The ladies were in a whole different category. They were giving ideas and making suggestions a mile a minute.
“You know, we don’t have to do too much. Remember, this isn’t my first marriage.”
Angela immediately replied, “Don’t forget though, it’s Mike’s first.”
She formed a big smile, “That’s right. Continue ladies, let's hear all the ideas.”
Mike hearing his name immediately jumped up and walked into where the ladies were.
“Yes, did you call me Brandy?”
Brandy formed a puzzled look on her face and then responded, “No, we just mentioned your name.”
When Tag saw and heard this, he said, “Oh….my…..God,” and burst out laughing.
When Mike walked back in and sat down, he asked, “What’s so funny?”
I just shook my head and replied, “Well, I can see she already has you whipped,” and the laughter continued.
Mike turned a little red but then just gave us a dirty look and flipped us all off.
The ladies ideas were coming out right and left, and then Brandy said, “You know, there is something I’d really like to do, but some people may think it is too odd.”
“Brandy, it doesn’t matter what other’s think. This is your day. What you guys want is all that’s important.” Kim commented.
“What do you want to do?” Mia asked.
She hesitated, “I’d like to have the ceremony out in the wildlife area, right next to Carmen’s grave. That way, it would be as though Carmen was there at the wedding and serving as my Maid of Honor. Kim, you don’t think that’s too weird, do you?”
Kim immediately teared up and after a short pause and while being choked up a bit with emotion, said, “Brandy, I think that’s a wonderful idea.”
Mia started crying a little, “I think Carmen would love that.” Soon all four of them were crying.
I walked in about that time as I noticed it was really quiet and noticed the tears and asked, “What’s wrong with you guys?”
Kim looked up, “Get out of here, this is girl talk. Just go back and tell some of your stories.”
All the girls laughed a bit and started wiping their eyes.
“Fine,” and turned and went back in with the guys.
“Oh, hey, do you think Lulu would want to be the flower girl?” Brandy asked Angela.
“Are you kidding? Of course, she would. She’ll be all excited.”
“Should I have a bridesmaid?”
Kim spoke up, “Well, that’s up to you, but due to the circumstances, I would stick to only The Maid of Honor and a Best Man for Mike.”
“I thought the same thing, but I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.”
Mia spoke up, “Brandy, again, this is your wedding. You don’t need to worry about anything like that.”
“I agree,” Angela added.
“Are you guys sure?”
“Absolutely,” Kim replied.
The next day, several of us went down to Charlie’s and used trees and Charlie’s car to build the roadblock. Mike fully accepted the idea that he was actually leaving and getting married, so he was going to make sure that he didn’t leave any of his responsibilities undone.
Watching Mike worry about his obligations made me think about how proud I was of him and actually everyone. Mike had always seemed to choose the right path in life for the most part and Paul had completely turned his life around. As my mother always used to tell me, “We need to turn lemons into lemonade.” Well, Paul had done that with his life.
Kim was the best wife any man could have. Without her, I’m not even sure I’d still be alive. She kept me balanced in life. She was truly my best friend. We totally trust one another, we never let jealousy enter our lives, even though Kim certainly had some cause to be jealous of the situation with Carmen. But that’s the blessing when you truly become one and trust one another.
Our friends that I honestly believe God blessed us with were supermen and women in my opinion. There is no way we would’ve survived without them.
Now, my youngest son and a woman that I had learned to love and trust, were leaving us. I just pray that they will find peace and go back to having a normal life for as long as possible.
Why we were all blessed so much, I’ll never understand. I certainly wasn’t worthy of it, but maybe God felt someone in our group was. I know we didn’t live our lives the way God truly wanted us to. I certainly haven’t. God blessed us due to his plan and love. Compared to most, our lives since the EMP has been easy. Yes, we lost a couple of our people, and maybe they were blessed more than the rest of us as they won’t have to face what’s yet to come. Who knows?
One thing I do know about our main group is, even with all of our sins and mistakes we made in life, to my knowledge, we all believed in God, and for the most part, most of us tried to live our lives with honor. We all served in the military for the same reason. We felt it was our duty to try and protect those that couldn’t defend themselves and fight against the evil that’s in the world.
We also had the same belief that you never intentionally hurt someone else for money or personal gain, even though we’ve all failed at that at different times in our life. Sure, we had all killed but always in defense of one another or our country.
I know I’ve done some evil things in my life and I pray that I’ll be forgiven. I’ll always feel responsible for the death of Carmen and even Blake, as I feel I failed them as a leader. I should’ve made sure the women were trained much earlier, and I should’ve insisted that Blake and his family move within our perimeter. Yes, it was his choice, but maybe I didn’t try hard enough.
All I can do is try not to repeat the same mistakes in the future.
First thing in the morning, I was met by Lulu. It seemed as though it had been forever since I had really talked to her.
“Vince, did you hear that I get to be Brandy’s flower girl during the wedding?”
“I sure did. I think you’re the very best choice.”
“I’ve never been a flower girl before. This is going to be exciting.” Then after a few moments, she showed a little sadness. “I’m sure going to miss everyone once they’re gone. I wish we were all going.”
I sat down next to her on the couch, and she immediately snuggled up to me, and I said, “I do too, Lulu. I’m going to miss them a lot but you know they’re going to Australia and start a brand new life. We need to be happy for them.”
“Oh, I am. Mommy and Daddy explained it all to me and I know they’re going to be happy together.”
Lulu always amazed me. She was so intelligent for an eight-year-old. She seemed to know what was best even when she wished things could be different. We all needed to think as she did.
“Well, I have to go help mommy work on the dress that I’m going to wear. I want to be as pretty as possible for the wedding.”
“Lulu, you’re pretty, no matter what you’re wearing.”
This obviously embarrassed her a bit, but then she smiled, gave me a hug and said, “See you later, Vince.”
Right after breakfast, everyone started devoting themselves to the wedding. Paul and Wit, while on patrol, invited everyone in our community to attend.
Mike asked Robert to be his best man. He wrestled with the idea of asking Paul, but it was Paul himself that said, that he should pick Robert or John as before the EMP, they were close and worked together, and Robert would go out shooting with Mike a lot before everything went to hell.
We were shocked by everyone in our community wanting to contribute to the wedding somehow.
The folks in Pine City volunteered to man all roadblocks during the wedding weekend. That way everyone close to Mike and the family could attend the wedding and reception the women planned.
Bob Rowe offered to donate a steer for the wedding. I told him that was too much as beef right now was like gold, but he insisted. He said that if it wasn’t for our group organizing the community, no telling if anyone in o
ur area would still be alive. I tried to pay him for the steer with silver, but again, he insisted that it was his gift to Mike and Brandy.
Mo, using the tractor and brush hog, mowed the entire wildlife area where the wedding was going to be held and also mowed the area around the runway and even mowed paths from the house to both the runway and wildlife area.
Jake used his welding skills and built an archway to be used for the wedding party during the ceremony.
All the women in our community volunteered to cook all the side dishes for the wedding dinner and also volunteered to help set up the wedding and reception area.
Kim gave Brandy the wedding dress that she wore when we got married in Las Vegas. Brandy was about four inches taller than Kim, but Martha came up and used Kim’s sewing machine and somehow altered it to fit her.
She also altered one of my suits to fit Mike. That was interesting as I’m quite a bit larger than Mike and when he first put it on, it swallowed him. I would’ve given anything to have had a working camera.
Sarah Simpson and Angela made the wedding cake from scratch, as Sarah had cake pans and forms that were designed for a large layered wedding cake.
Brandy asked Mia to sing at the ceremony, which she immediately agreed to but Mia was concerned about not having any music to accompany her. Then it hit me, the laptop. We could use it for music as I still had some old music CDs. How dumb of me. All this time we could’ve been playing music, but all I thought about was the DVDs. Anyway, after looking at my very limited selection of music, they found one that just had the music of various hits, which I had bought years before to use as background music on a website I had. There were only twelve different songs on it but twenty-four tracks as it would play the song with the words and then play it with only the music. Out of the limited choices available, Brandy and Mike found the song they wanted; “I don’t wanna miss a thing,” by Aerosmith. To be honest, I think Mike just wanted Brandy to be happy, but Brandy loved the song and thought it was perfect.
For a few hours on Wednesday, things turned sad, and we had to actually go back to our battle mode, just in case. Laura approached me and told me that she had to go back to the farm as their passports were locked in the safe.
This could change everything for them because if someone had found a way to break into the safe, their passports might not be there. Mo, Wit, Red, Mike, Robert, and myself all mounted up, and we took her and her children to their farm. It may not have been the wisest thing to do, but they wanted to say goodbye to Blake anyway. Mike, Robert, and Wit headed in first on ATVs and as soon as they confirmed it was secure, we headed in with the jeep.
We all secured the area and checked the house. Someone had been in there, and there were pry marks on the safe, but they weren’t successful.
Laura secured the passports, the one-ounce bar of silver that I had given Blake, and some personal items such as birth certificates and shot records of the kids.
Laura and her children then went to Blake and Abel’s grave. Seeing them all break down in tears was tough.
Friday morning, we had a bit of a scare. When we woke up, some serious clouds were in the area along with rumbles of thunder, but all it did was sprinkle a bit, and within a couple of hours, the front moved out of the area. It was a bit cooler after it passed but still comfortable.
Starting Friday afternoon and into the night was total chaos. Our house could’ve been double the size, and it still would’ve seemed full of people.
All the ladies from our community were all doing different jobs from cooking, helping Brandy and Martha with final alterations. Mia was in her room rehearsing, and all the guys were traveling back and forth from people's homes picking up every table and chair that they would allow us to use.
We moved the firepit down between the runway and the wildlife area and had to butcher and cut the steer into halves. Jake had to rush and make a second spit and weld a second set of holders for the spit. We had butchered the beef on Thursday night and let it hang but decided to start barbecuing it Friday to make sure both sides were cooked. We had to keep a close eye on it and knew once it was done, we would have to start cutting it up. We made the fire low enough though that it would take hours to cook.
When Mike wasn’t with Brandy, he felt like a fish out of water, as he was still in quite the daze thinking about the idea that it was all happening and so quickly. All the guys made sure they ribbed him accordingly.
Robert was upset that he didn’t get to throw a bachelor’s party for Mike, but it was in fun as he knew that wouldn’t really be possible, under the circumstances. But we did make up for it. After setting up the firepit and getting everything going, Robert got all the guys together, and we all sat around the fire pit talking. Soon Paul brought down a mixture of different bottles of liquor that we had left over from previous occasions and mixed it with powdered Gatorade. He called it “Jungle Juice from Hell.”
When we tasted it, we understood why. After drinking only one glass, we definitely felt it. After I drank about half of a second glass that Tag forced on me, I finally had to stop.
“Guys, I have to meet Brandy’s father tomorrow and possibly her mother, and Mike, you do too. Don’t forget; they’re arriving at 8:00 a.m. Now, I don’t think we want to meet them smelling like “Jungle Juice” and with a massive hangover.”
Mike took one more swallow, “Yeah, you’re right,” and he gave the rest to Robert. For about half an hour, we all talked about the wedding like we would’ve if it was a year earlier. No one talked about what was really going on in the world. As we’ve done so many times, we chose to ignore the ugliness of what was really happening and tried to make it seem like a normal get together before a wedding.
Shortly after that though, the women started calling on the radio needing this and that, so our party ended pretty quickly, which was probably a good thing.
When we got back to the house, most of the community women had gone home, which didn’t break my heart at all.
When I walked in Kim pulled me aside, “If you’re going to give our gifts out, now would be the time, as everyone is pretty worn out.”
“You’re right. Let’s do it.”
“What the heck have you been drinking? I could get drunk just smelling your breath.”
Laughing, I replied, “Oh, a little concoction Paul came up with for a 30-minute bachelor party for Mike. He called it “Jungle Juice from Hell.”
“I’d say so. Go brush your teeth before we do this or you’ll knock them out. Who do you want to see first?”
“Let’s start with Santiago.”
As I went in to brush my teeth, Kim went out and got Santiago who was just heading in to go to sleep.
“Santiago, sorry to disturb you but do you have a few minutes? Vince and I would like to talk to you.”
“Sure do. I hope this isn’t bad news.”
Kim chuckled, “I don’t think you’ll look at it that way.”
When I walked in from brushing my teeth and while still feeling a buzz from the Jungle Juice, I had to chuckle to myself as Santiago was sitting there like he had been called into the principal’s office.
“Santiago, before you leave tomorrow, we just wanted to thank you for all your hard work. Without you, we wouldn’t have as good of set up as we do. We just wanted to let you know how much we appreciate it.”
Kim added, “Personally, I’d like to tell you what a good father I think you are. Your girls are sweethearts, and I know they’ll really be missed by Lulu.”
“Uh, thank you, but I’m the one that needs to be thanking you. I don’t know what we would’ve done if you didn’t allow us to come here. You welcomed us with open arms, and I’ll never forget that.
I want you to understand; if it wasn’t for the girls, I wouldn’t even consider leaving. I hope you believe that. I understand how Mike and Brandy feel, as I feel the same. I feel a little guilty for leaving.”
“Stop it! You have absolutely nothing to feel guilty about. You ne
ed to find an even safer place for your girls. You’re doing the right thing.
Now, to help you do just that, we have a little gift for you… to help you get set up. We just wish it could be more.” I pulled out twenty-five ounces of silver bullion and set it on the end table next to him.
His mouth dropped open, and he went silent for a few moments until he asked, “Is that pure silver?”
“Yep, that’s to help you get started “down under.” I had Jim do some checking, and currently silver is selling for 1040 AUDs or in other words $1040.00 an ounce. That’s worth about $26,000. That should help a bit. Plus, the economy is almost in a depression down there, so in reality that $26,000 may be worth a lot more than that if prices have dropped to adjust to their economy.”
He just started shaking his head no, “I can’t take that. You may need it.”
Kim replied, “Santiago, we’re giving some to everyone that’s leaving and we’re keeping some for ourselves, just in case. You take that for your girl's sake.”
Santiago started crying. That along with the look on his face caused us both to start tearing up.
After a few moments, I said with a smile, “Will you quit that shit? Can’t you see that’s contagious.”
“Vince, Kim, I…. I ..don’t know what to say. How can I ever thank you? You guys are….” His tears started flowing again.
“Just take care of those girls and keep them safe,” Kim instructed.
“Now, get the hell out of here,” I said with a laugh.
He stood and started to stick out his hand and then said, “Oh, to hell with that,” and he grabbed me and gave me a big bear hug. He then reached over hugged Kim, and with a very grateful look said, “Thank you,” and turned and walked out of the room while wiping his eyes.
“Wow, that was a lot more emotional than I imagined.”
Kim, still crying silently, just smiled and nodded her head.
When we gave Laura twenty-five ounces, it basically went the same way. She was crying, Kim was crying, and lately, it seemed like everything brought tears to my eyes.
Next, we called in Red which came walking in, almost in tears. I’m assuming he thought we were calling him in to say goodbye.
Into the Apocalypse Page 43