The Next Ten: Beginnings Series Books 11 - 20

by Jacqueline Druga

  It struck Dean as odd to see a child lying in there. He raced in his mind who was pregnant that he didn’t know about. Wanting to know who the baby belonged to, Dean reached for the nursery door.

  “She’s fine,” Andrea called out, stopping Dean. “But you’re more than welcome to give the little one a once over.”

  “Preemie?”

  “Yes.”

  “How early?” Dean asked.

  “Five weeks, but she’s big and strong. Her mother is very healthy.”

  “Whose . . . whose baby is this?” Dean was almost embarrassed to ask.

  “Whose?” Andrea chuckled. “Whose do you think, Dean?” Andrea shook her head with a smile. “Monica, the New Bowman woman.”

  “Oh.” Dean nodded slowly and then froze. “When did the baby get here?”

  “Mother and child arrived about an hour and a half ago.”

  “Who brought them?”

  “Robbie,” Andrea told him, “when he picked Ellen up. Well, I have to go.” Andrea began to walk away.

  “Andrea?” Dean reached back and grabbed on to the sleeve of her lab coat. “Where’s my wife?”

  “You don’t know?” Andrea asked.

  “No. I didn’t know she came back.”

  “She’s been back for a while. She was at the school. You should check there.”

  “Jenny has already started classes.” Dean looked at his watch.

  “Maybe she’s in the patient rooms. She still has a few.”

  “Yeah, that’s where’s she is.” Dean nodded. “Thanks. I’ll go look.” Saying goodbye to Andrea, Dean started down the hall. Ellen’s patients were kept together. The Bowman men liked it better when they were close to their colleagues.

  He peeked in every room even if the patient wasn’t Ellen’s. He didn’t want to take a chance on missing her. Moving down the corridor, he saw her coming out of the last room. “El,” he called out to her then walked quickly to meet up with her. “Hey.”

  “Morning.” Ellen kissed him quickly and headed down the hall.

  “El? You’re back.”

  “I’ve been here for over an hour.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you were back?”

  Ellen shrugged as she walked. “I didn’t think it was a big deal. I knew you were busy.”

  “You’re my wife.”

  Ellen snickered sarcastically, a laugh Dean didn’t hear.

  “You went to see the kids, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you forget about me in there somewhere?”

  “Dean.” Ellen stopped walking. “Really? I knew I would see you.”

  “How was New Bowman?”

  “Good.” Ellen started to walk and turned the corner into the main lab.

  “Rough night.”

  “Not really.” Ellen shrugged. “It went pretty easy. She had no complications during delivery.”

  “I have to tell you, I’m surprised you’re back. I thought for sure you’d catch some sleep at Hal’s and head back afterward, especially after doing the delivery all night.”

  “Monica delivered about an hour after I got there.” Ellen headed into the lab.

  “An hour after you got there?” Dean followed her. “I called Hal’s. He said you weren’t there.”

  “That’s because I spent the night with Elliott.” Ellen took out two tubes of blood and placed them in a rack on the counter. “Where are the reqs? I want to do an order for Johnny.”

  “You spent the night with Elliott?”

  “Yes. We were talking. Those reqs should be in clear view. Are you cleaning up in here again?” Ellen smiled as she began to search out the requisitions.

  “All night?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you sleep at all?” Dean asked.

  “I caught an hour on his couch.” Ellen bent down.

  “So you slept at his house as well?”

  “Yes.” Ellen stood up. “Here.” She laid the reqs on the counter. “Keep them out. I have too many patients to be searching for these things.”

  “I don’t know if I like this.”

  “Like what?”

  “This . . . this . . .” Frazzled, Dean’s hand went out. “This you and Elliott all night thing that happened.”

  “Dean, we were talking.”

  “I don’t care.” Dean raised his voice a little. “I don’t know him. Not really. And it’s not right.”

  Ellen laughed. “What is not right about talking with someone?”

  “All night?”

  “If that’s what it takes. I have therapy before our lab work.”

  “El,” Dean called her as she started to leave. “I’m talking to you about this.”

  “Dean, you’re making too much out of it. We talked.”

  “All night,” Dean repeated. “First, when you go to Bowman, you spend time with him. When he was here in the clinic, you made special visits. Yesterday at Beginnings Day, how much were you with him? Last night . . .”

  “Dean,” Ellen snapped his name. “Where . . . “ Her words squeaked. “Where are you going with this?”

  “Is there something I should know?”

  “Like what? Like me and Elliott are having an affair?” Ellen shook her head with a ridiculing laugh. “He’s a very nice man who has become my friend.”

  “He’s your patient. Don’t cross those lines.”

  “Back off on this, Dean. He’s my friend. Drop it.” Ellen began to leave the lab again.

  “I have every right to be concerned about . . .”

  “You have no right!” Ellen yelled as she stopped cold. “None! All right? I vowed to make this marriage work, to be with you and only you. If I wanted to have an affair, I would have and I wouldn’t have waited until we built a town called New Bowman. I wouldn’t have waited until I made a new friend in Elliott Ryder. If I wanted to be with anyone else, believe me when I tell you, I would have been with Frank already.” Twitching her head in anger while she turned, Ellen said no more as she stormed from the clinic.

  Dean stood dumbfounded. His hand rose up and slowly fell back down, landing on the counter. He ran his fingers over the top of his head and tossed his hand up once again in defeat. “She spends the night with a man,” Dean mumbled as he shook his head and started to leave. “And I get chastised for asking about it. Go figure.”

  New Bowman, Montana

  “Ladies!” Joe said like such a Joe when he stepped into the living room of the women’s house or, according to Frank and Robbie, A.K.A., The House of Lesbians. Joe dropped a stack of papers onto the oval coffee table which set before the sofa in the filled room. “Those.” He pointed to them with a tone of crass. “Are the standard Beginnings inductee questionnaires. When anyone comes to Beginnings, they fill one out. Now . . .” Joe held up his hand. “What it does, is tells us who you are, what you did before, and basically gives us an idea of where to place you in the work force. Simple. Granted . . .” Joe picked up the stack again. “Some people, you know, have been whacked out by the goddamn world. They can’t read or write. They just forgot how. That’s O.K., we understand. It doesn’t make you a moron, just a field worker. O.K., getting that out of the way . . .”

  Hal stood in the corner of the room with his arms crossed and his hand at his chin. He watched his father pace about before the women, so casually business like. He wore brown slacks, a white button down shirt, and a ‘won’t give an inch’ attitude. Hal enjoyed every minute of it. It was round two of another Slagel versus the House of Lesbians.

  Joe continued, “There are five hundred and thirty-seven people in New Bowman, last count. Did you know that?” Joe whistled. “That’s a lot. And . . . that’s a lot of questionnaires. We have a copy machine, we make our own toner, still . . . five hundred and thirty-seven copies.” Another whistle came from Joe. “That took some patience and work. Not to mention, mind you, deciphering them, getting to know them, and filing them. But it’s a standard thing. Everyone and I mean everyone, fills on
e out. So . . .” Joe softened his voice. “Why am I here?” He let out a loud breath. “I’ll tell you. I don’t like making my staff in Beginnings do any extra work. They complain and it irritates me then I get pissy. No one likes me when I’m pissy. Of course, some people say I’m pissy all the time. Be that as it may. Last week, I gave my son, your Captain, five hundred and thirty-seven questionnaires, actually five hundred and forty, for his people to fill out. They trickled in one day then bombarded us the next, but they came in . . . all but twelve. These twelve. This stack.” Joe dropped them again. “They are why I’m here. Now will one of you women care to tell me why not a single goddamn standard Beginnings questionnaire was filled out?”

  There was silence and Grace spoke up. “We, Mr. Slagel, saw no reason to.”

  “You saw no reason to.” Joe nodded. “My rules state everyone fills them out, whether you are man, woman, child, or lesbian, everyone fills one out. All of you included. You don’t fill them out, I have to guess. I hate to guess, but I do it. Now I don’t like when someone doesn’t follow standard Beginnings rules, so I’m just gonna safely assume that none of you had a pencil and I’m gonna have to play Harry goddamn Houdini with the lot of you.” Joe pulled a sheet of paper from his back pocket. It was folded once. He laid it on the table. “This is a list of job openings and areas we need help in Beginnings. Some are here in Bowman, but most are in Beginnings. You’ll see the starting times, days of work, and so forth. The Dan-tram will make a special stop . . .”

  “Wait one second!” Grace stood up and moved to Joe. “Work?”

  “Um . . . yes. Work. As I was saying, those . . .”

  “Mr. Slagel! We do not work.”

  “Excuse me?” Joe tugged on his ear. “I didn’t hear you correctly. I’m getting old and my hearing is going. Repeat that.”

  “We do not work.”

  “You do now.”

  “I beg to differ.”

  “No, Toots, I beg to differ. You wanna eat, you wanna have clothes, electricity, running water, heat to this house, and protection from this world then you will work. You will pull your weight.” Joe nodded in a motion to Grace’s size. “Everyone pulls their weight. That is the way it is.”

  “We have never been asked to work for basic means of living.”

  “You’ve never been a part of Beginnings before.”

  Grace gasped. “We are not now.”

  “Oh you certainly are. You, my dear, are New Bowman, a subsidiary of Beginnings, Montana. Being a subsidiary, you may have you little local rules but you live under Beginnings rule. Beginnings rule states that everyone works. Everyone does something. We have one big growing community and there’s lots to be done. We need teachers, day care workers, nurses, cooks, and bakers. You name it.”

  “The Captain . . .”

  “The Captain,” Joe interrupted Grace, “who is my son, has been way too nice. I’m not that nice.”

  Grace looked at Hal. “Captain Slagel, it appears I . . . I owe you a grave apology. Here all along I took you for an arrogant, snide man. But since meeting not only your father but that beastly brother, you, Captain Slagel, are the saint of your family.”

  “If we could save the tender moment,” Joe stated and took a small notepad from his front pocket. “I’m a busy man and I’d like to get the assignments over and done. Let’s start with you.” Lifting a pen from his pocket, Joe pointed the tip at Grace. “Name.”

  Grace didn’t answer.

  “Name!” Joe yelled.

  “Grace.”

  “Grace. Grace.” Joe looked to the ceiling. “I don’t recall a questionnaire being filled out by a Grace. Did you fill one out?”

  “No.”

  “Not a problem. You didn’t have pencil. All right, Grace.” Joe looked at her. “You seem like a healthy, nutritiously conscience kind of gal. I have a slot in our bakery open. That’s where I’ll put . . .”

  “Bakery!” Grace gasped. “I will not work in a bakery.”

  “How about the fields or greenhouses?”

  “Nor that.”

  “Grace, sweetheart, we’re running out of options here. I’ve no idea what old world skills you had, so therefore I have to assume you had none.”

  “I’ll have you know, Mr. Slagel,” Grace said with attitude. “I had plenty of skills. Not only did I have a law degree from the University of Minnesota, I sat for thirteen years as a local municipality circuit court judge. So there.”

  Joe stopped in his writing and quickly looked at Hal. After returning his stunned look back to Grace, Joe immediately glanced down to his note pad and scratched out the word ‘baker’ after Grace’s name. He looked back up to her with a smile.

  Beginnings, Montana

  The M-16 was in a ready grip in his hands and an extra clip hung on Frank’s belt. Fire power. He was armed not only with his revolver in his shoulder harness, but also three gas grenades and a large hunting knife strapped to his leg. He moved slowly through the high weeded area of Sector Twenty, just beyond the fields. His Jeep was parked a darting distance from him. He spoke softly into the microphone so close to his mouth. “I’m not seeing or hearing anything.”

  “Keep your eyes peeled,” Robbie responded through Frank’s radio ear piece. “Tracking states six steady human signals just on the edge.”

  “Not moving?”

  “Not moving.”

  “Dead?” Frank questioned, speaking into his headset.

  “Too strong.”

  “Keeping my eyes, ears and nose open.”

  “Me too.”

  Lowering his mouth piece with a grin, Frank looked behind him. “O.K., enough games.”

  Robbie caught up to him. “Seriously Frank, when we do that, it makes anyone listening think we’re really fucked up.”

  “We are.”

  “True.”

  “Smell anything?”

  “No. You?”

  “Nothing.” Frank brought his radio back. “Tracking, come in, Mark, what do you have?”

  “Eight. Steady and strong still. I have you two now on Tracking.”

  “How far from us?” Frank asked.

  “Frank, don’t move.” Mark said.

  “Why?”

  “Frank! Stop!” Mark warned. “They’re close.”

  “How close?” Frank pumped the chamber on his M-16 and motioned his head to Robbie who did the same. “Mark?”

  “Frank, they’re right . . .”

  A loud war call scream preluded the jumping up of eight Savages two feet from Frank and Robbie.

  “Fuck,” Frank called out, standing firm. He lifted his M-16. “Robbie, fire at will.” Just as the eight Savages charged, with spears in hand, at Frank and Robbie, Frank’s finger laid upon the trigger. Pressure to depress and fire was minimal when a blur of fleshy color sped past Frank and the first Savage flew back with a horrid scream. “What the fuck?”

  A high pitched gurgling and rustling of weeds sounded off first and it happened so quickly. The seven remaining savages went down as rapidly as the first, all flying back, screaming painfully as they fell into the high grass. From the field which surrounded Frank and Robbie, a fountain of spraying blood and flesh shot up in the air.

  “Robbie! Watch your back!” Frank stepped back.

  “I hear more coming, Frank. Back up.” Robbie moved backwards.

  “Tracking! What do you see?” Frank called out.

  “Ten, no wait fifteen,” Mark replied.

  “Shit.” Frank spun around. “Robbie.”

  “Run?”

  “Fly.”

  Robbie spun around and started to charge forward while Frank kept up his speed, racing backwards, keeping an eye on things behind them. He could see the grass of the field rippling from what he could only believe was the small predators in pursuit. “Robbie, mask.”

  “No time.”

  “Fuck it. Hold your breath.” Frank stopped running.

  “Frank.”

  “Go.”

  “Shit.�
��

  “Little pains in the ass.” Frank lifted the gas grenade from his belt. “Hit the Jeep.” Frank pulled the pin with his teeth. He waited. Closer, louder, fifteen feet, ten . . . Frank tossed the grenade, pivoted in his run and took off for Robbie and the Jeep. A ‘pop’ caused a cloud of smoke to rise up and hover in a thick blanket directly above where Frank tossed it.

  Robbie dove for the Jeep and stood beside it with his gun held high. He watched Frank move closer and closer. The grass stopped moving and Robbie lowered his weapon.

  Frank wheezed out the breath he held as he got to the Jeep. “We’ll wait until the smoke clears and go check it out.”

  “Sounds good, but why?”

  “Dean might want to . . .”

  “Frank!”

  It snarled as it leaped out. It’s little body, so used to not being upright, barely uncurled its crawling stature as it lunged up in a shooting motion with its mouth wide open at Frank. It was only inches from Frank’s chest when Frank lifted his M-16 and, like a batter trying to force the run home, he bunted the killer baby hard. The grotesque animalistic infant squealed from the hit, flew back, banged onto the hood of the Jeep, and bounced to the ground. “Yes!” Frank dove for it.

  “Frank, what the . . .” Robbie charged forward when he saw the killer baby roll to a crawling position and try to get away only to have its feet captured by Frank who landed hard on the ground right by it. “Frank.”

  “Get the tarp.” The baby’s body flipped up and down and growled as Frank held on to it.

  “What for!” Robbie asked.

  “Just get it! And get the M.E.K.”

  “All right.” Robbie backed up.

  “Hold still.” Frank yelled at the little beast. It’s wiry body was trying to reach around and snap its long toothed mouth at him. “Fuck it.” It was like Frank was playing a game of sadistic Twister and, still holding the feet of the infant firmly to the ground, he swung his right leg out wide. He grunted from the awkward stretch as his leg, in a counter clockwise turn, came around and laid upon the back of the baby, pinning him down. “Trapped.” Once Frank had him, stretched out or not, Frank did not move.