The Last of the Freemen

by Carl Trotz

  He ventured over, somewhat timidly, and sat at the card table opposite the other man.

  “Good to see you, Erin. Welcome,” he said halfheartedly.

  “Is it really her?” the masked man asked.

  “Of course it is,” Keith answered, then pointed at the man on the other side of the table while addressing Erin.

  “This is Don. He's our post-collapse agricultural consultant, because he used to have a garden. That's Linda over there who greeted you, she’s in charge of supplies and provisions, because she's a control freak. I'm the armaments guy because I had the phone number of your gun running friends here. That’s Greg behind you, he’s the head honcho, because his Aunt owns this house.”

  “Great Aunt,” the man in black corrected, pulling off his ski mask to reveal a narrow face, pinched nose, and thin mustache; his buff hair was shaved on the sides but longer on top, and flopped over his forehead; his small, closely spaced eyes darted around the room. “Get over here, Don, and help me search these bags.”

  “Do you have to play these games?” Don asked tiredly. “We put up with you because we have no choice. But if you offend these men, they can just walk out, and we've lost what might be our only chance to not die slowly of malnutrition.”

  Greg stared back without responding.

  “Wasn't it nice,” Don continued, “to eat real food last night? I debate myself about whether life down here, with you miserable people and freeze-dried food, is even worth living.”

  “Don't you have a garden?” Erin asked.

  “No,” Don sighed, running his hand over his three-day beard. “I'm not allowed outside. Greg’s aunt does the gardening, or tries to. The slugs are eating well so far, I hear. But it’s early in the season. I’m still hoping.”

  “You're not allowed outside?” Erin asked, casting an accusing look at Greg.

  “The neighbors behind us and to the west,” Greg explained, “can see part of the yard from their upper floors. We had daily yard-time for a while, staying close to the fence, but the neighbors got a watchdog after they were robbed. Now he barks if we go near the fence.”

  He abandoned the baggage and marched to the nearest, blanket-walled compartment, where he pulled back the partition to show a mattress on the floor.

  “This will be yours,” he told Erin, “and we'll work you into the guard duty schedule right away. We all have other duties here besides, and we expect you to do your part.”

  “Of course.”

  “And now, big man,” he said, turning to Harm, “we have to talk business.”

  Chapter 35

  “Wait a minute,” Erin said, shifting Hughie on her arm. “Can I ask a few questions before you go right over my head?”

  “Ask away,” Greg said impatiently, throwing his hands out to his sides.

  Erin turned to Keith and took a deep breath; Don suddenly hopped to his feet.

  “Please, sit,” he said, offering his chair. “I've lost my manners in this subterranean paradise. Please forgive me.”

  “Oh, thank you,” she said, sat down, and bounced Hughie on her knee, carefully keeping him away from the rifle he reached for.

  “Keith? Can you tell me what happened? How did you survive, when Hugh didn't?”

  “I didn't see what happened to him. And me, I played dead.”

  “That's all you can tell me?”

  “I really didn't see. We ran, both of us, at first. But the Culls were coming at us from every side. People were knocking each other down trying to get away, tripping, falling, screaming. Then I fell. I don't even know if I tripped or was pushed. I fell onto some bloody dead person, and I just stayed there, closed my eyes and stayed there. I never saw what happened to Hugh.”

  “So how'd you get from there to here?” Dieter asked.

  “I stayed dead. A few minutes after the Culls were gone, there were shots. People moaning and crying, and shots. I could see a little bit in front of me without moving my head, there were men in tactical gear, shooting survivors.

  “Then one of them stepped right in front of me, by accident I looked him right in the eye, but for some reason he didn't shoot me. He motioned for me to be quiet. He put a bullet into the dead person next to me. And then he kept moving. I stayed there till dark, when the crews were loading up the dead and taking them away, I crawled off in the dark, then I ran when somebody shouted, I was far enough that they didn't catch me. Of course I was hoping Hugh had survived, but I couldn't go back and look for him.

  “So I was afraid to go home, to go to my car, anywhere they might find me. I called Gregg, an old college buddy, because I knew he was suspicious of the government, and the Culls, and he drove up and got me, and put me down here at his aunt’s, where her friend Don here, was already hiding, because he shot some corrupt politician dead.”

  “A family-wrecking, property-stealing judge,” Don said proudly, “who thoroughly deserved it.”

  “And then,” Greg interrupted, “they came looking for me. I was working odd hours, I wasn't home in the middle of the night when they kicked my doors in, it was just Linda, my girlfriend, and her brother. They took them in for questioning and let them go. They took all my guns. I don't know what led them to me, maybe the cell call, maybe license plate readers on the highway, but I wasn't taking any chances. I came down here, too. But I'd been preparing for it. We have enough food stored away here for at least a year, for all of us. And I have dozens of bibles to give away, after this godless government finally collapses. I assume you all are God-fearing Christians?”

  “It's none of your business what I am,” Harm said.

  Greg looked back in consternation, his face suddenly contorted in pain.

  “We’re private folks,” Dieter offered. “That's all. So what else have you got planned?”

  “We also have hundreds of copies of the Constitution.”

  “What good will those do you?” Harm asked.

  “After this corrupt government finally falls,” Greg announced confidently, “people will be ready for the truth, that we need to return to the vision of the founding fathers. We’ll hand these out, we’ll help to re-seed knowledge of the Constitution.”

  “This government is nowhere near collapse,” Harm said. “Bankruptcy, maybe, then they won’t do so much damage. But they’ll hang on for a long time even after they’re broke. Too many have a stake in the plunder. You’ll wait a lifetime.”

  “No, the truth will win out. God will see that we prevail.”

  “Do you know how many millions of God-fearing Christians have been slaughtered while they prayed?”

  “I don't mean to say that I only pray. God wants us to act. So I run occasional covert operations, where I go out at night to leave copies of the Constitution where people will find them. I'm sure others are doing the same, all across the nation -”

  “The Constitution can’t fix anything,” Harm snapped. “Freedom isn't created by a piece of paper. It's a fact of nature, and it can only be taken away when you give someone leverage over you.”

  “The Constitution assures that it will not be taken away.”

  “You mean the Bill of Rights. But it was thrown in afterwards, and not because people worshipped the Constitution, but because they didn't trust it. And they were right, but they should've fought harder. They should've known you can’t control a monster with a piece of paper.”

  “What exactly are you trying to say? That the Revolution, the founding of this country was for nothing?”

  “No. My people helped chase the British out. They didn't fight to have the British system yoked around their necks with a new name, but that's what they got. Ruled by fiat, disguised as representation. If you’re fighting for that piece of paper, instead of for freedom itself, you've already lost. You're a dog fighting for a longer leash.”

  Greg seethed and gripped his pistol with both hands.

  “We’re a nation of laws,” he insisted, his face flushing. “Yes, we give up some freedom for order, for the common
good. That's how it has to be, because we’re a nation of laws.”

  “Someday,” Harm said grimly as he stared Greg down, “the men who come here to kill you, they’ll say the same thing.”

  “Harm?” Erin gasped, looking back over her shoulder. “Do you really think that?”

  “We're done,” Greg said flatly, waving his pistol in the air. “We don't need to talk any more. I want you out of here. Keith, help your sister-in-law bring her things to unit four.”

  Keith jumped up from the table and hurried over to the baggage; Dieter sauntered closer to the door and casually placed his hands behind his back. The color ran from Erin’s face as Keith shouldered her bags and Greg swung the door open with dramatic force. Harm grimaced and started to wring his hands.

  “You heard me, big man, get out!” Greg shouted, leveling his pistol at Harm.

  “Erin?” Harm struggled to say, his voice faltering.

  “Harm?”

  “I - I don't think I can leave you here. Unless you really want to stay.”

  “Of course I don't!”

  She gathered Hughie up onto her arm, leapt out of the chair, and ran to him, tears in her eyes; she threw her free arm around him, and pressed her face into his side.

  “Thank you!”

  He nodded and put his arm around her; Keith stopped and looked to Greg, who gaped, shook his head in disbelief, and turned to Linda.

  “We had a deal,” Linda said angrily. “We need those things.”

  “Keep the guns,” Harm said. “Keep the ammo and the food. I don't want them back.”

  Greg lowered his weapon and stared at the floor, his face twisted in confusion; he began to shake his head.

  “I don't know about this -” he said, growing wild-eyed, “I don't know if I can allow this to happen -”

  Dieter suddenly lurched forward, holding a pistol retrieved from his waistband; before Greg knew what happened the pistol was in his face, and he was disarmed while too surprised to react; Dieter then quickly stepped back and trained the second pistol on Linda, who watched in shock.

  “You're makin’ me nervous, folks, you know?” Dieter said calmly. “You really wonder me. It ain’t so hard. We just want to leave.”

  Don made a sidelong glance at the rifle on the table, a few steps distant, but saw Harm watching him; Harm shook his head and Don nodded obligingly, lifting his hands into the air.

  “Situational awareness,” he said, lacing fingers together atop his head, “that’s all. This isn't my fight.”

  Harm stepped away from Erin and took Linda's shotgun, then scooped up Don’s rifle; finally he turned to Keith, who stood petrified near Erin’s blanketed cell, still holding the bags.

  “Bring all that up to the garage,” Harm said. “We’ll leave your guns up there when we go.”

  Keith obediently scurried out the door, up the stairs, and pushed the hatch doors open.

  “Come on,” Harm said quietly to Erin, and ushered her along.

  “Any chance I can come with you?” Don asked hopefully.

  “No,” Harm said. “But maybe we'll be in touch.”

  Chapter 36

  It was nearly daybreak when Erin was awakened by the jostling of the minivan over rough terrain; Hughie also woke, and started to cry.

  “Almost there,” Dieter said tiredly. “But I can't stick around, cousin. I have to head back straight away.”

  “No problem.”

  “You’ll have a lot to carry all that way. Maybe I should try to drive in farther.”

  “No, you’ll get stuck. We’ll walk it.”

  Dieter turned the vehicle hard to the left and stopped, then backed up slightly.

  “Then this is it,” he said.

  In the faint light she could see it was a forested area, and after getting out with Hughie, smelt an earthiness in the cool air, and felt the softness of damp ground; in front of them lay a densely wooded swamp that stretched out into the twilight.

  “Where are we?”

  “A temporary hideout,” Harm said, removing Hughie’s car seat. “We won't have to worry about visitors here.” He opened the back and arranged all the bags, shouldering some and carrying others in his hands. Dieter leaned out the window.

  “Well, Mrs. Gordon, it was a pleasure meetin’ you. I'm sure I'll be seein’ you again. I'll be back with supplies some time soon. Later, cousin,” he said, and drove away.

  Harm walked to where some water-filled ruts led into the swamp.

  “We're walking through that?”

  “No, look close. You’ll see planks to walk on. Just be careful, some are a little unstable, some are hidden under the skunk cabbage. Don't trip.”

  She went closer and was able to see the long line of planks, each less than a foot wide, laid end-to-end along the outside of the left rut. Hughie quieted as the new sights and smells drew his attention. Harm set the bags down and found a thin, straight, fallen branch, which he broke off at Erin’s shoulder height and handed to her.

  “To help keep your balance,” he said, then grabbed up the bags and started off. She followed warily, testing the plank with her foot before she stepped onto it.

  “These plants,” she said, kicking at a skunk cabbage, “give off quite an aroma. But it still smells better than that basement did.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I feel bad about leaving Keith back there. Even though I don't really like him.”

  “We might be able help them. They’re confused. They expected a collapse of civilization, not an intensification of it. But still, we share an enemy. And the one named Don, I'll do some checking on him. I might find some work for him somewhere. If his story is the one I’m thinking of, he’s quite a shot.”

  Erin slipped on a dew-covered plank, and immersed her sneaker in mud as she regained her balance.

  “Ah! This isn't what I expected, Harm. I was picturing a cute little farm somewhere.”

  “Yeah?” he smiled, glancing back over his shoulder. “Well, at least we're free.”

  “I suppose. As free as hiding out in a swamp can get.”

  “It gets better up ahead.”

  “That's good. But we still have to hide, to live our lives in fear of being caught. That doesn't feel so free.”

  He paused, turned to look at her, then squinted and shifted his gaze up to the treetops.

  “Freedom doesn't mean there’s no danger, you know. It means no one owns us. No one owns my time. I'm bound only by what my own nature asks of me, like loyalty to my family, and not by what any man, or government, tells me to do.”

  “I see. I'll think about that when my foot dries out.”

  They continued walking for a few minutes as the sky brightened; soon they reached higher ground, leaving the planks behind, and a meadow opened before them. He stopped at the forest edge as he carefully surveyed the area.

  “My oldest brother owns this land,” he explained quietly once she caught up to him, “but I pay the taxes. My father bought all this after I was taken away as a kid. His plan was to rescue me and hide me here, but he died first. He built a little hut, that was as far as he got. It collapsed under the snow a few years ago.”

  “That's too bad.”

  “I was never here with him, but I feel like I was. He gave this place a name, he called it Heitertal, the cheerful valley. I guess you could say he was an optimist.”

  She came alongside him to see what lay beyond; grass stretched for several hundred yards in front of them, dotted with a few trees and bushes, and ended where a steep, forested hill rose up on the other side.

  “It's very pretty,” she said, following him into the open amidst a chorus of red-winged blackbirds and yellowthroat warblers. “But I don't see any kind of a building.”

  “Good. You're not meant to.”

  They came to a small stream and crossed it by another plank; he broke off the weathered, partly ruptured head of a cattail and gave it to Hughie, who shook it wildly with excitement; Erin watched with concern.


  “What if he puts that in his mouth?”

  “It’s not poison. Let him live a little.”

  The ground rose gradually as they came to a medium-sized linden tree with a wooden box mounted on the trunk, some fifteen feet off the ground.

  “Look at that,” Harm said, stopping and pointing. “Dieter got a swarm. Honeybees moved into the box he put up there. He’ll be glad.”

  “Maybe it's a good omen.”

  “I don't believe in omens.”

  “What do you believe in?”

  He looked at her, amused, and started walking again.

  “I believe we're almost there.”

  They came to the base of the hill, at a spot where the slope was covered with low vegetation rather than trees; a large, dead oak branch - its brown leaves still stubbornly adhering - lay tucked behind a mulberry tree, wedged against what looked like an eroded undercut in the hill. Harm set the bags down and, with some straining, dragged the enormous tangle several feet back, revealing a vault-like door with a heavy padlock, and a sheet metal wall painted the color of the surrounding soil.

  “This is it?” Erin asked, aghast.

  “This is just for now, while the dust settles. There are other possibilities, but you know, farms attract agricultural inspectors. We have to be careful. Anything like a normal home, we’d have to share with people willing to front for us, to take that risk. I have to talk to some people.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Even out here, it’s not safe to have a garden, not these days. Drones, satellites, planes, helicopters, they're always looking for unreported agriculture. We have to keep this looking wild. But there’s food growing here. My father planted lots of things, and I've added to them some. I'll teach you. The fill over the roof,” he said, stepping back and pointing to the slope above them, “is planted with asparagus, fennel, hops, bellflowers, and wild onions, as I recall. All fending for themselves, and looking wild.”

  “It looks like a bunker.”

  “It's a shipping container, actually two of them, welded together. I did a little excavating a few years back, before they started monitoring that sort of thing, put these in and covered them over. For now, we're safe.”