A Brave New World: War's End, #2

by Christine D. Shuck

  There was a woman approaching now. Lean, slender build, golden hair tumbling in curls over her shoulders and down her back. She was preceded by the dark-haired boy, and followed by a girl with red hair who was perhaps six, maybe older. The young woman drew near and Chris’s heart stuttered to a stop. She was equally as shocked, stopping in mid-stride with a gasp, her mouth a perfectly round ‘o’ of disbelief.

  “Oh my God...Chris?”

  Chris blinked in shock and finally found his voice, “Jess?”

  I’m What?!

  “What you need to know about the past is that no matter what has happened, it has all worked together to bring you to this very moment. And this is the moment you can choose to make everything new. Right now.” – Author Unknown

  There would be little sleep in the long evening that followed the reunion. There was far too much to catch up on. Far too much to share and learn about each other.

  Tears, anger, sadness—and the stories. They tripped over each other’s words, eager to describe the lives they had lived since that fateful stormy night so long ago. Jess mourned once again her friend Erin as she recounted the few months of freedom they both had before losing her so tragically in that abandoned farmhouse outside of Clinton.

  The others, Becka, Erin, and David, along with Carrie and Todd, circled about in the background as Jess and Chris laughed, cried, and hugged and described the past dozen years. It would be hours later that a meal was set before them, eaten and barely tasted, as Chris described old Fenton and his cleaning the shotgun, or Jess spoke of Serena and adopting Becka as her own.

  She did not elaborate more on Jacob’s beginnings, other than to describe his birth in the ruins of Clinton, tousling his hair, and pleading silently with her eyes for Chris to not ask more details. The boy stared at Chris silently, his face and hair so reminiscent of the nightmare they both had endured. It wasn’t anything the boy said or did; just the way that he looked so exactly, exactly like that monster...except for Jess’s crayon-blue eyes.

  Chris swallowed the revulsion he felt with difficulty, tried to remind himself that where the boy had come from was not who the boy was.

  We are defined by the responses we make to the circumstances that surround us, not the circumstances themselves.

  Although his mind reasoned this, his stomach churned at the thought of what his sister had gone through, all alone.

  In the days that followed, the plan to move on to Denver was delayed indefinitely. It was high summer and there was plenty of farm work to be done. Chris stepped up when Jess came down with a strange, intermittent flu. It would hit her especially hard in the morning, so Chris took over milking the goats, two of which were vicious beasts well known to bite when one least expected it. Carrie found herself painting murals in the old downtown where they now had a small school set up, and lunching with Sarah regularly at the café.

  Chris had made a special visit on his own to visit with old Mr. Banks. He had explained what he knew of Allen’s death, filling in the details that no one else had known. The old man’s grandson had died a hero, protecting the information of which direction the girls had fled that stormy night a dozen years past. His silence had cost him his life and given Jess and her friend Erin the small window of time they desperately needed to escape.

  The old man had listened, nodding as Chris told him what he knew, a small tear trickling down his weathered cheek. A week later he had turned over the farm to David and Jess and headed into town to register as a challenger to Mayor Farley in the upcoming election. It was an odd move for the old man, who had been happy to keep to his homestead on the outskirts of the town for years.

  And so it was several weeks after arriving in Belton that Carrie suddenly found herself between painting jobs. She walked over to the house, looking for Chris, and found Jess instead, looking miserable and ill. “I just don’t understand it, this horrible flu,” Jess said, her face pale with dark circles under her eyes. “Just when I think I’m over it, it comes back.”

  The two women were less than a year apart in age and Jess had been disappointed when she came down with the flu and wasn’t able to spend more time with her new sister-in-law. She wanted to ask Carrie so many things, personal things. She suspected that her brother’s wife couldn’t have children. At first she had just assumed it was by choice. Then she had seen Carrie interact with little Erin, joke and laugh with Becka and Jacob, and kindly volunteer to paint a mural for the new school, which had been re-established just two years ago in the remains of an old hardware store on Main Street.

  The school was only open in late fall through early spring half days, allowing for children who lived in the surrounding countryside to attend around their family’s farming schedules. The school had dismissed for the summer before Chris and Carrie had arrived but the building was now being retrofitted with a small kitchen and other improvements. The mural that Carrie had painted was the crowning jewel to that.

  Carrie leaned close to Jess and gave her a hug. She missed Liza and Carl and the kids. She hadn’t realized how badly she missed them until she stopped long enough from painting to interact with her sister-in-law. What a miracle it was for Chris to find Jess alive here. And after so many years! She smiled at Jess, who looked beautiful even when she was sick. And then as a click of recognition slammed into her brain, she gasped and covered her mouth.

  “What is it?” Jess looked confused.

  “How long have you been sick with the flu, Jess?”

  “I don’t know.” Jess shrugged, “Maybe a week or two?” As she said it out loud, a conversation from the past exploded into memory...

  “How long have you been sick, Jess?” Erin’s voice was clear of any sleepiness now, and she sounded frightened.

  “About...ohhh!” Jess listed back toward the stream and heaved again, “Oh man, this sucks! Um...going on,” she bent and retched, “about three weeks now. Ohhh!!! Why?”

  “When was your last period?” Erin persisted.

  Jess looked at her oddly, “I dunno, a month, maybe two.”

  “When exactly?”

  “How the hell should I know?”

  “Well, do you think it’s possible that...”

  Jess stared at Carrie with wide eyes, “Oh my God. Oh, oh, oh my God, I,” And without saying another word she turned and retched into a nearby trash can.

  Carrie had smiled and brewed some raspberry tea for Jess, searched out some dry, stale biscuits from a couple of days ago, and hugged her sister-in-law and congratulated her. Then she had locked her own pain down and given Jess some space to herself to think about the life growing inside her and form the words that she would say to David and the rest of the family. It was mid-afternoon by the time she made her escape, and Carrie aimlessly walked back into town and into Sarah’s café.

  Sarah had been well occupied with Wes and her children and grandchildren during the past few weeks. Carrie had sensed a very kind soul in her, but had not had a chance to speak with her much. The lunch rush was long gone, and the café didn’t serve dinner. Sarah had almost finished cleaning up, and Wes had gone with Chris and David on a trip into the city to trade for supplies. When Carrie appeared at the door, Sarah opened it and insisted she come in.

  A few pleasantries aside, Sarah stared at Carrie sharply and said, “You have something weighing on you terribly, girl, what is it?”

  That simple question had broken the dam. Carrie burst into tears. It took several long minutes before she was able to explain. She spilled about Jess being pregnant and sobbed again as she described the miscarriages and stillbirths. “We have lost so many babies, Sarah. It has been so hard, so painful. I guess...” She stopped and brushed her tears away, “I just...so many times over the years I have wondered why Chris even stuck with me.”

  The older woman nodded, placing a warm hand on Carrie’s. “I see how much he loves you.”

  “He’d have to...every time, every time...I get so sad, so angry...” she shook her head, “I push him away.
”

  Sarah laughed softly, “Oh Carrie, that man loves you far too much to be deterred by a little push away now and then. I’d imagine that it might actually prove an irresistible challenge.” She squeezed the younger woman’s hand. She stroked Carrie’s hair, “It’s okay to cry, to be sad, and to want what you want.”

  The older woman was so kind, and for the first time in what seemed like forever, Carrie simply gave in to the years of disappointment and loss and sobbed in Sarah’s arms. She cried until she couldn’t cry anymore. Sarah just held her, stroked her hair, and rocked her.

  Carrie couldn’t help thinking of her mother, and the hole her absence had created in their lives, even more so than their father’s. She had been the eldest, and she had had to be strong for Liza and for their baby brother for all of those years. Learning to hide her pain from her parents’ loss had provided an easy segue into hiding her pain during the stillbirths and miscarriages. After Carrie had cried herself out, Sarah had given her a cup of tea and led her to the back rooms to a comfortable couch to lie down on.

  Sarah hugged her again. “There now, you are safe here. Get some rest, my dear; you have just let out a flood of sadness. And there’s nothing like a little nap to set you right after that.”

  She closed the door quietly, leaving the younger woman in the room alone. Carrie had tried to fight it at first, telling herself she should return to the house and help get dinner started, or work out in the yard. But every part of her felt hulled out by the storm of emotions. Her eyelids slowly became heavier. She closed them, thought of the look of terror and joy on Jess’s face, and smiled sadly at the thought of her husband’s sister in love and expecting a child. The world spun around these children, born into a different time than she or her parents had been born. It spun around and around, babies were born, people died, and still the world kept spinning. She slipped into a deep sleep on the soft couch, barely aware of the bustle in the kitchen and restaurant outside of the door.

  Traders and Raiders

  “The first evil choice or act is linked to the second; and each one to the one that follows, both by the tendency of our evil nature and by the power of habit, which holds us as by a destiny.” – Tryon Edwards

  In the end, the old man hadn’t gone peacefully. Cooper found himself fascinated by how some people fought so hard against the inevitable, while others simply faded away. Sulwyn had once talked about some Eastern religion where there was an endless cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. The object of the game, from how Sulwyn explained it, was to get off that cycle of rebirth, somehow ascend to a higher plane of existence. He had said, “Some people are closer to that higher plane than others, so they don’t fear death; they welcome it as the next step.”

  At the last house, the bright yellow farmhouse that sat outside of the tall fence surrounding the town’s cattle herd, the mother had gone quickly. In truth, after he had killed the woman’s husband, she had frozen, unable to cope. The girl had struggled. But she was young, sixteen or seventeen at the most. No matter what horrors life had dealt, she desperately wanted to live. At the end of three days there at the house, the most he dared to stay, he had moved on to the old man’s house, leaving the flies and blood behind for others to find.

  Cooper hadn’t known any of the people he had killed to welcome their imminent death, but there were some who seemed to go with only a small show of resistance, while others fought tooth and nail to the bitter end. The old man had been one of the latter. Every breath he had taken was impossible, a fight against all odds, as the blood pooled around him and his breaths became shallow and far apart, ending in hitched gasps. He had stared at Cooper as if he knew him but said little. “You ... it’s you.” Cooper was pretty sure he had never met the old man before, but who knew, maybe he had.

  Thurman Banks had taken a long time to die. Cooper had watched it with the clinical detachment that comes from not just seeing death, but dealing it out with regularity and precision.

  He had waited until the last rattling breath had come and the light had died from the old man’s eyes before exiting the bedroom and shutting the door behind him. He figured that he had a day, maybe two, before the summer heat would betray what had happened here. Meanwhile, he would have a nice nap on the living room sofa and see what there was to eat.

  He had tricked his way into the farmhouse, and now this old man’s house, by pretending to be a trader. In reality, the items he had for sale were nothing more than the loot gathered from his previous stopovers—a trail of bodies and trauma that extended through three states now.

  A few blocks away, Jess had gone to the west garden to pull weeds and collect some tomatoes that were heavy and ready for picking. She had asked Carrie not to say anything about the pregnancy. She was still struggling with the reality of it and the complicated memories her condition brought up.

  There was a tiny pooch to her otherwise flat stomach, and she felt exhausted by midday, but other than that, there was nothing to indicate a child growing inside of her. Despite this, Jess knew it had to be real.

  Once her shock had receded, she had found herself excited at the prospect. But there was a deep sadness, as well as guilt, as she recalled her first pregnancy. Although she reminded herself time and again that the circumstances had been drastically different, a part of her felt great guilt at not having wanted Jacob from the beginning. Those months, filled with fear and running and escape with her friend Erin, had left a mark deep within her. She had hated the child growing inside her, actively hoped it would die, and been horrified as it had grown and thrived, taking over her body, before finally finding herself in the throes of labor and delivery.

  If that soldier had not thrown open the door right then, his presence reminding all of them of how close death was and how important being alive could be, would she have ever loved him? She loved Jacob now—deeply, irredeemably—even as she watched her brother’s face as he struggled with the reality of his nephew’s grim origins.

  So, in addition to feeling happiness and excitement over this new life growing inside her, Jess also felt guilt and shame at not feeling this way about Jacob, so she said nothing, hoping she could reconcile these different feelings, and also wait until she was a little further along and sure before sharing it with everyone else.

  A car horn sounded from the street outside the front of the house. The Jeep was obscured behind the rows of corn, now over five feet tall, and the fruit trees. The family emptied out of the house and grounds, converging on the front road. It was Todd Stevens and his face was pinched with exhaustion, his mouth set.

  “Hey there, Jess.” He nodded to Chris and David and the rest who had come from their work in the garden and inside of the house. “We have a problem.”

  Todd’s presence at the house, along with a serious look and the word “problem” raised all of the adults’ hackles. Todd had been re-established as the head of the town militia after the mayor’s son had made a royal mess of it, too busy riding on his wave of new power to follow the tried and true strategies of protecting the town from raids.

  Entire families had died, but the raiders had been run off over the past year, thanks to Todd’s leadership. Once again, all able-bodied adults in town were required to do their part and serve on a rotating schedule for the militia. The raids had fallen off dramatically, and there hadn’t been a problem in months. That, however, appeared to have changed.

  “It looks like the Franklin place was raided a week ago,” Todd said, looking grim. The Franklin home was north off of Kentucky, outside of the outer fence. They kept pigs and chickens on their ten-acre plot and came into town every couple of weeks to trade. “They were due in last week, and when they didn’t show and Sarah let us know they were overdue for a delivery of chickens she had ordered we went up there.”

  Jess felt her heart thump in her chest. “Raiders?”

  Todd looked over at the kids clustered around, “Yeah. Looks like they stayed a day or two.” The Franklins had two kids, both i
n their late teens, the daughter Mary had helped out a handful of times caring for Jacob and Becka when they were smaller. A sick dread spread through Jess’s stomach.

  Todd met her eyes, “They’re all gone.” He said it with finality, his even tone did not betray the turmoil he had felt when faced with the reality of what he had seen. He beckoned to Chris and David, “I’ll need you two to help me search. We think they are still out there.”

  Both men were already carrying a small sidearm at their waists. Chris nodded and opened the back door, but David hesitated, staring at Jess. He didn’t want to leave her, not if there was danger in the area. She caught the look, and gave him one of her own that clearly said she could take care of herself. Her hand strayed to Lady, a tiny revolver that hadn’t left her side in years, not since Old Coop had given it to her as a gift all those years ago.

  Thinking about him now, she wondered if the old man was still there, raising his hunting dogs and setting traps. He had been a good man, and she could still remember the last thing he had said to her, his hand on her rounded belly.

  “I can’t blame you girl if y’think you hate this creature inside you, but it’s a blessin’ and someday you’ll see it that way.”

  Old Coop had been right; Jacob was one of the best parts of her life, and she wished she could tell the old man that.

  “Go,” she said to David, “I’ll be fine and we have Jacob here as well.”

  David had spent the past few summers teaching Jacob archery, how to handle a small or large firearm, and tracking techniques. Todd Stevens had taught Jacob and others hand-to-hand combat as well once he resumed control of the militia.

  David smiled at her, kissed her, and then he jumped into the Jeep as well. “See you soon.”

  It was nearly dark when they returned, both men grim-faced. Jess had extended the offer of dinner to Todd, but he had politely refused, his eyes haunted, saying only that his wife and kids were waiting.