The Storm: War's End, #1

by Christine D. Shuck

  There were four people in the main room – two soldiers, Erin, and David. One man was already dead on the ground, Erin was down and clutching at her chest. A stain of red quickly spread from beneath her hands. The second man was aiming his pistol at David, but he was distracted by Jess bursting in. She took it in quickly, aimed at the man and pulled the trigger, chambered another round and shot again. Two dark holes appeared in his chest and he stared down at them in surprise. The soldier stood there unmoving for one long moment, then collapsed to the ground and did not move.

  Jess skidded on her knees to her friend’s side. She grabbed Erin’s free hand, her mind racing with thoughts of bandages and stopping the massive flow of blood. Oh God, there was so much blood.

  Her friend attempted to speak. Erin’s mouth opened, choked on the blood now surging through her esophagus. Blood sprayed from her mouth, spattering Jess. She tried again to speak, gasped, and then breathed no more. She died there, her eyes wide open and staring, her hand limp in Jess’s grasp.

  Jess began to scream.

  A Good Harvest

  “Remember to be gentle with yourself and others. We are all children of chance and none can say why some fields will blossom while others lay brown beneath the August sun. Care for those around you. Look past your differences. Their dreams are no less than yours, their choices no more easily made. And give, give in any way you can, of whatever you possess. To give is to love. To withhold is to wither. Care less for your harvest than for how it is shared and your life will have meaning and your heart will have peace.” – Kent Nerburn

  Fine-boned fingers covered his eyes, the smell of freshly turned dirt and the mint she had been picking filled his nose, “Guess who?”

  Chris smiled, “Hey Liza. Making mint tea?”

  Carrie’s sister let out a disappointed sniff, “You knew it was me!”

  “Of course I did. You smell different than Carrie.” He didn’t tell her that Carrie had this indescribable scent, this earthy combination of sage and wood smoke that was almost drug-like. It pulled him in and made him want to get closer, wrap his arms around her and never let go. Liza smelled good too, but she smelled of childhood and cinnamon. He couldn’t explain it any better than that.

  In the past few weeks Liza’s attitude toward him, and towards her sister, had begun to alter. She kept seeking him out when the others were busy with tasks. And whenever Carrie and he were together, she picked fights and argued with her sister endlessly.

  It had taken him a while, but he had come to suspect that Liza had a crush. She would be fourteen in just a few months and she was acting as if Carrie was more a rival than a sister. Carrie was confused by the behavior, commenting to Chris in private that they had always been close and rarely fought like other siblings. “I just don’t know what’s with Liza these days, everything I say or do is wrong,” Carrie nibbled her thumbnail, “It’s almost as if she is dying to pick a fight with me. But why?”

  Chris had caught Liza spying on them twice now. They still hadn’t gone all the way, but they were getting close, and he was worried that things were coming to a head. He had to deal with it, somehow. He looked up at Liza, who was staring down at him with a confused, half-hopeful smile. Crap. He set down the basket of tomatoes he had been picking. It was nearly full, the red and orange fruits firm and beautiful, promising to explode with juice the instant they were cut into. He figured he had three more baskets to pick before he would be done for the day.

  “Liza, we need to talk.”

  She grinned happily, “Did you finish ‘Voyage from Yesteryear’ already? I just left it by your door two days ago.”

  He shook his head and her expression turned from excited to guarded, “No, I haven’t finished reading it yet. But it’s good,” he smiled at her, “I had a hard time putting it down this morning and getting to work.”

  He pointed to the raised planters and the tomato cages, “Help me pick more?”

  “Sure.”

  As they fell into a rhythm he got up the courage to say what was on his mind. “Y’know Liza, you are a very pretty girl.” He saw her hand pause; almost drop the tomato she was holding. “I know you like me. And really, I’m flattered, I am.” He met her eyes then, she looked afraid, “But I...”

  “You’re in love with Carrie.”

  “Yeah, I am. I want to marry her.” Her chin dropped to her chest and he thought he saw a small tear fall to the ground. “Liza, I’m sorry. I know that doesn’t make it any better, but I really am. ‘Cause you are a really cool chick, and you love sci-fi, which totally kicks ass,” that elicited a small wet giggle, “I want us to be friends and, if your granddad doesn’t shoot me first, someday I’d like to be your brother.”

  Liza looked up at him, her eyes wet with tears, “I...oh...why do you have to be so damn nice, Chris? Couldn’t you just say, buzz off kid, you’re sister’s way hotter than you?”

  It was his turn to look away. He hated to see the kid cry. “Sorry Liza, that’s just how I’m wired, I guess. And besides, you aren’t a kid, anymore, and you are hot. Or did you miss the way Carl Owens stared at you all last week?”

  He didn’t dare tell her how much she reminded him of Jess when she was a high school freshman. It was painful to look at her sometimes.

  Just thinking about Jess now, imagining how she had died, made him want to scream. He hadn’t protected her, but he would protect Carrie and Liza, Joseph and Fenton with his dying breath. He couldn’t bring back what he had lost, but he could make sure he didn’t lose anything more. Lost in his thoughts he was surprised when Liza wrapped her arms around him. He hugged her back, hoping he was doing the right thing, and she kissed him lightly on the cheek. Before he could react she had bounded away, heading for some quiet corner to compose herself.

  He visibly jumped when Carrie’s voice spoke from behind him, “So, that was what was going on these past few weeks?” Chris whirled around to face her, “That’s why she’s been so pissy! She likes you?” She seemed blown away by this fact.

  He smiled at her, “Is it so hard to believe?”

  “Well, no.” She stood there with a peculiar smile on her face.

  “Well, then what are you smiling about?” He was feeling a bit defensive. After all, he’d tried to be nice about it and the kid had still run off crying.

  “I’m thinking that you are really, really sweet.” Carrie stepped forward, put a hand on each side of his face, and kissed him softly. “You saw it when I didn’t. You made her feel cared for, even if she couldn’t have you. Thank you for that.”

  “You aren’t pissed because I hugged her and she kissed me?”

  He couldn’t believe his good luck. A beautiful, sexy girl who wasn’t crazy with jealousy? She shook her head wordlessly and kissed him again, this time with promise and intent. He kissed her back, ran his hands down her back and slid his hands over her short shorts. The kiss was intense, passionate.

  Unfortunately, it was cut short by a shout for help from Fenton. The shout came from the barn where Fenton had been tinkering with the truck for the past week now. The carburetor had been a relatively easy fix, but the huge dent that Liza had put into the front fender when she ran it into a fence while learning to drive had caused significant damage. The Chilton’s manual they had found in town was getting its fair share of use as Fenton paged through it, uttering long-winded complaints about the dangers of teenage drivers.

  His yell brought everyone running. This was a good thing, since he seemed determined to bleed to death from a large gash on his forehead. Blood streaked down his face and Liza beat the rest of them to the barn, arriving at her grandfather’s side first. Her face still showed signs of tears, but no one noticed. Chris pulled off his shirt and used it to apply pressure to the wound.

  “Jesus, Gramps,” Carrie helped her grandfather to a seated position on an old tire, “what happened?”

  Fenton gave her an irritated look, “Young lady, you keep using the Lord’s name in vain and I’ll wash your
mouth out with soap. By damn, I can’t even see out of this eye!”

  His right eye was covered in blood, which had alarmed Chris until he realized it was merely flowing from the wound above.

  “I managed to walk into the shelf over there.”

  He gestured at a shelf that had been mounted on the wall and stacked with boxes of screws. It was now hanging precariously from one end and all of the screws were in a jumble of broken boxes on the floor.

  Liza examined the wound, “Head wounds bleed a lot, but this is a deep gash. Good one, Gramps.” He grimaced at her.

  “We had better clean it up and put in some stitches.” Liza spent time studying medical texts when she wasn’t reading science fiction. It made sense for at least one person to know medicine, especially in these times, and Fenton and Carrie had both encouraged her studies by trading eggs and live chicks for two medical textbooks. Liza had begun studying in earnest the year after her mother’s death. She had helped Fenton set Chris’s ankle when he had first arrived and even corrected his technique when they wrapped and then splinted it. Currently she was working her way through a thick manual on obstetrics. Chris had seen one of the pictures and felt his stomach roil. Definitely not his cup of tea.

  “Can you make Gramps better, Sis?” Joseph asked. The kid looked scared.

  Liz paused in her examination to smile at her little brother, “I sure can, Joseph, Gramps is going to be just fine. Let’s get him back to the house and then we’ll fix him up better than ever.” She turned back to Fenton and the three of them hoisted him to his feet

  In the end, the ‘couple of’ stitches had been ten, perfect little sutures. Fenton insisted on several healthy swigs from a full bottle of Jack Daniels hidden deep on a high shelf. Chris retrieved it and smiled. He could see ten other bottles of hard liquor, all unopened. He figured old Fenton had put them up there about three years ago, about the time the girls and their mother had arrived, and hadn’t touched them since.

  “That there needle is gonna hurt,” Fenton had given as way of explanation, “I plan on making it hurt less.” He had still had a few choice things to say during the procedure.

  Carrie started canning the tomatoes Chris already picked. He picked the rest while she worked over the stove blanching, peeling, and preparing the tomatoes. This task lasted late into the night. They lit a gas lamp to see by and kept working on the pile of tomatoes.

  As they worked they listened to Fenton sing, quite drunkenly now that nearly half the bottle of whiskey was gone. When in his cups, Fenton seemed overly fond of Elvis Presley. The tomatoes were all canned; jars lined every piece of available countertop.

  Joseph was curled in a small ball on the couch and Fenton was launching into the fifth rendition of “You Ain’t Nothing but a Hound Dog” when Liza took the bottle out of his hand and handed it to Chris.

  She rolled her eyes at him, suppressing a smile, and nodded to the high shelf. She and Carrie each took a side and gently pulled Fenton to his feet. They guided him slowly up the stairs to his room.

  Chris returned the bottle to the shelf, and took a moment to look over what else was up there. The old man had quite a selection.

  The warm hand that ran up his leg quickly changed his focus. The thought that came next was shocking in its simplicity. “What are you waiting for?”

  He climbed down from the counter and turned to face Carrie. The moon had risen in the sky and the light from it poured in the kitchen window. He leaned over, blew out the lamp and pulled her close. She felt the change in him and responded in kind; shivering slightly as his lips found her neck and worked their way up to her right ear. He whispered in it, “Let’s go for a walk.” He felt rather than saw her nod.

  He grabbed several blankets, spread one over little Joseph and the other two he tucked under his arm. Quietly they slipped out of the door, closing it quietly behind them.

  Hand in hand they walked. They didn’t discuss it, and their feet carried them unerringly to the old farmstead. It was their special place. They had been slipping away for make-out sessions there as often as possible in the last few months. He carefully spread the blanket out and they lay down, side by side. The stars were incredibly bright and beautiful. It was warm and all around them the night pulsed with life, thousands of tiny creatures attending to their nocturnal activities. They took notice of the two humans in their midst and shied away, creating a bubble of space around the couple.

  As they watched a satellite slowly make its way across the sky Chris wondered if the space station was still up there, and if there were any astronauts inside. If there were, and if the rest of the world was in as bad of shape as the U.S. was, they were nothing but frozen skeletons by now.

  He pushed those thoughts out of his mind and thought instead of how amazing Carrie smelled, even with the scent of tomatoes clinging to her. He reached down and took her hand in his. It felt tiny and fragile in comparison with his, but he knew that was an illusion. Carrie was a strong woman, in mind and spirit. She knew her mind and she fought for what she wanted. Here he had a future, a family and love.

  He pulled her close and leaned in for a kiss. It heated and went on and on as their pulses quickened. Their clothing fell in a heap and the lovemaking was as gentle as he could make it for her. In the end he collapsed beside her, burrowed his face into her neck and kissed her moist skin.

  All of these months of playing, of dancing about and teasing, and they had finally gone and done it. At least he knew Fenton wasn’t busy cleaning his shotgun right now. The minutes ticked by and Chris pulled part of the thin blanket over them. He could hear Carrie’s breathing settle and even out.

  “Carrie?”

  “Mmmm?”

  He jostled her, “Wake up.”

  “I’m awake.”

  He pulled himself to one elbow and looked into her face. He could see it clearly in the moonlight. Her eyes were open and she had a satisfied, almost smug smile. He reached out and smoothed a lock of hair back behind her left ear. “I love you Carrie Lynn Perdue. Will you marry me?”

  She smiled even wider, put her hands on both sides of his face. “I love you too, Christopher Michael Aaronson. And yes, I will marry you.”

  What followed was a good deal more of what had just occurred. It continued, with little sleep through most of that night. The sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon as the two lovers slipped back inside the house.

  The Silence of Screams

  “Seeing her there, I knew she was gone. The blood pooled from her back, mixing with the blood of those two animals. Even in death they contaminated and sickened everything they touched. David was shaking and crying and still he tried to do right by her, reaching forward, closing her staring eyes. He said I screamed over and over and over until he brought me Jacob and thrust him into my arms. But I don’t remember screaming at all, I only remember thinking how deafening the silence was. We buried her the next morning, out back, in a small, overgrown garden, near a clump of iris. I remember there was a creek nearby. David found a large limestone slab and shoved it at the head of the mound. We didn’t bury the others. To hell with them.” – Jess’s Journal

  The first sound that David heard through his tortured and ringing eardrums were Jess’s screams. They were wordless, horrifying keens of despair as she clutched Erin’s hand and rocked back and forth. Blood covered both of them and pooled on the floor. He dropped the revolver he had been clutching, watched it slide from nerveless fingers.

  Oh God, he had actually killed one of them. But he’d been too late. The second one, the dark-haired greasy one, had gotten a shot off, straight into Erin before Jess had come running and dropped him with two quick shots. Erin’s eyes were open still, staring, and she had a slightly bewildered look on her face.

  For a moment he had wondered if there was a chance she would be okay, that she would recover, and then he saw the wound and the blood that poured from it, and from her mouth and nose. Tears came then, as he stared at her, watched her try t
o speak, choke and weakly spit out a mouthful of blood. Her head fell back against the wood floor, her eyes glazed and he knew she was gone.

  That’s when Jess had begun to scream, and it seemed as if the screams grew louder with each passing moment. He reached over, his fingers trembling, and closed Erin’s eyes. Mom’s had been like that, but clouded, and he could still picture their faces. On the ground, bodies cold and stiff, life gone. He was too shell-shocked, terrified by what he had done and how this had gone so wrong to think any longer. He just sat and cried while Jess screamed over and over and over.

  Minutes, what seemed like hours, went by and the shadows had darkened, night was almost upon them. He came to his senses, got up, and walked out of the farmhouse and into the field to find Tina and the baby. He didn’t have to go far.

  Jacob’s shrieks of hunger and fear were like a beacon. He found Jacob and Tina huddled near a fallen tree, the baby howled for milk and Tina just shook in complete terror. He hugged her to him and took Jacob into his arms. The baby’s face was bright red from screaming. No amount of shushing or cooing would help. He could still hear Jess keening in the farmhouse. Erin was dead. Why had he wanted to explore the shed and farmhouse, why?

  Quincy had stayed with them all the way back to the farmhouse. She whined in response to the sounds of Jess’s obvious distress. But her mistress had told her to stay with Tina, and young as she was, the pup followed orders. Tina kept a death grip on his shirttail as he trudged back to the house with Jacob shrieking the entire way. Maybe if he could get the baby in Jess’s arms she’d calm down and feed him.

  Anything but that awful sound she kept making. Tina stopped in her tracks at the sight of the bodies and refused to enter the front door. Her tiny body shivered with fear. He had to pull loose from her grasp in order to get to Jess and thrust Jacob into her arms.