The Dying of the Light (Book 1): End (44 page)

I nodded. “If you can’t…”

“I said, I’ll do it.” She softened the harshness with a brittle smile, then turned and knelt next to Rachel, who was sitting on a crate with Dalton hovering over her. “Rachel? How’re you doing?”

“Well, except for the fact that I’ll be dead soon, I’m peachy-keen, ma’am. You?”

Kim just smiled and shook her head. “That’s why I love ya. Always looking on the bright side.”

“You know me, major.”

Kim fiddled with her hands, not knowing what to do with them, and unholstered her side-arm. “Rachel…”

“No,” said Dalton quietly. “I’ll do it.”

All of us turned to look at him, but he was staring at the ground.

 “D…” For once, Rachel didn’t seem to know what to say. She stood still, looking at her fiancé as he took a step closer.

“I won’t let anyone else do this,” he said, reaching out to take her hand, but still not meeting her gaze. “I won’t let you go alone.”

A tear ran down Rachel’s face as she lifted Dalton’s chin slightly with one slim hand, so that she could see his eyes.

I looked away as the tears in the big man’s eyes became evident, and then Rachel was giving me a fierce hug.

“I’m going to miss you, Mr. Blake. You take care of my girl, here, or I’ll come back and haunt you. Got it?” My laugh became a choked-up sob as I hugged her back, just as hard. “Oh,” she continued. “And tell Tom that I’m gonna miss his cooking. He was the best of the best. And Angelo… well, just tell him
hasta luego
.” She turned to Kim.

“And you, you listen to him once in a while, ok? You can’t always be the boss,” she said. “Although sometimes that’s fun.” The two women embraced, and there were more than a few tears from both. “You’re going to make it, I can tell. Take care of him, too, and you’ll both make it.”

Kim nodded, and held my hand as Rachel took Dalton’s arm and they walked off among the darkened rows.

“I don’t know if I can do this.”

The big man was openly weeping now, clutching her to his chest. “I can’t do it. I just can’t.”

Without breaking their embrace, she looked up at him, drawing his eyes down to meet hers. “Dalton Horatio Gaines, look at me.”

Despite himself, he smiled a little at her use of his full name, and made an attempt to wipe away some of his tears. “Yeah?”

“I love you. I need your help. Will you help me?”

I feel like I’m drowning in those eyes of hers. How can I not help the love of my life?
Feeling like he was breaking apart, he nodded.

“If you need my help, I’ll help.”

“Good.” She turned from him, her arms crossed over her chest and her head bowed. “I love you, Dalton Horatio Gaines. And I always will.” She heard the soft scrape of his sidearm leaving its holster, and his whispered reply.

“I love you, too.”

“I love you, too.”

Tom jogged up and saluted Kimberly, Angelo at his side. “Reporting as ordered, ma’am.”

“As ordered?”

“Commander Anderson, ma’am. He ordered Martinez and I here when our sweep was finished.”

I looked over at Kim. Who knew that scary old bastard had such a soft heart after all?

“Where’s Rach-” Tom started to ask, but was interrupted by the soft cough of a gunshot around the corner.  It was such a quiet sound, yet it seemed to reverberate through all of us. Tom turned to me, and I shook my head as I put a hand on his shoulder.

“She’s gone, Tom. There was nothing we could do.”

I didn’t think anyone could look that sad, but I was wrong. Ever the professional, Tom confined his grief to a look of loss that made me want to cry, as well as a single tear, and a painful squeeze on my hand. We all looked around a few minutes later as Dalton came back down the aisle, his steps slow and measured.

He carried a small, still form shrouded in a foul-weather poncho in his arms, and the look on his face… well, granite had more expression than he did in that moment.

As if we didn’t have enough to deal with right then, another soldier trotted up out of the darkness in between the rows, and saluted Kimberly. We were all amazed when we saw it was Edward Ames.

I don’t know who moved first, me or Martinez, but I know that it was Tom who held us both back, one hand on each of our shoulders. Both of us looked at him, as incredulous as we could possibly be, but he just shook his head, his eyes never leaving Ames, who hadn’t even glanced our way.

“Petty Officer Second Class Edward Ames reporting, ma’am.”

Kim returned his salute. “What can I do for you?”

Ames continued to stand ramrod-straight, as though he was filming an instructional video for the perfect posture. I still wanted to beat him senseless after what he’d done to Tom, but I was also curious as to why he was here now.

“Permission to speak to Captain Reynolds, ma’am.”

Kim raised an eyebrow in Tom’s direction, and he nodded again, ever so slightly. Ames gave no sign he saw the exchange. “Permission granted.”

Ames took several precise steps over to Reynolds and saluted him. The rest of us exchanged startled and unbelieving glances.

What the hell is going on?

Tom was the only one of us who didn’t react, other than to come to attention and return the salute.

“Yes?” he said, more than a little curiosity in his voice.

“Sir,” Ames began, looking Reynolds straight in the eye. “I owe you an apology. I was seriously out of line in many ways, and I know that I can never make up for the harm that I’ve done to you or this team. All I can do is apologize, and promise that I will, from this moment on, be better. It would be my honor to continue to serve with you, if you’ll have me.” Ames held out a hand to Reynolds and kept it there, waiting.

Tom never glanced at it, but we all began to wonder as the moments slipped by and he didn’t shake it. It was an old-fashioned stare-down, with neither man looking away. Finally, Tom took a deep breath and shook Ames’s hand. There was a palpable sense of relief in the air, and Ames smiled, obviously relieved.

“I owe you my life, Tom. I won’t forget it. I hope you can forgive me.”

“Already done, Ed.”

Ames turned back to Kim and saluted. “I’d best return to my squad, ma’am.”

Kim returned the salute. “Off you go.”

Ames jogged off, and we all congregated around Gaines, still holding Rachel’s body in his arms. He hadn’t made a sound, never even seeming to notice what had happened with Ames. He was completely unresponsive to us, and as I glanced at Kim, she shook her head.

Solve one problem, gain another. When will it end?

I was going to find out all too soon, I knew. We all were.

Chapter Twenty-two

Fort Carson, Colorado

I approached Gaines slowly as he sat on top of the picnic bench near our barracks, looking out over the Front Range in the rising sun. We had a great view from up here; I just wished we had something nicer to look at than the city of Colorado Springs. I didn’t think it was a bad town, but it wasn’t exactly as gorgeous as the mountains behind us.

“Mind if I join you, big guy?” I asked. When he didn’t respond, I took his silence for acquiescence and sat down as well. We sat there for quite some time. He didn’t move a muscle, just stared at the sun as it rose, bathing everything in a golden glow.

“It was a nice service. Simple, no frippery. Just what she would’ve wanted, I think.” Neither of us said anything for a while, but eventually, I glanced over at him and cleared my throat. “You know, D, if you ever need to talk…”

I’d thought I’d gotten through to him when he slowly turned my way, but the look on his face was the same as it had been since we returned from San Diego — nothingness. He was functioning on autopilot, not really seeing anything or anyone around him.

“I don’t need to talk, David. I had to kill my fiancée. I had to shoot her so she wouldn’t become one of
them
. What could you possibly say that would help with that?” He turned away, dismissing me as though I didn’t exist.

I’ll admit that his casual dismissal of my own pain pissed me off. Until I realized a simple fact: He didn’t know about Rebecca or Eric.

“I may be the only person here who can truly understand what you’re going through.”

I didn’t expect what happened next; how could I? One minute, we’re sitting on the picnic table, watching the sun come up. The next, he had me in a choke hold — with one hand, no less — against the wall of the barracks, my feet drumming on the wall six inches off the ground.

“You. Don’t. Know. Anything,” he said, his face a mask of rage and pain.

I don’t know how, but I managed to choke out a few words. “I killed Rebecca.”

He didn’t let me go, but his iron grip on my throat relaxed a minute fraction, enough for me to get in a gasp of air.

“Who?”

“Rebecca. My fiancée.”

I caught myself just in time as he let me go, turning back to the sunrise, as though nothing had happened, climbing once more up onto the table. I shook my head and coughed a little to make sure everything was still attached and working, then joined him again, sheer stubbornness keeping me at it.

“We had been living together for over a year, and were gonna get married in about six months,” I said, my voice rasping out of my bruised throat.
To say nothing of my ego
, I thought. “She was bitten, and I had to shoot her. She had already turned, but I couldn’t leave her like that.”

I thought Dalton may have sighed a bit, but couldn’t be sure.

“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, or will ever do, pulling that trigger. I’d seen her less than a day before, bright and beautiful, but to see her like that… to
leave
her like that… that was more than I could bear. So I did what had to be done.”

I put my hand on the big man’s shoulder, and he didn’t flinch or draw away. “You did the same thing for Rachel, D. What she asked. She knew the score; she knew what was going to happen. You saved her from that.”

“How do you live with it?” he asked, so quietly that I barely heard it.

“I take it a day at a time, same as anyone else. Some days are harder than others.” I sighed. “It’s a bit worse for me, though.”

He turned to me, anger clouding his features, and I held up a hand.

“Just listen,” I said, taking a deep breath, and then another. “You were there when Gardner was arrested, right?”

He nodded. “Yeah, that bastard got the surprise of his life when Kim decked him,” he said.

“Well, did Kim tell you anything about
why
he was being arrested?”

“Not really, just that they had evidence he’d done some pretty awful stuff.”

“That’s putting it mildly. One of the awful things he did was to take a little boy and keep him locked up in a cell.” I looked at the rising sun, unable to hide the tears in my eyes as I remembered. “That little boy was soon to be my stepson. His name was Eric Campbell. Gardner kept him to experiment on; he had been turned as well, back in Fall Creek.”

“Holy shit.”

“Yeah.”

“No wonder you…” He trailed off, unable to finish the sentence. I didn’t blame him.

“Went wacko? Three fries short of a Happy Meal? Yeah. That combined with seeing Michael and Morena…”

“Morena? The new chick? What about her?”

“Kim didn’t tell you? I’m not surprised, really,” I said, pausing as I remembered the day I’d lost it. “Morena and Michael are dead ringers for Rebecca and Eric.” I snorted. “Poor turn of phrase, but you know what I mean. Put a blonde wig on Morena and she’d be Rebecca.”

Gaines had no response this time.

“So you can see, when I say that I know what you’re going through, I mean it.” I put a hand on his shoulder once more. “Any time you need to talk, I’m here. And so are the others.”

I stood up, dusting off my ACU, then turned back to him once more as he stared toward the rising sun. “Just remember this one thing, D. You’re not alone.”

I didn’t say anything more as I left, but I did notice a tear fall, and I was glad. At least he was grieving properly, and not going batshit insane for a month and a half like me.

Now if we can all just keep it together, we might just make it out of this mess.

Washington, D.C.

“What’d you do, Keith? Straight-up copy this from
Deep Impact
?” The president’s chief of staff was incensed, yelling at the younger man with a wadded up copy of the speech in his hand. “What happened to the version I reviewed yesterday?”

“Look, Jack,” said the speechwriter. “There’s only so many ways you can write an end-of-the-world speech, ok?
Anything
I write is going to sound like it came from
Deep Impact
, or
Armageddon
, or something! And the one yesterday was crap. You and I both know it.”

Jack took a deep breath, then let it out.

“Well, this one
is
a damned good speech, and better than yesterday’s. And it
is
the end of the world. Let’s just hope he doesn’t start ad-libbing. Again.”