“Alright,” Aaron hesitantly agreed.
At this point, Grandma Lisa had noticed that Mary was not in the living room. Justin was also looking around trying to find where his mother was. He made eye contact with his Grandma. Hence, she signaled for him to go check for her in the bedroom.
As the group dispersed from the living room, Michelle grabbed Aaron’s hand. “What were you thinking back there?” she confronted her husband. “Dad was right, we need to be ready. I’m scared about this but it is important that we are ready in case things get worse,” she added.
“I was just trying to pacify the situation. We don’t want to spread paranoia,” he argued.
Michelle looked him straight in the eye. Her eyes probed him. “What?” Aaron asked.
“I know you, Aaron. You can’t possibly lie to me,” she insisted.
He heaved a sigh, as if to give in to his wife. “Okay, okay….” He said, flinging his arms to the air. “I did not want him to get me to spend a lot of money on “supplies”, he said while motioning his fingers to quote the last word.
“I can’t believe what I’m hearing, Aaron. Surely, dad isn’t trying to exploit you. He is also thinking of our kids’ sake,” she complained.
“Can we get this over with?” Aaron tried to end the conversation. Michelle looked shock. “See, I already agreed with him and we’re going out there to get those supplies,” he said.
Michelle walked out on him and headed towards the kitchen. There, Grandma and Grandpa were already busy writing a list on a sheet of paper.
Mary has finally joined them in the kitchen, too. Justin had caught him up on what went down at the living room earlier. She handed Grandpa a sheet of paper with list of items, too. “Here, this is all we need,” she said.
“Thank you,” he said.
Aaron, too, now joined the discussion in the kitchen. “Dad, I’ll go with you,” he said.
Michelle looked surprised. They temporarily made eye contact but Aaron quickly turned away. “I’ll drive you there,” he said. “And make sure we have all we need in this list. We can’t afford making frequent trips out there,” he added.
“Thank you, son;we’ll leave in the next hour.”
Aaron was pushing a cart towards their vehicle in the parking lot. The cart was filled with essential supplies such as food items and canned goods, batteries, first aid supplies, and some toiletries. Grandpa Taylor tailed him, also carrying a couple of bags on both arms. The grocer was still relatively quiet that day. Grandpa was pleased about that. He did not want to wait until it is too late or people could go into panic buying.
When they were about a few meters away from getting into the vehicle, a couple of city boys slowly approached them. Both Grandpa Taylor and Aaron had their backs against the young boys. Aaron was trying to open the door on the compartment to load their supplies while Grandpa looked on.
One of the boys tried to stealthily take one bag off the cart. But as he did, it got caught in the cart’s handle. It tore up the bag causing the contents to spill over to the floor. The noise caught Aaron and Grandpa’s attention.
“Hey!!!!” Aaron barked at them.
The boys paused momentarily. But they quickly sped off.
Aaron went off to chase after them. He ran as fast as he could,but the boys were too agile for his own good. Grandpa looked on, unable to chase after them. He tried to salvage what he could from the ripped bag and placed them back into the cart.
Meanwhile, Aaron had run all the way out of the parking lot and into the next block. Fortunately, a deputy sheriff was walking down the street when he came around that block. “Help! Help!” he yelled at the top of his lungs.
The deputy sheriff quickly apprehended the two boys. One of the boys tried to escape but the deputy sheriff fired a warning shot.
“Thank you…. Officer,” said Aaron, still trying to catch his breath.
“What did they do?” said the deputy as he was putting on handcuffs. Aaron grabbed hold of the other teenager.
“We… were out there… doing some… grocery,” he stated, still breathing heavily. “They approached us… and tried to steal our stuffs,” he said as he pointed all the way back to where they had parked.
“You boys causing some trouble again?” the deputy jokingly said. None of the boys responded.
“Have they done this before?” Aaron asked, curious.
“Notoriously so…” the deputy responded.
Grandpa Taylor had joined Aaron at the police station. The deputy sheriff had decided to record a blotter of the events that transpired earlier that day. Aaron and Grandpa Taylor patiently waited for the deputy to finish the blotter report. The two boys were temporarily confined in the cell. They had pleaded to be released but Aaron was keen on giving them a lesson.
“Should we call them back at the farm? They might be expecting us to be back by now,” Aaron told his father.
“Nah, it’ll just worry them,” he brushed off Aaron’s idea. “We don’t want to cause them more reason to,” he added.
Aaron gave him a light nod.
“We’ll just let them know about this when get back, but not for now,” he chimed in.
“Mr. Taylor,” the deputy sheriff called on Aaron’s attention. “The blotter is done,” he said.
“Thanks for your help, officer,” he acknowledged. “I know it’s a petty crime,but a crime nonetheless. Who knows what these boys could do next?” he explained further while giving the two juveniles a dagger look.
“Sure, no worries,” said the deputy.
“Would you like to press some charges?” he asked.
“No longer necessary,” said Grandpa Taylor. “We’re in a bit of a time constraint here, Mr. Officer,” he added.
“Are you sure?” the deputy sheriff curiously asked.
“We just wanted to give these boys a lesson. And besides, they were unable to steal anything from us. But we got lucky. The next time they do it again, they won’t be so lucky anymore,” Aaron warned.
“Copy that,” said the deputy sheriff.
“We’ll be off now. Our families might be worried that we’ve taken this long to get back,” said Grandpa Taylor. “Thanks again for your help,” he said while shaking the officer’s hand.
“Just doing my job,” he responded.
When the two got back to the farm, Aaron was right – they wondered what had taken them so long. Aaron decided to fill them in with details of the events they encountered. He was too enthusiastic to share the details of the story. Meanwhile, Grandpa Taylor was too exhausted to talk.
“I’m going to go and get some rest for a little bit,” he told Grandma. Then, Grandpa Taylor went to his bedroom.
Randy listened in to his dad’s story but was unimpressed. He just continued on playing with his game console. Meanwhile, Justin listened attentively. Both Mary and Michelle were just relieved to see them back at the farm safe from danger.
***
Chapter 8 – Holding Down the Fort
At 10am Monday, Benjamin is serving his second shift within the past 24 hours. There were fewer staff left to oversee the patients and the doctor had his hands full. Dr. Bosch and Dr. Smith had relegated him to look after their patients after both had abandoned their shifts. Dr. Smith had called in sick last Tuesday and has not showed up since. Meanwhile, Dr. Bosch said he will be away until next Monday.
Thankfully, he had two nurses to help him out – Walter and Jessica.
That morning, Walter decided to while the time away by turning on the TV. They had an hour left until the next schedule of rounds. And there was not much left to do in the nurse’s station unless new patients were brought in.
“What are you doing?” said Jessica.
Walter paused to give Jessica a stern look. “Okay, I know you’re turning on the TV,” Jessica responded sarcastically. “Do you think something is still on? Heck, even the radio has no signal!”
“I bet,” Walter responded with his own dose of sarcasm.
He started scanning the channels. A lot of channels have completely gone off the air. For the few channels that were on, they either had poor video or audio signals. He chanced upon one channel with a decent audio. The video quality, however, was so poor that the images are not visible on-screen. But he made do with it.
“Oh, look… it’s the Vice President,” Walter said.
“What’s that? There’s nothing on there,” Jessica interrupted him while she was filing her nails.
“Sssshhh…” he shushed her as he listened closely to the report. The reporter turned the feed to the Vice President, who met with the media once again to detail the demands of The Coalition.
…I just came from a meeting with the senators and cabinet members and we had agreed that it would be of the best interest of the nation and its citizens to divulge details about the demands sent by the leader of The Coalition. A few days ago, we communicated with them through Senator Peters in order to address the bottom of the issue, and hopefully end the threat of violence. However, they demanded a complete overhaul of the governance. In conjunction with this, they also demanded a reform in the social, civil and political structure of the federal government. It appears for now that the Islamic Nationalists are firm on their demands. And they threatened that if these demands are not met, they will continue to rage violence in the country.
We would like to assure everyone, however, that we will do our best to maintain peace and order. We urge you to do your part in ensuring safety in your city or towns. Your government will not abandon you in these trying times. Justice will prevail soon for our President and all citizens that had been affected by these threats…
“Can you believe that?!” Walter exclaimed. His face turned red.
“Sorry, I didn’t catch that… are you okay?” Jessica asked, still filing her nails.
“No, I’m not. This is ridiculous!” he said, reeling.
“Well, what do they want, really?” Jessica asked, clueless.
“Lots of innocent people had been spared! All for their selfish reasons! For their ridiculous demands!” he exclaimed as if talking to himself loudly.
“Okay, hang on… sit still here,” she said, trying to get him to calm down. She pulled out a chair for him to sit on.
“My family in California had been put in great danger over the riots there. I’ve been worried sick about them. They did not deserve to be overcome by fear, just for the selfish reasons of other people – for their stupid demands!” he sniffed.
Walter spent several years serving in the army. Thus, he had close ties with a few of the men in the army.
“Hopefully, our armed forces will be able to wipe them off the face of this planet,” he threatened. “They do not belong here,” he added.
“Okay,” Jessica rolled her eyes. “Why don’t you just sit there and relax for a sec,” she added slightly frightened.
Benjamin was finishing up his rounds on his patients when he decided to drop by Mr. Burchard’s office. He wanted to talk to him to get an update on the power situation. From time to time, they were still experiencing minor power outages. He wanted to get a progress report on that.
Also, he had not seen him in days. He figured it might be a good time to talk.
Tok! Tok!
He knocked on the door a couple of times, like he normally does. No one responded from inside the room. He knocked a couple of times again. Still, no one acknowledged him.
“Mr. Burchard?” Benjamin called out from outside the door. He held his ear close to the door, trying to listen in if there is any noise from the inside.
When he could not hear anything, he opted to turned the knob and let himself in. It wasn’t locked. He slowly flung the door open and entered the room. It was dark and quiet.
He was welcomed by a foul stench, prompting Benjamin to cover his nose with his face mask. On his desk, he found Mr. Burchard lying face first. Benjamin initially thought that he was sleeping. Hospital staffs at Southcrest Community Hospital had been working on continuous shifts in the past few days.
He nudged him lightly. But Mr. Burchard did not move. His body was stiff and cold to the touch. He examined Mr. Burchard’s fingers and they were already purple-ish.
No, no… he can’t be dead, Benjamin thought initially.
Shock and despair overcame him. He knew that Mr. Burchard had a heart problem. But he could not speculate for now what might have been the cause of his death. He figured that he had been dead for about two days – about the same time they last talked.
Benjamin stepped out of the office. He wanted get help and transfer Mr. Burchard’s body to the morgue. The hallways were empty. The nurse’s station was empty. He tried dialing the hospital’s phone line for assistance. But the lines were not working at all.
He went back to Mr. Burchard’s office. He lifted his body off of the table. Then, Benjamin got him off of the chair by lifting him from the waist. He carried Mr. Burchard’s body onto his shoulder and quickly made his way onto the nearest elevator. But it was not working. In fact, the elevator had been non-functional for days. The generator that powered it ran out of fuel. He detoured towards the stairway to the left and headed for the morgue.
***
Chapter 9 – The Spread of Violence
Monday morning in Washington, DC was hectic. The Vice President had called in another meeting with the cabinet members at the West Wing. She had just gone on a press conference earlier in the morning. It was followed by a lengthy closed door meeting with her political advisers about the current turmoil faced by the country. After about an hour of private meeting, she instructed her assistant to start the meeting with the cabinet members in the next half hour.
At the West Wing conference room, the tension level was high. Senators and cabinet members talked in small groups, each with their respective opinion on what can be done about The Coalition’s demands. Noisy chatter filled the air. But when the Vice President stepped into the room, all of the noise died down. The tension in the air was so thick, it seemed like everyone held their breath in anticipation.
Vice President Christie, who typically had a cheery aura about her, did not smile or say anything as she walked into the room. The senators could not read the expression on her face.
“Good morning,” she said, still looking stoic.
“I’ll try to make this quick and short. I know all of you are extremely busy and pressed for time,” she continued. This short introduction further heightened the tension already building up inside the room. Her political advisers looked on from behind.
“I had a lengthy talk with my political advisers earlier today. We discussed the demands from The Coalition. We’ve already talked about it these past few days in our meetings. But we could not come to an agreement with regards to how we should address it,” she explained further.
“And so we felt that it was the right time to look into another possible solution - declaring Martial Law,” she said despondently.
The room quickly burst into chaos. Several senators stood up to protest. Senator Peters, who earlier contested the Martial Law proposition, was the most evidently upset of them all.
“Ms. Vice President, how can you possibly think that this would be the key to restoring peace and order? As a matter of fact, it will only heighten the violence!” he ranted hysterically.
Senator Lee stood up to defend the Vice President’s decision. “I suggest you take time to examine this on a bigger picture, Senator Peters. We cannot draw conclusions based on emotional biases. We have to admit, we cannot meet the Coalition’s unrealistic demands. We need to give them the iron fist treatment or they’d think our government is merely a pushover,” he explained.
“You can look at the big picture all you want, but what about our citizens? Have you realized the great danger you’ve put them in? This is not about politics here,” he exclaimed, slamming his fist on the table.
“Everyone,” Vice President Christie said, attempting to pacify the chaos
in the room. “Please, let us calm down.”
“You cannot expect us to calm down, Ms. Christie,” Senator Peters insisted. “You are completely mistaken.”
Senator Lee kept on shaking his head.
“I am sorry to upset you, Mr. Peters,” said Vice President Christie. “But I had already made up my mind. I have asked my assistant to schedule a press conference later today. We will be formally declaring the new executive order to the media.”
Senator Lee looked over to Senator Peters with a mischievous grin. Peters looked away.
A few hours since the Vice President declared Martial Law, violence quickly erupted in the city like wildfire. In Washington DC alone, hundreds of The Coalition members had gathered in groups on the street. The rioters had invaded the streets even before the military had time to dispatch personnel to guard the streets.
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