by Mark Goodwin
“Don’t shoot!” Ken called.
Lisa came in the front door as white as a ghost with her pistol in her shaking hand.
Everett and Courtney stepped out on the porch, and Everett turned on the tactical light that was affixed to the handguard of the rifle. He slowly scanned the yard.
Courtney stood right behind him with the Ruger in a low ready position. “See anything?”
“No.”
They went back inside.
“What was it?” Courtney asked.
“A bear. It was over by the wood pile. I heard something and went to look. The bear saw me and started coming toward me. I screamed and ran the other way around the outside of the house. I don’t know why I didn’t shoot it. I freaked out.”
Courtney stroked her friend’s head. “It’s a good thing you didn’t shoot it. That .380 would have just made it mad. We need to train you with something a little bigger if you’re going to be the night watch.”
Ken said, “We should drill to get more comfortable with handling threats. You guys almost shot me.”
Everett nodded. “You’re right. Sorry about that.”
“I wonder why a bear would come around here anyway,” Ken said.
“Probably that tasty pile of guts we left over by the wood pile,” Courtney answered.
Everett looked out the window to see if the bear was still around. “I guess we’ll have to be more careful about leaving anything edible in the yard.”
Ken gave Lisa a glass of water. “Feeling better?”
She took a sip. “Yeah, I wasn’t expecting a bear. I thought it was a raccoon or possum. I didn’t even know we had bears up here.”
Courtney sat her rifle in the corner. “So the moral of the story is to treat every noise like a deadly threat until proven otherwise. This time it was a bear. Next time it could be bandits or a home invasion team. I think we should start taking turns being the secondary watch person. When the primary person hears a noise, any noise at all, they wake the secondary to check it out with them. If it’s nothing, the secondary can go right back to sleep. If it is, two people have a much better chance of dealing with a surprise threat than one.”
Ken said, “I’ll take watch for the rest of the night.”
Lisa nursed her water. “I’m not going to sleep anytime soon after that, so I can be secondary.”
Courtney started a pot of tea. “Yeah, it’s going to take a while for my heart to stop pounding.”
“My radio is on the porch. Can someone get it? I don’t want to go back out there.” Lisa was still visually shaken.
“I’ll get it.” Everett walked outside and turned on the light attached to the rifle. He made a quick check around the cabin and retrieved Lisa’s radio, which was lying on the porch and still playing. He sat on the rocking chair and looked out into the cold night and wondered what new challenges tomorrow would bring.
CHAPTER 14
Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or discouraged because of the king of Assyria and the vast army with him, for there is a greater power with us than with him. With him is only the arm of flesh, but with us is the LORD our God to help us and to fight our battles.
2 Chronicles 32:7-8a
Noah pulled into David’s drive early Thursday afternoon. “Looks like we’re the first ones here.”
“And you were hounding me about being late.” Cassie picked up the dish containing the turkey casserole from the floorboard and got out of the vehicle.
Noah grabbed his and Lacy’s backpacks. “Can you carry your own backpack?”
“No, I have to carry my doll.” Lacy exited the Santa Fe carrying her doll like a real baby.
Cassie would have never accepted that answer, but Noah’s parenting style erred on the side of spoiling Lacy. “Okay, sweetie. Stay close to the house. Let me know if you and Lynette go for a walk.”
“I will.” Lacy spotted Lynette near the chicken coop and was gone in a flash.
Benny Loomis drove up right behind the Parkers. “Howdy.”
“Hey, Benny. I’ve got your canned turkey in the back. Let me get that for you before I forget.” Noah retrieved the two jars and handed them to Benny.
“Thanks so much.” Benny placed them in his vehicle, and then he and Noah followed Cassie into the Ray’s house.
Inside, David Ray was sipping his coffee. His hair was disheveled, and his eyes were puffy. “Come on in.”
Noah sat the backpacks near the door. “Tough night?”
“I pulled a double last night. Lots of guys have been calling in.”
Benny looked concerned. “You can’t do it all by yourself. If you get run down, you won’t be able to cover your own shifts or take care of your family.”
David looked back toward the kitchen. “You sound like Becky. You’re right, but we’re down to two trucks per shift. Dispatch is telling people we can’t respond unless it’s a life or death emergency. No more taxi service for people who just need a ride to the hospital for stitches. If I don’t cover extra shifts, it probably
means someone is going to die. Of course, it won’t matter if we don’t get fuel. County Services has been begging DHS to grant our requisition for gas, but it’s not coming through. It probably has something to do with Noah declaring war on the CIA.”
“Whoa, they declared war on us!” Noah put his hand in the air.
David tried not to laugh as he sipped his coffee.
Noah glared at David. “You’re not too tired to bust my chops. Maybe you should pick up a few more shifts.”
Sharon and Isaiah walked in the door next.
“Hello, hello.” Sharon was carrying a large covered dish for the potluck lunch and took it directly to the kitchen.
Isaiah took off his coat and sat next to David. “This is a rough looking crowd.”
“Then you ought to fit right in.” David winked.
“Any more spooks been by your house, Isaiah?” Noah asked.
“If they have, they’ve stayed in the shadows,” Isaiah said.
Benny looked more serious than the others. “It might be a while, but we haven’t heard the last of them.”
Becky stuck her head in the living room. “Hi, everyone. Welcome. Can I offer coffee to anybody?”
The men responded affirmatively, nearly in unison.
Isaiah said, “I was watching the foreign financial markets before I came over here. The dollar has quit falling against most other currencies.”
David took a sip of his coffee. “I just woke up, so I haven’t seen any news. How is the dollar doing against gold?”
Isaiah stroked his white beard. “It’s in free fall against gold, but so are most of the other currencies. The yuan is the only one not spiraling against gold. The ruble isn’t dropping as quickly as the rest, but everything is tumbling.”
Noah said, “Cassie saw a report on Zero Hedge claiming that international trade had completely seized up. This isn’t good for anybody. China has stopped all shipments to other countries.”
“That can’t be true. President Clay said in his address last night that the crisis could be resolved as early as next week.” David made a stupid face to help convey his sarcasm. “He made his announcement from some bunker in an undisclosed location.”
Jim and Sandy arrived next. They nodded but it was evident that something was on their minds. Sandy greeted everyone and then joined the girls in the kitchen.
David said, “You’ve got bad news. What’s up?”
Jim removed his coat and found a seat. “We found Henry Whitaker this morning at his girlfriend’s house. They were both dead. Looks like a murder-suicide, except Henry had two bullet holes in his head. It would have taken a lot of luck to get off that second shot if it was a suicide.”
Benny shook his head. “Sounds like the spooks weren’t really concerned with making it look believable.”
Isaiah nodded in agreement. “Might be intended as a message.”
Jim looked at the floor. “The coroner is che
cking for powder residue on the hand Henry was holding the gun with, but it won’t really matter. We know what happened.”
Cassie followed Becky into the living room with coffee for the guys. She sat the tray on the coffee table, took a cup, and sat next to Noah. “Sandy told us about Henry. Do you think the CIA will leave us alone now?”
Noah took a cup of coffee. “I doubt it. The thing at Isaiah’s will probably be used as an excuse to target Sevier County.”
David stood up. “Guy’s I’m going to get dressed. Anyone who wants to train with us, get your weapons out and meet me back by the wood shed.”
Cassie looked at Noah. “We should have brought the .270 or the shotgun, so we would both have a long gun to train with.”
Noah said, “I’ll check to see if David has an extra gun you can use. It would be better if we could both train with battle rifles.”
Cassie crossed her arms. “Yeah, but if you’re going to be using the AR, I should train with the weapon you’re going to send me out to the woods with.”
Noah rolled his eyes, kissed Cassie on the head, and followed David to his room.
“Hey man, what’s up.” David worked the dial to open his gun safe.
“I picked up Cassie’s AK-47 from Tim’s, but if I give it to her now, it will ruin Christmas. Do you have one I can borrow for her to train with?”
“I do, but you need to run yours so you can find out if it has any issues. At the rate things are moving, we might be in a fight before Christmas. You don’t want to hand Cassie a rifle she’s never seen five minutes before a firefight.”
Noah thought about David’s reasoning. “That makes sense. I guess that’s more important than a good Christmas surprise.”
David slapped Noah on the back. “You’re creative. You’ll think of something else for Christmas.”
Noah walked back out to the living room. “Cassie, follow me out to the car.”
Cassie finished her coffee and grabbed her coat. “He didn’t have anything for me to use?”
Noah smiled. “If Christmas comes a little early, do you promise you won’t be upset if you don’t get anything later?”
Cassie looked at Noah like he was crazy. “What are you talking about?”
Noah popped the hatch to the Santa Fe. “Don’t squeal!”
Cassie saw the all-black AK-47 with the tactical rail, flashlight, reflex site, and forward grip. She squealed like a little girl and put her hand over her mouth.
Noah saw everyone else look over to see if Cassie was alright. “I said not to squeal. Merry Christmas.”
Cassie’s eyes were wide open. She took the rifle as Noah handed it to her. “Thank you. This is mine?”
“It’s all yours. There are some extra magazines in that bag, and that box has some ammo.”
Cassie kissed Noah on the mouth. “When did you get this?”
“Let’s go meet up with the rest of the group before we get left out. I’ll tell you all about it later.”
Noah and Cassie caught up with the rest of the group.
David wore an olive-green tactical vest with several magazines sticking out of the pouches on the front. “Lynette, you and Lacy have to go play inside while we shoot.”
“We want to shoot!” Lynette said.
David beamed with pride and looked around as if he wanted to make sure everyone else in the group heard the comment. “These guns might be a little more than you can handle, but we can get the .22 out after we eat, and I’ll set up some targets for you and Lacy.”
“Yea!” Lynette and Lacy showed their excitement by jumping up and down, then scurried off into the house.
Elliot Rodgers and Kevin Starkey arrived as David was reviewing some basic safety instructions and hand signals.
Noah shook hands with Elliot. “Where’s your wife?”
“Inside helping Sharon get dinner together. Starkey brought a lady friend, Sarah. I hope that’s alright. She’s a nice girl. I’ve known her for a long time; works in dispatch. I’m sure David will recognize her when he sees her.”
“And she’s inside with Caroline and Sharon?”
“Yep.”
Noah glanced at Elliot’s rifle. “It would be good for all the girls to get acquainted with handling rifles as well.”
“Caroline knows her way around a rifle. Sarah was Infantry in Afghanistan. Lost her leg from the knee down in an IED blast. You’d never know it to see her walk. She gets around faster than me, but she’s restricted to desk duty. I think that’s why she and Starkey get along so well. I don’t reckon those of us who weren’t over there could ever really know what they went through.”
David called out. “Listen up. We’re going to work as a squad with two fire teams. I’ll be working with team Alpha, and Kevin is leading Bravo. Becky, Noah, Cassie, Isaiah, you’re with me. Sandy, Jim, Elliot, Benny, you’re Bravo.”
Cassie and Becky slapped each other’s hands as if it were a competition sport. Everyone formed up around their team leader. The group trained using basic troop movements: reloading, firing, and maneuvering. Then, finally, each group member was timed individually as he or she went through the pistol/rifle course that David had set up in an area behind the wood shed.
Caroline Rodgers walked out to the course with Sarah walking close behind her. She greeted everyone and introduced them to Sarah. “Lunch is ready in five minutes.”
Kevin offered his AR-15 to Sarah. “Wanna run the course real quick?”
“Sure.”
She was thin, with soft skin. Noah thought, She and Kevin make a cute couple, but she doesn’t look like a warrior.
David hit the button on the timer. “Go!”
Sarah tucked low and shouldered her weapon. She took out the first three targets before she started moving. As she began to sprint down the course, her limp became noticeable, but her accuracy made up for her ability to move fast. When she made it to the pistol section, she let the weight of the rifle fall and dangle from the single-point sling and simultaneously drew her concealed carry pistol. Despite the short barrel, she quickly cleared the remaining targets.
David stopped the timer. “Looks like we’ve got a winner.”
Kevin looked at Noah, whose mouth was hanging open. “I should’ve taken bets, huh?”
Cassie quickly walked over to congratulate Sarah. “Nice shooting! How’d you get to be so good?”
Sarah handed the rifle back to Kevin, changed the magazine in her concealed carry gun, and put it back in her holster. “I shoot competitions sometimes.”
The group stowed their weapons and moved inside for dinner. All the potluck dishes were set out on the kitchen counter. Everyone moved through the line with their plate, buffet style, and found a seat.
After lunch, Isaiah said, “I know we have a lot of group business to discuss, but that could easily turn into an all-night discussion. I recommend we have Bible study first, then handle business. That way, if anyone needs to cut out early, they can without missing the study.”
Everyone voiced their agreement to Isaiah’s suggestion. Noah, Cassie, and Sharon helped Becky clean up the dishes after dinner. David kept his promise by taking Lynette and Lacy out back to shoot the .22 rifle.
Afterwards, the adults gathered around the living room where Isaiah said a prayer to ask for wisdom and protection in the coming days. He opened the Bible to 2 Kings and read chapter 19, which told the story of the siege against Jerusalem by the Assyrian army. When he had finished reading, Isaiah looked up. “King Hezekiah knew he didn’t have a chance against the well-armed Assyrian army, but he had faith. He prayed and asked God to intervene, and the angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185,000 Assyrian soldiers in one night.
“We are in a similar situation. I imagine most of you have heard that people are being profiled for Christian and patriotic beliefs and carted off to detainment centers in Knoxville. That information is coming from a very reliable source known personally by Cassie. Benny has picked up a lot of chatter over the Ham fr
equencies, which leads us to believe that it’s happening all over the country. DHS has shut down thousands of alternative news sites and conservative radio stations that reported on the camps. I managed to capture some screenshots of a few of those websites before they were shut down.
“As much as I hate to admit it, we’re now the terrorists, enemies of our own government. It doesn’t matter that American Patriots for Christ had nothing to do with the attacks. That’s the perception of the general public, and their perception creates reality. The reality is that we’re being hunted down by a heavily-armed government with unlimited surveillance resources. DHS has been using data collected by the NSA to compile profiles on every single American for years and years, so they know who we are, where we live, how much money we have in our bank account, and everything else there is to know. Much of that data we volunteered to companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Google. Those companies took the information we’d so freely handed over and sold it on the open market to the highest bidder. Benny can tell you all about how the NSA formed shell companies to pose as Internet marketing businesses who bought that information with your tax dollars.
“We’re outgunned, outnumbered, and we have no idea what we are up against technologically. But as hopeless as it sounds, we have God—the same God who delivered King Hezekiah from the Assyrian army. We need a miracle. Fortunately, God is in the miracle business.”
Isaiah bowed his head. “Lord, we need a miracle. We need your direction and blessings. We pray you’ll forgive our shortcomings and grant us the strength to persevere in obedience to your will. We know that you chose to deliver King Hezekiah. We also know that the apostles glorified you through their suffering and martyrdom. You’re sovereign, so the choice is yours, but if that is the path you have for us, we pray for the strength to accept it. Amen.”
Isaiah looked up, but the magnitude of the prayer, the collective thought that they could actually die for their beliefs, here, in America, hung over the room like a heavy, dark fog of despair.