Mike Mullin - Sunrise

Belinda volunteered to deliver the letters. I wanted to do it, but everyone on the council objected. Only Dr. McCarthy objected to Belinda going, and he was overruled.

Belinda slipped into Warren overnight, putting both letters through the mail slot at Mayor Petty’s house. “It was easy,” she told me the next morning. “They’re sitting ducks.”

The weeks crawled by without any word from Ed. Neither Mayor Petty nor my mom responded to my notes either. To be fair, we had no routine way to communicate with Warren, but it was only about five miles from there to Speranta. Someone could have come.

More escapees joined us from Stockton. Never again nine at once—they came in dribs and drabs of twos, threes, and fours.

My unease grew with every passing day. The very air around me felt charged, electric. Nothing was stable: Ed’s missing expedition, Stockton’s starvation and descent into cannibalism, Mayor Petty’s denial about their vulnerability. I felt a little like I used to when I was sparring and my opponent launched a jump kick at me—he was committed and would have to come crashing down, and if I was in the way when it happened, I would get hurt.

Almost seven weeks after Ed’s expedition left, the kick finally landed.

I woke from a deep sleep to the sound of Max shouting, “Everybody up! Full mobilization!”

I was the only one who was supposed to call for a full mobilization. I sprang out of bed in my underwear. I grabbed my pants and boots and ran for the phone without taking the time to put them on. Darla was already half-dressed.

Rebecca was on the phone, monitoring reports from the other longhouses and sniper nests. “Report,” I said as I stood in front of her, jamming my feet into my pants.

“Large force, two hundred plus, inbound about a mile and a half to the northwest. They’re headed right for us, right for Longhouse One. I already told everyone to mobilize.”

“Good.” I finished buttoning my pants—a neat trick when you have to do it one-handed—and then reached for the phone. “Longhouse One going to siege mode. Snipers stand ready. All other forces converge on Longhouse Three and await orders.”

I sat on a bench to pull on my boots. “Send a runner to the door when they’re at half a mile,” I told Rebecca.

“Got it,” she replied. Ben, over at the shortwave set, started scolding her for “incorrect military etiquette.” I ran to the front door and grabbed the bullhorn we kept hanging beside the door.

They were moving very slowly. I must have waited more than half an hour before Max ran up to tell me the range had closed to a half mile. I opened our heavy, wooden front door and stared out into the black night. A few dim lights moved to the northwest in odd, bobbing paths, like ailing will-o’-the-wisps.

I raised the bullhorn to my lips and shouted, “This is Mayor Halprin. Halt, or you will be fired upon!” For a moment, nothing changed. Then the lights stopped moving. I sent Max back to Rebecca at the phone to find out if our sniper overhead could give me a more detailed report. Then someone yelled back from the group ahead; all I could make out was, “One person… talk.”

“One unarmed person will be allowed to pass,” I yelled back through the bullhorn. Then I waited. A light detached from the group ahead, growing brighter as it approached. Whoever was carrying it was moving fast, running. In less than two minutes, she was close enough that I could make out her face: Nylce Myers, who had accompanied Ed’s expedition to Worthington.

I ran out to meet her, giving her a hug. But we didn’t have time to linger. “Who are those people?” I asked.

“Most of Warren,” she said. “Everyone who’s left, anyway.”

“Wait, where’s Ed?”

“He’s… I don’t know. The Reds got us. We were holed up in a farmhouse south of Warren last night. Only a day from home. They must have taken out our sentries. Suddenly they were among us, knives out. Ed surrendered—there was nothing else he could do. I slipped away to get help.

“I didn’t have my boots on. After a few hours hiking through the snow like that, my toes were turning black. I stopped in Warren for help—I was afraid I wouldn’t make it the last five miles here. I begged Petty to send a messenger to you, and he promised he would, first thing in the morning. But the force of Reds that caught us was on its way to Warren. They slipped in and took the city at knifepoint, almost without a shot. Everyone who could, ran.”

“Is Mom out there?” I asked, dreading the answer.

“She’s okay. I don’t know about Ed and the others, though. We found Eli. We had him and his family, his pigs, and a bunch of snowmobiles we captured from the Peckerwoods. The expedition was a huge success, but now—” Nylce’s voice choked off somewhere deep in her throat. I ushered her into the longhouse and called a platoon to accompany me outside to meet Mayor Petty.

He was enthroned on his wheelchair, Mom at his right hand, Sheriff Moyers on his left. I didn’t see how they had been moving him through the ice and snow—carrying the wheelchair like a palanquin, maybe?

“Mom,” I said as I got close.

“Son,” she said cautiously.

“I’m glad you’re here,” I said. “Wish you’d come earlier.”

“We don’t need to stay long,” Mayor Petty said. “Just need to rest up, get back on our feet, and we’ll go retake Warren.”

“Anyone who’s willing to work hard and live by our rules is welcome,” I said. “And you can head back to Warren whenever you’re ready.” Suddenly it struck me, though: the man in front of me was responsible for the massacre outside of Warren. The man next to him, Sheriff Moyers, had carried it out. Many—maybe a third—of our settlers had been on Stagecoach Trail that night. They had lost parents, brothers, sisters, friends, and children on that road. I detested Mayor Petty, disliked him personally as well as everything he stood for. But some of the victims would hate him, and who could blame them? I still couldn’t turn him away—he was, what, my stepfather now? If I sent him away, my mother would certainly follow him. And angry as I was with her, I still loved her. I needed her here in Speranta, safe. But how would I keep the other settlers from ripping Mayor Petty to shreds?

“That’s fair. It’s only for a few days, like I said,” Bob Petty replied.

I had no illusions about his men returning to Warren. Once they got used to living in heated buildings, flipping a switch for light, and sleeping in the safety of a well-thought-out defensive system, most of them wouldn’t want to return to Warren. Mayor Petty might, but I would wager nearly anything that he would be mighty lonely. “Come on, then. Let’s get you checked in.”

I raised my arms in a huge V at the closest sniper tower, signaling that everything was okay. If I had crossed them over my head instead, the shooting would have started.

Sheriff Moyers picked up Mayor Petty, slinging him awkwardly over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. Petty had enough of his right leg left that Moyers could hold on to it. Mom folded up his wheelchair and hung it from her back by an attached loop of cord. That answered the question of how they were transporting him—and why they were moving so slowly.

I rushed ahead to the longhouse, calling Anna, Charlotte, Uncle Paul, and Rebecca into a hurried conference. “I need you guys to clear everyone out of Longhouse Five. Move them into One through Four. I want Petty’s people in Five and none of ours.”

“You think Petty’s group is dangerous?” Charlotte asked.

“No,” I replied, “I think our people are liable to kill them.”