American Dreams | Book 1 | The Decline
Page 23
“I wasn’t—”
“Yeah, you were. It’s not gonna happen.”
The door opened up and Cassandra appeared. She wore a sweatshirt and a pair of jeans that we’d fashioned an expandable waistband to the top buttons, allowing the jeans to stay closed when the zipper was undone all the way, but we were going to need to get her some real maternity clothes soon. She was almost at max capacity for our short-term clothing solution.
“What are you guys talking about?”
“Nothing,” Rowan’s voice cracked as he said it.
“Masturbating and porn,” I replied.
“Eww, Bodhi,” she groaned. “Promise me you won’t turn out like him.”
“I’ll try not to,” Rowan said. “Dad wants y’all to come up to the house. There’s a war starting.”
“Yeah, we saw,” Cassandra stated. She glanced at me. “You ready, babe?”
I nodded and opened the tiny closet beside the bathroom. Inside were two disposable plastic ponchos that we used when it was raining. We were such rebels that we’d worn the single-use ponchos probably ten times.
“Okay,” I said, handing one of them to Cassandra. “Let’s go up there and see what’s going on.”
“Good,” Cassandra said. “Maybe your dad can talk some sense into you.”
“Doubt it,” I replied. “Hasn’t managed to do it so far. In fact, even with my football career over, he’s still pissed that I went to UT instead of ‘Bama.”
“Aww, but then you’d never have met me.” I hugged her and gave her a kiss.
“Gross,” Rowan sighed. “Get a room.”
“You’re in our room, dumbass,” I said. “You get out of our room so I can make some real life porn.”
“Oh. My. God. Bodhi, stop.”
“I’m just bustin’ his balls, babe.” I tousled Rowan’s mop of soggy hair. “But seriously, we’re gonna make some wild cheetah love later. Stay away, little bro.”
“Bodhi!”
“Okay. Okay.” I held up my hands, then turned back to Rowan and jabbed my index finger through the circle I’d made with my thumb and index finger on the other hand.
That elicited a slap on the back of my head. Play time was over. It was time to go see how shitty the world had become.
THIRTY
It only took a few hours before the shooting started. It began in New York City according to the news. The people flooded the streets in a mass protest of the government. It was almost spontaneous, reminiscent of those Black Lives Matter protests from a few years ago that helped to bring about police reform. Only this time, loyalists to the System didn’t have the kid gloves on. A line of cops, agents, and National Guardsmen opened fire into the crowd without a second thought as they attempted to pass barriers hastily erected to manage the flow of people.
Media drone footage showed the complete and total carnage left behind as the System’s men and women advanced around their barricades and over the bodies. They fired into the backs of the fleeing mass and hundreds were trampled to death. It was horrendous. It was disgusting. It was exactly what needed to happen on live television.
Even though I’d been beaten, displaced, and turned into a fugitive by the NAR’s lackeys, that footage was the spark that truly ignited the flame inside of me. Before, I’d been content to just hide away on my parents’ farm and let the nation march happily into communism. Now, seeing how little life truly mattered on a grand scale, I knew that I needed to go back and be a part of the solution.
Rogan had been right. The people wouldn’t stand to lose more rights and freedoms. They’d had their fill and the hatred had been bubbling below the surface, threatening to break. The massacre in New York would cause it to boil over and people would rise up.
Or at least that’s what I hoped as Rowan and I drove westward in my truck. My brother was too young to join the military, but he’d implored our father to allow him to go. His argument was that if change would come, it would be from the youth. I agreed with him. Unfortunately, many of today’s youth were aligned with the System since it promised free healthcare, free education, and food rations for everyone. Just as I hadn’t learned it in school, they hadn’t been taught about the dangers of communism or about the fascists’ policies in Germany leading up to the Second World War. I hadn’t discovered it until quarantine and it had fascinated me that America was following the same path.
In addition to basic food supplies and some weapons, my dad surprised us with four pre-paid cell phones still in the packaging. He’d always been a semi-serious prepper, most farmers were in one sense or another. His advice about setting up the go-bags almost two years ago had been invaluable and he’d come through again. He gave one phone to Cassandra, one each to the boys, and kept one for himself. According to the package, they each had five hundred minutes and unlimited text messaging every month for six months after activation. Twenty minutes of making calls from the house phone and the burner phones were active. Gotta love technology.
It had been hard for me to say goodbye to Cassandra. Regardless of what I told her, we both knew that I was going off to war. There was no way that it wouldn’t devolve into that. There were too many loyalists to the System and too many average, everyday people who were fed up with it and willing to take up arms against the sham government.
It was almost guaranteed that I’d miss the birth of Bathtub, and a very real possibility that I might never come back home at all. We had one more night together before I left. The memory of Cassandra’s body against mine would have to sustain me until I could return. I vowed to be strong for her and for the baby.
In fact, I resolved to be strong for all of those who couldn’t fight back. The System had given me the training to be an asset to the Revolution—if that’s what this war was going to be called. I needed to do my part so that our family could be safe and not live in fear of government reprisal.
Immediately before the first American Revolution, Patrick Henry had said, “Give me Liberty, or give me Death.” Americans had gone on to defeat British imperialism, fought a civil war over slavery and states’ rights, annihilated fascism in Europe, and, to an extent, ultimately defeated Soviet communism. The NAR was another enemy that needed to be destroyed for the good of the people.
Americans were stronger than what they’d been told for the last twenty years. It was time to prove it.
TO BE CONTINUED IN
THE ASCENT, AMERICAN DREAMS BOOK 2
Five Roads to Texas: a Phalanx Press Collaboration
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