The Storm: War's End, #1

by Christine D. Shuck

  Wes cocked an eyebrow at the old man, unsure how to respond to his 2012 F150 Dodge Ram with reinforced steel and cattle bar on its front being referred to as ‘rickety.’

  “You’d best take this young man here.” He waved a bloody finger at Chris, “He sure ain’t any good at doctorin.’”

  “On it.” Was Wes’s clipped answer. He nodded brusquely at Chris, “Let’s go, soldier.”

  Two other men had arrived by now. One man covered the trees while the other put an arm around Fenton, turned him and slowly headed back towards the house. Wes spun on his heel, Chris close behind him and they sprinted towards the truck.

  “We’ll head south on Mooring Road and try and catch up to them.”

  Wes started up the engine with a roar, put in gear and spun out of the gravel road.

  “And then what?” Chris asked.

  “What do you mean, and then what?” Wes sneered at him, “We shoot the bastards.”

  “Yeah? Hey, I’m all for that except for one small detail. They’ve got Liza and how do we keep her out of the crossfire?”

  “Anything’s better than what those assholes will do to her.”

  “Damn it, Wes! We want her back alive! Why do you have to be such a...” Chris was cut short as Wes slammed on the brakes and Chris hit the dash hard enough to make his vision fill with stars.

  “So what do you really care, soldier? Aren’t them raiders your people?” Wes fingered the Bowie strapped to his leg, “Why do you give a shit about some little girl who you ain’t even fucking? Or are you tapping that too?”

  His lip curled and Chris could see he was begging for a chance to fight, it didn’t really matter who he fought with.

  “I’m not a soldier.”

  “Really?”

  “They killed my family, raped and murdered my little sister, and when I wouldn’t join them I got to dig latrines and graves.” Chris yelled at the man, “Now do we really need to have this discussion now? Or can we figure out a way to save Liza so I don’t have to tell my wife and Fenton that I failed them too?”

  Wes’s lip curled up and his face held a strange mixture of smugness and approval. He unbuckled the leg holster, handed the Bowie and the strap to Chris and resumed driving. “You’ll need that.”

  As he drove he explained that when Joseph had ridden up to the sentry towers, Wes had been running down all the ‘check-ins.’ “We’ve been having all the outliers check in monthly. Most, like you and the Perdues, show up in town at the Trade Mart and I tick you off our list.

  The Austins, over to the south of you, haven’t been into town in over five weeks. I was just about to send Jeremy Black over thataways when little Joseph came riding in like the devil himself were after him. So that’s where we’re headin.’” He shook his head in grim satisfaction, “I knew you were caught up in that shit from the west, I just knew it.”

  “You don’t know shit, Wes.” Chris was still pissed. He strapped the Bowie on his leg.

  “Yeah? Well, I know this. We’d be better waiting until after dark. They’ll think they’ve made a clean break. It’ll be an element of surprise on our side. That and the dark.”

  “No way. We got at most an hour before they...” Chris closed his eyes, Liza looked so much like Jess, there was no way he’d let that happen to her. “We have to get her away from those animals and do it now.”

  Wes sighed and shook his head, and turned onto Upper Wynnburg Road and then made another quick left, pulling off of pavement and heading up a bare rut of a road. It was nothing more than packed earth with grass and weeds sprouting up.

  “I can take you in a ways, but, you’ll have to go on foot for about a half mile. They’ll hear the truck if I get any closer.” He stared out at the road and saw faint tracks. “Shit. This is how they got in and got the slip on the Austin’s, guaranteed.” He stopped the truck.

  “What are you thinking we should do?” Chris asked, his beef with Wes fading fast in the face of this shared enemy.

  “I’m thinking we’re screwed to be walking into this in daylight is what I’m thinking.” Wes shrugged, “They didn’t get what they wanted, which was your farm and all its food and livestock. They’re probably already taking it out on her.” He shook his head again, “Shit. Okay, let’s think here. Jeremy will have secured the Perdue house and then followed through the woods behind Carrie. They definitely had to have taken the old access road. It runs up past the back of Perdue land and then heads northeast. I know the Wilkes family is fine, ‘cause I saw Tommy two days ago, so they probably backtracked to the Austin’s. The question is, are they in the new place or the old one?”

  Chris was itching to get moving, but most of what Wes had just said was a mystery. “Map?”

  Wes opened his door, grabbed a rifle from the rack and quietly closed the door. He looked around for a moment and grabbed a stick and began to trace in a patch of muddy soil. “Their old house is here, the new one is here, and then there’s outbuilding, garage, outbuilding.”

  He drew and pointed. “Here’s us and Carrie should come this way and be in position behind the new house. Now if Jeremy’s caught up with her than we’ve got radio and can coordinate.”

  He checked his radio and there were a series of responses back and forth. In all, they had Carrie and Jeremy to the east, Chris and Wes coming in from the southwest, and two more men were on their way from town on horseback. Wes directed the men on horseback to head up the main drive to the house, which was further east on Upper Wynnburg.

  “Now here is the north field, smack dab in between the old house and barn and the new one.” He pointed with the stick at a stand of trees, “We stick to the trees and we’ll have cover up until the last ten yards. I’m betting they are in the old place. Not everyone knows about it. It’s been years since it was occupied.”

  After a bit of planning and an update from Jeremy when he caught up to Carrie they slowly closed in on the property. Chris and Wes approached the old Austin homestead from the south and Carrie and Jeremy approached the new farmhouse from the east. It was silent and there was no truck or men in sight. By the time they reached the old farmhouse, the smell hit them. There was definitely no one left alive in there. Wes double checked, pulling his shirt up over his nose, he went inside. A moment later he emerged, hard lines forming on his forehead, his brown eyes almost black with rage and pain.

  Wes stopped outside of the old farmhouse and tried to calm his breathing. He spoke then, quietly, and Chris strained to hear his words, “They’re all dead. It looks like they killed Lyle and the boys right away. They’ve been dead a while, maybe more than two weeks.

  But Katherine and Maddie, those bastards kept them alive for a long time.” His voice caught, “It looks like a couple of days ago for Katherine and Maddie...well, maybe last night at most.”

  Chris’s heart hurt in his chest. The raiders had been close, too close, and he and the Perdue’s had never suspected, never thought to check, while an innocent family was slaughtered.

  Wes pulled a rough hand over his eyes and Chris was sure he had seen moisture, even a tear run down the man’s cheek. His view of Wes changed, altered, as he came to realize how deeply the older man cared for the residents of his tiny town. No wonder he had been such a dick, Wes had known how dangerous the Western Front was, and the thought of having even a deserter come moving in must have been disconcerting.

  Wes looked up, focused on the new house in the distance, “Come on, we gotta meet up with the others.” Ten tense minutes later, all parties converged in front of the Austin house.

  Carrie looked pale, “The main house is empty. They must have killed everyone in the house, dragged them to the old place and been living in the main house for the past two weeks. There’s blood everywhere in there.” Indeed, Chris could see a long wide brown track leading from the front door onto the porch and down the steps.

  Even Jeremy, a tough, greasy-haired man in his mid 30’s looked sick, “Must have been at least five or six of them. The
Austin’s had two grown sons along with a teenage daughter. And I know Lyle Austin didn’t go anywhere without at least a gun and a knife on him. It’d be hard for just one or two of them to get the jump on the rest.”

  Chris gripped Wes’s arm, “You said something about the Wilkes being up that outer access road? Well if the truck didn’t head this way, then it could have headed back in that direction instead.”

  Wes turned without a word and ran for his truck. If the Wilkes family was still alive, they were fighting for their lives right now. A few minutes later, the entire group was careening along the rough access road, headed for the Wilkes farm.

  A Tent for the Night

  “I tried to talk Serena and Brad out of heading for Clinton. There was nothing left of the town, no supplies, no people. I had hoped they would come with us, more safety in numbers, but Brad seemed determined to return to his hometown. I warned him that we had seen troops moving that way and Serena got pale and worried, but she must have felt she owed him somehow for saving her from the camp. We parted ways the next day. She was pretty, a completely different person that the broken woman that came to town less than one year later.” – Jess’s Journal

  “Hello!” Jess called out and the man tensed, then relaxed when he saw Jess with Jacob’s tiny head peeking out from the wraps. They had a large tent, a fire, and several small pieces of meat roasting on sticks over the campfire. Probably rabbit, from the shape of them. Quincy energetically licked the youngest child’s face, a boy, who looked to be the same age as Tina and who was giggling in glee at the pup’s attack. The girl beside him looked somber, she did not smile at the puppy. Jess figured she was about ten, maybe eleven years old.

  “Hello to you!” the woman called. She looked young, a few years older than Jess perhaps, but certainly not old enough to be the mother of the two children. She stood up then, slowly, and Jess saw she was heavily pregnant. Then the young man stood and Jess stepped back quickly in alarm, he was wearing a Western Front uniform. David looked back behind him in terror, seeking an exit or quick escape in the woods behind them.

  “Wait!” the young man spoke urgently, “It isn’t what you think. I was forced to join them, and Serena here, well, we got out together, about four months ago.” His arms were out at his sides. He stared apprehensively at the revolver that had appeared in Jess’s hand without her even thinking about it. David and Tina were still as statues, ready to run.

  “I’m Brad, Brad Osterman, I’m from Clinton.” He put an arm around the woman, “This here is Serena, and she hails from Springfield. We found the boy, Max, about twenty miles south of here, just wandering in the road. The girl was in the camp, she don’t talk, so we just made up a name. We call her Annie.”

  Annie stood there frozen, staring at Jess’s gun. Her hair was a golden blond and her eyes were cornflower blue. She was a pretty girl but Jess could see the look of deep, dark trauma in her eyes. Her breath caught in her throat as she replayed Brad’s words, the girl was in the camp. It couldn’t be, surely they wouldn’t have had her in Tent 5, and she was so terribly young.

  Silence followed. Quincy had stopped playing with the boy and moved closer to the young man, sniffing his outstretched hand and then licking it. Jess slowly lowered her gun. The dog trusted him, and Quincy was a good judge of character. If the pup thought they were okay, well then they probably were, she hadn’t been wrong yet. After all, she and Erin had been clothed in Western Front uniforms when they escaped and that didn’t make them the enemy either.

  Serena spoke then, “It looks like the weather is turning bad. We have some food we could share, and there’s room in our tent if you need shelter.” She was pretty, with blond hair and blue eyes. She smiled at Tina and David and gave Max a little push towards them. “Max, say hello to the little girl. What is your name, sweetie?”

  The question jogged them out of their silence and the band began to talk at once, sharing names, setting down packs and pulling out dried meat and greens to share for dinner. Jacob once again made a loud, uncompromising demand for food and Jess adjusted layers and put him to her breast to nurse while Serena kept stealing glances. “How old is your baby, Jess?”

  “Nearly six months now. He was born last August. His name is Jacob.” She rubbed her son’s head, petted his tiny button nose, avoiding Serena’s steady gaze and the question that remained unspoken.

  Serena rubbed her belly, “I think it’s been about seven months now, maybe eight. I’m not totally sure.” She leaned close so that no one else could hear, “Brad’s not the daddy. Leastwise, I don’t think he is. I sure wish he was. But he got me out of there. That’s better than most. The bastard in charge, he has the women killed when they start to show.”

  Annie had moved away from them and Serena pointed to her and leaned close to Jess. “She’s twelve. What kind of monster would rape a twelve-year-old?”

  Jess felt a cold chill. “Where was the camp when you escaped?”

  Serena shivered, “Arkansas, near the Mississippi border. They were heading southeast, so we went northwest. We stole a truck, drove it as far as we could before the transmission gave out. Brad’s mechanically inclined, but we just didn’t have the parts to fix it. Highway 13 was taken out just north of Collins so we took Route 54 west to Nevada.

  We holed up there for most of the bad part of the winter, after the truck crapped out on us just outside of town. After that we followed the railroad ‘til we hit Montrose. When we got there everything opened up onto fields then and, well, it seemed like a better idea to stick to some kind of cover.” She shrugged, “Harder going in the woods, but we feel safer.”

  Jess switched Jacob to the other breast; he patted her free breast, and gently tugged on her necklace. “My friend and I escaped right outside of Springfield a year ago,” she winced as Jacob sucked harder, almost gnawing her boob; she wondered if he was teething. “She died a few months later. It happened last fall, just two day’s walk east of here.”

  Serena’s expression tensed, “Was she pregnant? Did she,” she gulped and looked pale; “Did she die in childbirth?”

  “No! Oh, no,” Jess felt bad, obviously the woman was scared about giving birth without a doctor and a hospital, “Soldiers found us and I didn’t get to her in time. They shot her.” She realized it was the first time she had talked about Erin since a few days after the farmhouse, when she had told Madge their story. It was less painful this time, still a wound, but not as painful as those first few days.

  “But you...I mean...” Serena looked uncomfortable, and looked down at her belly, “At least, well, you know what happened to me.” She stole a glance at Brad who was admiring David’s compound bow and arrow a short distance away. “They weren’t all bad. Brad came to see me often, and he got us both out of there when I told him I was pregnant.” She shuddered, “That bastard Cooper, he...”

  Jess interrupted, it felt like all of her blood had turned to ice, and “Did you say Cooper?”

  “Yeah, Scott Cooper, I’ll remember that sonuvabitch’s name till the day I die,” Serena practically spat. “He raped me over and over the first night after I was taken. I could barely walk for most of a week. And little Lucy Abernathy, oh God, poor Lucy.” Her body tensed, “Lucy was up on his roster the next night. He hurt her so bad she killed herself two days later.” Tears welled up, “She was only fourteen, I mean shit, and I used to babysit her on Tuesday nights when her mom bowled in the league.” Serena’s hands were shaking. “I pray every day that this baby is Brad’s. But I know it isn’t. It’s that bastard’s.” She looked up, gazed hard into Jess’s eyes, “Y’think I’ll be able to love it? Even if it is from him?”

  A thousand memories flitted through her mind, but through the fog of pain and fear Jess remembered the moment she had first held her son. The love she had felt, the strange and deep sense of healing. She stole a glance at Jacob, quietly nursing at her breast, his eyes locked on her necklace. His hair was jet black, but he had her eyes.

  Jess’s
reply was simple and direct, “Yes.”

  Quincy’s muffled bark disturbed their intense exchange. In her mouth she held a jackrabbit, the animal’s long legs kicking futilely. “Damn! I like this dog!” was the only comment Brad made.

  As the first flakes of snow began to fall they had it skinned, gutted and roasting over the fire. A can of green beans was opened and passed around, along with a small bag of smoked venison and berries. Tina sat next to the boy, chattering away, the older girl Annie watching silently.

  At their feet Quincy gnawed contentedly on a handful of bones and the remains of a half-rotten squirrel she had dug up from somewhere. There wasn’t much, but the meal took the edge off of everyone’s hunger. The flakes began to swirl with intensity as dinner ended, and the light faded. They doused the fire to avoid any unwelcome notice and everyone piled into the tent. It was a tight fit, but the combined body heat soon made the tent toasty warm. When in doubt, sleep, and that is just what the group did, except for Jess.

  The sounds of the others stilled and were replaced by relaxed, slow breathing, and the occasional soft snore from Tina who had what sounded like the beginnings of a head cold. Jess lay awake on the hard ground, eyes wide open and staring into the dark.

  Scott Cooper. Old Coop had said his son’s name was Scott. But lots of people had that name, right? Cooper was a common name. It didn’t mean that Old Coop’s son was the same sonuvabitch that had raped Serena, Erin, Jess and countless others. It could be anyone, right?

  Jess’s dad had once said that life was like a giant jigsaw and there were moments when, after trying to fit piece after piece together, two pieces slide together like butter and you know, for sure, that they are a perfect fit. “The pieces meld together, they become one, and you know, that this is the way it was meant to be. This is it.” He had said to her, “You’ll know it, beyond a shadow of a doubt what the truth is, just by the way it feels.”