by Roger Hayden
She forced her gaze to the wood. Her father, her CO, and Church loomed over her. Their mouths moved but it was her voice. “Get up.”
Her knees lifted her from the bark of the tree. The vestiges followed her with unblinking eyes.
Resolve ruled her tone. “Get up.”
A blink and the visions were gone. Harper stood alone in the woods, the sound of rain splashing the leaves above her. The chilling water ran down her face and stung her wounds. Her hands balled into fists.
A man called out from the bushes. Harper waited until her husband revealed himself. He tore a twig out of her hair and crushed it in his hand. He looked her up and down. “We need shelter. This way.” Without another word, he turned back.
They landed under a small rock formation with a four-foot lip overhead. It was no Hilton, but it kept them from the rain. Without speaking, they used their hands to flatten a spot of dirt. There were a few dry sticks in the shelter with them. Shaking from the cold, Harper clustered the kindling together while James gathered a handful of leaves and twigs for tinder. With dry wood in short supply, Harper had to rely on two thick sticks snapped in half to be her sustaining fuel. After, they formed a horseshoe barrier out of damp wood and rocks to act as a makeshift reflector that would bounce the heat toward them.
“Matches?” asked James after trying a killed lighter.
Harper undid her soaked pack and drew out a damp box of matches. Her finger sifted through the water-damaged sticks until she found one capable. With a swipe against the box’s side, a flame flickered to life on the match’s red top. Harper carefully guarded the fire to the tinder. After a breathless moment, the fire ignited and spread. James fed the fire with kindling and soon it was the size of a small cake.
With eyes on the flame, they ate nuts and berries that had been stored away for the day’s journey. Occasionally, one would prod the fire or create friction with their hands. Harper’s teeth chattered. She held her palms over the fire, letting the heat soothe her cold hands. The rain lingered with a steady pour. Its monotone sound made Harper drift out of reality, but at the brink of sleep, she forced herself to life.
James yawned, did one last scan of the wilderness, and curled in the back of the tight cove. After a moment, Harper joined him, sharing each other's warmth.
“I didn’t want to leave him.” Harper said, honestly and slightly ashamed. “But we didn’t stand a chance. We’d all be dead five minutes out the door.”
“You don’t know that,” James replied, wrapping his stiff arm around her. “We could’ve tried, for Pete’s sake. Wasn’t that the whole point? Try to stop Brandy? Try to save our son?”
Harper pushed herself closer to the man, her shivering slowly dying off.
“Absolutely, and we did try.”
“Not hard enough.” He snuggled up to her.
Harper pursed her lips and let air circulate through her nose. “We’ll get him back, James. And Brandy… he won’t hurt anyone again.”
Her husband didn’t reply. Harper shut her eyes, letting the fire’s heat whisk her into shallow sleep.
The sun seeped through leaves and lifted Harper from her nightmares. She rubbed her eyes and sat up. The puny flame that got her through the night had collapsed into a pile of soot. She twisted, popping her vertebrae, and realized James’s absence. Crawling out of the cove, she stood and stretched, trying her best to acclimate to the real world. A glossy sheen of dew blanketed the grass while raindrops hung tightly to the tips of leaves.
“James?” Harper called out, keeping her decibels low, and opened her pack. She sipped on the bottle inside, still getting used to the earthy Brighton well water taste. Capping the bottle, she slid it back into her pack and waited for James’s reply.
Nothing.
Harper unslung her rifle.
“James!” she called out a second time.
“I’m here, mom.”
In an instant, Harper turned to her son. Eli propped himself on a tree’s neck, beaten, bloody, but still managing a smile.
“Eli? How did…”
The teenager shrugged and then giggled like he had a secret only he knew. “Let’s go home already. I’m sick of these woods.”
Harper nodded slowly. “Yeah.”
“Harper?”
She directed her attention to her husband, who eyed her suspiciously from the opposite end of the tree line. Harper opened her mouth, turning back to where Eli was and finding no one.
“You ready to go?” James asked.
Harper re-shouldered her rifle and picked up her pack. She let her gaze linger where Eli had been and followed after her husband.
“Let’s go home,” James said as he stomped through a bush. “I’m sick of these woods.”
After masking the one-night camp, they set off. Harper took extra care hiding her tracks. The last thing she wanted was for Brandy to catch wind that she was spying and send another immediate attack against Brighton. As they walked, more feelings of doubt consumed Harper’s mind. Getting Eli last night could’ve been the end of their problems, but now they were back to square one. Perhaps it could’ve put an end to her “projections” that had plagued her since she escaped Washington DC almost two months ago. If she recalled correctly, it started as intense imagination activated when she got behind the Army Humvee’s turret, then to dreams so real that reality became a blur, and now life-like visions nearly indistinguishable from their breathing counterpart. It was stress, she told herself. It had to be stress. Harper kept her concerns to herself, at least until she could fix the problem.
The hike through the woods was far more jarring than their previous journey to the factory. Before, chance teased a scenario of a weakened Brandy and safe Eli. At this moment, the cards were on the table, and Harper knew she had diddly squat. Each step sent them farther from their son and his captor. Each hour allowed Brandy to continue his sadistic torture. Harper tried to put it behind her, not to ignore her son’s plight, never that, but to keep herself from a breakdown. Duty called, and she wouldn’t let personal fears lord over her.
After a lunch break and few short rest stops, Harper and James arrived back at the Humvee. James did a perimeter check while Harper rediscovered a familiar, distinguishable rock. Using her fingers, she dug out the loose dirt and leaves until the Hummer’s battery revealed itself. She picked it up and, after James popped the hood, placed it in its designated slot. After hooking it up, closing the hood, and wiping sticky greenery from the Humvee’s tarnished windshield, James claimed the driver seat while Harper took the cannon.
After a rumbly ride, the walls of Brighton came into sight. Once mightily and masterfully made, the Fence had yards of fortification reduced to rubble, the gate clogged with debris and hand-pushed cars and an American flag seared at its edges.
The large vehicle rolled to a stop at the front. A few armed farmers peeked their heads out from behind the battlement and shouted orders down below. Like a play changing sets, the debris blocking the entrance got pulled and pushed from view, opening a road for Harper and her husband. Grumbling, the Hummer drove under the wall-walk with the gas needle resting on E. The men and women who Harper had become well-acquainted with watched her from the sidewalks and the Fence, mostly armed with guns she knew weren’t loaded. Finally, the Humvee landed behind the town hall.
Harper slammed her door. James met her at the back of the vehicle and offered to take her bag and gun back to their motel room. She obliged and looped to the front of the town hall. Only stains and perched crows remained of the dead. Collapsed buildings burned by Brandy’s hooligans were swept into large piles of charred wood. The salvaged scrap repaired the Fence and boarded house windows. Most, if not all the children, were off the streets. The adults scattered about the small town, working feverishly on repairs. The farms outside the gates were lightly tended to, and Harper gave thanks that Brandy never made it into the inner storehouses.
Most residents perked up when they saw Harper, but their curiosity was sat
ed when they noticed Eli’s absence and Harper’s grim face. She took a quick look at the chapel. Bullet holes trashed its front wall and the blast-hole from Brandy’s gun left a massive gap in the belfry’s’ wooden shutters. Crosses picketed the grass flanking the front door. There were many.
Harper entered the town hall, filling herself with the smell of moist rain and dust. On both sides of the outer hall, easel stands sported large cork boards crammed with collages of family photos, personal poems, love letters, and more. Harper knew every one of the faces shown, the hands that wrote the letters, and the minds behind the limericks. They were her new brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, and they were in a better place. Harper took a moment of silence before pressing into the grand hall.
Brush hairs scrubbed away at a muddy stain on the hardwood. Trudy turned her tired gaze up to Harper. The older woman finished with the stain and used a chair rail to get off her knees. “The mud in the carpet ain’t coming off. At least not without pulling the whole thing up.”
She fixed her disheveled grey bun and stored the old bobby pins in between her lips.
“How are you?” Harper asked, tracing the dirty crimson carpet up the podium.
“My knees hurt. My head hurts. The people outside are pissy. My friends are pissy. I’m pissy.” She shoved the remaining pins in her jean overalls front pocket. “Did I mention my head hurts?”
Harper smiled sympathetically. “I found Brandy and Eli.”
Trudy waited for a response.
“It’s not good.”
After wiping her hands on her hip, Trudy approached Harper and wrapped her arms around her. “You be strong, sweetheart. It’s gonna work out. The Lord’s moving. He has to be.”
“I hope so.”
Trudy gently released her. “What can I do for you?”
“I want to call for a town-wide assembly. While at Brandy’s, I learned some things.”
After a few hours, the people gathered in the town hall, keeping their children and pets close by. Trudy ordered them to the front row in hopes to make up for the lack of a sound system. Many carried candles for clearer visibility, reminding Harper of Advent Sunday or Christmas Eve. The multicolored candles melting away on the Chairman’s desk only added to the ambiance. With a mouth full of tobacco--instead of sunflower seeds--and clothed in a clean plaid shirt and blue jeans, Dustin joined Harper and Trudy.
“Glad you’re safe,” he said after sitting at Trudy’s left hand.
Harper mouthed a thank you, knowing that no one in this room was safe. Levi joined their ranks. The bruises on his face had turned lime green. Dark red clouded the white of his left eye. As always, his healthy beard remained styled and well-maintained.
Trudy welcomed the people with a brief and nearly curt introduction before giving the floor to Harper. Tucking a stray hair behind her ear, she pushed to her feet and soaked in her downtrodden but curious audience.
“Miles from here, Brandy builds his army three times our number,” Harper started. “His reach is wide, overtaking dozens of settlements and camps all across Piedmont and the Smokies. Whether he’s doing this for power or laughs, I can’t say. But I’m completely certain of his people and their cry for blood. Just as we have not forgotten our dead, neither have they forgotten theirs. Only one thing stands between him and his expansion. Us.”
The air left the room.
“Harper, you clearly miss your son,” Sawyer said from the last row. “But I think we can agree that we have a bazillion other problems right now.”
“This isn’t just about Eli!” Harper shouted. “It’s about you, your family, your future. No help is coming, but Brandy is, and we aren’t ready for it. Look around, this place is in shambles. Our wall is broken, we have no ammo, and we are sitting on a gold mine of supplies. Our enemy knows this better than we do. He will come in here and slaughter each and every one of us. All that Church built will be lost. All we build will be destroyed.”
“What do we do?” Dr. Hanson asked from the front row. “I didn’t go to medical school to be mortician, and I’m not going to be fighting in another war.”
“Give me a break!” a farmer yelled. “You cowered the whole time!”
“Would you rather have your only doctor die in the field?” Dr. Hanson retorted.
“Why can’t everyone just calm down?” Kimmy said sheepishly.
The bickering grew louder, and so did Harper’s migraine. It was the same stories: run, flee, wait for help.
“Listen!” Harper broke through the noise. “This is not a democracy, and I didn’t call you here to take a vote.”
The people stirred in their seats.
“Harper,” Trudy said firmly, reminding Harper of her place, but the sergeant waved her off.
“We will never be safe as long as Brandy walks, so we are going to hit him harder than we’ve ever hit anything before. We are going to dismantle his operation piece-by-piece and, when he has nothing left, we will go into his home and tear it down. No longer will we be victims. There are enough of those in the world. We’re going to fight back, together.”
Silence and averted stares. Harper breathed rapidly. Her heart raced.
Pastor Bruce slowly lifted himself from his chair. “If we were meant to be victims, the Lord would’ve made the path easy. If what Mrs. Murphy says is true, I stand with her and implore you all to do the same.”
Levi nodded in agreement. “The fence will take weeks to rebuild, but we won’t need it if there's no threat. My, uh, doctor may advise differently, but I’m in.”
Kimmy, Martha, and a few farmers answered her call and, within moments, the majority stood with her. Harper turned to Trudy.
The older woman shook her head. “Frankly, I believe this is an absolutely stupid idea.” She scanned the crowd. “But if that’s what you people want, I’m not going to let that monster walk over us. And, if Harper’s information is factual, and I’m going to give her the benefit of the doubt, I say that we teach Brandy what it means to mess with Brighton.”
Sawyer chuckled. “Well, congratulations, Harper. You win.”
“You’re in this too, Sawyer,” James stated. “Join us or leave. Choose wisely because your decision is final.”
The roguish man looked to his silent teenage daughter. After taking a breath, she nodded. Sawyer returned his crafty gaze to Harper. “Any idea where to start?”
Harper turned to her left. “Yeah.”
Dustin spit into a bottle. “I’ll inform our guests.”
7
Warriors
The table boasted Trudy’s fine china plates loaded with cuts of grilled rabbit meat, steamy potatoes, and sliced squash neatly complemented by Brighton’s finest well water. The culinary aroma and picture-worthy spread made Harper salivate. Her last good meal had been Brighton’s celebratory festival after the Briersville mission. James had danced with her that night, and never had she felt more connected with her husband. Since the factory, he hadn’t said much to her and even less after the town hall meeting. He twisted a ceramic vase in his hands, which he lifted from the nearby hickory sideboard. His brown eyes were shot with blood and his silver-spotted beard reflected in the white mold. The yellow wildflowers jostled with each turn.
Harper hugged herself anxiously and used her nails to pick out a thorn lodged in her elbow. Her foot tapped. Though spacious, the dining room’s walls closed in around her. With a creak, the dining room door opened.
James put down the vase and mumbled, “Finally.”
Francis led his band of mountain men inside. Hesitant, the five good ol’ boys sheepishly parted around the table and took their designated seats: two on one side, three on the other. Dustin followed them inside, nodding at Harper. She approached him, acknowledging Trudy and the armed men in the hall.
“They’re all yours,” said Dustin.
“Did they give you any trouble?”
“Not a lick.” He propped his shotgun on his shoulder.
Harper glanced back. “That
’s worrisome.”
“I can stay in here if you’d like.”
Harper chewed on her inner cheek. “Nah. We got this.”
“Whatever you say, but at the first sound of… well, I’ll be right outside the door.”
She thanked him for that and let him shut the door on his way out. Harper wandered to her seat at the table’s head. The hand crank lantern strung up by the chandelier chain flickered briefly, but the abundance of candles up and down the tabletop compensated for it. James pulled out his chair, scraping the legs across the wood floors.
Harper scanned the bearded and malnourished men, realizing that the first meal in her new house would be with a group of savages.
Francis, the gaunt one, and the three on the other side watched their food with longing.
“Go ahead,” Harper gestured for them to get started.
The gaunt one with a small cut on his neck drove his dirty fingers into the rabbit meat and took a hearty bite, tearing off a long juicy strip of meat. He slurped it up his chin, chewed briefly, and went in for a second munch.
Francis bounced his eyes on both sides of the plate that held no silverware.
James leaned back in his chair, not touching his food. “Use your fingers.”
With two fingers, the husky man gingerly lifted a chunk of rabbit and tossed it on James’s plate.
Everyone stopped eating.
Harper straightened up, sharing an alarmed glance with her husband. Francis leaned over his plate and shoved his meaty finger at James. “You first.”
The skinny guy let his food drop from his mouth and splat on the plate. His beady eyes were full of worry.
James lifted the chunk of meat, presented it to the table like a fish held by a hook, and let it fall in his mouth. He chewed for a long moment and then gulped down, opening his mouth as proof.
Francis smirked and started eating. The others followed.
The meat was harsh and tough, a bit overcooked, but it was still a godsend. A gulp of water followed most bites and then Harper started on the squash and potato. Though tasty, it could’ve used some melted cheese and country bacon bits.
