Will laughed. “We’ll talk about who’ll be in charge later, but if you end up sticking me with it, my first action is to name you deputy.”
“We’ll see.” Kirk said. “So, Mr. In Charge, how is everything with the town?”
Will drew in a deep breath. “We had about six hundred casualties. A little over two hundred and fifty dead. The rest with various injuries. Most everyone’s up and moving around. We haven’t bothered to count their dead, but it was a lot higher than ours. About five hundred of them tried to surrender to us. After we had them restrained, I had them marched out of town and executed. I’d say we killed close to half of their force, but it’s hard to be sure. We’ve just been dragging their bodies a couple of miles out of town and dumping them in a ditch. I didn’t see the sense in wasting resources trying to bury them.
“I’ve promoted my brother-in-law, Joey, to the head of supply. He’s got crews working on rebuilding the West Gate. It’s almost done. I’ve got security teams posted just in case their survivors try to come back. Our scouts are back out at the lookout positions. From what they’re reporting, I doubt we’ll have much trouble with any of the enemy coming back. It seems that they’ve broken themselves into smaller groups, each taking off in a different direction. We had one report that they’ve turned on each other to some degree. I guess they were worse off for food than we suspected. One of our guys found a site where two of the groups had fought and killed each other, eating the dead. With any luck, they’ll either starve or kill each other off before they get the chance to bother us again.”
“As far as supplies and utilities go, they didn’t mess with them much. The power’s still on. So is the water. Some of the bastards did shoot and kill some of our cattle before they turned and ran or we killed them. We’ve put up ten cows in the town’s freezers. The fields were relatively unharmed. Some got a little trampled, but not too bad.
“Our ammo is about gone. I’ve got eight guys working round the clock to reload from the stores the sheriff had saved up. We should have a good bit in a few more days. The battle also drained most of our medical supplies. It’s going to be a little harder to replace those, but we’ll just have to get by on herbs and home remedies until we can figure something out.”
“Sounds like you have pretty much everything under control. I’ll go back to sleep now.” Kirk said with a smile.
“Well,” Will said, “as far as the town goes, we should survive. I’ve got some plans drawn up to dig additional defenses around the downtown area. I’d like you to look at those when you feel up to it. I’m thinking we need to make it kind of like a medieval castle or something. You know, a heavily fortified place where we can hold up if something like this ever happens again. I’ve also thought about cutting gaps in the bridges to town and making some sort of drawbridge, but that’s going to be a little harder.”
“Those actually sound like some pretty good ideas.” Kirk admitted. He could see something else bothering Will. “What else is on your mind?”
“It’s the long term. I’ve had Scott and Mr. Pae scanning the radios constantly in an effort to gather any intel on the survivors that got away and might be using radios. So far, we’ve gotten nothing on that front. We did pick up some interesting stuff on the short waves though.
“Two days after the battle, a broadcast came in from the east coast that a special Congress was held up in Virginia. They relieved the President and instated some Navy admiral as the new head of the government. He’s making plans and talking about sending out aid to the rest of the country. Personally, I think he’s full of shit. Some of the unofficial channels are saying it’s an old-style military coup, and I have to agree with them. Anyway, in the last week since that’s happened, we’ve picked up several signals from all over the country. Apparently three different enclaves of folks up the northwest have declared themselves independent states. We even received one signal claiming to be from the new Republic of Texas. I just don’t know what to make of it all. What does it mean for us in the long term?” Will asked.
Kirk shook his head. “Nothing for right now. We just keep on keeping on. We’ll grow our food, shore up our supplies as best we can, and make ourselves stronger. In the end, it’ll probably end up being another civil war to one degree or another. The US could end up being four or five different countries before this is all said and done. But for now, we have to just stay alive and thrive. We should probably start sending out scouts to check out what’s left of any of the neighboring towns and see if we can find some allies.” He sighed. “For right now, we just make our town as strong as it can be.”
Will was about to speak again when the door to the hospital room flew open. Sherry rushed to gently embrace him. Will turned to see Jenny standing in the doorway. “Where’s Lucy?” He asked.
“She’s out with Jimmy. I made her get out of this room. She’s been with you ever since they wheeled you in here. She was about to drive herself crazy. I sent another runner off to get her. She’ll be here in a few minutes.” Jenny said. She motioned to Kirk and Sherry. “I think we need to give them some privacy.”
Will smiled at the couple and cleared his throat. Kirk broke away from his wife’s embrace for a second. “We’ll finish our discussion when you get out of here.” Will said with a smile as he and Jenny left the room.
Sherry looked down at Kirk, tears flowing down her cheeks. “Oh thank God you’re alive. I’ve prayed so hard that you’d wake up, and here you are.” Sherry gently ran here hand across Kirk’s face, fresh tears springing to her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Kirk. You’re handsome face…”
Kirk blushed. He hadn’t seen himself yet but knew that it must be bad. “You think you can love a disfigured, messed up, one armed man?” He half-jokingly asked. He didn’t know what he would do if her answer was negative.
Sherry looked a little hurt. “Kirk, you’ve single-handedly saved me and my family, our family, twice now, not to mention the whole damned town. No matter what happens, you will always be the most beautiful person in the world to me.” Kirk smiled. She smiled back and leaned down to kiss him.
“Kirk! You’re awake!” Lucy said as she ran into the room to hug him. Jimmy and Scott came in behind her. Having everyone so concerned about him made Kirk feel a little awkward, but he also found it comforting. They talked for a little while about how things were going in the town and how happy they were that Kirk had survived and should make a full recovery. They all told their stories of how brave they though Kirk had been. It was a happy time even though they tiptoed around mentioning his permanent injuries.
After a little while, Clay and Leesha found their way to the room, guided by Will and Jenny. They joined in the talk and Kirk looked around the room, at all of the people who mattered most to him, his family. After almost an hour of visiting, Kirk felt like someone had kicked his ass all over again. Jenny noticed the exhaustion. “Everyone, I think Kirk needs some more rest. We don’t want to stress him too much after coming back to the land of the living. Let’s all get out of here except for Sherry. I think she may need to discuss some things with the doctor when he comes back.”
Everyone agreed and started to leave. As they walked toward the door, Kirk called out. “Wait.”
“What’s wrong, buddy?” Clay asked.
“I just wanted to look at all of you one last time before I lay back down. It’s so good that we all survived that mess.”
“It sure is.” Will agreed. “You get some rest. We’ll take care of the place for you. We have a lot of work to do, and we’ll save some for you till you get out. We’ve survived this far. Now, I think it’s time that we make Celina thrive.”
The family left, everyone except for Sherry. She looked down at Kirk. She could tell he was in pain and knew he still had a long recovery ahead of him. “Do you think we can do it? Make Celina thrive?”
Kirk thought for a second. “We have to.” Kirk held her close. “We’ll just have to.”
About the Author:
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p; Wesley Higginbotham was born in rural Mississippi. He spent his early years playing football, fishing, and hunting. He graduated from the United States Air Force Academy, where he spent two summers teaching combat survival, escape, and evasion courses to underclass cadets. His first assignment in the United States Air Force was at RAF Lakenheath, United Kingdom, where he met and married his wife Tracie. Their lives brought many moves from Colorado, to Alabama, and everywhere in between. He spent many years working in the Defense industry as a communications officer in the United States Air Force European Command, Space Command, and the Missile Defense Agency before realizing his passion for writing. He currently lives in Belgium with his wife, and their three cats.
Fifty Falling Stars Page 54
