299 Days: The 17th Irregulars 2d-6

by Glen Tate

  Besides humanitarian motives, the generals also knew that cutting off utilities to rural areas and the Southern states would mean massive civil unrest; even more than there already was. They knew that they, and their troops, would be called on to go put down the revolts and be drawn into an unwinnable insurgency in the American heartland. They didn’t want to kill thousands of Americans, or be killed themselves. Sitting it out seemed like a much better option for everyone involved, except the douche bag Loyalist politicians, but who cared.

  The Loyalists’ first reaction was to call for the court martial of the generals and admirals. They even briefly detained them until they realized that they could avert a full-scale civil war simply by not going through with Cracker Corral. At this point, the regular military, or what was left of it, was largely leaning toward the Patriot side, and the Loyalists were terrified of even more regular units going over to the Patriots. Besides, many Loyalists were opposed to Cracker Corral, themselves. It went too far. It would kill too many Americans.

  The Loyalist leadership agreed to cancel Cracker Corral. That whole process—from Andrew Berkowitz discovering the plan, getting the memo to the Patriots, the generals’ meeting with the Loyalist leadership, and the Loyalists’ decision to cancel the operation—lasted eight days. Those were the eight days that Forks, and about a hundred other towns, were without electricity.

  Chapter 172

  Born in This World as It All Falls Apart

  (July 6)

  Manda Matson got up a little early. It was 6:00 a.m. and the sun was up. It was yet another beautiful sunny summer day.

  Manda was very careful not to wake her brother. They slept in the same bed in the upstairs loft of her family’s cabin at Pierce Point. In the next bed over, were her grandma and grandpa. Grandpa snored, but Manda was getting used to it.

  It was so quiet. The loft had a huge window looking out onto the water. There were giant trees on each side of the cabin blocking any view to the sides. In the absolute silence of an early morning, Manda just stared out the window at the water. Some birds were flying around and the harbor seals were out. She loved the harbor seals. They were so cute.

  After a while, Manda needed some noise. She grabbed her iPod, one of her most prized possessions. Thank goodness it still worked, she thought. She could keep the battery charged because they still had electricity. She couldn’t go onto the internet and get new songs because her dad said the police were looking for him and he didn’t want to be tracked. Luckily, she had her huge library of songs and videos on there. With all the changes in her life in the past few weeks, at least she had her songs and videos. Listening to them made her feel like things were normal.

  She had her iPod on shuffle so songs came up at random. The first one was “Young” by Hollywood Undead. The first lines were:

  We are young.

  We have heart.

  Born in this world as it all falls apart.

  We wave this flag of hatred.

  But you’re the ones who made it.

  Watch the beauty of our lives.

  Passing right before our eyes.

  It was like that song was talking directly to her. She was born in this world as it all falls apart. She was sixteen. This was supposed to be a magic time in her life. It wasn’t.

  Manda remembered when she was in the third grade. Her best friend, Emmy, had a big sister in high school, Ashley. Emmy and Manda worshipped Ashley. They wanted to be a high schooler, like her. Ashley told Emmy and Manda how cool it was to be in high school. You got to drive your own car to school. You could pretty much pick the classes you wanted. You could pick out what you wanted to eat for lunch. There were football games on Friday nights. Best of all, was the prom where you got to dress up in a beautiful dress, get your hair and nails done, and go have a nice dinner with a cute boy. Then, after high school, you got to go to college where you got to live on your own, there were tons of cute boys, and the football games were on TV and everything. Manda and Emmy couldn’t wait to be high schoolers and then go to college.

  Well, fast forward eight years. Manda was in high school now, but it was closed. It was too dangerous to go there. The teachers stopped coming to school weeks ago when the school district ran out of money to pay them. Now, according to someone who had heard it on the news, Olympia High School had become a Freedom Corps training facility or something.

  There were no more proms. There never would be. Not now, while people were too worried about having enough to eat and everyone carried guns because of all the criminals. Manda and Emmy had always talked about how they wanted their prom dresses to be. They would draw pictures of them. Manda still had some of those drawings at her Olympia house, which had been destroyed by the government people who hated her dad.

  Trying not to wake anyone, she looked around the loft for a piece of paper and a pen. She wanted to draw a picture of her prom dress, just like when she was in third grade.

  She couldn’t find any paper. Of course not. Nothing ever worked out, like having paper around. Then she started to cry, quietly so she wouldn’t wake up her brother and grandparents. She realized that she would never have a prom dress. Her dreams would never come true. Her teen years had been taken. This stupid Collapse had taken everything away from her. All she had wanted was a prom. Was that asking so much? Why couldn’t she have things that everyone else got before the Collapse? Why did this have to happen when she was in high school? Why couldn’t it wait until she got to be a normal teenager, at least for a little bit? Why couldn’t people just get along and quit fighting each other? Why couldn’t things get back to normal? And why didn’t anyone care about her prom? All they ever talked about was food and guards and medicine. No one cared about proms.

  “Play the cards you’re dealt,” her dad always said. She stood up straight. She would deal with this. She wouldn’t let a prom get her down. She thought about all she had out here. Her family was together. There were a few days when she didn’t think that would happen. She remembered when her dad left and her mom said he was gone forever. Manda thought her dad was dead, or would be dead soon. She knew he would fight the government people and that they had more guns than he had. She even made up a funeral for him in her imagination. That was her way of saying goodbye to him. She imagined who would come to it and what they would say about him. She realized what a good life he had led and how he was just trying to protect them.

  She remembered when Pow came to the door of their suburban home and said they should come with the armed men and go out to the cabin, where her dad was alive. In an instant, she was so happy. It was like she had a second chance to have a great dad. She realized how lucky she was.

  She also knew that most of her friends were trapped back in Olympia. Almost all of their parents were government workers, so they probably wanted to be in Olympia. Manda hoped they were OK and that Emmy and Ashley were doing fine. At least Ashley got to go a prom and college. She was lucky.

  Manda heard someone stirring downstairs. It was probably her dad; he always got up early. She was awake and hadn’t gotten to talk to him lately because he’d been so busy, so she quietly went downstairs without waking her brother or grandparents.

  Her dad was in the kitchen, starting to make pancakes. She realized that some things never change, when, for a moment, she thought she was back before the Collapse, when they first got the cabin and she would come out with her dad. Back then, she would sleep in the loft and come downstairs and see her dad making pancakes. Just like the good old days, she thought. There was comfort in that.

  “Hey, Dad, how’s it goin’?” she asked.

  Grant smiled when he saw her. He had been missing her and Cole so much.

  “Mornin’, dear,” He said. “How’s my best daughter?”

  “Great,” she said. “How’s my best dad?” The “best daughter” and “best dad” lines they used were an inside joke. Grant would say that when Manda was little, and then one day, when Manda was in the second grade, she said,
“Wait. ‘Your best daughter?’ I’m your only daughter.” Then she turned it on Grant by calling him her “best dad,” to which he would reply, “Wait. I’m your only dad.” Even that exchange of lines from an inside joke felt so comforting. So normal, during such an abnormal time.

  “Oh, I’m fine,” Grant said. “Would my daughter like some delicious pancakes?”

  “Of course,” she said and then paused. “Hey, Dad, do you remember Ashley?”

  “Yeah, sure. Why?” Grant asked. He hoped Ashley hadn’t been killed.

  “Remember how me and Emmy wanted to go to a prom like she did?” Manda asked.

  Grant could instantly tell what was bothering Manda. He felt terrible that his little girl couldn’t have a prom. She deserved it. She’d been talking about it for years. She had even drawn elaborate pictures of how she wanted her dress to look.

  “Yeah, I remember. Why?” he asked, as if he didn’t know the answer.

  “Well, I wish…” she trailed off., “Do you think we could have a prom out here?”

  That was what he was hoping she wouldn’t ask. It would be impossible to have a prom out there for quite some time.

  “Of course we can have a prom,” he said, realizing that his daughter needed the hope of a prom to help her get through this. He was going to do all he could to get his girl a prom. He had no idea how this would be possible, but he was going to do it.

  She started squealing with delight. She started talking to him about her dress so fast that he couldn’t understand her. Besides, he had no idea what she was talking about: colors, fabric, sewing.

  As she went on and on with a huge smile on her face, he realized that he needed to reel in her expectations.

  “Of course, it won’t be for a while,” he said. Her squealing stopped. She was silent and then she started to sniffle.

  “How long?” she asked, sniffling more now.

  “Not long,” he said, lying. “Maybe a couple of months. Maybe in the fall.” He realized he needed to channel her energy into something positive to take her mind off of the disappointment of a delay — and possible never-occurring — prom.

  “Between you, your mom, and grandma, I’m sure you’ll come up with something awesome for a dress,” Grant said. He thought that others, probably including Mary Anne Morrell, would help find some fabric.

  “Gotta play the cards you’re dealt,” she said, forcing a smile. Then she broke into a genuine smile. She realized that this prom would be more “real” than the old pre-Collapse ones. Before the Collapse, people just bought dresses, wore them once, and then threw them out. But out here, they would make a special dress just for her. She would keep it forever. This might even be better than the prom she had envisioned.

  Manda hugged her dad. She was so glad he was here and that they were together.

  Lisa came out of the bedroom and into the kitchen to see Manda and Grant hugging.

  “What you guys talkin’ about?” Lisa asked.

  “Nothin’,” Manda said. “Just hugging my best dad.”

  Chapter 173

  Kellie Is in Love

  (July 6)

  “I’m in love, dude,” Wes said to Grant one morning as the Team was getting into Mark’s truck to go out to the Richardson house for training. Just as Wes said that, a beautiful girl in her early twenties came out of the yellow cabin.

  She had light brown hair and was in perfect shape, something Grant could tell from her shorts and tank top. He tried not to pay too much attention to her because she was half his age, but damn, she looked fabulous. She came running up to Wes and hugged him.

  “When are you done with work?” she asked Wes, practically making out with him as she spoke. “I’ll be waiting for you,” she said extremely seductively. Grant knew what Wes had in store for him after work; hours and hours of it. He was a lucky bastard.

  “I’m done around dinner time,” Wes said. “We’ll be back as soon as we can,” he said, trying to be semi-business like with Grant around. Wes realized that he hadn’t yet introduced his girlfriend.

  “Grant, this is Kellie,” Wes said. She snapped out of her love trance and broke off from her hug of Wes. She turned to Grant and tried to act polite, even though she was a little annoyed that someone was distracting Wes from her.

  Grant put out his hand and said, “Pleased to meet you Kellie. I’m Grant. I live over here,” he said pointing to his nearby cabin. “I work with Wes.”

  Kellie saw Grant’s pistol belt and his military-contractor looking clothes. Like the Team, Grant was wearing 5.11 pants and had a Raven Concealment holster, which set him apart from the local guards, who usually wore hunting clothes. She realized this Grant guy must be one of the Team, although she hadn’t seen him around and he was older than the other guys. He must be a boss or something. She vaguely remembered one of the Team saying something about a “Grant” guy being a judge and on the Team, or something. She figured she better be nice to him so Wes didn’t get in trouble at work. She needed Wes to be home where she could… do more of what they had done all night.

  “Nice to meet you, Grant,” she said. She paused a moment to be polite and then went back to hugging Wes. She just wanted to hold him. She didn’t want him to leave because she was afraid he’d get in a gun fight and not come back. She kept telling herself not to fall for some military guy, or whatever it was the Team did out there, but she couldn’t resist. Wes was so cute and he was new.

  Kellie recalled how she met Wes a few weeks ago. She had grown up at Pierce Point with the local boys. She’d dated some and done the usual dumb teenage stuff with them. She had a steady boyfriend, Ethan Meecham, for about a year, but he was so small-time, just a Pierce Point boy. She had decided to break up with him before the Collapse started, but she didn’t have the nerve to do it. When Ethan went off to guard duty at the gate, Kellie was relieved. He’d be busy with that and not have any time for her.

  Then she saw them; a pickup load of cute guys. New guys she hadn’t seen before, and they came with guns. Way cooler guns than the hunting guns everyone else had. The guys in the truck had military looking clothes; not camouflage or uniforms. They looked like they were professionals, but not soldiers… like guys in all those movies she’d seen. She was amazed at how calm and confident they looked as they drove by. Luckily, they were driving slowly so she could get a good look at them. One of them smiled at her. He was so cute. She fell in love with one look.

  Kellie thought it was great that the guys in the truck were riding around and looking for bad guys, who they would shoot if they had to. They weren’t afraid of anything.

  Kellie was drawn to that: She had some bad guys in her life she wanted people to go get. She wanted to be protected, and these were the type of men who would do that. She felt so safe just seeing them. It was a peaceful and exhilarating feeling. Nothing could hurt her when they were around.

  It was a momentary feeling, though, because they drove by and then they were gone. She had to meet them, just had to. She would do anything to meet them, especially the cute one who smiled at her.

  She was in her yard when they drove by. Once they were gone, she panicked. How could she meet them? Were they gone for good? She was terrified she’d never see them again.

  Kellie found her mom, Sheila, hoping that she would know who they were. She frantically described what she’d seen and asked her mom who they were.

  “The Team,” her mom said. “Some guys from Olympia who are out here doing police things. Nice guys. I met them at the Grange a few nights ago. Were you scared by the guns?” her mom asked. Sheila still thought of Kellie as her “little girl.”

  “No, I wasn’t scared,” Kellie said. She remembered that her mom still thought she was dating Ethan so she stopped herself from saying that she wanted to meet the cute one, the smiley one.

  “I just wanted to make sure people with guns were OK to be here,” Kellie said.

  “Oh, they’re OK to be here,” Sheila said. “We’re lucky to have them. The
y apparently trained together before all of this, like a SWAT thing or something. I’m not really sure,” her mom said.

  “The Grange?” Kellie asked. “Are they at the Grange?”

  “Yeah,” Sheila said, “for the meetings at 7:00. They eat there, too,” Shelia said, starting to figure out why Kellie was so interested in meeting them. She saw this as an opportunity to get her daughter out of the house and do something productive.

  “You could volunteer to help serve meals at the Grange. It wouldn’t kill you,” Sheila said.

  “Great idea, mom,” Kellie said. It had been about ten years since Sheila had heard her daughter say that.

  “Great idea?” Sheila said, in complete shock at what her often unruly daughter had just said. “I love hearing that.” They hugged. Her little Kellie, the one who listened to mom, was back. Maybe these boys on the Team were actually going to be a good thing for Kellie, Shelia thought.

  “I’ll go up to the Grange now and volunteer,” Kellie said, impulsively grabbing her car keys.

  “Whoa,” Sheila said. “Gas. There’s no gas to just drive around. Remember? You need to walk. It’s only about a mile.”

  “Sure,” Kellie said. “Sounds good, Mom.” It was another shocking statement from the rebel child.

  “I gotta change,” Kellie said. Kellie got in her sexiest shorts and tight fitting tank top and put on some makeup.

  Kellie came out and Sheila said, “You look fabulous. You’ll be the most beautiful kitchen helper there.” Kellie realized she was being obvious about her true intentions with the kitchen helping, but loved that her mom was in on it. Kellie hugged her mom. She hadn’t done that in a couple of years.

  Kellie started walking, which was something she hadn’t done in so long. She was accustomed to driving anywhere and everywhere.