Last Dawn

by Kevin Partner

"Anna, ich bin es!" Kurtz called as he pushed at the front door. He'd led them along the labyrinth of little lanes that crisscrossed the landscape as dusk was quickly followed by drizzly night. They'd left the car behind the ruined farm and so carried their packs and weapons along the wet lanes for what felt like hours until a gentle amber light appeared to bob out of the darkness.

  They stood in a hallway that smelled of polish as a woman called from the upper floor. "Du bist aber spät. Ich habe mir Sorgen gemacht." A blue dress with white apron appeared on the stairs.

  "I know I am late and I'm sorry to worry you, but please, we must speak English. We have guests." He met her at the bottom of the stairs, taking her in his arms, pecking her on the cheek and pointing at Devon and the others as they stood in front of the door, dripping quietly on the tiled floor.

  "Who is this?" She was a pretty woman with a full figure and wide, frightened eyes. "Is this why you are late? I wait for you, thinking what has happened?"

  "Be calm. Again, I am sorry, but these people need our help. Shall we not welcome them into our home, or am I to turn them away like the innkeepers? Shall I bid them to sleep with the asses?"

  Devon thought the man was being an ass himself, but she smiled at him and, as he turned, Devon saw that he was also grinning. The Amish, it seemed—or this particular Amish man—had a peculiar sense of humor.

  "Of course. Come with me. Noah can share his supper and I find some more."

  They followed the woman into the kitchen, waiting to sit until the gas lamp on the table had been lit. "We have food of our own," Jessie said. "We don't want to take yours."

  "Mine is not good enough for you English?" Anna said, as she lifted a large iron pot from inside the oven and put it on the stovetop.

  "No, I didn't mean that at all …" Jessie said.

  Noah chuckled. "Pay no heed to my wife. She is rightly proud of her skill as a cook—though she knows well enough that pride is a sin—but we both appreciate the thought. Perhaps if we combine our resources, we will make a better meal than either could alone."

  Devon sat and watched as Anna, with a little help from her husband, bulked out the stew she'd made with vegetables, some of which looked as though they'd been stored since the previous fall. Jessie pulled out some canned beans which Anna happily poured into the pot and, as they cooked together, Noah spoke rapidly in Pennsylvania Dutch.

  Finally, Anna brought the pot over to the table and put it down. "It is our tradition to serve guests first, beginning with the menfolk. But I see we have one of God's blessed children with us, so we shall start with her."

  Noah had placed enamel bowls and wooden spoons in front of each of them and Margie's face glowed as Anna ladled stew into her bowl and the room filled with an aroma so rich they could almost hear the mooing and the buzzing of bees that went into the making of it.

  When it was his turn, Devon thought he was tasting heaven on Earth and he wondered, just for a moment, whether perhaps the Sons of Solomon, and the Amish, had a point after all. Eating with a wooden spoon was odd—too soft, too rough on the tongue—but he thought he could get used to that. Maybe progress wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

  "I will help you look for your friend," Noah said, when the eating was done and the conversation paused for a moment.

  "Thank you. Thank you both," Jessie said. "You are very kind."

  Noah glanced at his wife. "I do not think you will be able to rescue. But we will try. You will, of course, sleep beneath our roof tonight."

  Devon thanked them both and leaned back in his chair, sighing with relief and contemplating sleeping in safety for the first time since leaving Salt Lake City.

  He was pulled, kicking and screaming, from this warm and pleasant dream by a thudding on the front door.

  "Noah, mach die Tür auf!"

  Anna blanched and Noah sprang to his feet. "Hide them! Now!"

  Chapter 8: Armory

  "What the hell? That's it?" Hick was close to jumping up and down in fury as Brain brought the truck to a stop outside a low rectangular building. Swathes of soot marred its rendered white walls and most of the row of small windows had blown out. As he got down from the truck, he spotted a metal sign screwed to the wall:

  Nevada National Guard

  He was cold and bruised and a light drizzle was beginning to fall. Paul Hickman was in no mood for being played. "What the hell is this?"

  Mayor Hawkins got out of the following truck and waved her hands. "It's not as bad as it looks. You're here for the weapons, aren't you?"

  "Well, recruitment posters and manuals aren't gonna be much use to me, that's for sure."

  "Then you'll be pleased to learn that the weapons locker itself is intact. I won't renege on my daughter's promise, Mr. Hickman, provided that you agree to taking our sick. After yesterday, there's more than there was."

  Hick followed her past the sign and into the dark entranceway. He'd slept in one of the small-function rooms in the back of the church along with Brain and a couple of others who'd fought at the hospital. He'd spoken briefly to the mayor after the battle, but he'd spent most of his time talking with the man in the camouflage jacket who'd proven to be such an effective killer.

  His name was Gert Bekmann and he was a former sergeant in the Dutch Military Police assigned to a special operations unit called the BSB. He spoke so softly that Hick had found he had to concentrate closely to hear him, but this seemed merely to reinforce the impression of quiet, efficient power that the man exuded. He'd left the Netherlands under a cloud that he wouldn't explain, though it was plain that he had taken matters into his own hands at some point. He'd come to America some years before getting involved in private security in the Middle East. He'd only intended to stay in Ezra for a single night, but then the firestorm had happened and, since then, he'd kept his head down, helped with the rebuilding, but had stayed off the radar of Mayor Hawkins.

  Hick wasn't sure that he liked the man, but he was certain that Bekmann would be perfect for the role he had in mind. It took some persuading, but his new recruit was now sitting in the back of the truck and ready to come to Hope. Hick had suggested he keep out of sight, just in case Hawkins didn't want him to leave. Bekmann had found that amusing, for some reason.

  Hick's throat tickled with the fetid smell of the building's interior as their boots slapped along the wet floor. Black scorch marks—or was it mold?—ran along the walls and onto the ceiling. This place looked as though it hadn't been in great shape even before the night of the fireball.

  "It's ironic that the source of much shame to our town somehow managed to survive," Hawkins said, as if reading his mind. "I'd been pushing the state for funding to refurbish the place ever since I came into office, but I guess that hardly matters now. The fire didn't take as much of a hold here because half the electrics were already shut off."

  She pushed at a door and they were inside a gymnasium, its polished floor covered with dust, ash and fallen debris. Tables lined the walls, piled one on top of the other, the only light coming through grimy windows set into the roof. A figure ambled out of the darkness and saluted Hawkins.

  "Hello, Private. This is Mr. Hickman—he has come to do an inventory of the weapons locker. Would you hand me the keys, please?"

  The soldier was a young, thin man with shadows under his eyes.

  "Private Becker was on guard duty that night," Hawkins said as he pulled the keys from his pockets and, after looking from Hawkins to Hick and back again, handed them over.

  "Did any others survive? Of your … what unit was it?"

  "The 1024 Engineers. A few, but none of the chain of command. Most of those came from out of town in any case. Here we are."

  She'd stopped beside the first of a series of metal doors. Each had small rectangular sections of mesh cut out at head height so, with the aid of a flashlight, Hick could see inside.

  After a few attempts, Hawkins found the right key for the first door and swung it open, the squeal reverberating around the e
mpty building. The room was around ten feet in depth and six feet across and, on metal racking that ran from floor to ceiling, Hick found what he was looking for. Jackpot. Four machine guns, each on a separate shelf. Bekmann would later tell him that they were M-249 light machine guns, but they didn't look light to him.

  "You may have two," Hawkins said.

  He went to protest, but one look told him it would be fruitless. Two was a whole lot better than none. One at the northern checkpoint and one at the southern. "And half the rounds."

  She could, of course, cheat him. But he didn't think she would. She wasn't the type. And he had helped save her the day before so he deserved a break.

  In fact, by the time he'd made his way along the cages, he'd come away with far more than he'd imagined. He was no weapons expert, but a haul that included two light machine guns, a dozen M-16s, a box full of Berettas, a grenade launcher and two pairs of night vision goggles looked mighty impressive. There was also the ammunition, of course, and Hawkins was happy for him to take as many items of uniform as he wanted. He was gonna need a bigger truck.

  "How many will you take back with you?"

  "What?" Hick was still having wet dreams about his new military dictatorship.

  "Our people, how many? You've only got two trucks, and one of them will be used for your haul of weapons."

  Hick shrugged. "I guess it depends on how sick they are. If they can sit up, then we can manage twenty or so, but if they're on stretchers, less than half that."

  "We're not sending our critically sick, Paul. They'll all be capable of sitting upright. We'll also send along some medical staff …"

  "Now hold on just a minute …"

  "Just to tend to them on the road and see them settled in. We wouldn't want to be a burden."

  Hickman looked into her eyes. Nice eyes, though she was a plain enough woman otherwise. And she seemed honest, but he had to always remember that she was a politician and he'd yet to meet a completely straight member of that species. After all, he was one himself.

  After she'd marked up the inventory that was to go to Hope and handed the keys back to Becker, she said, "We lost a lot of people yesterday, you know. I'm sorry about Rusty. You're sure he's dead?"

  "Yeah. I saw it. How many overall?"

  "Eight from our side, a dozen from theirs. Almost as many wounded."

  "Any prisoners?"

  "Two who are capable of speaking at the moment."

  "What are you goin' to do with them?"

  They stopped in the entrance and Hick looked out at the street as rain melted the last of the frost that lined the sidewalk. Hawkins drew in a deep breath and stood beside him. "I don't know. We can't afford to keep prisoners."

  "You could shoot them."

  He could see her head shaking vigorously out of the corner of his eye. "No, not without due process. I want what we're building here to be the foundation of Ezra's future and it doesn't start with frontier justice."

  "Put them to work, then. Maybe they can earn their freedom if they shift enough dirt. You got a mighty big field to plant and spring's almost here."

  She stood silently beside him as they listened to the rain fall. In a moment, they'd step into the street and become visible again but, for now, they were hidden in the shadows. "It's not easy being a leader, is it? I mean, it wasn't exactly a bed of roses before the firestorm, but we had precedent to guide us and the whole structure of government to help."

  "I'm not entirely sure that structure was there to help, Madam Mayor. The folks of Hope certainly didn't feel like it."

  "But you got lucky, didn't you?"

  "Yeah," he said, then moved out of the doorway. He didn't want to talk about why Hope had survived when Ezra had become a pile of burned rubble. He knew the how of it well enough—the power line had been cut at just the right moment—it was the why of it he hadn't yet figured out, and he wasn't about to admit that to this woman, however much he admired her.

  Paul Hickman considered himself a rational man and so he accepted that coincidences happen—he just didn't like them. He understood that Hope might have been a one in ten thousand freak and, if it hadn't been, then he likely wouldn't have been alive to wonder why; he'd be as dead as millions of other Americans. But it didn't sit right. Maybe it was a lack of imagination. Or perhaps there really was a reason and he hadn't unearthed it yet. Whatever the truth turned out to be, it frustrated him like a chunk of grit in his boots.

  He shook hands with Hawkins and climbed back into the truck. The deal was done. Five trips between Ezra and Hope each taking 20% of the people and 20% of the agreed munitions. "Head for the hospital," he said to Brain.

  The walking dead of Ezra filed out of the hospital's front door and toward the makeshift ramp leading into the back of Jenson Bowie's truck. Most were elderly, and Ezra was sending one nurse for every five patients, so there were plenty of hands to help getting them aboard and as comfortable as it was possible to be in the back of a vintage military truck.

  As soon as everyone was aboard, Hickman jumped into the lead truck and drove the convoy around to the armory where the first batch of their new equipment waited.

  "Very good," Gert said as he lashed the first M-249 into place in the back of Hickman's truck. "You gotta be careful, though. Need to be looked after. You can give a Beretta or a Glock to any apekop, just tell him to point and shoot, but one of these, it has to be in the hands of an expert."

  Hickman nodded. "An expert like you?"

  The Dutchman had the good grace to smile. "Ja. But there are others in Hope with military experience?"

  "Sure. I get the picture. I won't be handing one to Brain."

  "Is goed. I do not wish to be rude …"

  But you're about to be.

  "…but Brain is not a good name for your friend."

  Hickman slapped him on the arm. "Ha! Ain't that the truth. He's reliable enough, but he sure was last in the queue when they were handin' out the gray matter. Now, let's get this aboard, I wanna be in my own bed tonight."

  Two days later, Paul Hickman was in the front of the truck, sitting alongside Brain as they headed north back to Hope for the fifth and final time. The second light machine gun was in the back along with the remaining ammunition and his particular favorite, the grenade launcher. Rather less welcome were the twenty-five sick and generally old people in the truck behind.

  He'd been impressed with what he'd found on returning to Hope with the first contingent. Between them, Martha Bowie and Libby Hawkins had turned the derelict Mormon church at the north end of Hope into a reception center for the refugees. They'd met some resistance from the small group of Hope's Mormons who'd held on to the chance of restoring the church, but the place had been shut for five years and, after all, it was unlikely that any money would be coming from Salt Lake City any time soon.

  Jordan Lacey, the coach from Wendover who'd brought that RV-load of kids into Hope, along with news of Jessie and Devon, had volunteered to add any young children to the community within a community he'd created in and around the gymnasium of Hope's combined school. Older folk would be stationed in small groups in the empty homes that Martha had identified.

  Hickman took personal charge of the weapons, of course, stowing them in a locked room in the warehouse where the supplies were stacked up. Brain had been left there to guard them. Given orders that were simple enough, he could be relied upon. At least, Hickman hoped so.

  It had all gone so smoothly it set his teeth on edge and the shoe finally dropped on that last journey.

  Something caught his eye as they reached halfway between Ezra and Hope. Jenson was flashing his headlights and pulling to the shoulder. Cursing, Hickman stabbed his foot on the brakes then jumped down, followed by Bekmann. The Dutchman had chosen a new fatigue jacket to replace the bloodstained one he'd used at the hospital and stood alongside Hickman looking every inch the bodyguard of a banana republic dictator.

  Jenson had run around the back of the truck, and Hickman saw h
im step back as if trying to avoid something. And then something fell to the ground, sploshing as it hit a puddle.

  "Stay back, Mr. Hickman," Jenson cried out as Hick rounded the rear of the truck.

  "What the hell's happened?"

  A woman lay face down as a nurse grabbed her by the shoulders to flip her over. A cloud of red mixed with the orange-brown of the mud in the puddle, but it was the woman's face that took Hick's breath away. As pale as death, her eyes were wide within deep-set pink sockets clogged up with green and yellow that also erupted from her nose. Her mouth, gaping like a catfish, dribbled red that ran down her cheeks and stained the soil.

  "What's wrong with her?"

  The nurse looked up at Hick, his face almost as pale as the dying woman's. "We've had an outbreak of the flu, but I've never seen it progress so quickly. Yesterday, she had a mild temperature and was coughing." He turned back to look at the woman. "Marjory, can you hear me?" He shook her gently and, with a great effort, she turned her head toward him and opened her eyes. She raised her arm as if some hand were reaching down from the heavens, her chest heaving as she panted like an ailing steam engine. Then she convulsed, folding from her hips like a garden chair. She looked pleadingly at the nurse and then, with a final heave, blood and vomit flew from her mouth into her helper's face. He fell backward, clawing at his skin, rubbing the filth from him as the watchers scattered. Hick watched as Jenson helped the nurse to his feet.

  "What do we do now?" Bekmann said as two more nurses bundled the woman's body to the side of the road and then helped their colleague into the back of the truck.

  Hick was in no doubt about what he wanted to do, but he couldn't say it out loud, could he?

  "You wanna leave the sick behind? For the greater good of Hope?" The Dutchman said.

  Hick opened his mouth to respond when Jenson got back down from the rear of the truck and came over to him. "We'd better get going. I reckon some of the others in there are sick too."

  "Look, Jenson …" Hick began, but he couldn't find the right words.