Dark Days of the After (Book 3): Dark Days of the Apostasy Page 4

  “We were lucky with all this,” she said. “I think perhaps we were too lucky.”

  He nodded, then said, “If there’s any luck here, it’s us being lucky enough to have you here and that’s it. The rest is either fate or divine intervention, and I like to think it’s the latter.”

  “History will prove out whether or not what we’ve done is a good thing,” she said, her eyes soft, her lips curled in a smile. Before he left, she went and rubbed the top of Cooper’s head, then scratched behind his ears and said, “I knew you had it in you, boy.”

  Cooper’s mouth opened, his tongue lolling out into a pant.

  “You knew what?” Connor asked.

  “That Cooper and I would be friends,” she said. He licked her, then let his tongue fall back out. It was as if he was smiling. “A lady loves a well behaved man. You know that, right boy?”

  Cooper started whining in the back of his throat.

  “I get it, it’s tough. You’re battling against your instincts. You keep those instincts fresh, but be a good doggie until it’s time.”

  He barked, but stayed put.

  “Alright mister,” Connor said to the dog. “We’ve got work to do.” To Harper, he said, “Gloves are with the wheelbarrow by the woodpile. There’s gas in the shed down by the street. Grab me before you burn them, though. I want to help.”

  “We still have to move all those Chicom vehicles in the street,” she said.

  “Check the pockets of these dead dogs for keys,” he said, waving a hand across his lands and all the bodies strewn about. “I’ll move the vehicles later.”

  And with that, Connor and Cooper left and she spent the better part of the morning collecting dead bodies, body parts, and the occasional pile of guts.

  She ended up finding the keys to the remaining vehicles, the whole of them piled on the front seat of the manned troop transport below.

  Standing back, taking a break, she wiped the sweat from her brow and thought about how good a tall, cold glass of water would taste.

  Looking at the heaped flesh, she was overcome with a mounting sense of dread. It was one thing to slaughter an approaching army, but it was an entirely different thing cleaning up your mess. Needless to say, her stomach wouldn’t stop turning.

  She went back to work, the worst yet to come.

  With an old camp shovel, she scooped up the rest of the organs and intestines, all the remaining piles of unknown meat, and then she covered the pools of dried blood with fresh soil. Twice she had to stop working, the feeling of puking sitting in the back of her throat. She never did vomit, but her eyes watered more times than she could count, and she dry heaved once or twice until the gore finally stopped bothering her.

  The hours waned on, and she seldom stopped working. If she took too long of a break, her body would wind down and the reasons to quit would start to stack up. She looked at the men in the cul-de-sac and couldn’t believe what she was seeing. How did she and the Madigans survive all this?

  It didn’t matter. Maybe Connor was right. Maybe this was divine intervention. Regardless, her arms were jelly ropes at her side, her lower back was stiff and angry, and her legs were juiced, her knees getting shakier with every load .

  Still, she was only about halfway done.

  “Hey, girl,” Stephani said from on top of the hill. “Need some help?”

  Harper looked up, smiling. She pushed herself off the Jeep she was leaning on, then muscled the wheelbarrow up the hill, sweat dripping off her forehead, her body now in firm protest.

  “You got a lot done,” Stephani said.

  “How was the harvest?”

  “Plentiful,” she said referring to the honey. “Orbey’s going to make us peanut butter and honey sandwiches with the rest of the bread when we’re done here.”

  She swiped her head and said, “We?”

  “Of course,” she said. “I’m gonna spell you off.”

  “We’ll work together,” Harper said.

  Stephani had a pistol on her side. Harper looked down at it, then wondered why she didn’t have hers.

  “Yeah,” Stephani said, her eyes hooded with a frown. “You’d best get used to packing that heat, at least for a little bit. Give me those gloves.”

  Harper took off her gloves, handed them over, then rubbed the tender skin on her palms.

  Stephani looked at Harper’s hands and said, “You want these back? You hands look a little tender.”

  She stopped rubbing them and said, “You’re on body detail, I’ll manage without them. They’re going to have to thicken up sometime, right?”

  Stephani nodded and said, “That’s the spirit.”

  Together they gathered up the next two dozen bodies, Stephani collecting the dead, Harper pushing the wheel barrow. They piled them high in the street, ready for the burn. The two women were just finishing up when Cooper came bounding down the hill in a cloud of dust, low and scrambling, his sniffer working overtime. Connor appeared at the top of the hill, clapping his hands and yelling at him to stop. Cooper wasn’t listening. The pup ran straight for the pile of bodies. Stephani cut him off, catching him by the collar. He threw a fit of lunging and barking, but Stephani yanked the collar and he stopped long enough to turn and growl at her.

  “No!” Stephani barked, causing Cooper to shrink.

  Connor was grumbling all the way down the hill. “Oh, hell no you don’t,” he said to the dog.

  Knowing it was almost over, Cooper lunged at the bodies, barking like mad, which caused a stir in Connor that Harper found humorous.

  Harper intervened before Connor could get there. She knelt down in front of him and said, “Do you remember what I said?” Harper lowered her face down to his face. She cupped both hands over his cheeks and flews, looked into his eyes and said, “Remember when I told you a lady likes a well behaved man? You’re a good doggie aren’t you, Cooper?”

  His eyes softened, the fires in him cooling. He sat down, then turned his head and licked her wrist.

  “Well I’ll be dipped in dog shit,” Stephani said, looking up at Connor. “I think he likes her.”

  “It’s about time,” Connor said. Turning around and heading for the shed, he said, “I’ll get the gas.”

  He returned a moment later with the gas can. Stephani took it, but Harper said, “Sparingly. We don’t want a pile of ashes. We need the larger bones, the ribcages and the skulls preserved.”

  “What exactly did you have in mind?” she asked, aghast, her eyes roving the pile.

  “We were thinking it would be a warning,” Connor said.

  “I see that,” Stephani replied.

  Stephani emptied the can around the base of the bodies, sprinkling it around rather than dumping it straight on.

  Harper studied the men inadvertently. They were stuffed this way and that, their squished faces smashed into their broken torsos, their knees compressed with random arms and legs. There was a head looking at her. Not a body, a head, its eyes lazy and seeing everything and nothing. She reached out to slide his lids closed, but then she paused. Would his eyelids be soft and malleable, or frozen in place, the skin stiff?

  She didn’t know.

  A fly buzzed in her face. She swatted it. More flies buzzed around the men, the stink not bad yet, but enough to have sent Cooper’s senses into overdrive.

  Connor tossed Harper a small lighter and said, “You want to do the honors?”

  She leaned down and lit the doused shirt of one of the soldiers. The flames whooshed up, spreading out across the circle of the bodies. Cooper started barking and didn’t stop. No one sought to quiet him. They were setting all his toys on fire.

  The flames rose up over the pile, a small inferno that not only stirred the ugly memories of the I5 massacre, but of the situation they found themselves in. Five Falls might burn just like them for what they did. This had her thinking of Logan. He showed up damn near dead. He was shot, his feet messed up and he was malnourished. Yet he came to the table to play. He wasn’
t what she expected, then again, he said the same thing to her.

  “I’m gonna head up and check on Logan,” she said.

  Garnering no objection, she hiked up the dirt driveway, ignoring the dynamite crater or the shot-up front of the house. She went inside where Orbey was fixing them a late lunch.

  “Are you about ready to eat?” she asked, a small square of gauze taped to her cheek, the center dotted red.

  “Just about. I want to check on Logan.”

  “Last time I checked, he was asleep,” she said. “His head feels good, no fever.”

  “That’s a good sign,” Harper said.

  When she crept into the bedroom they shared, Logan was snoring deep, his body at rest, the pain hopefully at bay. She knew he’d never say he was in pain, but with what she’d seen, she knew he had to have suffered immensely.

  She quietly took off her shoes and socks. She then peeled off her dirty pants, and pulled her t-shirt over her head. As she looked down at herself, she hardly recognized what she saw. The physical workload and the cut back in eating had melted off the pounds. Most girls would be happy seeing what she saw, but she worried. What if she kept losing weight and didn’t stop?

  Deciding she couldn’t think like that, she crawled into bed next to him. He was in boxers and nothing else, his body warm but not hot. She slid her arm under the blankets, found his hand and held it.

  He opened his eyes slowly, climbing out of that deep sleep, that dream, and he said, “Harper?”

  “Yes?” she said, smiling at him.

  He settled back down, closing his eyes, falling back to sleep. She leaned over, kissed his mouth, then laid there for fifteen minutes before getting up and putting on some of Stephani’s old clothes.

  The clothing started out tight around her hips and waist, but at the rate she was shedding the pounds, she’d be swimming in them next week. With the weight loss and the fresh air, however, she’d come to realize she was no longer feeling so sluggish or foggy-headed.

  She actually felt good.

  It was amazing what fresh air, clean food and exercise could do for a body and a mind, something not lost on her.

  If anything, it was one more thing to fight for in this crazy, ass-backwards world.

  Chapter Four

  Boone woke up feeling like he was hung over and irritated enough to fight. There was nothing specifically wrong, he was just tired. Then again, when your entire life is falling to the wolves and you’ve got a wife and child to protect, the tension never really leaves you.

  There was something else, though. An unexpected surprise that kept his bad attitude at bay. Last night, in the middle of the night, his brother had come home. After more than ten years overseas, after having left at eighteen, Clay Nichols had finally returned home.

  He’d rolled into the driveway in an old K5 Blazer, bloody with an arrow lodged in his shoulder. Miranda managed to get him patched up, and now he was asleep in their guest room.

  “I really don’t want to go,” Boone told Miranda.

  “You promised,” she said.

  “I know.”

  “I have to feed Rowdy,” she said. “When you get back, you and Clay can catch up.”

  He nodded his head, somber.

  He had to leave for the town meeting in a few minutes. It was at the high school and he promised Deputy Don he’d help. Besides, after everything that had happened—with the charred remains of the Chicom cavalcade still sitting in town like some sort of post-apocalyptic sculpture, a reminder of what came and what was to come—there was no way he could miss it.

  “The way he’s sleeping, he might not be up by the time I get home,” Boone said, an early riser since he was a kid. Clay, however, took every chance he could when they were young to sleep in.

  “Give him a break,” she said.

  “Dad wouldn’t.”

  “Take this with you,” she said, handing him a spare magazine.

  He took it, then slid it in his jacket, showed her the knife on his hip so she wouldn’t worry, then said, “Don’t let anyone in, and if there’s a problem, Clay’s spent the last decade and then some at war. So let him handle it.”

  “You remember I pulled an arrow out of his shoulder not eight hours ago, right?” she asked.

  “I’m sure his tolerance for pain is exceptionally high by now.”

  The Clay that Boone knew as a kid was gone. That boy died. The man who replaced him looked hard, mean if he wanted to be, jittery. Or maybe he was just shocked at seeing him after so much time. He’d spent almost as much time away from him as he had with him.

  “What do you think happened to him?” Miranda asked.

  “War is no joke,” he said, thinking of the scars.

  When Miranda cut off his shirt earlier that morning, the first thing Boone saw was the man was lean, cut, carved out of granite. This wasn’t the kind of fit you get in the gym. Clay was military fit. The second thing Boone noticed was all the damage his brother had suffered. There were lines and nicks and bullet holes that were still pink and healing.

  “And his face,” Miranda whispered, still taken aback. “I couldn’t go to sleep thinking about it. What the hell could make a scar like that?” Leaning forward, just in case Clay happened to get up early, she said, “I cried for him last night. I cried for his face, and what he must have gone through.”

  “You did?” he asked.

  Miranda barely knew Clay, but what she knew of him wasn’t good. He left after their dad died. Didn’t really say good-bye. This never sat right with Miranda. She was just a kid back then. Super judgy. All knee-jerk responses to the absurdities of the world.

  Boone soon learned how affected Clay was by their father’s death. He also knew his older brother had to get out of the old man’s shadow, find his own way in life.

  “While you were snoring, that was me, crying,” she said. She looked at him, held his eyes, made sure he saw that she’d changed her mind about his brother.

  “I don’t snore,” he said.

  She shook her head and said, “Go say good-bye to Rowdy.”

  He walked into the back room where his son was in his crib, awake and alert. The infant was playing with his toes, too preoccupied to cry, his little voice just chirps and giggles.

  “Alright, little man,” he said. He put his hand down in the crib, let Rowdy grip his index finger with his little hand. Smiling, he said, “You be a good boy for Daddy, okay?”

  He looked up at Boone, held his eyes, made little cooing noises with his mouth. Boone saw the entire world in those bottomless blue spheres.

  Miranda came in behind him, held his free hand, leaned her head on his shoulder.

  “We did good,” she said.

  Looking at her, he said, “You did good.”

  “We did fantastic,” she smiled, pulling him closer. “Now go, before you make everyone wait for you.”

  “Don Sanders is in charge,” he said. “I’m just going to help get his message across.”

  “That’s because the Colonel has a mouth full of marbles,” she said.

  Everyone called Deputy Don Sanders either Deputy Don, or Deputy Sanders. Not Miranda. She worked for Kentucky Fried Chicken when she first turned sixteen and insisted on calling him “The Colonel.” No one found it funny, but she wasn’t trying to be funny. That’s just how her mind worked.

  When he left, he checked in on his brother, hoping he was awake. He wasn’t. He was asleep, the blankets pulled to his shoulders, rolled on his side with his back to the door.

  What did you go through, brother?

  He left moments later, shutting the door behind him. As he drove his old dirt bike to the high school to speak in the gymnasium, he saw everyone else making their way there, too. He waved half a dozen times to half a dozen families.

  Nothing brought a community together like tragedy. Or murder, he thought as he considered the roasted convoy just sitting in the middle of the once busy street in front of the Sheriff’s station. The charred vehi
cles were right in the middle of the narrowed down two lane freeway, out for everyone to see. Even the stop signs had burned.

  When would the next convoy arrive?

  Shaking his head, he realized it was only a matter of time before the Chicoms drove through their humble community and saw what they’d done. Fortunately the EMP slowed everything way down, the Chicoms included. There wasn’t even an operational vehicle on the road, except for old motorbikes, quads and the occasional early classic, complete with rusted paint and white walls.

  When he arrived, he parked his dirt bike and walked inside. Deputy Don, a.k.a., The Colonel, was standing in the middle of a very packed gymnasium. Much of the polished hardwood floor and the metal bleachers on either side of the gym were occupied. They were down to standing room only. Deputy Don saw him, smiled with relief, then waved him over.

  Boone’s face flushed red as he sauntered up to the older man. He didn’t like being the center of attention. Not now, not in high school. Now, standing before the concerned citizens of Five Falls, he felt his confidence wavering.

  “Hey, Don,” he said.

  They shook hands, Deputy Don really pumping it. By the look of him, he was every bit as nervous as Boone.

  “Thank God you’re here,” he said, his smile one of pure panic.

  “Why, what’s up?” he asked.

  “I’m no good at public speaking,” he said, clearly stressed. “I’m feeling like maybe I might have shit myself a little. Just a tiny little nugget, nothing wet. I just…can you…I mean, will you like, hang up here with me and take over when—”

  Smiling, not wanting to do anything of the sort, he said, “Of course, Don. We’re all one big family, though. Think about that.”

  Boone looked around at the many faces, then saw the last of the people coming into the gym had all but settled in. All eyes were on them.

  “I guess we’d better start,” Don said, visibly clenching his butt cheeks.

  Boone almost snorted out a laugh at the older man, but thought twice. If his father taught him anything about manners, it was that you respect your elders.

  Don Sanders was only a few years older than Boone, but he was an uneasy man, by nature. This job was great for him because nothing really ever happened around Five Falls but a fight or two at The Rusty Rabbit, or Otto boozing it up and going on about his muff eatin’ ex-wife. Don’s words, not Boone’s.