The Last Orchard_Prequel_Surviving the Collapse

by James Hunt

  Charlie made sure to move the girl slowly and carefully, unsure of the type of injuries that she might have but knowing that he couldn’t call an ambulance to help him figure it out.

  Carefully cradling the girl in his arms, Charlie was able to find a pulse, and he noticed that she was still breathing.

  He ducked his head back into the rear seats. “I think she’s okay, just knocked out.” Charlie carefully laid the girl down. “I’m going to come in and get you, all right? Just hang on.” And then he caught a whiff of something.

  The mother coughed, as smoke billowed from the engine.

  Charlie ducked his head into the car again, his movements harried. “Just hang on!” He would have jumped in to get her out right away, but he didn’t want to risk the girl by putting her in danger even more.

  Charlie scooped the little girl into his arms then sprinted back to where he’d left Mel and breathed relief when he found him in the same spot. He put the girl down next to him before he could even react then ran away.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Mel asked.

  Charlie turned around at the waist. “Just watch her!”

  A crowd gathered as the plume of smoke rising from the car’s belly worsened, but despite the screams for help coming from inside the overturned vehicle, nobody moved.

  Charlie skidded to his knees again and reached his arm through the smoke, which was already starting to sting his eyes as he groped for the woman’s shoulder. “Grab onto my arm!”

  Fingernails dug into his skin, and Charlie pulled. The first hard yank was met with resistance and a harsh yelp from the woman.

  Charlie released her arm and poked his head inside, sweating from the heat of the fire. The smoke thickened, and struggling for breath and with his eyes burning, he looked up at the seat and found the woman’s legs were pinned beneath the dash.

  Charlie pressed his hand against it and pushed, and the plastic cracked but refused to budge. He let go and hacked, struggling to breathe. He backed out and noticed the flames spreading closer.

  The sight of the fire nearly made him flee, unsure if he would be able to pull her out in time and unsure if it would matter. But just when he was about to turn, a man appeared on his left, shouting something at him.

  “What?” Charlie asked, coughing through his reply.

  “We’ll pull her out together!” he shouted then dropped to a knee.

  The pair reached underneath at the same time, and Charlie stopped his new partner before they made the same mistake that he did.

  “She’s pinned, so we need to wiggle her free from the dash! Push up as hard as you can.” He turned to the woman. “Ma’am, you need to pull your legs out as quick as you can. Okay?”

  The smoke grew so thick that she couldn’t speak, save for coughing, but she managed to nod.

  “One, two, three, pull!” Charlie pressed up with all of his might, and the stranger did the same. This time, the dash buckled, and the woman was freed. “Get her out!”

  The pair grabbed her arms, tugging her out of the driver’s seat just as the flames engulfed the rest of the car.

  Smoke steamed off of the woman’s pants and shirt, and she wallowed from side to side, hacking and coughing so hard that she vomited. Charlie looked away from the woman and toward the fire, which had completely consumed the vehicle.

  “My daughter.” The woman grabbed Charlie’s arm, pulling his attention back toward her.

  “She’s okay,” Charlie replied, helping the woman pick herself up off of the pavement. “But we need to get you two to a hospital. You probably have smoke-inhalation damage.” He took her over to her daughter, who had thankfully woken up, and the world around the mother dissolved as she cried and hugged her child.

  Charlie smiled as he stood next to Mel, who stared at the fire now blazing from the car.

  “You’re one crazy son of a bitch, you know that?” Mel asked then laughed as he slapped Charlie’s shoulder.

  But while the good deed filled Charlie with pride, the continuing dissolve of society around him returned the itch to keep moving. “C’mon. We still need to get to the hospital.”

  “Oh good,” Mel said, taking Charlie’s arm. “I was beginning to think you’d forgotten about me.”

  4

  The remainder of the journey to the hospital revealed the widespread nature of whatever event had taken place. A cloud of chaos and confusion had descended upon the city, and while Charlie had hoped the hospital would act as a place of order and stability, those aspirations were dashed when they finally arrived.

  Charlie stopped at the edge of the parking lot, which was filled with people hunched over their engines, scratching their heads. People rushed in and out of the open doors, the entrance of the hospital dark and ominous compared to the sunny afternoon.

  “What are you doing?” Mel asked, slurring his words due to exhaustion. “We’re here. Let’s go.”

  “I don’t know if…” Charlie shook his head. “Never mind.” He looked behind him, checking on the mother carrying her little girl. “How are you holding up?”

  The little girl rested her head on her mother’s shoulder. Both of their faces were covered with soot. The mother’s business clothes were torn and ragged, and she coughed as she nodded. “We’re okay.” She adjusted her little girl in her arms and kissed her forehead.

  Charlie weaved around the cars in the lot, overhearing the conversations of the baffled motorists.

  “It won’t even turn over.” A man was hunched over his sedan, fingers black with engine grease. “It was fine this morning.”

  A pair of women two spots over had the hood of their van propped up. “The battery was just changed, so it can’t be that.”

  Her friend flapped her arms at her sides. “Terry, I need to get to work.”

  “Well, what do you want me to do, Charlotte?” She fished her phone out of her pocket and waved it in front of her friend’s face. “Car doesn’t work. Phone doesn’t work. We’re out of luck!”

  Charlie hastened his pace. While the parking lot hadn’t boiled over into the same chaos as the rest of the city, Charlie felt it simmering, and he didn’t want to be there for when those first bubbles spilled over.

  Following a flood of other people inside, Charlie blinked a few times so his eyes adjusted to the fading light.

  Nurses hurried between patients and doctors, each of them pulled in a hundred different directions. Questions and screams funneled together, the noise inside the ER of the hospital akin to a stadium roar.

  All of the lights in the ceiling were out, and from what Charlie could see, the hospital had no power.

  “That can’t be possible,” Charlie said. “They have generators, backup power supplies. What the hell is going on?”

  “Jesus,” Mel said. “I should have just gone home.”

  Charlie spotted an open chair and walked Mel over and gently set him down in it. The mother and daughter followed.

  “I’ll get someone to look at you,” Charlie said.

  “Thank you,” the mother said.

  “I’m not going anywhere.” Mel groaned then collapsed into a puddle of exhaustion in his seat.

  Charlie weaved around the nurses and patients, his eyes locked onto the back of a nurse who happened to be the only one behind the counter.

  “Excuse me, ma’am. I have a—”

  “Patricia!” The nurse spun around, looking right over Charlie’s left shoulder, and extended a folder that almost scraped Charlie’s cheek. “Room twenty-five!”

  “Thanks!” A hand reached past Charlie’s face.

  “Ma’am, if I can just—”

  “Mark!” The nurse looked to her left, her hair blocking out most of her profile. “Two-two-seven needs their insulin within the next hour.”

  “Thanks, Liz!”

  The nurse finally spun around from the filing cabinets, and heaved a stack of papers onto the desk where Charlie waited. She worked her fingers along the edges of the files, separati
ng them quickly and efficiently.

  “Miss, I need—”

  “Just one minute, sir.” Liz held up her finger, her attention still focused on the paperwork.

  Without thinking, Charlie reached over the desk and snatched the nurse’s wrist.

  Liz snapped her head up, flinging the bangs off of her forehead, while a few strands framed a pretty, tanned face with green eyes that flashed anger.

  “I have a man who needs stitches, and a little girl and her mother who need to be checked for smoke-inhalation damage.” Charlie spoke calmly, but it did little to calm the nurse’s anger.

  Liz yanked her arm back hard, and Charlie relinquished his grip. “You always touch things that don’t belong to you?” She returned to her paperwork, quickly flipping through the file.

  A doctor appeared from behind the side entrance to the station, never fully coming to a stop as he passed through. “Liz, I need—”

  “Five hundred milligrams, and make sure you have someone keep an eye on her. She tends to seize up after a treatment!”

  Charlie continued to lean over the counter. “I know you’re busy, but there are people that need to be looked at out here.”

  “And there are people who are already here that are dying because we don’t have any power and our systems are down—shit.” Liz quickly tossed aside a file and pressed her hands to her temples as she shook her head.

  Another doctor appeared from the opposite direction. “Liz, you find it?”

  “No, it must be in the basement.”

  “All right, I’ll send someone else down.”

  Liz peeled her face away from the folders, defeated.

  “Please,” Charlie said. “It’ll only take a minute.”

  Liz regarded Charlie, her hands on her hips, then nodded. “I’ll find a room.”

  “Thank you,” Charlie said.

  With the amount of people running around, Charlie was doubtful that they’d be able to find any open space, but Liz secured a bed with a curtain and an additional nurse to help with Mel’s stiches while Liz gave the mother and daughter oxygen.

  “What is it?” the little girl asked, scooting closer to her mother for protection.

  Liz held up the oxygen mask that was attached to the large green tank that she’d dragged into the room. She moved closer so the little girl could see. “It’s not as scary as it looks. See?” She placed the mask over her face and took a deep breath. She smiled when she pulled it away and held it up for the little girl to try. “It’ll help make you feel better. Get rid of that cough.”

  “It’s okay, sweetheart,” the mother said, urging her daughter to try.

  The little girl grabbed the mask from the nurse’s hands and held it for a little while before she hesitantly placed it against her face then giggled after her first breath. “It’s like wind.”

  “Yup,” Liz said. “And that wind will blow that smoke right out of your lungs.” She winked up at the mother as the girl did as she was told, and the more the little girl inhaled, the more she laughed.

  “Might want to pass some of that over here,” Mel said. “I could use some of the good stuff.”

  “Sir, I need you to stay still.” The nurse repositioned Mel’s head to face forward.

  “Sorry,” Mel said.

  Charlie stood in the doorway to the room, and Liz walked over to him as the mother and daughter passed the oxygen back and forth. “Thank you.”

  “It’s my job,” Liz said.

  “I know, but still.”

  Liz nodded, picking at the dirt beneath her nails. “And what about you? Any injuries to report?”

  “I’m fine,” Charlie said.

  “So, what, you’re one of those tough guys that don’t like doctors?”

  Charlie laughed, shaking his head. “No, ma’am.”

  Liz wrinkled her nose. “Ugh. Don’t call me ma’am. Makes me feel like my mother.” She poked her head around Charlie and out into the hallway, which remained busy. “You know, ten minutes after the power went out and everyone’s phones went down, I saw some nurses and doctors just walk out and leave.” She shook her head then turned to Charlie. “Not everyone would have done what you did for these people.”

  The little girl on the cot giggled, fogging up the oxygen mask. Charlie smiled. “People want to do the right thing. They just get scared sometimes.”

  “Yeah, well, I should get back to work.” Liz placed her hand on Charlie’s arm and gave it a squeeze. “Don’t forget to take some of that oxygen—”

  Charlie frowned as he watched the confusion spread over Liz’s face as she glanced down the hall.

  “What in the world?” Liz asked.

  Charlie spun around and saw hospital staff and patients flood through the double doors and out of the ER, glancing behind them on their sprint.

  Gunfire thundered, accentuated by the narrow hallway, and whatever semblance of order remained in the hospital dissolved into hysteria and chaos.

  People burst from their rooms, clogging the hallway as they joined the massive retreat from danger.

  Charlie quickly moved toward the cot and grabbed the mother and daughter off the bed. “We need to go!”

  Mel, Liz, and the second nurse followed Charlie out of the room and into the hallway, ducking and shuddering with every gunshot.

  People randomly hurried into rooms, seeking shelter, but Charlie didn’t stop moving forward and prevented anyone from his group doing the same. Hiding was a mistake.

  “This way!” Liz appeared on Charlie’s left, motioning for people to follow her, and Charlie steered his people in the same direction.

  Before Charlie turned the corner at the end of the hallway, he glanced behind himself one last time.

  The masked men left a wake of bloodied bodies as they marched down the hall, opening doors and firing into the dark rooms.

  Fear propelled everyone forward, and among the people in the crowd, Charlie saw a familiar face.

  “Mel!”

  The big man ran as fast as his body allowed, the fresh stitches on his forehead barely holding together as he fell farther and farther behind in the pack. He stretched out his arms as if Charlie could reach him from the fifty feet that still separated them. “Wait!”

  Gunfire forced several more bodies to the floor, arms flailing forward and blood welling up from the wounds on their backs.

  Tears broke loose from Mel’s eyes and streaked down his face, cutting through the dried blood as he struggled for breath.

  “Run, Mel!” Charlie lingered by the corner in the hallway, the terrorists closing in, moving quickly as they pumped bullets into the backs of innocent victims, while the cowards smiled behind the anonymity of their masks.

  Angered by the sight of so much needless carnage and death, Charlie took a step toward them, and if it weren’t for the hand that pulled him back, he would have been killed.

  “We need to go!” Liz shouted, struggling to keep Charlie from rushing into the madness.

  But Mel was close. Charlie stretched out his hand and grabbed the big man then yanked him around the corner, evading the lead that collided with the wall.

  “Go!” Charlie shoved Mel forward, following Liz through the hallways, and with every additional turn down the winding hospital halls, Charlie lost his sense of direction. He was in Liz’s hands now.

  “Not much farther,” Liz said breathlessly as they sprinted through the halls. She periodically pounded on doors and shouted to anyone they passed to find the nearest exit. Some people listened. Most didn’t.

  The noise of gunfire faded the farther they ran, but even with the distance between them and the killers, no one stopped running until they reached the emergency-exit doors.

  Sunlight flooded the dark hallways, and streams of people poured out of the hospital building, sprinting away from the danger inside.

  Charlie slowed to a stop, mostly because Mel and the others had stopped to rest.

  “What the hell is going on?” Mel screamed, and h
is cheeks flushed bright red. “They’re just… killing people!” He ran his stubby fingers over the thin wisps of hair on his scalp. He spun in circles, hyperventilating.

  “Mel,” Charlie said, his arms passively stretched out as he slowly approached. “Calm down. You need to keep it together.”

  Mel smacked Charlie’s hand away. “We’re already dead, man! We’re already fucking dead!” He shuddered and turned away.

  Charlie looked at the rest of the group and found similar expressions of distress. They needed to get out of the city. All of them.

  “He’s right,” Charlie said.

  “Wh-What do you mean, ‘he’s right’?” The mother with the little girl held her daughter tighter and shook her head. “You really think we’re going to die?”

  Charlie hesitated, choosing his words carefully. He didn’t want to provide additional panic, but he didn’t want to give them false hope. “The city is falling apart, and I haven’t seen any person in authority since the bullets started flying. No cops, no ambulances, nothing.”

  “So what are we supposed to do?” Liz asked. “Where do we go?”

  “Out of the city,” Charlie answered. “Stay with any friends or family and get away from populated areas.” He pointed to the hospital and the city beyond. “Those monsters are attracted to densely populated areas.”

  “Our apartment is in the city!” the mother cried. “We don’t have anywhere else to go.” The daughter whimpered, and the mother held her tighter. “Shh. It’s okay, baby. I didn’t mean to yell.”

  Whispers of fear and doubt circled the group, and Charlie wasn’t sure if his next move was the smartest, but he did know that it was the right thing to do.

  “I have an orchard,” Charlie said, his voice cutting through the group’s chatter and once again turning their attention toward him. “It’s east of the city. My family owns it, and we have plenty of space. Anyone is welcome to come with me if you don’t have anywhere else to go.”

  “Really?” the mother whispered. “Oh, thank you!” She rushed over and flung her arms around Charlie’s neck. “Thank you so much.”