Premonitions: Book 2: War

by Diana E. Anderson

  We went to the school and found Top in the cafeteria working with a group of Riverdale Militia recruits. He was accompanied by man dressed in camo and sitting in a wheelchair. The recruits were all sitting around tables with handguns disassembled in front of them. The man in the wheelchair was instructing them in the proper way to clean the weapons. We didn’t want to interrupt the class, so we stepped out into the hallway and Top followed us. I commented on the man teaching the recruits, and Top answered, “That’s Toad. He is one of the instructors from the Ranger training site. Lost use of his legs in Iraq, but he knows more about weapons than anyone else I know. He’ll be teaching the recruits basic marksman skills and weapon handling.”

  I was impressed. “How did you get one of the Ranger instructors to come here? Is he from this area?”

  “No,” Top answered. “He was with a large group of instructors and their families that one of our units brought here after the bomb dropped. All the instructors and their families will be living here as soon as we have houses ready for them.”

  “Why do you call him Toad? He’s a nice-looking guy, doesn’t look much like a toad!” I figured it was a nick-name, but it didn’t seem to match him.

  “All the instructors go by nick-names. See if I can remember them all: Bear, Vulture, Rock, Sasquatch, Tiger, Doc, Flipper, Dinky (short for Dien Cai Dau, meaning crazy), Boom-Boom, Snaggle, Taz, Specter, and Beast. I think that’s all of them. They use the nick-names since they work with Ranger trainees and are pretty hard on them. That way if they have to fail anyone from the program, the students don’t know their real names and can’t try to find them or their families. After a while, though, they were so used to the names, they continued to use them. Even the wives call them by their nick-names at this point.” Top grinned, and said that having the instructors here was great, because they were helping get houses fixed up.

  “How’s that coming, Top? I feel bad that we haven’t done that much since we started,” Tom asked.

  “You would not believe how fast they are fixing these houses. In addition to the fourteen instructors, we also have a big group of civilians that were evacuated from Fayetteville. They are working really hard with the folks already here to get houses ready and settled. We’ve also had three families who lived here before return. None of them lived near the school, but they are helping to fix up homes, too. They don’t want to be so far from the school and everyone else.”

  I smiled. “That is wonderful. I’m so glad to see the community is growing successfully. Any problems?”

  “Nah, other than needing the gardens to grow faster. We’re doing okay, and our gardens are doing great, all things considered.” Just then, Lynn and Lois came around the corner. I was really excited to see both of them.

  “How’s John’s arm?” I asked Lois.

  “He’s doing great. Thank you so much for everything y’all did for him. He is still doing therapy of sorts, but he has almost full use of his arm. The wound is healing well, no infection, thank goodness, and we are so relieved. He’s out at the observation post on the back side of the community right now. He can do that without putting too much stress on his arm.”

  Lynn looked happy, all things considered. She grabbed me by the arm and pulled me along with her. “Come on, Denise, I want to show you all the things we are doing here.” An hour or so later, I had toured all of the supply areas in the school, met a number of the civilians now living at the school or in the community, and watched children playing on the playground. The garden was doing great, and I could see some of the early plants like lettuce were almost ready to eat. We walked down the block to see people working in yards, painting, or fixing doors and windows. It was extremely encouraging to me to see those empty houses being transformed into homes and a community coming alive again. Lynn also pointed out the new street signs with Marvin Reddick Blvd. and Nicky Cooper Avenue. I asked her if the signs bothered her.

  “They did at first, but then I realized every time I looked at the sign, I could remember the positive things my brother tried to do. So, no more tears, let’s just get this community up and running, right?” I was really proud of Lynn’s courage in choosing such a positive attitude. We were just getting back to school when Tom came out the front door.

  “Time to go, we need to get home,” Tom called to me.

  “Why, what’s going on? Is there trouble?”

  “No trouble, other than Gabby being in labor and asking for you.” I gave Lynn a quick hug and hurried to the truck with Tom.

  We got back to the farm just as Gabby delivered a beautiful little girl. Amelia Danielle weighed five pounds, four ounces and looked perfect in every way. Gabby looked pale and tired, but happy as she cuddled with her daughter. Jon was at her side, watching every move the baby made. Lionel, Maureen, and James were all there, and Maureen told me Gabby’s labor was very quick, but Lionel gave the baby a clean bill of health. That was wonderful news. I asked Gabby how she felt, and she smiled softly.

  “I feel wonderful. I am more tired than I have ever been, but I am so happy that she is healthy. I was worried with my blood pressure and all, but thanks to my wonderful doctors and nurse, we came through it all okay.” She smiled at James, Lionel, and Maureen as they waved goodbye and left the room. “We named her Amelia Danielle. Amelia for Jon’s grandmother, and Danielle for my mother.” Gabby looked wistful. “I’m not sure if she’ll ever get to meet my mom, but at least she’ll have her name.” Jon took Amelia from her mother and handed her to me.

  “Meet your Grandma, little girl!” Jon said. I studied my granddaughter closely. She had Jon’s dark coloring, but her hair was curly like her mother. She had a cute little nose and little bow-shaped lips. Her fingers were also like her mother’s – long and slender, perfect for playing the piano. After a few minutes, I kissed her on the head and handed her back to her father.

  “You all need to rest now. I’ll see you later,” I said as I slipped out of the room.

  The next few weeks passed quickly. Baby Amelia was baptized by Father Dan in a beautiful ceremony in our little church. She was dressed in the family Christening gown and looked precious with a little white ribbon in her dark curls. Gabby still looked a bit pale, but she said she was feeling better and stronger every day. After the ceremony, we all celebrated together. It was fun to see our three babies – John Henry, Chica, and Amelia – sleeping in their mothers’ arms. We had to keep on making these happy moments happen to overcome the bad things happening in the world.

  Top came out every few days to do more training with the farm militia. He and Frank put together a physical training program to help improve strength and endurance of all the members. Top provided all of them with M4 carbines to use instead of the assorted individual weapons. He explained that having one standard rifle meant they could share ammunition and magazines. Also, the lighter weight of the M4 was easier for some of the younger and smaller militia members. Everyone got proficient loading the magazines with the 5.56 mm rounds and passed their marksmanship tests with flying colors. They moved on to learn hand to hand fighting. In addition to traditional military combat techniques, one of the Ranger instructors was proficient with Krav Maga. Sasquatch had worked in Israel with their army for a year and learned the close combat techniques while he was there. Bill had also learned Krav Maga while he was a police officer, and the two men began teaching all of the militia members. At first, the teens were excited because they thought Krav Maga was some sort of exotic martial arts training. When Bill and Sasquatch explained it was more of a system of self-defense, they seemed almost disappointed – until they started learning some of the concepts used. I had never heard of it, but things like learning from a position of disadvantage, having a successful mindset, and learning to use the body’s natural instincts made a lot of sense. It wasn’t just the teens that enjoyed this training. All of the adults and even some of the soldiers had a good time learning the skills.

  One challenge the Militia had was the lack of unif
orms. Since they just wore various forms of mismatched camo, they did not have anything specific to distinguish them from an enemy. Stacy came to the rescue though, using some of the material we stashed away to make purple armbands to distinguish them as militia members. Top liked the idea so much, he brought it back to Whispering Willows, and their militia now had orange armbands.

  Mark was great about providing us with additional weaponry. Jeff, Jer, and Sue were ecstatic when Top selected them to be trained to use the M320 grenade launchers. They were even happier when they each got to actually fire a grenade out in one of the far pastures. Fortunately, Top warned all of us beforehand, or else we would have all freaked out to hear grenades going off so close. He also provided us with a Browning M2 .50 caliber machine gun, affectionately called a “Ma Deuce.” Even the adults fought for their turn to fire the M2. Top did an excellent job, not just training us to use these weapons, but giving us all the confidence to be able to fight together if we had to in order to defend the farm and each other.

  After the training session, a group of us were sitting chit-chatting with Top. I asked him whatever happened to the prisoner that was taken after the battle at the sub-division. Top’s face instantly took on an angry look.

  “Mark got a lot of information out of him. He was a lot higher up in the Homeland echelon than just the leader of a sleeper cell. He knew all about the nuke and the EMP, and was pretty angry to find out most of Bragg was empty when they nuked us. Guess he felt like we double-crossed Homeland by evacuating before they got there.”

  I looked at Top in horror. “How could you let him know that? He will go back and tell Homeland and they will come here after all of us!”

  Top smiled and put his hand on my arm. “Calm down. The only way he will be able to give Homeland any information is if they hold a séance to contact him.”

  It took me a minute to realize what he was saying. “He’s dead?”

  Top nodded. “Yep, shot by a firing squad after a military tribunal found him guilty.”

  “Oh, thank goodness. You scared me for a minute. I’m sorry, I know Mark would never do anything that would jeopardize all of us.”

  The community at Whispering Willows continued to grow slowly and steadily. The Marine combat engineers had been making scavenging runs all over Riverdale and found quite a few townspeople struggling to survive in basements, abandoned stores, and damaged homes. The Marines helped these people relocate to Whispering Willows where they would have a much better chance of surviving. Although the Ranger instructors were anxious to go fight Homeland troops, they knew that they were still needed to help the community grow. They made themselves as useful as possible, working hard to help new people settle in, training militia troops, and working on improvements to the community’s security. Mark continued to make frequent visits to check on progress of the community and all of us looked forward to his reports of things they accomplished.

  Tom and I were sitting in my office one evening when Mark came to visit. I went to the kitchen to get us all some tea. When I came back, Mark was telling Tom about a problem family in the Whispering Willows subdivision. Mark backtracked his story to catch me up.

  “I was telling Tom we have quite a few new families that have moved into the sub-division. We have over thirty homes now occupied around the school. There is one family, though, that I have some concerns about. This couple showed up six nights ago. They say they are father and daughter, but they sure don’t act it. They are more like boss and worker. She never asks him to do something; she always issues orders. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear she is his supervisor. Sometimes it makes me wonder if there is some elder abuse going on.”

  “Where did they come from?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure. They just showed up at the gate one day saying they were looking for a place to live. They looked so pitiful, starving and dirty, that we felt bad for them and let them in.”

  “Do they do their fair share of work?” Tom asked.

  “That’s just it. They do, but they seem to always be underfoot whenever we are trying to have a meeting or discuss anything sensitive. The daughter, Rachel, comes looking for me to ask really stupid questions or to tell me something utterly insignificant,” Mark explained.

  “Maybe she has the hots for you,” Tom suggested.

  “Oh, please, I have better taste than that. She is. . .well, she is very aggressive. Not at all like the ladies I am used to dealing with. She also always seems to be poking around in areas that she has no need to be in. For example, Taz caught her yesterday trying to get into the armory. She made the excuse that she thought that’s where we stored the kids toys and she was getting ready to go play with the kids in the day care.”

  “How do the other ladies get along with her?” I wondered.

  “They seem to try to avoid her. At first, they were really friendly and tried to help both of them, but she was just so snooty, the ladies now don’t even try to interact with her.”

  “Has anyone spoken to her father? I mean, if you think elder abuse might be happening, maybe someone ought to look into it.”

  “Bear, Toad, Top and I have talked about it. Toad is going to try to talk to him. Being in the wheelchair will make him seem like he is not threatening. I swear, sometimes the old man looks terrified.” Mark’s face gave away his concern for the old man. I was intrigued about his mystery family and kept asking questions.

  “Have you asked her anything about herself?”

  “The ladies tried, but her answers seem to be very vague. Personally, she gives me the heebie-jeebies. Her eyes never stop moving, almost like she is trying to memorize everything around her,” Mark said. He suddenly looked very serious. “Do you think she could be a spy for Homeland?” Tom started laughing.

  “Oh, come on Mark, she is probably just a scared woman who has been though too much and is just trying to stay safe,” Tom said.

  I frowned, shaking my head. “I disagree, Tom. As Mark was describing her, I had the same thought. I think you need to be very careful around her. Did she have a lot of supplies with her when she came?”

  Mark looked thoughtful for a minute. “I think she just had a dirty backpack, and the old man was carrying a small suitcase.”

  “I think you ought to question the father pretty quickly. Her behavior certainly warrants a conversation with her, too. You might want to talk to them separately just in case your suspicions are correct and she is not really his daughter. If he looks terrified at times, maybe he is not with her willingly.”

  “That’s what I was thinking. Thanks for your suggestions. We’ll talk to them both in the morning.”

  The three of us continued to visit for a few minutes, until Mark looked at his watch. “Oh, my, I only planned to stay for a few minutes to say hi. I need to go see my dad for a few minutes.”

  As Mark got up to leave, Tom and I stood up and I gave Mark a hug. “Let us know if there’s anything we can do about your mystery family. We’ll do whatever we can to help you. We appreciate all you’ve done for us.”

  After Mark left, Tom and I sat back down in my office. I looked at Tom and said, “I don’t have a very good feeling about this.”

  Bear, Top, and Toad gathered in Mark’s office at the school. The former principal’s office was a good spot for him to get his paperwork done. Mark entered right behind the three men and shut the door to the anteroom as well as to the office. “Okay, gentlemen, I think we have a problem. I was talking with Tom and Denise last night, telling them about our concerns with this family. Denise shares my feeling that this chick might be working for Homeland. I have absolutely no proof of this, but I would rather we addressed it and were wrong, than we let it go and it comes back to bite us. First problem is I am concerned about Mr. Macintyre’s safety. Rachel looks too young to be his daughter, and he looks positively terrified of her. Second problem is they both keep turning up where they really should not be. I could see if it happened once in a while, but it seems to be a consta
nt thing. I am betting you that if you look outside the door to the anteroom, one of the two will be nearby.”

  Bear got up and silently opened the door to the anteroom. He walked quietly to the door to the hallway and opened it suddenly, and Rachel was standing right outside the door. She jumped as the door flew open.

  “Did you need something?” Bear asked.

  “Um, n-n-no, I was just um. . . passing by,” Rachel answered.

  “Oh, okay,” Bear answered, standing in the doorway watching her. She looked at him and turned, hurrying down the hall. Bear started laughing and went back to Mark’s office, closing both doors behind him.

  “Well, you were right. What are we going to do?” Bear asked.

  The four men looked at each other. Suddenly, Top smiled. “I have an idea,” he said. The men huddled around Top while he whispered his idea. After quite a bit of discussion, the four finally put their plan together.

  Several hours later, Top was outside the school and saw Rachel and her father walking out of the school towards the road. He quietly pulled out his radio and whispered, “Show time, guys.” Bear came out of the school and acted surprised to see Rachel. He hurried over to her. “Rachel, wait up, do you have a minute?”

  Rachel turned and saw Bear. Her initial expression was irritation, but she quickly covered that expression with one of fear. “What do you want?” she called out. By now, Bear was very close. He took off his cap, and, acting somewhat shy, said, “Well, I wanted to apologize to you for scaring you this morning. I thought I heard someone knocking on the door, and I tripped as I was opening the door, making it fly open. I just hate that I scared you doing that. I’m so sorry.”

  Bear could almost see the wheels turning in her head. She turned and leaned up against the stockade fence behind her. She smiled at him and said, “Thank you for apologizing. You really did scare me. I thought I did something wrong again and you were going to yell at me.”