The Last Orchard [Book Two] Page 15

  It reminded Charlie of the boogeyman when he was younger. That faceless creature that lived beneath the bed, striking fear into the heart of anyone who gave it life. It was a phase that every child experienced growing up, but it helped instill a degree of fear about the unknown.

  Perhaps it was just human nature, never truly knowing what lay beyond in the darkness. But while Charlie didn’t know when the enemy would arrive, he knew what was waiting for him back home. Liz and Adelyn were the only things he had left. And who knows, maybe his mother would finally come around, but he wasn’t going to hold his breath.

  “Hey,” Nick said, stirring from his motionless position. “You hear that?”

  His words caught the attention of everyone in their area, and Charlie glanced up toward the night sky, squinting as if that would help him see more clearly.

  “You’re not fucking with us, right?” Shelly asked.

  “Just listen,” Nick said.

  Everyone leaned forward, the night still as dead silent as Charlie would have thought, and the moment dragged on, but then Charlie heard it on the breeze.

  “Plane!” The shout came from down the line, and the decree was immediately followed with a frantic panic of searching the skies.

  The hum of the propeller plane grew louder, but Charlie couldn’t pinpoint the section above. And with his focus on the sky, Charlie missed the first few gunshots from the horde of terrorists lurching toward them from the field of battle.

  The gunshots were nothing more than firecracker pops at first, but after the first few bangs, the world dissolved into nothing but screams and gunfire.

  Bullets darted through the night, most of them aimless, like shooting the fake monsters in the night. People were firing based off of fear instead of fortitude and action, but Charlie peered through the scope of his rifle, waiting until he had an enemy in his sights.

  He pivoted left and spied a dozen men heading their way. “On the left!” He shouted the order right before he opened fire, dropping a man on the wing to the ground.

  The cluster of terrorists hastened their sprint, spreading out and making it harder for Charlie to shoot, but he brought down one, then two, then three people. As he pivoted his aim between the approaching enemy, he realized that none of them held any rifles.

  Charging with no weapons was suicide, but when Charlie pivoted between the fighters, he finally saw the bomb in one of their hands. Charlie adjusted his aim, the crosshairs bouncing left and right as he tried to adjust for the terrorist’s sporadic, serpentine sprint.

  He fired, missing once, missing twice, the terrorist less than thirty yards from him now. “Someone bring him down!” Charlie shouted as the terrorist screamed, one final cry before he would blow himself up, along with anyone in his path.

  The terrorists raised the bomb high above his head and cocked his arm back in preparation to throw, while Charlie struggled to line up his shot, the man growing larger in his scope until he couldn’t even find him anymore. He peeled his eye off and turned his head away just as a gunshot rang out, followed quickly by the explosion of the terrorist’s bomb.

  The earth rattled from the blast, shaking Charlie and throwing him off balance, but he turned back to the field and saw the crater carved into the ground. He looked to his right and saw Shelly, rifle still poised to shoot.

  Shelly peeled her eye away from the weapon and then winked at Charlie. “We got your back, boss.”

  Charlie smiled and then returned his attention to the battle, picking off the enemy one by one. They were outnumbered, but with the open field in front of them, the terrorists had no option but to make a mad sprint toward the front lines to try and break through, and while they never stopped in their attempts, their pile of dead grew taller and taller on the field of battle.

  Piles of shell casings rose on either side of Charlie, firing round after round into the enemy screaming toward him.

  But eventually the enemy stopped.

  Dripping in sweat and his joints aching, Charlie strained his eyes through the scope one last time, scanning the field of battle for any more hostiles that were trying to make their way up the power plant, but he found nothing.

  “Is that all those bastards have?” Nick asked, panting from the adrenaline rush. “I expected more from them and their last stand.”

  But while Nick looked to the ground, both Shelly and Jason had their eyes toward the sky. “Dixon said they only shot down two of the planes.”

  And then a faint buzz echoed through the night sky. Every head turned toward the darkness above, the noise of the prop plane getting closer.

  “This is it,” Charlie said, quickly finishing his reload and aiming the weapon toward the sky. “Keep your eyes sharp!”

  “I don’t see anything!”

  “Where’s it coming from?”

  “What if there’s more than one?”

  The questions were thrown from the mouths of nervous soldiers, but Charlie kept his attention toward the sky. The cloud cover made it nearly impossible to spot anything in the darkness, the world blanketed in nothing but pitch black.

  “Eyes up!” Charlie said, the roar of the propeller growing louder and louder against the night sky. It was getting closer, and the louder it became, the more anxious Charlie grew. He knew that the moment the aircraft broke through the clouds, there would be only seconds before the enemy decided to blow up the power plant.

  “On the left!”

  Charlie pivoted toward the voice, scanning the stretch of darkness above, unable to spot the aircraft right away, but hearing the gunshots fired from the other soldiers. While they fired sporadically, Charlie waited for a shot.

  Finally, he spied a blurred object less than one thousand feet in the air. He brought it within his crosshairs as it moved within five hundred yards of the power plant. He fired, the bullet screaming into the night, but still the object progressed.

  “Fuck,” Charlie whispered, again struggling to track the shot in the darkness.

  “Boss?” Shelly asked.

  “I’ve got it.” Charlie lined up the shot again and pulled the trigger. The bullet screamed into the night, but still the plane kept coming. He lined up again. Pulled the trigger. Miss.

  Less than two hundred yards.

  He fired again. Miss.

  One hundred yards.

  “It’s still in the air!”

  There must have been thousands of bullets screaming toward it in the night, and twice Charlie heard the blast of rockets toward the sky, but still the engine of the plane continued to roar against the night sky.

  Charlie lined up the shot again, this time waiting, continuing to track the shot. It was nearly overhead now, and the first bomb had dropped, landing on a cluster of soldiers, the ground shaking beneath Charlie and disrupting his aim. But he found it quickly and exhaled, letting his muscles relax. It was like his father had always taught him. Don’t fight the shot.

  “Charlie!” Shelly cried.

  And then just as another whistling drop of a bomb came hurtling close, Charlie squeezed the trigger. But he never got a chance to watch the plane go down after the explosion went off.

  20

  He woke up with a pounding headache, but after his vision adjusted, he was glad to find a familiar face hovering above.

  “Hey.” Liz smiled and pressed a warm hand against his cheek. “Glad to see you up.”

  The fog of sleep hadn’t fully been lifted, and Charlie wasn’t sure how long it took for him to get up and off the ground, but he jolted up to his elbows, his body aching in defiance from the sudden motion. “The power plant.”

  “It’s still there,” Liz said. “The west end of the building got scorched, but the blast didn’t affect any of the working components.” She smiled, shrugging in almost disbelief.

  The news washed over Charlie slowly. He rested his head back down on the pillow. He closed his eyes. It was done. He reached for Liz’s hand and squeezed. When he opened his eyes, his vision was distorted by th
e tears that welled up in his eyes.

  After the moment passed, Charlie cleared his throat. “What about the orchard?”

  “Dixon made good on his promise with supplies,” Liz answered. “We got aid delivered this morning. Tents. Food. Water. Medicine.” She nodded. “You did it.”

  “This morning?” Charlie asked. “How long have I been out?”

  “Almost forty-eight hours,” Liz answered. “Doc said you had a concussion.”

  “You should be thankful for that hard head your father gave you.”

  Charlie turned toward the door and saw Doc in the doorway. He had his arms crossed, still sporting that grizzly white beard and wild hair. He looked tired. But it was the first time Charlie had seen Doc smile in a long time when the twins weren’t around.

  “Thanks, Doc,” Charlie said.

  “Oh, don’t thank me,” Doc said. “It was your crew that pulled you out of the hellhole. I just made sure you didn’t die on my table.” He raised his eyebrows. “Liz would have killed me.”

  Liz laughed and mouthed thank you to Doc as he turned and walked out of the room, once again leaving the pair alone.

  “So what’s happening with—”

  Liz pressed her finger to his lips and shook her head. “Rest. Business can wait. You’ve done enough.” She kissed him again before he could respond and then left the room.

  It wasn’t until she left that Charlie realized that he was in a hospital room. The Mayfield hospital. He turned to the window and saw the trees and green of the world outside. It was bright, and Charlie tried to fathom getting out of bed and walking outside and realizing that things were going to be returned to the way they were.

  But the longer he lingered on that thought, the more he knew that it wasn’t exactly true. While he would still be able to get his orchard back and return home, his father was still dead. And his mother wasn’t the same woman.

  “I didn’t realize you were awake.”

  Charlie’s heart skipped a beat when he saw his mother standing in the doorway. She looked tired, older than even before Charlie left, which he didn’t know was even possible. She crossed the threshold and walked to Charlie’s bed.

  He stiffened, inching away from his mother as she approached the bed. She folded her hands together, examining the bandage on his head. “Does it hurt?”

  “What do you want, Mom?” Charlie asked.

  A sad smile spread across his mother’s face, and she nodded. “I suppose that’s all that matters now, isn’t it? Getting to the point.” Her mouth twitched, and an expression of sorrow appeared on her face. It had more pain than Charlie realized. She twisted her arthritic hands, her eyes searching the white tile for help, but received nothing. “You’ve had a hard year, Charlie. It’s been a life that has worn you down, and it forced you to be something that was unnatural to you.” She looked him in the eye. “And I know I didn’t help you steer away from that. In fact, I encouraged you down that path.”

  Charlie laughed, shaking his head. “And so what? You’re telling me that I don’t have to be like that anymore? Mom, it’s not like turning a light switch on and off.”

  “No,” Martha said. “It’s not.” She stepped closer, her waist pressed against the side of the cot. “But I know that while you think you can come back on your own, you can’t. Just like I can’t go back—” Her lips quivered, and she choked on her own words. She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter now. Not anymore.” She wiped her eye, but Charlie couldn’t be sure if it was just for show. She looked at him, that familiar steel gaze returning to her face, and she raised her eyebrows. “You have a new family now, Charlie. Liz and Adelyn, they need you to be the man you were before all of this. The kind, forgiving man. Your father was that kind of a man. And I know that I can’t be your family.”

  Charlie twisted the hem of the sheets. “You can’t?”

  Martha looked at him, her eyes watering. “I didn’t think you wanted that anymore.”

  “Well,” Charlie answered. “If I’m supposed to go back to the man I was before, then I’ll need the woman who helped raise that man.”

  And with those final words Martha broke, twisting her face up in grief, the tears breaking free and rolling down her cheeks. “What if I don’t remember?”

  Charlie reached for his mother’s hand and squeezed. “Then I’ll help you. And you help me.”

  Martha nodded and then reached for her only son, her first born, and wrapped him in a tight hug, crying. The pair stayed like that for a while, and Charlie took his first step back toward the man that he had always wanted to be. And when he finally stepped out of the hospital, he’d be entering a world where that was a possibility.

  21

  One Year Later

  Charlie finished attaching the trailer to the truck, the rusted chains clanking together, his face red and sweat peppering his face from the awkward position. “All right!” he shouted, and then stepped out from between the truck and trailer, wiping his hands on his blue jeans. “You’re all set.”

  Mario shook Charlie’s hand, smiling. “Thank you, Charlie. For everything.”

  Maria kissed him on the cheek, and the kids wrapped their arms around Charlie’s legs.

  Charlie laughed. “Let me know when you make it home, and enjoy the time off. You’ve earned it.” He stepped back, letting Mario and his family get into the vehicle. He waved as they drove off Doc’s property, and Mario was the last trailer to leave the three homes.

  He turned around, glancing at all of the open space. He’d forgotten what it had looked like without all of the trailers and mobile homes. It was like the earth finally had a chance to breathe again. And so did Charlie.

  He walked back toward the house, reveling in the freedom. He veered toward the nursery of trees that they had planted in the spring. All of them had taken root, and Charlie touched the leaves of the new growth. It would be a few years before they were fully grown, but Charlie had managed to find a few already-grown trees to transplant to help supplement their income until they were mature enough to produce fruit.

  Out of the fields, he passed the skeleton structure of the barn. He tore down the old one months ago, and Charlie was less than a week away from putting the roof on. After that, it was just putting up the siding for the walls and painting it.

  Adelyn was out back playing with Martha, Liz watching them through the back porch. They had bubbles, and both were chasing each other with them. It was the most playful thing he’d seen his mother do in a long time. She was finally starting to get back to normal.

  “At least I don’t have to worry about you guys hurting yourselves with those things,” Charlie said as both women turned their assault on him. “Besides getting some soap in your eye.”

  “It’s fun!” Adelyn exclaimed.

  “That may be, but it’s time for dinner.” Charlie kissed the top of her head and gave her a helpful shove toward the house. “Go get washed up.”

  “Fine.” Adelyn slouched her shoulders, but Martha offered one last shot across the bow, sending a stream of bubbles against Adelyn’s ears, and she giggled, sprinting toward the back kitchen.

  Martha smiled. “She’s got a lot of spunk.”

  “That she does,” Charlie said, then looked to his mother. “Thank you for trying with her.”

  Martha nodded. “She’s my granddaughter.” The word had been easier for her to say over the past few months, and there was a hint of a smile whenever she spoke the title.

  “Martha, can you come and get this out of the oven?” Liz said, stepping out from the back porch.

  “Speaking of children,” Martha smiled, heading toward Liz, who stepped down, well, more waddled down as Martha entered to help finish dinner.

  Liz kept both hands on her growing stomach and squinted from the setting sun, which had bathed her in gold. “What are you looking at?”

  Charlie walked to her, then placed his hands on her stomach and kissed her lips.

  “Mm-hmm,” Liz said.
/>   Charlie laughed. “What?”

  “You’ve got something up your sleeve, Charlie Decker.” Liz examined him with a curious eye, but couldn’t hide the smile. “What are you thinking about?”

  Charlie looked back out onto the fields and the fresh growth. It was a new world, and Charlie was thankful to have survived long enough to see it bright and fresh. He turned back to the house and saw his mother and Adelyn setting the table, the pair still giggling about their bubble fight.

  “Hey,” Liz said. “You all right?”

  “I’m fine,” Charlie answered. “It’s just nice thinking about tomorrow.”

  Thank you so much for taking the time to read my story!

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