The Last Orchard (Prequel): Surviving the Collapse

by Hunt, James

  “You going to shoot us, boy?” One man stood slowly, his eyes locked on Charlie. “I don’t even think you’ve got enough bullets in there for everyone, so what happens when you run out?”

  Charlie grimaced, finger inching over the trigger. Six men, four bullets—the math wouldn’t end well, not for him at least.

  “I don’t want any more trouble,” Charlie said, his mouth dry. He retreated toward the hallway and the basement door.

  “I think you’re just talk.” The leader snarled, taking a single step forward. “I don’t think you’ve got the balls to pull that trigger on all of us.”

  “I said don’t move!” Charlie screamed, whipping the pistol in a forward motion, but the threat went unheeded.

  And as the first man stood, the others slowly rose, feeding into their leader’s boldness, and it wasn’t long before they were all on their feet. Charlie was out of options.

  He fired. The bullet screamed from the barrel of the revolver and dropped the leader.

  The rest of the men charged, and Charlie pivoted his aim and fired again on his retreat toward the basement door. The bullets bought him some time, but he needed to move quickly.

  He headed for the basement door and slammed it shut on the way down, leaping the stairs two, three at a time. When he hit the bottom, he spun around and fired back up at the basement door, forcing the men to stop, and then beelined it for the window, which was still open.

  Charlie jumped, thrusting his head and shoulders through the window, and he clawed frantically at the grass as he pulled himself from the basement.

  He rolled out just as the men reached the bottom, and he sprinted toward the road. He didn’t look back when his feet hit the pavement, but he was two houses down when the gunshots fired behind him.

  Ahead, he saw Sarah and Liz with Adelyn. He screamed at them to keep running, and at the last second, Charlie turned his head around and watched three men with pistols chasing after him.

  He fired one last shot then didn’t look back, and he didn’t stop running.

  9

  “Just keep going!” Charlie pushed them forward, continuing their sprint away from the neighborhood. He looked back twice as he steered what remained of their group to safety, and finally, after seven blocks, the chase ended, but Charlie didn’t let up their pace until Sarah couldn’t move anymore.

  “I just need to stop,” she said, clutching Adelyn. “I’m sorry.” She collapsed with her daughter on the curb, holding her tight.

  Charlie and Liz remained standing, and he grabbed her arm. “You all right?”

  Liz nodded quickly, her movement jerky and uncoordinated. She was still in shock. “I’m fine.” She looked around, making sure they were alone.

  A million words funneled through his mind but vanished by the time they reached his tongue. In his silence, Charlie kept staring down at the pistol still gripped in his hand. He’d held it for so long that it was as if the weapon were glued to his hand. It had become an extension of him.

  The world had changed, and it seemed that he had unknowingly changed with it. But how much further would he have to go? How much more would he have to give up in order to survive? What else was it going to cost?

  “We should really keep moving,” Charlie said.

  Sarah nodded then stood.

  “Do you need help holding her?” Liz asked.

  “No,” Sarah answered. “I’m fine.”

  With their pace slowed to a brisk walk, they faded deeper into the night, as silent as the world around them.

  It didn’t take long for the trio’s pace to transform to a crawl, and with the night in full swing and them out of the neighborhood, Charlie knew they needed to camp somewhere.

  Twice, Charlie caught Liz dozing off, and she jerked awake, quickly looking to see if he noticed.

  Charlie glanced around. Their surroundings were nothing more than woods, night already upon them. “We’ll stop at the next building we find.”

  Liz and Sarah nodded in agreement, and after another half a mile, they came across an abandoned gas station that looked as if it had been shut down for years.

  “That’ll work,” Charlie said.

  The pumps were rusted, and the overhang that had once protected the customers from the weather had collapsed.

  The glass along the front windows had grown dirty and cloudy with time, but the door was unlocked, and Charlie stepped inside first to make sure the coast was clear. The last thing he wanted to do was have to use that weapon again. His hand started to shake at just the thought of it, and he was glad that Liz wasn’t there to see it.

  Aside from some broken glass, rusted car parts, and some overgrowth sneaking in through the cracks of the building, it was empty.

  Charlie stepped out and found Liz shivering near one of the pumps and staring down at her feet while Sarah rubbed Adelyn’s back. “It’s clear.”

  Sarah entered first and took a corner of the room, then Liz stumbled over, swaying from side to side, as she continued to hug herself.

  Charlie entered last, shutting the door behind him. “Probably best to stay up here near the cash register and out of the garage. I don’t think I can get those bay doors shut.”

  But when Charlie looked at Sarah and Adelyn, the mother and daughter were already passed out in the corner.

  Charlie sat down, and Liz joined him by the door.

  “Mel tried to stop them,” Liz said, keeping her voice low and staring at a patch of concrete. “I didn’t think anything of it at first, just some boys talking tough. And then one of them pulled a gun. I don’t know why, but Mel just wouldn’t stop shouting at them. It was like he snapped.” Her lips quivered. “They forced him on his knees.” A tear fell, but she didn’t wipe it away. It hung from her jawline for a few seconds then crashed to the ground. “When they went for Sarah and Adelyn, Arlene was the first to try to stop them, but they were too big. Too strong.”

  Charlie wished that she would stop. He didn’t need to hear how they had died. It was hard enough finding them the way he had on the side of the road. “Liz, you don’t—”

  “They wanted to leave Adelyn, but I grabbed her,” Liz said. “Sarah wouldn’t stop screaming. She pounded her fists against them as hard as she could, but they just laughed.” She frowned then cleared the phlegm growing thick in her throat.

  She scrunched up her face again as if she were going to cry but then reached for Charlie’s hand and squeezed tight.

  Charlie stared into the frightened and wide eyes looking up at him, and he reciprocated the touch. She was warm, and the heat transferred across his chest to the opposite arm.

  “I shouldn’t have let you guys leave,” Charlie said.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” Liz said.

  “It was.”

  Liz moved closer to Charlie and held his face. “No. It wasn’t.”

  But the reassurances didn’t erase what he’d done or what he’d failed to do.

  “Hey,” Liz said, but Charlie refused to look at her and forced her to pull his face toward her. “We chose to leave you. Got it? And despite all of that, despite all of the weight we put on you to get us out of trouble, you still came back to look for us even when we didn’t want you to. I can count the number of men in this city that would have done the same thing on one hand.” She held up her palm, all five digits lengthened and spread wide. She had beautiful hands.

  “I don’t know if the blood will wash off,” Charlie said.

  Liz nodded. “I was working my residency down in San Diego the first time I saw someone die on the table.” She leaned her head back against the wall, the supple flesh of her throat moving with every word. “Car wreck. Hit and run. He was a homeless guy. Couldn’t tell his age other than he was old. Had a beard down to his chest, all matted with blood. He was in bad shape before the car even hit him, and his abdomen had swelled from the internal bleeding.” She lifted her hands as if she were holding a pretend needle. “When the doctor instructed me to relieve the press
ure, I couldn’t keep my hand still. He yanked the needle out of my hand and shoved me aside, and I just stood there. The other nurses seemed fine, unfazed by the fact that this guy was quickly dying on the table.” She frowned. “He was all skin and bones too. Gaunt and hollowed cheeks. Probably hadn’t eaten in days. But just before the doctor was getting the paddles ready to bring him back, he woke up, gasping and choking for breath. Every cough sprayed blood over him and anyone that was close, including me.” She touched her chest as if she could still feel the splatter. “But he turned his head as he struggled for air, and he looked at me. I’m not sure how long we locked eyes, but it felt like an eternity. And while the rest of his body had wasted away either by drugs or alcohol or time, his eyes were still bright and fresh, like he was seeing for the first time.” She paused, reflecting on the moment, then shook her head quickly. “He didn’t make it through surgery. Shattered spleen and ruptured kidneys, and at least six vertebras were snapped in his lower back. Even if he survived, he would have been confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life.”

  “Do you ever get used to it?” Charlie asked.

  “I did,” Liz answered. “I never thought I would, and I swore to myself that I wouldn’t go numb like all the older nurses and doctors, but it happened.” She shrugged. “I guess it’s the only way for our minds to cope after trauma.”

  “I couldn’t do what you do, Liz.” Charlie shook his head. “Not in a million years.”

  Liz smiled, mild sadness in her eyes. “Yeah, you could.”

  But Charlie only shook his head. “I’m not the person you think I am. I just try to do the right thing.”

  “You’re exactly what I think you are.”

  Silence shrouded over them again. The pair remained close, the heat in their bodies rising, each a breath away from giving in, then Sarah stirred in the corner, pulling them out of the moment.

  “You should get some rest,” Charlie said.

  Liz nodded and lay down.

  10

  It didn’t take long for Liz to pass out, and Charlie’s gaze switched between her and the view of the road. He brushed the bangs off her forehead but then quickly withdrew his hand.

  Watching Liz sleep only made the longing for Charlie to catch his own shut-eye worse. But a sense of duty flooded through him, and he felt the need to protect her. After all, it was what he’d been doing since they left the hospital. And if he was being honest with himself, that was the way he liked it.

  It was a refreshing change of pace from some of the women he’d dated back in college. He understood the need for independence, but after a lifetime of watching his parents interact with one another, he also understood that having a partner meant being able to pass the baton.

  If you were tired, they stayed up. If they got sick, then you brought them soup. And when a patch of cows wandered from the neighbor’s pasture at two o’clock in the morning—which, even for a farmer, was early—through the fence that you had begged them to fix for the past eight months and woke up your pregnant wife, who could barely sleep anyway, you got your ass out of bed and got those cows away from your house.

  Charlie smiled, remembering that last story was one of his dad’s favorites. He recited it any chance there was an opportunity, because that night, Jon Berkin—the neighbor who owned the cows—landed face-first in a pile of cow shit. His father said that karma did exist and it was a cruel son of a bitch.

  The point was that you couldn’t be strong all of the time, and that was okay. People were fallible, and they were going to screw up eventually. Charlie had done it enough to know the truth in that statement.

  The longer Charlie sat by the door, the more he started to doze off. Twice, he caught himself snapping back awake, and he had to fight the impulse to wake Liz up to have her be on watch. He just needed something to keep his mind busy.

  He opened the revolver’s chamber and counted the bullets. Two.

  He plucked them out of the chamber and rolled them around in his hand, repeating the process of unloading and reloading until that became like counting sheep and only worsened his desire for sleep.

  Unsure of the time, Charlie finally rested his head against the wall near the door, at least keeping his body in front of the only entrance, and finally dozed off.

  While he was sure he went to sleep instantly, Charlie had no idea how long he was out before he was woken by a mechanical rumble.

  He reached for the gun, his heart rate spiked, and his vision still blurred with sleep. Once he realized there was no one there, he looked at Liz, who was still asleep nearby, and Sarah and Adelyn in the corner.

  The rumbling outside grew louder, and Charlie frowned when he saw the pair of headlights coming down the road. It was a car.

  Charlie stood, hand still on the grip of the revolver, and peered through the clouded glass.

  The headlights grew larger, and the tension in his body tightened the closer they moved, and just when it grew so tight that he couldn’t stop shaking, one of the headlights from the vehicle highlighted a man walking nearby, wearing camouflage.

  Charlie squinted, double-checking to ensure that he hadn’t imagined it. Then he saw the other men marching along the road. They were all dressed in camouflage, all of them wielding rifles.

  Soldiers. American soldiers.

  Laughter escaped Charlie’s lips, and he opened the door and rushed out to the convoy, that fear and tension immediately transforming into joy and excitement. “Hey!” Charlie shouted, waving his hands and turning the convoy’s attention toward him, along with their guns.

  “Don’t move!”

  “Get down!”

  “Drop the weapon!”

  The orders were barked with a violence that forced Charlie to freeze. He held up his hands, and the vehicle’s lights pivoted in his direction to blind him.

  The soldiers repeated their orders, and Charlie placed the revolver on the ground then lay down on the pavement just as he was instructed to do, putting his hands behind his head.

  “I’m not one of the bad guys,” Charlie said when he felt hands pat down his back and legs.

  “All clear, Lieutenant.”

  The concrete was rough against Charlie’s cheek and still hot from baking in the sun all day. When he lifted his face off the ground, he caught an eyeful of the AR-15 barrel aimed at his head. “I just wanted to ask for some help.”

  “Help?” The voice preceded the thump of boots, then a man crouched down to Charlie’s level. “Son, you need a lot more than that.” He laughed and shook his head. “If this boy is part of the terrorist group, then I’m Paul McCartney. Get ’im up.”

  The orders were swiftly followed, and Charlie was peeled off of the concrete and lifted upright. He blinked and found the man who’d spoken to him, the one the soldiers had addressed as Lieutenant.

  “You out here by yourself?” the lieutenant asked.

  “No, sir.”

  “And where is the rest of your party, and how many are there?”

  “Three. One of them is a little girl. They’re asleep in the station.” Charlie gestured back to the run-down building where they’d sought shelter.

  “Sully, go check it out.” The lieutenant stepped closer as Sully jogged over to the building, then examined the revolver that his soldier had confiscated. “This your weapon?”

  “No,” Charlie answered.

  “You find some trouble on the road?”

  “Yes, sir,” Charlie said. “Lost a couple people along the way.”

  The lieutenant nodded. “A lot of that going on.” He looked past Charlie’s left and saw Sully bringing Liz, Sarah, and Adelyn out of the building.

  “Three, just like he said, Lieutenant,” Sully said.

  “Everyone all right?” the lieutenant asked.

  “I’m fine,” Liz said, her voice cracking as she was brought over to the rest of the circle, then looked at Charlie. “You?”

  Charlie nodded.

  “You can let him go, boys,”
the lieutenant said.

  The two pairs of hands restraining Charlie relinquished their hold, and he rotated his shoulders, glad to have his mobility back. He rubbed his wrists as Liz inched closer to his side, and the soldiers returned to their ranks, leaving only him, Liz, Sarah and Adelyn, and the lieutenant.

  “What’s going on?” Charlie asked.

  “We were attacked,” the lieutenant answered.

  “By who?” Liz asked.

  “The last intel we received before our communications went down was activity off of the Korean peninsula. The Chinese had maneuvered a considerable amount of their forces toward the North Korean border. We think that it might have something to do with that, but we’re not sure.”

  “Mommy, I’m still tired,” Adelyn said, rubbing her eyes.

  “I know, baby,” Sarah replied.

  “Why is the power out?” Charlie asked. “No cars, no phones—how could they have done that?”

  “We think we suffered an EMP strike,” the lieutenant answered then explained when he saw the confusion on their faces. “Electromagnetic pulse. It’s a device that fries any electrical circuits within the radius of its blast.”

  “But there was no explosion,” Charlie replied.

  “It’s a pulse sent through the air. It’s soundless and not dangerous to humans,” the lieutenant said but then turned around toward the city. “Until the aftermath, that is.”

  “So nothing works?” Liz asked.

  “Anything with a computer chip is down for the count. And considering that pretty much everything we rely on has one built inside, you can see why there was so much destruction.”

  “Oh my god.” Charlie stepped back and turned away from the lieutenant. He looked back at the decrepit and broken-down gas station, and it was as if he were looking into the future now instead of the past. “How big?” He turned back around to face the lieutenant. “How far widespread was the blast?”

  The lieutenant hesitated, and it was the only preparation that Charlie had for what came out of the lieutenant’s mouth next. “It’s the whole country.”