by Connor Mccoy
Just now, they had taken up arms to preserve those things for this countryside homestead.
Darber fought the urge to cringe, to step back. Carla’s cries would not rattle him. He would see this through to the end.
Lying back in the easy chair across from the couch, Ron Darber let out a long breath. Sweat dripped down his face. Carla lay still on the sofa. Her screams of pain had given way to moans, which in turn surrendered to quiet groans and coughs. Her eyes were mostly closed, only occasionally opening a little more to look around.
“She…” Darber caught himself from tilting over. “I think we’ve successfully stabilized her.” He wasn’t even sure who he was talking to anymore. The exhaustion of the past several hours had caught up with him. “Stopped the bleeding…early. Wound wasn’t big. That maybe made…the difference.” He gripped the chair to keep steady.
“Water.” Conrad spoke up.
Darber turned around, sighting Conrad and Camilla. They probably never had left the room since their arrival. Liam was also still in the room, on the other side of the couch, leaning over Carla. He had been with her in some way since helping her into the room.
“What?” Camilla blinked her eyes as if coming out of a daze.
It was then that Darber noticed the red-stained cloth tied around her right shoulder. Conrad himself had bound up his left arm with a small piece of cloth that, once blue, now appeared dark reddish. The two of them obviously had suffered wounds in their ordeal. Given their older ages—Conrad at 60, Camilla at 51—Darber was doubly concerned. He could not delay in checking their wounds.
“We need to get Ron some water,” Conrad said. Usually the old rancher who owned this homestead was energetic, sharp and quick, but after today’s ordeal he was tired and moved with a bit of a jerk in his step.
“Never mind.” He turned to the kitchen door. “I’ll do it myself.”
But before he could push past the doorframe, he was blocked by Sarah and Tom. Tom clutched a handful of clean towels, while Sarah handled a pitcher of water. Slowly, Conrad stepped aside and permitted the pair into the room.
Sarah poured water into small cups, first for Darber, then for Conrad and Camilla, and finally for Liam. Liam took his drink without averting his eyes from Carla.
Darber drank quickly, cleaning out the cup in one swig. Then he turned to Conrad and Camilla. “I have to…I have to check you two out.”
“Easy, Ron,” Conrad said, “We’ll come to you.”
Conrad and Camilla knelt next to Darber. The doctor offered to get out of his chair, but Conrad refused. Darber was exhausted. He needed the seat if he was going to be effective.
“Not a bad dressing,” Darber said as he looked at Camilla’s gunshot wound.
“I’m starting to get the hang of this,” Camilla grinned. “What’s that, two times I got shot since I came here?”
“Fortunately, this one doesn’t look bad. It didn’t…” Darber then started coughing. He waited until he was done before continuing. “It hit the arm at an angle. Didn’t penetrate deeply. Sarah, the antiseptic, please.”
Sarah hurried to bring the bottle over, her graying hair brushing against Darber’s balding dome. “Thank you,” he said. She had calmed down in the past hour, as it became clear that Carla likely would pull through.
Then she stopped and looked at Conrad. “Kurt?” she asked softly.
“Took his own life,” Conrad replied gently, “He’s still out in front. I hadn’t had a chance to move him. I wanted to check up on you all.”
Sarah smiled a little. “I’m glad you’re alright.” Then she glanced at Camilla. “You too.”
Camilla made a fist and pumped it very weakly. “You weren’t too bad out there. You helped save us all.”
“Thanks.” Sarah clutched her arm. “But right now, I feel like throwing up.”
Conrad turned his head to Tom, who just had finished dumping all the dirty cloths used on Carla in a pile. She already was draped in fresh towels and a blanket. “Tom,” Conrad called. The younger man turned his head. “Why don’t you go help out your lady? Take a break.”
Tom nodded. “Sure. Let me just get these things out of the way.” He picked up the soiled cloths and removed them from the room.
Darber began binding up Camilla’s wound. He thought to himself, Your lady. Interesting for Conrad to say that, considering Sarah was once Conrad’s lady. The two had divorced under less than friendly circumstances. Now Sarah had found a new love interest in Tom Richards, although their relationship had suffered a few bumps in the road since the EMP hit. But the two seemed to have patched things up and enjoyed a harmonious life together. As for Conrad, Camilla had been his on and off love interest for a while. It was hard to tell what those two were up to nowadays.
As Darber finished redressing Camilla’s injury, Conrad turned his attention to his boy. “Liam, I think it’s time you let Darber look at you.” But Liam didn’t respond.
“Liam!” Conrad called, “C’mon, we all got to get checked out.”
“I’m fine,” Liam said with a low growl underlying his voice.
“Liam, your face looks like it was run over by a pickup,” Conrad said, “We’re not ending the day without all of us getting looked over.”
Liam cleared his throat. “Doc, how in the hell did Carla get out of the shelter?”
Darber looked away. He didn’t want to catch the young man’s eyes. “Carla is a very resourceful young lady. She was able to find the key to unlock the door.”
“How?” Liam asked.
“She probably found one of my notes in the containers,” Conrad said quickly, “I didn’t have time to ransack them to get rid of anything that could unlock the door. I had to set the traps outside and plan the ambushes.”
“But why did you have the unlock codes in there anyway?” Liam asked.
Conrad scowled. “Think about it. You really wanted me to lock someone down there without a chance of getting out? The whole point of the shelter is that it’s hard to break into, not impossible to break out of. It wasn’t supposed to be a prison. Sticking her down there was just improvising.”
Now Liam turned to Darber. “But Doctor Ron, couldn’t you have stopped her?”
“I tried,” Darber said quietly. Conrad wanted him and Carla to stay down in the shelter room in the home’s basement, but Carla found the override code that unlocked the vault door.
“Liam, stow it,” Conrad said. “Your lady here saved your ass. From where things stand, it seemed like everything may have worked out for the best.”
Liam wasn’t done protesting. However, Carla’s soft voice cut through the room and drew everyone’s attention. “Liam…don’t chew out Doctor Ron.” She blinked her eyes, but could not open them fully. “I wanted to get out and help you,” she whispered. “I would have slugged him if I had to.”
Darber straightened up. “Well, thank God it didn’t come to that.”
Carla smiled. “C’mon. Don’t blame him. Even that stupid gun trick didn’t work.”
Liam turned back to Darber. “Gun trick? What is she talking about? Did you pull a gun on Carla?”
Sarah’s mouth dropped open. “Doctor!”
“Actually, that was my idea,” Conrad quickly added. “Look, we’d never put Carla in any real danger. You want to get pissed at somebody? Fine. Get pissed at me. Sticking her in the shelter with Doctor Ron was my idea. I’m the man in charge of this castle, and if something went wrong, it was my call.”
A fly buzzed Conrad’s face. He swatted it away. Then he noticed additional flies zipping around the room. He then inhaled deeply.
Darber did as well, and then winced when his nostrils caught the foul odor. “What in God’s name is that?”
Conrad looked to the door to the kitchen. “The dead,” he said, “We’ve been tending to Carla so long that we forgot a bunch of corpses are lying in and around our home. And now they’re attracting vermin.” He waved his hand in front of his face. “If Carla’s out of
danger, we have to drag these cadavers away from the house or this place is going to stink to high heaven.”
Clutching the empty bucket in her hand, Sarah strolled out the door and into the side yard. The well was a short walk away. With Carla stabilized, they could afford to start taking water from the well again and give the shower water a rest.
Before Sarah could emerge from the shadow of the homestead, she spotted a hand draped across the grass. She gasped and tossed aside the bucket. Then, she fiddled for her gun. However, she had removed it along with her belt and holster earlier as Tom was hastily checking her for wounds. She hadn’t thought to put it back on.
Sarah then realized the hand belonged to a dead man lying on the grass. He looked up, eyes closed, dried blood trailing from his lips. This man was part of Kurt’s strike force. He must have been shot in the house and fled, only to expire out here. Sarah’s bullet might have even been the one to kill him.
Sarah trembled, but her initial bout of fear soon turned to anger. Then, she let out a holler and slammed her boot into the dead man’s abdomen.
“Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!” Sarah let out a string of expletives that she almost never used. “Why?” She looked down at the dead man’s body through welling tears.
A stream of rapid footfalls caught up to her. “Sarah.” Tom stopped next to her and took her arm. “Are you alright?”
Sarah didn’t stop looking down at the corpse. “I…no. No, I’m not.” Then she coughed before speaking again. “I just remembered we had all these bodies. I…I wonder how many times I walked by them. I didn’t notice before.”
“It’s okay.” Tom pulled Sarah closer. “We’ll get rid of them. Helping Carla came first.”
“Why did these sons of bitches come here? Why did they make me have to kill them?” Sarah asked as she sank her head into Tom’s shoulder. “I hate this. What am I doing here, fighting for my life like something out of a war movie?”
“I know how you feel. But you helped save us, including your grandchild.” Tom patted the back of her neck.
“I know. And I’d do it again. I just feel sick,” Sarah replied. “I’ve never had to do anything like this before. I said I’d never be a victim again. It’s just saying it and doing it, they’re so different.”
Tom sighed. “I know. It’s like real life suddenly gives you the full initiation. I remember when Conrad dragged me along on the raid on Maggiano’s. I never thought I’d ever do anything like that. But then the moment came, I saw you, and I knew what I had to do.” He paused, deep in thought. “The moment changed me. I don’t think I’d recognize myself a year ago.”
“I think that’s what’s scary,” Sarah said, “I don’t want to change into a killer.”
“You won’t.” Tom patted Sarah’s back. “You won’t.”
Chapter Two
The angle of the setting sun cast a dark shadow on the inside wall of the back porch. It seemed to fit Conrad’s mood well. He sat outside in his favorite chair, on the porch that today had been a battlefield. He refused to acknowledge the fresh bullet holes, the dried blood on the floor, or the torn branches from the nearby bush. He just sat in the chair, not even rocking it. He remained still as he watched the sky fade to night. His favorite bottle of bourbon sat on the table, but he wasn’t even in the mood to drink that.
They had spent the bulk of the day preparing a good dinner after treating Carla and patching up themselves. Then they made a quick check of the livestock before getting ready for bed. Fortunately, they discovered only two dead bodies in the house. The rest who made it inside, though wounded, managed to flee, only to perish from their wounds outside. Conrad had seen to it that the two corpses were tossed out of his home. He and Liam dragged all the corpses a short way from the house, but that was it. Conrad wouldn’t bury them tonight, if he wanted to bury them at all.
He softly ground his teeth. More bodies to bury, he thought. He had done it once before with the bodies of Derrick Wellinger’s men who died on his property. This time the cleanup would be bigger and more distasteful. Conrad had buried an IED in his front yard, which blew up a whole truckload of men. The corpses still lay in the wreckage, burned to crisps. All of that would have to be hauled away and disposed of.
Conrad did acquire one important prize. Kurt’s party had arrived in two trucks. One of them had emerged from the battle unscathed, still sitting in the front yard. A fully functioning pickup truck was a valuable tool in today’s world, though without working gas stations to refuel it, the vehicle would have to be used sparingly. Fortunately, Conrad had stored supplies of gasoline. He figured it could be used in generators or perhaps for his own truck, although the EMP from the sun rendered that moot.
That truck could be a getaway vehicle, Conrad thought. If this shit happened a third time, if it was even worse, I could shove everyone in there and tell them to hit the road.
Then maybe Carla wouldn’t be shot again…
Conrad nearly swore, but he kept his composure. He wasn’t sure at all if he had done the right thing by locking up Carla in his basement shelter. On the one hand, if she had stayed in there, she wouldn’t have been shot by Kurt. However, without her in the fight, Kurt’s right-hand man Hunter would have killed Liam.
In short, Conrad was left with no easy answer to his dilemma.
Footsteps approached behind him. That was Camilla. Conrad didn’t need to turn around to find out.
She walked slowly. A fresh bandage adorned her shoulder. Her eyes were half open, with little dark spots under her eyes. The battle had taken a lot out of her, but she wasn’t complaining. She clutched a folded up American flag in her arms. “Hello there,” she said.
“Thought you were asleep,” Conrad muttered.
“I probably should be. But the house doesn’t feel quite…” she sighed, “…like home, I guess. A few too many bullet holes and dried blood stains for me.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Conrad said.
“I wasn’t asking you to do that, at least not right now. I think you’ve got enough to worry about already. You always do,” Camilla replied.
“Look, if you want a place to sleep, what about the inside of that truck we got from Kurt?” Conrad asked.
“Really? Sure, I think that would work.” Camilla smiled, faintly. “Maybe you can join me for a nice night in the truck, turn on the radio, and maybe turn on the air conditioner?”
Conrad didn’t turn his head. “You know you’ll get nothing but static on the radio. Nobody’s transmitting anymore.”
Camilla chortled. “Well, thanks for poking a hole in my fantasy.”
Conrad bit his lip. “Sorry, Cammie, but right now it’s hard to think of being merry.”
Camilla put the flag on the table, then started unfolding it. “I was thinking of raising this outside, but I figured you might need this more than the house. Besides, it’s not like you’re running low on flags around here.”
“Thanks to you,” Conrad said.
Camilla chuckled. “A few extras, Conrad. You always had the Stars and Stripes in mind around here.” She had finished unfurling the fabric and now was holding it out in front of her.
“Here.” She began draping it over Conrad’s shoulders. “Old Glory may be just what you need to help you heal.”
Gently, Conrad took the cloth and pulled it over his chest like a blanket. “Thanks,” he said, softly.
After a short time relaxing in the chair, Conrad turned his head to his right. Liam strolled past an open window.
“Third time I’ve seen your son walk by there.” Camilla turned around to face the house. “He’s circling us like a falcon. He must want to talk to you.” She sighed. “I guess I’m taking too much of your time.”
“That’s a bunch of bull. You’re fine,” Conrad said, “He wants to talk to me, well, he can wait his turn.”
Camilla shook her head. “No, I think that young man needs his father.” She blew a slow breath from her lips. “Don’t forget he didn’t have
you for almost thirty years of his life. If that bullet that hit you was just a few inches closer to your heart or lungs, he might have lost you for good.”
Conrad nodded once. “Alright.” The worst part of his divorce from Sarah was losing contact with his only son. Conrad never saw Liam mature from a child to a teenager and finally to a young man. Camilla was right.
About two minutes later, once Camilla had left the porch, Liam walked through the door, quite slowly. The young man usually approached quickly with his head high, ready to say whatever was on his mind. Tonight, his slow movements reminded Conrad of how a child would approach a distant and stern father. It was enough to melt Conrad’s sour mood.
“Liam, pick up the pace. There’s still some more bourbon waiting for you. It’s a party of two tonight.”
Liam didn’t smile, but he walked a little faster. “Thanks.” He sat on the chair, apart from his father.
Conrad reached for an empty glass on the table. He had brought out a pair of glasses in case company showed up. He poured some bourbon into one empty glass. “So, what’s got you up at this hour? I figured you’d have been catching forty winks with what happened today.”
“No, I can’t sleep,” Liam replied.
“Worried about Carla,” Conrad said.
“She was awake and talking when I left her. Doctor Ron’s staying by her side. I don’t know. I think I’m just worried about…” Liam gazed up at the stars. “…what’s coming next.”
“I have a feeling things will turn quiet for the moment,” Conrad said.
Liam raised his hands. “You don’t think fifty masked goons are going to show up to avenge the great ‘Kurt the Phoenix?’”
