“Done.” General Thomas said.
“Deal.” Adam said.
“Alright. Let’s get some rest. Adam, get the scouts moving in the morning. Grant, you and I will brief the soldiers just after breakfast,” I said.
With that, General Thomas and Adam left the tent. As I crawled into the sleeping bag next to Hannah, I couldn’t help the feeling of uneasiness that settled over me.
The Center for Disease Control was the national public health institute of the United States. Its main goal was to protect public health and safety through the control and prevention of disease, injury, and disability. The CDC focused national attention on developing and applying disease control and prevention. It especially focused its attention on infectious diseases, food borne pathogens, environmental health, occupational safety and health, health promotion, injury prevention and educational activities designed to improve the health of United States citizens. In addition, the CDC researched and provided information on non-infectious diseases such as obesity and diabetes and was a founding member of the International Association of National Public Health Institutes.6
The CDC primarily focused on small pox, measles, anthrax, influenza, and the Ebola virus. However, by the time of their demise in 2021, they were attempting to combat illnesses that had never been seen before. As a result, the plague continued to hold America in its grip and thousands upon thousands of American citizens died. There were no barriers, everyone was affected.
In the middle of all of the sickness that had taken over the country, was the fiasco that was Obamacare. Originally called the Affordable Care Act in 2011, Obamacare caused healthcare costs to skyrocket.
Obamacare came into the worlds view in 2011 and 2012. It was named after the man that forced it down the throats of the American citizens. Obamacare was a national healthcare act that was supposed to provide medical care for all citizens. It never did quite do that, it also took more money from the working man to pay for the non-working man’s healthcare. The initial cost was rumored to be eight hundred million dollars. By the time it was fully instituted in 2016, the cost was over seven billion dollars.
As a result of the implementation, Doctors quit practices and insurance companies went bankrupt. Premium medical care was gone. The Supreme Court took up the case against Obamacare; but they ruled that it was constitutional and it became a national healthcare law. Not only was it constitutional in their eyes, but the Internal Revenue Service would be allowed to oversee it. The IRS was selected to oversee the law, because according to the Supreme Court, Obamacare was a tax. It was the final act of an oppressive government to push our country into third-world country status.
The implementation of Obamacare was riddled with problems. Citizens were mandated to sign up for the national healthcare coverage through a government website. The website did not ever function correctly. Whenever it appeared Republicans would win congressional and senate races because of the problems with Obamacare, President Obama would change the implementation date until after elections. Once the Democrats locked up their seats, he implemented Obamacare full force. Everyone saw the changes for what they were, but no one did anything about it. The voice of the American people was lost and the elected officials who spoke for us only spoke for themselves and their own pocketbook.
In the world that we live in of 2028, Obamacare is gone for everyone but the very rich. And those who are very rich are politicians. The rest of us are slowly dying from the diseases that plague our once flourishing nation. There is no healthcare and no medicine for anyone.
Chapter 5
Tennessee
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“You can’t go home again.”
—Thomas Wolfe
I wrapped my arms around Hannah and quickly drifted off to sleep. The past does not always haunt us when we are awake, often times, it haunts us when we sleep. I found this to be true, as my demons from the past invaded my dreams once again.
The battle raged on, soldiers relentlessly killing every living thing that moved. Two Socialist soldiers flanked me where I could not escape as another approached me from the west. Skirmishes raged all around me, explosions were everywhere. Shots rang out, smoke filled the battlefield, my soldiers screamed in agony. I heard my Lieutenant cry out, “General, sound the retreat, sound the retreat. They are killing us.”
Another soldier yelled, “It’s a trap! It’s a trap!”
No retreat was sounded, we can still win I thought to myself as a bayonet pierced my right side. I dropped to my knees as the soldier in front of me punched me in the face so hard I knew that my nose was broken. The soldier to my left, in a slashing manner with a knife, cut my left calf, opening my leg up with a deep gash. Another punch to the right jaw sent me sprawling out onto the ground. Lying there on my back, I heard a loud pop and felt a sharp stinging pain in the front of my right shoulder. All three soldiers surrounded me and started kicking me. They were fierce and unyielding. They kicked my back, my stomach, my legs, my head, I felt ribs breaking. I gasped for air as my left lung was punctured by a broken rib. As I wheezed and gasped for air I thought to myself, this is it, this is the end. I heard a loud forceful Russian voice yell “Hvatit!” as I continued to gasp for air. I did not know much Russian, but I knew the word for stop. The last thing I remembered, just before I passed out was my Lieutenant screaming in what sounded like agonizing pain, followed by a loud bang and then silence.
Who set us up? I wondered. We were slaughtered. Five hundred men, slaughtered like cattle in a meat market.
“Wake up General” was the faint voice I could hear over the unmistakable sound of a drone. “Wake up I said,” I heard in an even louder voice.
As I struggled to open my eyes I could feel that they were swollen shut. I continued to try to open my eyes. I was shaking my head in an attempt to get my eyes open. I began swinging my arms, flailing them in an attempt to rejoin the fight. Finally, my right eye opened just enough to see my adversary. A massive Russian General stood over me holding a straight razor. “Finally, you are awake,” came the broken English statement from my captor as he laughed.
I attempted to move my arms again but the Russian soldiers grabbed them and bound them together very tightly at the wrists. I could barely feel my fingers as my hands tingled from the loss of blood flow.
“What do you want from me?” I struggled to ask through what felt like a broken jaw and blood pooling in my mouth.
“That is easy General. I have kept you alive so that you can deliver a message to all of the other resisters and militias in your pathetic little country,” the Russian said. He continued, “We killed every one of your men today. We made them suffer,” he said as he laughed. He continued, “You have, shall we say, no one left to fight for you eh? We will repeat this in every battle from now on with all resisters. Not only will we kill all of your soldiers, but we will kill your wives and your children.” He put his face close to mine and said, “We will raid your camps and kill your babies so we do not have to fight them in the future. We will rape your mothers and daughters. And, we will make you watch it all General Hornady. We are not going to kill you, we are going to break your spirit, and we are going to break the spirit of the resistance, yes?” he said.
Tennessee! Why the hell did I come here to Tennessee? I pondered to myself. What the hell did I ever have in Tennessee? The last thing I remembered was marching up behind the Socialist army on a ridge off of the old Blue Ridge Parkway. As we attacked, we had another socialist battalion come in from the east, and then another from the west. It was a bloody massacre. Raising my head, I moved side to side in an effort to look across the battlefield as best as I could with one eye. I saw bodies lying everywhere. Steam was rising up off of the battlefield as the smoke cleared. There they were, all my soldiers, dead. We were set up. But, by who? I asked myself.
While I sat on my knees in the middle of that bloody battlefield, trying to think of what went wrong, I saw a soldier leading a large brown h
orse toward me. Three socialist soldiers grabbed me like a sack of potatoes and lifted me up into the air. They slung me up on that horse and I fell into the saddle with the full force of all of my weight. I groaned in agonizing pain as they tied the rope that bound my hands to the reins around the horse’s neck. There I was, lying on the back of a horse, beaten severely, bloody, shot, and my calf was opened up like a flounder filet. The Socialist General leaned forward and spoke into my right ear.
“Can you hear me General?” he asked.
“Yes,” I mumbled as best as I could through gasps for air as I felt blood running out of the right corner of my mouth.
“You tell your army, you tell your militias, you tell anyone who will listen to the great General Hornady, that we are done playing with you. From now on we kill you, rape your women, and behead your children. You tell them that I am coming for them. You tell them that The Bear is coming for them.” With that a gunshot was fired right next to my head, and the horse galloped off. I could hear him holler, “I’m coming for them General!” as I rode off on that horse.
There was no way to hold onto the horse. My hands were bound by rope, and I couldn’t find anything to hold onto. I bounced around, struggling to stay conscious, trying hard to stay on the horse by squeezing my legs tightly on the body horse. My entire body ached. My heart ached. I could barely breathe. If my spirit wasn’t broken, it was damn close.
Eventually, miles away from the massacre, I fell off the horse and bounced across the open Tennessee landscape. The horse was in a full gallop as I fell. As I tumbled across the ground, I felt pain like I had never experienced before. My body was completely broken. I lay there in a grassy knoll as the hot sun beat down on my face. I wanted to die. I prayed for death to come to me. I drifted off into unconsciousness, struggling to breathe through the pain of broken ribs and a punctured lung, hoping that death would come. I thought of Hannah, at least I would think of her as I took my last breath. I passed out.
“Wake up soldier. Wake up, we gots’ to get you outta here for them ‘socialist sons of bitches’ get here,” he said.
“Who are you? Leave me alone,” I struggled to mumble as I flung my still bound arms toward him in a resistant manner.
“I don’t mean you no harm fella. No harm at all. Just relax and let me help ya,” he said.
With that, I passed out again. Sometime later I woke up inside of what appeared to be a very old log cabin. I had no idea if I had been unconscious for hours, days or even weeks. I was lying on a single twin mattress that was laying on an old steel bedframe that sat maybe eight inches off of a dirt floor. Over in the far corner was a stand-alone wood stove, with firewood stacked beside it. I could see flames dancing through the vent of the door on the woodstove and could feel the warmth of the fire. There was an old frying pan that sat on the ledge of that wood stove. Next to the stove was a crooked door that appeared to lead to the outside. There was a small porcelain sink mounted on the wall near the woodstove, a rocking chair sat in the other corner on the opposite side of the room. There was a small table with four chairs on each side of it that sat in the middle of the room. That was all that I could see out of my one, half- shut, swollen eye.
I attempted to raise myself up to get out of bed and the excruciating pain in my right shoulder put me right back down again. I turned my head as far right as I could in an attempt to look at my shoulder and could see what appeared to be an old t-shirt, with what looked like dried blood on it wrapped tightly around my shoulder. I attempted again to raise myself up off of the bed, but the pain was too bad. I was right back down again. Realizing I could not get up, I resigned myself to staying put for the time being.
I gasped for air as my rib cage quivered in pain. Sunlight was shining through one small window that was along the back wall to my left. I could see a small curtain that was pulled to the left side of the window. I lay my head back down and started to drift off to sleep.
The front door opened and a blurry figure stepped in from outside. As best I could see, he was a little, old fat man. He stood about five-foot-four inches in height, had a long flowing black and gray beard that stopped about the middle of his chest. He wore wire rimmed glasses over what looked like an eye patch on his left eye, and had very long black and gray hair that was wrapped up in a ponytail that hung halfway down his back. He was overweight, maybe two hundred thirty-five pounds. He had what most would call a beer- belly that hung out over his wide leather belt. He was wearing old faded blue jeans and a long sleeved work shirt made of denim.
“Hey there fella, I am awful glad you’re awake. I sure did think I was gonna lose you the other night. Yesir’, I don’t know who whooped your ass there fella, but they done a mighty fine job of it,” he said as he walked over toward the bed.
Leaning down, he took an old, aluminum canteen off the floor, took the lid off and wiped the mouth of the canteen with his shirt, and put it up to my lips. “Here’ drink this, you need some water.”
Looking up at him I grimaced as I lifted my head just about two inches off of the mattress. I must have cut him a sharp glance with my one good eye because he said, “It’s ok, if I was gonna kill ya’, I’da done it the other night. Sure as hell wouldn’t of taken much to take you on out of this world neither. And that my friend, is a fact!”
I sipped the water as some of it dribbled out of the edge of the canteen opening and down the side of my mouth onto the bed. God that water tasted good. Nice, cool, fresh water. I closed my one good eye and savored every drop I could get into my mouth. It was so good I fought through the pain and raised my head even further so that I could get even more into my mouth. Just as I was really starting to enjoy that fine, tasty water, my new friend pulled it away. “Easy now, can’t drink too much at one time,” he said as he put the lid back on the canteen and sat it back onto the dirt floor.
“Where am I?” I mumbled.
“You, my friend, are in the foothills of what used to be called the grand old North Carolina Mountains. God’s country,” he said. “Now, it’s just called a socialist army training ground.”
“Who are you?” I asked.
Sticking his right hand out in a manner that told me he wanted to shake hands he replied, “Name’s Emmet. Emmet Forsyth, Esquire. I am pleased to make your acquaintance Sir.”
I attempted to reach my right hand across my chest to shake his hand but my shoulder screamed out in agony and prevented me from completing the task.
“Easy now, Easy now,” he said as he reached across and grabbed my hand and shook it very lightly where it lay on the bed.
“Paul Hornady. Nice to meet you Emmet,” I struggled to reply through my wheezing gasps of air.
He stood up quickly, took a few steps back and looked at me incredulously. “Paul Horn’dy? THE Paul Horn’dy? Heard of you,” he exclaimed.
“Nothing too bad I hope,” I replied with a struggled chuckle.
“Why golly no. You’re a genuine American hero Sir. I am glad to know ya’. Hell, I am glad to be in yer’ presence,” he said as he snapped to attention Sir,” he said as he sharply snapped his hand back down to his side and stood at perfect attention.
I managed a slight smile and said, “At ease soldier. I’m sorry I can’t salute back.”
He stepped back to the bed and stooped back in front of me and said, “That’s okay Gen’ral. Don’t you worry about a gosh’ dern thing. I’ll nurse you back to health and get you back out there so you can keep on fighting them there socialists. No problem. No problem at all.”
Still struggling to speak through my aching jaw, “So, Sgt. Forsyth, what were my injuries and what did you do to me?”
“Well, it took me and ole’ Bessie almost the whole gosh dern day just to get ya back here to the cabin,” he said.
“Bessie?” I asked quizzically as I tilted my head so I could see him as clear as I could with my one good eye.
“That’s my old ass,” he said in a matter of fact manner. “She used to work the fields w
ith me back in the day, but she ain’t good for much of nothing no more ‘cept being a companion. Well, that and getting you back here to the cabin anyways,” he giggled as he slapped his right leg. “Yes Sir, I do tell you,” he said as his voice trailed off a bit. “It was sure a struggle to get you back here. That’s for damn sure.”
“I am obliged to you for that Sir. Much obliged,” I said weakly.
He continued, “Well, you had a pretty nasty gunshot to the upper portion of your chest there, up near the shoulder. I dug the bullet out, looked like a .44 caliber to me. Two hundred forty grain lead ball would have been my guess. Hell, I wasted a pint of some good ole’ corn liquor by pouring it in there to kill whatever germs was in there.”
“I ain’t a drinking man Sergeant, but I believe I’d of took a sip of that corn liquor if I had been awake,” I replied as I managed a little laugh that caused me extreme pain and cut my breath off.
The Conspiracy of American Democracy - A Father's Revenge Page 4