Half Past Midnight

by Jeff Brackett

  “Why should I believe you? What makes you think that they’ll just stand aside and let me leave?”

  “They will if you let my son go. He’s the whole reason we’re all here. You took him to get to me.”

  “I didn’t take him at all. One of your own people brought him to me!”

  “All right,” I conceded the point. “You kept him to get to me, though. And if you kill me, there won’t be any reason to keep him. Let him go, and my people will take him back to Rejas. It’ll be over.”

  “It seems to me that either way this goes, you get what you wanted. Your boy goes home.”

  “Yes, and either way, you get what you wanted. I won’t be chasing you anymore.”

  Larry thought it through. Finally, he yelled back, “All right, Leeland. You have your duel.”

  I exhaled my relief. Zach was going to get out of there. That much was certain. Now all I had to worry about was saving my own skin.

  “But I stipulate one slight change.” Damn. Now what’s he up to?

  “I don’t trust your men to honor your agreement, so I’ll stay right where I am with your son. You will fight my champion instead.”

  My mouth suddenly went dry, and I knew then that I had overlooked a flaw in my reasoning.

  I was going to have to fight Han.

  Chapter 22

  December 2

  Loing de sa terre Roy perdra la bataille,

  Prompt eschappe poursuiuy suyuant prins,

  Ignare prins soubs la doree maille.

  Soubs faint habit amp; l’ennemy surprins.

  Far from his land a King will lose the battle,

  At once escaped pursued then captured,

  Ignorant one taken under the golden mail.

  Under false garb amp; the enemy surprised.

  Nostradamus — Century 6, Quatrain 14

  Han and I faced each other in the clearing between the tree line and Larry’s makeshift fortress. Larry’s people and mine surrounded the two of us in a loose ring, an uneasy truce holding everyone’s weapons at bay pending the outcome of our fight. To one side, Larry held Zachary, pistol resting lightly against his neck. Despite what I had said earlier, it really did remind me of an after-school brawl.

  Megan stood beside me, and we watched as Han stepped forward into the makeshift ring.

  “You sure you can take him?”

  I looked at the behemoth standing across from me. “No.”

  She nodded, taciturn and solemn for the moment. “Do you trust Larry to let Zachary go?”

  I laughed. “I don’t trust Larry as far as I could throw him. But when we first ran across Larry’s ambush, back on D-day, he commented on Han’s strict code of honor. And we’ve seen how they’ve argued over the way they treat Zachary. So I’m pretty sure that if I lose, Han will insist that Larry stick to the terms of our agreement. And Han is the only thing holding Larry’s people together.”

  Megan nodded. “So if Han wins and Larry tries to go against his word, Han will leave?”

  I shrugged. “I’m betting he won’t continue to serve someone that dishonorable.”

  She smiled grimly. “And if you kill Han, he’s still the only thing holding Larry’s group together.”

  “Yeah. Either way, Larry’s army is finished.” I exhaled slowly, trying to release some of the tension in my shoulders. “You want to wish your old man good luck?”

  Megan pursed her lips as if she were trying to figure out what to say. “You know, we’ve been standing here trying to be clinical about what happens if you kill Han, or what happens if Han kills you.” She shook her head. “And I’m trying my best to stay unemotional about it all because I know you don’t need any more pressure right now.”

  She stopped as her voice cracked and knuckled away the single tear that fell down her cheek. Then she nodded at where Larry held Zachary. “But that prick over there is responsible in one way or another for killing three people I loved and dozens of my friends. Now we’re standing here talking about what happens if you die, too.” She shook her head again and patted her crossbow absentmindedly. “I’m willing to give your way a chance, but if that doesn’t work I want you to know something.”

  She paused a second, then said with complete sincerity, “I’m gonna kill that son of a bitch.”

  As she said it, I saw a touch of the madness that had overtaken her for a time after Andrew had been killed, and it pained me to finally accept the fact that it would always be a part of her.

  I pulled her to me and hugged her close. “If my way doesn’t work,” I whispered, “I won’t be in any position to object. All I ask is that you get your brother home safely first.”

  She nodded, and I stepped away, into the clearing with Han. We approached each other warily and stopped about ten feet apart. He surprised me by bowing as if this were a simple sparring match in a dojo. Not knowing what else to do, I bowed in return. Then, we began to circle one another.

  I studied the way he moved, hoping to find some sign of weakness or fault in strategy. The last time I had seen him this close, he had been pounding my abs. Herculean as ever, he had led a hard life since then, which had only served to enhance his already formidable physique.

  Lightning fast, he shot a fist toward my face, and the crowd around us erupted into shouts. I parried, only to find it was a ruse. I barely skipped aside in time to save my knee from a crippling kick. Before his foot touched the ground again, Han leapt and spun backward in the air with a speed that belied his size. The heel of his boot grazed my cheek as I scrambled away.

  If that kick had connected, it would have been the end of the fight. From the intensity of the shouting, everyone around us knew it as well.

  I shook off the close call and saw Han launch himself once more into the air. Sidestepping, I parried another punch. As he passed this time, I jabbed a stiffened thumb beneath his striking arm, into his armpit. Let’s see how you like being on the receiving end. Now it was my turn to attack before he had a chance to regain his footing. I jumped, kicked.

  Han spun backward and countered with a spinning back-fist that knocked me ass over teakettle. I panicked as the world swam before my eyes, and I rolled frantically away. Disoriented, I shifted blindly to cover where I thought Han would be coming from, as I scrambled to get my bearings.

  My vision cleared in a second that took forever, just in time to see him coming in with a combination of techniques that turned him into a tornado of striking hands and feet. I barely escaped the flurry, gaining an intensely painful welt on my lower ribs-along with a burgeoning enlightenment.

  There were an immeasurable number of fighting schools and philosophies, but most could be broken into combinations of a few categories. Strong or flowing, linear or circular, long range, short range, striking, grappling-all of those characteristics helped an experienced martial artist evaluate his opponent. So far, Han had almost exclusively used long-range, circular techniques.

  I tested the hypothesis. Han spun backward once more, throwing the heel of his foot at my head. Instead of stepping back or to the side, I slid inside the technique and countered with an elbow to the back of his head.

  On most people, this would have ended things immediately. Han rolled with the strike and came immediately to his feet, the only indication that I had even connected was a slight shake of his head. While I had apparently done little damage, that tiny victory lent credence to my idea and renewed my confidence.

  Han attacked again. I needed to find out if he had any close-range techniques in his arsenal. God help me if he does. By getting in close, I would be more vulnerable to the big man’s greater strength. He punched at my face. I raised an elbow to strike his knuckles, then shuffled closer.

  He tried to throw another punch, but this was my range, and I stuffed the technique before it could gain any power. Seeing what I was doing, he tried to step back to regain some distance, but I followed and smashed my elbow into his face-once, twice, three times before he staggered backward with a scream
of rage and blood streaming from his broken nose.

  Eyes widened in pain, the heavyweight still shook it off and attacked again. He was more cautious, more wily. He threw the spinning kick again, but followed with a knee attack, going for the shorter range. But I knew tricks that he simply didn’t have experience with. I raised my own knee, driving it into his inner thigh, and at the same time, elbowed his nose again.

  Bellowing in pain, his eyes glazed for a second, and I locked my hands around his neck, drawing him down into my raised knee before he threw me off with another sledgehammer punch to the ribs.

  I hissed, feeling the sharp pain of a cracked rib. Gotta end this now, or I won’t last another pass.

  Without regard for the pain in my ribs, in fact, almost feeding on it, I jumped at him once more. Again and again, I worked at him, using every opportunity I could get to worry that broken nose. But the pain in my rib began to restrict my breathing, and I found myself rapidly weakening. Simultaneously, each attack on Han’s nose only seemed to drive him into greater fury.

  Maddened with the pain I had inflicted on his profusely bleeding nose, he drove forward like a frenzied bull. Gone was the cunning fighting machine. Instead, a man insane with pain and anger pummeled me with clumsy, but incredibly powerful punches.

  I blocked and parried, but inevitably he got another one through, connecting with the cracked rib, and I screamed once more, blinking back tears and sweat. I staggered back, threw a blind kick with the toe of my boot and felt it connect with his inner thigh.

  He barely slowed, but at least he was limping. He growled and threw another punch. I managed to brush past, trap his wrist, and pull him suddenly toward me. Off balance, he was exposed for the split second I needed to slam an open palm into his left ear, bursting his eardrum.

  He howled from the pain. Again, I slipped past him, this time stomping the back of his knee hard enough to collapse the leg. He stumbled, and I punched him in the back of the head, right at the base of the neck.

  Han dropped to his knees, and before he could get up again I locked my arms around his neck, pulled up, and twisted the bone of my forearm into the vagus nerve running alongside his carotid artery. Then I held on for dear life.

  For three seconds, he heaved like a maddened animal. Five more seconds and his struggles weakened to a barely-felt pawing at my arm. Another five and he hung limply from the crook of my arm. I held for another ten seconds to make sure that he would remain unconscious for a bit longer. Finally, I felt safe enough to let him drop to the ground.

  Heaving with exhaustion, I tried to straighten and gasped at the pain, but after a second or two, I managed a deep breath and forced my shoulders back. I tried to hide the throbbing pain that permeated my body as I took a few steps toward Larry. The crowd that had been deafening before was suddenly silent.

  One by one, Larry’s men began to lay down their weapons.

  “It’s over, Larry,” I told him. “Let my boy go.”

  His eyes widened as he watched his troops surrender. Any sane person would have accepted the inevitable at that point.

  Larry shot me instead.

  No warning threat. No snarl of anger. No precursor at all. He simply pulled his pistol away from Zachary and shot me.

  White-hot searing pain, more intense than all the damage Han had just inflicted, knocked me back to the ground. As I fell to the ground, I saw Larry’s head jerk back, a crossbow bolt suddenly buried to the fletching in his left eye. There was no question of his living through that one.

  Megan dropped the crossbow and ran toward me.

  “I’m all right,” I gasped. “Go get Zach.”

  She nodded and ran past me across the clearing to scoop up her sobbing brother. “It’s okay, Zach. It’s okay.”

  But it wasn’t. From my prone position, I saw that Han must have regained consciousness just in time to see Larry’s death. I yelled something at Megan, and she managed to shove Zachary away as the enraged behemoth tackled her. The two of them rolled around on the ground as I fought back the pain and dizziness, trying to get back to my feet.

  Time slowed as I strained to brace myself with my hands and nearly fell once more to my face. My left arm didn’t want to cooperate, and blood oozed from a hole in my shoulder. I tried again and made it to my knees. I reached back with my right hand and let fly the knife from my hidden leg sheath.

  I watched as the knife tumbled end over end in slow motion, flying toward its target. On my knees, off balance, wounded, hurting like hell, I was surprised I hit Han at all. So was he. The knife hit sideways and barely nicked him, but the distraction was enough for Megan to jab a finger in his eye. Han screamed and twisted away, allowing her to scramble to her feet.

  He followed, latched on to the punch she swung at him, and spun her around with brute strength. My senses still in overdrive, I could hear the shouts and feet running from behind me as Billy, Mark, and dozens more rushed forward, but I knew they were too far away. I watched helplessly as Han snaked an arm around Megan’s neck and began to squeeze. I staggered to my feet, knowing I was closer than the rest of our people, but with the pressure Han was putting on Megan’s neck, her esophagus was going to collapse before any of us could get there. I watched impotently as she managed to turn her chin into the crook of his arm. I cried a string of hopeless profanities as I watched him choking the life out of my daughter.

  Megan bit him. As Han squeezed her neck, she dug her chin down into his arm and bit as hard as she could. Han screamed as she ripped a piece of his arm out with her teeth and spit it out. As he loosened his grip, she twisted her body to her right, slipped her leg behind him, slapped her left palm into his groin, and squeezed. For a brief second, he went slack with the pain, and she whipped her right arm back under his, then up over his head to claw into his eyes as she suddenly knelt and yanked his head back. The big man fell backward and landed with his neck squarely on Megan’s bent knee.

  He was dead before he hit the ground.

  Senses finally dropping back to normal, I welcomed the darkness and fell.

  Epilogue

  Doomsday fell on a Saturday…

  It’s been more than two months since I first wrote those words.

  Two long months of resting my cracked ribs, left arm stuck in this sling. I suppose I should be thankful. At least I can get up and walk into the field next door to watch as Megan teaches the morning self defense sessions. Still, it will be several more weeks before I’ll feel healed enough to join them.

  Some days I walk down the road to Mark and Jenny’s house and watch as he hammers out his latest project on the forge. Sometimes it’s a knife, sometimes a set of horseshoes. And sometimes we share a wry grin as he pounds out nails from whatever scraps he can find.

  Poor Ken with his injured leg can barely get around. He can walk some, with the aid of crutches, but he tires easily, and I can see the frustration in his eyes at the slowness of his progress. It will be a bit longer before he’s strong enough to make the walk to Mark’s.

  The world is different now. We don’t have the pharmaceuticals that were once so readily available, and so we have to let Nature do her work unaided.

  And we have to learn patience.

  Jim comes by most days, and we all discuss the goings on of the town. We try to keep the topics light, but occasionally discussion turns to the uncertainties arising in our future.

  For instance, we know now that our plan to store gasoline for the vehicles in town is likely to turn out to be a pipe dream. For while the gasoline may last another few years, we’re finding that little things like oil filters, tires, sparkplugs, and a hundred other irreplaceable parts are rapidly wearing out. In another year, it’s unlikely that there will be more than a handful of running vehicles left.

  When the discussions take this turn, I tend to grow despondent. What will the future hold? What legacy will our children inherit?

  But I’m generally an optimistic person by nature, and I write my spells of depression off
to not having anything to do. Hence, this journal. It helps me keep busy and mostly out of Debra’s way. Mostly, but not completely.

  She told me this morning that she’s pregnant. And in that mysterious way she’s always had, she says it’s a girl. I know better than to doubt her.

  And I find now that I don’t know what I was worried about. We may lose some of our old ways, some of the things that we once took for granted. But so what if we lose our cars? We’ll ride horses for a while until we learn to repair the cars. And we’ll be closer to nature than we were before D-day. How is that a bad thing?

  It will probably take years before we figure our new balance between the past and the present. Eventually, we’ll learn how to get the electricity running, how to manufacture the parts we need to get the cars running, and all the other things we used to know.

  But for now, I have a way to hold the depression at bay, something to work for, to look forward to.

  We’re going to call her Amber.

  FB2 document info

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