I reached out and grabbed her hand, alarmed. “What is it?”
I watched her struggle to regain control, wiping a tear from her eye.
“You’re going to be a dad,” she said, before bursting into tears and burying her head in my shoulder.
It’s hard to describe what I felt in those first few wonderful, scary moments. The most amazing wave of joy washed over me. It was the most physical emotion I have ever felt, starting with a jolt deep in my chest which emanated like a tide of well-being through the rest of me. I began to cry, too. They were tears of joy, just like the cliché, and I hugged Indigo to me, both of us rocking back and forth, crying and laughing.
“Why are we crying?” I asked Indigo, when we had finally calmed down. “This is really great news! We should be dancing.”
“I know! I don’t know why. I’m scared, I guess, scared and really, really happy. And I didn’t know how you would feel.”
“I feel amazing, Indigo,” I said, looking into her eyes. “Better than I’ve ever felt in my entire life!”
She hugged me again.
“Me, too.”
16
Our healthy, pink baby boy, Max, was born nine months later. Did it feel strange to be a dad? Hell yes! But it was a wonderful kind of strange. And after he came along, I couldn’t imagine life without Max. Indigo was a fantastic mother and the two of us became even closer as we went through the trials of parenthood. After what seemed a long, long time, I suddenly had a family to call my own again.
Even with the overcrowding, the thought of moving my young family and everyone else — when we had order, fresh food, water, and safety — was just something none of us wanted to think about.
Don’t get me wrong. Life in the Valley wasn’t what you would call easy. In fact, it was hard. Really hard. We lost people through accidents, and illness, and — especially traumatic for Indigo — we even lost a mother during childbirth.
We had to make tough decisions, such as banishing people who turned out to be troublemakers. It sounds harsh, I know, but we didn’t have anywhere to jail people and it wasn’t worth the trouble to try and rehabilitate them. In the first year, we had come up with a rudimentary code of conduct, which is, I guess, the closest thing to law and order a bunch of kids could have.
That code of conduct was pretty much don’t steal and don’t fight. If you did one of those things, you got a strike against your name. If you did it a second time, you were out. Anything worse than stealing or fighting resulted in instant banishment. We even had a vote on if, God forbid, anyone committed murder whether we would carry out the death penalty. It was a close vote, but it was defeated, banishment being the preferred option for the majority. I hoped we never had to test that decision.
As decreed that very first night in the Valley, we held an election every year before our Thanksgiving Day. The first two years, Luke, Indigo, and I were reinstalled, unopposed, as the triumvirate. After Max was born, Indigo decided not to run as a candidate and Jamal was elected unanimously to our leadership group of three.
As we entered our fifth year in the Valley there occurred several notable events. On a personal note, Luke and I both turned twenty. Our birthdays were only a month apart and, speaking for myself, it seemed a bit of a milestone. There were no big celebrations or anything, just a feeling we had passed ‘officially’ into adulthood. It was silly, really. We had been adults for a long time through what we’d experienced.
One morning, not long after my birthday, there came an urgent knocking at our door. Dawn was only just touching the sky. With my heart beating hard in my chest, I ran to the door to find a sleep-tousled Luke jumping from foot to foot. Brooke stood behind him, looking sheepish.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Guess!” Luke said excitedly as Indigo joined us at the door.
“Sorry guys,” said Brooke, biting her lip. “I told him to wait ‘til breakfast ... ”
“We’re having a baby!”
Luke leapt into my arms and I staggered back under the weight of his heavy body. I managed to keep my feet until he jumped off and engulfed a delighted Indigo in a gentler bear hug.
“Oh my God, that’s so great!” Indigo exclaimed, embracing Brooke after Luke released her.
It turns out they had been trying for six months without telling anybody. I watched Luke standing over Max’s cot and felt a warmth for him. I thought it would be great if they had a boy, a playmate for Max, but I knew, boy or girl, Luke and Brooke would be fantastic parents.
On a bigger note, with overcrowding as our top issue, we put a referendum to the people. It was decided by an overwhelming yes vote we would not accept any refugees for the following twelve months into the community. It was a win for common sense and came as a huge relief.
So, we moved into our fifth year in the Valley happy and optimistic about the future. It sounds cliché but, for me, and I’m sure for all of us there, those years in the Valley were the best of our lives. Now that we had the population question settled, it would hopefully be our home for many years more.
Part Two: Rude Awakening
17
My eyes snapped open. I stared up at the moonlit shadows on the ceiling, wondering if the loud bang had been from a dream I couldn’t remember.
“That was a gunshot.”
Indigo’s soft voice beside me dispelled any doubt that I had dreamed it. I quickly got out of bed and began pulling on my jeans as a burst of automatic gunfire, followed by a distant scream, sent a jolt of electricity through me. We’re under attack.
I half-fell/sat on the bed and began to pull on my boots, my fingers suddenly clumsy with alarm. Indigo was already out of bed and carefully bundling up the still sleeping Max.
Bang, bang, bang.
“Quick, you better get him down to the basement. We should get all the girls down there.”
“Yep,” Indigo said, all business now.
I went to the closet and pulled my pistol and a rifle out and ran to the door. Indigo waited for me there and we kissed as Ben and Luke ran down the hallway past us.
“Come on, lovebird,” said Luke, his voice sounding excited and not at all scared. “Those shots came from the gate.”
“Be careful,” said Indigo.
“I will. Make sure you take some guns down to the basement, and don’t come out until you hear one of us give the all clear.”
I kissed Max on the top of the head and Brooke arrived carrying a pistol just as I turned to run after my two friends.
“Make sure Luke doesn’t do anything crazy!” she called after me.
We flew down the stairs two at a time and ran through the living room, bursting out of the blue door onto the verandah.
It was a dark night and my eyes took a few seconds to adjust as we sped up the hill towards the screaming, shouting, and shooting. More of our people were running from the direction of the barn and the living quarters around it. Some were whooping with excitement, others wide-eyed with fear. It was hard not to get caught up in the excitement, our fear of the unknown balanced by the feeling of camaraderie and safety in numbers.
Luke was a lanky shadow loping ahead of us and he slowed as we approached Boot Hill, a large mound the drive curled around before it straightened and went on to the gates. He turned and motioned all of us to slow and made a chopping motion against his throat with his hook. The whooping of the others slowly subsided as we caught up to him.
The crack of gunfire continued behind the small hill. Luke did a quick headcount as we gathered around.
“You eight,” he pointed. “Continue along the driveway, single file, and stick as close to the hill as you can. Isaac, Ben, and I will go around —”
He was interrupted by an almighty crash from the direction of the gate followed by the shriek of metal on metal and roar of an engine.
“Come on, they’re through!” yelled Luke.
We ran after him. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I felt a righteous anger that someone had
dared break through our gate and come at my people. We rounded the hill and began towards the gate. I could make out about twelve shapes on foot, climbing over the debris of the gate and the part of the wall that had caved in with it.
In front of them, speeding towards us, was the vehicle which had broken through our defenses. It was an olive-green truck with a heavy metal grate fastened to its front-end and steel plates over its windshield. There were two narrow horizontal slits for the driver to see through and the plating was clearly not part of the original design.
I could see shapes scattered around the wreckage of the gate. Bodies. The bodies of our people. A snarl escaped my lips as I began to shoot at the interlopers. Most of the others with us were not armed with guns but, thankfully, all of the attackers didn’t appear to be armed either. Perhaps surprised by our numbers, the invaders began to slow and fall in behind the vehicle which had now slowed to provide cover. I saw at least two invaders return my fire.
One of our guys fell, winged, a quiet kid with blonde hair who had only arrived a year before. My next shot found its mark and the shooter fell, holding his belly. I saw Luke from the corner of my eye. He stopped, half turned, and raised his small crossbow, bracing it on his hook.
The remaining enemy gunman saw Luke and took aim at him, even as he became a target himself. I began to bring my gun around too, when an enraged shriek to my right distracted me. A kid from our side was running at the gunman, a tomahawk raised above his head. The enemy didn’t hesitate. He turned his automatic weapon on the kid and let off a burst of gunfire that ceased a split second later when the arrow from Luke’s crossbow found him.
Both the invader and the kid with the tomahawk crashed to the ground a few feet apart, the enemy clutching at the bolt in his chest and the kid from our side silent and bloody.
Luke threw his crossbow to the ground. It was only good for one shot because he was unable to reload quickly with his one hand. He pulled a pistol from his belt and began shooting at the slots in the truck’s armored windshield. I fired off a shot too, then decided to concentrate on the fighters sheltering behind the vehicle.
I managed to hit one just as the others from our side reached the now almost stationary vehicle, swarming around it and engaging the enemy in vicious, close quarters combat.
From my position to the left of the vehicle, I got a good look at the driver, the glow of the dashboard just enough to display his features. It wasn’t Ash. I had no doubt our attackers were from his gang of Marauders, but the driver’s eyes were dark, not the eerie light blue of their leader.
The driver snarled as Luke’s well aimed bullets pinged around the slit and hit the gas, obviously deciding enough was enough. He aimed straight for Luke, just missing two more of our defenders as they dived out of the way.
Luke waited until the last possible second, then dove out of the way of the two tons of metal death barreling at him. He wasn’t quite quick enough; the edge of the heavy grate on the front of the truck smacked his ankle, sending him spinning into the dirt. The driver swung around and rushed back up the hill before pulling up sharply near the fighting, the truck’s tires spitting dirt and gravel.
“Grab one of them, Thompson!” the driver yelled.
I broke into a run. The one called Thompson jumped out and snatched one of our smaller boys. I recognized him as Benjamin, a kid originally from Joe and Brock’s group. Thompson was bundling him into the passenger door by the time I got there. I couldn’t shoot without the possibility of hitting Benjamin, so I ran at them, hoping to wrestle him away before he was taken.
The driver grabbed Benjamin by the hair and floored the gas again, taking off even before his own guy could get back in safely. I dove, grabbing the one called Thompson’s leg as he struggled to climb into the moving vehicle behind their captive.
Thompson held on grimly and used his other leg to kick at me. I could hear Benjamin calling out for help, but it was no use. My grip began to slip, the buffeting of the dirt driveway on my legs and feet making it impossible to hold on. Finally, I fell away, rolling several times before coming to a halt. I held nothing for my efforts but a worn running shoe.
I climbed to my feet, remarkably undamaged by my struggle and subsequent fall. I took aim and shot at the rear tires in one last effort to stop the speeding truck. I missed and watched helplessly as the truck careened back over the rubble of the gate and out onto the road.
“Fuck!” I yelled in frustration before running back to the fighting.
I got there as more of our people began arriving. Some of the invaders fled after the truck, obviously not liking the odds, but the rest continued to fight.
I tried to aim at the invaders in the melee, but there was no way I could shoot the enemy without risking my own people. I took the option of firing a shot into the air. It had the desired effect. Everybody froze, and I pointed my gun at the face of one of them. It was a kid with a shaved head and freckled face. He immediately dropped his weapon, a short-bloodstained axe, and held up his hands.
The other three looked like they were considering fighting on when Luke arrived, his gun and hook glinting in the moonlight. His appearance seemed to help them make the right decision and they also dropped their weapons and put up their hands.
“Get on the ground,” Luke screamed at them.
They dropped, and Ben began to collect their weapons, an assortment of modified tools. Luke holstered his gun and picked up the axe the freckle-faced kid had dropped.
There was crying and angry shouts from those arriving on the scene as they discovered the destruction of life and limb wrought upon our tightknit community in those few minutes of mayhem.
Now that the heat of the battle had begun to subside, I felt sick and noticed that my hands were shaking. Our one pickup truck arrived, driven by Jamal. He, Danny, Allie, and Beau jumped out and began to help Ben tend to the wounded.
“Danny, Beau, can you make sure these prisoners are tied up and guarded? Luke and I need to inspect the damage,” I said.
We ran to the gate. There was no sign of the truck or of the enemy who had run away on foot. It was over as quickly as it had begun, only a trail of death and destruction to mark the enemy’s passing.
“They must have had another vehicle waiting,” Luke said, standing at the broken gates and looking down the empty road. “What are we going to do about Benjamin?”
“I don’t know.”
Of course, I wanted to go after them, to bring him back safely. But we couldn’t do that right then. Maybe not at all.
All four of our guards were down and, I feared, dead. They had fought valiantly. We found three dead attackers outside of the wall and another inside the perimeter. We checked our people one by one. Two had been shot and another, a girl I didn’t recognize, had a large slashing wound across her neck and down into her chest. The axe.
Her eyes were wide open, staring at the starry sky as if amazed by what she saw there. I gently closed them and felt a cold rage begin to build in me. The last body was that of a young kid of about fourteen. He was lying broken and bleeding in tire tracks left by the truck.
Luke stood back up and faced me, his mouth grim.
“We’ll have to work through the night to get the gate back up. We might have to use one of the buses to block it until we can establish something more permanent.”
18
We all worked through what was left of the night and by dawn we had managed to repair the wall and bring one of the school buses up to use as a makeshift gate. We had worked with a sense of urgency because, at that point, none of us knew if or when the Marauders would be back with a larger force.
Morning finally dawned as we finished.
Exhausted, I walked down to visit the injured. Jamal had set up some tents and was tending to the wounds of the injured with what passed as medical equipment in our world. At best, that consisted of splints, bandages, antiseptic, and painkillers. Down the hill, Ben and a few of the others were gathering and organizing th
e bodies of our dead.
Besides the kidnapped boy, Benjamin, we had lost four people at the gate and another two when fighting off the invaders. The boy carrying the tomahawk was alive, but in a very bad way; the bullets had shattered the bones in his upper arm. Jamal shook his head when I looked at him. There were three more injured. One had a broken leg and the other two had more superficial wounds from the fighting.
“They should all be okay if we can keep their wounds clean.”
All told, we had killed five of the enemy and had taken four prisoners.
As I walked out of the tent, I heard a heart wrenching wailing. I froze and looked towards the group gathered solemnly around our dead. A girl of about eight was holding and hugging the girl who had been killed by the axe wielder, the blood of the dead girl marring the white sweater she was wearing. Jamal joined me.
“It’s her sister.”
All of the fear, sadness, and anger of the last few hours hit me like a freight train and I felt the embers of my cold anger flare into something much more powerful. There would be an accounting and it would be now.
I changed course and stalked towards the prisoners pulling out my pistol as I went. Danny stood guard over them, a pistol in his hand. His uncertain look in my direction alerted them and all four looked frightened as I approached.
My fury was as obvious as if my hair had been on fire and they recoiled when I reached them. I leaned over and grabbed the freckled axe man by the collar of his shirt and dragged him over to our dead, his feet kicking in the dust as he tried to escape.
The little girl shrieked when she saw us approaching and fell over her sister as if to protect her. I didn’t notice. I swung the killer around, bunching his collar in my hand, squeezing tight as I shook him, his face just inches from the pale face of his victim.
“You see what you’ve done, you fuck! You murdering fuck!” I spat. I jammed my gun against his temple. “What do you have to say?”
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