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

  Jacob had woken and began to wail as Jess made her way to the bottom of the stairs.

  “Jesus Jess, shut him the hell up!” Erin hissed, “They’re almost on top of us!”

  She shoved her friend into a dark corner and pulled the remains of a bookcase over as a cover of sorts, then ran to the opposite end of the basement looking for another dark spot to hide. Tina had already crawled into the depths of the hidey-hole and David’s feet disappeared behind her. The gunfire was loud now and they heard the men yelling to one another as they moved down the deserted street.

  Jess patted him, made soft shushing noises and tried to get him to nurse. The baby would have none of it. Jacob began to wail louder, picking up on her fear and broadcasting it. It was as if she were standing with a megaphone advertising their position. She was terrified of being discovered. It didn’t matter that these men couldn’t possibly be from the camp that she and Erin had escaped from. They had guns and they were soldiers. None of the kids needed to know anything more than that. Their survival was dependent on their adeptness at hiding and scrounging. In this, all four were clearly on the same page.

  Jess would later learn of the absolute chaos the Western Front had devolved into. There were no organized attacks, no common enemy to fight against, there were simply the ones with guns and the ones without and a lot of hungry, desperate people on both sides. The ‘troops’ the children hid from that night were nothing more than a leaderless group of thugs who, after losing their commander and three-quarters of their complement in a skirmish five miles to the southeast were trying to make their way around a larger group of equally starving and desperate men to the north. None of it really mattered, because in two weeks’ time every one of the men currently terrifying the kids would be dead...after they made the error of engaging a group far larger in size.

  Jess knew none of this. She only knew that Jacob was picking up on her terror and that his cries would end them all if she didn’t do something fast. Despite her pounding heart and the fear that shot through her like knives, urging her to run in blind panic, she took one deep calming breath and then another and another. Slowly she willed her body to relax and allowed a sense of peace to envelope her.

  One hand cupped Jacob’s head and she hummed silently and steadily. She closed her eyes and remembered the weeks spent healing in that quiet cabin in the woods. She pictured that peaceful week spent with old Coop and the days of the journey along the way to Clinton. The other hand gently held Quincy’s muzzle closed. Life wasn’t all pain and fear and death. She knew that. She thought of her parents, of Chris and Erin and her childhood and smiled at the memories they still brought her.

  She hummed softly to the infant in her arms, whispering in his ear. “I love you Jacob, I love you so much.”

  The infant stilled, turned his head and rooted for her breast, whimpering softly now, responding to her change in mood. The pup whined softly, her little body occasionally flinched at the loud explosions of sound. Jess wondered what the little mutt thought of it all.

  The men passed, exchanging calls, rummaging in the ruined house above, shooting at shadows. They moved on. When it was quiet, Erin gathered up a blanket and found her way back to Jess who was half asleep. Jacob snored gently, moist and warm against her. Erin caressed his tiny head, which was silky soft. She murmured apologies to her friend.

  “Sorry Jessie, I didn’t mean it; I know he couldn’t help being scared.”

  “S’okay, Erie. It all came out all right.” Jess replied, “But I think we better head east for a bit. Those guys went north and we don’t want to run into them anytime soon.”

  The children didn’t emerge from their hidey-hole, except for David poking his head out and whispering good night to Erin, who bedded down close by. A night on a cement floor was a small price to pay for their narrow escape.

  The Sacrifice

  “It was my fault. I still remember it, when I’m alone with my thoughts, I think about how I was the one responsible for what happened that awful day. It was the first time I’ve killed anyone. The first time I had held a gun in my hands, pointed it at any living creature and pulled the trigger. It didn’t look like it does in the movies. There is this anticlimactic moment when the body falls and you wonder if they are really dead. You walk up, the sound of the gunshot still ringing in your ears and you see it. There is that look in someone’s eyes as they lie there dying and there’s nothing you can do. You just stand and watch what was a person become empty, as if someone walked out and left the house, door hanging open, with all of the familiar furnishings, but no one inside to greet you.” – David’s journal

  The day dawned hot and muggy. Jess woke first, and smelled then felt the wet coming from the bundled baby. The diaper had leaked, soaked through his wrap and into her clothes. “Ugh!” He’d crapped too, by the smell of it. The sun was barely brightening the sky and as she moved, he woke and began to fuss.

  Her movements woke Erin who blearily made her way up the half-smashed stairs. As Erin emerged to ground level she looked around for any signs of the soldiers. The area looked clear. Quincy followed, nimbly climbing the rickety stairs and squatting to relieve herself before returning down the stairs to Jess’s side.

  Jacob’s thin wail of distress began to build as Jess set him down and searched for clean clothing in the packs a few feet away. She had just pulled on a relatively clean shirt when David, followed by his little sister, emerged from their hidey-hole.

  Erin called down, “Looks all clear. I think they headed north, let’s get some food and eat it quick. I think we should head east, and soon. Who knows who might come up the road next.”

  Jess couldn’t help but agree. She started to strap Lady to her waist and hesitated, looking over at David. He had been eyeing firearms with more interest in the past few days. They made eye contact, “Would you like to carry it?” she asked him. His eyes widened and he grinned.

  “This isn’t a toy, y’know. The second you don’t respect it, you’re dead. This is a machine made for killing.” He stared up at her and nodded silently. “I’m just loaning it to you. It’s hard to handle with the baby and all.”

  She showed him how to carry it, even found a way to attach the holster to a piece of rope he could use as a belt and gave him a push up the stairs to Erin. “Ask her to show you how to use it.”

  They took care of their basic needs, ate a little breakfast and were ready to go by mid-morning. The tent they had taken such pains with the day before had been torn in their haste to dismantle and hide it before the soldiers discovered them. A large hole in it made it useless at keeping out rain or wind and it was at the worst of spots, part of the support structure for the tent stuck through. It had been rendered useless.

  Instead they would pull the little trailer Erin and David had found. It had good solid tires on it, but it wouldn’t be good for extreme terrain and neither of the girls liked the idea of it leaving tracks as they went through muddy areas. It was useful for now and they decided that if it became impractical they could always carry their belongings on their backs.

  Jess and Erin exchanged looks above the heads of the younger ones.

  The looks were solemn – if they brought these kids with them they were responsible for them, it meant they had to be cared for, fed, and sheltered. Once they left, they were committed to protecting David and Tina’s lives just as much as they would their own. They wouldn’t back out now, but it suddenly dawned on them just how much responsibility they were taking on. A few weeks ago they had been responsible for each other – just two lives. Now, with the birth of Jacob, and meeting David and Tina, the task of surviving had become far more complicated. There was an unspoken question and challenge hovering there in the air between them for a moment, then a sort of release. They were committed and it was time to go.

  Tina cried for the first few blocks and then stopped. She was young, in a few years she would have few if any memories of her parents to cherish. David said nothing, but he cr
ied silently all the way out of town and well into the empty fields.

  He silently mourned his parents and the battered home they had left behind until the flowers and plants they were walking through distracted him. As they moved through the fields he began to pay attention to everything growing around him.

  Here was chicory, the leaves could be added to soup and salad and the roots ground into coffee. He wrinkled his nose at that, his dad had always drank coffee black and with no sugar. Here was wild carrot. It didn’t taste good raw, the book said, but it would be okay if cooked in a soup. A while ago they had passed several clumps of wild onions and he had stopped long enough to pick them. The tall plants with yellow sunflowers were everywhere.

  David recognized them from a sketch in the book as Jerusalem artichoke. Their tubers, whatever those were, were edible. He paused for a moment and Tina stumbled to a halt behind him as he realized that he was surrounded by food. After months of fearing the canned food would run out and that he and Tina would starve to death, this was a revelation of epic proportions.

  They quickly abandoned the little trailer. It had been fantastic on paved roads, the surface it was designed for, but when it came to heaving it over fences, it was too much. Jess couldn’t handle much with the baby and if she handed him to one of the children he immediately began to wail. That left Erin to somehow wrestle it over a fence with two vertically challenged, and noticeably weaker children helping her. The first day was spent making little progress in terms of distance. Finally they stopped, divided and reduced their belongings into a transportable system between the four.

  The only incident came on the second afternoon as they passed by a small stream. David casually reached out and uprooted some plant with an umbel of white flowers and began to clean off the root. Erin looked over, did a double-take, and snatched it from his hand before he could take a bite.

  Before he could think to say anything more than a startled, “Hey” she had examined it intensely, thrown it to one side and pulled him over to the stream.

  “Wash. Now. Anywhere you touched that plant.” She instructed, tight-lipped and frightened.

  “Why? It was wild carrot, Queen-somethin’ lace, that’s food. I know it isn’t supposed to be good raw, but I figured I’d try a bite anyway.” He argued, confused and angry.

  “No. That was water hemlock. Look closer.” She pulled him over to the discarded plant, jabbing her finger fiercely at the areas of the plant, “See? Smooth stem, not hairy like wild carrot. And see how it is mottled? And almost purple-colored, not green?” The boy stopped looking defensive and his face assumed a look of terrified wonder.

  “The leaves are lance-shaped, not feathery. This plant would have killed you if you had eaten any of it. Horribly and painfully, I might add.” Her fierce look gave Jess a full-body shiver.

  David washed thoroughly in the muddy, shallow stream. He did it silently and no one said anything. Jess and Tina were somewhat afraid to, and Erin tried to calm down. How close that had been! If he had eaten just a bite, just one bite. She looked down and realized her hands were shaking. Erin closed her eyes and tried to breathe calmly.

  When she opened them, David was standing there, hands still moist from the stream, with a determined look on his face, “Show me again, Erin. So I’ll know and remember.”

  Knowledge would keep them alive, nourish them, and protect them from harm. He would learn this and never forget. She showed him again the characteristics and he watched and listened with an intensity that impressed both girls. Even Tina watched and learned. The rest of the day was spent identifying plants as they walked. They found lamb’s quarters and gathered it for adding to soup later on, as well as plenty of wild carrot that reappeared in the meadows they walked through and were easy to pull up and gnaw as they walked. The book was right, raw wild carrot didn’t taste good at all.

  “We need a shovel,” David pointed at the tall Jerusalem Artichokes, “A little one that we can use to dig up the tubers.” He liked that word.

  When David had broken down and asked what tubers were, Erin had not laughed as he expected her to. Instead she had explained that they were the thick underground parts of a plant that were edible.

  “Like potatoes or, well Jerusalem Artichoke looks more like ginger root actually. Have you ever seen fresh ginger root?” He shook his head, absorbed her explanation, looked again at the tall plants and wished he could start digging.

  Two days of walking did not get them far. Not with a newborn and a small child. David could handle the day-long walks, but Tina stumbled behind, moving slower and slower until they were forced to stop every hour or so. Jacob was even more demanding. The gentle rocking motion of the sling helped him to sleep, but still woke every two to three hours for feedings. She learned to nurse as she walked, but his constant waking at night exhausted her. Each time Tina slowed down, Jess stopped and sat down too. Their progress was agonizingly slow.

  It was a testament to how long all of them had survived that they did not complain or argue. They simply did what they could and took every opportunity they could to rest. Late in afternoon on the fourth day Tina simply sat down on the ground and refused to move an inch farther. There wasn’t much argument from anyone except Erin who was worried about camping out in the open. It helped ease her mind to see that the grass and weeds were tall; she even hiked a ways back and said that from her vantage point she couldn’t even see the small group once she got very far.

  “Unless anyone saw us stop here, we should be fine.” They munched on the last of a box of crackers. David and Erin took turns peering through binoculars at an old farmhouse in the far distance.

  David said, “I just want to hike over there and see if there is anything we could use. Like a shovel.” He was still obsessed with the tubers and was eager to get a chance to dig them up.

  Tina was already fast asleep, curled up in a dirty little bundle near Jess’s feet and Erin and Jess were finishing off a can of green beans. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to quiet their stomachs.

  Quincy nuzzled Jess and whined softly, as if asking permission, “Oh go on with you. Catch us a rabbit or a squirrel, okay?”

  The little dog was fast, damned fast, and she managed to keep herself well fed on birds and rodents. Every couple of days she would flush a rabbit and bring it back to the girls, her tail wagging madly. She would lay it at their feet, neck neatly broken, not a mark on its fur. They didn’t feel bad for the soft little bunny – food was food and rabbit turned into pretty good rabbit stew. Quincy wagged her tail and disappeared into the tall grass.

  Jess waved a hand at him, “Go ahead kid. Sorry, I mean, David. Just keep your eyes open, all right?”

  David jumped up, adjusted the cord around his waist that held the revolver and dashed into the field, eager to explore the farmhouse. He quickly disappeared from view. Erin pulled her lank hair out of the ponytail holder and grimaced over the twigs and knots running through it. “God, what I would give for a shower. Think that place has got any running water?”

  Jess just shrugged. She was too tired to think. Jacob fussed at her breast and she patted his back rhythmically until he settled down and began to nurse steadily. In the months and years that would follow this day Jess would wake screaming. She would wonder over and over why she didn’t stop Erin or David. Her exhaustion, coupled with lack of preparedness from Erin and the curiosity of youth from David would be their undoing on that hot, fall day. Jess didn’t see what was coming, didn’t recognize that they had all cheated death, for far too long. She said nothing as Erin stretched, grimaced over her grimy state, and set the .22 Rimfire on the ground next to Jess. “I’m going to go with him and just see what’s over there. I’ll be back soon.”

  She disappeared into the overgrown field of grass and the tattered remnants of last year’s corn. Tina turned over, rubbed her face against Jess’s leg and burrowed closer. The heavy curtain of sleep began to steal over Jess as Jacob’s lips fell from her breast and his breathi
ng deepened into sleep. Moments ticked by.

  It was still light when Jess heard the scream. The sun had slipped below the horizon, and there was little light left in the sky. From this distance it was wordless, impossible to be sure what she had heard, but she was sure it was Erin. Quincy had just returned with a large rabbit in her jaws, its furry legs were still kicking. The dog turned in the direction of the farmhouse, dropped the rabbit onto the ground and began to growl steadily.

  It was enough to wake Tina as well and she jerked to a sitting position and looked around in confusion for her brother.

  “Tina, listen to me. Take the baby and be very quiet.” Jess pointed to a tree in the distance, “Go to that tree and wait for us to find you. I’m going to go find your brother and Erin.”

  The little girl nodded and Jess quickly wrapped her son in a sling around Tina, praying the little girl wouldn’t trip and fall. “Take it slow, okay? And be very quiet!”

  “Quincy,” she turned to the dog, “Stay with Tina. Stay, girl!” The dog let out a mournful whine and looked agitated, but she obeyed.

  She grabbed the rifle, gave the little girl a small push in the right direction and then turned and ran, keeping as low as she could, towards the old farmhouse. Whatever the trouble was, she was headed straight for it.

  She was within thirty feet of the farmhouse when the first shot rang out. Another ten feet out when the second shot came and then she was inside, no hesitation, bullet in the chamber, finger on the trigger and the adrenaline pumping through her.