Carrying the FlagChapter 11 Innocence Lost
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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 opened his eyes and automatically knew that things were not as they should be. It was still pitch black, but intuitively something was wrong. Silver was cradled against his left side as always, a pillow was under his head and a blanket covering them. Yet something was out of sorts. The sounds; the echoes of their breathing was wrong.
Using his right hand he reached out, feeing toward his nightstand and found only more mattress. "I must by lying on the bed wrong," he thought. His eyes adjusted to the dim light and he was able to determine that he was lying at close to a forty-five degree angle out of normal. He had no recollection of getting up from the bench and had no idea how he had gotten there.
He stretched a bit, feeling Silver stretch and mold to the contours of his frame. The pair was inseparable when they were asleep, usually very tightly woven together. He held tight to her, the silkiness of her smooth skin against his own feeling almost like satin.
He knew that she would have to get up soon, so made no move to wake her or change her position. She would probably awaken at any time as it was, and would likely lie around for a bit after that. Knowing that he savored the feel of her, dreading that the seconds counting down were counting down till the time when she would leave for the day.
A few minutes later Silver's eyelids blinked open in a sporadic spasm like the fluttering of butterflies taking off. A faint ruffle was heard as one eye was close enough for her eyelashes to rub the blanket that they were snuggled under. It made a faint rushing sound like blades of grass blowing in the wind. She yawned and stretched, scratched Bryan's chest with the fingertips of her left hand, which was an unconscious action which she did every morning. It served as his wake-up call some mornings when he was more tired than he was then.
She snuggled up closer, kissing him on the cheek and groaned as her sore muscles came awake. "Good morning Mr. Hudson," she muttered in a tired slurred sort of stammer. "Sleep well?"
He smiled. "Like a baby," he said, and then added "A sleepwalking baby."
She smiled and closed her eyes again, nuzzling at his shoulder with her cheek as if she couldn't get close enough for comfort.
He sighed, knowing full well that the next few seconds were all that he had to enjoy her. She squeezed him in a hug and reached over her shoulder to retrieve her phone from the headboard. Realizing that they were still lying crooked in the bed she sat up to retrieve it.
"Argggggh," she scowled. "We overslept. I need to get in the shower like now." A flailing plume of blankets erupted and Silver was seen scooting across the room hurriedly toward the shower.
Bryan pushed the pile of eschewed blankets from his face and sighed. "It was good while it lasted," he mused.
When Silver finally got herself together and dressed, she found Bryan down in the kitchen. He had prepared breakfast and her vitamins for her. She hurriedly partook as much as she could, kissed him goodbye and fled.
Bryan stood steadfast at the door watching her drive much too quickly down the driveway toward the highway. Sighing he sent her a text message reminding her that he loved her.
Moments later he received one in return: "I love u!" it read.
Sighing, feeling a little bit deflated as he always did when she wasn't there, he began to busy himself with the thoughts of the day. He had a lot to do, lot of stuff to put away, and a lot of inventory to track.
The children, being children after all, hadn't gotten up yet and likely wouldn't before the crack of nine. They would take care of themselves for the most part. Maggie watched the smaller ones and he wouldn't be far at any rate.
With breakfast settling and a long list of things to do Bryan stepped out of the door to tackle what was otherwise an ordinary day.
The first thing on the list was to check the water supply. Water on the homestead came from a tank system near the top of the hill.
There were three types of water utilized around the farm. The first type of water, which was the type that was the most refined and guarded, was the drinking water. Drinking water was pure rain water. It was collected from the top of the aboveground greenhouse on top of the hill. The first ten gallons that fell from the roof was collected into another tank which was used later on.
The rain water was collected into a barrel and slow filtered through a sand and charcoal filter system to ensure purity. The holding tank where it was stored was below ground ensuring both cool water in the summer and warmer water in the winter.
Bryan had also added a plastic basket immersed inside the tank which held several silver bars. This served not only to keep the silver safely hidden, but also because it had an antiseptic quality and kept the water fresh. Silver dimes had been used for years to sterilize Petri dishes in the chemical and medical industries, and it kept the twelve thousand gallons of water free from most pathogens.
After leaving the drinking water tank the water would go through a standard water filter and into a mixing tank where a solution of thirty-five percent food grade hydrogen peroxide was added.
The hydrogen peroxide, which oxygenated the water served as an additional sterilizer for many of the remaining pathogens which could have made it past all of the previous filters. It also had the added benefit of oxygenating the cardiovascular system of the drinker and helping to build immune function.
Since adding this particular addition to their water supply Bryan had noted that the family had experienced a twenty-five percent drop in illness. Head colds and influenza outbreaks seemed to be a thing of the past, though that could have been attributed to the healthier eating habits of the family since he had begun producing a majority of their food at home.
From the peroxide mixer, which really only added back the percentage of peroxide that fresh rain water picked up from the atmospheric ozone naturally, the water flowed down the seventy five yards of pipe into the house and to two outdoor buildings. The water flowed into special receptacles that were designed and placed with drinking water in mind.
The second type of water collected was for washing. It was also rain water collected from the nearby shed where the trailer and truck were now parked. It was collected from the roof in the same manner as the drinking water, went through the same type of pre-filtering, and had a basket of silver semi-sterilizing the water.
The main differences revolved around the lack of post-filtering, lack of peroxide mixing, and the larger volume of the tank. There was a backup system which pumped water from a well into the filtering system if there was not enough rain. It kicked in when the water level fell below a certain level. Water from this tank made its way to the house through a second set of pipes and was used for kitchen and bathroom sinks, bathing, and laundry.
The third type of water was primarily used for toilet flushing, watering the gardens, and water for livestock. It came from a mixture of overflow from the other two tanks, ground water from the well, and the first few gallons off of the roof of both collecting buildings. Rainwater was not used much for this because there was no need to be particularly pure. The tank at the top of the hill was only one in a series of six which gravity flowed with a float and overflow system to locations all over the property. Water was at a premium so long as the well did not run dry.
With a stick, marked at intervals he tested the drinking water's depth. Since it was the end of winter the drinking water was always a little low as the seasonal rains had yet to come and replenish the supply.
He noted the depth in a notebook that he carried with him and moved to the next tank. The cleaning water was at about half depth, which was as low as it got as long as there was electricity. The third tank was full, as he expected it to be since it was primarily fed by the well.
He walked over to the well and opened the access, looking down into the darkness. The reflection of water below was visible at the edge of his vision. He would need to measure it someday soon, he thought. It seemed to be lower than usual.
He walked into the aboveground greenhouse, which was the only of the properties' three greenhouses that was not set into a hill. This one was built over a large pit approximately twelve feet deep and the size of the building above. It was constructed for the purpose of producing Mediterranean and tropical fruit trees which would not otherwise grow in such a climate. There were banana, coconut, olive, orange, lemon, avocado and papaya trees. A shelf on the north side grew coffee plants, tea plants, and a trellis above was host to vanilla orchids.
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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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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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,...
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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...
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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...
"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...
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...
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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...