large bridge connecting Iowa and Wisconsin. A road ran away to the Wisconsin side through a series of tiny swampy tree-covered islands.

  On the Iowa side, a small town appeared on the banks of the Mississippi. It was covered in historic red brick, two-story buildings. Eaves were painted green, blue, and black. A few of the buildings were painted white, cream, or gray. The main street ran straight into the river with a boat landing. Small wooden and metal docks lined the shore. Kinnick pointed Coffey where he wanted him to maneuver the craft. “Make for there.” Coffey turned the wheel for the shore.