“Shoot,” Mo said suddenly.
“What?”
“I told the Wachowskis I’d get them some firewood this morning but I forgot.” Jay Wachowski was a sawyer who’d broken both his hands in a mill accident the previous week, and the neighbors had been pitching in to help his family get by while he recovered. “Eh, I’ll do it after the shift.”
“It’ll be dark then. They’ll need wood before the sun sets.”
“Shoot,” Mo said again, looking back toward the town.
“Go ahead. It’ll only take you an hour.”
Mo didn’t like having to face a difficult decision. “But I said I’d stand guard, too.”
“If you’ll only be an hour, that’s okay. I can handle things out here alone for a bit.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure. Go ahead.”
Mo nodded, carefully placing his rifle on the ground. “Allrighty. Don’t go shooting any deer or anything.”
Once Mo had left, Philip sat down on the ground just before the tree stump, feeling that he could be more casual now that no one was watching. His shift would end at eight. That was when Deacon would take over, standing there to commune with the darkness until the sun began its ascent the next morning. Philip wondered what kind of person would volunteer for that shift, for standing beneath the sky’s sheer blackness with nothing except the sound of owls and the twitching of branches and the occasional deep sound that might be a bear and might be one’s imagination.
Philip hadn’t looked at his pocket watch in some time—he had come to realize that the less often he checked it, the more quickly time escaped. He stared at his boots for a long moment, daydreaming about Elsie again, and finally looked up.
At the bottom of the hill he saw something move.
Like before. All too similar to that day with Graham. First the colored shadows of something, tiny glances of a moving object revealed only in the spaces between the trees. It disappeared behind the thick trunks and reappeared a few feet to the right, moving toward the clearing at the base of the hill.
Philip’s fingers tightened their grip around the gun for what he hoped would be just a moment, a passing thought, a mistaken impression. But then he realized how right he’d been—and how wrong the situation was about to become.
A figure was emerging from the woods, walking toward the sign. Again. It was a man, again, and he walked slowly but with no limp. The figure’s steady gait was all that told Philip he wasn’t imagining this, that this was something new, something happening right now. The man stopped at the sign.
“Go away,” Philip said to himself, for the man was still too far to hear. “Please, please go away.”
How could there be another person walking to Commonwealth, another lost soul straggling the fifteen miles from the nearest town? Philip shook his head at his peculiar fate, wishing against all reality that the man would simply disappear.
The man looked up at Philip. The light was just dim enough, beneath the canopy of the trees, for the man’s features to be momentarily invisible. No face, no mouth, no particular type of clothing. Philip wished very much to remember him that way: as a nothing, a wraith that appeared and read a strange sign and just as quickly—please, please—vanished into the woods. A creature that would not fraternize with men. A spook. Please, please go away.
But the man disobeyed Philip’s inaudible plea. He climbed over the fallen tree and started walking up the hill.
He slowly solidified from wraith to fully realized man; he acquired dark hair and equally dark eyes and a small nose that seemed all but overtaken by a recent growth of unkempt beard. Soon he would have a voice. Then a personality. Mannerisms. Possibly a regional accent. Where the hell was Mo?
It was another soldier. He was dressed like the first soldier, the same khaki pants and the same jacket over the same shirt that had come untucked and hung over where his belt should be. The same boots covered in the same mud that smeared most of his legs. Still, he looked cleaner than the last man, like he was more accustomed to finding himself lost in the woods and knew how to take care of himself. Some of the mud looked like it had dried days before. It lacked the fresh wetness of the first soldier’s, just as this man’s gait lacked the limp—the limp of the victim, the limp of the guy who seemed to know all along that he would be shot. This guy didn’t know any such thing.
Something in his eyes struck more fear into Philip than he had felt before. Shouldn’t something like this get easier the second time? The man was looking at him now, and it was with an uneasy feeling that Philip realized he was being assessed, measured up, and found wanting.
Philip stole a quick glance behind him to see if Mo was coming or even if Elsie was hiding somewhere in the trees. But there was no one, just him and a soldier. Philip turned back around. He had already let the man come too close.
“You can’t come up here!” Philip shouted. He thought that was what Graham had said, but it sounded so much punier from Philip’s lips. There was weight behind Graham’s voice, mass. Maturity and suffering. Philip sounded like a kid holding a toy gun.
The man kept walking, silently.
“I said you can’t come up here! The town is closed off on account of the flu!”
More footsteps, still no voice.
Philip lifted the rifle, aiming it at the man. He had noticed that, unlike the previous soldier, this man did not have a rifle slung over his back. Nonetheless, holding his own weapon gave Philip not a feeling of strength or safety but one of imminent danger. As if the gun were pointed backward at himself. As if he knew that the weight of any violence he rendered would feel all the greater on his hands.
“I said,” Philip spat through gritted teeth, his voice surprising even him in its ferocity, “you’ve come close enough.”
The man stopped. He was perhaps thirty yards away, at about the same spot the first soldier had fallen dead. He looked down, shook his head. When he looked back up, there was a smile on his lips. He was a handsome man, his smile well defined even in the beginnings of a beard.
“C’mon, kid, put the gun down and let’s talk like civilized men.”
He looked about Graham’s age. That would make him nine years Philip’s senior, but Philip still didn’t like being called “kid” by a stranger.
“We’re under quarantine. No one’s allowed in town. Turn around and head somewhere else.”
“And what town is this, pray tell?”
“Commonwealth.”
The man seemed thoroughly unimpressed by the situation, as if Philip were a yapping family dog whose presence the man tolerated only so as not to appear rude to his hosts.
“Kid, do I look like I have the flu to you?”
“Do I look like a doctor?”
The man thought for a moment. “Would you like me to do a handstand for you? Or fifty push-ups? I’ll do fifty push-ups for you—that should prove I’m a healthy man.”
“We’re not letting anyone into our town.” Philip was trying not to be disarmed by the man’s smile, his ignorance of the moment’s severity.
“What’s your name, kid?”
“You need to turn around now. I’m sorry, buddy. I’m just protecting my town.”
“And what happens if I come any farther?” He took a step.
Philip thought of Graham. Then he thought of Elsie.
“I shoot you.”
Philip had said that evenly, hadn’t tried to make it sound like a threat. Just matter-of-fact, an immutable truth. The sun rises in the east, the trees here are tall, and I shoot anyone who gets too close. It was this simple tone of voice that made the expression on the soldier’s face change somewhat. It was as if the little yapping dog had become eerily quiet while staring intently at the man’s ankles.
“I don’t think you would.”
They stared at each other. Philip thought of the way Graham’s eyes had looked two nights ago when he stared at his fireplace, of his trembling hands by the woodshed, the coldness in his voice.
I need this guy to leave, now. I don’t want to shoot him. I don’t know if I can. I need to make him decide to turn around.
“I’ve done it before.” Philip said that slowly, each word carefully measured, each word hurting as it came out, like shrapnel removed by rusty forceps.
“Have you?”
Philip couldn’t tell if the man didn’t believe him or was just hoping to catch this tough-acting kid in a lie that would expose him as a coward and blowhard.
“Look to your left. About thirty yards in the woods. Look for the tree with the strip of moss on its trunk in a diagonal line.” The man did as he was told. “See it?”
“I see the tree, yeah.”
“Now look below it.”
The man stepped to his side to get a glimpse of the earth between the crossing branches. He was silent for a moment.
“That a grave?”
“That’s right.”
The gravediggers had put the grave where no one was likely to stumble upon it, but it was still somewhat visible from the road if one knew where to look.
“Looks fresh.”
“Just a couple days old.” While the man looked at the grave, Philip kept his eyes locked on his target. “He was a soldier, like you.”
This too caught the man unawares. He faced Philip again. “Another soldier?”
“That’s right. So don’t think I’m intimidated by the uniform or anything.”
Philip’s muscles were getting tight, aching. They pleaded for him to relax at least momentarily or switch to another position, but he refused.
“I just need a place to sleep, kid.” The soldier had wisely decided to stop goading Philip and was trying a new tack. “And some food. I don’t—”
“Stop calling me kid.”
“Some food and a place to sleep, please, sir. That’s all I ask.”
Philip had thought of this, of the option he had overlooked when the first soldier had come around.
“I maybe can bring you some food if you stay back where you are and don’t come any closer. After the other guard comes back. But you’re out of luck on the shelter. No one comes into the town.”
“It’s going to be freezing tonight. The hell with your food if you’re going to leave me out here to die.”
“That’s the best I can do. Take it or leave.”
The man thought about this. He looked back at the grave.
“You must be a deadeye with that rifle.”
“Good enough.”
The soldier looked down, and though Philip could barely see his face, he knew the man was smiling again. Why was this so entertaining to him? The bit of fear that Philip had seen in his eyes seemed to have left him already.
He’s going to take another step, Philip thought. He’s not scared anymore. Maybe he’s crazy. Maybe something worse happened to him in the war, and the last thing he’s going to do is be sent away by some “kid.” He’s going to come closer.
If the soldier takes one step farther, I’ll aim for the ground right in front of him, Philip vowed. Make him jump. Scare him home. He gets one warning shot. One.
The soldier looked up again. Philip saw the decision in his eyes, the imminent movement. The muscles in Philip’s trigger finger were so taut they ached.
Philip thought the man’s step would be slow and deliberate, but he was wrong. The soldier didn’t step at all. His movement was this: the right hand that had been dangling by his side disappeared for a moment, into the low tails of his untucked shirt, and as soon as it reappeared it was holding a pistol and the air around Philip exploded.
Philip instinctively fired a shot and dropped. The two shots echoed each other, the sound of Philip’s still startling to him. He was on the ground now, hiding behind the mighty trunk that had been envisioned as a post but certainly not as a shield. His breaths came fast. He took a quick moment to look himself over and determine that he had not been hit by the soldier’s bullet.
But had Philip hit the soldier? He listened for a sound. Was the intruder dead? Or was he crouching closer, just on the other side of the tree trunk?
Philip’s fingers were shaking. He had to look, had to see if the soldier was dead. He took a breath. Be quick. Take a look, no longer than a second, and hide again. He repositioned his feet under him, his legs crouched so he could spring up and collapse back down again. He frantically reloaded his rifle, took another breath. Now.
He turned and lifted himself just enough for his head and shoulders to clear the trunk. The soldier was gone. Or at least he wasn’t where he had been a moment ago. Philip glanced to his right, to the thick woods, the direction of the first soldier’s grave, and just as he saw something move he let his legs go out from under him and he fell behind the tree trunk.
“You sure you want to do this?” the soldier called out.
The enormity of the fact that someone had just shot at him was slowly sinking into Philip’s panicked mind. The soldier had shot at him and would do so again. In a way, the soldier was making this easy on Philip—now Philip had to shoot him or be shot himself. Everything about standing guard was supposedly in the vein of self-defense, but only now, with a tangible threat so close, did it truly feel that way.
Still, he knew he was the sole defense the town had. This man could be on the verge of becoming sick, could be carrying the flu in his blood and lungs. He could stroll into Commonwealth and soon people would be coughing, would be in bed with fever, would be hallucinating as their foreheads burned and their eyes clouded over and their insides flooded with mucus and death. Philip had to stop the soldier.
“I’m not letting you into that town! Even if you do shoot me, there’s plenty more men that’ll keep you from getting in!”
Someone must have heard the shots, Philip thought. They weren’t that far from the town. Someone would come so long as Philip could keep the stalemate. Unless the men were still working on those two buildings on the main street, hammering up a storm. Surely the sound of gunfire would be audible over the hammering.
Philip heard movement. The soldier was somewhere in the woods to the right of the stump. The woods ended about twenty feet from where Philip was crouching, so they were close to each other. The soldier could be pretty much anywhere by now, approaching Philip from any angle. Philip was alone on an island, a tiny one. If he waited much longer, the soldier would get a clear shot.
Philip rolled to his side, clear of the stump’s protection. With the rifle stretched out before him, he fired a shot into the woods, at his best guess of where the soldier had been during the split second he’d seen him before. Then he sprang to his feet and ran as fast as his lame leg could carry him. He lunged the last few feet, landing awkwardly and painfully behind another tree. The rifle bounced from his hands and landed a few feet from him, but he was able to reach out and grab it as he sat up, leaning with his back against the tree.
He was surprised the soldier hadn’t shot at him while he’d made his escape. Was the soldier so close that he didn’t need to? Was Philip hiding the wrong way, was his side actually exposed to his adversary, wherever he was? The man was a soldier, after all—he had been trained how to do this. He would know how to overtake some sixteen-year-old with a rifle and only one foot. The soldier was probably nothing but a shadow now, slinking between the trees, wrapping around tree trunks and between branches, crawling closer.
Philip tried to make his breaths quieter. Tried to be silent. Tried to listen for the soldier, but he heard nothing.
There were bushes and thickets and low-leaning branches covering most of the ground; it would not be easy to sneak around here without alerting one’s foe. Either the soldier wasn’t moving at all or he was doing so with extreme deliberation, calmly brushing aside a branch, taking a step, waiting.
Then, a sound. Something to Philip’s right. He turned just as the sound was dying away. Something moving over there, against that tree with the poison ivy beneath it. The moving object rolled toward Philip: a rock. A rock?
It had
been thrown there. A distraction. Philip realized he had exposed his position, was no longer as well hidden. The moves were coming to him now, he saw the steps, but each one too late.
And as Philip turned back around, almost but not fast enough, he saw more movement, real movement, a man coming toward him with speed he could not counter. Before he had turned enough to face the man, the movement changed again, became awkward, and there was a hard dull sound, then a whimper.
The soldier had tripped and fallen. He’d been moving into position, close enough for a sure shot, when he had tripped on one of the serpentine but solid trunks that slithered beneath them. He’d fallen forward, landing on his chest but catching himself with his hands. His empty hands. Philip saw the pistol skitter on the ground and land in the nook of another tree trunk, perhaps six feet from the soldier’s head. The soldier looked up, his eyes wide with the realization that this kid was limping forward, closer to the pistol than the soldier was.
Philip also realized he had forgotten to reload his rifle. He immediately did so, his earlier mistake depriving him of a quick shot. But now the rifle was loaded and now he was standing with one foot on top of the pistol. The soldier leaned on his hands, slowly raising himself to a kneeling posture. After his earlier nonchalance, his face finally wore a look of concern, extreme concern.
Philip was aiming the rifle right at the man’s chest. They were no more than three yards from each other.
The soldier swallowed. His eyes were large, the pupils seeming to shrink as the whiteness grew around them.
Philip knew he should pull the trigger right then, pull it quickly and end it all. Don’t give the man a chance to open his mouth again and start talking. He thought of Elsie, thought of Rebecca and Charles and his sister, Laura, thought of Amelia and his unofficial niece, Millie. A baby might be the first to get sick and die if the epidemic made it to town. He thought of the baby dying and Amelia pacing the room nervously, her face blank with shock. He thought of Graham punching holes in the walls of his house, Graham being unable to suppress unmanly tears just as he had been helpless to save his only child. Philip fixated on Graham despite himself, thought of Graham and the first soldier and the two shots, one to put the man down and one to finish him off.
The Last Town on Earth Page 12