2nd Earth: Shortfall

by Edward Vought

  The candy is a special treat that only some of the family has had before. We divide it up evenly between all the houses and there is plenty to go around. We decide to go back tomorrow, this time I will let Tim go while I stay home and work around the farm. They will begin taking the greenhouse apart so we can bring it back here and set it up to use all winter. We spend the rest of the afternoon going over where we think the best place for the greenhouse will be. We are walking all over the grounds trying to figure it out when one of the new mothers, Heidi, tells us she has been sitting on the porch a lot lately, and it appears to her that the sun is shining all day on the back side of one of the barns. It doesn’t take long to see what she is saying, so we have a pretty good idea where we will put the greenhouse. As luck would have it, we spend most of the evening and night delivering two more new members into the family. One is a very healthy little boy that was named Luke and the other is a beautiful little girl. Julie, the mother, named her Ruth.

  In the morning we help the others get ready to go to town. Billy is going with Tim and some others so he can show them where everything we would like to get is. They leave somewhere around mid-morning and the rest of us get busy doing chores around the farm. Dayna and I were talking about the large garden patch the family who lived before us had and how we remembered that there was still vegetables growing in it, even though no one has tended it in years. We spend a couple of hours digging through the weeds, finding squashes, green and yellow string beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, onions, bell peppers, and potatoes. The more we pick the hungrier I get thinking how great these are going to taste. Dayna has never had fresh vegetables. She and Robin keep sampling what we pick if they find a small one. So far they love tomatoes and both kinds of beans. They will wait until later to try the others, mainly because they are too large to just pop in their mouths.

  The garden is quite large, and we get several pecks of vegetables. The cows have been milked today, and one of the young ladies in Tim and Charity’s house is churning butter this afternoon. Dayna and Robin feel like baking bread again, so I head over to the barn that is across from our house to check out the equipment, and see if I can figure out what it is used for. I am actually getting pretty good at guessing what most of it is. Sometimes I get lucky and there is a picture on the side of what it is used on. I am working on straightening and cleaning the loft in the barn when I could swear I hear motorcycles coming down the road. It only lasts for a few seconds then it is gone so I figure it must be my imagination and go back to work. In a few minutes it sounds like we are under attack out in the yard. I am in the loft so I run to the door facing the house and look out into the yard.

  I am surprised to see several really rough looking men chasing the women around the yard with them screaming. I start to head out of the barn when I see someone come out of our house dragging Dayna and another rough looking man has Robin by the arm. They are laughing and sneering watching what is going on. Some of the men have caught girls or women and are treating them pretty rough. I decide I don’t have time to get down there so I grab the .307 I have in the loft just in case something like this should happen and sight on the one holding Dayna. In the mean time, several of our men have come out of the houses with shotguns or rifles, and they are telling the men to let the women go. The one holding Dayna tells them to throw down their guns and they won’t kill them, then he laughs and says, yet.

  I have to give our men credit, they stand their ground and do what Tim and I taught them. Tom, Dayna’s father, is acting as the leader. He asks the others who they are shooting on his signal. The guy on the porch has a gun in his hand and is bringing it to bear on Tom, Dayna is looking at me in the doorway of the loft, but no one else seems to notice. I motion for her to move her head to the left, she does it and I fire taking the guy holding her right over his left eye. That concerns me because I was aiming right between his eyes. Anyway, that is a signal for the others. We have discussed this type of situation and what to do in case it ever came up. The girls do exactly what we taught them, they drop as soon as they hear the report of my gun and the men fire instantly at the would-be attackers. I shift my gun a few inches and take the one holding Robin. He sure had a surprised look on his face when he died.

  I know this may sound very cold blooded to some of you, and you are probably thinking we should have tried to talk it over and come to an agreement. If there was some form of organized law, and if we could count on that law to protect us, I may agree with you. Having spent my life in the military since I was eighteen, I have seen many examples of mans inhumanity toward man. I have seen trained soldiers die because they hesitated to pull the trigger, because killing is not an easy thing to do, and they couldn’t believe that it was the only solution. In our case, the men that attacked our family had only their own lust and greed in mind and would have killed us off hand if they would have gotten the chance. What they would have done to the women is not something I like to think about. I am sure they would have killed them when they were through with them as well. The only thing that really bothers me about the violence that just took place, is that now I have to stop what I was doing, and get the backhoe started so I can dig some graves.

  I hurry down to make sure everybody is okay now. When I get to the yard I can see that all of the attackers are clearly dead. We were very lucky this time. The only injuries are minor cuts and bruises to the women and girls that were treated roughly by the attackers. I tell the men to stand by with their guns just in case they have friends following them. Dayna and Robin run to me and give me a big hug. They both say that they were only scared until the men dragged them outside, then they knew I would take care of the situation. I look toward the road leading to our homes and I can see motorcycles parked at the end of that road. That explains hearing them. I was beginning to think it was my imagination. I ask the girls what happened just so I can understand the attack better. Dayna recounts the events as she saw them.

  “Robin and I were in the kitchen grinding wheat to make some bread for dinner tonight. We thought we heard loud motor noises, but they stopped so abruptly that we figured it was probably our imagination. We continued working when suddenly those two very dirty men rushed in and caught us totally by surprise. We had no doubts what they wanted, they told us what they were going to do to us, and said if we are nice to them they may not kill us right off. I have to admit I was pretty scared until they dragged us out on the porch and we saw the others chasing the other girls in the yard. I saw you looking out the doorway to the loft and knew everything would be okay, and when the other men came out in the yard armed with guns, there was no doubt in my mind.”

  Robin agrees with everything Dayna says, she says she was so afraid she couldn’t think straight, but like Dayna, when they were taken outside she knew everything would be okay. The men in the yard tell me that one of the young girls came running into Tom’s house and told them what was happening, so they sent someone out the back door to get the others and they all grabbed guns and came out. The rest I witnessed and participated in. Tom says that he is glad I fired first, because he wasn’t sure whether or not they should fire or try to work it out.

  “We all remembered that you taught us that if we are attacked to shoot first and ask questions afterward. We did exactly what you and Tim taught us, we each picked a target and when you shot the one holding Dayna, we figured it was time to fire.”

  I tell them they did a great job and that I understand how difficult it can be, realizing that you have to do something that drastic just to survive. They all tell me they have no doubt that if they hadn’t done what they did, then they would be the ones laying in the dirt now, and our women would be left for them to sexually assault at will. Not only that, but they probably would have killed the others when they return from town. No, the only regrets they have, is that there are men out there that only understand that kind of law. We get the backhoe started and dig a large grave for the bodies. We go through their pockets looking for some kind of i
dentification, but there is nothing, so we put seven unknown men buried in this spot and the date. Some of the guys ask if they can have the motorcycles, so I tell them I can’t see why not, I doubt if anyone else is going to claim them.

  When everything is cleaned up we all go back to what we were doing before the violence. That’s the thing about violence. It usually happens very quickly and without warning and is usually over almost just as quickly, if you are lucky. Sometimes it gets dragged out in the form of torture or serious injury, but when it is over, life goes on whether with us or without us. I think that’s what bothers a lot people the most. It is hard to believe that everyone doesn’t feel the way they do.

  I go back to cleaning the loft and getting it better organized. I find all kinds of useful tools and even some old magazines, the kind Ma Horton tanned my hide for looking at when I was a kid. It seems like I am just getting started when I hear the sound of vehicles in the yard. I look out again only this time I am relieved to see that it is our family members returning. The girls are telling them what happened earlier. Tim and Billy look at me expecting me to say they are kidding, but I tell them exactly what happened. They are sorry they were away, but I assure them our family handled it as well as any SEAL team I ever worked with. This praise makes them feel good. They are in a hurry to show them the motorcycles. They check them out, and then we unload the trucks while they recount their day for us.

  Tim and Billy take turns telling us all about it, they say it isn’t as exciting as our day, but it was fun for them. Tim says that when they got to town it was just like we described it to him. They went to the store and got as much food as they thought they could hold and still get the rest of the stuff they went to get. They went to the sporting goods store and got more of everything as we can see while we unload it all. Billy says they went to the bank to see if there were any silver coins and they found a lot more than they thought they would. They show us several strong boxes full of wrapped coins, mostly quarters, half dollars and silver dollars. There must be several thousand dollars here, not that money will do any of us any good, but someday it may have some value again. After leaving the bank they went to the farm store and started taking down the greenhouse. It came apart much easier than they thought it would, and they feel that if we go back tomorrow we can have the whole thing apart and bring the panels home to be reassembled.

  It has been a full day for all of us, when we turn in for the night I can still see the faces of the men I killed today. I don’t regret doing it because they left us no choice. I keep thinking about what they would have done to Dayna and the other women and girls if we wouldn’t have been here. Tim, Billy, and I talked about it tonight, we were not going to anyway, but we decided to be sure we never leave the family without at least one of us here. The others proved that they are competent, but we may run into something far worse than today was.

  9

  In the morning we decide to go back into town to finish getting the greenhouse. I will stay home again while the others go simply because they have the experience of working on it yesterday. I will stay home and get the ground ready for where we want to put the greenhouse. As an afterthought just as the guys are leaving I ask them to see if they can find enough cement mix to make a floor for the greenhouse. That will also give us something to anchor it to as well. The guys got the measurements of the greenhouse yesterday so we lay out the ground then use the backhoe to dig a footprint deep enough to have a nice floor under it. We dig the outer edges deep enough to get below the frost line for stability. This is what I call a fun project because I have always enjoyed construction work. Around midday, Dayna comes running to get me because our final baby is ready to be born.

  It is a baby girl and if complaining is any sign of being healthy then she is definitely healthy. Every time we deliver a baby Dayna asks me if I will get upset if she is pregnant. I always tell her the same thing, which is that I will be very happy when or if we have children. I have to admit that now I feel much better about it than I did when we were in the city. By the time I get back to work the guys are back from town and giving me the business about not getting the foundation ready to be poured. They are only kidding. It feels good to have great friends to do that with. They did find enough cement to pour two or three foundations, but only brought back enough for maybe one and a half. We look around for some gravel, but we don’t find any. We do however find quite a bit of old chicken wire fencing that we can put in the base to hold the concrete together better.

  Speaking of chickens, one of the young ladies, who is about thirteen, comes over just before we are knocking off for today with a terrific find. She has a half a dozen eggs that she found in the woods not far from the house while she and her mom were watching some bees this afternoon. She says they found where several chickens have nests just inside the woods. They found them while they were trying to figure out if the bees they are seeing are honey bees or a different kind. She explains that she has been studying insects in one of the science books we brought with us. Anyway to get back to the bees, they followed some of the bees to where they were going and found a pile of what look like the hives that are shown in the book. There are hundreds if not thousands of bees in the hives so they are afraid to go any farther.

  About the chickens, they didn’t seem to mind it too much when they were looking for eggs. They also say they found what looks like a chicken coop behind the house they live in. They are happy to show us where they found the chickens. They are right, there is a whole flock of them here in the woods and we wouldn’t be surprised if there are a lot more of them around the woods. Next we go to where they say they think beehives are. I have seen beehives and these look just like most of the hives I have seen before. One of the guys from the house they live in, I really have to concentrate and learn everyone’s name, tells us that he is sure there is some bee keepers clothes in the closet in the room he is sleeping in with his brother. Since it is almost dark, we decide to wait until tomorrow. Then we will get together and figure out what to do about the bees and the chickens. Tim says he has a suggestion for some of the chickens right now. Barbequed chicken is one of his favorite foods.

  The young lady, whose name by the way is Jenny, smacks Tim for saying he wants to kill her chickens. After all of us laugh we explain that we will probably use some of them for food, but not until they have multiplied some. That seems to make her a little happier, at least for now. On the way back to the house Billy and Tim tell us that they found at least three or four pallet loads of chicken feed at the farm store today when they went through the warehouse. The girls used the rest of the venison to make another stew today and it tastes as good as the one we had the other day. Dan and Don, I finally found out the young mans name who spoke up earlier. He is Dan and his brother is Don, have been practicing with the bow and arrows and want to know if they can go hunting to get more venison. Jessica, who is Jenny’s mom, says that they found what looks like a huge commercial freezer in the lower level of the barn that is off by itself behind the houses. That is where the chicken coop is as well, I really have to get around more. There is so much more to this place than I ever imagined. We decide we need to make a list of what we intend to accomplish every day and assign tasks to everyone.

  Dan asks again about going hunting, I smile and tell them that we should check out the freezer first, and if that works we can use more meat because we won’t have to worry about keeping it from going to waste. They smile and say they can guarantee that good venison will not go to waste. Jenny tells them that it will go to their waists if they keep eating like they do. It’s fun to hear the good natured kidding from just about everyone. While we are talking about freezers, Tim says he saw some cans of Freon at the farm store today and some refrigerator repair kits. They caught his eye because only a couple of the refrigerators in the houses work at all and those are not working all that well. That is a good thing to know. We will definitely get some of those kits and try fixing the refrigerators and maybe e
ven that large freezer.

  We construct our list and everyone volunteers for the tasks at hand. If we all do what we are supposed to it will be a very productive day. In the morning we start mixing the concrete for the base while the others do their chores. I am so proud of our family because no one has ever tried to get out of work or complained about having to work. Naturally the new mothers have their hands full watching the babies, so they do what they can around the houses, without over doing it. With the early start we have the base poured and leveled by lunch time, so after lunch we head into town to pick up the rest of the greenhouse and a few other necessary items. Both large trucks are fully loaded when we get back, but we are happy to have what we got.

  Jenny even beats Dayna to welcome me back. She is excited about everything they accomplished today and wants us to come with her so she can show us. She and her mom worked on the chicken coop most of the day and it definitely shows, especially since there are at least twenty-five chickens roosting on the box nests that they cleaned and filled with fresh grass, which is long enough to be straw. They seem quite contented and Jessie and Jenny look about as proud as they can be. They proudly announce that they found several more flocks in the woods and are working on getting more of them into the coop which is large enough to hold around a hundred chickens. When asked how they accomplished all this they said they used their heads. They found several bags of chicken feed in the barn, so after cleaning up the coop and replacing some broken boards and fencing, they sprinkled feed from the woods to the coop and let the chickens follow it right in. When they got inside they closed the door. None of the chickens seemed to mind, they just climbed into the nests and have been sitting like this for the past hour or so. They are planning to continue enticing the chickens in this way for as long as they can.