Defending Camp

28

James was running as fast as he could. He’d left the mob behind. But he could still hear the gunshots ringing out behind him. They were growing less frequent. Hopefully that was a good sign and not a bad one. But he couldn’t worry about his mother and John and Cynthia now. He was focused on Sadie with all his might.

But he’d lost sight of her.

He stopped in the middle of a thicket of evergreens, bending over almost involuntarily from his exhaustion, panting heavily from exertion.

He’d lost her.

He’d lost his sister.

It was his own fault. She was too young and too small to not have someone looking after her in the middle of the most intense fight they’d encountered yet. He should have been keeping a better eye on her. He should have watched her more carefully.

James stared down at the ground.

That was when he saw it.

Footprints in the damp ground.

They led off to the east.

Ignoring his exhaustion, James set off at a full out sprint, his arms churning at his sides.

He had no weapon, but he’d figure out something. He had to.

He was running so fast that the sounds of the world seemed to drop away, leaving only his own panting.

He glanced down at the ground as he ran, making sure he was following the footprints.

James saw her about a minute into his sprint.

Her yellow sweater was unmistakable.

She was standing still, not moving. Something was in her hand.

Something lay at her feet. A body.

She didn’t seem to be in danger. Relief washed over James.

James slowed down his pace so he could get a better look around, making sure there weren’t any other threats.

“Sadie!” he called out.

Sadie didn’t move.

“Sadie!” he said, finally reaching her.

She was holding a bloody knife in her hand. The body at her feet was that of a woman, her torso punctured by countless stab wounds.

James took the knife from Sadie’s hand gingerly. He put his arm around her.

“It’s going to be OK,” he said.

She moved, looking up at him. “I didn’t want to do it,” she said. “But she was trying to kill me and telling me I was her daughter.”

“She’d gone crazy. She didn’t know what she was doing. No one wants to kill. I know you didn’t, Sadie. Come on, we need to get back to camp.”

James checked the dead woman’s pockets and belt, looking for weapons he might take back.

“We need to get back to camp quickly,” he said, breaking into a jog and pulling Sadie along with him.

As they ran, Sadie seemed to snap out of the shocked daze she’d been in.

“Is Mom OK?”

“Let’s hope so.”

They ran through the trees. The closer they got, the more James expected to hear gunshots. But he heard nothing but silence.

They passed by the area where James had been attacked, where he now spotted his handgun in the hand of a dead man. He paused, reached down, and took it from the still-warm hand.

It didn’t take long to get back to the fire pit where they’d made their stand. He saw his mother looking tall as she stood there, rifle held in one hand.

“Mom!” shouted Sadie, who sprinted forward, despite her apparent exhaustion.

James was more hesitant, looking carefully around him.

The fight seemed to be over.

Cynthia and John were sitting on the ground, and Cynthia was leaning heavily on John’s shoulder.

There were bodies scattered everywhere on the ground, in all manner of positions. Some had been shot in the head. Others had been shot multiple times in the torso. And many others looked like they’d received simple blunt trauma.

There were about fifteen bodies around the camp. James could have sworn there’d been more. Maybe it had been the fog of war that had rolled in. Maybe it had been the intensity of the moment, making him overestimate the numbers.

“Everyone OK?” said James, walking up to his mother and Sadie who were hugging.

“For the most part,” mumbled John.

“He got stabbed,” said Cynthia, concern apparent in her voice.

“Nothing major,” said John. “We’ve already patched it up.”

Everyone was too exhausted to speak much, and James found himself almost falling to the ground where he continued to lie, letting the cold ground soothe his burning muscles. It seemed to take forever for his heart rate to start to slow down and for his breathing to return to normal.

“All right,” said his mother. “We can sit around all day and wait for the next one, or we can get to work and get ready.”

Cynthia groaned, but she stood up slowly, using John’s shoulder as support. The rest of them followed, and they looked to Georgia for instruction.

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