Hell's Fortress by Daniel Wallace, Michael Wallace

different. We’re going to call her Pear, ’cause of that patch of hair that looks like a fruit. And that’s final.”
    Jacob never bothered with “Pear.” She was always Jenny to him. The rest of the family took it up too. After a while, even Father abandoned the struggle and called her by her real name. How old was she now?
    That must have been ten years ago. It had been late summer and he was home from medical school to help with the haying.
    With a sick feeling in his heart, Jacob wiped his eyes, then fixed the horse’s chest in his scope. The gun was a .30-06, powerful enough to bring down an elk. It would do this ugly business just as well. He squeezed the trigger. The rifle shot rolled across the desert. Jenny slumped forward, head collapsing. She didn’t move. For a long time, neither did Jacob.
    He engaged the safety on the rifle and slung it over his shoulder. Still nothing in the skies. No other attacks or explosions, including south along the highway where his sister and the others had disappeared in the bus. He walked back to his companions, still lying flat on the edge of the highway in the baking soil amid brush and anthills.
    “Elder Smoot, come with me. The rest of you stay here.”
    Smoot stumbled onto the road. Jacob took his shoulder to steady him. Together, they approached the collapsed bunker. The fire was mostly out, and the ordnance had stopped exploding, but it spit an acrid smoke through holes in the wall.
    Smoot shielded his face from the heat as he approached. “Bill! Are you there? Bill!”
    “He’s gone,” Jacob said. “He never felt a thing.”
    “Why? Why would this happen?” He started forward. “I’ve got to get him out of there.”
    Jacob grabbed his arm. “No. We’ll come back for him later when it’s cooled. Now, it’s time to take care of the living. I have to get Elder Young to surgery.”
    Smoot turned with a haunted expression. “Bill has a family. Children. Why would the Lord let this happen? Please, Brother Jacob, help me understand.”
    How could Jacob answer that? Platitudes? Or the truth? Bad things happened. Nobody had set off the volcano on the other side of the world that had started this whole nightmare. That was nobody’s fault; it just was .
    But with the world collapsing around him, Jacob struggled to hold on to even that. More and more it felt like the universe—or God, if you went that far—was conspiring against them. Against Jacob. No matter what he did, people kept dying. And so he didn’t have an answer for Elder Smoot. Nothing that would satisfy either of them.
    But Jacob had to try.
    “He died defending his people.”
    Smoot looked him in the eyes, waiting for more.
    Bill must have spotted the drone circling and opened fire. Not one chance in fifty of dropping it out of the sky. The first missile had been a warning; otherwise, why destroy an empty cart and a few animals? The second had been a response to a threat. Bill Smoot had thrown his life away. If he hadn’t fired, the enemy wouldn’t have either.
    “We’re alive because he drew the enemy’s attention,” Jacob lied. “Those drones carry two missiles. The first one missed. The second killed your son. It could have easily destroyed the rest of us. Or blown up that bus. Then forty-seven refugees would have died. Plus four of our own.”
    “Only two missiles? Are you sure?”
    “Absolutely,” he said, though he knew nothing of the sort. “Why do you think it left? It was out of ammo.”
    “But you ordered us to lie flat. Why?”
    “There might have been a second drone. I had no way of knowing. We were lucky. There wasn’t.”
    “My son. His body.”
    “Later. I promise.”
    Smoot stared at the bunker, but let Jacob draw him away. Moments later, Smoot, David, Jacob, and Lillian were carrying Stephen Paul to the remaining truck. They cleaned the ash and burned tarp from the bed, then salvaged a filthy sleeping bag and some charred clothing from one of the overturned wagons,