The Storm: War's End, #1 Read online

  There was a café, but it looked deserted, most of the windows had boards over them. There was a large two-story brick building with white columns on the left side of the street. “That’s the old bank,” Fenton noted as they passed by, “Least it was until they built that fool building next to it.” He cocked his thumb at the Regions bank sign, which was broken, and the building the sign belonged to was gutted.

  Directly following the stately brick building was a narrow alley and then another fairly plain two-story brown brick building. At first glance it seemed to be nothing more than a dump for miscellaneous junk. But the buggy turned and headed towards it and Chris could see a rough hand-lettered sign in the window that read, “Tiptonville Trade Mart.” Just inside the door was a tough-looking man with a rifle tucked against his shoulder. The guy looked him over suspiciously and rested a large hand on the Bowie strapped on his thigh.

  Fenton handed Joseph down to Chris and carefully eased out of the buggy with a low groan. Riding in the buggy had been easier than walking, but the old man wasn’t as flexible as he used to be. He handed the reins to Carrie and pointed to a bike rack twenty feet away.

  There was a dappled pony already strapped there. She nodded and walked the horse and buggy over to it while the others headed towards the Trade Mart. At the entrance, Fenton put his arm across Chris’s shoulders and nodded to the man. “Morning Wes, this here is Chris, a friend of the family. He’s been with us these past two months, working the farm.”

  Wes’s gaze never left Chris. His nod was brusque, “Where you hail from?”

  “Northwest of here, sir.”

  “You’ve been in the forces, seen action, haven’t you?”

  Chris had been unprepared for such a direct question. “I, uh...”

  Fenton interceded, “The boy has seen loss. He lost his family and then headed here because he had nowhere else to go. I think Wes that we can leave it at that.”

  Wes’s eyes narrowed as he shifted his focus to Fenton, “Been reports of Western Front troops deserting, coming this way. Also been raids, south in Dyersburg. Bastards came into the outskirts and were forced back west.” His eyes moved back to Chris, coldly assessing him, “Them soldiers been doing more than just shooting men, Perdue, they’ve been killing kids and older people, raping the women. I hear tell they ripped up parts of Missouri bad, and I also hear they ain’t ‘zactly following orders from the chain of command no more.” He said all of this while trying to stare Chris down.

  Chris just stared back, feeling more pissed by the minute. This guy figured he was from the west, and was coming to all the wrong conclusions. Carrie broke the impasse by returning from hitching the horse and grabbed Chris’s and Fenton’s sleeves, “Come on, I’ve got a list a mile long and we need to figure out what crops we brought in can be traded for. And it’s gonna be hotter than he...” She gave a quick glance over at her grandfather, “heck...soon. We need to get unloaded and reloaded and I want to check out the local news before we have to head back home. You were going to look for the Chilton’s manual, remember?” She said all of this in one quick tirade and then stood staring at Chris expectantly while ignoring Wes’s glare.

  After they moved past and away from Wes, Chris relaxed and let out a deep breath. Something told him that guy was going to be trouble. For the rest of the time they were there Chris felt like every move he made was being watched. Anytime he looked up and towards the direction of the entrance, he could see Wes staring at him.

  They spent nearly an hour at the Trade Mart and Chris watched Liza and Carrie go to work negotiating the best trade they could for what crops they had brought in. He smiled as he watched the girls at work.

  They were naturals, born to haggle and seemed to be experts at negotiating the best trade possible. His smile turned down when he thought of Jess, and how good she had been at it. He had turned his back to Wes and could feel the man’s stare, right in the middle of his back. It made him wish he had a gun, or at the least a knife, but Fenton had worried that if he were armed he would be shot by the sentries on the approach. After seeing the burned-out trucks, bodies and the sentry towers, he understood the old man’s concerns. The citizens of Tiptonville were determined to keep the rest of their people alive and well...and keep the rest of the world at gunpoint.

  They finished up at the Trade Mart and headed for another small store down the block. Inside it was filled with an eclectic mix of hardware, automotive and farm equipment parts. This store didn’t have any armed guard at the front, only one ancient, white-haired old man at the back counter. “Mr. Liles!” Fenton called out, loudly, smiling like a kid.

  The old man peered, squinting at them through thick glasses. Chris thought he must be the oldest man he had ever seen.

  They moved closer, Fenton in the lead, and the old man grinned, showing nothing but toothless gums. “Young Fenton! How are you boy?” Hearing a man that he called Gramps referred to as a ‘boy’ was rather disconcerting.

  “I’m fine, sir, just fine.” Fenton took the old man’s hand gently and gave it a firm shake. At one time, the man may have been larger, but now he seemed a frail wisp, with papery thin skin and several large dark bruises on his face and hands. He was alert, and looked over the group before him, quickly singling out Chris for his attention. “Hello, young man, and who might you be?”

  Fenton pulled Chris over to him. “Chris, this here is Mr. Otis Liles. Mr. Liles taught me Biology in high school and he was the team’s football coach as well. Mr. Liles kept me in line but good.” Good sweet lord, the old man had to be ancient! “Mr. Liles, this young man is a friend of the family and he’s been helping out on the farm for the past couple of months.” Chris nodded and shook the old man’s cool, bony hand carefully.

  “Hello, Mr. Liles.”

  The old man beamed. “My boys never seem to forget me, though they are getting fewer and fewer each year.” His smile dropped, “Especially with the troubles we’ve had lately. It’s good to meet you, young man.”

  His attention turned to Carrie and Liza and down to little Joseph. “It’s so good to see the three of you children growing up so well!” They all nodded and smiled at Mr. Liles. “So what can I do for you Fenton, my boy?”

  “Well, Mr. Liles, I guess I should have taken that Auto class from Mr. Elias.” Fenton looked sheepish, “The truck has broken down and I need a Chilton’s manual to see if I can fix it.”

  The next half hour involved a flurry of questions on the problem, including a lecture on how carburetors worked. Eventually the entire group was involved in finding the appropriate book, stashed in a dark corner with liberal amounts of dust and dirt, and then directed to various parts of the store for parts needed to fix the problem. In return, the old man accepted a small basket of eggs, a loaf of freshly-baked bread, and the promise of a future dinner at the farm. In spite of his fragile appearance, Otis Liles moved more spryly than Fenton did, despite Fenton being decades younger.

  Their mission complete, Chris and the Perdue’s said their goodbyes and headed for the door. Mr. Liles would be visiting them for dinner in three days, and Chris was eager to find out just how old the old man really was. As they made their way out of Mr. Liles store, waving goodbye and thanks, Chris glanced over and saw that Wes was standing there at the corner, watching and waiting for them. Chris could feel the tension building, this guy meant trouble, bad trouble.

  Carrie whispered next to him, “Ignore him, Chris, he’s a jerk.” But Chris kept eye contact, he couldn’t help it, this guy got his innards to jangling.

  Fenton eyed Wes, nodded curtly to him, and gripped Chris’s shoulder firmly. “Time we got back to the farm, son. Liza, go unhitch that horse.” Wes was advancing toward them, his eyes drilling into Chris.

  Chris stood his ground, returning the gaze steadily. Fenton’s grip tightened. “Son, you go help Liza with Ichabod. That damn horse has been skittish since he smelled those burnt bodies outside of town. Go on with you now.” He pushed Chris in the other direct
ion and stepped toward Wes.

  Wes stopped short of simply walking around the old man, but his gaze never left Chris, who had turned his back to Wes, Liza sidling up to him on one side, Joseph’s hand firmly in his, as he walked towards the horse and buggy a few yards away.

  He could hear Wes speaking to Fenton, sounding angry, and Fenton’s calm and clear reply, “Wes Perkins, you may have served in the Gulf and know your way ‘round a rifle, but you don’t know nothin’ ‘bout people. That boy is nothing you need to worry about and he is what I’ve said he is, a friend of the family. You leave it at that, and don’t make me raise my voice. I still remember your punk ass trying to bully the others in preschool and it looks as if you haven’t changed a bit in thirty-five years of living.”

  Wes looked pissed, especially over being reminded of the fact that Fenton had known him when he was barely out of diapers. “You’d best get back to your post and worry about keeping this town safe, ‘stead of worrying about things that aren’t any of your business.”

  As he turned and marched away with Carrie towards the buggy, Wes called after him, “Well don’t expect none of us to be coming down as far as your farm, old man. You’re on your own way out there.”

  “That’s the way I like it!” Fenton grumbled, muttering further comments that were neither friendly nor repeatable in mixed company.

  Carrie would have smiled if she wasn’t so scared for Chris. Wes was bad news. He’d come back from Iraq in 2006, rumors of a dishonorable discharge on the wind and slapped around his young wife so bad that one day she’d left town with their two kids and never come back.

  When the fighting had broken out, he’d taken lead, and showed some of the other younger men in town some rather effective, lethal fighting strategies. It had kept most of the residents of Tiptonville and the surrounding area free of the death and destruction other small towns had suffered, but something about Wes Perkins wasn’t quite right. No one spoke of it much now, but Wes wasn’t someone you wanted near you in times of peace and only questionably in times of war.

  They loaded up the buggy, climbed in and drove past Wes’s hard stare.

  “I’ll be keeping an eye on you,” he said, staring at Chris as the buggy drove away, back out of town. They passed the outposts silently, and breathed a collective sigh of relief after they had passed the burned-out trucks and cleared the town limits.

  As the farm came into view, Carrie leaned over and hugged Chris tightly. “You’re new in town, it will get better, I promise.” Her touch was reassuring, and Chris relaxed into it, even if he didn’t believe her words for one second.

  The Hidey-Hole

  “The first time we heard gunfire, my parents told me that it was nothing. We read by lamplight in the basement and pretended to be pioneers. It would have worked if they weren’t so scared. But I remember the fear even though their features have faded from my memory. I pretended right along with them for Tina’s sake, she was only three and I; I was the big brother after all.

  By the third night of gunfire had gotten closer. The sirens, normally used to warn us off dangerous weather, were going off, warning all citizens of Clinton of an imminent invasion.

  No one was pretending to be pioneers anymore. We were all just scared and edgy and Mom and Dad insisted we sleep inside the cupboard nook behind the false front. There was a shelter in the basement that we had made for all four of us with another hiding spot within the cupboard built inside and a false back inside of that. It was so small that only Tina and I could fit and it led into a crawlspace that smelled of mildew and dust. We were able to drag blankets and pillows through with us, and Tina was terrified and cried herself to sleep huddled against me. With the cement walls of the basement above and all around us, we could hear very little from outside our little nest. And that night, as Tina and I slept, the troops moved into the town, and quickly began smashing through the houses, street by street.

  I think they knew what would happen. I have such a hard time forgiving them, that they would die and we should live. What kind of a world was left for two small children to exist in all alone?” - David’s journal

  David woke first. He eyes snapped open. He had been dreaming it was Christmas morning with presents all around the tree. The dream had frayed away, disrupted by screams. Now he heard nothing. There were no screams, no murmurs, no guns or explosions—not even the crunch of the gravel road outside. Tina slept curled against him, her breath warm and moist, his shirt was damp at the spot where her face pressed against his chest. Normally he would have shoved her away, called her a little baby. But at the moment he wasn’t feeling so big himself. He felt small and alone. It was light out, he could see that much, but nothing else. He strained his ears to hear anything but the soft rhythm of Tina’s breaths, in, out, occasionally sighing as she slept, whining to herself. A bad dream?

  After several minutes he could hear the faint twittering of a bird, the crackle of gunfire far, far away. Were Mom and Dad still sleeping? Tina’s breathing barely changed as he carefully shifted her off of him, covering her with a warm blanket like Mom always did before he slipped away, back through the hidey-hole into the hidden room. The room was empty, the door was open and, and he could see...sky?

  David blinked, confused, and rubbed his eyes. Perhaps this was a dream.

  He stepped through the wreckage of fallen timbers, small mountains of furniture mixed with plaster and wood and clothing. Open pipes dribbled water and he realized his feet were wet. He stumbled forward, earning a great painful gash on his leg from a protruding board. The silence was terrifying but hearing the noises he made reverberate through the mess of what had been his home was even more awful. His mind was devoid of any words to describe what he saw or name the overwhelming dread he felt. Mom and Dad weren’t in the room. His home was destroyed. He was completely alone.

  The boy stood and stared. His leg bled freely from the wound, but he took no notice, standing there immobile until he heard a high wail of fear behind him. He turned to see Tina’s small tousled head peering from the false-front cupboard. Her eyes were black holes of terror. She looked just as confused and shell-shocked as he must have and her lower lip quivered.

  “Mommy!” she wailed, ignoring David as he waded back to her and tried to help her out and up. “I want Mommy!” she wailed again before he could shush her. He slapped a hand over her mouth.

  “Shhh! We’ll find Mom and Dad, but you gotta be quiet! The bad guys might still be here!” he warned her. Although it seemed impossible that things could get worse, her eyes grew bigger at the thought. She quieted, screwing up her face at the dark mess of water and clinging to her brother, wrapping her arms and legs around him.

  He lifted her up and tried to carry her, but the way was too cluttered and he tripped, spilling them both into the dirty water and plaster that lay throughout the basement.

  To her credit, Tina made very little noise, despite her skinned knees. Her world had changed far too much and she was in the same state of shock that he was. By the time they managed to crawl and shove their way out of the debris to the other end of the basement they were both filthy and wet. The stairs leading up were broken in several places, but enough of the staircase was intact for them to slowly climb up and out.

  Tina clung to her brother’s back like a monkey, and then silently followed him after he set her down and pushed through the remnants of their home. Slowly, both children exited through what had been the living room and into the back yard.

  It took just moments for the two children to find the lifeless bodies of their parents. They lay crumpled in the grass within feet of each other. Dad looked as if he had been trying to reach Mom. His arm was stretched out towards her. Their mother lay face up, eyes staring wide open and clouded and Dad was just an arm’s length away on his stomach.

  David sat down abruptly on the grass next to his mother. He reached forward hesitantly and touched her. Her skin was cold, rubbery, and he felt his stomach flop and his hands shook as he r
eached over and closed her lifeless, staring eyes.

  Tina said nothing, just held his free hand and pressed her face into his shoulder. Her little body was shaking uncontrollably. He thought briefly that he should say something, tell her Mom and Dad were in heaven or something, but he couldn’t make the words come. Not any words. What can a ten year old child say to his baby sister of three? Neither of them had words for the horror before them.

  It would be hours before they left the bodies of their parents. And then it was only because of the gnawing pain in their stomachs. Life rudely continues on in the face of death, and bodies still need nourishment.

  David dug through the wreckage until he found a snack pack of fruit cocktail, the kind with the pull-top lids. They both ate ravenously, silently, avoiding the sharp rim as the dipped their fingers in for the last little specks of syrup.

  Tina stared up at him, absently licking a dribble of fruit cocktail syrup from the corner of her mouth. “I’ll find us more food in a little while,” he told her and walked over to the shed in the corner of the property.

  It was still intact, rather incongruous when you looked at all of the devastated houses around it. On the inside of the door hung a shovel and David took it down from its hook and walked back to where his parents lay.

  Digging a hole deep enough for both of them was amazingly hard.

  David dug and dug and the patch widened, deepened until it was a few feet across and maybe half a foot in depth. His hands, back and shoulders hurt and he was dirty and horribly hungry. Tina had refused to leave his side and sat clinging to his leg, slowing his movements and exhausting him further. He stopped, rubbed his hands and straightened his back. Behind him, Tina sucked on her thumb noisily and whimpered for food.

  “C’mon, Teen,” he took her hand in his, “I’ll find you somethin’ to eat.” They trudged past the remains of their home and on to the Connor’s who lived down the street. The Connors had left a week ago, headed east towards family in Illinois, and Mr. Connor had come by and told Mom and Dad to help themselves to whatever they left behind. Most of it was probably still there in the hand-dug bomb shelter hidden behind shelves of books. It was a survival cache that they didn’t have room to take with them when they ran when news of the advancing troops had spread.