Anthony DeCosmo - Empire

Nina spied two large piles of timber as well as buckets and boxes of tools outside of the “Wrightsville Beach Physicians Association,” a single-story building that happened to be missing most of one wall.

Jim greeted her as she parked at the curb. Denise Cannon stood in the distance with a group of bored-looking kids ranging in age from under eight to over twelve.

“Hello, Captain,” Brock offered as Nina exited the topless Humvee. “Did you bring a hammer?”

She looked at the hole in the wall then to him.

“Actually, I brought an appetite. An appetite for seafood.”

Brock tried hard but he could not contain his smile. “Great…that’s great. But-”

“But you’ve got something else going right now,” she stated the obvious.

“I’m sorry. It’s just that this is the only doctor’s office around and some big hairy thing knocked it down the other day. Some of those dogs-I mean, K9s-of yours chased it away but not before…before this…” he waved at the damage.

“Damn. Well, I guess we better start working if we’re going to make that dinner before it gets too dark.”

“Hey, uh, Captain-I mean Ms. Forest-uh, no, I mean Cap-”

“Nina.”

“Oh. Right. Um, Nina, you don’t need to do this. It’s going to take us forever. Besides, you’ve done more than-”

“Forever? Listen, Jim, we just have to put some elbow grease into this.” She walked toward the building with Brock in tow.

“Well there’s only four of us, I mean, I guess, five of us now, so it’s going to take a long, long time.”

“What about them?” Nina nodded at the kids standing around.

“Oh, yeah, them. It’s just me watching them now and I couldn’t leave them by themselves.”

Nina yelled, “Hey, ‘D’!”

Denise Cannon stood straight and cocked her head in such a smug manner that she might as well have told her friends, Yeah, that’s right, I’m tight with the coolest soldier around. Worship me.

Nina approached Denise and her circle of admirers.

“Hey, um, hey,” Denise said but kept a ‘cool’ posture.

“How you doing, girl?”

Jim Brock’s mouth nearly unhinged in fascination as he watched the exchange.

“Everything’s, like, cool. You know?” Denise answered.

“Hey, Denise, I need you to take care of something.”

“Yeah? Whatchya need?”

“We got to get this wall patched up real quick like, so I need you to take charge,” the Captain said.

“M-me? I mean, take charge of what?”

“Your gang over there,” Nina answered. “I know most of them are just kids, but I figured you could maybe get them to help do this.”

Jim Brock tried to say, “Oh, the kids don’t need to-”

“Yeah, you bet,” Denise answered.

“Tell me what you think,” Nina asked of Denise. “But I was thinking maybe me, Jim, and the other people here would start putting up the boards and nailing them on; do the dry wall and stuff. You could take your team and start hauling over those supplies. Just keep the real little kids away from the sharp stuff.”

“Nina, you don’t need to help with this,” Jim said but he was not really a part of the conversation.

Denise suggested, “Maybe we should pile the stuff up to the side there and then run for nails and stuff when you need it.”

“Damn good idea,” Nina nodded. “Why don’t you get them organized while I straighten things up over here.”

“Yeah, sure. I mean, roger that and all, right?”

“Right.”

Denise used all her strength to suppress a grin as she turned to the group of kids. “Hey, listen up! Billy, Joey, and Kate you guys come over here and start throwin’ all the nails in these buckets.”

One of the older boys-maybe fifteen-asked the obvious question, “Who put you in charge?”

“Don’t waste my time with stupid questions. Just do it.”

Billy did not ask any more stupid questions.

Nina and Jim walked to the clinic wall. He stared at her the entire way over.

“What?”

“I just…just-wow.”

The two met up with the other adults and quickly put things into good working order. They rebuilt the wall in less than two hours. While not a perfect match, Nina felt it filled the hole nicely, at least for the time being.

Nina watched a group of children run from the ocean’s edge carrying buckets of seaweed. The kids worked their way through the tangled mess of brush that had once been a meticulously kempt garden. Eventually, they rejoined the gathering on the patio deck.

“Seaweed?” Nina turned to Jim Brock and accepted a glass of water he offered.

“What? You’ve never been to a clam bake before?”

The kids ran to the trio of chefs overseeing a big barbecue pit where a layer of round stones smoldered. Those chefs accepted the slimy green bounty and then carefully layered the seaweed over the hot stones.

“We’re not eating the seaweed. Right? Seriously, Jim, right?”

His poker face broke, he laughed, and admitted, “Hey, where’s that tough survival-girl? No, we’re not eating seaweed. More like Yellow Fin Tuna and Marlin, or whatever else they caught today.”

Smoke rose from the pit.

She said, “Fresh seafood. I remember when you paid top dollar in restaurants for that.”

“No other way for us,” he told her. “We can’t really store any of it, so we eat tonight what we caught this afternoon. Some times the fishermen come back empty handed. In the early days, that meant eating canned soup or camping food; stuff we scavenged. The last year, well, it usually meant eating nothing at all. Are things going to be a lot better now? Now that you’re here?”

She enjoyed a swig of water and answered, “Me? No, I just kill the monsters.”

“You know what I mean. Now that your ‘Empire’ is here.”

“Not my Empire, Jim. Yours now, too. You’re a part of it. If the fishermen had come back without a catch today, you’d still have something to eat.” She considered. “Well, probably. I mean, today, yes. That’s doesn’t mean there aren’t hard times ahead.”

They stood at the edge of the patio deck looking out across the tangled gardens and the white sand toward the steady roll and splash of the surf. Darkness crept up from the horizon but they still had time before the sun set.

Behind Nina and Jim, dozens of people who had spent years hiding in the old resorts along the beach celebrated their liberation from the horrors that had invaded Wilmington five years ago. Music played from a tape recorder, a couple of people danced at the bottom of an empty swimming pool, and little kids chased one another around a veranda.

“What’s it like?” He asked. “What’s it like everywhere else?”

“It’s not like the old days, before ‘all this’, if that’s what you’re wondering. I mean, things aren’t easy. Food is always in short supply, so are medical supplies, and things like shoes and toothbrushes. Towns and villages and stuff are scattered around and the roads in between are pretty dangerous. People still do a lot of scavenging through vacant houses and buildings to find stuff to trade or that can be recycled into something useful. Of course, people who do that don’t live as long as those who stay in town; there are still lots of bad things out there.”

He told her, “I’m just happy that we’re not hiding anymore. Let the monsters do that for a while now, I’m sick of it.”

“Yeah, well, that’s my job, right? I have to admit, it’s nice to hang around for a bit to see what good comes of it.”

“What do you mean?”

She said, “I move fast. My unit and I, we’re usually on to the next mission a couple of hours after the last one is done. I don’t normally get to meet the people we help. All the hanging out I’ve done around here this week is usually the stuff civilian administrators do. I’m a field operative. This sort of thing is, well, kind of unusual for me.”