Story Time

by Linell Jeppsen

  The children’s faces were rapt with attention, adoration. Although lines of sorrow and fatigue etched her face, her teeth glimmered in the fire’s glow with a ready smile. As Michael stared, he saw two of the children jump up from where they sat and run to her. She gathered them in her arms.

  “Michael and Gary Anderson, you will go to the building below us and rescue the children trapped there. It is foreseen that you will drive these little ones to the woman, Naomi Adams, in the large conveyance vehicles. Time is finite, however. This ground is rich with star-drive material…what your people call magnetos, and will soon be over-run with those who seek it.”

  The disk stopped spinning for a moment. The brothers saw the large eye blink once, and the computerized voice resumed.

  “My associate and I did not see the advance of the Dizoramulan army. It was not calculated, and for this we will be held to account.” The large alien eye seemed to fill with sorrow, or shame.

  For a moment, Michael felt such sympathy he wanted to say, “Hey that’s all right…no problem…” but he looked down instead and bit his lip.

  “The Dizo army can see through and pierce our shields of protection. They are, however, busy at the moment and might not see you leave. Their interest lies in the magnetics, not in human beings. This might give you a chance to escape.”

  Gary spoke, “Hey, I get it that we’re supposed to do a rescue mission, okay. That’s good; I just completed an urban S&R course. We’ll find those kids and get ‘em to safety, but what about our family, huh? I figure you can get us there in no time at all. How are we supposed to do a good job for you, if we’re worried about our own people?”

  Gary’s voice had risen until his shouts reverberated through the car’s interior. Michael placed his hand on his brother’s arm.

  “Gary, calm down,” he murmured.

  The disk hung motionless for a moment. The screen filled with murky gray clouds and cleared. The brothers stared at what remained of the street they grew up on. The houses were demolished. Century old elm and maple trees had toppled over and giant root balls rose up into the air and mingled with small mountains of busted concrete and asphalt. The smoking husks of automobiles littered the street and yards. It looked like video footage of war-torn nations, like Bosnia and Iraq, that Michael had seen over the years.

  The scene shifted and panned to the left. Michael and Gary’s childhood home was a smoking ruin of burnt timber. The front lawn and the flower garden that was their grandma’s pride and joy were razed to charcoal. The only thing that remained standing was a latticed archway. It sat in crooked redwood splendor atop what was once an attached carport, like a jaunty red hat on a burnt corpse.

  Michael heard his brother’s cry of grief, as tears streamed from his own eyes. The disk spoke again.

  “Michael and Gary Anderson’s family unit are not in the continuum. My associate and I…grieve for your loss.”

  Michael glared at the silver disk. “Why have you done this to us? Huh? What did we ever do to you…you aliens! Why did you have to come to this planet and destroy us? Huh?” Michael realized that he was screaming, but he didn’t care. He wanted to slap the stupid silver disk right out of the air. He wanted to kill the little gray aliens and all of their friends. He howled in grief and frustration and beat the steering wheel of his car until the championship ring on his right hand cut into his knuckles.

  “Michael Anderson! You must not injure yourself! You and your brother are in the continuum, but the future is not certain, and we are running out of time! Observe, please…” There was such urgency within the tinny, robotic voice; Michael understood suddenly that the little aliens were afraid. He glanced out the car window again, and wondered where exactly the gray’s spaceship was.

  “You must look now and see…please, observe.” The screen turned red and the brothers saw the alien’s view-screen tabletop. The scrolling pictures winked out and were replaced by an image of a vast and beautiful wilderness. To the left of the static view, a scrolling data sheet spooled out facts, figures, and smaller cameo shots of the wilderness area.

  Michael focused on one picture and saw that it was a geographical map. The next picture showed a picture of a roadside welcome sign that read, WELCOME TO YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK.”

  Gary said, “Okay, it’s Yellowstone…so what?”

  Michael whispered, “Gary…check it out.”

  Michael and his family had traveled to Yellowstone when he was just a kid. He remembered standing with a crowd of tourists and watching as Old Faithful blew its geyser of steam into the air. He remembered cheering and throwing his baseball cap into the air, along with the other tourists, as the Yellowstone caldera vented into the atmosphere at the exact moment the tour guide counted the seconds down.

  Now, Michael saw that there was a haze of steam and smoke all over the area. Old Faithful was shooting fountains of heated water, along with soot and ash, hundreds of feet into the air, and it was not alone. There were hundreds, maybe thousands, of geysers now, and every one of them were spewing steam, smoke, ash, and flames.

  Suddenly, the picture seemed to shudder. Michael felt a wave of nausea as the camera slewed backwards and up. Then, from an altitude of maybe 200,000 feet high, Michael and Gary saw the whole valley explode.

  There was a moment of total clarity as the spaceships camera picked out images of fiery rain and the total destruction of what appeared to be a sixty square mile area around the caldera. Trees, roads, cars, towns, houses, lakes, rivers, animals, people…every single thing was obliterated in those first few moments. Then smoke, ash and debris rolled up from the wound in the earth’s surface in a mushroom cloud of doom.

  “My God…”Gary breathed. “Did this happen?”

  The screen faded and the little disk appeared in its place.

  “No,” it answered. “Not yet, but soon. Michael and Gary Anderson, try to understand that we are not the end of your civilization, but this event is. This will signify the end of your planet’s ability to sustain life. This is why the Tatulori, the Urkuli, and the Dizo fleets have come…to harvest what is left before the planet dies.”

  The disk fell silent, and the large black eye within its depths filled with silent tears of solemn sympathy as Michael and Gary Anderson hung their heads and wept.

  Chapter 12

  If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, be moved from this place to that; and it will be moved; and nothing will be impossible to you. Matthew 17:20

  Naomi – September 2015

  It was not an attack that killed my uncle and fourteen other souls that beautiful autumn morning; it was falling debris from the war-ravaged sky overhead. In those first frozen moments of sorrow and disbelief, after my Uncle Allen was killed by flying glass, I fought an almost unbearable urge to recede back into my cocoon. I could actually feel my bed and its comforting blankets calling to me. First, however, I had to swallow my tears and help comfort my Aunt Wendy in her time of need. Then I needed to help Lori and Lindsay with the twins, little Polly and Penny. After that, I needed to help my brothers take Allen out to the medical (turned revival) tent.

  Broken glass was lying everywhere. Dead and dying people littered the ranch. Large chunks of broken space ship, torn fencing and spooked animals were strewn about. Lori, Lindsay, a lady named Annie Cartwright, and I grabbed clean rags, water, and a quart jug of hydrogen peroxide. We set about doing whatever we could for the minor injuries, while the men gathered up the seriously injured and carried them into Pastor Edgington’s medical tent. The dead lay next to the greenhouse covered with sheets and blankets.

  Pastor Edgington walked from one cot to another as the wounded were carried in. He murmured prayers and Bible passages, weeping over each and every person who couldn’t be saved… those who gazed with empty eyes into their own infinity. Adam Greeley, a dentist from Colville, and Juan Ortiz, a physician’s assistant from Providence hospital, teamed up, rendering first aid to a number of people who
were bruised and bleeding, shell-shocked and grieving.

  Zack took one look at the dead and organized a burial party. Within six hours of the explosion, fourteen graves were dug and filled. At sundown, Harmony held its first mass funeral. It was the first of many.

  Throughout it all, the happy, naïve girl inside of me wanted to go to sleep…just close her eyes, dream and wake up to what once was. But there was too much to do. I had no idea how hard my Uncle Allen had worked to keep this place operating. There were a hundred decisions to make, and every one of those decisions made someone unhappy. I doubt that the detractors were as vocal to my uncle as they were to me, but I had support, in the form of my brothers, Steve Zakar, Pastor Edgington, Dave Tolliver, and a small army of women within my household.

  From the moment my uncle died, my brother Zack became my bodyguard. At first, I was embarrassed and annoyed, but in time, it became apparent that I needed one. He still managed to get a lot accomplished. He worked on our stockpile of weapons…oiling guns, loading ammunition, sharpening knives. He helped out in the greenhouse and in the orchard, but he was never without a weapon of some kind.

  His paranoia infected me until finally I turned to him and said, “What are you doing, Zack?”

  “What do you mean?” his innocent expression was over-played.

  “You know what I mean, Zack.” I looked around at the cornstalks that surrounded us and stepped close.

  “Is someone here a threat to us, Zack, or do you just hate everyone now?”

  Six days had passed since the explosion. Things were slowly getting back to normal, if anything could be considered normal now. Zack however, was angrier and more nervous than ever.

  He glared at me for a moment and then he sighed. Swiping a sleeve across his brow, he said, “Let’s sit down for a moment, Nay, over here, in the shade.” I grabbed a pan of rainwater and sat down with my back against the wall of the greenhouse. The corn stalks and fruit trees were in full flush now. The air was heavy with heat and the drone of grasshoppers and bees. I handed my brother the water, watching his profile as he drank. His hair was clear down to his shoulders. I reached over and picked a ladybug off his collar. He flinched as though I had struck him.

  “Zack, what’s the matter with you!”

  I was hurt and angry. Now was the time to pull together as a family unit, to treat one another with love and respect, not act like a jerk. I was about to give him a piece of my mind when I saw his shoulders quiver. I realized that he was sobbing silently with grief. Scooting closer I wrapped my arms around him and held him as he wept.

  After a few minutes, he gently disengaged my arms from around his neck and leaned back. He scrubbed the tears from his face and took a deep drink of water. Then he turned to me. “Nay, we’re not going to make it.”

  “Don’t say that! You—”

  He held his palms out, saying, “Whoa, Naomi. I’m not saying we quit, okay? It’s just that we’re outnumbered…both from the outside and from here, within the perimeter lines. Uncle Allen made it work. He was a force to be reckoned with. I don’t know if you really understand how strong he was.” Zack shrugged, shaking his head. “Mostly, the guys that are left just think I’m a kid. They don’t respect me and some of them…well, I hear them talking. I think that some of them are thinking about taking over, you know, like a mutiny. I’m scared, Nay.”

  I felt something rise up in my chest at Zack’s words. It was something I had never felt before. Rage. Sheer, blind rage filled my heart, coloring the edges of everything in sheets of red. I stared at my mother’s garden, the greenhouse, and the back edge of the barn’s roof. I shivered in the cool autumn breeze and I understood that I would kill anyone who tried to take my family’s farm away from us.

  I knew that it was time to put away childish notions of honor. It was time to protect me and mine, or lose everything. The pain of betrayal cut deep into my soul and I burned with revenge. My voice wobbled as I asked, “Who’s saying it?

  Zack glanced over at me, his eyebrows lifting in surprise. He heard the anger in my voice and shrugged. “I could be wrong—”

  “Who is it?” I hissed, clutching at his left arm.

  “It’s a guy named Evan Trumble, mainly, but he’s got his son’s with him and a bunch of other people who flock after him like sheep. A couple of those guys—their names are Willie and Jasper Blake—I’ve heard them calling the pastor and his wife, ‘niggers.’ Naomi, that whole bunch is bad news. Every time I try to give an order, Trumble interrupts, you know? He sneers, and argues with what I say. So far, most of the men are backing me up, but I think that might be changing. I’m trying, but maybe Trumble is right…I am just a kid!”

  “How many, exactly?” I growled. My heart was thudding hard in my chest. How could I have been so blind? I was as angry at myself now as at the foul bastards that threatened my world and the people I loved.

  Zack picked up a twig and scratched the dirt between his boots. “There’s Trumble and his two sons, Kyle and Barry. Then there’s Eric Mooney, Larry Cline and his wife, Carla. And there’s Chris Doughtry, Willie Blake and his brother, Jasper. There might be more, but if so, I don’t know ‘em.”

  “Who do you trust the most, Zack?” I picked up my own twig and rubbed it back and forth across the top of my hand.

  “Well, Steve, of course, and Auntie Wendy. The pastor and Katie… David, Lori and Lindsay…a few others.”

  “Men…I need men, Zack, but only the ones you trust… and we need to leave the Edgingtons out of this!”

  Zack turned to face me and asked, “What are you thinking, Nay?”

  He eyed me thoughtfully. I could tell that he was expecting me to pull the shrinking violet act, but I was through with that now. It was do, or die.

  “Tonight I want you to gather together as many men as you can. I want them armed and ready. You’ve got to be sure, Zack; sure, that the men you pick won’t betray us. Then, tomorrow I’m going to call a meeting. We’ll gather the bastards together in the living room, surround them, and escort them outside the perimeter. They can go somewhere else and make their little plans. They’re not welcome here anymore!” I was so angry that the words spit out of my mouth like wasps, stinging and venomous.

  Zack stared at me in silence for a moment. Then he smiled. It was the first real smile I had seen on his face since the trouble began.

  He nodded and said, “Good. I’ll get my crew together today and let you know who I picked tonight after dinner, okay?”

  “Yes. I’ll call the meeting right before dinner. Make sure nobody talks, okay?”

  Zack sighed. “Sounds good…Oh, I almost forgot!” He got up and walked into the green house. “Be right back,” he muttered.

  I got up and moved over to where I left off picking corn. For a moment, I let grief take over and sat in the green, leafy shade amongst the sheltering stalks and wept. So many people dead… my Uncle Allen, another lady named Chloe, who had grasped me in her wiry, little arms and vowed to keep me and the boys safe, Henry, all the others. Now there were traitors in our midst. I gulped and sat back, wiping the sweat from my face. I had been weak before, weak and stupid…but no more, so help me, God.

  I turned around and frowned at what Zack carried in his hands. Josh was with him now, trailing behind his big brother like an exuberant puppy.

  “Check these out, Nay!” he exclaimed, in his warbling tenor.

  “What is it?” I squinted at what Zack let fall to the ground. They were like big, silver scales. I scooted back on my heels in alarm. “Zack!”

  “Calm down, Sis…they’re not gonna bite. These came off one of the space ships. Normally I would steer clear too, but David’s been doing some experimenting…these things are crazy strong. He’s pounded them with hammers, drilled them or, at least tried to drill ‘em, cooked them…everything he can think of and nothing doing. They’re practically indestructible, Nay. We were thinking about keeping them, and using them for fortification, you know?”

  “H
ow many are there?” I asked, turning the lightweight pieces over in my hands.

  Zack shrugged. “Hundreds, thousands…I don’t know, but there are a lot of them.”

  I nodded and said, “Right, good idea. I hope they’re not radioactive or something, but I think you’re right. These could come in real handy. We’ll organize a search party, but have the people wear gloves, okay? Just in case…”

  “Okay, I’ll get on it. Hey, are you all right?” Zack watched my face closely.

  I nodded. “Yeah, everything’s going to be fine.” I looked to my little brother. “How’re you doing, kiddo?”

  Josh lost his smile for a moment and then drew himself up to his full height. I was so proud of him.

  “I’m good, Sis. The Shaggy Manes are coming out. I thought I’d go out with Lori, Wendy and the twins and help ‘em pick, okay?”

  I nodded. “Just be real careful, Josh. Watch the sky as much as the ground. Wait, I want you to have a couple of men with weapons go with you. Let Zack find you an escort.”

  Josh shrugged, nodding in agreement.

  “Zack, come to my room later tonight after dinner. There’s something I want to run by you.”

  Josh watched our faces. I could tell he sensed something was wrong and was dying to know what it was, but decided against asking. He waved as he walked away, saying, “We plan on mushrooming around 2:30, Zack. Let me know who’s coming with us, all right?”

  “Got it,” Zack replied. He looked at me and murmured, “I’ll see you about 8:00.” He turned around and left me trembling in the aftermath of fury and revenge.

  ***

  I sat at the head of the dining room table. All the other seats were empty, waiting to be filled with the people who would rob me and my family of our home.

  I had called a special security meeting last night, right after the dinner bell rang. I asked twenty men to attend the meeting…nine were traitors, eleven others had sworn to protect my brothers and me at all costs.