I got out of the Buick and opened the trunk. I grabbed the knapsack and left the gold. I prayed that when my folks saw the cash, they might cut me enough slack to explain myself. I didn’t really think it would help. Money had never meant much to my folks. What they didn’t need to run the farm was likely to end up in the collection plate at church. I walked up to the house feeling like I was back in high school, and in a ton of hot water.
I walked up the stairs and across the porch to the doormat and I wiped off my muddy boots. The moon had just appeared through the clouds and rainwater still dribbled down the downspout. I took a deep breath and opened the door. And I found myself staring into the barrel of a rifle. “Hello Gary,” whispered a woman’s voice in the shadows. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
The knapsack was violently torn from my hands and I was thrown to the floor. “Where’s the goddamn gold?” shouted a man’s voice.
“You’d better tell him, Gary,” said the woman. She had a familiar voice, but in my shock I couldn’t quite place it. “He probably left it out in the car,” she said to her accomplice. And that was when I recognized the voice as Madison’s.
“Hello Madison,” I said, trying to remain calm. “The gold is out in the trunk. Just take it and leave us alone. Please, just take it.”
“Oh, we’re taking it, all right,” growled the man. He then kicked me hard in the stomach and before I could catch my breath, he drug me into the candlelit living room. Everyone was there. My family; Jack, Helen, Neil, all of them were bound hand and foot. Fat strips of duct tape had been stuck over their mouths. The adults sat up in a semicircle, as if it was Christmas morning and they were waiting for the gifts to be passed out. Violet, Matt, and Janis, all sat together on the sofa. I turned to glare at the man.
And I saw that it was Bob Miller, the man responsible for killing Duke. The soldier who had murdered Gunner and Thor; the person I hated more than I had ever hated anyone.
Anger welled up inside of me. If I had been carrying a gun, I know I would have reached for it. How he and Madison had hooked up, I could only imagine. He was dressed in civilian clothes and he smirked at me. “Hello Gary,” he said. “Remember me? Small world, isn’t it?”
“I remember you,” I grunted. “I told you, the gold is out in the trunk. The keys are in my pocket. Just take it and go. Nobody has to get hurt.”
Bob smiled and then he rammed the butt of his assault rifle into my forehead. I went down like a sack of cement. I never lost consciousness, but I was knocked silly and helpless. Bob quickly bound my feet together and my hands behind my back. Hot blood dripped down my forehead onto my nose and cheeks. Madison dropped to her knees next to me and dug the car keys from my pocket. “Thanks Gary,” she whispered. “I knew you’d come through for me.”
“Don’t trust him,” I said, drunkenly, tasting blood in my mouth. “He’s a killer.”
Madison smiled and shook her head. “We’re all killers, Gary,” she said. “Haven’t you figured that out by now?” Madison then turned to face Bob. “I’ll go check it out.”
“No, we’ll go together,” said Bob. He then took one of Mom’s sofa cushions and he pressed it hard onto my face. For a moment, I thought he was going to suffocate me. But then he savagely twisted the pillow in my face, mopping up the blood. He then tore off another strip of tape and he pasted it across my mouth. “I’m a killer?” Bob asked. “What a rude thing to say about me, buddy. I can promise you, you’ll live to regret those words.”
Madison was digging inside the knapsack and she smiled at me. “That was a big mistake, Gary,” she said. “You don’t know Bob like I do.”
Bob stood up and looked at the kids. “If any of you kids moves so much as a muscle while we’re gone, I’ll shoot each of you in the head. Do you understand me? We’ll be right back. Do not move.”
“He means it, kiddies,” added Madison, staring at Bob with adoration. “Don’t move.”
They walked out of the living room and a moment later, there was the sound of the screen door banging shut. I have never felt so helpless, so hopeless. I stared at my parents. Dad had a bruise forming on his forehead and there was a red welt across Mom’s cheek. Jack’s entire face was swollen. They all looked at me with sad eyes. They knew the end was near and it seemed like everyone had accepted their fate. A great sadness passed over me and I began to weep.
“No,” I heard Janis whisper. “Get back here!”
I twisted around to see Violet scampering out of the room. Frantic groans filled the living room and I was filled with terror. I struggled against the tape, but Bob had bound my wrists together so tightly that they barely moved. Cheryl stared at me with such rage that I had to look away. Mom and Dad stared at me with pleading eyes, shaking their heads at me, as if I could somehow call Violet back to the couch. Only Jack offered me a hopeful expression.
“Violet,” repeated Janis, softly. “No.”
I heard the trunk lid slam shut. That was when I remembered that I had left Mom’s Buick with less than an eighth of a tank of gas. I wondered how Bob and Madison had got out to the farm. I hadn’t seen a vehicle, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t have parked behind the barn or inside the shed. I hoped that was the case. We didn’t have a drop of gas on the farm and I knew Dad’s pickup was on empty. If they were planning on stealing Mom’s car, they wouldn’t get far.
Cheryl’s groans increased in intensity with each passing second. She began thrashing around on the floor, desperately trying to free herself. My heart ached for her. I heard the sound of stomping footsteps on the porch.
“No Violet,” whimpered Janis. “Matt, you’ve got to run and hide!”
The screen door smacked shut and Cheryl suddenly froze. What happened next took less than a minute, but that minute seemed to last an eternity. Bob and Madison strode angrily into the living room. At first they didn’t seem to notice that one of us was missing. Bob walked over to me and jerked the tape off of my mouth. “Where the hell do you keep the gas around here?” he asked. “And you’d better not tell me that you’re out. I don’t have time for any of your bullshit.”
“Hey,” cried Madison. “One of the kids is gone!”
“What the hell?” asked Bob, “I told you what would happen if anyone moved off that goddamn couch. Shoot the kids, Madison!”
“I’m not shooting them,” she said. “I can’t shoot kids, Bob. You shoot them.”
“Fine,” said Bob. “I’ll do it.”
“No, you won’t,” Violet said in her small voice.
“What?” Bob asked, spinning around.
The sound of the gunshot was deafening. Bob was knocked off his feet in an explosion of blood. He tripped over me as he fell and he went down hard, landing on top of Jack. The bullet had entered Bob’s skull through his left eye and blood pumped out in shooting spurts. Madison screamed, but her scream was quickly silenced by another gunshot. I twisted to see her drop her rifle, clutch her lower thigh, and crumple to the floor. I turned to see Violet, standing ten feet away, holding her mother’s semiautomatic pistol with the barrel pointed up at the ceiling. She had that blank expression on her face and she walked over to where Madison writhed on the floor. “You were going to kill us,” Violet said, mechanically, “even after you had the gold and the money.”
“Violet,” I said. “Don’t do it.”
Violet ignored me and she picked up the hunting rifle that Madison had carried. Casually, she leaned it up against the corner, well behind Madison.
“I wasn’t going to kill anyone,” whimpered Madison. “You heard me. Bob forced me to go along with him!”
“Maybe you weren’t going to kill us, but he was. You weren’t going to stop him.”
“I couldn’t stop him,” groaned Madison.
“Violet,” I said, “please, don’t do this. We can turn her into the authorities.”
“What authorities are you talking about?” asked Violet. “Bob was an authority, wasn’t he? He was a soldier, just like my mo
m and dad. If we let this lady go, she’ll just find a way to come back and get us. I can’t allow that, Gary. She’s a bad person and I can’t trust her.”
“I’ll go away!” shrieked Madison.
Even in her agony, blood oozing out from the hole in her leg, she was still beautiful to me. As crazy as it sounds, I felt sorry for her. I didn’t want Violet to kill her, but I was powerless to stop her. I watched in horror as she stepped over to stand in front of Madison.
“You little bitch,” hissed Madison. “I should’ve killed you while I had the chance!”
The gun exploded in Violet’s little hands and Madison howled in agony. The bullet slammed into Madison’s good thigh and she flopped down onto her back and writhed in pain. “Don’t kill me!” she screamed. “For the love of God, please don’t kill me!”
“Sorry bitch,” grunted Violet. She then dropped to her knees and shoved the barrel of the pistol into Madison’s open mouth. And then she pulled the trigger.
Chapter 23
The next few days were uneasy, to say the least. Violet retreated to the furthest corner of her safe place and didn’t speak a word for three days. Dad dug a hole in the pasture with the backhoe and we dumped Bob and Madison into it, together. Dad even said a few words, which didn’t surprise me.
Mom worked feverishly to clean up the mess in the living room, but there always seemed to be a sliver of bone or a splat of brain that she missed. This nearly drove her crazy. Matt and Janis stuck close to Cheryl, and all three of them gave Violet a wide berth. Thankfully, Neil stayed by Violet’s side while I tended to my chores. Violet had been right about one thing, there was no one to report Madison and Bob to. They were dead and buried and nobody spoke of them. Somehow, Jack came into possession of a bottle. I warned him to steer clear of my parents, but I stopped short of taking it from him. We had all been witness to a nightmare. Everyone has their own way to cope.
I tried talking to Dad about the gold, but it only served to stir up a powerful anger. “Gary,” he growled at me, “can’t you see the evil in that gold? How many more people have to die before you understand? I want it out of my house. The money too, I want it off my property. I don’t want to see it and I never want to hear you mention it. You’re mother and I have lived our whole lives trying to do God’s work. Thanks to you, we’ve now got blood on our hands and we’ll have to answer for that. Does that mean anything to you?”
I assured him that it did, but he hardly listened to me. I thought he was going to send us away, but we had nowhere to go. I took most of the money and the gold out to my fort and I buried it deep in the earth. I knew I was disobeying my father, but I couldn’t bring myself to hide it anywhere else.
The soldiers continued to stop by and update us on the situation. A truce had been drawn up and the fighting had come to a halt. Minnesota now belonged to something known as the New Confederacy. Power to the farm was restored and a few days later, shipments of gasoline and diesel began arriving at the service stations. Slowly, commerce started to ramp up. Radio and television stations returned to the airwaves, but the internet was said to have been abolished.
Mail service was even resumed, although all mail was held for pickup at the local post offices. A full week after that terrible night at the farm, we got a letter from Cathy. Unbelievably, she had already stood in front of a military court after being charged with desertion. She was a little vague about what had happened, but the bottom line was that the charges had been dismissed and she had been welcomed back to join her unit. Violet spent an entire day reading and rereading the letter. This welcome news seemed to bring her all the way back from her safe place. I couldn’t have been happier, or so I thought. Cheryl began encouraging Matt and Janis to spend time with Violet, and they all began playing together as if nothing had happened. That brought tears to my eyes. Kids are so incredibly resilient; we should all try to learn from them. It wasn’t long before things were nearly back to the way they had been before Bob had returned.
Despite what had happened, Dad insisted we keep loaded firearms throughout the house. He reasoned that the world was still a dangerous place and that we needed to be prepared for the worst. Mom argued against this, but Dad put his foot down.
July turned to August, which passed in the blink of an eye. Everything seemed to be going our way. We were like one big happy family. We registered the kids for school and readied the machinery for harvest. Despite everything that had happened, we were set to harvest a bumper crop of corn. Dad began to open up to me and once again, he seemed determined to test his theory about creating a grass roots movement to try and form a new political party. Mom and Cheryl took Violet under their wing and taught her how to run a proper kitchen. Violet seemed to soak it all in. I was so proud of her. I began to think of her as my own daughter, although I knew that was wrong. I simply couldn’t help it.
Neil worked as hard as ever and muscles now appeared where none had been before. He cut his hair short and had caught the eye of a neighbor girl. Laurie Olsen lived on the farm three doors down, which was nearly half a mile away. She was a pretty girl and I was amazed at how quickly the two of them seemed to fall in love. One day she was visiting, the next she had become a fixture at Neil’s side. Her father, John, had been killed in the fighting. He and Dad had been friends and my folks were happy to have her around. Everyone liked Neil, but we did wonder why he never talked about his own family. He seemed to have no desire to return to them, even if he could. Ohio was still part of the Union and as far as we knew, everyone in the New Confederacy was forbidden to cross the border.
I would like to tell you that we lived happily ever after. I would love to tell you that our story ends here, but I can’t. Where there is life, misery is never far away.
Jack had seemed to completely turn his life around. He and Helen got along famously and he lost a good twenty pounds of stomach that summer. He was usually the first to rise and he began each morning by brewing a pot of coffee. Besides those first few days after we buried Bob and Madison, Jack hadn’t had a drink. His mood had changed from combative to charming and he worked as hard around the farm as anyone. Even Helen commented to us about how much he had changed.
But all good things must come to an end.
Early Monday, Labor Day morning, Violet and I found ourselves the first ones out of bed. “Where’s Jack?” she asked. “Shouldn’t he be making the coffee?”
“Jack wasn’t feeling well last night,” I said. “I think he’s coming down with a bug.”
“Poor Jack. I hope he feels better soon. He’s a very nice man.”
I smiled and nodded my head. “He is,” I said, filling the coffeemaker with water. “So, are you excited to start school, tomorrow?”
“Kind of,” she admitted. “I hope the kids like me.”
“Of course they’re going to like you, sweetie. I’ll bet you have a boyfriend in no time.”
“No thanks,” she giggled. “I don’t like boys.”
I heard the bathroom door close and I was just about to speak when a growling cut through the morning silence. Something crashed to the floor. Violet sprang up from the table and rushed into my arms. “Stay here,” I said. I then walked to the bathroom door and rapped on it, just as my dad came charging down the stairs. “Are you okay in there?”
“What the hell is going on?” barked Dad.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Somebody is in there.”
“Leave me alone!” roared Jack from behind the door.
I reeled back. Initially, I thought that Jack had fallen off the wagon. He began raving like a madman, cursing like a sailor. Dad and I exchanged a look and that was when I remembered that Jack had been bitten by the bat.
Suddenly, the door burst open and Jack shuffled out. His bloodshot eyes were open wide and white froth bubbled from the corners of his mouth. “Get away from me!” he bellowed.
“Holy shit,” I mumbled. I then backed all the way into the kitchen.
“What the hell is w
rong with him?” asked Dad.
“He’s got rabies,” I said. “He got bit before we attacked the camp.”
“I ain’t got rabies, you bastard!” shouted Jack, almost as if it were one long word.
“The hell you don’t,” said Dad. “You need to get to the hospital.”
“I ain’t going anywhere!”
“You’re coming with us, Jack,” I said. “We’ve got to get you some help.”
Jack glared at us and shook his head. “You lay a finger on me and I’ll bite you,” he growled. “I’ll bite your goddamn fingers off! I can promise you that!”
There was a moment of silence.
And then I heard Violet rack a shell into the chamber of Dad’s shotgun. “You’re not going to bite anyone, Jack,” she said, flatly. “I can promise you that.”
The end
I hope you’ve enjoyed this book and will take a minute to leave a review. I do promise to write a sequel (I’m already working on it) and depending on how it’s received, perhaps more than one. The purpose behind Stealing Second was not to scare people into thinking this scenario was about to come true, but only to suggest what future Americans might face if we allow our politicians to start tinkering with the Second Amendment. These buffoons can’t even manage the budget. How can we trust them to protect our rights?
If you liked this book, be sure to check out my Desperate Times Trilogy. I also have a Desperate Times fan-page on Facebook, as well as my personal page. Feel free to drop me a friend request. Have a great day!
Stealing Second (The Amendments Book One 1) Page 24