The Guardians (17 page)

"Oh my God," she said.  "What happened?" 

"I'd rather not go over the details over the radio, but I need to relay some info to Griff."

"OK, just a minute" she said.

After about five minutes, Griff came over the radio and said, "What happened Ev?"

"We ran into some hostiles while checking up on something.  They use scouts and look outs," replied Evan.  Using a pre-arranged phrase to order a total lock down of the Homefront Evan said, "Release the dogs."  He then discreetly notified Griff that when he called back, they would be given the details of their movement via code.  This was done in order to prevent the potential hostiles in the area from setting up an ambush with their own information.  "We will communicate more DC at time 1," he said.

"Roger that, dogs are loose," replied Griff. 

The discreet communications they had chosen to use was simple book code.  With book code, each person involved has exactly the same book to use as a base for the code.  The communicator then sends a word on a page in the book as the page number, line number, and word order on that line.  An example would be 201-10-5.  The recipient of the message would then go to page 201, count down ten lines, and then over five words.  The fifth word would be added to the decoded message.  For time, at both the Homefront and on their person they carried a chart of all twenty-four hours of the day, followed by a random number assigned to the hour.  In this case, the intended communication time of "time 1" could be decoded by simply looking for the 1 on the chart and seeing 0700 next to it.  The numbers assigned to each time were in random order so that a pattern could not be followed.  In addition, they had an odd day/even day chart so that if 0700's code was compromised, the very next day it would be different in another attempt to avoid being patterned.  To further dissect the clock, time 1.5 would then be 0730 in this example and so on.  This was a very simple way to help secure their communications during a potential hostile event. 

Evan put the mic down and started to turn the radio off, he then realized that they may need to receive transmissions from the Homefront.  He didn't want to drain the batteries that Ollie had been using to power the radio via solar charging, supplemented with a generator when need be, but if something went down back home he wanted to know.  He followed the direction of the power cables to their source, just down the hall, where Ollie had them mounted in a rack in a closet.  He opened the closet and saw four large heavy equipment batteries.  "Well done Ollie," he said aloud to himself.  "This will do."  With that, he left the radio on and went out to check on the others.

On his way outside, Evan passed back through the living room where he saw Jake dutifully standing watch in the front of the house, while Judith was on the sofa holding and comforting Haley.  He stepped out onto the back porch where Peggy sat, watching Mildred mourning with her dead husband off in the distance.  "Where's Jason?" he asked. 

"He's up there," she said as she pointed towards the top of the barn.

There Jason stood, on the very top of the barn with his binoculars in hand scanning the property, keeping a vigilant watch over Mildred below. 

"So what now?" Peggy asked.

"Well, I guess we stay here tonight, and try and get Mildred and Haley over to our place in the morning.  Then we'll have to figure out the cattle situation."

"I can't stay here tonight!" exclaimed Peggy.  "Zack won't be able to make it through the night without me.  His nightmares have been getting worse and worse."

"He may have a rough tear filled night, but he has Molly, Sarah, and Judy to take care of him.  He will be fine.  Mildred on the other hand won't.  She needs to be emotionally stable to make the trip, and I'm sure she has loose ends to tie up here," said Evan with an insistent look.

"Yea, you're right.  I'm sorry," Peggy said.  "I'll go out there and sit with her for a while.  To see if she needs anything."

"That sounds good," he replied.  "I'll go work this out with Jason," he said as they both stood up and began to walk. 

Evan entered the barn, climbed up into the loft, and scurried up to the roof via an old rickety ladder.  As he climbed up on the roof, he said, "How's it going?"

"No signs of trouble that I've seen," replied Jason.  "I guess we are spending the night here huh?"

"That's what I figured," answered Evan.  "Once Mildred is stabilized, we can ask her what needs to be taken care of before we leave.  The way I see it, Mildred and Haley need to stay with us for a while.  Unless some sort of order is restored, it won't be safe for them all alone here.  Not to mention the fact that I'd say she has her hands full running a household and taking care of a young girl and couldn't really handle the additional workload of the cows alone."

"I was thinking about that too," said Jason.  "How many head do they have?"

"Maybe forty or so?  That's a guess, but somewhere close to that that," replied Evan.

"Well, it would be insane to keep splitting our group up, leaving the Homefront short staffed, just to come over here and work the cattle on a regular basis," Jason said.  "I think we need to move them to our place.  If of course that's what Mildred wants."

"A cattle drive?  Us driving cattle would be like the movie City Slickers," said Evan with his sneaky grin.  "But then again, there are more people around here than just us, and we need to band together to put a stop to this crap anyway.  We need to arrange a meeting with our trading partners."

"You mean the confederacy," Jason interrupted.

"Yes...as Ollie put it, our Confederacy," Evan said as they both looked down from the roof at he and Mildred below.

Later that evening after Mildred regained her composure, Evan and Jason discussed with her their thoughts.  She agreed and told them she just could not stay there right now anyway, and that Haley needed the safety of the Homefront.  Evan and Jason took Ollie's body and wrapped it neatly in fresh bed sheets, and then again with plastic sheeting and placed him in the cool root cellar until they could arrange a proper community and burial.

Judith and Peggy decided to cook dinner for everyone, as it had been a long and tiresome day.  While they were cooking, Evan looked at Jason and said, "We never checked that guy."

"What guy?" Jason asked.

"The one that I dropped running to the house, he's still out in the back field," Evan replied.

"Well dang old man you're slipping!" said Jason.  "Let's get to it then."

Evan and Jason then slipped out of the house quietly, leaving Jake in charge of standing watch.  Evan and Jason both always carried a small flashlight with rechargeable batteries.  They had served them well over the past year; however, the batteries were beginning to fade.  "Looks like we are going to have to revert to cave man torches before long," Evan said referring to the weakness of his light.

"Yep, I was thinking the same thing.  We had better figure something out before these things are useless.  It sure would be easier if this were a zombie apocalypse."

"How do you figure that?" asked Evan.

"Everyone would be eaten and there would be no form of society at all.  We could just go to the empty malls and stores and take what we need.  Here, we still have to be civil.  Being civil just holds you back," said Jason in a joking manner.

"Yea, well, if this were a zombie apocalypse, the dead guy we are walking out to check out in the dark would be trying to eat us by now," Evan replied.

"You have a point there," replied Jason.

As they approached the man, Evan shined his light on him while Jason went through his pockets.  He pulled a Glock 9mm out of his holster and put it aside, he then pulled out three magazines, all still fully loaded and placed them with the gun.  As he searched the man's pockets, he pulled out a pack of Marlboro reds and said, "Hmmm."

"What?" asked Evan.

"Oh, the guy up by the ridge also had two packs of these in his pockets," replied Jason.  "You would think by now cigarette supplies would be running thin without resupply in over a year.  I seriously doubt these guys were preppers and just happened to be stocked up on smokes for the apocalypse."  As Jason then stood up and collected the pistol and magazines he said, "Where was his rifle?"

"Oh, I think it fell right over there when he dropped," replied Evan as he shined his flashlight in the direction he was referring to.  "Oh there it is," he pointed.

Jason went over, picked it up, and said, "A Ruger Mini-30.  At least it's a common round to the VZ's and SKS's."

"Yep, let's get back to the house," Evan said.  "I don't want the ladies to worry."

As the men returned to the house, Peggy and Judith prepared some pan-fried beef with onions and fried potatoes for dinner.  Being a cattle farm, there was no shortage of beef, and the potatoes and onions were from Mildred's own garden.  As they all sat down to eat and said their grace, Mildred was still too distraught to join them.  She just sat in her bedroom floor at the foot of her and Ollie's bed, sorting through old photos that she had kept in a box.  Judith knocked gently on the door and asked, "May I join you?"

"Of course Dear," replied Mildred. 

Judith sat down next to her and said, "I don't think I've ever told you this, but I too lost my husband, and it was that horrible thing that brought me into this loving, caring, and courageous group.  My husband and I were lost at sea in our sailboat, The Little Angel, after the attacks began.  I ran into these people out at sea on an old yacht.  They were fleeing the troubles of what they were facing on land just as we were.  Anyway, my husband had a heart attack and was
dying.  I was alone and helpless.  I have no doubt in my mind that God put them before me to save me.  They risked their own lives to get my husband help, but he unfortunately didn't make it.  They took me in as one of their own and dragged me half way across the country, and here I am with them today.  Peggy in there has a similar story, although it was her parents she lost.  I guess what I'm saying is that today is without a doubt the worst day of your life; but you're not alone, and as long as these good people are around, you will never have to go through anything alone again.  I truly consider them my guardian angels."

Mildred just leaned over and gave her a big hug and through her tears said, "Thank you very much, thank all of you oh so very much."

That night, Evan and Jason took turns keeping watch over the others.  Jake volunteered to take a shift, but Evan insisted he get some sleep and thanked him for what he had already done.

Luckily, that night was mostly uneventful, with the occasional farm animal noise to break the silent monotony.  The next morning after everyone awoke, Peggy and Judith made everyone breakfast, and thankfully Mildred was doing a little better and joined them.  After breakfast, at seven o'clock sharp, Evan got on the radio and called the Homefront.  "Good morning," he said over the radio on their selected channel.

"Good morning Love," replied Molly.  Evan got a huge smile across his face just from hearing her voice. 

"I assume everything is OK there?" he asked.

"Yes, just anxiously awaiting your return and worried about you all," Molly replied.

"Tell Griff to stay sharp and we will be there by time 4,"  Evan said.  "Oh, and we will have a few additional homesteaders for a while."

"I figured as much.  Judy, Sarah and are myself are working on that now," she replied.

"Well, we've got a lot to do so stay safe and we'll be seeing you.  I love you," he said.

"I love you too," Molly lovingly replied.  And with that they both got off of the air and went on with the business at hand.

****

Nate's recovery had been going well.  His mission in life did not allow him time to be held back by an injury, at least not if he could help it.  After he and his brother emotionally reunited on the basketball court, his spirits were high and his hope to reunite with his mother and father was once again soaring.

Every day he followed a workout regimen to get his body prepared for what could be a long and grueling road ahead.  Having already traversed half of the country in its collapsed state, he knew not to take anything for granted, and that any weakness would be uncovered and would hinder his goals. 

When he was not exercising his body, he was exercising his mind.  Luke had acquired some geographic and topographic maps of the regions of the country that they would likely be traveling.  He studied the maps in great detail and plotted several possible routes, as well as diversions from each route along the way at different points, in the event that they needed to modify or completely change their route due to the local conditions.  After all, most of the country was still out of power, and mass communications of any sort had yet to be reestablished due to the continued political infighting and the instability of society.  Given these factors, they were simply unable to know the conditions of the country along their route, and therefore needed several alternative options.

Nate had also been studying, as best he could with the information he could glean from the TSG folks, the state of the union.  From what he gathered, from both confirmed reports as well as hear say, the country was still in a total state of disrepair and in many cases was getting worse.  Washington D.C. had been brought back to a reasonable state of normalcy in regards to utilities and general rule of law.  The Federal Government was using the military to augment the local police, and had established checkpoints to control the travel of everyone in and out of the city.  The D.C. area occasionally had an act of violence that was blamed on "home grown right wing insurgents," as the administration referred to anyone that opposed their new level of oppressive rule.  Many questioned these events as false flag events designed to keep tensions high and to justify the heavy-handed tactics being used to rid themselves of opposition, as no one was ever caught in the act.  The only arrests made were after the fact raids on the homes of political opponents, who usually did not survive to argue their case.