The Last Orchard_Book 1_The Last Orchard Read online

  “No, it’s full.”

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Dixon picked the bike up, and Charlie and Harold watched him leave.

  “You think it’s a good idea letting him take the other bike?” Harold asked.

  “If it weren’t for him, we wouldn’t have a bike to even give away,” Charlie answered, then looked to the dead man in their barn. “And we’re going to need the help.”

  4

  It was evening by the time Mario and the other workers returned with their families, hauling whatever belongings they could carry in backpacks and bags, or wagons and baskets. In total, the Decker Orchard added twenty folks, which included five children.

  Martha was at the front door, blankets and pillows ready, greeting them with water and directions toward their rooms. “Maria, you and your kids can take the room upstairs at the end of the hall, it’s on the left.”

  Maria nodded her thanks as she shuffled her kids into the house, the three of them squabbling amongst themselves over a ziplock bag of Fruit Loops. She snatched the bag from her eldest’s hands and turned them all to face Martha. “You thank Senora Decker for letting us stay here.”

  All three children looked up, each of them with brown eyes and jet black hair, speaking at the same time in the same practiced and polite tone. “Thank you, Senora Decker.”

  Martha smiled. “You’re very welcome. And you listen to your mother while you’re here, and make sure you give her the help that she needs.” She ushered them forward and then winked at Maria as she walked past.

  “Everybody here?” Charlie asked, sneaking up the porch.

  “I think so,” Martha answered. “Your father has the men around back.” She crossed her arms, and the smile she wore for the children faded. “He’s showing them the rifles.”

  Charlie nodded, then walked around the house instead of through it, letting the families get settled.

  Harold Decker was a smart man, and a proud one. Both were requirements to run your own business, especially when it came to farming. But laced between those virtues was a stubbornness that had cost Harold more than he would have cared to admit over his lifetime.

  And while Charlie was certain his father could hold his own, he’d seen the kind of weaponry the terrorists were wielding firsthand. Rifles and shotguns could only do so much against automatic AK-47s, assault rifles, and grenades.

  The barn doors were open, and Harold had Mario and four other men gathered around one of his work tables. He held a rifle, keeping the chamber open and showing them how to reload.

  “It holds three, so you’ll need to make your shots count,” Harold said. “Anyone have any experience with firearms before?”

  Heads shook in response, and Harold waved it off.

  “We’ll do some practice in the morning.”

  “Hey, Dad.”

  Charlie stepped up from behind them, garnering nods of respect as they made a space for him at the opposite end of the table where his father stood. Every rifle they owned was spread across the stained and splintered wood. Remingtons, Rugers, Winchester, each of them in a different make and model than its counterpart.

  Harold picked up the Remington .223 and extended it down the table to Charlie. “You want to show them how it works?”

  Charlie grabbed the rifle, the weapon a good weight in his hands. He glanced up and found every eye on him, including his father, and he set the rifle down. “Could you guys give me a minute with my dad?”

  The group nodded. Mario led his crew, shaking Harold’s hand before they left, each of them again giving their thanks for their family’s hospitality before turning for the house, their Spanish growing softer until it disappeared.

  Harold set the long-rifled Winchester down and wiped his palms along the front of his dirty overalls. “Everything all right, son?”

  “Dad, we need to think about how we’re going to handle this,” Charlie answered, planting both palms on the table.

  Harold looked at him. “That’s what I was showing Mario and the others. Those guys are coming back and we need to be prepared.”

  “And we will be, but we don’t have a platoon of soldiers at our backs.” Charlie stepped around the table, walking toward his father. “We have a group of farm hands that have never fired a weapon in their lives.”

  “Well, we’re going to show them how to use it first!” Harold tossed his hands up. “Those boys need to know how to defend themselves.”

  “I’m not disagreeing with you, but I know how you get, and I know what’s going to happen if those guys come back.” Charlie pushed himself off the table and stepped around the side. “You’ll want to charge full steam ahead, and it’s going to get you, and anyone that goes with you, killed.”

  “This is our home, Charlie!” Harold roared, then pointed east. “They’re just a bunch of cowards in masks too afraid to show their faces.”

  “Dad, you heard the same conversation with that fighter that I did,” Charlie said. “They are trained military forces, and they will not quit their mission. If they do come back, then we need something better than charging full steam ahead. We need a strategy.” He took a breath. “And that’s something we should talk about before we start shoving guns in people’s hands.”

  Charlie studied his father’s expression, unsure if there was a hint of agreement beneath that stoic glare.

  “It’s important for us to have a united front on this,” Charlie said. “Mario and the rest of the crew are going to look to us, and if they don’t think we’re on the same page, then their trust in us will start to waver. You’re always telling me that strong leadership requires cooperation amongst management, right?”

  Harold shifted his weight back and forth between his legs, and Charlie hoped that throwing the old man’s wisdom back at him would help bring him around. “Never thought you were listening when I said that.” He relaxed a little bit, but his expression retained its frown. “You think that your military friend will make it back?”

  “I think if he can come back, then he will,” Charlie answered.

  But Charlie knew that Dixon was limited to the orders his commanding officers gave him, and the military had to think of the whole, not the individual. And if Charlie’s little stretch of farmland wasn’t a strategic area to secure, then Charlie and his family would be on their own for quite a while. But he was hoping the power plant at Mayfield would change that.

  “So,” Harold said, regarding his son. “What kind of unified message will we be sending?”

  Charlie swallowed the ball of nerves caught in his throat then crossed his arms. “The biggest advantage that we have is the knowledge of the area. We know the land, we know the people. We’ll establish a lookout schedule, someone always keeping watch, round the clock. And we only engage in a fight with the enemy if we know we can win. The moment those guys see our inexperience, they’ll bum rush us.”

  “Do we have the numbers for round the clock guards?” Harold asked.

  “It’ll be some long days, but we should be able to manage if everyone pitches in to help.” Charlie planted his fists on his hips and exhaled, as if he could feel the work already beating him down.

  “We’ll have to get a handle on our food stock,” Harold said, sliding into Charlie’s line of thinking. “The moment supplies start to run low, we’re going to be in trouble.” He gestured toward the house. “With all of those folks in the house, we’ll blow through our cellar pretty quick.”

  Charlie nodded in agreement. “We can hunt in the woods, and Mario spent some time on the fishing boats, so maybe he could help us set nets in the river.” He turned to his father. “We should say something before everyone goes to bed tonight.”

  Harold nodded and clapped his son on the back. “I think I’ll leave that to you, my boy.” He laughed. “I’ve been waiting for you to run the show since you got back from college.” He threw his arm around his son’s shoulder and squeezed him into his body. “Glad to see you wanting to be a leader, son.” />
  Charlie mirrored his father’s smile. “Thanks, Dad.”

  “I’ll meet you inside.”

  He watched his father stumble toward the house, his big body swinging back and forth. His dad didn’t get around as well as he used to, and truth be told, he couldn’t do much around the farm other than supervise, but no one made a fuss about it. There wasn’t anyone else that Charlie knew who had worked harder than his father over the course of his lifetime.

  Harold had poured tireless hours into the land that surrounded him. Day in and day out for nearly forty years, starting at fifteen when he dropped out of high school to help his family with the orchard full time.

  Charlie would have done the same if it hadn’t been for his parents. He still helped, of course, but not at the sacrifice of his schoolwork. His parents had placed a big bet on him when they sent him off to college. And it was a bet that was finally paying dividends, at least up until yesterday.

  The EMP had thrown their future into a different type of uncertainty. It was uncharted waters and filled with dangers that Charlie couldn’t even imagine.

  When Charlie returned to the house, he heard the chatter from their new guests through the back-screen door before he even stepped inside. He paused at the back steps, listening to the voices inside. And despite the hardship of the day, he smiled at their laughter.

  Charlie entered, finding Mario, the workers, and their wives gathered in the living room, the women sitting while the men stood. It was Mario who noticed Charlie first and hushed the group.

  “I hope everyone is settled in,” Charlie said.

  “We are,” Mario said. “Thank you, Senor Decker.”

  “Yes,” Maria replied, echoing her husband’s thanks. “We are very grateful for your family’s generosity.”

  “It’s our pleasure,” Martha said, smiling next to Harold. “And you’re all welcome to stay as long as this…” she waved her hands around through the air as she struggled to find the words, “thing goes on.”

  “And do we know how long this will last?” Mario asked, acting as the mouthpiece for the other workers. “No power? No cars? Nothing? This—” he frowned, struggling with the pronunciation. “E-M-P, caused all of this?”

  “The truth is we don’t know how long this is going to last,” Charlie said. “But we should be planning for the long term.”

  “But the power will come back on, right?” Antonio stepped from the corner of the room, hands in his pockets, his open shirt exposing the harsh tan lines from the neck up.

  “We don’t know that either,” Charlie answered. “And I’m not going to give you answers that I don’t have. The power is off. But, we do have food and water here, which I can tell you is a lot better off than most of the people I saw on my escape from Seattle. We have provisions in our cellar, and the forest holds plenty of game. But there is a bigger threat than just the power being shut off.”

  Charlie crossed his arms and stepped closer to the center of the room.

  “The people responsible for this are dangerous,” Charlie said. “If they come back, they’re not going to leave us alive.”

  “You want us to fight them?” Antonio asked, bunching up his face in a grimace. “But they’re trained killers.”

  “We’re not going to look for a fight,” Charlie answered. “But we’re not backing down from going a fight. We’ll have security on watch twenty-four hours, which means we’ll all need to be trained in using firearms.”

  “We will do what we have to,” Maria said, her tone firm as she grabbed hold of her husband’s hand. “Right, ladies?”

  The other wives offered the same hardened expressions as Maria, and Charlie was glad to have Mario and his wife here. They were good people, and they’d be invaluable at bridging any language or culture barriers that they were bound to run into during their time together.

  “It’ll also be important for us to conserve as much of our supplies as we can, because while we’d all like for this to be over quickly, we need to ensure we’re preparing for the long haul.” Charlie gestured to beyond the walls of the house and to the orchard outside. “We have a lot of acreage out there to maintain. Other people might need help, and I want to make sure we’re ready to do that if the time comes.” He took a breath, everyone leaning into him now, every pair of eyes watching him intently. “Our strength comes from working together.” He looked at each of them in turn. “I’m well aware of the sacrifice it takes to leave your home, and all of us will have to sacrifice more before this is done.”

  A wave of nods washed over the rest of the faces, and while Charlie felt good about their desire to believe in him, he hoped that translated into believing in themselves just as much as him.

  “Thank you,” Charlie said. “Now we should all probably—”

  The distant pop of gunfire silenced the room, and every head turned toward the window. It was too far away to be any danger to them, but that didn’t lessen the expressions of horror that rippled through their faces.

  Another series of harsh pops pulled Charlie outside, and the rest of the crew followed suit. The commotion was coming from the east where the terrorists had marched.

  “That’s Mayfield,” Harold said, standing in the back by the door with Martha, who huddled up next to her husband.

  “They would have to pass the Bigelow farm,” Martha said as she looked up at Harold. “Do you think they’re still there?”

  “Don’s a smart man,” Harold answered. “He wouldn’t do anything rash.”

  “I’m not so sure about that.” Charlie listened to the continued pops on the horizon. And just as suddenly as the gunfire started, it stopped.

  The silence that followed was more deafening than anything that Charlie had experienced. It was like the air had been sucked out of everyone, the environment around them transformed into a vacuum. And while Charlie stared at the horizon, unsure of what he was waiting to hear, his feet backpedaled into the house, the rest of the group stepping aside.

  5

  Before he realized it, he was back in the barn, grabbing one of the Remingtons and spare magazines, which he shoved into his belt. When he looked up, Mario was by the table.

  “You don’t have to come,” Charlie said.

  Mario switched his attention from Charlie toward the weapons on the table. He picked one of the Winchesters up, grabbing some of the bullets and shoving them into the chamber, just like Harold had shown him.

  “We never got to the shooting portion of the lesson,” Charlie said.

  Mario gestured to the end of the rifle’s barrel. “Just make sure it’s pointed at the bad guy, right?”

  Charlie nodded. “That’ll work.”

  The pair marched off into the fading evening light, keeping to the orchard for cover on their path toward the Bigelows’ farm. The pair churned up soil until they reached the open space between the Deckers’ land and the Bigelows.

  Panting, Charlie raised the rifle and peered through the scope, magnifying the Bigelows’ house. “Front and back doors are open.” He shifted to a nearby window, but it was too dark to see anything inside.

  “Are they still in the house?” Mario asked.

  Charlie removed his eye off the scope, then lowered the rifle. “I don’t know.”

  The Bigelows grew cabbage, which didn’t provide any cover on their sprint through the field, but Charlie didn’t see the enemy lingering in the fading light.

  Charlie slowed when they approached the house. “Stay behind me.” He headed toward the back, hoping to throw any of the terrorists off guard should any be lurking behind.

  The Bigelow house was one story, but sprawled out over a larger space, which would make searching the house difficult seeing as how there were dozens of places to hide.

  “Watch our backs,” Charlie said, whispering behind him.

  “Got it, boss.”

  Charlie poked the end of his rifle barrel into the open back door and the darkness inside the house. He resisted the urge to call o
ut to Don or Amy, or any of the kids inside. If they were hiding and there was still someone else in the house, then he didn’t want to give away their position.

  But the top step of the three-tiered staircase that led into the back sunroom of the house, which was completely screened, groaned loudly when Charlie stepped on it, the noise made worse by the deafening silence of the night.

  Both Charlie and Mario froze, curses running through Charlie’s mind at machine-gun fire pace at his own clumsiness.

  A series of hushed voices followed Charlie’s foot faux pas, and they were coming from the shed that sat on the back left side of the house. Charlie headed over first, Mario following, both men keeping their weapons up and aimed, fingers on the triggers.

  The noises inside the shed ended before Charlie reached the door, and he looked behind to Mario, gesturing with his free hand to keep a lookout. Mario nodded.

  Charlie turned his attention back to the shed’s closed door. He reached for the handle, wrapped his fingers around the black bar, paused, took a breath, and then pulled hard.

  A quick rush of air smacked Charlie’s face when the door opened, and he lunged inside the darkened space in the same motion, his foot thudding against the concrete floor. But as Charlie scanned the tiny space through the sight on his shotgun, he found it empty save for the sacks of tools and chicken feed that lined the floors and tables.

  Charlie lowered the rifle and frowned. He blinked a few times, making sure he wasn’t missing anything in the darkness. He turned toward the door where Mario was still watching the exterior when another noise caught his ear.

  A shuffling, in the corner of the shed, coming from the sacks of chicken feed. Charlie stared at the space, then slowly approached. He prodded the sack of corn with the end of his rifle, but there was nothing but feed inside.

  Charlie glanced at the floor, then lifted one of the feed sacks and found the outline of a door etched in the concrete. Charlie set the rifle aside and then removed the rest of the feedbags until he finally revealed the door underneath.