The Last Orchard

by James Hunt

  “To the woods! Get to the woods, now!”

  Gunfire interrupted Charlie’s orders and the first wave of soldiers appeared in the darkness. Behind the men with guns were a separate unit of men with flamethrowers, torching the first trees on the edge of the Decker property.

  Mario and Harold ushered everyone toward the woods, the women clutching their children, and Martha helping to shepherd Amy’s little ones.

  Breathless, Charlie skidded to a stop outside of the house, tugging at Mario’s shoulder. “Did we get everyone out?”

  Overwhelmed by the action, Mario shook his head. “I don’t know. I—”

  “Dillon!” Amy screamed. “Where’s Dillon? Dillon!”

  Charlie turned toward Mario as he jogged toward the house. “I’ll get him, just get everyone to the forest! Go!”

  Amy’s screams faded when Charlie entered the house. “Dillon? Where are you?” He searched the first floor, checking the living room and bedrooms, closets and kitchen. He flung open cupboards, checked behind furniture, and only when he was sure the first floor was clear did he head upstairs.

  Charlie hurried down the hallway. “Dillon!” But just before he checked the next bedroom, a bright orange hue caught his attention from the window at the end of the hall, and Charlie was drawn to it, like a moth to flame. “Oh my god.”

  Flames spread across the east field, the fires alive and dancing toward the house. It was an ocean of fire, smoke rising into the night sky.

  Soldiers headed toward the house, and Charlie turned from the window and headed for the room to continue his search for Dillon.

  “Dillon!” Charlie hunched low, creeping through the room. “Dillon!”

  A whimper, and Charlie turned on his heel. The closet. Charlie hurried toward the door and flung it open. Dillon was tucked in the corner, curled into a tight ball with his face buried in his hands, shivering and whimpering.

  Charlie exhaled in relief and then snatched Dillon from inside. “It’s okay, buddy.”

  Dillon wrapped his arms around Charlie’s neck, burying his face into Charlie’s shoulder, and then Charlie headed down the stairs and out the back of the house.

  Outside, the heat from the fires that surrounded him blasted his face immediately, and Charlie froze at the sight of the flames moving toward the house, the fire reflected in Charlie’s eyes. The barn out back was already up in flames.

  The roof caved in on itself, sending up a massive plume of embers that danced against the night sky, and as the structure collapsed, so did Charlie’s heart. From the second-story window, he was able to see the east fields set ablaze.

  All of the trees, the fruit, the life that had grown here was being devoured by the sea of fire, which was growing larger and more powerful with every bit of life that it consumed.

  Running on fumes, fueled only by adrenaline, Charlie sprinted past the burning barn. He didn’t dare look left or right, focused only on the darkness of the forest ahead.

  “Charlie!” His father’s voice broke through the noise of the chaos, and Charlie focused on that familiar timbre to guide him away from danger.

  He found Harold near the edge of the clearing, the fires from the orchard illuminating his father’s massive figure.

  “C’mon, son.” Harold guided Charlie and Dillon into the safety of the forest, and it wasn’t until Harold took his hand off Charlie’s shoulder that he finally collapsed to the floor, letting Dillon go, digging his fingers into the black soil of the earth, which offered a cool relief from the heat he’d just escaped.

  “All right, let’s get you up,” Harold said, pulling his son out of the dirt and standing him upright. “It’s better to be on your feet than all fours after something like that.”

  Charlie wiped the saliva dripping from his chin with the back of his hand, and when he looked around him, he saw the frightened expressions in the darkness, illuminated by the fire.

  Mario and the rest of the workers were there, along with their children and Dillon’s siblings. His mother was the first to separate herself from the group and wrapped her son in a tight hug.

  “Oh, thank God.” Martha squeezed him tight and then gently prodded his face and body, searching for any injuries he might have sustained. “Are you all right?”

  Charlie gently took his mother’s hands. “I’m fine.”

  With his mother by his side, he turned to look at the fires raging through the fields. It was taking everything. Crops, the house, the barn, equipment, supplies, it all burned.

  “Thank God we got everyone out,” Martha said.

  But as she said that, Charlie looked to the west, toward Doc’s house, and the people that he’d left behind to come and save his own family. “Liz.”

  Charlie headed toward Doc’s house, keeping to the tree line, deaf to the questions of his family as he ran away.

  The smoke from the fires made it difficult to breathe, and the exertion only worsened the funnel of black death into his lungs as he drew closer toward Doc’s house. Closer towards Liz.

  Once clear of the orchards and their fires, Charlie saw the dark figures still marching down the road, their sights set on Doc’s house, ready to burn it to the ground like everything else.

  No longer caring if the terrorists saw him, Charlie veered from the cover of the forest and into the open fields of Doc’s property.

  With the foreign voices growing closer to the front of the house, Charlie entered through the back, stepping through the kitchen as he traversed the darkened and seemingly abandoned home. “Liz? Doc?”

  He checked the rooms, finding them empty, and then headed toward the garage which acted as Doc’s makeshift operating room. It was empty as well.

  Glass shattered somewhere in the house, and Charlie headed back into the living room, then screeched to a halt when he found it ablaze.

  More crashing sounds of glass erupted around the house, and Charlie retreated toward the kitchen, the fire’s intensity rivaling the sun. He screamed Liz’s name one last time, but his cries were drowned out by the collapse of a few of the beams in the living room.

  Charlie leapt from the danger and then sprinted out the back door, retreating into the night as Doc’s house burned. The flames stretched high into the night, adding to the embers that drifted through the night sky like fireflies.

  “Charlie!”

  He turned, finding Doug Collins deep in the field.

  Charlie sprinted, and by the time he reached him, he dropped to his knees, exhausted, and then vomited, trembling on all fours, the hot, sour taste of bile in his mouth.

  Three heaves and he was done, his body trembling and his eyes watery with his nose dripping snot. He moved away from the stink of the bile and then flopped onto his back, staring up at the night sky, which was promptly interrupted by Doug’s face.

  “C’mon, we need to keep moving,” Doug said, reaching for Charlie’s arm and practically pulling Charlie up on his own.

  “Liz, is she—”

  “She’s fine,” Doug said. “Everyone made it out in time. Doc’s finishing up stitching up my dad in the woods. C’mon.”

  Doug headed toward the tree line, but Charlie lingered behind, taking a moment to catch his breath. He turned back toward Doc’s house, its fire still blazing and the horde of terrorists responsible returning to Mayfield.

  He then looked left, finding a sea of fire that was once the orchard fields he played in as a child, then worked as a man. The horror of the scene was a conflict to the beauty of the fire.

  Thunder clapped and a few seconds later, the first burst of rain fell onto his face, and Charlie closed his eyes and let the cool droplets cleanse him of the ash and soot that covered his body.

  The rainfall started as a light drizzle, but transformed into a downpour by the time Charlie re-turned toward the woods. It took him a minute to find Doug and the rest of the group, but when he saw Liz, he wrapped his arms around her and wouldn’t let go.

  The concept of time disappeared as he held h
er, and when Charlie pulled away, the rain had soaked them both. Thunder clapped and lightning flashed, and as the rain fell, it helped to extinguish the fires that had set their world ablaze.

  But amidst the thunder and rain, Charlie heard Doc’s voice, and while he didn’t hear the words, he understood his tone. Charlie turned, finding Doug standing over his father’s body.

  “I’m sorry, Doug,” Doc said. “He just lost too much blood. I did what I could. I’m so sorry.”

  Doug collapsed to his knees and bowed his head by his father’s side. The thunder and rain masked some of his crying, but the harsh screams broke through the night between the moments of silence.

  12

  Charlie, Liz, Doc, Ellen, and Doug found the rest of Charlie’s party in the woods sometime during the night, and the group waited together in the trees, soaked to the bone and shivering. The children had whimpered and cried, but eventually grew so exhausted that they passed out in their mother’s laps.

  But while others slept in the darkness and protection of the forest, Charlie and his father gazed into the sea of death that was once their home, both helpless against the enormity of their plight.

  The rain had helped, but it didn’t save much. Smoke rose like steam from the earth, the once-green landscape transformed to black and grey.

  Charlie wiped his cheeks, smearing some of the soot that had lingered and refused to be washed away by the rain.

  “It’s gone,” Harold said.

  Charlie turned to his father, the despair transforming his father into a different man.

  Harold stepped closer toward the burned wreckage. “What’d they do it for?” He looked to his son as if he would know the answer. “Don’t they have to eat too?”

  Charlie offered a gentle shake of his head. “I don’t know, Dad.”

  “Charlie.”

  He turned, finding Doug Collins clutching a rifle in his hands with dark circles beneath his eyes that dragged the rest of his face down. An expression of anger glowered on his face, made more ominous by the darkness.

  “We need to talk,” Doug said, then turned to Harold. “You too, Mr. Decker.”

  Doug led them away from the rest of the group, inching closer toward the decaying trees that still smoldered. The burnt smell was something that Charlie didn’t think he’d ever get out of his nose.

  Doug stopped, then adjusted the rifle in his hands. “What’s next?”

  The blunt nature of the question threw Charlie off balance. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean those fuckers came down here and wrecked everything we’ve ever known.” Doug gestured toward Mayfield. “They’re murderers. All of them. Look at what they did!”

  “I know what they are, Doug, and I know what they did.”

  “Which is why we need to do something about it!” Doug tucked the rifle’s stock in his armpit, and rage reddened his cheeks. “I say we go down to Mayfield and kill as many of those fuckers as we can.”

  “Doug, your father just died—”

  “Yeah, Charlie, he’s dead,” Doug answered. “And what do you think is going to happen a few weeks from now when we’re overrun with those bastards? Hmm? How long are you and yours gonna last out here?” He pointed toward the fields. “They took everything from you! And you’re not going to do anything about it?”

  “We don’t have the manpower,” Charlie said. “We go after them, everyone dies. That’s not what your father would have done, and it’s not what he would have wanted.”

  Doug smiled. “That’s where you’re wrong. You didn’t know my pops like I did. He would have come up with this plan himself. This is exactly what he would have wanted.”

  “He’s right, son,” Harold said.

  Surprised, Charlie turned toward his father. “Dad, we don’t have the upper hand here. It’s not a smart move.”

  “It’s not about being smart,” Harold said. “And it’s not about having the upper hand.” He pointed toward Mayfield. “It’s about letting those monsters know we’re still here. It’s showing them that we still have fight left in us.”

  “Dad, this isn’t— I’m just as angry about—”

  “It’s not about anger,” Harold said. “At least not for me.” And to his father’s credit, the big man did seem eerily calm. “When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the President had the military perform an immediate counterstrike in the heart of Tokyo. The mission targeted one of their military factories, but the outcome was nothing more than a small dent in the grand scheme of things. But FDR and his generals understood exactly what I understand now.” He stepped toward his son, towering over him the way he did when he was a boy. “We need to let them know we’re still here. We need to let them know that we can’t be run out so easily.”

  Charlie was speechless. He hadn’t expected his father to side with Doug so quickly, and so willingly. But then again, his father had always been rash. It was that mentality and those quick decisions that had put the farm in so much disarray and trouble in the first place.

  “No,” Charlie said. “That’s not what’s happening.”

  “No? What do you mean no?” Doug puffed up, his cheeks getting so red they were nearly purple. “You don’t get to tell me what to do, so you can go fuck off if you’re too coward to face those bastards head on.”

  “You and I both know that I’m not the coward, Doug,” Charlie said.

  Rage propelled Doug’s attack, slamming himself into Charlie and sending the pair of them rolling across the wet and blackened earth.

  “You son of a bitch!” Doug raised his fists high and brought them down hard.

  Charlie rolled left and right, arms up to protect himself from the blows, then bucked his hips upward, twisting Doug off him, sending the pair on another roll down the hill. When they came to a stop this time, Charlie landed on top.

  Charlie punched Doug’s ribs, and Doug countered with a jab that Charlie dodged. He worked the ribs again, and with every blow Doug’s fight went out of him. It wasn’t until Harold stumbled down and managed to heave his son off of Doug that the fighting stopped.

  “What the hell are you two doing?” Harold stood between Charlie and Doug, the rage billowing out of the old man like a smokestack. “We have enough trouble going on without you two trying to pull each other’s heads off!”

  Charlie jumped up from the soot, flakes of ash falling from his body.

  “The only way we get through this is if we work together,” Harold said.

  “Oh, really?” Charlie asked, turning toward his father. “Is that what we’re going to do when we march to our deaths in Mayfield?”

  Harold raised his finger to Charlie. “Don’t speak to me in that tone, boy.”

  “I should have spoken to you in that tone a long time ago,” Charlie said, spitting the words at his father. “If I had, then maybe you wouldn’t have run this place into the ground. Maybe I wouldn’t have had to travel from bank to bank like a beggar trying to salvage our home!”

  “Watch your mouth, son.” Harold spoke in a low tone, which was more akin to a dog’s growl than a human’s warning.

  But while Charlie recognized the warning, he didn’t heed it. “You talk about how those men burned our farm, but how much money did you torch because you were too stupid to run a business? Huh?” He gritted his teeth. “You buried us in a hole that we’ve been desperately trying to climb out of, and I’m not going to dig you out anymore. I’m done!”

  Charlie marched back toward the forest where everyone had gathered to watch the encounter. His mother was the first to break apart from the pack, but when she came down and tried to stop him, he simply shrugged her off.

  Mario and the rest of the workers looked away, and Charlie headed deeper into the woods in search of quiet and solitude.

  What happened wasn’t his fault, and despite his best efforts, maybe he just couldn’t be the one to lead them out of trouble. He knew that they were all looking to someone to give them hope, but he didn’t have any more hope
to offer. The well had run dry.

  Dawn broke over the mountains and the horizon as Charlie wandered deeper into the forest, gravitating toward the familiar sound of the river’s rushing water.

  He spotted the river through a pair of trees and walked to the river’s edge then splashed into the water, no longer caring about the condition of his boots.

  The river started up in the mountains, and even in the dead heat of summer, it was always cold. As a kid, he and his friends used to see who could stay in the water the longest before they froze and had to get out. It was a game that Charlie had played with Doug and his younger brother Billy.

  Charlie hadn’t thought of Billy Collins in a long time. After Billy’s funeral, Doug and Charlie came down to the river with a case of beer.

  They talked about their childhood and all the stupid shit that Billy did in high school. Of the two Collins boys, Billy was always the wild one.

  The pair sat there on the riverbank until the sun went down, and just before they stumbled back to their respective houses where they’d black out until the morning, Doug paused, wobbling on two feet and staring out onto the river.

  “You know my dad always liked Billy more,” Doug said, his tone dismissive. “I mean I know he loved both of us, but he always liked Billy more. The old bastard even said it out loud once when he was drunk. I brought it up to him one time and he said I was full of shit, but I know what he said. Deep down, I think he knew too.”

  “I’m sure your dad liked you plenty, Doug,” Charlie had said, trying to pull his friend out of the rabbit hole he was tunneling for himself. “You and Billy were just different. That’s all.”

  But Doug just stood there, his back to Charlie, staring out over the river, which had turned to liquid gold from the fading sunlight.

  “I know we were different,” Doug said. “I know my dad liked me too. It’s just…” He slowly turned, empty beer bottle dangling from his fingertips as he swayed left and shrugged. “I just know he liked Billy more is all.” He flung the empty beer bottle into the river and watched it splash.