299 Days: The Change of Seasons

by Glen Tate

  Silence. People were leaving the cabin. Better to let this fight happen in privacy.

  “Manda, go outside, I need to talk to your mother,” Grant said.

  “No!” Manda screamed. She pointed to the doorway she needed to walk through. There was a blood-spattered body she would need to step over.

  Grant motioned and the Team took Greene’s body away.

  After the body was gone, Manda walked out, trying not to notice the blood stains on the entryway and the deck by the door. The Team took her over to the yellow cabin.

  “What the hell are you doing giving Manda a gun?” Lisa screamed when everyone was gone.

  “Saving her life, Lisa,” Grant said with a sarcastic sting. “What the hell’s wrong with you? These are dangerous times. In case you didn’t realize, there’s no 911 to dial.”

  Grant felt himself slipping into the same old argument they had when he shot the looters and wanted Lisa to leave Olympia with him and come out to the cabin. Right as he went into the old argument, he realized what a bad idea that was. Now Lisa would be arguing why she had been right in the past. The past and the present would become tangled together. They shouldn’t be.

  “Don’t start the 911 shit with me,” Lisa yelled. “You made your little point about that a while ago. Don’t talk to me that way.”

  Lisa had a point. Now that she’d disarmed Grant with that, she decided to scream at him for what was really making her furious.

  “Lieutenant Matson,” Lisa screamed. “Lt. Matson, huh?”

  Grant froze. Oh crap. He was done for.

  “Who’s that?” Grant asked. Might as well lie some more, he thought. It’d been working so far. Besides, he could literally be killed for revealing the unit to her. He could be hanged by a Patriot court martial.

  Grant couldn’t tell her the truth, as much as he wanted to. And he really, really wanted to. He wanted this lying to be over. He had thought things were going OK and she’d never know. But now reality hit him hard.

  “Don’t lie to me, you bastard!” Lisa screamed. She’d never talked to him that way before. Never. What had gotten into her?

  Lisa was so furious because she realized she had been kidding herself the whole time. She had wanted to believe Grant wasn’t doing some stupid Patriot shit. She wanted to believe that he was just being a judge out there. She knew better. But she just wanted a normal life—well, what passed for a “normal” life out there. She was so smart, but had fallen for this. All because she wanted a normal life.

  Normal life? There would never be a normal life.

  Then she started to cry. It quickly turned into the wailing—the kind of wailing Grant had seen when he left her in Olympia. Grant thought that had been the worst he’d ever see her. It now looked like there was a round two.

  “Tell me! Tell me!” She yelled in between sobs. “A lieutenant in what?”

  Grant just stared at her. It had been one thing to indirectly lie by saying there was a “rental team,” but to lie to her when she asked a direct question. That was something different and way worse.

  He looked her in the eyes. If he lied to her now, his marriage was over. She’d never forgive him. She could never trust him.

  “What are you talking about?” Grant asked. “I’m a judge, not a lieutenant.” He said it so convincingly that he scared himself.

  Lisa instantly perked up. Maybe there had been a misunderstanding. Maybe she had just had such a horrible day that she was taking it out on Grant. Maybe he wasn’t in some rebel army or whatever else it could possibly be.

  “You’re not?” Lisa asked. She paused and then said, “In the Army or something?” It sounded so absurd when she said it. Grant? In the Army?

  “No,” Grant said with a scoff. “I’m too old to join the Army and, besides, I have my hands full being the judge here. Why do you think I joined the Army?”

  Lisa told Grant about Tony Atkins and the rumors she’d heard about some Green Berets living somewhere in Pierce Point.

  Grant laughed. He was lying extremely well now and she was believing him.

  Grant knew with absolute certainty that his marriage was now over. She would find out when he left for combat and she’d remember how he had lied to her face. He couldn’t blame her for dumping him. His lying was unforgiveable.

  In an instant, Grant saw the highlights of their marriage flash before his eyes. He saw them on their first date, at their wedding, their first apartment, Manda’s birth, Cole’s birth, a school play Manda was in, hearing Cole’s first sentence when he was in elementary school, their vacation to Hawaii, him leaving Olympia, and then her coming to the cabin. Grant’s marriage had just died and he was seeing it flash before his eyes. He realized what a great life they’d had together. And it was gone.

  “Listen, dear, you’ve had a terrible day,” Grant said. He got the call on the radio about Tony Atkins and had gone to see him after the amputation. Tony was still unconscious. It looked like he’d make it through.

  “Then this happened to Manda and you thought I joined the Army,” Grant said in a calming voice. He continued to scare himself with how good he could lie.

  Lisa was coming down from the rage she had felt. Now she was realizing that things were OK. Her daughter was safe and—she hated to admit it—Grant had been right about the gun. Her husband wasn’t in the Army. She was having a very stressful day and snapped a little.

  “I can’t go back to the clinic for a while,” she said finally. “I need a couple days here to de-stress. And Manda will need us around. There is no way this won’t have an effect on her.”

  “Sure,” Grant said. “I’ll try to be around more the next few days. I’ll try to take some time off.”

  They hugged. This time, though, Grant was holding back. He couldn’t fully hug her. He was deceiving her. It didn’t feel like all the other hugs after a fight. He felt like they weren’t married. Like she was someone he lived with, but not his wife.

  “So tell me about this Green Beret rumor,” Grant said. “I need to know what people are saying about the rental team.” Grant was in ultra-deception mode. He wasn’t proud of it, but he had a job to do.

  Lisa told him what the rumor was and who was spreading it. “I heard a man who’s been at a few Grange meetings – Johansen or Johnson or something is his last name – talking to Kathy in the kitchen. He said he heard that some Green Berets were camping out near here and were training some rebel group. He said they were at a farm or something in Pierce Point. He’d snuck in and saw some guards at a farm.”

  Grant would need to deal with that. Not kill anyone, but do whatever could be done to stop the rumor. His immediate plan was to feed some outlandish rumors to this Johansen or Johnson person. That guy would spread the crazy rumors and that would wreck his credibility.

  Grant’s mind went from squelching the rumor to thinking about his now-destroyed marriage.

  “Lives, fortunes, and sacred honor,” Grant thought to himself. Sacrifice. This was his sacrifice, though realizing that didn’t make this any easier.

  Grant wasn’t the only one making a sacrifice. Manda did, too. The first few hours after the shooting she was fine. That night, though, she started to come apart. She was terrified of every little noise in the cabin. She sat up all night. Grant had taken her gun away from her because she was so distraught. He didn’t want Manda to think she heard a noise and start shooting. Lisa wholeheartedly agreed.

  When Manda finally fell asleep, she had horrible nightmares. Greene was trying to break in the door in her dreams and when she fired her gun it wouldn’t go off. Greene would laugh at her. His eyes were green lights in her dream. She was having it over and over again. Grant and Lisa were comforting her as much as possible.

  The next morning, Manda couldn’t eat. She just wanted to sleep, but was afraid of the nightmare. Finally, she passed out from exhaustion. Grant and Lisa stayed home from work and took care of her. Grant arranged for Jordan to get off from guard duty and to stay with them. T
hat seemed to comfort her. Grant made sure that Jordan wore a pistol in the house. Grant did too, of course. Seeing two men with pistols made her feel safer.

  “Jordan, you want to spend the night here? On the couch,” Grant said. “That will make Manda feel better.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jordan said. This wasn’t exactly what he thought of when “spend the night with Manda” came to mind, but he was happy to help. He wanted Manda to feel better. He loved her.

  Grant handed Jordan his tactical shotgun, a Remington 870. It was better for indoor use than Jordan’s rifle. “You can lean my 870 up against the wall near the couch,” Grant told Jordan. “That will be reassuring to her.”

  The couch was between the front door and where Manda shot Greene. There was no way to get into the house without coming through someone on the couch. Grant showed Manda this and that Jordan would have the shotgun. Grant and Jordan knew that no one would be coming through that door, which was all blown up but still on the hinges. People coming to the door of the Matson cabin were loudly saying, “Hello” as they approached. They didn’t want anyone to think they were an uninvited guest.

  After a week, Manda still wasn’t getting any better. The nightmare was still there. She wasn’t sleeping or eating. She was looking terrible. Grant and Lisa were very concerned. Their perky redhead was now depressed and scared.

  “These things affect different people in different ways,” Ted said when Grant finally got a chance to sneak over to the 17th for some training exercises. “Sometimes people get over it. Sometimes they don’t.” That’s what scared Grant. What if Manda never snapped out of this?

  Yet another casualty of the Collapse.

  Chapter 243

  Saving Lucia

  (December 5)

  Ten year-old Lucia Mirandez was crying at the courthouse. A man had just done something horrible to her. She didn’t understand why he did it. It hurt and he was mean. She knew it was a naughty thing that he did.

  She thought that maybe she did something wrong and that was her punishment. But she couldn’t understand what she did wrong. She just knew that she was bad and was being punished.

  Bennington was coming up to Commissioner Winters’ office. He saw an adorable little Mexican girl crying. He asked her in Spanish what had happened. She just cried more and ran down the hall.

  Just then, Commissioner Winters came out of his office. Julie Mathers, his receptionist, was at her desk and quietly crying, too.

  Winters was angry. He yelled at Bennington, “Go get her! Now! Bring her back here!”

  Bennington did as he was told. He chased after the girl down the hall. He caught her in the stairwell.

  Lucia was kicking and screaming. Bennington couldn’t understand why. “He hurt me,” she screamed in Spanish. She had been told by her parents not to trust police officers, but she was so scared she just blurted it out.

  “Who?” Bennington asked in his limited Spanish. Lucia relaxed a little, upon hearing him speak her language. He seemed like he was trying to help her.

  “The old man,” Lucia said. “The one with white hair.”

  “Where did he hurt you?” Bennington asked, fearing the answer.

  Lucia pointed at her private parts.

  Bennington got a sick feeling. He momentarily felt lightheaded and thought he might fall over.

  “Get her!” He heard Winters yelling down the hall and coming up on them quickly.

  “Come with me!” Bennington told the girl. He grabbed her by the hand and they ran out of the courthouse.

  Bennington knew he was dead if he got caught disobeying Winters. He also knew there was no way he was turning this sweet little girl back over to that monster. This was too much. Bennington had watched as Winters humiliated Julie Mathers. That was bad enough, but Bennington had felt powerless to help Julie. This was different. This was a little girl and he had the power to help her. He had to try at the very least.

  So far, no one had seen him running out the door with Lucia. Bennington needed a plan.

  As he ran down one hall, there was a pile of blankets on the floor. There were always “supplies” in that hallway. The “supplies” were stolen booty from various raids.

  Bennington looked around. Still no witnesses. The security cameras weren’t recording anymore. They needed a part that hadn’t come yet. The only thing rolling down the highways were food, gas, and troops. Video recorder parts for a hick county’s security system were not a priority, but the video monitors were watched in live time; they just couldn’t record. Bennington knew that the person watching the monitors was a doofus. He probably wouldn’t see them, if he were even paying attention. Bennington took a risk. Hell, he had already risked his life by running away with the girl.

  Utilizing more of his Spanish skills, he told the girl to hide in the blankets that were piled in a supply pile in the hallway and to be still. Lucia did what she was told. She had trusted this police officer and, besides, she knew she couldn’t get away from the courthouse on her own. If this police officer was going to take her away and hurt her himself, she was no worse off than if the white haired man did it. But this police officer seemed to be helping her. She didn’t have a choice. Bennington wrapped a blanket around the girl and picked her up in his arms.

  Lucia couldn’t see what was going on, but she felt the police officer lift her up and throw her over his shoulder. She felt him walking. She lay still. This must be how he was going to get her out of the courthouse. He must be trying to help her get away.

  Lucia felt him stop and push on something. She assumed it was a door. The sound changed so he must have walked outside. She heard some rain. He walked a little further and she heard the little electronic sound of a car door unlocking.

  She felt him shift her to another shoulder and heard a car door open. Bennington gently put her in the back seat. He was trying to say something in Spanish. She knew that she needed to stay hidden in the blankets, so she covered herself up and didn’t move. He got in the car and started it up.

  Lucia wondered where he was going to take her. Hopefully not back to her house. It was in the Mexican part of town and the gangs ran everything. Her mom and dad and her oldest brother had left town to go work on the big farms in Eastern Washington. She and all her brothers and sisters were staying behind with their aunt, but her aunt couldn’t keep the gangs away. Yesterday, some young men from the gangs came to her house. Her aunt cried. The men took Lucia and her 12 year-old sister, Carmella. One of her brothers tried to fight the men. They just laughed and beat him until he stopped moving.

  Lucia and Carmella were scared and worried about their brother. The men took them in a van to a nice house, the nicest one in the neighborhood. They didn’t know exactly what the men would do to them, but they had an idea it would be bad.

  But the men were nice to the girls. They gave them candy. The girls hadn’t had candy in so long. They ate so much of it they got a little sick.

  Then one of the older ladies in the house, who looked a lot like their aunt, gave them new dresses. Pretty dresses. They were a little big for them, but it was fine. Pretty dresses and candy. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. But why did their brother try to fight the men and why did the men hurt him?

  The older lady let them put on makeup. It was so much fun. They never had makeup at their house. The lady was so nice. Pretty soon, the girls looked so beautiful in their dresses and makeup. They felt like teenage girls.

  Then Carmella went with some men in the van somewhere. That was two days ago. Lucia hadn’t seen her since.

  Lucia got in a car with another man and went to the courthouse. Then she met the white haired man. He was nice at first, but then he got angry. Then he hurt her. And did the naughty thing. She didn’t want to think about it. She had been pretending in her mind that it hadn’t happened.

  The police officer’s car was slowing down. He was saying something in English to some men. After a few seconds, the car was moving again. It must be one of those checkp
oints that were in town.

  “I’m taking you somewhere safe,” Bennington said in Spanish. Then he said something in English into a radio. They drove for about ten minutes.

  During the drive, Bennington was finally fully thinking about what he’d done. He had realized from the moment he grabbed the little girl and started to run that he was dead if he got caught. That part didn’t bother him. He was ready to be done with this life. All he did every day was help corrupt people do terrible things. He was ready for all of this to be over.

  But why sign his own death warrant over this? Over this little girl? Abby, that’s why. Bennington thought about his own daughter, Abby. She was about the same age as the little Mexican girl. Abby was living with Bennington’s ex-wife in Mill Creek, a suburb of Seattle. His ex-wife had remarried some EPA guy, so they were probably doing fine. They lived in the Seattle area and, given the EPA guy’s position, probably had plenty of FCard credits. He was glad for them, especially for Abby.

  Bennington missed Abby so much, but most cops he knew were divorced. It was a hard job. And in these times, fights over money made everything even worse.

  Little Abby. Bennington kept thinking about her. He would do anything to prevent what happened to the Mexican girl from happening to his Abby. He would want someone—anyone—who could help save a girl to risk his or her life and do it. He would want someone to do for Abby what he was doing for this innocent little girl.

  Bennington looked in the car mirror toward the back seat. There was that blanket not moving an inch. A girl who was being saved.

  Bennington slowed down. He was at his destination.

  “I called ahead for Dan,” Bennington told the Pierce Point gate guard.

  “He’ll be right here,” the guard said. Dan came running up when he saw the police car at the gate.

  “What’s going on?” He asked Bennington.

  “I need you guys to take care of a little Mexican girl who was being raped,” Bennington said. “By people in positions of authority. People who will kill me if they catch me getting her out of there.” Bennington pointed to the blanket in the back seat. Dan looked at the blanket and nodded at Bennington.