Anthony DeCosmo - Empire

His eye recognized the landscape. His soul-the one buried beneath-filled with old desires. The ghosts called.

With his army’s position secure, General Garrett McAllister issued the rather routine order to dispatch scouts. To the surprise of his officers, the General chose to personally lead one of those scouting parties.

The glassy look in Stonewall’s eye caused Kristy Kaufman, Dustin McBride, Woody Ross, and 17-year-old bugle boy Benny Duda to accompany the man who had saved each of them five years before when the fires of Armageddon threatened to consume everything.

So they ignored the danger of gathering the division’s top officers into one patrol and rode with their leader-their friend-into the past.

They traveled north on back roads near the border between the Carolinas. Horseshoes clomp, clomp, clomped on the pavement, trotting at a leisurely pace along a secluded route surrounded by litter-filled brush. The rustle of slung machine guns, the slosh of half-full canteens, and the gentle jingle of spurs created an almost calming melody.

Five years before, Garrett McAllister-in the person of “Stonewall”-assembled survivors and trekked north, charming his flock with a smooth tongue, courage, and a seemingly supernatural vision of a lakeside estate where humanity gathered for a stand.

In the midst of the chaotic collapse of law and order…in the face of horrendous creatures from the worst possible nightmares…at a time when people deteriorated to basic and selfish survival instincts…in the middle of that came a gallant southern gentleman full of bravery, dignity, and honor.

He treated them with respect but expected their best efforts. He suffered no fools, yet comforted the strong in their moments of weakness.

Through it all, no one ever asked their General the most basic question. No one ever asked, ‘who is Garrett McAllister?’

In a land where three-legged platypus creatures carried laser rifles and Mutants with massive maws rode hovercraft, a man with the persona of a Civil War General did not seem so odd. They accepted his persona because Armageddon had swept the slate clean.

The solitude of the road they traveled gave way to more signs of yesterday’s civilization.

They came upon a convenience store with two gas pumps and a rusted Buick station wagon out front.

The patrollers guided their horses into that parking lot to find what five-year-old goodies might be scavenged, although they knew any gasoline in the pumps would have long ago eroded into worthless liquid.

One of the mounted riders did not follow the rest.

Stonewall eschewed the store and directed his horse in another direction, toward a bank of numbered mailboxes under a large wooden signpost for “Happy Acres.”

The General examined those boxes for several seconds before dismounting and tying his steed to a yellow and black “Children at Play” sign.

Stonewall, as if in a trance, followed a small side road that ascended a slight grade into a patch of thin woods.

Across the way, Benny Duda took note of the General’s behavior. He grabbed the attention of the other officers who, one by one, dismounted and tied their horses, too.

Woody Ross directed the attention of Dustin, Kristy, and Benny to one particular mailbox.

McAllister.

They followed their General. Garrett paid them no attention; his eyes remained focused ahead as the woods gave way to a flat clearing holding the remains of a trailer park.

A few of the mobile homes stood intact, but they were the exception. Others lay in halves, many more burned to the ground, one simply flattened like a stomped cardboard box.

Garrett’s head turned side to side as he walked, marking each home, each memory.

At the end of one row sat the remains of a trailer, its roof and most of the walls burned or otherwise disintegrated yet, ironically, the front door stood closed, held in place by a frame that refused to collapse.

Garrett paused for a brief moment and then circumvented the door, walking under the shadow of what remained of the roof.

His eyes grew wide and his lips parted slightly, giving him the look of a child in the grips of great wonder.

Burned boards and curtains and shattered glass littered the floor. He stepped around overturned furniture, a crooked reading lamp, and a split kitchen table as he surveyed the destroyed interior.

His friends hovered several paces behind, silently watching.

Garrett removed his hat and tucked it under one arm as he approached a shelf nailed into one of the few remaining walls. He ran a hand over the surface, as if performing a white glove test. When he found nothing other than dust, he retreated a step and scanned the debris below.

Garrett bent and retrieved a picture frame from the floor. The image showed a woman, a little boy, and a little girl. A mother and her kids. A wife and a husband’s children.

He held the frame and studied it, tracing the cracked glass with gloved fingers, touching the faces of the family there. His fingers trembled. At first a little, but then more.

His eyes narrowed and lips pursed tighter…tighter…and then he surrendered.

Stonewall had slain many aliens and chased off uncountable hordes of monsters in the years since donning a General’s uniform, but he could not fight the man’s tears.

As thin streaks traced down his cheek, he felt the strong grip of Woody Ross on his shoulder, then the slender form of Kristy Kaufman as she wrapped her arms around him and squeezed. Then Benny and Dustin completed the warm wall of affection and strength around their General.

They stood there, together, their hearts melded to his in a tender silence broken only by the sobs of a man named Garrett McAllister…

…He sat on a pile of cinderblocks outside what had once been his home, and stared into space as the others gathered around.

“I was a man of many… passions,” he licked his lips but his eyes did not blink nor waver. “Many of these passions were easily obtained from a bottle. I really did not care which bottle it was, as long as my passion was satiated. And it was not for me to question why. After all, for a life so lacking in adventure and so rooted in the routine, what was wrong with seeking a little passion now and then?”

Wind blew through the trees surrounding the long-dead trailer park. Leaves rustled. Litter bounced across the streets like tumbleweeds in a desert.

“When the good Lord decided to pass judgment on humanity, I was busy indulging my passions at a tavern. Indulging quite heavily. I recall a rather nasty brouhaha, one which required the local constable to intercede. Therefore, my dear friends, when fate knocked on my door I was not home to answer, in that I was in the custody of that constable who did not take kindly to being struck.”

Garrett paused. After several seconds, he blinked and regained his train of thought.

“Where was I? Oh, yes. When fate knocked at my door, the task of answering fell upon my wife and my children. It seems that if fate could not have me that day, it would take them.”

Stonewall’s friends glanced around the neighborhood. Whatever hostile ‘fate’ sent to knock on McAllister’s door, it performed its destruction with efficient brutality, leaving almost no home in the park untouched.

“With all that was afoot that momentous morning, the good constable saw it in his kindness to allow me my leave. Indeed, he encouraged me to-in not so many words-to see to my family’s safety. Of course, by the time I found my way home, fate had already claimed its prize.”

Kristy tried, “There’s nothing you could have done.”

“That is where you are quite mistaken. I could have died. I could have died with my children. Had I managed to do at least that, then I would have done something of consequence for them. As it is, my record as a paternal guardian and as…as a husband…well,” he licked his lips but found little saliva there. “Suffice to say that a recounting of my history in such capacities would show that I was, to say the least, ‘lacking’. In the end, they died very much as they lived; without their father.”