Carrying the FlagChapter 11 Innocence Lost
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"Sean!" Bryan exclaimed. "What's going on?"
"Just listen," Sean said. "This is important and I need you to do me a favor." Without pausing for affirmation Sean began. "Today the Federal Reserve is being dissolved. By the time that the announcement comes on the evening news tonight any American dollar will be absolutely worthless, not even worth the paper it's printed on." He stopped momentarily for breath.
"The plan is to replace the dollars with some kind of universal North American currency, which we haven't seen yet, and which is much more valuable intrinsically than the dollars they are replacing. The plan calls for one 'Amero' for every seven US Treasury notes. The main problem with that is that any loans taken out in dollars are going to be honored in 'Ameros.' So if you make one hundred dollars a day now, you will make about fourteen 'Ameros.' And if you have a four hundred dollar car payment a month, your car payment is now going to be four hundred 'Ameros.' See the obvious problem?"
Without waiting for the answer to his rhetorical question he continued. "We were called in overnight by the bank board and told to deal with our assets as best we could but we couldn't tell anyone. We are threatened with termination and prison time, so I am in a phone booth in a part of town where no one knows me."
"Call my mom and tell her what is going on. Tell her I said to take the operating account and any other spare dollar she has and pay the rest of the farm note off, 'cause it gets seven times bigger tomorrow. I suggest you do the same."
"Oh and there is going to be an emergency 'bank holiday' imposed over the next week or so, however long it takes to convert the currency. Spend everything you have before six tonight and you should be ok."
"This isn't a joke," Bryan said almost questioningly. "This is the real thing?"
"Bet your ass." Sean said. "I've gotta go before anyone misses me. Good luck brother! Hope to see you soon!" With that the phone clicked dead.
Sean was a bank loan officer. He had been one of Bryan's closest friends in school, and their friendship had seemingly endured the tests of time. Bryan knew without a shadow of a doubt that if Sean had said it, then it was true.
Bryan stood there in stunned silence, staring at the now inert receiver in his hand. The room seemed to spin for a moment. Bryan sat down on a nearby bench and let out a huge sigh. Amy stood in the doorway questioningly looking to him for further direction. Her eyes clouded when she saw the stunned look upon his face, and a frown crossed her tiny mouth.
"Daddy?" she asked questioningly.
Bryan didn't answer; his mind was stuck in a whirlwind of possibilities and impending doom. His heart was pounding, the room seemed to be spinning, and the tiny amount of background noise from the refrigerator seemed to be deafening. His jaw set, he looked up at her, the frown, the eyes filled with concern filled his mind. A voice within him seemed to say "You cannot become paralyzed with fear; you must act, and act quickly."
He shook his head, drew a deep breath and all at once the pressure was gone. Left behind was a deep sense of relief and purpose. And within seconds a plan was beginning to form within his mind.
The shopping list he had printed the night before was folded and tucked into his shirt pocket. He plucked it out, unfolded and read it quickly. His eyes shot up to Amy, who was still standing there before him wondering what to do.
"Honey," he said. "Go play in your room for a little bit. Daddy has something he needs to go do before we leave."
She gave him a crooked smile which seemed to say that she wasn't sure what to think but was still worried, she said "Ok Daddy." She strode off in the direction of her room, looking over her shoulder in question as she went.
Bryan quickly and purposefully strode to the pantry, shutting the door behind him. The door had a latch that closed from the inside and kept kids from accidentally noticing someone going in and finding an empty room. He had always felt that having the kids aware of such a secret was a possible disaster. Secret passageways were the type of things he would have spoken of as a kid and no matter how innocently the secret wouldn't have remained a secret for very long.
Through the secondary store-room, to the packing room, then unlocking the big door to the main storage room he went. He started up the computer near the door and sat impatiently until it loaded, physically feeling the seconds go by with each heart beat.
At last the computer loaded completely and the database sat before him, waiting for his input. He made one change by changing the amount of stored food time from forty-six weeks to one hundred fifty-six; three years. Then as the database updated, he accessed a spreadsheet of additional information that he had compiled. He hit print and three pages spewed out to him. The database finished tabulating the requirements and he printed that as well.
Eleven pages in hand, he closed the doors leading his way out, finding himself back in the kitchen. He had stuffed the pages into a spiral notebook with a pen shoved into the spiral. Tucking that under his arm he raced out to the truck.
He started the vehicle bypassed the normal warm-up procedures in lieu of haste and drove it over to the metal building which housed most of his tools. He backed up to the door, hit the garage door opener that was clipped to his sun visor, and backed up to the twenty foot box trailer parked just inside.
A bit of wiggling and estimating and he had lined up with the hitch, attached it to the truck, tested his lights and was pulling out the door. He hit the button to close the door and watched to make sure that it closed behind him without catching and opening back up. Once outside in the sunlight, he walked around the trailer testing the pressure in the tires. Once satisfied that the trailer was road-worthy, he drove back up in front of the house.
He left the motor running and stepped in through the kitchen entryway. He walked all the way back to the master suite and into the office alcove. He opened the wall safe with a practiced hand and took out all of the cash envelopes stored within. He jammed them into his inner coat pocket and then grabbed the checkbook for his business account.
He sat down at the computer nearest him and quickly ordered a few things on his wish list from websites that he frequented. He paid the extra fees for expedited processing and shipping, which hopefully would get what he had ordered in the mail before things went awry after close of business.
With almost everything in hand that he felt he needed, he walked over to the kids' side of the house to find Amy. She wasn't difficult to locate, lying in the middle of the floor in the commons on a beanbag chair looking at a book. He noticed with amusement that one of her boots was off but the other not and her sock had the picture of a monkey on it.
Amy was so intent on her book that she didn't hear him approach. Despite the stress of the moment he reached down and tickled her, prompting a stream of giggles from her. He smiled at the little lady, and she grinned back.
"Get your boot on so we can go," he said.
"Where are we going dad?" she asked innocently as she tried to pull the boot onto her foot.
"I think we are gonna go to the city today." He said. "I need to do some serious shopping."
Amy's face brightened. "I like shopping!" she said.
To hasten things along Bryan helped her get her boot on and let her run in the house to get to the truck, which was still running in the driveway.
Once inside and strapped in he headed toward town to fill up on fuel and head to the nearest city in the region.
Bryan pulled the truck and trailer up to a fuel pump at the local convenience store and turned the pump on. The truck had a huge fuel tank and it was nearly half full as it was, but Bryan decided to top it off anyway. The price wasn't anything to sneeze at, but it wasn't multiplied by a factor of seven yet either.
Letting the pump run, he went inside to get something to drink for he and Amy. He grabbed a few drinks, some snacks for he and the girl and sat down in his seat with the door open. He unwrapped and handed a stick of beef jerky to Amy who gladly grabbed up the salty snack.
Over his shoulder he heard a voice. "How's it going ... house husband?" Turning, he found himself face to face with an old acquaintance.
Brad Jenkins was an old classmate of Bryan's. Brad had been the captain of the football team and captain of the basketball team. He had also been a major pain in Bryan's ass for four years of high school. Brad was a couple of inches taller than Bryan, a shock of blonde hair sticking out of his baseball cap.
Bryan smiled, knowing that this particular moment had been coming for many years. Bryan stood up, looking the man in the eye. Though he was shorter, Bryan stood with hands unclenched, a sign of lack of concern for the larger man. The arrogant grin on Brads face was just beginning to fade at the realization that he did not intimidate Bryan anymore when Bryan began to smile.
"Brad," Bryan said, as if speaking to a child. "I run three businesses from the house. I own everything free and clear. I make enough that my wife, the one that I 'keep the house' for, doesn't even have to work. And to top it all off, my wife who wants for nothing comes home to me every night." He stopped at that, letting the words sink in for a moment before continuing.
"And Brad, if you want to belittle my success based on the fact that I answer to no one but myself, you really need to rethink your argument." He smiled and glared at the taller man. "Besides, it's clear from what you say at the bar when you're buzzed that you would give just about anything to sleep with my wife."
Brad, finding himself completely stunned, began to sputter. "I uh," he began. "I didn't mean it that way, err, uh..."
"It's ok Brad." Bryan said with a smile. "If I were you I would be jealous of the gig I've got too." Behind Brad, the pump handle clicked. "Now if you will excuse me, I have business to attend to."
Stepping around Brad, he pulled the fuel nozzle from the tank and holstered it back into the pump. The pump spit out his receipt and he tore it off in the process of closing the fuel cap. He slipped behind the wheel, closed his door and nodded to the stunned man with a smile before pulling away from the pump.
Bryan chuckled as he drove, thinking of how he had put down his childhood bully with a smile on his face. Years of being the butt of all of Brad's jokes had poured into just a few sentences and he simply hoped that it cut him as hard as it had Bryan twenty years before.
Pushing the moment from his mind he focused on the situation at hand. He began to organize the process of the hours ahead into a sequence.
He faltered out of his concentration with a start. Grabbing his phone from his pocket, he dialed a number from memory that he hadn't called in years.
Sean's mother answered.
"Diane," he began, not sure where to begin. "I got a call from Sean this morning. He wanted me to pass on a message because he couldn't."
Bryan explained as much as he could to the woman. She asked a few questions, nearly all of which he did not know the answer. She thanked him, saying that she valued the advice that Sean had sent along as much as Bryan did, and that she would act upon it.
Bryan shut off the phone, and looked back at Amy who was singing to herself in the back seat. She was totally calm, totally blissfully ignorant. She didn't have a care in the entire world. Bryan clenched his teeth with determination. He vowed to himself that she would never go hungry, never be stricken with the worries of the world until she was old enough to change them. That determination in mind, he went back to strategizing the rest of the day.
Nearly two hours later the truck pulled into the busy parking lot. The bulk warehouse store before them contained a large portion of the list that Bryan had in his hand. He grabbed a cart, planted Amy in the basket and they went inside to fill the contents of their list.
One hour later he had the truck backed up to the loading dock in back while four men loaded the trailer with cases of bulk food, bags of wheat and rice, salt and sugar. Cases of canned meats, fruits, and vegetables were stacked to the ceiling. There were spices by the pound, soap and cleaning supplies by the bucket.
When Bryan had finished identifying the bulk of his order he had located a store manager and with the help of four stockers and a forklift he had the front of the trailer loaded down in no time.
Before shutting the back door, he frowned at the front of the trailer. Nearly two thirds of the trailers volume was filled and he had another nine pages to go. Flipping through the list there were some things which took quite a lot of volume.
He looked around for a solution, but none showed themselves. He looked at his watch. It was 10:45 AM. There wasn't time to make a second load today and get everything on the list. He resolved to begin marking things off the list and get the most important items.
Amy was standing next to him eyeing the piles of food in the trailer. She began to hum quietly as Bryan began crossing things off the list.
Bryan felt a tug on his pant leg. Looking down he found Amy pointing to an orange sign in the distance. "What does that say?" she asked. He squinted to read the words.
"Secure storage," he read aloud. The light bulb in his head was comically slow in coming on, but when it did he grabbed up the little girl and kissed her on the cheek. "I have a great idea," he said.
Thirty minutes later he was cursing himself for being so efficient. He had unloaded about half of the bulk of the trailer when his back began to throb from the heavy lifting. He ignored it for the moment, pushing through to get the trailer unloaded and get to the next stop. The storage unit was about ten times as large as the trailer. He just prayed that he could get everything hauled home in a timely fashion.
Silver opened the kitchen door and found Amy, their youngest daughter sitting at the kitchen bar with a coloring book and a pile of crayons strewn all over the surface. The determined look of concentration on her face was comical. She was peering at the paper before her moving a green crayon in maniacal circles, sticking her tongue out of one side of her mouth, and twirling her strawberry blonde pigtail with her other hand. Oblivious to Silvers' approach she held her tiny pose long enough...
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The gathering before Bryan had "intervention" written all over it. He had been seated by the fire, stuffing the usual amounts of fodder into it to make a good warm blaze when Silver approached him. She sat down beside him and put her hand on his shoulder in a manner that made him look up. His eyes met hers questioningly and she frowned, as if unsure of what to say. She seemed as if she were about to speak twice before audible words came from her lips. "Bryan," she said. "There's...
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Here it is, chapter 3. I hope everyone enjoys it. Big changes have come and more are coming with future parts. If you haven’t read the other stories, you may be pretty lost. Start with Becky’s Marine and work your way through. Don’t forget to rate, comment and leave feedback. I greatly appreciate it all. Special thanks to Rnebular for his editing and suggestions. ******* Dawn came all too early, the sun filtering though the curtains cast little rays of light around the room like tentacles...
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Bryan pulled into the driveway at five minutes past six. Silver was standing there waiting for him. He pulled Amy out of her seat as she was exhausted from all the riding around and slung her sleeping form gently over his shoulder. She looked at the truck and trailer, packed down like a gypsy caravan and gave Bryan a questioning look. "Do you have the news on?" he asked. "No, should I?" she asked. "Yes," he said. They sat down in front of the television and watched as the announcer...
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Silver tapped her foot impatiently on the floor, watching as Derek choreographed the entire battle like some sort of sadistic composer. The radio chatter indicated that the enemy had split into three groups and that the middle group had been pinned down before being convinced over the radio that they should surrender. Even more amazing was that Meredith had managed to come through with the freed townspeople and had more than doubled the available firepower. She had also plugged the...
If you have NOT read ‘Life Lost and Love Gained’ or ‘Life Goes On’, please do NOT continue reading this story, you will not know the characters. Please read both stories before you read this story. Thank you. Ashira * Callia walked into the high school, her eyes glued to the piece of paper that told her what her locker assignment was. ‘Hey, watch it!’ an angry voice shouted. ‘I’m sorry!’ Callia apologized. The boy looked her up and down and grinned. ‘Aren’t you a hot little piece of ass,’...
Water off my pigtail streamed down the crack of my naked butt. I wiped my face with a towel. The fronts of my thighs burned like a son of a bitch. Coming up short on a front two-and-a-half does that, especially after a dozen tries. Or whatever it was. I don't give up easy. I was gonna be black and blue by lunchtime. Early morning practices can be a pain. Literally. "Why can't I get that dive, Terrell?" "Don't ask me. I'm a musician." "Were you even watching? Or were you waiting...
The kitchen had emptied some time later and only Amy sat still eating, working at her third serving. She was chewing slowly a sign that she was growing tired. She sighed, knowing that the rule was: to take extra food was to eat extra food. She reluctantly shoved the last bit of lettuce into her mouth and watched Bryan and Silver at the other island, gathering up their dishes. She watched them as they carried them to the sink and began doing the dishes by hand. Dish washing was a ritual that...
With water streaming down his face, Andrew massaged his temples. The hot water combined with the steam from the shower, his second of the day, helped to relax his muscles and settle his mind somewhat. Something was totally wrong, he had decided, completely and totally wrong. Silver had prepared a wonderful meal of beef stew and they had finally been introduced as he sat down for the biggest meal that he had eaten in nearly a month. Andrew had found himself unusually impressed with Silver....
Silver rarely drew sentry duty, but it was her night in the barn. She sat on the chair listening to the sounds of the night. The sound of crickets was a constant white noise atop the backdrop of howling coyotes or some kind of dogs. Wild dogs had been a problem of late, having banded together. They had reverted to their feral nature, and eliminated the smaller breeds, as well as anything else they could catch. It was not uncommon to see a German shepherds alongside a Rottweiler or Pit-bull....
‘Callie, wait!’ Greg called as he ran after her. ‘I don’t want to talk Greg,’ Callia said ‘I’m sorry about the other day,’ Greg said after he’d caught up to her. ‘About going over a rape scene until I wanted to vomit?’ Callia asked grumpily. ‘For being an inconsiderate jerk. I know most women don’t like the idea of rape,’ Greg answered. Cal, we’re late,’ Keely said as she and Laura walked up to their friend. ‘Do you guys really think this is necessary?’ Callia asked as her friend dragged...
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Thanks to everyone who left comments, it really is nice to hear your kind words. Sorry this one took so long, life has a way of keeping us from what we enjoy. This is more of Andrew’s story, and more will come as I find time to write. I hope you all have enjoyed it thus far and continue to enjoy it. ********** Deployment was over, but returning to life afterward is a whole new battle. Sure it seems easy, but when two people have been apart from each other for so long, leading separate lives,...
Late was not an option with Devers. I hustled to her new office. I'd canceled my afternoon diving practice, so when she was done dragging me over the coals I'd join Terrell for some music appreciation. That was something to look forward to. Assuming, that is, that my head wasn't mounted on Devers's office wall. I'd had sessions with her before -- for things like using one of the short stair railings as an angled balance beam or doing cartwheels down an almost empty hall. Hey! That was...
Can’t breathe! Can’t scream! Fight! I try to get my hands up – CAN’T! FIGHT! Help! I need help! My whistle! Blow my whistle. No whistle! No air. I woke up soaked in cold sweat, early morning sunlight filtering through familiar curtains, rolled on my back, tangled in my sheets, my pigtail draped across my throat. Fumbling it loose I grabbed a desperate breath. Finally unwinding everything I sat up and slumped. Shit! How long had it been since I’d had a nightmare that bad? A long...
Bryan opened the door and found Silver leaning over the side of the hot tub. She had her back to him and she appeared to be staring aimlessly off into the distance. Her body shook as she gasped, trying to control the sobs that rocked her body with endless tremors. Both her hands were clasped into fists. Her left hand twirled a tuft of hair, her right hand pulled at a handful of her bangs. She twisted and tugged, shaking and rocking as she sobbed. Bryan climbed into the hot tub behind her,...
At some point in the night, Silver had determined that it was not proper to sleep in their living area, and had awakened Bryan to go to bed. Bryan wasn't the type to get up and move about easily when he had been sleeping soundly. He stumbled and wove like a drunkard, had to stop twice and steady himself and fell into their bed sideways when he finally got there. Silver wrapped the blanked around him and snuggled next to him despite the odd angle as he fell back into restful sleep. Bryan...
Bryan snipped the last of the wires across the roll of welded wire. He had enlisted the help of the three boys to help him in the construction of the new bay of rabbit cages. Of the three, only Jake was truly interested in the project. He held the other end of the tape measure for Bryan, who had measured out a twenty-four foot strip of wire mesh. It was the third such piece and the other two boys were struggling to unroll the fourth, roughly guessing the length in relation to the other...
Amy was combing her hair in her room when the light flickered. First there was a flutter, followed by it dropping out twice, and then darkness. Panic followed. Amy was afraid of the dark, and darkness in an underground house at night was absolute. She wailed helplessly, unable to see anything and felt her way to the hallway tearfully. Maggie had found a candle and was walking from room to room lighting the lamps that had been installed in each room as a permanent fixture. Amy wrapped her...
The buck and report of the rifle was neither felt nor heard as the audible over-rides that a human body goes through in combat took effect. Bryan did, however notice that time seemed to stand still. The first bullet hit the target with relative ease as the man was standing straight, the orange of his cigarette looking like a dot of neon against the darkness. The muzzle flash blinded him briefly making him unable to find the other two culprits in his sites. He pointed in the general direction...
The mood around the gathering was very somber. Everyone had heard Bryan's report, at least secondhand. The adults which were not on watch duty had gathered in the main room of the house because it was the most spacious. The four women, starting with Meredith, took turns introducing themselves one by one. Bryan heard their names, but the vision of the hand coming out of the vent from the cattle trailer now haunted his thoughts and distracted him from the goings on. He had counted an...
The first day of August started as a normal, hot sultry day. The sun rose, and so did the temperature. The mosquitoes, which had stayed at bay most of the summer, were out in force. The change of the guard occurred at 0900 hours. It became clear very quickly that something was terribly wrong. The Militia had spent nearly two weeks reinforcing their position in the newly conquered town. They had found this locale so sparsely populated that the threat from the locals or anyone else was...
Cooper sat in the chair next to the bed and watched Callia sleep, afraid that if he took his eyes off of her that she would disappear but a sound in the doorway had him looking up. ‘Hey Luke,’ Cooper said quietly. He stood up and slid out of the room, not wanting to wake Callia. ‘How is she?’ Lucas asked. ‘Sleeping finally,’ Cooper answered, followed his father in law to the kitchen where Olivia was making a pot of tea. ‘What did the doctor say?’ Olivia wanted to know. ‘Callie and the baby...
Well folks, it’s been a while and I deeply apologize for the delay. Life gets in the way and soon the wife and I will welcome a new baby boy. This should be an interesting chapter and it took quite a while to get it the way I kinda wanted it to go. Before we get to the good parts, I have a request to you, my readers. Which direction should this story take? Should Andrew be given more free reign with sexual partners or should things stay fairly the way they are now? I have plans for Lauren and...
Chapter 1 Ivy and I met in college, we were both at a party in her dorm, she was a second-semester freshmen and I was in my junior year. She was a willowy blond with grey eyes who was dressed in a thin white lacy blouse and a short skirt showing the long legs that I've admired ever since. I could see that she was bare under her top, her dark nipples did make themselves known, especially their hardness poking out so provocatively. It was obvious that she knew she was sexy and was comfortable...
Sunday is a quiet day in our house. No radio, no TV, no phone, no computer. Cha even turns off the answering machine. Speak low if you speak at all. It's his day to meditate. He follows the religion of his ancestors, a mix of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism. And if that's not confusing enough, Me tells me each Vietnamese village has its own variation. The main thing is devotion to thần, which are sort of like spirits or gods. Or maybe they're ghosts of ancestors. I think you have to...
I wanted to put my arm around her but it was too hard to coordinate lurches as we headed down the empty hall from our lockers. We were both limping, her leg and my ankle. Cheering practice hadn’t gone well. At least we could hold hands, so long as I was on her left. “Do you think we should walk home like this?” Hadiya asked “You mean, like, naked?” “Yes!” she hissed enthusiastically, giving my hand a squeeze. Her first day in The Program and she’s suggesting walking home naked? We’d...
When we pulled into Matt’s driveway Haddy heaved a sigh of relief. Lestat was there, trying to look casual, leaning on his gleaming Harley Davidson, reading a book. She began to quiver. I think she was more than a little bit conflicted. For that matter, he wasn’t doing a very good job of looking casual. The moment we’d pulled up his eyes flicked up off the book and went right to her. I’d seen that look on gymnasts and divers just before they went into action at a meet, at the end of the...
Devers was as stone-faced as Shakespeare’s bust on the shelf behind her, maybe more. Willie was wearing the clown nose and hat I’d left with her. It kinda gave him a rakish look, and was that a smile on his face? It felt like all that had happened a long, long time ago. Devers looked older, and tired. I heard she’d passed up promotion to principal because she didn’t want to lose contact with us students. I wondered if she was regretting that. “Suppose you tell me what happened in that...
Bryan flipped the light switch and grabbed without looking for the notebook on the nearby counter. He leaned over and touched the power button on a computer sitting nearby, letting it run through its routines while Feeling his fingers fall upon it, he was already walking down the aisle, checking the inventory of each section as he went along. "Need two of those, need one of those. Need to get another case of that..." Walking down the aisle he made notes in the notebook. The store room was...
As Bryan became aware of his senses and dim light began to filter between his eyelids, he also became aware of the tiny arms wrapped around his bicep and the wet feeling on his shoulder. Opening his eyes, the tiny red pigtails poking into his line of vision were plain and easily identified. Amy had crawled into bed sometime in the night, wrapped her arms around his right arm and laid her head on his shoulder. From there she had proceeded to drool and snore lightly. Finding the situation...
Bryan awoke with a start. It was still dark, but he could feel a small body wedged under his arm. Silver was still lying with her head on his chest, but the sound of snoring came from behind her somewhere. He reached up and managed to get his fingers around Silver's phone. He flipped it over and slid it down the headboard toward him. With it firmly in his hand he touched the screen, lighting it. The clock said 4:35 AM. The light showed him that the child on his side was David. The snoring...
The entire fourteen acres resided as an elongated rectangle. On the north side was the nearest road. The driveway intersected it at an angle and the veered off toward the southwest in such a way that no one could see into it easily. The entire property was surrounded by a wall which Bryan, always miserly, had constructed out of used tires. Initially Bryan had gotten some used tires to serve as planters for a potato bed. Some people on a web forum which he frequented had reported success...
Inside the gates, inside the robust and misleading exterior of the property, was a system of design that had taken Bryan months to plan out. Nearly every square inch of the fourteen acres was utilized for something. The front half of the property sloped away from the crest of the hill near the road. It sloped down to a small creek which ran across the property at almost precisely the center. On the uphill side of the creek there was a culvert which came through the wall. The creek meandered...
An hour later Bryan was in the shed unloading the trailer and sorting the supplies into categories diligently. The three trailer loads of supplies had seemed like so much when he had paid for them and hauled them home, but stacked into piles they really didn't look like all that much. He frowned, wondering how he was going to get all the food into the storage room without anyone knowing. He could enlist the kid's help, but quite honestly what they didn't know they couldn't tell. He...
Bryan sat down after getting the fire lit. He stared into the flickering flames, mesmerized by the glow and almost organic quality it displayed. The room was not lit and the flickering flames slashing orange light around them gave the stone benches around the fireplace a wild, almost primal feel to the room. He scooted closer to Silver, who was also mesmerized by the flames. She was chewing on her lip, a sign of worry and concern. Her left hand was draped across her lap and he grasped it...
It was fairly late by the time that Bryan had finally gotten into the house. With all of the night's excitement, it seemed as if hours had slipped by. The house was dark inside, almost silent if not for the sound of the refrigerator and a slight crackling from the nearly dead coals in the fireplace. Otherwise silence was the only thing within hearing. "Like a tomb," he said to himself, considering the possibilities that had presented themselves. "An intruder got to within fifty yards of...
The phone rang loudly, waking both of them from their slumber with a jolt. Bryan grasped it, knowing full well who it was. "Bryan?" the man's voice on the other side asked, just a bit of tension in his voice. "Yep," Bryan answered sleepily. "This is Rob Henkel," the voice said again. "I got your email." "Ah," Bryan said, rubbing at his eye wearily. "We have fourteen acres. We're two hours north of the city. Come up, camp out and let things blow over from here." There was...
After leaving Andrew to his own devices, Bryan had found Silver in the hot tub again, this time simply relaxing. She was floating along on a cushion of bubbles and it was apparent that she had turned the jets up as high as possible. Her figure lay just under the surface of the rolling froth, steam obscuring the details from inside the door. Her arms were outstretched, her legs spread wide to balance her atop the churning water. Her nudity was not unexpected, as it was almost obligatory for...
Dinner had been eaten. Dishes had been washed. The islands and tables had been cleared and everything was clean. Bryan had lit a fire in the fireplace and was readying himself for addressing the group for the first time in an organized manner. Everyone had seated themselves around the fireplace in an ellipse, some on the floor, some on the benches that surrounded the focal point of the fire. Everyone was there except for the five youngest children, who had been sent to get ready for bed...
"So how did you do it?" Rob asked. Bryan shot him a questioning look as he took another spade full of dirt from the hole beneath them both and added it to the pile on his side. "Do what?" Bryan queried, not quite sure what he was being asked. "Build all this," Rob gestured around him. "The house, the barns, the walls..." he dropped for a moment. "It's like you built everything out of nothing. You said yourself there's not much money tied up in any of it." "There's not,"...
Rob and Bryan had crawled back into the Observation Post to watch helplessly as the situation unfolded six hundred feet in front of them. The drivers of the vehicles that were now crammed into the driveway entrance had apparently not seen the two men or at least had made no indication as such. The radio call that brought everyone inside the wall to arms had been made almost fifteen minutes prior, but nothing had happened. There had, thankfully, been no gunfire. But there had been no other...
The most immediate issue that Bryan needed to address was the extra people. There was Sean and Annie Callahan and their three daughters, Josephine, Olivia, and Ashley. In addition there was Brenda, Annie's sister, and her husband Jeff. They had no children of their own but she was reportedly expecting, though there was supposedly seven months to go. Derek of course would need special care and space for a while if he managed to pull through. His girlfriend Cassie was by all accounts nine...
The man's name was Jim Roberts. He was a plain type of guy. Short, balding, shirt and tie kind of gentleman. The gray hair around his temples was thin and wispy, sticking out more than was stylish or even acceptable. But then the comb-over that he sported was neither stylish nor fooling anyone, so the fluffy temples weren't that noticeable. He had droopy jowls below his unobtrusive chin that shook twice for every time he shook his head. All in all, he was the epitome of a stereotypical...
The restructuring of leadership seemed to strengthen the group in the weeks that followed. Bryan's stress level went from oppressively huge to manageable as his duties shrank from total care to simply feeding everyone. Silver, having been delegated the task of food inventory, had found the vault full of stored food to be both a monumental task and a challenge. For the first time since the financial crisis had hamstrung her company, Silver now had both a purpose and a daunting task. The...
It was the last day of June, three days after Camelia's seventh birthday. It started out like any normal day, or at least as normal as any day had been of late. Bryan was pulling weeds in a garden bed and watching out of the corner of his eye as the boys moved the portable cages which held the rabbits and chickens. This was a three time a day routine which needed done on a rigid schedule. Placed on the bare ground the chickens shredded the turf, picked through any stray manure left over...
The room was hot. Well actually hot was an understatement. Hot would have been nice. The room was an old classroom in the local middle school building. On the wall behind them a clock ticked loudly, bringing back nostalgic, though not particularly happy memories for Bryan. Many an August afternoon had been spent in just such a classroom. Bryan wiped the sweat from his brow. The people in front of him were all dressed as lightly as they could muster and retain their modesty. From the smell of...
Silvers lips tasted of strawberries; the after-effect of a romantic dessert shared under the stars. Her eyes were closed, but it was as if she could feel the prickles of light that shone down upon her bare skin. The cacophony of crickets and cicadas had deadened the sounds that she and Bryan had been making, though not as well as they would have liked to believe. Bryan lay upon the ground, shielded by a blanket from the moisture beneath. Silver's breath was heaving at ragged intervals...
August 16th was a dreary, rainy day. The weather had turned somewhat unseasonably cold and there was a light drizzle falling. Still it wasn't unreasonably cold out, so even wet the men weren't terribly troubled by the weather. They grumbled in a true soldier's fashion, but were not held back by it much. The assembly area was full of fully armed soldiers, ready to be sent off on their first real mission since taking the town weeks before. They were to root out a nest of locals who had been...
There is nothing more frightening to a soldier, than turning to find a comrade missing that had just been with him a moment before. And as this began happening all up and down the line while the Militia advanced, the resolve began to fall away from some of the men. It started on the flanks, the men on the end of the line would look around and realize that their buddy who had just stood next to them was missing. Shots were fired blindly into the thick underbrush, despite the order not to fire...