Outside Ellisville, VA
“How is she?” Jason stood next to Sarah, his arm wrapped around her shoulder and her head on his chest as he looked at Dianne. Dianne glanced behind her at Tina, who was lying on the couch looking smaller and frailer than ever.
“Alive, still.”
“Any idea how serious the wound is?”
Dianne shrugged. “My emergency response class was a long time ago. If Tina hadn’t pointed out that I needed to seal the wound to keep air out, I wouldn’t have even remembered.” Dianne pulled her jacket to the side and pushed two fingers up against the soft part below her right clavicle. “She got hit right about here. She’s not coughing up blood and her breathing’s improved a bit so I don’t think that her lung got punctured, but I really have no clue. Any guessing I’d be doing in the course of trying to repair the damage might do more harm than good. We’ll take shifts watching her tonight and keeping guard. We need to be monitoring her temperature and making sure she’s breathing and not bleeding out.”
“We just have to wait and see what happens,” Sarah looked up at Jason before wrapping her arm around him. He winced slightly and she pulled back, an apologetic look on her face. “Sorry, hon. Sort of forgot about your wound in all of this.”
“How are you doing, Jason?” Dianne focused on him, studying him closely.
“Hanging in there, like us all.”
“You look like crap. I’ll take first watch. Mark can take second, then you, then Sarah.”
At any other point in time, Jason would have vigorously argued with Dianne, insisting that he could stay up the whole night keeping guard and watching over Tina. His body, older than he wanted to admit, wasn’t having any of it. “Fine,” he sighed. “Two hours each. We’re all so sleep-deprived that we need to keep these shifts short.”
Dianne smiled and nodded at him. “Get some rest, you two. I’ll wake up Mark in a couple hours and he’ll wake you.”
After Jason and Sarah slowly made their way upstairs, Dianne was left in the dark, quiet living room. Tina’s gentle wheezing was the only sound that was audible and, for a moment, Dianne seriously contemplated how cozy and comfortable her chair was. Before the urge could overtake her, though, she stood up and shook it off.
Rifle in hand, Dianne walked over close to Tina and pulled back the blanket to check the bandages on Tina’s shoulder. “Stay with us,” Dianne whispered. “We need you. Now more than ever.”
***
Out beyond the Waters’ homestead, past where the dirt road turned to gravel and then to asphalt, beyond the turn at the edge of town leading past the forest, fields and the long ditch, more whispering was happening. As the five men loaded their gear into a pair of trucks, they did more than a small amount of quie
t talking amongst themselves while stealing quick glances at the silhouette that was still stomping around inside the community center.
“We should just leave. He’s clearly lost it.”
“If he hears us, you know what he’ll do to us, right?”
“There’s five of us and one of him. Why are we even listening to him?”
“He did manage to set up a pretty good thing for us. Maybe he can do it again.”
“He’s just out for revenge. I don’t blame him; he’s supported us and we should support him back. That bitch’s luck has got to run out at some point. That’s two of theirs that’ve been shot, now, thanks to him. Now’s the perfect time to get them.”
“You remember what happened the last time we tried that? They kicked our asses!”
“Sh! Quiet, here he comes!”
Nealson walked out of the community center standing tall in spite of his injury, his eyes ablaze and his expression hardened. Though he hadn’t heard any of what his five remaining men were saying while he was inside, he could sense by their body language that they weren’t happy with the situation. Fear had already been put into their hearts. Now it was time for something else.
“All right men,” Nealson smiled broadly, “gather ‘round!” They glanced at each other as they shuffled toward him, murmuring questions to themselves under their breath.
“Now,” he continued, “I know you all are tired of all of this. You think this is a fool’s errand. You think that we’re just going to end up losing again if we charge in there.” The five said nothing, but looked at each other with expressions that showed that they agreed with everything he said. “That’s fine. I don’t need you to believe me. I just need you to believe in me.
“Remember when I found each and every one of you?” Nealson began addressing each man in turn. “You two in the prison in Blacksburg? Trapped by that old man you were trying to rob? Stranded in a firestorm? I took each of you in and helped you, just like the rest.” Nealson made a half-turn and swept his arm across the sight of the bodies still lying in front of the center. “Just like your fallen brothers. Now it’s time for revenge. Two of them are hurt, and the rest are exhausted. They’ll be weak and hurting and unable to defend themselves come morning. And that’s when we’ll go in, kill the bitch!” He spat out the word with fury uncontained. “Then we’ll chain up the rest and rebuild again!”
Throughout Nealson’s short speech, he could see that he was getting the attention of the men. Their attention grew until the end, when they finally went from silently listening to nodding their agreement. Once he saw that they were back on his side, he addressed them individually again, taking each one by the arm and looking them dead in the eyes.
“Are you with me?” He asked of each, and each nodded and replied.
“Yes.”