The Last Orchard Read online

  The Collins men nodded in agreement, and this time Charlie took the lead as he quickly darted from the woods and toward the hospital’s back entrance. It might have been a risk going through the same door that they watched the enemy enter, but it was already a confirmed point of entrance, and if they were going to get into a gunfight, Charlie would rather it happen sooner rather than later.

  They clustered together at the door, and Charlie reached for the handle, looking to Doug and Mr. Collins, who nodded they were ready.

  Charlie stepped inside the darkened hall without hesitation, scanning the narrow corridor, and found it empty.

  “I have eyes on the left,” Doug said.

  “I’ve got our backs,” Mr. Collins said.

  “I’ll take right,” Charlie said.

  The trio moved forward in unison in a triangle formation, and every room that they passed with a closed door sent a shiver down Charlie’s back. But it wasn’t until they’d passed the hallway’s halfway point that he realized why everything was so unsettling.

  “It’s quiet,” Charlie said.

  Doug frowned. “Yeah. So? The staff probably ran for it when the power went out and those gunmen showed up.”

  Charlie shook his head, glancing at the doors up ahead. “A hospital doesn’t just have a staff, they have patients.”

  As the realization washed over Doug’s face, his cheeks turned a shade of green. “Jesus Christ.”

  Charlie turned toward the nearest door. He approached wearily, the rifle sagging lower the closer he moved. It was cracked open, the darkness inside masking the interior.

  He took three steps inside. The air was damp and a smell graced his nostrils. The scent was foul, but he resisted the instinct to turn away.

  After a few seconds, Charlie’s vision adjusted, and he blinked away the darkness. Objects took shape: a table, chairs, an empty bed, and a curtain that was pulled back and concealing the other half of the room.

  Charlie stepped toward it, his movements slow but methodical. He outstretched his arm, his fingers grabbing hold of the end of the curtain, and then slowly pulled it back, revealing the bloodied body on the bed.

  It was a woman. She was old. Her eyes were still open, and the wound on her chest had dried and crusted with blood, covering not just the gown that she wore in her final moments, but also the bed, the wall, ceiling, and floor.

  Several life support machines were lined against the back wall and on either side of the woman’s bed, and Charlie wondered if she was even alive when the murderers gunned her down.

  “Charlie?” Doug’s voice was quiet and sheepish, and he lingered at the doorway, staying in the hall. “You all right?”

  Charlie stared at the blank expression on the old woman’s face, and anger simmered below the calm and calculated surface of his thoughts.

  Charlie pulled the curtain back, sealing the woman away. He stepped back out into the hallway, gun still lowered, and continued his trek down the hall, but Doug jumped in front of him, blocking his path.

  “Whoa, hey, are you all right?” Doug asked.

  “No, Doug, I’m not all right, but we have a job to do, so why don’t you get the hell out of my way so we can do it.” Charlie kept his voice down, but it didn’t lessen the sting from the venom laced with every word out of his mouth.

  “Hey, man, you’re the one who wanted to come inside here,” Doug said, refusing to back down. “What did you think you were gonna see, huh? You saw what it was like out in the street.”

  “Knock it off, boys,” Mr. Collins said.

  But the old man’s words rolled off of Charlie like water on a seal. He stepped forward, that rage simmering beneath the surface starting to boil.

  “I was in Seattle when they attacked, so you don’t have to tell me what those bastards can do,” Charlie said, starting to lose control of the volume in his voice.

  “I said enough,” Mr. Collins said, stepping between the pair. “This isn’t a competition of how much shit we’ve waded through.”

  Charlie knew the old man’s words were true, but they didn’t calm his anger. And just when that inertia pushed him past the point of no return, gunfire and shouts echoed down the hall.

  All three of them ducked. Mr. Collins was the first to return fire down the hall, which provided them enough time to press forward and dart down a cutaway from the main hall.

  A few more retaliatory shots were fired from the terrorists at the front of the hospital, and just when Charlie was about to turn the corner and fire, he caught sight of a body on the floor just left of his feet. It was a nurse, and the woman’s face was turned up toward the ceiling, a wound in her chest and stomach, similar to the elderly woman he found in the room.

  The sight of the scrubs brought Liz to the forefront of Charlie’s thoughts. It could have just as easily been her on that floor.

  “Charlie, no!” Doug reached for Charlie’s arm, but his motion was too late, and his fingertips were only able to scrape against Charlie’s sleeve.

  Exposed in the hallway, Charlie fell into the tunnel vision that his rifle’s scope provided. The magnification thrust him down the hall, and he squeezed the trigger, and for the first time since he encountered the enemy, they weren’t wearing masks.

  It was an Asian man, and he was young. Charlie’s age, or even younger. A mixture of anger and surprise was plastered over his face, the rushed courage that only the pumping of adrenaline could provide. It was the same adrenaline that coursed through Charlie and had propelled him to the place he currently stood.

  But the force controlling Charlie’s adrenaline was rage, and it burned through whatever empathy he had for the young man at the end of the hall. For all Charlie knew, he could have put a bullet in that old woman in her bed. Or the nurse that lay at his feet. Or a dozen other corpses that littered the hospital tile. The boy made his choice. And Charlie had made his.

  The bullet went through the young man’s left eye, dead center, bulls eye. Charlie didn’t even feel the recoil from the gunshot, and his hands worked deftly over the bolt action as the bullet casing dropped to the floor and Charlie chambered another round.

  The second terrorist at the end of the hall fired, his shots wild and quick, more concerned over quantity of bullets than their accuracy, hoping dumb luck and the spray would bring Charlie down, or at the very least cause him to run.

  But Charlie kept a steady pace forward, eye still glued to the scope, and smoothly brought the crosshairs over to the next target. It was like chasing a deer. Charlie had done it thousands of times with his father, and all those trips had finally come in handy as he pulled the trigger.

  The bullet screamed from the rifle and struck the terrorist’s chest, dead center. Blood spurted, and the man’s expression transformed from unadulterated rage to cold shock with the snap of a finger, then collapsed to the floor, skidding forward.

  Charlie lowered the rifle, but he didn’t stop walking toward the dead men on the floor, the one he shot in the eye staring up at the ceiling through what one good eye remained to him. The second was face down, but still moving.

  Charlie aimed and fired again. The bullet cracked against the man’s back, and the contact caused the man’s torso to convulse, one final spasm before he lay motionless on the tile.

  Blood pooled from beneath the man that was face down, and Charlie didn’t stop walking until his boot stepped into the growing puddle.

  Charlie stared down at the man he’d killed. The rage and adrenaline had run its course and hollowed out his bones in the process, and something took its place. He couldn’t name the feeling, he only knew it was slowly creeping through him, filling the void that the kills had left behind. He didn’t know what it meant, but he understood that he had fallen from the edge and passed to another side.

  Killing was making a choice. Death over life. And over the course of however many hours, and days, weeks, or even years that he’d contemplate the decision he made in that very moment, the hard truth was that he had j
ust taken his first step down a path and a road that provided no quarter and offered no relief. If it was peace Charlie Decker hoped to find one day, it would always elude him.

  Hands spun him around, and Charlie reached for the pistol at his hip, hand clutched tight over the handle, but he froze when he saw Doug’s shocked expression.

  “Christ, man, what the hell?” Doug asked, taking a step back.

  Mr. Collins simply stared down at the dead men, then after a moment, he looked at Charlie. The old man kept his feelings hidden, and if there was something that he wanted to give away, he didn’t. He simply cleared his throat and adjusted the rifle in his arms. “If any of their friends were around, they were bound to hear that, so we better make ourselves scarce.”

  “Yeah, let’s get the hell out of here,” Doug said.

  “We’re not leaving without the supplies.” Charlie spoke with a finality, not leaving the subject up for any further discussion.

  “Christ, Charlie, this isn’t some kind of macho thing, all right? I don’t want to die,” Doug said, dropping the façade.

  “Then go back to your cellar.” Charlie didn’t wait for a response, heading deeper into the hospital. He wasn’t leaving without those meds, and he didn’t care if he had to do it alone.

  But after a minute, Charlie felt a presence on either side of him, and he looked back to find both Doug and Mr. Collins flanking him. Neither wore a smile. They’d donned masks to conceal their emotions, like the terrorists themselves. It was all business now, though Charlie didn’t have a problem with that. He needed them to be on point.

  The carnage grew worse the deeper they penetrated the hospital. What light filtered through the windows revealed bloodied walls, bullet holes, overturned medical cots and instruments, and more corpses than Charlie could count.

  He imagined it was like shooting fish in a barrel when those bastards walked in. The narrow hallways, lack of security, and general confusion from the power going out was the perfect storm.

  It took a sick kind of person to prey on the weak and the sick like these animals had done. And what made the scene so overwhelming, at least for Charlie, was the fact that there were so many of them.

  Three hundred.

  And each of them were armed and trained, and dangerous to anyone that opposed them. Because despite the fear that Charlie saw in those men’s faces, there was also conviction. Conviction to push past the fear and finish the job for the sake of the mission, and for whatever ideals they’d adopted when they decided to kill innocent women, children, and those that never had a chance to defend themselves.

  After a series of maze-like hallways, Charlie spotted a cluster of hospital staff bodies piled outside of a certain door. He frowned, wondering what was so precious on the other side, and then he noticed the lock on the door.

  “There,” Charlie said, pointing toward the lock.

  He hurried over, jiggling the handle, and found that it was still locked. He slung the rifle strap over his shoulder and then bent down to search the bodies. His hands prodded the meaty sides and bodies, the smell and heat coming off them powerful enough to make him gag.

  “We’re running out of daylight, Charlie,” Doug said, his voice cracking with impatience.

  “One of them must have a key,” Charlie said, turning over the body of a female nurse, then freezing in place when his hand touched the bullet wound on her side.

  Blood transferred from the corpse and onto his palm, and Charlie stared at it in shock for a moment before sticking his hands into her pockets. When he found nothing, he moved on to the next.

  With the fresh blood on his palm, Charlie left behind prints of his acts as he searched for the keys. Three bodies later and he found them.

  “We need to move these bodies so we can get inside,” Charlie said, and Mr. Collins and Doug helped him clear enough space to open the door.

  Charlie stepped inside and grabbed hold of one of the makeshift shelving racks. He plucked a bottle of pills from a cardboard box and rattled them in his hand, struggling to read the label in the darkness.

  “This is it.” Charlie placed the pill bottle back on the shelf since the name didn’t match what Doc had told him to grab. “Keep a lookout.” He set his pack on the ground and then opened the top.

  Charlie searched the rows of pills for the names on the list. He found two of the drugs quickly, but the other three took some time. And he double-checked the other stacks of shelving to make sure that he hadn’t missed anything.

  Finally, with the pills scratched off the list, he moved over to the rest of the supplies. Gauze, bandages, sterilizer, stitches, soft casts, anything and everything that he could fit into his bag he took, and anything that didn’t fit, he shoved into a duffel bag that he found in the corner.

  Doug and Mr. Collins fidgeted nervously at the door, feet tapping and legs swaying as Charlie hurried to finish his search. He removed the list, double checking to make sure that he hadn’t missed anything, which he did.

  “We need to find some surgery tools,” Charlie said, his attention on the list.

  “Well, where the hell do we find it?” Doug asked. “It’s not like there’s a directory in this fucking place that I can look at.”

  Mr. Collins gestured down the hall. “I see an ER sign. They probably have surgery tools there.”

  “Let’s go.” Charlie picked up the bags and followed Mr. Collins and the signs toward the ER, which was even more of a massacre than the rest of the building.

  “Oh, Jesus Christ.” Doug turned away the moment they passed through the swinging double doors and into the ER’s lobby.

  The mass grave of bodies reeked of decay after having sat for almost two days, which was no doubt made worse by the sun shining through the windows. There were easily double the bodies in the lobby than they’d seen in the rest of the hospital.

  Charlie did his best to ignore the stench and the gore, and he spotted a separate hallway on the other side of the check-in desk. “There.” He pointed and stepped over a leg and an arm from two separate bodies that had fallen next to each other.

  Doug and his father followed, and when Charlie shoulder-checked the door into the next hallway, he found the surgery rooms with large viewing windows. The first two rooms had a body lying on the table, but the last one was empty.

  “Those poor bastards picked the wrong time to get their appendix taken out,” Doug said, passing the window, his head turned toward the carnage like a driver on the road looking at a car wreck, unable to look away. “It’s like a nightmare.”

  “He was asleep when it happened,” Mr. Collins said. “Didn’t even know what was happening to him, probably.”

  Doug winced. “I don’t know if that makes it better or worse.”

  “In here.” Charlie stepped into the empty surgical room.

  Charlie opened drawers, the metal tools inside clanking from his quick movements. He searched for the specific instruments Doc wanted, but even with the descriptions he was given, it was hard to identify the tools he needed versus the tools he didn’t.

  Charlie tossed a pair of prong-looking clamps back into the drawer, shut it, then moved onto the next one. He remembered Doc telling him that the knives would be clustered together, most likely wrapped and layered in heavy cloth.

  “Hey,” Doug said, calling from the hallway, refusing to enter the room. “You find what you were looking for?”

  “Not yet.” Charlie shoved aside different items, still unable to find the tools, and then moved onto the next drawer.

  “Charlie, we—”

  “I know.” His motions became more frantic and less calculated. His fingers fumbled nervously inside the drawers, twice scraping his hands against pointed tips, but still finding no knives. “Fuck.” He slammed another drawer shut, and just when he opened the next drawer, a commotion broke out inside the ER.

  Charlie, Doug, and Mr. Collins all turned their attention toward the door that led into the ER and the foreign voices on the other si
de.

  The hurried speech and heavy stomp of boots spiked Charlie’s adrenaline, and while Doug and Mr. Collins raised their weapons, Charlie returned to his search of the drawers, the voices and the commotion in the ER propelling him to move faster. His fingers scraped against fabric in the back of the drawer.

  Charlie yanked the thick stack of cloth out, able to feel the outline of tools inside. He unwrapped the cloth, finding the knives Doc needed. He stuffed the cloth into his bag, then spun around toward Doug and Mr. Collins. “I’ve got it, let’s go—”

  The doors to the ER opened, and four men stepped inside, then immediately stopped at the sight of Doug, Mr. Collins, and Charlie.

  “Geudeul-eul jug-yeo!”

  Bullets were exchanged, each of them retreating away from one another as they fired round after round, flashes from the tips of their rifles illuminating the darkened hallway like strikes of lightening.

  Once the terrorists were shoved back into the ER, the trio turned for the back of the building and broke out into a sprint, leaping over the bodies that lined the floors.

  Charlie used the broken emergency exit signs to help guide them toward safety, but because it was so dark, he missed a few, which led them toward dead end hallways. Sunlight filtered through one of the rooms.

  “A window.” Charlie hurried inside, passing the corpse in the bed, and then reached for the locks on the window sill. He lifted it, then ripped the screen out.

  Voices grew louder, angrier, and sounded as though they were in the adjacent hall. With the window opened, Charlie stepped to the side and let Mr. Collins through first. He and Doug helped him over the sill, and he landed awkwardly on the grass outside.

  Doug was next, and Charlie raised his weapon toward the door when he heard voices in the hall, the shouting echoing off the ceiling and walls. He slid the pack off his back and tossed it outside once Doug had passed through, and then quickly backed toward the window, dropping his rifle at the last second and then heaving himself through.

  He hit the ground with a thud, then quickly scooped up his rifle and pack, including the duffel bag, and headed toward the woods as quickly as they could.