by Tom Tryst
She had still been living with her parents and little brother, but had requested an apartment of her own, citing the pending marriage. Her request had been granted a month ago, and she was settled in. Jon would formally move in right after the ceremony. For now, he lived in camp. She truly loved Jon and wanted to spend the rest of her life with him and tried her best to put Eddie out of her mind.
She had given herself to him in the belief they would soon be married. He was her first love. On several occasions, she had approached Victor informally to ask if he had heard anything about Eddie, but each time changed her mind. Her father, David, knew Eddie was back in Kentland, but he kept this from Debby. Nobody as much as mentioned his name. As far as she knew, he could be in prison. She didn’t ask.
Try as she may, she could not stop occasionally thinking about him, more often now that the wedding was just days off. She was feeling some guilt, knowing that she might have gotten him into The Compound - and out of trouble. She had to accept that she still had some feeling about him, but she tried to convince herself it wasn’t love.
She had to confide in someone. The day before the wedding, her mother finds her alone in her bedroom, sitting at her makeup table, softly crying. She immediately moves behind the girl and embraces her, looking at her reflection in the mirror.
“Getting cold feet?” she asks softly.
Debby tries to smile, but the effort is pitiful. She takes a tissue and tries to dry her eyes, only further smearing her mascara.
“It’s normal to have doubts as the day nears. It is a very serious commitment.”
“It’s not that, Mom,” Debby manages in a weak voice, fighting back more tears.
“You know you can talk to me.”
“It’s Eddie,” she says, still in a soft voice. This is the first time the girl had even said his name since he was arrested.
“You don’t still have feelings for him, do you?”
“That’s just it!” she declares, her voice rising. “I don’t know! I really did love him, you know. I thought we were going to spend our life together. Raise a family. He is the only other man I’ve ever loved!”
“Honey, first loves seldom last,” Janet insists, compassion in her voice, “That’s just not the way things work out. For one thing, you were still very young. You probably wanted to fall in love.”
“I can’t help feeling guilty that I didn’t try to make things work for us! I know he could have stayed here if I agreed to marry him. I was just so mad at him taking advantage of me. I guess I felt he was still trying to use me. He’s probably serving in the Army - or worse, in prison.”
Janet looks at her reflection in the mirror for some time, then bends down and kisses her on the top of her head. “Would you like to know what really happened to him?”
“You know?”
“We all know, but you never asked, so we thought it best to let it go. You seemed to have made up your mind to stay with Jon.”
Debby just stares at her mother’s reflection, eyes wide and eyebrows raised. She knows her mother isn’t going to say anything until she asks. “So what happened to him?”
Her mother just straightens up and rests her hands on the girl’s shoulders. “Nothing,” she finally replies.
“What do you mean nothing?” Debby cried.
“I mean, they slapped his wrists and sent him back to Kentland. That’s what I mean. He’s probably violating some other girl as we speak.”
Debby tries to think back. The few letters she got from him, she never accepted. Perhaps he was writing simply to tell her he was all right, not to worry about him. Or even that he wished her well with her new love. Even that he had a new girlfriend.
“You never did like him, did you,” she softly accuses. “Neither did Dad.”
“Girl, you’re right about your Dad. He hated Eddie. I didn’t really have strong feelings either way, hoping it would work out for you. But I trust my husband’s instinct; men know how men think better than women.”
Both are silent for some time. It is Debby who finally speaks, then almost to herself. “So it really is over.”
The next day, Sunday afternoon, Jon and Debby are married.
The many who had volunteered to be lookouts were relived that the use of drones had reduced the demand on their free time. Those lookout stations that would be manned around the clock were either manned by soldiers or civilians who chose to be full-time lookouts. It was their sole duty; they received more extensive training. It was being considered that the full-time lookouts be issued phasers, special long guns with scopes allowing greater range.
Daniel doesn’t like the idea of Sherry being a volunteer lookout. Concerned for her safety, he isn’t sure the concealed lookout positions will be safe from invaders. All the intruders needed were night vision goggles that could penetrate the special screen, allowing the ’hidden’ lookout to be seen as a white glow in the treetops. They could be picked off with any hunting rifle.
Besides, she had enough responsibility as the Mayor of Glen Haven, having been elected for a second term.
When she first voiced interest as a volunteer, he tried to talk her out of it, but to no avail. Working closely with Victor, and in the process becoming close friends, he expressed his concerns to him. Together, they decide that the lookouts should have some protection from snipers, whether day or night. They first ruled out armor: it would be too heavy for the tree to safely support and the lookout’s head would still be exposed. What they finally came up with was using lighter bulletproof glass, a small ‘shield’ providing protection from the front and underside as long as the person was sitting in the chair. The lookout could see out, but a sniper could not see in. The outside surface would be brushed to prevent reflection. If a lookout was to use a weapon, he or she would simply stand to shoot over the glass.
The problem is getting the material to make the needed 32 ‘shields.’ Victor promises to do his best, for his own wife, Tabitha, is a volunteer lookout. In the meantime, they will be both unprotected and unarmed, depending on being hidden from view.
Those currently serving as a lookout have very specific rules and regulations: 1) they have to stay awake and alert at all times: 2) they have to be quiet at all times; muffle sniffling and sneezing; no humming; 3) The only speaking will be over the radio, then only in a whisper; 4) no cell phones or other electronic devises that could make a noise or distract attention; 5) promptly respond to the radio checks; 6) report for duty on time; relieve on time. 6) their full-time attention must be on constantly scanning their field of vision for movement and constantly listening for unusual sounds. All involved soon realize it is tedious duty and the four-hour tours can seem like they will never end.
Tabitha is now used to the duty. While she prefers daylight duty, she is no longer bothered by the darkness, at least not overly so. It is still a little spooky, looking for someone who might be looking back at her. Each lookout is always assigned to the same station and is expected to memorize every feature of the landscape in her sector, able to detect the smallest change. The cleared grass strip on each side of the fence is featureless, kept short by grazing of cattle on The Compound side and by deer on the outside. Anyone moving across the meadow, day or night, would be readily spotted. The lookouts were trained to watch the forest bordering the ‘no man’s land’, trying to spot concealed intruders before they make their attempt to break into The Compound, giving the alert so troops could intervene even before they could breach the electric fence.
Tonight is overcast, with rain coming and going, winds occasionally gusting. The drones are grounded. All lookout sites are manned.
Tabitha is working the 0000 to 0400 hours shift, in her fourth hour into the watch, repeatedly scanning the line of adjacent forest using the night vision binoculars. She suddenly stops, retracing her scan; is it her imagination or had she seen a sudden spot of white which quickly disappeared? She cannot see another ‘flash’, what they call the glow of white caused by reading the he
at of a warm object. She continues the watch the area, already deciding it was probably just a small critter, possibly a rabbit, that has moved back into the forest.
Then there is a another flash of white, this time larger. As she watches, it grow larger. Even though some 400 yards away, she can see through the binocular the white forming the shape of the upper half of a person.
She activates her mike. “23, I have a sighting,” she urgently whispers. The intruder probably can’t hear her even if she spoke in a normal voice, but her training comes through.
“Confirmed?” is the reply in her earpiece.
“Roger. Human. Due north just inside the forest line.”
“Copy. Report any movement. Patrol is en route.”
“Roger,” she responds, her attention on the ghostly figure. It, he or she, isn’t moving. She has the unnerving feeling that it is also looking at her, although logic tells her it can’t see her; and there are no binoculars or goggles blocking the heat of the face. Suddenly, remembering she will have to record the sighting, she checks her watch. The red numbers softly glow ‘0334.’ When she again looks at the area, it is all dark. A quick scan is negative.
“Sighting is gone,” she radios.
“Copy,” the male voice responds. “Patrol now has eyes on the area. Report any additional sightings.”
She hadn’t seen or heard patrol arriving. There are no vehicles anywhere on her stretch of the perimeter road. Only when she looks to her right into the forest beside her des she see the bright glow of a trooper. She relaxes and turns her attention to the forest on the opposite side of the fence. Nothing.
Some five minutes later, the radio advises her to lower the seat. As she does so, she can see the faint figure below. Soon the chair rises to her position, a soldier sitting in it.
“You’re relieved,” he whispers. She sees he has one of the rifle phasers, with scope, slung over one shoulder. He swings out onto the platform, pressing himself back against the trunk of the tree to allow her to pass to the chair. He reaches out a hand. She realizes she is still wearing the headphone. She hands him the binoculars and the headset.
“Nothing since the original sighting,” she whispers.
He smiles and gives her a thumbs up, then points for her go down, simply smiling his thanks.
On the gravel forest road, another soldier is waiting for her in an electric cart. Another lookout is in the vehicle. Without speaking, the driver moves to the next lookout position where a third lookout is waiting.
Back at Operations, she learns that seven of the lookout posts have been taken over by armed soldiers. Another squad is moving out to check the forest for the intruder.
Victor lets Tabitha sleep in that morning, only waking her at noon to take her to lunch. She is eager to know what happened after she was relieved, but she does not ask. She knows he will tell her if he can. They finish lunch with a minimum of conversation
“Daniel says you can have the rest of the day off,” he says as they leave the dining hall. “They may need you again tonight if the weather doesn’t get any better.” The rain had stopped but the skies are still dark and threatening, the wind still brisk.
“So the threat is till there?” she asks, hoping he will tell her more.
“If it was, we would man it tonight.”
She looks at him, eyebrows raised in question. He just shrugs. She resigns that he is not going to tell her anything. That alone tells her something happened last night; if they found nothing, he would tell her that. A shiver ran through her body, a shiver that had nothing to due to the damp wind.
Two evenings later, Tabitha again has lookout duty, again from 0000 to 0400. Soon there will be a scheduled rotation of assignments through the day and night, assuring that all get a fair share of the day sifts. Everybody pulls their share of the night details. Tabitha knows that Victor doesn’t want her to pull night duty and would see that she only received daylight duty, but she will have no part of favoritism. She’ll work the assignments as they come up - even though she hates being up in a tree in the dark.
She has just made the 0200 hours radio check, knowing her shift is only half over. Although past her bedtime, she isn’t sleepy. She never has to worry about falling asleep on duty, for she is far too anxious sitting so high in a tree. It was just two nights ago that she spotted an intruder, so she is alert. Victor never told her what happened after she was relieved, an armed soldier taking over her position - and she never asked. She didn’t want to know if some intruder had been killed.
As she routinely scanned the horizon beyond the perimeter fence, she prayed that the occasional while images in her scope would just be deer or javelina.
She sets the scope in its holder and pours herself a cup of coffee, a very strong brew to help keep her alert, but with a special creamer to make it palatable. A sound alerts her just as she is taking the first sip. At first, she thinks it is coming through the single earpiece of her headset, a sort of low hum, but then realizes it is her free ear that is it picking up the sound. It is a vehicle approaching, still far off. Probably patrol.
Minutes pass, and the engine sound doesn’t seem to be getting any louder. She pulls off the headset. With both ears, the sound seems to be coming from the woods beyond the clearing.
She immediately calls in, holding the earpiece to her ear. “Lookout 23, I hear what sounds to be a motor vehicle in the woods, south southeast.” She know there are no public roads in that direction.
No sooner she had spoken, without operations yet responding, she hears, “Lookout 22, I hear it, too.”
“Copy, 23 & 22,” the dispatcher acknowledges. “Can you tell what kind and how far away?”
Both lookouts respond at the same time, garbling the transmission, but it is the other lookout’s voice that comes through as soon as Tabitha releases the key. “. . . it’s faint and high pitched. Doesn’t sound like a car. Still very faint - far off.”
“Patrol’s on their way,” is the response, “ETA four minutes.
Again, both lookouts respond, partially scrambling their acknowledgments.
Tabitha scans the horizon, concentrating on the area where the sound is coming from. There is a waning moon. Beyond the faint glow of the lights, all is black gloom. Through the scope, only familiar outlines are seen of the forest beyond the cleared swath of land, and no hot spots. She keys the mike, “23, nothing showing up.”
“Nothing here either,” the voice of 22 reports, “but the engine’s getting louder.”
Tabitha thinks it is, as well, and is beginning to think she can hear something crashing through the undergrowth, although still faint.
“All lookouts, Sector 20 through 26,” the radio orders, “full intruder alert.”
Only two minutes have passed when 22 again reports. “It sound like a truck. A big one. Due south of my position. Sounds like it busting through brush.”
To her east, Tabitha can see a jeep approaching along the fence line. It stops at Sector 22, turning so its headlights are shining out through the fence. The lone soldier takes cover behind the jeep, a rifle at the ready. She knows it is a phaser. And she knows it is set on kill.
For the first time, she can see occasional blurs of heat signature through the trees and brush, soon realizing it is from the heat on an engine. As it breaks out into the clearing, she can see it is a large farm tractor with an enclosed cab. It is barely illuminated by the jeeps headlights and the sliver of moon. She can see nothing inside the glassed cab. Even as she watches, see sees three more vehicles break out into the open; they look more like small farm tractors with front buckets.
The soldiers is on the radio, reporting the breach.
And, because of her angle, Tabitha can see a tight group of men clustered behind each vehicle, using them for cover. They glow white. She reports their numbers to be six to eight behind each vehicle.
Two more jeeps arrive. They quickly pick up the first soldier and turned off the perimeter road, leaving the other jeep behind
. They make it to the woods and take cover, killing the lights. One has moved closer to Tabiha’s position to better see the intruders just as automatic fire starts from the cab of the vehicle as it nears the fence.
With a shower of sparks momentarily and brilliantly illuminating the darkness, the lead tractor plows into and through the chain link without losing speed. It continues to rumble across the inner clearing, now with men shooting at the two distant jeeps from their positions behind the tractors.
Tabitha knows she will not hear the soldiers’ silent phaser fire, but one after one, bodies drop in the wake of the tractors, to lay white on the ground. She knows she is supposed to report her sighting, but the radio is filled with excited mens’ voices, both those in battle and those responding.
Three of the tractors make it to the woods, then shut down. The fourth is motionless mid field. There is only a few more rifle shots as the remaining white figures disappear into the woods. Tabitha estimates that perhaps half of those on foot made it to cover. She saw three exit the tractor nearest her and also fade into the black of the woods close by.
Even as she watches, two figures run along the edge of the woods, heading in her direction. Terrified, she slumps low in her chair, hoping not to be seen as she watches the two ghostly white figures grow through her scope until they pass out of sight below her. She dare not use her radio, for she can hear their heavy footfalls and labored breathing. She has no view below or behind her, but she hopes they have passed on as their sounds fade. She quietly reports, even has she hears occasional gunfire.
She and Lookout 22 are ordered to continue monitoring the perimeter until they are relieved.
For the next hour they maintain radio silence, not even being asked to give radio checks. There hasn’t been a sound for the last ten minutes. She suddenly gasps as the hoist seat beside her rattles against the tree trunk
“Tabitha!” Bill Reily, her husbands best friend, calls softly from below, “It’s me. Lower the seat.”