by G. R. Carter
Maybe the darkness that befell modern society was God’s way of hitting the reset button.
Everyone knew in their hearts that the way society was going couldn’t keep up. Neighbor turned on neighbor, and the younger folk retained little sense of what their elders accomplished for them. Things got bad in the neighborhood where Lamar and Charlotte made their home. The Jenkins home was the anchor, and anyone wanting to ruin their community tried to challenge them first. One night, Lamar had to stand on the porch, pumping his shotgun and then even firing it into the air.
BOOM!
The sound and light scared the children, but scared the thugs even more. Thank God her man remained strong. Lamar was salt of the Earth, a true blessing to her. She could remember him facing off against those wanting to turn their neighborhood into a drug-dealing den of iniquity. Lamar’s example to the good people led a mini-revival of sorts in their area. The Church was prospering and setting the roots needed to weather this great storm that was on them now.
BOOM!
Charlotte stirred slightly – Lamar had only fired once that night. But the dream seemed more real tonight.
BOOM!
That’s not a dream, that’s one of the guards…
Before Charlotte could reach to wake up Lamar, he was already up. Shaking off the sleep, he sprinted to the door, grabbing his always-loaded battle rifle that hung next to the door.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
“Be careful, love! I’ll get the rest up and to their places!” Charlotte shouted at the back of her husband as he made the sharp turn toward the stairs leading to the roof.
Charlotte stepped outside and began ringing the bell that served as both a call to meals and a call to arms. The clanging sound could only mean trouble this time of night.
“All up! All Up! Emergency! Everyone to your emergency positions!” Charlotte yelled, using the mom voice she developed from years of training.
The ringing echoed up and down the hallways, as men exited from the classrooms now serving as living quarters for families sheltered in the Jefferson building. Everyone appeared in various stages of dress. One thing each man carried was a weapon, regardless of what they were wearing.
The Jenkins' group was well armed with rifles acquired with every last dime that Rusty had brought with him from his bar. The cash was worthless to the Jenkins family; there was no value left in the paper. But many in the surrounding area made the calculated gamble that the greenback would come roaring back some day. Rusty emptied every last dollar into the black market guns and ammunition so readily available throughout the neighborhoods.
After the men headed to the main door and the upper-level firing positions – they were all assigned specific areas to guard every day – older women gathered the children to bring them down to the inner well. The safest spot in the center of the school once served as the library; now it was the school inside of a school. They were not without guards, as four younger women trained with shotguns escorted the group down the stairs. The library doors were locked from the inside, only to be opened when a trusted voice gave the command.
With the children secured, all able-bodied women trained by Lamar himself headed to back up assigned firing positions around the school. No woman by herself, only accompanied by a man; Lamar admitted to old-fashioned beliefs about women in combat. A shortage of manpower – trigger-pullers, Lamar called them – changed his mind about allowing women to at least provide support to the men on the frontline. Determined looks replaced fright as Lamar’s constant drills and training began to take hold on the Congregation.
The intermittent booms now fought with sharper clicking sounds as different weapons replied from each side. Who is the other side? Charlotte thought. This doesn’t sound like any mob or gang we’ve fought so far!
Lamar insisted Charlotte stay away from the reinforced windows and rooftop fortifications he built around the school. He wouldn’t hear of her practicing with a weapon, insisting that if it came to her having to fight they’d all be dead anyway. But for some reason tonight she just couldn't help herself. There was something different tonight…something terrible. Oh Lord, please take care of my family!
Suddenly, the walls jolted, and plaster fell from the ceiling. Not chunks, but just some dust and flakes. Another jolt, another boom! and more dust fell.
Panic gripped Charlotte as she ran as fast as she could up the stairway to the roof guard’s command post. As she reached the landing, she could see one of Pastor’s sons laying in the corner, with two others applying bandages to a bloody spot on the boy’s side.
Only seventeen years old! What is happening to us?
She would come back and find out in a minute…I have to find my Lamar…after she had a better handle on the situation.
Huffing and puffing up the last stairs – she would admit to needing a little cardio work even if she had lost thirty pounds since they arrived at the school – she turned the corner to walk out the steel door and onto the roof. The noise was horrible, and she could hear the sharp booming and clicking so loud that she covered her ears even before stepping outside. Finally summoning all of her courage, she opened the door slightly…
…to a terrible light show as rifles went off, firing against some hidden foe in the darkness. All Charlotte could see was the backs of the Congregation fighters in the light of the muzzle flashes. She could clearly see one man lying face down behind the sandbag barricades Lamar placed every ten to twenty feet along the roofline of the school.
The night sky was illuminated with a bright beam; someone down below had one of those giant searchlights like the car dealers used to get people’s attention during a big tent sale. They must have had two, because beams seemed to cross and move from place to place along the roofline.
“Charlotte, get down! What are you doing?” Lamar’s friend and former boss Rusty was running in her direction at a crouch. “Are you crazy? Lamar will flip if he sees you up here! This is a bad one, Charlotte. You got to get down to the library!”
A bullhorn cut through the racket from down below. “Cease fire! Cease fire! We want to talk to whoever is in charge! This is Colonel Coleman Montgomery of the Department of Homeland Security. Please be advised, you have fired upon Federal military personnel! Cease fire immediately, or we will be forced to destroy this building! We are operating under the authority of President Elias Marburg,” the hidden voice concluded.
“Cease fire! Cease fire!” Charlotte could hear Lamar’s voice shouting back and forth to the men still looking for targets down below. A deafening calm fell over the battle. Shock from the announcement and a sudden exhaustion from the expenditure of adrenaline took a toll on some as they sat sobbing, their backs now up against the barricades.
“You did good, men! Stay sharp, be ready! We don’t know if this is some kind of trick.” Lamar’s voice rang out in assurance.
“Rusty, you out there?” Lamar half-shouted, half-whispered.
“Yeah, and Charlotte’s here, too,” Rusty replied.
“Charlotte? What’s wrong? What are you doing up here?” Lamar demanded.
“I just felt something was going awful, and I had to come see, that’s all.”
“I wish you hadn't, but now I’m glad you’re here, I’ll admit,” Lamar said. “What do you two think about what the man said?”
“I think it’s probably a trap. But with those heavy weapons they have down there…I think we have to risk talking to them,” Rusty said. He stopped and considered a thought; “Lamar, let me go down there alone. You stay up here. Let me get a look at what they have, and see if this guy's on the up and up. At least maybe we can figure out what they want.”
“I can’t let you go out there alone, Rusty. At least take a couple of guys.”
“Nah, if it is a trick, a couple more guys won’t do any good. And you’ll need every man you’ve got,” Rusty concluded.
“Lamar, I think maybe we better get the backup plan ready,” Charlotte said with a concerned sigh.
Lamar stared at his wife, the woman whose instinct had seldom failed them. The backup plan was complete evacuation. In between their myriad of other duties, the Congregation had found the time to gather two school buses and one city bus. All three were brought back and parked in the old gym. The opening that originally held the gym doors had to be enlarged and giant rolling doors put in their place.
Lamar Jenkins wasn’t into last stands, and if they needed to flee the Jefferson school building and rebuild somewhere else, that’s what he intended to do. They even went so far as to bolt steel sheeting inside the thin aluminum walls of the bus, all the way up past the safety glass windows. Every Monday morning, the Rodgers brothers’ first job was to make sure to check the fluids and tires, and start the engines on each of the buses. The Congregation’s backup plan was really a bug out plan.
Lamar thought long and hard before answering his wife. “Okay, baby, let’s do that. You head down right now with the two Rodgers boys. They know that equipment and can make sure everything is ready to go. Then go ahead and get the young ones ready to load, okay?” Lamar said. “And remember, I love you.”
A quick kiss, then Charlotte turned to head down to the next level, where both of the Rodgers boys stood guard. After she was gone, Rusty continued: “Do you think it’s really that bad? Or were you just trying to get her down to safety?”
“Both,” Lamar answered him. “I got a bad feeling about this. I’m sure our guys fired first…I haven’t found out who got trigger happy yet. But these characters were sure willing to fire back and in bunches. Pastor’s boy Jeremy is down below, hit bad. And I know there’s another boy up here somewhere, I heard the yelp. Did you see anyone else hit?” Lamar asked.
“No. But I was pretty busy staying in one piece myself. I don’t know how many rounds I fired, but I bet we’ve all used up half our ammo already. Another reason I got to go down there.”
“I hadn’t thought about ammo. You’re right about that. Man, I didn’t see this coming. Okay, let me see if I can talk to them,” Lamar concluded.
He crouch-walked back to the sandbag barricades, shouting out into the search lights, “How do we know this isn’t a trick?”
The mechanical voice of the bullhorn replied, “You don’t.” Silence hung in the air. No further words followed.
Lamar gave in to the quiet, “All right, I’m sending one man down. He’ll be coming out the front gate. If anything bad happens to him, you can bet we’ll fight you to the last man. And just so we’re clear, we’ve got a few of our own nasty surprises in here.”
That wasn’t a lie. The extra gas and diesel fuel they salvaged from abandoned cars was in drums in the storage shed. The little bit of dynamite they got their hands on sat on top of those drums as a sort of self–destruct mechanism. Probably wouldn’t really hurt the building itself, but would definitely make for a really uncomfortable moment outside. Rusty had wanted to wire the downstairs of the building with explosives, too. But finding any spare explosives proved difficult, and Charlotte thought it was a terrible idea, anyway.
Rusty moved to the door to head downstairs as Lamar called out to him: “Be careful, brother. We got your back.”
Rusty suddenly felt alone and scared as he made his way down the stairwell. People patted him on the back, cracking jokes to lighten the mood. He took a deep breath before reaching the steel-plated gate, waiting as it swung open to reveal the detail of the force arrayed against them.
Man, there’s a lot of them. Where could they have been staying? Where did they come from?
Two young men in combat fatigues kept their rifles aimed at Rusty as he walked down the wide front sidewalk of Jefferson Middle School. The large trees that once lined the concrete path sacrificed themselves as firewood for the fuel-hungry boilers. That kept some warmth flowing through the old radiant heat system in the century-old building. He could see the yard-wide stumps, now acting as a step towards the vegetable gardens that took their place. Those trees, though beautiful, produced no food for his adopted family.
They must be my family, Rusty thought. I can’t think of anyone else besides my daughter I would walk out here for. I don’t think I thought this all the way through before I volunteered. I’ve been getting shot at for the last thirty minutes, but I don’t want to actually see the guns that are pointed at me.
“Halt right there!” The words came from behind a high-beam flashlight, effectively blinding Rusty.
Rusty shouted back, “This isn’t exactly a good way to talk truce! I can’t even see who you are!”
“We’re not here to talk truce. We’re here to talk about you giving up this facility and returning it to the jurisdiction of the Federal Government,” the voice demanded.
“Buddy, this place was abandoned when we moved in. And besides that, it belonged to the school district of the city, not the Feds,” Rusty replied. “Maybe you can have your lawyers send a letter to our lawyers in the morning. I’m sure we can work something out over coffee.”
“Very funny. Under the Emergency Powers Act, all buildings that serve the public are considered property of the Federal Government. No exceptions. This order has legal precedence from the last Civil War, and President Marburg has reinstated it,” the mystery voice commanded.
The officer continued: “I’m giving you one chance to leave this facility, and then be escorted to the Safe Zone by Federal Military Police. You’re lucky none of my men were injured so far…if we suffer casualties I’ll burn this place to the ground right now.”
Rusty was stunned. All that ammo expended, and we didn’t even hit one of them?
He regained his composure, mad at himself for letting his emotions show to Flashlight Man. “All right, let’s say we do this. I haven’t even seen an official uniform yet, let alone a piece of paper authorizing what you’re doing. Do you know how many looters we’ve had to run off of this place? How do I know you’re not some of them, putting on a good act?”
A tall figure in camouflage fatigues stepped from behind the light. He strode up to Rusty with confidence that belied leadership. The man wore a red beret, slightly tilted. Boots laced up to mid-calf kept his trousers slightly bloused out. The face that came out of the darkness was older than the rest – probably at least forty. The stripes on his arm were clearly outlined directly above an armband with a white star emblazoned on it. Rusty suddenly felt much underdressed for the occasion, realizing all he had on was the t–shirt he was sleeping in and the ratty old blue jeans he always kept next to his bed.
Rusty suddenly recognized the face; one of the dirty cops who had tried to kill him and Lamar that day behind his bar. The cop was thinner now, and the hollow eyes and trembling hands were gone. Rusty couldn’t decide if the man recognized him, but it probably didn’t matter. He decided to speak first: “Why couldn’t you approach us during the day? Or at least announced yourselves? It’s almost like you were looking for a fight.”
“I don’t have to explain myself to you. But if you must know, survivors are easier to spot at night than in the daytime. We patrol like this, looking for lights or some sign of life. Your guys fired at us first, so we fired back. Just so you’re aware, I have called up an armored personnel carrier which will turn this building to rubble if you don’t agree to come with us to the Safe Zone. I’m not playing here,” the young officer instructed Rusty in clipped tones.
He handed Rusty a piece of paper, only slightly decipherable in the light provided.
“This is the written order from President Marburg. Read it and sign it, and then have your people begin filing out here to the front lawn for roster,” the officer said.
“I have to take this back to show our council. Believe it or not, we believe in democracy here. You had to know we wouldn’t send our main leaders out here. I just happen to be the most expendable,” Rusty quipped. At this point, he hoped the man would be irritated with the comment. But the stone face in front of him merely returned Rusty’s stare.
Rusty con
tinued: “Besides, we’ve got a lot of people. More than you have soldiers. How are you going to transport us all?”
“I’ve called back for a bus to arrive here soon. My men will stay here with you until it arrives. Now I’m done discussing this. You have,” the soldier glanced at his wind-up pocket watch, “two hours to comply or we’ll burn you out.”
Gotcha, kid, Rusty thought. The young man had finally given Rusty the information he was looking for. He figured the soldiers still didn’t have working radios; he could see no whip antennae on the two Humvees pointed their direction. The two-hour ultimatum was probably what the young officer allotted for the return of his support troops. Likely he sent a messenger back to his base when he stumbled across resistance.
Figure there would be another couple of Humvees on the other end of the block. A decent-sized patrol but not a full-sized attack force. That’s what I need for us to decide.
“Alright, Officer. I’ll have an answer for you right away.”
*****
“Rusty, read that out loud for Pastor and Charlotte to hear,” Lamar asked. “Or at least give them the highlights.”
“Basically, we give up all of our weapons, surrender our food and supplies, and move to their housing areas in what they call the ‘Safe Zone.’ Whatever that means,” Rusty said. “In exchange, we get our meals and housing taken care of, they provide for our safety from criminals and looters, and we all receive gainful employment and pay.”
“That sounds like a refugee camp to me,” Pastor said. “Remember that missionary to Nigeria we sponsored? He gave a talk when he came back stateside to visit family. Described the way folks who fled the civil war there lived. More folks died in the camps than outside in the war, the way he told it.”
“Mm-hmm,” Charlotte replied somberly. “They’d probably split us all up, too. Lamar is there a chance that we can fight them off?”
“Depends if those soldiers are bluffing. If they are, we can beat them, from the way Rusty described. If they do have reinforcements coming, I think we’ll run out of ammo long before they do,” Lamar answered. Emotion was etched on his face: anger, fright, disgust, all wrapped into one look.