Push Back: A Post Apocalyptic Thriller (The Disruption Series Book 2) (27 page)

After a while, he felt the warmth of the sun on top of his bowed head, then looked up, wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, and rose. There was work to be done.

***

Relief washed over Luke as Hunnicutt descended the ladder and started toward him with a determined step.

“SITREP, Major Kinsey,” Hunnicutt said.

“We’re maintaining overwatch, sir. There don’t appear to be any more armed hostiles in the crowd. At some point during the night, they must have figured it out and begun to leave unarmed. Nor is there any sign of the technicals, but Lieutenant Wright is preparing a reconnaissance using the up-armored Hummers. Lieutenant Butler is seeing to the disposition of forces along the wall, and Dr. Jennings reports that two of the critically wounded are out of the woods. She expects them to make full recoveries. But I’m sorry to say the third casualty didn’t make it, sir.”

Hunnicutt’s jaw tightened. “Who?”

“One of your folks, sir. Corporal Susan Phelps. She was—”

Hunnicutt nodded. “A driver in the transport group. She’s from Hankins Corner. Engaged to be married next month; her boyfriend’s name is … was Byron.” He sighed. “Who else?”

“Corporal Miles—”

“I saw Miles get hit. It didn’t look like a mortal injury, and I saw him being attended to—”

“He returned to the firing line and was hit a second time manning an M2.”

“A good man,” Hunnicutt said softly. “Who else?”

“Another guardsman, sir. I’m sorry, but I can’t recall his name offhand. And two of the guys who came in with me, Corley and Abrams, former jarheads. And the Coasties lost Wilson and Fontaine. All the units lost someone.”

“We’re all one unit, Luke,” Hunnicutt said.

“Well, if we weren’t, we are now,” Luke said.

Hunnicutt nodded, then looked toward the waterfront. Luke followed his gaze to see Levi Jenkins and both the Gibson brothers approaching, long guns slung and followed by a group of armed men.

“What’s going on?” Hunnicutt asked.

“I took the liberty of radioing Levi to bring him up to speed and expedite the call for volunteers. We have no clue what we’re up against.”

Hunnicutt gave an approving nod just as the group reached them.

“Sorry we couldn’t get here any sooner,” Levi said. “We didn’t have enough boats to move this many people at once without leaving the folks on the river short on transportation. Some of them just ferried us down and went back for the others. Can you top them up with fuel for the trip home?”

“Absolutely,” Hunnicutt said, extending his hand. “Thank you for coming.”

The three men nodded as Luke studied the group, trying to count heads.

“There’s a lot more of you than I expected,” he said. “How many?”

“This isn’t all of us,” Levi said. “We got about thirty here, but there are a hundred and fourteen all told.”

“Outstanding. Thank you,” Luke said.

Levi nodded toward the Gibson brothers. “Don’t thank me, thank them. Turns out they’re natural born recruiters. Where you want us?”

Luke glanced toward Hunnicutt. “I was thinking they could relieve our folks on the wall. As soon as we can get a new perimeter established, we have a lot to do.”

Hunnicutt nodded grimly. “Let’s get it done, Major.”

***

Wright led his up-armored Humvees in a sweep through the nearby neighborhood. Finding it all clear, he ordered them back into a protective ring around Fort Box at the point formerly marked by the perimeter fence, and positioned them facing outward in mutually supporting positions. Only then did Hunnicutt allow Dr. Jennings and a team of volunteers to treat the still living among the fallen refugees.

If Hunnicutt had expected recriminations from Jennings, he got none, for even she recognized the impossible situation in which he found himself. Instead she combed through the shattered specimens of humanity, seeking signs of life. She found almost a hundred, including a dozen who were clearly bangers and four in the wreckage of the technicals who appeared to be something else entirely.

It was only at that point Hunnicutt and Jennings clashed, with the colonel insistent the former combatants be physically restrained and treated in a tent outside the walls of the fort. After a halfhearted and somewhat obligatory protest, Jennings let it go. Beyond her Hippocratic oath, she had no sympathy for the savages who caused this carnage.

After attending to the living, they turned to the dead, a task made more urgent by the weather and the southern sun. Their own honored dead were buried as they had fallen, together, a twenty-foot container their shared coffin.

Flags were no problem; the ever-resourceful Wright discovered a container containing two pallet loads of American flags among its mixed cargo, made in China, of course. He found folding cots from the same source, which they mounted permanently in the container turned sarcophagus, to hold the flag-draped remains of their fallen comrades. They welded the vents and doors shut while a backhoe made short work of the asphalt in a secluded corner of Fort Box and dug a perfectly rectangular hole to receive the container.

They left six inches of the container protruding from the ground as both a headstone and monument. The best welder in the group inscribed the names of each of the fallen in weld bead on top of the container. The improvised sarcophagus was lowered into the hole slowly and reverently, with full military honors.

Then Hunnicutt dismissed the company, and they set about the altogether more grisly task of dealing with the refugees. There were hundreds of bodies clustered near the walls or spread across the asphalt in a macabre tableau of violent death, and over a hundred more dead bangers facedown near the remains of the perimeter fence, weapons on the asphalt beside them.

Hunnicutt asked for volunteers and set the example by being the first volunteer himself, despite his rank. When almost everyone followed his lead, he divided them into five teams to finish the task as quickly as possible. They turned once again to their store of empty containers and positioned five twenty-footers on the asphalt as group coffins.

They handled the bodies as respectfully as possible, but the sheer volume of the task and the need to get the corpses sealed inside the containers before decomposition began mandated they work as quickly as possible. They reserved four of the containers for the refugees, and used the fifth for the bangers. It didn’t seem fitting to bury the sheep with the wolves.

The work went mercifully quickly, and by noon it was complete. Hunnicutt left instructions for the disposition of the containers and went to his quarters to stand under the blasting hot shower for long minutes, his guilt at wasting precious water overcome by the need to feel clean. But he felt dirty to his soul and doubted he’d ever really feel clean again.

He’d just changed into a fresh uniform when he heard a tentative tap at his door. “Come,” he said. The door opened and Luke stood in the threshold.

“We’re ready, sir,” Luke said.

Hunnicutt nodded. “Thank you, Major. It will take me a moment to collect my thoughts. Please have the garrison assembled in thirty minutes.”

Luke nodded and started to leave, then turned back to Hunnicutt. “What can you say after something like this, sir? Words just seem so … so inadequate, somehow.”

Hunnicutt smiled sadly. “My thoughts as well, but I have to give them something, some … I don’t know, some closure somehow. They’ve just been through a horrific ordeal. If they can’t put it behind them, it’ll eat at us like a cancer.”

Luke shook his head. “But how?”

Hunnicutt hesitated, thinking. “Ever heard of the ‘conscience round,’ Luke?”

“You mean like the blank they loaded at random in a firing squads’ rifles, so no one was sure whether or not they fired the killing shot?”

Hunnicutt nodded. “We’ll have to do some difficult things to survive, but some things—things like we did yesterday, if we have to do those things too often, our humanity won’t survive.”

“But it’s done, Colonel. And it can’t be undone. So how can you—”

Hunnicutt held up his hand. “I don’t know, Luke. But hopefully it will come to me in the next half hour.”

***

Thirty minutes later, Hunnicutt stepped out of the HQ building into the afternoon heat and strode across the asphalt to their newly designated cemetery. As ordered, the garrison was formed up in ranks in front of four neatly excavated holes in the asphalt. The coffin containers were lined up neatly to one side, one of the half doors slightly ajar on each container, as Hunnicutt had ordered. He glanced toward the walls of the fort and saw the river volunteers standing at attention, facing inward toward the cemetery, except every third man, who faced outward to maintain a watch.
Good folks, those river people
, Hunnicutt thought.

He spotted Luke at the head of the garrison and motioned him over to hand him four sealed Ziploc bags and a roll of duct tape.

“Major, please see that one of these bags is taped securely to the inside door of each container, then have them sealed and prepared for burial.”

“Yes, sir,” Luke said, and went about the task as ordered.

Hunnicutt watched Luke in whispered conversation with the senior noncom before returning to his place at the head of the garrison. Five minutes later the task was complete, and Hunnicutt heard the screech of the locking bars as the containers were sealed for the last time. He waited until everyone returned to ranks, then extracted a folded paper from his pocket. He took a deep breath and began to speak.

“We gathered earlier today to perform the sad and solemn task of honoring our fallen comrades. We come together now to pay our respects to those who, through no fault of their own, fell before our guns. These were not evil people, but victims. Not our victims, but victims of those who would use and manipulate them. They were driven not by hatred, but by fear and desperation, and taken advantage of by evil men. Though they died by our hands, it was not by our intention, and I know there is no one among us who does not wish with all their heart and soul this tragic outcome could’ve been avoided.”

Hunnicutt unfolded the piece of paper.

“I’ve prepared a statement and placed a copy in each of the coffin containers. I did so in anticipation of some future time when normalcy is restored. I would like to read it to you now.”

There was a murmur in the ranks, which Hunnicutt ignored.

“In these containers lie the remains of eight hundred and fifty-two souls, known only to God, who died by my hand and on my orders on the thirtieth day of April, 2020. I accept full and sole responsibility for these deaths and am prepared to provide a full accounting of my actions at such time as a legitimate government is established to hear my account.

“At no time or in no way did any of the officers or troops serving under my command act except at my direct orders. Collectively and individually, they behaved properly and honorably and maintained the highest standards of the American soldier.

“We lay these souls to rest, on this, the first day of May, 2020. May God have mercy upon their souls, and upon mine.

“Colonel Douglas David Hunnicutt, Commanding

“Wilmington Defense Force

“Fort Box

“Wilmington, North Carolina”

Hunnicutt folded the paper and slipped it back into his pocket.

“And on a personal note,” Hunnicutt said, “let me say that I have never had the honor of commanding or serving with a finer group of people.”

There was no loud cheer or shouted response, nor did he expect one. Rather there were scattered nods and a glistening eye here and there. They knew what he was doing, and whether it mitigated their collective guilt or not, they loved him for it. The feeling grew into an almost palpable thing, and the healing began.

“Major Kinsey,” Hunnicutt said, “please proceed with the interment.”

Luke nodded and motioned to the heavy equipment operators, who mounted their machines and began to lower the containers to their final resting places. Throughout the garrison, people bowed their heads or murmured prayers or placed their hands over their hearts. Halfway through the interment, the clear sweet notes of ‘Amazing Grace’ rang out across the Fort, and the group turned to see Donny Gibson on the wall, singing a cappella. One by one, the river men on the wall joined him, as did the garrison. The last note sounded as the final container was laid to rest in the mass grave.

The lump in Hunnicutt’s throat made it difficult to dismiss the formation.

Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plant

River Road

Wilmington, North Carolina

Day 31, 3:20 p.m.

Luke rode in the lead vehicle as the little convoy wound its way down River Road. There were five vehicles in all: two Humvees front and back, with the container transporter riding in the middle. The technicals were still unaccounted for, which necessitated any trip outside the immediate area of the fort to be of sufficient strength to repel an attack.

If the burial of their comrades and the refugees was an emotional task, no such positive or respectful feelings were attached to the disposal of the remains of their attackers. This was simply taking out the trash, and Wright’s suggestion of a suitable disposal site won quick and universal acceptance. Luke nodded to the driver and they made a right turn into the sewage treatment plant.

It didn’t take long to find the holding pond. They stopped alongside and Luke got out of the Hummer. He motioned for the transporter to drop the container as far as possible up the sloping berm surrounding the pond. The driver did as ordered, managing to leave it teetering on top of the berm at a crazy angle. The transporter moved away, and one of the Humvees nosed up to the end of the container, and tires spinning and engine roaring, tipped the container the rest of the way over the berm, into the fetid waters of the pond.

Luke and his men watched as the container drifted to the middle of the pond, slowly sinking as water rushed in the holes they’d drilled in the bottom.