Midnight Skills

by William Allen

  MIDNIGHT SKILLS

  BOOK SEVEN

  WALKING IN THE RAIN

  WILLIAM ALLEN

  Malleus Publishing

  MIDNIGHT SKILLS

  By

  William Allen

  © 2018. All Rights Reserved.

  This is a work of fiction and no part of this story is intended to depict real persons, living or dead, or any actual locations. The use of some place names is purely fictional and any similarity is purely coincidental.

  Copyright 2018. All Rights Reserved.

  Malleus Publishing Edition

  Table of Contents

  PART ONE: THE HOME FRONT CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  PART TWO: THE WAR CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54

  CHAPTER 55

  CHAPTER 56

  CHAPTER 57

  CHAPTER 58

  CHAPTER 59

  CHAPTER 60

  CHAPTER 61

  CHAPTER 62

  CHAPTER 63

  CHAPTER 64

  CHAPTER 65

  CHAPTER 66

  CHAPTER 67

  CHAPTER 68

  CHAPTER 69

  CHAPTER 70

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  DEDICATION

  MY THANKS

  PART ONE: THE HOME FRONT

  CHAPTER 1

  Luke woke with a start, bathed in sweat and biting his lip to keep the scream inside. Nestled in close, Amy gave a little moan and rolled over, draping her arm over his shoulder. By the pale red light cast by the nightlight, she looked a vision in pink to Luke, and he didn’t want to wake her. They’d both worked hard the day before, with Luke assisting Gaddis at the forge, while Amy helped Mrs. Elkins all day with the starts they were sprouting in the greenhouse. Gaddis was working on repairing a set of heavy hinges for a gate, but also took time to work on a project with Luke. The blade looked funny, but the old man promised Luke he would love the final product.

  No, Amy needed her sleep and Luke knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep again. He never could after having one of his nightmares. Resolved, Luke eased out from under his love’s arm and slipped out of bed. Wearing just his board shorts and a clean but paint-spattered old t-shirt, his normal bedtime attire, Luke eased out of his room and headed for the kitchen. When he checked his watch, Luke could see it was already approaching five a.m.

  Luke wasn’t surprised to see the kitchen already occupied. In truth, with the influx of new people and the twenty-four-hour-a-day nature of their security, the kitchen stayed busy at all hours. Luke’s mom, Claire, had a rotating schedule of workers set to prepare meals, but 0445 in the morning meant even the Egg Patrol was just getting up.

  “Want some coffee?”

  Luke took a moment to examine David Metcalf. He decided the older man didn’t look like he’d gotten much sleep either. Dressed the way he was, in jeans and a denim jacket, Luke correctly surmised David was just coming off a security shift.

  “Yes, sir,” Luke replied.

  “So how was the watch last night?” Luke asked as he sipped the cup of precious coffee.

  “Not much stirring, what with this cold front coming in like it did.” David looked down, studying the half-consumed contents of his cup. He appeared to be deep in thought. “I suspect we’ll see one more big push before winter sets in.”

  Luke knew what the older man meant. Winter was on its way, even in Texas. They’d had reports over the HAM radio about frost on the ground in Gilmer, and Luke’s mother had already gotten covers readied for the winter garden, as well as testing the kerosene heaters for the greenhouses. The influx of extra hands brought by David had already been pushed into service, helping with these and half a hundred other preparations.

  And all this meant the surviving population, those ragged and starving wretches who’d somehow managed to stay alive through the brutal summer, would shortly come knocking at their doors.

  “Hear back from the Sheriff about the feeding station in Center yet?” Luke asked idly, as he too joined David in examining the contents of his own coffee cup.

  “Yeah,” David drawled, stretching out the word in the way only true Texans could manage. “Your dad was over there yesterday, you know. He said Paul thought they had enough corn scraped together to get the town and the refugee center through the winter.”

  “I know he was there, but I didn’t see him when I got in from patrol last night,” Luke replied. Fact was, Luke was spending a lot of his time on patrol, and his mother and father weren’t particularly happy about it, either. Open secret, he figured, and Amy for her part, wasn’t shy about expressing her displeasure, either.

  “You want to talk about it?” David asked, and Luke knew what he meant.

  “Another nightmare,” Luke admitted. He wasn’t willing to share much with those outside the family, but somehow, David had gotten past his defenses that way. The older man, while a friend of his father, hadn’t made much of an impression on Luke before the lights went out. Now, when Luke looked into David’s eyes, he saw much of the same pain that sometimes stared back at him out of the mirror.

  “It was the fight here,” Luke continued. “I keep going over everything, trying to figure out a way that we could have done something different. Maybe if we’d given Paul’s people better weapons from the start, or if we’d built that tunnel between the house and the barn before the attack, then the outcome could have been different.”

  “Or, if I’d only started our people this way sooner,” David replied, his voice deepening with regret. “With the extra manpower, we could have stuffed them at the fences, Luke. I know you don’t need me to tell you this, but the past is done. We don’t get do-overs in real life. You’re just going to have to let it go.”

  Luke nodded his head. He knew what David was saying was true. His father had told him much of the same thing, several times.

  “I know it, here,” Luke pointed to his head. “But somehow, my heart doesn’t seem to get the message.”

  “Luke, you are dealing with the same condition almost everyone else is experiencing,” David said softly, trying to use the same tone from a hundred years ago, when he’d been dealing with a particularly upset student in his classroom. Except now, it wasn’t some child been bullied or reacting to a bad grade, or some home-life drama, but a much deeper problem.

  “We are all dealing with Post Traumatic Stress, and a healthy dose of survivor’s guilt on top of it,�
� he explained. “You’ve got it, I’ve got it, and I’m sure all of the adults and most of the kids here have it. Trust me, you are not alone.”

  “I get it,” Luke agreed. “But what can I do to make it go away? I’ve studied the books from mom’s library, the Psychology textbooks, and even that darned DSM-5, but most of those books talk about managing the symptoms, not how to fix it.”

  As Luke’s voice rose, David had to fight the urge to smile at the young man’s frustration. In many ways, Luke was far more mature than his almost-seventeen years, but this was about the only way his age was truly discernable.

  “Time, grasshopper,” David replied. “It is going to take time, and patience, and a willingness to work on the problems as they surface. Maybe, talking about some of it would help, too.”

  “Great,” Luke muttered, with a little humor evident for the first time. “Now I’m going to be in group therapy for years.”

  “Maybe so, or maybe we can just sit around here and drink coffee and talk about whatever happens to be bothering us on a particular day.”

  “Us?” Luke asked, hesitantly.

  “Luke, I’m as fucked up as anybody. Maybe more. Just ask any of my kids. Seriously.” David’s grin fell away, and a grim expression took its place for a moment, and Luke could sense the underlying sadness. “I think for the longest time, I was looking for some way to get myself killed, just so I didn’t have to face another day without my wife. If not for Kofi and Regina and that gang of vagabonds, I doubt I would be here today.”

  Luke grunted his agreement. He knew what it was like to have something to live for, now. Someone who made him feel like a real boy now, instead of an animal that survived day to day.

  “Yeah,” Luke finally said. “I know how that goes. Before I met Amy, I was just so overwhelmed by what I saw and what was going on around me, it was like I was going through the motions. Then she came into my life, and I started to have a reason to keep going.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean. I had someone like that once. Don’t ever let her go, Luke.”

  With a shudder, Luke looked away before he spoke again.

  “I thought I lost her once. I…I didn’t take it very well.”

  David’s sharp bark of a laugh made Luke jump, and he gave the older man an evil look. “If you wake up the kids before the alarm goes off, then you have to take care of them.”

  “Sorry,” David’s apology sounded as fake as a politician’s smile. “Your friend Scott told me about what happened. Apparently, you killed a whole neighborhood and mounted their heads of stakes? Harsh. But I believe I understand.”

  “Man,” Luke muttered under his breath again, “He’s gotta stop telling that story.”

  Then louder, he tried to set the record straight.

  “I passed out before I got any of the heads cut off. And it was only fifteen, wait,” Luke stopped, counted again in his head, “okay, maybe eighteen.”

  Then more seriously, Luke continued, his voice strained. “And please don’t ever repeat that story where any of the little kids can hear it.”

  “You afraid it will give them nightmares?”

  Luke shook his head, then looked away as he whispered fiercely, “No. They already have them. No, it’s because I think I might have killed Rachel’s mother that day. So, we don’t talk about it.”

  “Well, shit,” David whispered back.

  “Yeah, that’s what I mean,” Luke replied. “Her mom was probably part of the group that murdered the Thompsons for their supplies, so the cycle just repeats itself. Then Connie, Helena’s mom, took her in, and then Connie died here. All the death, and all the killing, just never seems to stop.”

  David shook his head at the idea.

  “Sooner or later, we will reach some kind of equilibrium,” David protested. “We will eventually hit bottom, and then the human race can get back to the business of rebuilding.”

  Luke sat in silence for a time, thinking about David’s words.

  “Yes,” Luke finally responded, “but are any of us going to be alive to see it?”

  David didn’t respond, since he did not have an answer.

  CHAPTER 2

  After breakfast, Mike Elkins took Luke and Amy aside, asking them to stick around, since the council had something to discuss with them. Luke took it in stride, but Amy fretted while the two of them worked their way through the mound of plates and glasses left over from the morning meal. They currently hosted twenty-two adults and ten children under the age of twelve at the House Under the Hill, as Luke and his sister Paige had dubbed their home, which made for quite the tight confines. Thanks to Luke’s father’s foresight, or paranoia as his mother once dubbed it, the part of the house invisible to the outside world, which was burrowed deep into the aforementioned hill, boasted a pair of dorms which took up most of the unattached males and females in their respective rooms.

  So, everybody had a place to lay their head, and scavenging in abandoned shops in Ripley provided enough tableware but washing and drying all those dishes, required a good half hour of intense work by a half dozen ‘volunteers’. Even though they weren’t on the rotation this morning, the pair jumped in to help, since otherwise they would just be sitting and in Amy’s case, worrying. Finally, the last of the serving dishes was dry, and Luke led Amy out onto the side porch to talk while they waited.

  “I think it’s your mom again,” Amy whispered when she had a chance. “I think it might be better if I just went to one of the bunks in the women’s dorm. That would spare us, well, you, the hassle.”

  “Do you want to go?” Luke asked plainly. He was suddenly worried. Were his nightmares getting so bad that Amy wanted to sleep somewhere else? That thought sent a shiver of doubt through the young man, and Amy must have sensed his emotion.

  “No,” she replied emphatically. “I can’t sleep right, if you aren’t there.”

  “Honey, it’s alright if you want to go. I know my nightmares wake you up sometimes.”

  “But what about my nightmares?” she asked, her eyes imploring him. “Only you can make them go away. Please don’t make me go.”

  “I don’t want you to go, and whatever my mother has to say on the subject, doesn’t matter.”

  “Luke, this is her house,” Amy replied reasonably. “And she is your mother. She can make the rules and we’ll have to abide by them.”

  Luke took her damp hands in his and gave her a gentle kiss on the back of each.

  “Amy, we don’t have to stay here if you aren’t comfortable.”

  “Luke, what are you saying?” Amy nearly cried out, then dropped her voice lower when she continued to speak. “We went through so much to get here. Where would we go? What would we do?”

  “Is my mother still treating you poorly?” Luke asked plainly.

  “Luke, that’s your mother,” Amy declared. “She doesn’t do anything to me, honestly.”

  “Yeah, like she did this morning. Ignoring you is treating you poorly, honey.”

  Luke knew he was right. After the first few weeks when his father had been returned to them, he’d noticed his mother’s treatment of Amy slowly returning to the chilly reception of their first days back at the ranch. Claire had said nothing, but she’d consistently snubbed Amy in small ways.

  “Honest, Luke, it is fine. I’ve got no reason to be upset, sweetheart. I have you. We have a roof over our heads, and we have food to eat.”

  “Look, I will talk to her again. If she doesn’t change the way she treats you, then we have options. We can move. There’s space at the Skillman place, or we can move in with Gaddis. I know he still is hoping his kids show up, but the old man could still use my help with the chores. Heck, I’m already over there every day as it is.”

  Gaddis, true to his threats, had moved back to his old home once the neighborhood started patrols on the road. Moving his blacksmithing tools and equipment back had proved to be another backbreaking chore, but it’d freed up some space at the ranch.

  Luk
e wanted more security, like setting up solid roadblocks at both ends of the road, but he admitted that the ambush sites set up by the roving patrols worked effectively, too. Designed around a series of hunting blinds, the ambush positions took advantage of the bends in the road and the natural concealment, even in the fall and winter, offered by the woods along the way.

  “We can talk later,” Amy said as Mike stepped onto the porch to summon them back inside.

  The council, which effectively meant the half dozen or so department heads that ran the ranch and the attached properties, met periodically to discuss big picture issues. Luke’s father, Sam Messner, ran the council, but he wisely deferred to others when it impinged on their areas of expertise.

  Convening in the repurposed dining room, the only chamber in the large house with enough space to hold that many bodies, the council was technically open to all. Most residents, though, relied on the council members themselves to pass on what was decided in these gatherings. The members, all with pressing demands on their time, seldom met in full council unless something important was being considered.

  “Have a seat,” Mike said and gestured, so Luke and Amy hustled to the two spare chairs at the long table.

  “Sorry to drag you guys in this morning,” Sam began, eyeing both the teens with an intense expression, “but we’ve got a proposed mission coming up, and Mike suggested we get input from you two.”

  “Yes, sir,” Luke replied. Under the table, the two linked hands and Amy gave him a little squeeze. “What do you want to know?”

  “You both know, we’ve been concerned about getting fuel production set back up,” Mike interjected, bringing the subject into focus. “We’ve been working hard to get vehicles fixed and back in service, especially some of the older farm equipment, which resulted in an increased crop yield. That was the good news. But the bad news is, we’ve really blown a hole in our diesel stocks for the spring.

  “I’m planning a mission north to check on some of the crude oil collection tanks. I’ve got an idea about making more diesel, but we’ll need a source of crude.”