by Gene Skellig
Nobody other than Tanya and Casey knew what Casey was going to say, but everybody hoped that it would be good.
“My Friends. My Family. My Saviors.” Casey began, with a degree of sorrow and love that he had never shown before.
“My children, my wife, the Callaghan clan at large and I would not be alive today were it not for each and every one of you here today. Your effort, your cooperation, your sacrifice and your will to survive has saved all of us. You have also helped so many others in the Oceanside region to save themselves.
But now it’s clearly time for you to go.” Casey said this with a humorous look on his face that lightened the mood and provoked more than a few cheers.
“Each of you has ownership here, and most of you have some idea as to what you want to do with your newfound freedom. Zlata’s data indicates that this summer will be warm enough for some serious outdoor growing, easier travel and access to the materials and other ‘stuff’ left behind after the war. So we need to sort out who gets what, how and when.”
“Amen to that!” said one of the truck drivers.
“So tonight I am going to tell you what you will get. There will be no argument tonight, I guarantee it.”
“I don’t agree, Casey. You can’t dictate to us!” said the argumentative Ryan Webber. He was the head of a family of four that had made it on their own for five years before begging to be rescued by the HOTH. Many long-time HOTH members had taken issue with the fact that he had been given a full share.
“Simmer down, Ryan. This is not one of those consensus meetings where we can argue for hours and hours. This is going to be my prerogative. You will kindly keep your questions and comments to yourself until I am finished.”
Such a harsh, dictatorial tone from Casey was unusual, but everybody understood that the real savior here was Casey, with the foresight and energy to have put the HOTH together and generosity to welcome them all into its membership. So they kept silent and listened to what he had to say.
“What I am going to do now is go through a power-point presentation that will cover the following six topics: First, an overview of the shares issued. Some of you have a 0.5% share, others a full share, and a few have more than a full share. As these shares were issued out of my own holdings from the start, and I have your signed certificates of exchange, I am certain that there will be no squabbling about this. Second, I will go over what WE own together. Our holdings have expanded with each and every new member that was added, and from the stakes we have accumulated in other properties. Third, I will go over the equipment and supplies we have here at the HOTH. Fourth, I will go over the “accounts receivable”, which lists favors owed to the HOTH by the city of Parksville, the town of Qualicum Beach, by other surviving landholders, and so on. Fifth, I will go over the landholdings and assets that Tanya and I own, exclusive of the HOTH. Our personal landholdings and gold coin may be relevant to some of you, and they are open to negotiation, but not tonight. The Sixth and final topic will be what I believe to be a fair and manageable system for the division of the assets or, if you will, the cash-out of your shareholdings,” Casey paused, seeing the eager looks on the faces of many.
He then went on, with Tanya’s help, to cover each topic. It was clear that Casey and Tanya had spent a lot of time and effort compiling the presentation. The landholdings and interests were clearly marked out on an electronic version of the Regional District map. The list of machinery, equipment and tools was exhaustive, as was the summary of livestock, food-stores and construction materials. Casey certainly was good with details.
But what was most interesting was the economic analysis. Casey had taken data from the trade records and established a system to convert the value of items into calories and from calories into ounces of gold, based on trading patterns over the last 12 months. He listed the value of each inventory item in terms of gold. The grand total was CDN $G 22,441,980, at a gold value of CDN $G 10,000 per ounce. This meant that each 0.5% share in the HOTH was valued at CDN $G 112,209.90.
Casey explained that only those property titles that had been registered with Judith, the district’s property clerk, could be legally owned. The rule of law still applied. Casey explained that he had spoken with the newly acclaimed Governor of the Oceanside Regional District, Marty Penner, and gave his support to the notion that all the land abandoned by the deceased would revert to the ownership of the Oceanside Regional District, subject to a five-year right-of succession consideration.
This meant that abandoned land could be purchased from the Regional District and that the only other available land in the area was that which had been formally registered and occupied by its registered owners, heirs or tenants. As Casey explained, this meant that members of the HOTH could choose land other than what the HOTH syndicate owned, and would have the $Gs to buy it.
Next, Casey explained that the valuation he had put against each item on the inventory was open to discussion over the “Pre-Market” period that was to start immediately and last one week.
“At the end of the Pre-Market period, we will begin the liquidation of the HOTH syndicate. We will proceed as follows: first, you will all indicate, on the white-boards I have prepared in OPS, which items you would like to buy at the listed price. If another name has been put against an item, just put yours there as well and that item will go into auction.
You are welcome to join forces with others, such as your family unit or those of you who are considering partnerships of some kind; however big-ticket items must be sold off as wholes, not carved up into little pieces.”
“But that means only you can buy the HOTH!” objected Ryan.
“That’s right. D’you think that you should have enough credit here to buy the HOTH?” asked Tanya, showing how much people had started to get on each other’s nerves lately.
“Er, now, I was just saying….”
“By the way, Ryan, you are welcome to offer up your property on Grafton Road. It would make a nice addition to my own holdings,” Casey joked.
“Sure, I’ll list it, but I’ll be asking… come to think of it, maybe I could buy some of that acreage that backs onto it…”
“Ryan, my boy, I think you are starting to get it.” Casey concluded his presentation and the meeting broke into a free-for all discussion. There was a general consensus that Casey’s mechanism for dissolution was fair; however, a few people wanted to discuss the valuation of some of the equipment. The more people engaged in debate, however, the more willing they were to talk about what they had their eyes on. In some cases this helped people recognize whose ambitions could go hand in hand with their own, and some strategic partnerships were started.
That had been three months ago. The price-adjusting went well, as had the auctions. As expected, Casey was left with the HOTH itself, much of the basic equipment he would need to operate his own green-house and some farming enterprises, and less than a quarter of his gold. What most people had been interested in were the land and equipment that would give them a means of generating their own income.
After the auction had been completed in late February, the items had been tagged with the new owner’s name, and the property transactions were registered with Judith. She was now operating out of an office in town and had already demanded that Governor Penner provide her with more staff.
Many people had moved out by the end of March to get a head-start on repairing their new homes and preparing to get their enterprises started. Others, like Gwen Jessup, April Mynarski, Gloria Neumann and both Callaghan girls wouldn’t move out of the HOTH until their weddings, planned for early May. This gave their fiancés added motivation to get their new houses in order and made the HOTH a hub of wedding-planning activities. But now even the young women had moved out.
When Tanya finally found Casey down in the Ops Centre, drinking, she had a sense of what he was going through.
“You’re drinking alone. What’s the matter?”
“It’s all over. Everybody’s gone. This plac
e is so strange and quiet without them.”
“But this is what you wanted, Casey.” Tanya sat down on one of the well-worn chairs next to Casey and poured herself some of the Peppermint Schnapps Casey was drinking.
“What do you mean? I never wanted to be so alone.”
“But you wanted our children to make it to this point. You did all of this - the HOTH, the survival plans, the networking, the food storage – you did this to save their lives. Now they have their lives and the world is alive again. We have to let them go, to follow their own paths.”
“Yea, I understand that. But they're going to be so far away. We won’t see them a hundred times a day. They’ll forget about us and we’ll be all alone.”
“That’s the alcohol talking. They’ll be right here in Oceanside. Well, all but Tara.”
“That’s my point. How do we know GT and Tara will be OK? - That they’ll make it to Mazatlan in that little boat?”
“We don’t.”
“And how do we know that Liam and Justin will succeed in their building center idea?”
“We don’t”
“And will Hope will be happy in town with Bart?”
“She’ll be close to Francis and Keiko. Francis will be starting up the college and Hope will be at the school. He’ll give her a lot of help, but you’re right, we don’t know.”
“And how do we know that the Vogels will succeed with their flight centre? And that the Neumanns will make it to Black Creek? And that Mom and Mr Skinner will be able to take care of themselves in that little condo in town?”
“We don’t.” Finally Tanya saw that Casey was rattling off the disposition of former residents from a list on a white board, and took over the task.
“And we don’t know how Miles, Patti, Andy and Allison will do down in Saanich. Or how Amy and Peter will do with the gun shop. Or how Roger, Sam, JJ and Gwen will do with the heavy equipment business. Or how Zlata and Ken will do with Zlata’s salvage and recycling store, and Ken’s new job as Sheriff.
Or how April and Danny will do with their farm. Or how Granny G, Don, and the Prakas will do with the orchard. Or how the Kellys will do with the bio-diesel business. Or how Yuri and Olga will do with their honeybees, winery and vodka business. Or how Ryan and his family will do with the Gorton farm – that was a strange purchase, by the way.”
“OK, OK, I get it. Everybody is moving on to something good. They all have good prospects. But how are we going to cope? With just Donny here to help, I won’t be able to get that algal-diesel plant going. We won’t be able to run much of a garden on our own, let along your “U-Pick” berry business. And the animals; we won’t be able to build up much of a herd, not without some helping hands.” Casey sounded exasperated.
“Koochie-koo. You’re almost sixty. Why don’t you relax and enjoy your retirement? We’ll have grandchildren soon. The kids will be dropping them off all the time. We’ll have hours of ‘ootie-pootie’ with them every day. You can hire some helpers to look after the place. We could convert some rooms into a bed-and-breakfast. We could take in some refugees from Vancouver, for that matter.”
“I suppose.”
“You can’t have it both ways. Our kids need to break out on their own and not be dependent on us to manage their affairs. Besides, haven’t you had enough squabbling, tears, chaos, need, stress, hysterics and theatrics for one lifetime?”
“No. Never. I want it all.”
EPILOGUE
ICED TEA
15 March: 15 Years After NEW
He had the old man in his sights, but hesitated for a moment. Something seemed strange. There was just one old man, digging in the dirt at the edge of a large vegetable garden. As he looked around the well-fortified structure, he couldn’t believe that there were not other people around.
Just before squeezing the trigger, he saw an old woman carrying a tray with a pitcher of some iced beverage. Seeing only two glasses on the tray, he opened fire, taking the two old people out with two short bursts from his automatic weapon.
They showed no fear as they went down. The old man crawled to the old woman, and she reached her hand out to touch his. Then there was no more movement. Casey and Tanya were dead.
Moments later, the soldier was passed by his squad of soldiers, eager to storm the fortified structure. The only gunshots that Captain Ng heard were easily recognized as coming from his own men’s AK47 assault rifles. There had been no others inside, and soon the Chinese flag flew from the rooftop.
As he walked by the dead couple, he saw a look of peace in the old man’s face, as though he had welcomed the end.
Suddenly, Casey reached up and grabbed the Chinese soldier’s leg, pulling him down on top of him. As he started to torture the soldier with tickles, the child broke out laughing. Other “soldiers” soon dog-piled on top of Grandpa Callaghan and joined in the fun.
Casey had over-acted his death scene and couldn’t stop laughing at Tanya’s own overly dramatic final scene.
“Don’t you children ever tire of playing ‘Chinese Commandos’?” asked Tanya, getting up off the ground.
“But the war isn’t over yet! They could attack us at any moment!” said one of the children as he re-loaded the forked stick he used as an assault rifle.
“They may still be fighting in Australia and Africa, but with the new military bases up and running now, they’ll never threaten North America again,” Casey said, thinking about a discussion he had listened to on the subject from the popular radio show hosted by Ron Jasmine, in Astoria, Oregon.
“Go on now; get yourselves cleaned up and join everybody else down on the lower deck,” said Tanya. “Grandpa Callaghan and I will be down with the veggies in a few minutes.
As Tanya watched Casey drink his iced tea, she had a tremendous feeling of satisfaction. With so much going on in Oceanside, with reconstruction in full swing, Casey had regained his vigor and energy.
With daily visits of friends and family, and hours of ootie-pootie with the grandchildren, Tanya and Casey enjoyed every minute of their retirement.
The End
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gene has served as both a civilian and a military pilot from 1988 to 2011. He has studied an eclectic range of subjects, and has a degree in Philosophy from UBC in his home town of Vancouver. Father of four, Gene has taken up writing books as his retirement activity. Gene is also a founding member of Flea Circus Books. To find out more about Gene, explore his page through Flea Circus Books. www.fleacircusbooks.com
THE WINTER KILL STORY CONTINUES
Gene has begun working on a parallel Winter Kill novel, centered on how the war plays out in Australia. The North American sequel to Winter Kill, with just a bit of overlap, will also be completed. Post your opinions about whether you would like to see the sequel or the parallel next, at Gene Skellig's blog www.winterkill.blogspot.com, or through Flea Circus Books.
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COMING SOON FROM GENE SKELLIG:
Lost Child – Anguish in the Nantahala is book one in a crime drama series set in the Nantahala Gorge region of North Carolina. Anticipated publication date mid - March 2012.
Book Two in the series, Lost Child – Retribution in the Nantahala will follow in April, 2012.
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