299 Days VIII: The War

by Glen Tate

  “Most slavery is voluntary,” Pastor Pete said. “Not the kind like in the old days in the South. That was anything but voluntary. It wasn’t the plantation slaves’ fault they were slaves. But, unlike that time, most slaves throughout history willingly sold themselves into it.”

  More silence. Every single person was glued to Pastor Pete’s words. They had never really thought about this topic.

  “Yep,” Pastor Pete continued very firmly, “Those people in Olympia and Seattle—and all over America—sold themselves into slavery.” This was a much heavier topic than the previous one they’d been on, which was sharing the wildest location they’d ever had sex. (Wes had won that contest.)

  “Oh, they didn’t make some big decision and say, ‘I hereby sell myself into slavery,’” Pastor Pete said. “Not in one big decision. It took many small ones over the past few years … decades, even. You know, they chose to accept the money that the politicians took from other people. They chose to believe that they could get something for nothing, and they helped the government go out and get it from other people. Maybe it was just voting for the people who promised to take more from others and give it to them. Maybe it was more than just voting. Maybe they joined the FCorps to get some more FCard credits. They made a bunch of choices.” More silence.

  “Purely voluntary choices,” Pastor Pete continued, “Where they knew, at some level, that what they were doing was wrong. Maybe they thought they couldn’t stop what was going on. Maybe they thought that if they didn’t do it, the next guy would, so why not get something out of it for themselves? Maybe they had talked themselves into thinking that taking things from others via the government was fair and the best for the majority. Maybe. But, whatever was in their hearts, they kept choosing to do the wrong thing. And they knew it. At some level.”

  It was silent except for the wood crackling in the fire.

  “Think about it,” Pastor Pete said, deciding to give more concrete examples they could relate to before going into the theology of it. “They voted for people promising them ‘free’ medical care, ‘progressive’ tax rates where, pretty soon, they weren’t paying any taxes, but getting lots of free goods and services. They convinced themselves that the little bit they paid into Social Security entitled them to the much bigger amounts they took out of the system.”

  More silence and crackling of the fire.

  “They chose to spend money the government didn’t have,” Pastor Pete said. “They chose to let the country get into ridiculous debt. They chose to expect a lavish lifestyle, like a perfect retirement where they’d have plenty. So they demanded more and more from the government, like Social Security and Medicare, to make sure their high expectations about retirement would come true.”

  “And guns,” Pastor Pete quickly added. “They chose not to be a ‘weirdo’ or a ‘redneck’ by not owning a gun. Then—surprise, surprise—the gangs were running wild and they had no way to protect themselves. They had the chance to get a gun, but they didn’t want to look like a nut job by having one. They made lots of little choices to do the wrong thing. Now they’re in a world of hurt.”

  He continued, “You know, people in those Lima cities are getting what they wanted. Exactly what they wanted. They rejected liberty. They wanted ‘free’ stuff. Well, they got what they wanted: no liberty and free FCard food. They got what they wanted.”

  A soldier spoke up. “But do they really ‘want’ all the gangs and the fact that we’re coming?” she asked.

  “Yes and no,” Pastor Pete answered. “They don’t want the gangs and hunger. Who would? But here’s the thing: they could see with their own eyes that the natural result of trying to get something for nothing was the eventual collapse of the system. Every single adult in a Lima town has said to themselves at one point or another, ‘This is headed toward something bad.’ But they all said, ‘Oh well. It’s the other guy who will get screwed, not me.’”

  More silence as he let that sink in. “So it’s not that people really want all this, it’s that they had to know—had to—that it would be coming. So when it actually comes, they can’t say ‘I had no idea.’ They had an idea; it occurred to them several times, actually. They were just too greedy and too pathetic to do the right thing. That is the same thing as doing the wrong thing. There is no one in a Lima city who didn’t have a chance to get out of there and start making an honest living. Hell, we all did.” It was odd to hear Pastor Pete say, “Hell.”

  “Speaking of hell,” Pastor Pete said, finally getting to his main point, “this whole situation they’re in is a lot like hell, if you don’t mind me saying. I believe hell is a place where people go and get what they want: no God. They have rejected God their whole lives. Over and over again, in little ways. Just like the Limas rejecting liberty over and over again. Well, in hell, God gives people who rejected Him what they want: a place where He isn’t around. They can do their own thing. And live with each other, with no God to intervene. They get to be on their own, totally. Which means human beings will look out only for themselves. So it’s a place no one can leave where everyone is only looking out for themselves. And preying on each other. Like prison.”

  The wood crackled loudly.

  “Think about it: the Lima cities are just like a prison,” Pastor Pete said. “No liberty, gangs in control, but free food—just like prison. Sometimes, prisoners even choose to go back to prison. They can’t handle the freedom of the outside world, where no one tells them when to eat and what to wear, so they commit a crime just to go back to what they know. Back to what’s comfortable, even if it’s horrible. It’s comfortable.”

  Pastor Pete was silent. He had made his point.

  “Yep,” Grant said finally. “And, here’s another similarity between the Lima cities and prison: barbed wire. The Limas love the barbed wire around their cities,” Grant said. “They think the barbed wire is protecting them from you guys. But it’s keeping them in their prison. Dumbasses.”

  Pastor Pete nodded and said, “The people in those cities are just being used by the people who are supposedly taking care of them. But it’s still their choice to be there, to be slaves. They sold themselves out to be ‘taken care of.’”

  “If I may get theological on you for a moment,” Pastor Pete said, “another analogy between the Lima cities and prisons and hell is that all the bad guys are in one place away from us.” He let that sink in. “Prisoners are placed away from us, and people in hell are there so they won’t mess up heaven. Well, we should be glad that the Limas have all decided to cluster together. We can keep them away from the rest of us so they can’t hurt them.”

  Grant had never thought of that. Maybe there was a good reason all the Limas were in places like Olympia and Seattle. The Limas had actually done the Patriots a favor by turning a few cities into walled off fortresses and thereby keeping the haters of liberty in one place—in one crumbling, predatory, starving place. The goal of the revolution—which the Patriots called the Restoration—was to bring liberty. Letting the sheeple out of the prison (that they put themselves in) would only increase the number of enemy personnel to deal with. If the cities don’t want liberty, fine. They won’t have it. The rural areas will. Pierce Point was living proof of this.

  “Yeah,” one of the soldiers said to Pastor Pete, “but people in prison or hell are in there because they did something bad. It’s their punishment. They’ve already been punished by being there. That doesn’t mean we can go in there and punish them more, right?”

  Pastor Pete hadn’t thought of that. After a moment of pondering, he said, “My point is that the people in a Lima city have made choices to be there and to, unfortunately, suffer whatever is coming their way. That includes us forcibly taking their city. They made choices; they aren’t innocent.”

  Pastor Pete thought more and said, “Besides, we’re not going into Olympia to punish people. We’re going there to free them. We’re also freeing ourselves from their control of us. We won’t hurt people there if
we don’t have to. In fact, they’re fortunate we’re decent people. They wouldn’t be decent to us. They haven’t been for the past months and years.”

  Most soldiers were struggling with the idea of hurting innocent people in Olympia. This had been hanging over their heads and it was finally being discussed around the fire pit. They wanted to resolve this dilemma, so they asked questions.

  “But,” said the soldier, “even in prison, some people are innocent. Why should they suffer like the guilty?”

  “Yeah,” another soldier said, “what about the kids in a Lima city? What have they done to deserve this?”

  There was silence; a long silence. The wood crackled several times.

  The first soldier, who was clearly struggling with this idea of hurting innocent people, especially kids, asked, “Could we tell the sheeple that we’ll let their kids come out safely and we’ll take care of them?”

  Grant instantly saw the political and propaganda flaw in this otherwise perfectly sensible and humanitarian suggestion. He said to the soldier, “If we did that, they would say the ‘terrorists’ are stealing kids and probably eating them. It could actually make the Limas fight harder against us.”

  All Grant could think of to get his troops around this moral dilemma was to say, “Remember, we’re here to take down the system that takes away those kids’ future. Those kids will have miserable lives if we don’t change things for them. Remember that.” Grant knew that was true, but he also knew that innocent kids and grown-ups would be dying in Olympia at the hands of his troops.

  People started to look to Pastor Pete for some wise words or some explanation for this. His eyes welled up with tears and he softly said, “Their parents will be judged in the afterlife for what they did to those innocent kids.” It was silent, except for one female soldier who was quietly crying. The crackling of the wood had stopped.

  “That’s the only answer I have, guys,” Pastor Pete said. “It’s not good enough, but it’s all I got.” He got up and left so the troops wouldn’t see their chaplain bawling his head off.

  “War is full of shitty situations,” Ted said as the fire crackled.

  Chapter 264

  Telling Lisa

  (December 26)

  The fire pit discussion was over. Pastor Pete didn’t mean for it to happen, but the discussion about innocent kids was so depressing that people just got up and left. Despite the depressing tone, Grant thought that it was important to air the topic out. That was something that each solider needed to wrap his or her head around. Hopefully it would just be theoretical.

  It was about 7:30 p.m. Grant needed to go home. He’d been away the previous night so he needed to get home.

  It could be the last night he would spend with Lisa. It was the night of heavy topics. Innocent kids dying. Ending his marriage. “God, I wish this Collapse had never happened,” Grant said out loud as he headed back to his cabin. The Team was staying out at Marion Farm now that deployment was so close. Grant drove home alone in Mark’s truck.

  He pulled up to Gideon at the guard shack and waved.

  “Where are the boys?” Gideon asked.

  “Working,” Grant said. “They’ll be there day and night for a while. They might come back to get their stuff, but that’ll be it.”

  Gideon nodded. He knew what was going on. He was one of only a handful at Pierce Point who did. As the guard adjacent Grant and the Team’s cabins, he had to know the comings and goings of those people.

  Grant parked Mark’s truck and looked at his cabin. There it was. Beautiful. Well lit. Warm. Lived in. A happy family lived in there. A happy, safe family.

  “I did my job,” Grant said out loud to himself. “I took care of them.” Grant felt a moment of satisfaction. He realized that the hours of stressing over preparations and the days of agony before his family came out to the cabin were worth it. He did his job. They would make it. Without him. He would just tell Lisa. He’d been going over this in his mind for months. He was tired of it. He would just tell her.

  He walked in and there was his family. Manda and Cole were playing a board game. Drew was on the couch reading the Pierce Point newspaper and talking to Eileen. Lisa was in a chair relaxing with a glass of wine. They had about a dozen bottles out there before the Collapse, which had lasted this long because Lisa only had a couple glasses of wine a week.

  Lisa smiled, winked, and said “There’s my husband.” Grant knew he was typically in for a great night with that wink.

  But not that night. Or any night for the rest of his life. This is what I’m sacrificing, he said to himself. My lovely wife. And my kids. That’s my sacrifice. Oh, and I might get killed, too.

  “Hey, dear, let’s go for a walk,” Grant said, which caught Lisa by surprise.

  “I’d rather sit here,” she said. She was tired from a busy day at the medical clinic.

  Grant didn’t want to annoy her by insisting that they go for a walk. Wait, Grant said to himself. Annoy her? Getting up and going for a walk will be the least of her concerns in a minute.

  “Finish up your wine, dear, and then we need to go for a walk,” Grant said.

  Lisa could tell something was up, something big. She couldn’t wait to find out what it was. The relaxation of her glass of wine was ruined so she might as well find out what was going on.

  She got a jacket and went outside. Grant was standing on the deck.

  “Let’s walk the beach,” he said.

  “Now?” Lisa asked.

  Might as well get used to her being pissed, Grant thought. “Yes, now,” he said.

  Lisa didn’t know what got into Grant, but she didn’t like it. She walked down the steps to the beach. Grant didn’t offer to hold her hand, which was unusual. Lisa felt very nervous about what he was going to tell her.

  When they got to the beach, and away from the kids’ hearing, Grant held both of her hands and looked her in the eye.

  “I’m going to war in a few days,” he said.

  “What?” Lisa asked. She assumed it was a joke. A stupid joke, but a joke.

  “I’m going to war,” Grant said.

  “What do you mean?” Lisa asked.

  “I am the commanding officer of a Patriot irregular unit and we’re heading out in a few days,” Grant said. What a relief. He finally got it off his chest.

  “Shut up,” Lisa said in a joking way. He was kidding. Right?

  Grant just looked at her. He wasn’t crying like he thought he would be.

  Slowly it started sinking in to Lisa. The “Lt. Matson” comment from that Tony guy with the amputated leg. Grant being away all the time.

  “The rental team?” Lisa asked. She had suspected this was a fake story and had feared that Grant was in some insane guerilla army, but she had put it out of her mind.

  “A cover story,” Grant said. “There is no rental team. It’s a Patriot military unit. I’m leaving with them.”

  Lisa just stared at Grant. This wasn’t happening. This was some cruel joke he was playing. Things were going so well out there now. He couldn’t leave.

  “I love you so much, honey,” Grant said. “I love the kids. But I have to go.”

  “The hell you do!” screamed Lisa. “The hell you do!”

  “Yes, I do,” Grant said. “They are counting on me.”

  “They? Who the hell are they?” Lisa screamed again. “They’re not your family. They’re your little political buddies. All this ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ shit.”

  Grant wasn’t even going to try to persuade her. His job tonight was merely to get her to understand that he didn’t hate her or the kids. That was how low he set the bar. He wanted her to understand that this really wasn’t his choice, and that he had to go away with the unit. But, Grant thought, without knowing all the things that he knew, like the meetings at Boston Harbor, how could Lisa possibly understand why he needed to do this?

  “I love you and the kids very much,” Grant said meekly. “I don’t expect you to understand this. Y
ou don’t know all the things I know. I don’t talk about them with you because you don’t like hearing about them. And they’re classified.”

  “Classified?” Lisa screamed. “Listen to you, Mr. Big Spy Man. ‘Classified’? You are so important, aren’t you? You and your little ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ Army buddies are more important than your own family. More important than us.”

  Grant had nothing to say.

  “Instead of being some spy or whatever you’re pretending to be,” Lisa screamed with a shaking voice, “why don’t you try to be a husband and a father?”

  Grant would not take that insult. He would take a lot tonight, but not that.

  “I have done a great job of being a husband and father,” Grant said, trying not to scream at her. “You have this safe place, food, and everything you need. If I would have listened to you, we’d be rotting away in Olympia.”

  Grant instantly wished he hadn’t said that. He didn’t want to re-fight past battles.

  “Oh, I’m wrong about everything?” Lisa screamed. “It’s all my fault you decided to play Army? Yeah, that’s my fault.” She started sobbing uncontrollably.

  “No, it’s not your fault,” Grant said. “It’s the government. They did all of this to us. And there are other people like me who are going to fix it.” He realized how crazy that must sound to a woman who is finding out her husband is leaving.

  Grant just stood there. Lisa was expecting him to say, “I’m sorry. I won’t go away. I’ll tell them I can’t do it.” But the longer Grant just stood there, the more Lisa realized he was really going to leave.

  Grant decided to give her more details on how well protected she and the kids were so she wouldn’t think he was a bad husband and father. “Pierce Point will be well protected,” he said. “The vast majority of the gate guards will stay. So will Gideon. We made sure that our operations wouldn’t endanger Pierce Point.”

  “Are you out of your mind?” Lisa yelled and threw up her arms. “They’ll find out where you’re from and come and get us. How stupid are you!”