This Fallen World, page 22
part #1 of Fallen World Series
I knew that he was probably right, at least in part. Maybe he could kill me but he would have rude surprise if he went after Jimmy. Right now, someone had to stand up for that twelve-year-old girl. I knew what my position on the farms was and what my job was. It was my job to be the one to stand for her. “You talk a lot for a bad ass. You want to kill me, get to it. I got shit to do.”
I think he expected me to back down, or maybe beg, and it took a second for what I said to register. Then his hand shot toward the pistol on his side.
I reached for my .45. He was wicked fast but his pistol was only halfway drawn when my first bullet hit him in the hip. He was a big man and it rocked him back but he kept drawing. My second shot hit him in the stomach and the third hit his chest. He couldn’t seem to raise the pistol past the position he held it, but I continued firing. I knew what I’d done in the past with bullets in me, and I intended to put enough lead in this bastard to sink him in the ground without digging a hole. He was a damn monster, and he had been living in our very midst.
My pistol was empty, and I dropped the mag to slam another in place with the pistol ready to continue, but he was done.
I looked to the left to find several shocked faces. Holis Drager was one of them, and his face had gone as white as a sheet. I think he was remembering a time when he thought about raising his rifle.
Two were the newest additions to the farms, Curtis, and I think the other was Lassiter. Curtis was shocked, but Lassiter didn’t seem phased. He just watched the big man die.
Another was someone who shouldn’t have had to watch what had just happened. Gail Fontaine was standing near the corner of the building that her dad had walked around. She sank to her knees, and I took a step toward her only to hear her sob in fear. Gary walked by me and knelt in front of the girl. She let him help her but all she saw in me was the one who killed her dad. No matter what he had done, he was still all she had left in this Fallen World.
* * * * *
Chapter 17
“By the power vested in me by the state of…” the preacher said, “I guess that part doesn’t matter anymore, does it?”
I shrugged, “Probably not.”
“Then I’ll say by the grace of God, I now pronounce you Husband and Wife.” He grinned. “You may kiss the bride.”
“Not sure about that,” I said as Neave squeezed my hand. “She may bite me.”
She was grinding her teeth as she shuddered with the contraction.
“I’ll…bite you…if you don’t…” she said between the moments of our little one trying to punch and kick its way out of her. “Definitely…your kid.”
I bent down to kiss her sweat-soaked face.
“I…love you…Zee Pratt.” She groaned as the next contraction hit her.
“Almost time now,” Doc said.
Delilah joined him at the end of the table. “What can I do?”
“Just be ready to hold the child where I can cut the cord.”
“And I love you, Neave Pratt,” I whispered in her ear.
Tears sprang from her eyes and, I can’t lie, I shed a few, too.
“Now it’s time, Neave,” Doc said. “You’re gonna have to push as hard as you can when I say.”
I saw her nod.
“Push, girl! Push!”
She screamed as she pushed and squeezed my hand harder.
“You can do it, Mrs. Pratt,” I whispered in her ear again.
“Breathe!” Doc said. “And now again, push!”
I’d killed men, been shot more times than I like to think about, breached buildings under steady fire, and nothing made me as weak in the knees as I was at that moment.
“I see it!” Delilah squealed.
“Almost there, girl! One big push left!”
One last scream as she pushed, and I saw Doc’s face go from concentration to joy.
“I’ve got her, Neave.”
Neave was crying, and I was too.
“Her?” Neave asked.
Then it hit me what Doc had said.
Oh my God, I thought in a state of shock. I have a daughter. I have a little girl.
I’m sure I missed some of what happened next. The next thing I remembered was Deli placing a wrapped bundle of crying baby in Neave’s arms. People say newborns are not pretty, but I was looking down at the most beautiful thing I had ever laid eyes on. Perhaps one of the most beautiful things in the world. When I saw her eyes, I couldn’t stop the huge smile that crossed my face.
Some have said my eyes were pretty striking when seen by others. I now knew this to be true because I was looking right into those same piercing silver-grey eyes.
* * *
“He shoots like Pete,” Lamb said.
Terry Lamb was our shooting instructor.
“I know,” I said. “He can’t hit the broadside of a barn.”
“You see that hesitation?”
“Yeah.” I frowned. “Right before he shoots. Every time.”
The guy we were talking about was the new guy, Lassiter. He finished shooting his allotment of practice shells. Maybe one out of five hit the target.
“We can’t afford to use the bullets it’s going to take to get him shooting straight,” I said.
“I know.”
“Well, I’m not letting that get me down, Lamb,” I said with a huge grin. “I have a baby girl!”
“Congratulations, by the way. What did you name her?”
“Allison, after Neave’s mother. Allison Marie Pratt.”
He grinned. “It feels good, doesn’t it?”
“It’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before, Lamb.”
“That feeling will change a man,” he said. “It’s the greatest feeling and the most frightening at the same time. I remember when we had Twiggy. He was my first child. It was an overwhelming sense of awe, I think, that I felt when I looked at that baby boy. It wasn’t as overwhelming when Mia came along, but it was still there. It’s worse now with the world as it is, but this place is the closest we could ever find to a normal life. I hate to think of my kids’ chance of survival in the city.”
“New folks keep telling us what it was like getting out of there. The death toll, alone, is staggering. There were millions of people living in that place. We’ve seen perhaps a thousand refugees that have made it out. The food is getting scarce, and they’re killing each other. If not for the huge losses of lives, the food would have run out months ago.”
“If there was some way we could help them…” he said, letting the partial statement just taper off.
“I know,” I said. “We have good storage for the dry goods, but that place would go through our supplies in weeks. For us to help them, we would have to expand our farms tenfold, maybe more.”
“We don’t have the equipment to do that,” he said. “Nor the manpower. Although our numbers grow each day.”
“They say Spriggs has the power plant working now but they have to restring some of the power lines and cut some of the others to make it safe to flip the switches,” I said. “Some of the newest equipment was electric. Once we get a steady power source, we might be able to expand the crops. We seriously got lucky with the fuel tanks being full. Got the crops harvested before we ran out. The electric equipment was down almost immediately. I for, for one, am glad we all hadn’t upgraded yet.”
“How are the solar cells Spriggs got working doing?” he asked.
“So far, they’re running the infirmary. If he has to use some of the bigger equipment, they may not keep up.”
“Too bad he couldn’t run the air conditioning.”
I nodded. “If all goes right, we should have full power in a couple of weeks. Air conditioning sounds wonderful. And electric heat for the upcoming winter. That’s just around the corner. We should get a drop in temperature soon.”
“And the wells will be working again,” he said. “I can take a damn hot shower again.”
“I miss my bath tub,” I said. “Washing in the river is not as fun as one would think.”
“If I do the math right, washing in the river was a lot more fun nine months ago.”
“You do have a point.” I laughed. “I’m off to the dam. Maybe Spriggs has the plant ready early. That sure would be a wonder.”
“No doubt.” Lamb nodded. “Make sure you kiss that little girl goodbye before you go. Never leave without doing that. I made it a point to spend time with mine before every deployment, short or long.”
“That’s a good habit to have, Lamb.”
“A memory like that can get a person through the lonely times on the trail,” he said.
I nodded and headed toward the corral to fetch Dagger. Seems like I’m the only one who rides the big black horse. Many are scared of him after the skirmishes we had gone through. To them, he was a killer after those fights. To me, a partner. Many of them looked at me the same way after the gunfight in the street. They knew of what I had done before, but this was out in front of everyone. Truth be told, they’re right. I came back from the war with a skill that has no use in everyday life. It was what I was good at. Neave showed me I could be something else.
Dagger was excited to see me and tore across the pasture at a full run. We played this game every time. I stood grinning as he skidded to a halt inches from me. Then he started sniffing at various pockets. His nose stopped at one and he pushed at the vest I wore under the coat. I opened the pocket where a mag would normally rest and pulled out a carrot. We had only gotten a few to grow, and I would get yelled at by half the people in the compound if they saw it. Dagger gleefully munched on the orange vegetable. It was worth it to me to give up my ration of carrots for the horse. It was a small thing that brought forth memories of better days and many snacks for him. Much like the memory of kissing Ally’s little forehead did for me.
Memories like that could fill many a lonely day in this Fallen World.
* * * * *
Chapter 18
The air had a distinct chill as the sun dipped down toward the horizon. This was part of what I had been dreading. Winter was upon us and there would be plenty of cold nights ahead of us. We’d had an abnormally long summer after the bombs fell. They may have made our weather shift to something different. Who knew what sort of differences they would make? At least they had been cleaner than many of the old bombs that had been owned by the Federal Government before they were seized by the Corporations. There was radiation where they had fallen, but it was much more localized. Of course there had been a lot of damn bombs. I guess if winter was going to be shorter, who was I to complain?
The sun sank below the horizon but I could see brightness in the distance. The power was on at the dam, and you could see it for miles. I had become accustomed to the darkness of our nights and the lights looked out of place. But I could feel something that I hadn’t felt in a long time as I looked toward those lights. Hope.
Dagger snorted and lowered his head to reach for something on the side of the trail. His head came up and I heard a juicy crunch after he snagged something from the ground.
“Whoa, boy,” I said as I smelled apple.
He stopped as half of an apple thudded on the ground. He reached back down and grabbed it.
I dismounted and returned to the spot he’d found the apple. After searching in the darkness for a few minutes, I found another. As the moon slipped over the horizon and a soft light filled the night, I saw the apple tree.
Now that was a find and a half. I guess no one had come this way before. Pure luck and a greedy horse had found this one. I pulled a grain sack from my saddle bags and began picking up apples. By the time I had cleaned up the ground the sack was stuffed.
Tying the bag closed, I hefted the sack up onto Dagger’s back.
“Looks like I’m walking the rest of the way,” I said and pulled a second bag from the saddle bags. This one was smaller but it would hold another fifty pounds of apples.
“Going to be some happy people, boy,” I said and patted the horse’s neck.
I loaded the other bag onto his back and fed him another apple. “Alright, let’s get back to the mission.”
I walked away from the apple tree toward the glow in the distance. Those lights meant so much more than they would have a year or so ago. Maybe… just maybe we could get some of that back.
I was met at the gates by a sentry.
“Zee,” David Kalet said with a grin.
“Kalet.” I nodded. “How goes it?”
“We have power again,” he said. “I’d say it goes very well.”
I looked at the lighted building ahead. “I’d say it does.”
Pulling an apple from my coat pocket, I threw it to the guard. “Found a bag or two of these. Well, my greedy horse found them.”
“Oh, my,” he said as he caught the apple. “Haven’t had any apples in over a year. Used to be the most common thing in the grocery store. Almost never bought them. Funny, that.”
“I’ve noticed the same thing,” I said. “You could always find apples and bananas at the grocery store. Finding a banana tree would be something.”
“It would have to be in a greenhouse or something,” he said. “They grow in the tropics.”
“Maybe I’ll start looking for greenhouses.” I grinned and led Dagger through the gate. “God I would love a banana…or an orange.”
He bit into the apple. Through his happy chewing, he said, “Apples are enough.”
“Yep,” I said and led Dagger toward the main plant. The other side of the building looked over the drop down to the river below. The dam was close to a hundred feet tall at its highest point. The lower plant was where the electricity was channeled through the wires, or would be when the switches would be tripped.
The upper plant was where the controls for the dam’s systems could be found. More than likely, it was where I would find Spriggs.
Dismounting, I pulled the first bag from the horse’s back and set it inside of the door. The hum of machinery brought a smile to my face. Returning, I grabbed the smaller bag.
“Can’t trust you won’t eat a whole bag, Fatty.”
Dagger snorted.
I pulled another apple from my pocket and fed it to him. “One more won’t hurt you though.”
I left the horse chewing happily on another apple and carried the sack inside with me. Again, the sound of the machinery brought a smile to my face. The temperature in the building was comfortable, and I realized how much I had missed the climate control of electricity.
I just stood there for a moment and soaked the experience in.
“Remarkable how you can get lost in something we all took for granted a year or so back,” Spriggs said from behind me. I hadn’t heard him approach.
That was one thing the noise interfered with. But a minor thing in the midst of a facility full of friendlies.
“Don’t I know it,” I said. “Just the sound of the machinery is comforting.”
“Yep.”
“Brought something for you and your guys,” I said as I turned toward the man.
“Are those apples?”
“Dagger found a tree along the way.”
“That marvelous horse,” he said with a grin.
I handed the sack of fruit to him.
“Thank you,” he said. “I’m pretty sure the rest will feel the same.”
“I filled a couple of sacks,” I said. “Going to take one back with me to the Farms.”
“It will make a lot of happy people,” he said. “But I think I can do one better.”
“Oh yeah? Better than a sack of apples?”
“I’m going to give them air conditioning and heat again.”
“That’s certainly better than a sack of apples,” I said. “Are you moving up the time table?”
“We got the lines finished early,” he said. “Thought it would be a good idea to get the heat on again since it’s starting to get cold.”
“At least all that wood I chopped won’t go to waste,” I said. “All the new structures are built without wiring.”
“Now we can start building new stuff with power tools, as well.”
“Oh, that’s going to be nice. I bet Archie kisses you.”
“That grizzly-bear looking bastard better not.”
“Just warning you. You’re giving a carpenter back his power tools. No telling how he’s going to react.”
“As long as he doesn’t kiss me, we’ll be fine.”
“You’re about to make some happy folks, Kal. Or are you going by Dynamo? Everyone keeps calling you that.”
His shoulders slumped. “I know. I’ve always hated that name but you don’t ever get to choose your call sign. It’s usually chosen for you.”
“I, for one, will say you’re doing amazing things out here. And they could have chosen a much worse name.”
“Not sure about that.”
“They could have picked some fantasy movie character…what was his name? Oh yeah, Smeagel. Little weird-looking bald guy with some issues.”
“I remember that movie, one of the classics,” he said. “How long have you been waiting to work that into a conversation?”
“From the day I met you.” I laughed.
“Asshole.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sure,” he said with a grin.
I laughed. “I guess I’ll start back. You already answered what I came here to find out.”
“Wait till the morning,” he said. “Enjoy a night with electricity. Perhaps a hot bath.”
“Oh my God, a hot bath?” I replied. “Twist my arm, won’t you.”
“Enjoy the moments when you can do things like that, Zee,” he said with a serious tone. “There are way too few of them in this Fallen World.”
* * * * *
Chapter 19
I stood out in the square with a huge grin on my face. It was probably a good thing that it was dark because I didn’t want to give anything away about what was going to happen. Candles lit several windows around the compound with a dim, flickering light.
