The Last Hour (Thompson Sisters) by Sheehan-Miles, Charles (reading well .txt) 📕

Paris. The three of us moved over there and shoveled frantically, quickly widening the opening. Of the four of us, Paris was the smallest. The second we had enough snow cleared for him to fit in the opening, I said, “Paris ... go. Check it out.”

He nodded, then set down his entrenching tool and removed his web gear, unslinging his rifle and passing it to me. Then, feet first, he wriggled his way through the opening with nothing more than a flashlight.

We fell silent, no movement, no digging. I could hear the other fire team at the next house over, digging through the snow. A faint wind blew in from the east. Paris slid down the mound of snow into the house.

He should have taken his rifle, I thought. I felt tension in my gut. The silence was unnerving. More footsteps, then a gasp and a muttered curse. I swallowed. What the hell was he doing in there? What was taking so long?

I saw Sergeant Colton looking my way. I waved him down, and he waded through the snow toward me.

“What you got?” he asked, quietly. For some reason, all of us felt the need to nearly whisper.

I gestured. “Paris is checking it out.”

We watched, and then I called out, “Paris? You good?”

He coughed. And then he spoke, and his voice cracked midway through the sentence. “On my way out.”

Thirty seconds later I heard scrabbling from inside, boots in the snow, as Paris made his way out. Then I saw a hand coming through the small opening. Colton and I reached forward and pulled, sliding Dylan right through the opening. He took a second to catch his breath, and then stood.

I’ll never forget the look in his eyes when he stood and faced us. He opened his mouth to speak and then closed it. His jaw was working, and he swallowed. His eyes looked hollow, haunted. And then he said, “Kids. A family. Six of them.”

And then he walked away from us, ten feet, then twenty, and stood there; his back to us, shoulders shaking.

I’ve always been taught when a guy breaks down like that, you give him space. Give him space to pull himself back together before he has to face anything else. But Colton ... he was different. He was like a good dad. He walked over to Paris and put a hand on his shoulder. I couldn’t hear what he said to him. Roberts and Kowalski watched, and I did too, and finally I said to the two of them, “Come on. Move on to the next house.”

And so we moved on, and a few minutes later, Paris rejoined us. I didn’t want to think about what he’d seen in there. A whole family frozen to death. Kids, he said.

The next house went pretty much the same, except that digging went quicker, because we had rhythm now. But when we got the opening wide enough to go in through a window ... at least wide enough for Paris ... I didn’t tell them to stop. I could go in the next one, or Kowalski. I didn’t want to see that look in Paris’s eyes again.

But he said, “Stop. It’s big enough, I can get in.”

Crap. I nodded, and we stopped digging, and then Paris was scrambling to wriggle into the window. As soon as he was in, we started shoveling the snow again. I wanted him to be able to come out quick if he needed to.

Then I heard his voice. “Aw, fuck!” I could hear despair in his voice. More footsteps. But then, sudden shouts. “Sherman! I need help! I got a survivor, a little girl!”

And then we were digging again, furiously, until there was room for Roberts and me and then Kowalski to slide in the window and down to the floor.

And then I understood. I understood that hollow look in Dylan’s face. Because inside, the first thing I saw, the bright sunlight shining through right onto them, was a woman, dead, still holding her dead baby at her chest. They were huddled together with two other children and a man.

But it was in the cupboard where Dylan had made his find. Shivering violently, pale, the tip of her nose blackened by frostbite, a little girl. Nine years old, maybe. Maybe after her parents died, maybe before, she had closed herself in there with heavy blankets. Inside the enclosed space, she’d somehow managed to survive.

“Son of a bitch,” Kowalski muttered. “We gotta get her out of here.”

“Careful,” Paris said. “I don’t even understand why she’s alive when….”

Kowalski kneeled down in front of the girl. She was still huddled in the back corner of the cupboard, her eyes wide, unblinking.

“Come on, girl,” he said. He gave her a sad looking smile, probably the first smile I’d ever seen on Kowalski’s face. “Let’s get you warm, okay?”

I don’t think she understood the words. But she understood the tone. He gestured for her to come to him, and she ran and threw her tiny little arms around his neck.

I blinked, hard, and cleared my throat. “Kowalski ... get her to a Humvee, get it running, get her warmed up. Roberts, go find the medics.”

So the three of us helped Kowalski out with the little girl, then Roberts left right behind him. I looked at Paris and said, “Good one, man. You saved that little girl.”

His eyes darted to the rest of her family ... all dead, then said, “Thanks.”

We didn’t find any more survivors in the houses. In all, thirty-four villagers ... nineteen of them children ... froze to death.

An hour later, I stopped to grab a smoke, just as the helicopters were arriving. Hick’s fire team had finished their assigned houses, and he walked over and stood beside me. Both of us were silent, standing there in the snow. I didn’t have to ask what he was thinking, because his team had found pretty much the same thing as mine. Hicks was a sharp soldier and a