The Last Orchard (Prequel): Surviving the Collapse

by Hunt, James

  “Mel, wait!” Liz attempted to follow, but Mel refused to slow down. Wherever the big man was going, he was going alone. She spun around and stomped her way over to Charlie then shoved him hard enough to push him back.

  “Are you happy now?” Liz shoved him again, harder than the first time, before he even had a chance to answer. “Manage to get all of that off your chest? Huh?” She shoved him hard again.

  “It’s not worth it, honey.” Arlene came up behind Liz and gently but firmly pulled her back. “C’mon. Let’s go.”

  The words hurt, but it was the look in their eyes that stung worse. He had just joined the ranks of the same bastards that they were trying to escape.

  Long after the group had left, Charlie stood there, staring at the blood on his hands, still in shock at the way he’d snapped.

  After all of that talk about society collapsing and no law and order and people doing whatever they wanted, he had sunk into the same cesspool as the rest, and by the time he finally looked up, Liz and the rest of them were gone.

  Slowly, Charlie turned toward home.

  His pace was slow, and he struggled to keep his face forward. He continued to steal glances behind him.

  But every time he did, he forced himself back around, reminding himself that he barely knew those people. He had a family to get back to, a home waiting for him.

  Charlie dwelled on that thought for a moment, wondering what his parents would think about his actions. He knew what his mother would say, that he should turn around and apologize until he convinced them to keep going.

  But it was his father’s voice that frightened him. Harold Decker was never a man who took handouts, and because of that, he was frugal with giving things away. And despite knowing that, he knew that his father would have knocked him flat on his ass for treating those people the way he had.

  Charlie stopped, his boots scuffing against the pavement, and he turned. The road behind him turned through hills and trees, and alone in the quiet of nature, he knew that he’d made a mistake.

  He took a single step forward, and his foot landed on the asphalt at the exact same moment the gunshot rang out.

  7

  The sound had traveled far, the gunshot nothing more than a faint pop. And while the first gunshot froze him stiff, the second triggered him into action. He sprinted forward, legs churning up the pavement, and the decline offered the aid of gravity.

  A million different scenarios raced through his mind, and they multiplied and grew more horrific the farther he ran.

  He listened for more gunfire, but the world had quieted to the smack of his boots on the ground and the labored breaths from his exertion. By the time he reached the crossroads where they departed, Charlie had to slow down. He glanced toward Seattle, knowing that they probably wouldn’t have gone back to the city. No matter how upset they were, he didn’t believe they’d head back into a warzone.

  With the west not an option, Charlie squinted to the south at the neighborhood they had walked away from when they turned left at the crossroad.

  Twilight had descended, making it hard to see, and he headed toward the neighborhood, checking down the sides of houses, searching for Liz or Arlene.

  Unlike the other neighborhoods they passed, Charlie saw no one on the porches outside their homes, and most of the cars in the driveways looked as though they hadn’t been used in weeks.

  Most of the homes were run-down, and foreclosure signs were plastered on several doors.

  Charlie jogged three more blocks, glancing down each street but staying on the main road. Every street he passed, hope appeared then vanished when he found them empty.

  They hadn’t been separated for that long, and the deeper Charlie moved into the neighborhood without finding them, the more anxious he grew.

  Finally, he stopped.

  Charlie spun in circles, no longer sure of where to go or what to do. He wanted to scream out their names, but giving away his position to whoever had fired the weapon wouldn’t help anyone.

  Exhausted, he took a seat on the stoop of a nearby house. The windows were boarded up, and a stack of foreclosure papers had piled up on the porch.

  Charlie looked at the neighboring houses on either side and saw similar notices posted on the doors. Half the neighborhood was like that.

  He stared at the red foreclosure lettering, remembering all of the notices he had stacked back home at the orchard. What did all of those pieces of paper mean now? Maybe this had turned into a blessing. Of all the ways to keep the orchard, this phenomenon hadn’t even been on his list.

  Charlie stood, and a nasty pop echoed from his knees. He shook out the pain that followed. His body had finally grown irritated from the day’s activities. And while a lifetime of work on the farm had left him in good shape, the day’s extraordinary events had put an unusual amount of wear and tear on his body.

  Charlie limped the first few steps but then fell back into an easy stride by the time he passed the second house. To the west, the sun had completely dipped below the horizon, and twilight had ended.

  Voices caught his attention ahead, and Charlie slowed to listen.

  Laughter. It was faint, but it was laughter. He walked toward it, keeping quiet, and moved off the center of the road and onto the sidewalk then the yards of houses, so he had better cover.

  The best-case scenario was finding Liz and the rest of them at a friend’s house, laughing and eating. He’d apologize, and everything would be fine.

  But the closer he moved and the louder the laughter grew, he knew that it wasn’t his people. The laughter was wild and laced with anger.

  Charlie approached the house at the corner of the street slowly then craned his head around and crouched low.

  He saw three men five houses down the street. Each of them was seated in a folding chair on the front lawn, beers in their hands.

  And while their conversation leaned on the side of rambunctious, Charlie didn’t see anything that made him believe that they were dangerous. That was until one of them stepped outside.

  “Yo! You go and take care of that fat dude?”

  “Bitch, he’s facedown in the ditch. He ain’t getting up.” The man who answered lifted his drink to his lips, laughing.

  The man to his left, shirtless and with a large tribal tattoo on his shoulder, mocked his friend. “Yeah, you’re a real tough guy, huh?” He took a drink. “A fat guy and an old lady. Just a killer!”

  Laughter burst from the group, and “the killer” flipped his middle finger at the group.

  “Whatever,” Killer said. “At least we got those girls, right?”

  “Yeah, if we can get close enough without them scratching our eyes out.”

  “Well, you boys just don’t know how to treat a lady right.” Killer set the drink down then clapped his hands together. “Dr. Love is coming through!”

  The rage that coursed through Charlie’s veins was so violent that he couldn’t stop shaking on his retreat from the corner. And the more they laughed, the tighter he squeezed his fists.

  He reached for the pistol in his waistband, and while his first instinct was to turn the corner and charge down the street, firing off as many rounds as he could before those bastards had a chance to realize what was happening, he shoved that instinct back down to the pit of his stomach.

  Gun still in his hand, Charlie took off back down the street he’d just come up in search of Mel and Arlene.

  Charlie retraced his steps as quickly as he could, but he couldn’t remember any ditches that he’d seen along the way. He imagined that the group had run into those guys somewhere along the neighborhood, so they had to be close.

  But it wasn’t until Charlie reached the beginnings of the run-down housing district that he saw the ditches running along either side of the road. He rushed over and found that they were deep, a steady stream of water and trash trickling through them, and he checked the right side first.

  Charlie looked left then right but found nothing down
in the dirty water as far as he could see. He rushed to the opposite side and checked again. The first look to his left, he saw nothing, and when he quickly turned his head in the other direction, he thought he saw nothing again. But he stopped himself and strained his eyes at a pair of lumps that had started blocking trash and water.

  “Oh my god.” He sprinted down the road, his eyes never coming off of Mel and Arlene’s backs. Both of them were lying facedown in the ditch.

  Never breaking stride on his run, Charlie dropped the five feet into the depths of the ditch, splashing the warm, dirty water up his pant legs, and dropped to a knee.

  “Arlene,” Charlie whispered her name, his voice catching in his throat, as he carefully flipped her over, and he immediately jumped back.

  Arlene’s head wobbled, and the bones along her broken neck ground and cracked against one another as her dead eyes fell on him.

  Charlie sat there for a minute, just staring at Arlene’s blank expression. Growing up on a farm, he had seen life and death, but he’d never had that experience with a person. At least not this up close and personal. The harsh snap of Arlene’s neck represented violence Charlie had never seen before.

  Slowly, Charlie pulled his eyes away from Arlene and looked at Mel. He made sure that he didn’t touch or step on any part of Arlene, but when he got closer to him, he already saw that he was dead.

  The back of Mel’s head was bloody, as if he’d been hit with something before he was thrown down here. The blood on his skull hadn’t dried because of the water, and there was a light tinge of red that continually washed downstream.

  But just to make sure, Charlie pressed his fingers against Mel’s neck. No pulse.

  He looked at the gun in his hand then turned to Arlene and Mel one last time. “I should have stopped you. I should never have lost my temper. I should never have let you even come this way.” A tear squeezed through the anger and rolled down his cheek, and he quickly wiped it away.

  It was the only one Charlie let fall, then he quickly climbed the dirt-packed wall of the ditch and returned to the road. His wet jeans clung to his legs like a second skin.

  He sprinted back down the street and refused to let Liz and Sarah and little Adelyn succumb to the same fate. He was going to get them out of that house, no matter what.

  8

  Dripping with sweat and stinking of the ditch, Charlie skidded to a stop at the end of the same street corner where he’d seen the men in the yard, which now held nothing but empty chairs.

  He retreated behind the house on the corner and stepped into the overgrown grass of its backyard. Four fences separated Charlie from the house where the girls were being held, and he moved quickly over the first two, which were both chain-link and only three or four feet tall.

  The third fence was wood and taller than Charlie, but it had a side door.

  The fourth fence was similar to the third, but this one only had an exit to the front of the house.

  He scanned the fence, looking for cracks that offered him a view of what he’d encounter on the other side. The backyard was empty.

  Before that changed, Charlie tucked the revolver in his pocket then pulled himself up and over the fence and landed hard on the balls of his feet, then he kept low on his sprint toward the back of the house.

  He paused near the back door, reaching for the revolver and catching his breath. He slowly reached for the doorknob but found it locked.

  “Shit.”

  Carefully and quietly, Charlie crawled around toward the far side of the house and undid the latch on the gate’s exit from the backyard. He opened the gate only a crack and peeked at the other side.

  He found the side yard clear of people, and he saw a potential entrance point. A basement window at ground level was cracked open. It looked big enough for Charlie to squeeze through, and he hurried over to check.

  As he moved closer, he found the window smaller than he originally envisioned. But he opened it all the way, he was able to square his shoulders up and stick his head inside to get a better view.

  It was dark, but after he blinked a few times, he saw the basement was crammed with boxes and old furniture.

  Charlie backed out then shimmied into the window feet first, his back to the ground. His wet jeans scraped against the concrete sides, and when his legs were inside, his back started to pinch due to the harsh angle. He shimmied faster, trying to rid himself of the pain in his back, but he became stuck when he tried to pass his shoulders through.

  He stuck his arms straight back, narrowing his shoulders as much as possible, and gravity did the rest of the work, pulling him down until he landed awkwardly on concrete.

  Charlie winced, a harsh burn running down his right side, and when he pressed his palm against the pain, he felt something wet. When he examined his palm in the darkness and wiggled his finger, he was able to make out the dark crimson of blood.

  A piece of jagged metal had cut him down his left side, from love handle to armpit, and while the slash only broke the first layer of skin, the length of the scrape had produced a significant amount of blood.

  “Leave her alone!”

  Charlie snapped his head up toward the ceiling, the rush of adrenaline overpowering the pain. He followed the screams and laughter toward the staircase that led up to the first floor of the house.

  The door at the top of the stairs was cracked open, and Charlie tightened his grip on the pistol at his side. He counted four men that had been in the front yard, but there could be more inside.

  Another scream. More laughter. Muffled cries.

  He planted his foot on the first step of the staircase, testing it for noise. When all his weight was applied and no sound was made, he moved to the second, then the third, keeping a steady pace all the way to the top, where he paused.

  Sweating and shaking, Charlie shut his eyes and tried to calm his unsteady hand. He needed to keep his wits about him if he was going to make it out of this alive. He inhaled deeply, held it, then exhaled slowly.

  His muscles relaxed, and his heart rate lowered. It was now or never.

  Charlie opened the door all the way, not bothering to check inside first and hoping to catch the bastards off guard. The revolver was exposed first, his arm outstretched, and then he stepped into the narrow hallway.

  It was empty.

  Doors lined both sides, and more laughter echoed from up front, but the cries for help were coming from inside the room down the hall and on the left.

  Charlie paused at the door and positioned his ear close to the wood. The whispers inside were unintelligible, and he gently placed his hand on the knob. He turned it slowly, wincing with every little noise triggered by his movement.

  When he couldn’t turn it any more, Charlie leaned his weight against the door. His heart hammered in his chest so hard that he was convinced everyone in the house heard him.

  But when the door finally opened and no one had come barreling out of the room to attack him or yelled from the living room, Charlie realized that it was all in his head, and all of those concerns erased when he saw Sarah on her back on the bed, her t-shirt off, but still wearing her bra and jeans, and a man towering over her, his back to Charlie.

  “You want to keep your daughter safe?” the killer asked. “Then you do what I tell you to.” He unbuckled his pants.

  Charlie seized the moment and charged forward and cracked the pistol on the back of the man’s head then tackled him onto the bed and wrapped him in a choke hold.

  The killer’s cheeks turned purple, and he bucked his hips, but Charlie squeezed tighter, knowing that if the man cried for help, they were all dead.

  The killer gurgled, but then, slowly, he started to fade. The fight went out of him, and he passed out.

  Exhausted, Charlie let him go then turned to Sarah, who was shaking on the bed, unable to form any coherent words.

  “Sarah.” Charlie barely spoke above a whisper and tried to get her off the bed. “We need to go. Where are Adelyn and L
iz?”

  “The living room.” Sarah finally spit the words out, and she started to cry. “They have her there. Please, Charlie. You have to get her.”

  Charlie hushed her and nodded. “I will. But I need to get you out. Come on.” He led Sarah by the hand into the hallway. He brought her toward the basement door then motioned her to go down. “There’s a window. Crawl out and wait for me there. If you hear anything, then I want you to run down the street, east, as far as you can, and I’ll catch up.”

  “But my daughter—”

  “I will bring her to you,” Charlie said. “I promise.”

  Reluctant, Sarah descended the stairs, and Charlie turned his attention to the living room at the end of the hall.

  Charlie moved quickly, unsure how long the killer in the room would be passed out. He didn’t know what he’d do, but he understood the time crunch.

  “Hey, Ronnie! You need some help in there, man?”

  The voice drew closer, and when the man rounded the corner of the hallway, drink in hand and smiling, Charlie raised the gun and fired.

  Blood and liquor stained the carpet as the man and his cup crashed to the floor. With his cover blown, Charlie charged forward and was in the living room before the rest of the gang could react save for tossing their hands in the air.

  “Don’t move!” He shifted his aim between clusters of the men. He counted six then saw Liz and Adelyn tucked in the corner, Liz crying as she quickly picked the girl up. “Liz, Sarah’s outside. Go now.”

  With everyone else distracted by Charlie and his weapon, Liz scurried out the front door, leaving him alone with the six men in the confined space.

  “Everyone get facedown on the floor, hands behind your heads,” Charlie said, his voice shaking due to the adrenaline pumping through his veins.

  The group remained seated, their expressions ranging from fear to contempt, but none of them moved.

  “Do it now!” Still no one moved, and Charlie began to sweat.