She gasped audibly when she realized who the sparkling eyes belonged to. “Alex? Alex, is that you?” Grace turned her head on a swivel to check for onlookers. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Alex gracefully exposed more of herself from behind the tree while remaining hidden from view. “I came here to help.”
“You did? Alone? Are you nuts?”
“No, not alone, my sisters are with me. You just can’t see them.”
Grace’s eyes darted around nervously in search of two more sets of eyeballs. “Okay…I guess. Tell them it’s nice to meet them finally.” She paused while continuing her hunt. “Look, Alex…I appreciate this, whatever you’re doing, I really do. But you and your sisters can’t be here right now. Takers are all over the place, and if they see you, they will take you…just like they took all of us.”
“They won’t take me or my sisters,” said Alex. “They haven’t even seen us, and they won’t see us, either. We’ve been watching them for over a day now, and we’ve been taking lots of notes.”
Grace took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, trying to regain some semblance of a normal heartbeat. “Fine. Suit yourself. But if one of these cavemen shows his face, you disappear and take your siblings with you, do you understand me?”
Alex nodded. “I do, but there’s no one nearby. I would’ve never called for you if there was.” She paused. “Can you come a little bit closer? I brought something I need to give you.”
“Why does this remind me of the first time we met? Only…our roles have somehow been reversed. It’s so anomalous.” Grace shuffle-stepped gingerly over to the pine tree Alex was hiding behind, while trying her best to remain inconspicuous.
She wanted to believe what Alex was telling her, but experience had taught her otherwise. The woods had always felt alive to Grace, and she believed it to have several sets of eyes, keeping everything under constant surveillance. “Okay, fill me in. What exactly is this whole spy-style brush pass about?”
Alex stretched her arm around the tree, holding a small glass jar in her hand. “Here. Take this.”
Grace reached for the bottle and held it at waist level while shaking its contents. “What the hell is this? Looks like oregano or parsley or something.” She feasted her eyes on it. “This isn’t weed, is it?”
Alex allowed a stern look to coat her young face. “No—it’s not. So don’t smoke it. And whatever you do, don’t eat it. I wouldn’t even touch it. My mom put it together; it’s pretty potent shit.”
Grace cocked her head. “Potent shit, huh?” She shook the bottle again. “Can you tell me what’s in it?”
“I would if I knew. All I know is what Mom told me. She says it only takes a small dose to stop a man’s heart. She even calls it ‘Heartbreaker’, like the Pat Benatar song.”
“Okay, Alex. Look, I have to admit, my brain hasn’t exactly been operating on all cylinders as of late,” Grace remarked. “Things have been a wee bit fuzzy. Can you give me a little more to go on?”
“It’s a mixture of dried leaves and crushed seeds from Mom’s poison garden.”
“Poison garden?”
Alex’s face lit up to accompany her nod. “Yep.”
“And I’m supposed to do what with it?”
“Use it on their food as seasoning or something. We’ve been watching. They’re eating food like it’s going out of style, and they might be hungry enough to not pay attention to how their food is being cooked.”
“Oh,” said Grace, her tone getting warmer. “Oh. I get it now. I totally get it.”
Alex spent a moment divulging their side of the plan so Grace knew what to expect. Then she informed her how they had found George and Elizabeth Brady deceased and about the Bradys’ homes being ransacked. “Michelle wanted me to ask you if anyone else was hurt or…well, you know.”
Grace sighed, taking in the cheerless news of two more fallen neighbors. “I wish I knew. I’ve only seen about half of us. They divided us up, and they’re holding most of the men somewhere else to keep us from fighting back. Unfortunately for us and quite the opposite for them, it’s working. But insofar as casualties are concerned, tell her I don’t really have an answer, but I’m glad she’s okay.”
Alex pursed her lips and nodded. “I’ll pass on the message. Another thing, Michelle wanted me to remind you about the beef left over at the Ackermanns’ farm. She said Norman cured some of it and cold-smoked the rest.”
“She knows me well. I almost forgot about that.”
“Yeah.” Alex giggled. “She said you probably would. Mom says it still should be okay to eat. They want you to find a way to suggest it to them…by way of a steak dinner or feast—something you can cook for them, like a meal they won’t forget. Do you think you can do that?”
Grace thought a moment, fidgeting with her hair. She compiled everything, then smiled devilishly and nodded. The time had come for an entirely new act to begin. “Hmm. So it’s up to Grace to plan a final meal before execution is carried out,” she said softly. “Yeah, Alex. Yeah, I believe I can do that.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“Okay. What should I tell my mom and Michelle?”
“Tell them I’m going to go with my usual, with what’s always worked before,” Grace said, displaying a set of piercing eyes and a matching sinister smirk. “I’m going to fake it till I make it.”
Chapter 23
“When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.”
—Alexander Graham Bell
Trout Run Valley
Friday, December 3rd
Michelle watched Jesseca rummage through a pile of items and materials she had recently dumped on the ground from a vintage US Army backpack. Jesseca had referred to it as an ‘Alice’ pack, explaining that it had once belonged to her father. She further described it as the style of pack issued to and typically worn by infantry combat soldiers during the Vietnam War. Jess said it was probably the most recognizable of all military backpacks in the world, though admittedly, Michelle had never seen one before.
Amongst the items in the pile were things Michelle was able to recognize, such as canteens, an angle-head flashlight, some canvas pouches, a webbed pistol belt, and a bayonet still seated comfortably in its scabbard. Everything was olive drab or a faded shade of green in color and appeared to be in decent, workable shape.
Jesseca smiled when she held up an ammo pouch and unbuckled the top, exposing ten full thirty-caliber magazines for her M1 carbine. She pulled one out to examine it, scratching at a rusty spot with a fingernail. “Hot damn. I thought I’d lost these forever. What a perfect time to find them.”
Michelle peered over from where she stood. “I take it those fit your gun?”
Jesseca nodded with zeal. “Damn right they will. Ten magazines at twenty rounds a piece—that’s two hundred rounds I can shoot in my enemy’s direction. I mean our enemy’s direction.” She paused a moment, diverting her attention to Michelle’s SBR. “Do you have any spares for yours?”
“That’s a good question,” Michelle replied, looking down at her rifle and then to the backpack strapped to the rear deck of her ATV. “The rifle belongs to Fred Mason, and I know he didn’t give me any, but after Lauren saw me with it, she stuffed a few in my backpack. She probably thought I didn’t see her do it, but I did.” She sauntered over, unzipped her pack, and dug into it. “Lo and behold, my daughter, in her eternal vigilance, left me four of them.”
“Smart kid. Every time you mention her name, I like her even more. That gives you what? About a hundred and fifty rounds?”
Michelle shrugged. “I think that’s right,” she replied, looking the mags over.
Jesseca unstrapped the cylinder of bedroll material from the bottom of the Alice pack and unfurled it onto the ground at her knees, separating a vinyl cloak from a heavy, rectangular wool blanket inside. She spread the blanket o
n the ground and pulled a knife from her back pocket, then began cutting the blanket into strips.
“I have to admit to you, Jess, I don’t know much about the stuff we’re planning to do,” Michelle said. “I don’t know much about guns…or tactics either.”
“That makes two of us, if it makes you feel any better.”
Michelle stammered and smiled grimly, her face turning pale. “No…not really.”
“Guess I shouldn’t have said anything, then.”
“I guess not,” Michelle agreed, watching Jess’s actions with more focus. “Since moving here, I’ve been going with the flow, playing it by ear. This is still all so new to me. Lauren, on the other hand…well, let’s just say if she were here, my guess is she’d probably know exactly what to do. She wasn’t born with the skills she has, but it’s become pretty damn obvious to me she’s gathered them somehow, from someone, somewhere along the line, when I wasn’t looking. And I have a distinct feeling my husband was involved. Those two were practically inseparable—always off on some adventure while I was busy doing my own thing. They asked me to come along a bunch of times…and I didn’t, for whatever reason. Now I really wish I would’ve just sucked it up and gone with them. Maybe I’d be better prepared for all this.”
“Hindsight has twenty-twenty vision, Michelle.”
“Don’t I know it.”
“And I don’t think anything can prepare anyone for something like this.”
“You say that, but you seem to have your ducks in a row.”
Jesseca peered up at Michelle, her head tilted downward at her work. “All the skills I have stem from what I’ve learned in books, along with the handful of things my parents taught me growing up. I was lucky to have a father who sometimes divulged information about his military past…it was like having my own personal black book of dirty tricks on the shelf. But he wasn’t exactly an open book…anything I didn’t know about and wanted to know about, I read about in field manuals he had lying around.” She paused. “Listen, I know you’re worried about this, but we’ll work through it, one way or another.”
“We don’t have another option, do we?” Michelle said rhetorically. She wavered a moment, gathering her thoughts. “You know, in retrospect, it’s just irritating that I didn’t do what I should’ve—back when I had the time. Now we’ve run out of time, and I’m regretting being so idle back then. I know I probably sound like a broken record…but it brings me peace knowing my daughter is as capable as she is. It doesn’t change the fact that Alan made plans concerning her without discussing them with me.” She paused. “If I ever see him again, in this life or the next, I plan on riding his ass about it.”
Jesseca laughed. “As well you should.”
Michelle exhaled loud enough to clear her mind a little and moved in to observe. “I think it’s high time you clued me in to your thought process, Jess.” She pointed to Jess’s project. “I’ve been able to follow along for the most part. But now I’m starting to feel lost.”
Jesseca continued eyeballing the cuts she was making in the blanket, concentrating on their straightness. “I’m sorry, Michelle. I’m not usually this incommunicado. I’m not deviating from our plan, either, just adding to it a bit.”
“I thought the plan was pretty well thought out already,” Michelle said, scratching her head. “If Alex and the girls can get your poison-garden stuff to Grace, I can almost certify that she’ll find a way of putting it into action.”
“She’s that good?”
Michelle sniggered, then jested, “She’s imaginative. She’ll probably have them eating from the palm of her hand. I’d love to find a way to help her along, but I don’t know what else we can do other than stand by and wait.”
Jesseca took the strips of wool blanket and begin rolling them into tight columns, laying them beside each other. She extricated a roll of duct tape from her backpack and began wrapping it loosely around the rolls, folding it over on top of itself at the end. Reaching for her M1, she arranged the muzzle perpendicular to her and rolled one of the remaining strips of blanket around the end of the barrel, using duct tape to secure it tightly. “That’s exactly what we’re going to do,” Jess said with a devilish smirk. “We’re just going to have guns aimed at our enemy while we wait.”
“Oh.”
“If your Grace can find a way to get an adequate dose on each plate, then there won’t be a need for us to intervene,” Jess explained. “But if she doesn’t, and there’s always that chance, it might take a while for them to…kick the bucket.”
“How long is a while?”
“Oh, maybe a minute or two.”
Michelle pursed her lips and nodded her understanding. “That’s not very long.”
“No, but it’ll feel like an eternity,” Jess went on. “Especially since they’ll be aware of what’s happening. The poisons attack the heart and central nervous system, but the brain goes manic, trying to process what’s going on, and that means they’ll be panicking. They might do something stupid.”
“Hence the addition of guns to our plan.”
Jess nodded with a shrug. “Just covering our bases. If we have to put them down, we will. You know…hemlock on its own can stop a heart in fifteen minutes, and hydrangea works like cyanide. But fuse them together and add foxglove, and we’re talking seconds.”
“In the right dose…”
“Right. But I even add a measure of belladonna berries. They have a semisweet flavor, similar to figs. If ingested, it causes swelling in the throat. It tends to shut them up. Quiets the screams.”
Michelle tilted her head, a bit taken aback with Jess’s statement as a notebook of ill-timed questions entered her mind. Her interest in Jess’s project soon overrode her anxiety. “You know, when you showed me your gardens, especially the ones with all the poison plants in them, I didn’t know what to think.”
“I could tell by the look you gave me,” said Jess. “The look of distrust…like the one you’re giving me now.”
“It’s not deliberate.”
“I know, no worries. We have a lot going on, and I know I’m not everyone’s cup of tea. I’m sort of an acquired taste.”
Michelle moved in closer. “Maybe so, but your sticking around shows character, and it means a lot to me. And I honestly can’t thank you enough.”
Jesseca gleamed. “It’s not a problem. That’s what friends are for.” She pointed her knife at Michelle. “But I swear to God…if anything like this ever happens to me, I fully expect you and the rest of the folks here to come running to my aid.”
Michelle held up her hands and backed away, completing the act. “Sure, anything you want. After this, I don’t think anyone will disagree.” She paused to watch Jess work as her interest grew. “You’re making silencers, aren’t you?”
“Very perceptive,” said Jesseca. “For someone who doesn’t know much about guns.”
“Admittedly, I might’ve seen something similar done once or twice before.”
“Oh?”
“Sure…in a movie my maverick husband coerced me into watching against my will.”
“I see,” Jess said, an inelegant smirk attached. “I remember Dad telling me a wool blanket would do the trick in a pinch…so do plastic water bottles and sometimes even a pillow, if you use them right. They’re a great quick-and-dirty option…but I remember vaguely something else he said about them catching fire eventually. I suppose we’ll find out here before long.” Jesseca ran her hand along the other strips of wool. “At any rate, I’m planning ahead for that upshot. We’ll have extras.”
Chapter 24
Hardy County, West Virginia
Saturday, December 4th
Christian made sure he was seated on the passenger side of the lead vehicle so he could give directions to the driver, a younger soldier he met by the name of Richie.
While Christian had tried to make conversation with him along the way, it had been difficult, even unbearable at times. Richie had come across to him as c
ocky, arrogant, and a bit of a prick. He was egotistical, self-absorbed, and aggressively argumentative, preferring only to talk about himself and what mattered to him, while ignoring most everything else. This made him nearly impossible for Christian to converse with without arriving at some sort of conflict, and he was more than trying Christian’s patience.
Having reached the final stretch of the trip back to the valley, Christian looked over at Richie, deciding to try his luck with the conceited young soldier once again. “You know, I hate to be the one who beats a dead horse, but I still don’t understand what the big deal is. You know I’m friends with Lauren, and your CO is obviously friends with her, too. I live in the valley we’re headed to right now. So I don’t understand why you can’t let me have a gun.”
Richie snickered. He sneered while gripping the steering wheel. “It isn’t a big deal, it’s just that I don’t know you, never met you before until today, so your words don’t mean jack shit. And right now, I’m in charge, and it’s my call. I don’t want anyone around me with a weapon in their hands unless I know who they are.”
Christian rolled his eyes. “Look, man. I told you who I was hours ago at the beginning of the trip. I guess you forgot already. My name is Christian Hartman. I’m a member of the group you’ve been ordered to provide transport for. I’m a good guy, not the opposite, and I assure you I’m qualified to operate the weapons you guys carry.”
“And, like I told you, I don’t care who you are or where you live, you’re not getting a gun. Like I said, I’m in command here, and what I say goes.”
For the moment, Christian decided to concede. “That’s fine for now. But know this…when we get back to the valley, you won’t be in charge anymore. That’s gonna change the second we get past the barricade. You’ll be in my AO then, sport.”
Divided We Stand Page 24