The Next Ten: Beginnings Series Books 11 - 20

by Jacqueline Druga

  “So you want us to set up a front line,” Joe questioned. “How do you know there aren’t just border camps?”

  “Please.” Hal scoffed. “You know what George is going to do.”

  “He’s showed no indication.”

  “Yet.”

  “He will.”

  “Goddamn right he will after we take out his camps,” Joe argued. “We’re in a peace time.”

  “Your passive attitude can be dangerous.”

  “So is your violent one.”

  “Violent?” Hal argued. “I am far from violent. I am speaking what we all are thinking.”

  “Hal, I will agree that I don’t think that George is going to sit idly by and let us live here forever, not without trying to get us out, but I don’t see it coming. Not yet. Not for a while. We’re too strong and they aren’t making their move until they know exactly what our strength is.”

  “Oh, I whole heartedly agree.”

  “So you just want to watch and not do anything yet?” Joe asked.

  “Exactly. Watch and then by spring, we move.”

  “What!” Joe lasted in shock. “That’s not a while, Hal.”

  “It’s now or never. You knew well what the UWA fight was. We fully intend to see it through.”

  “And we fully intend to back your efforts when the time is warranted. You are proposing we set up front lines and take them out.”

  “No.” Hal shook his head and leaned into the table. “I don’t just want to form a front line and take them out. I want to form a front line and move that line all the way across the goddamn country until we . . . take it back.”

  “War,” Joe whispered out.

  “Yes!” Frank clenched his fist.

  “Frank.” Joe rubbed his eyes. “You want to start the war.”

  “The Society had already done so,” Hal rebutted. “Over and over they have done so. Right now, where we stand, even at a fraction of their manpower, we have the strength and will to take this country back. Without too much loss of life, because I can almost promise their men will join us.”

  Joe lifted his hand to halt Hal. “I hear you. This country needs to be free again, but on this side, we aren’t all soldiers. Okay? We have civilians. Civilians who are going to argue and won’t understand, low loss of life or not, they won’t understand the death. They won’t understand why we are just attacking the Society. Why we are starting the war.”

  “We explain it.”

  Joe chuckled. “It won’t be that easy. What you want to do is a blatant declaration of a war that once it starts will not end until, like checkers, one side conquers the other. The people, the civilians, no matter how small of a percentage compared to soldiers on our side, are still people. We have women and children whose husbands and fathers will fight and will die. They feel they live in peace. You can’t just go and tell them, ‘well, people, it’s time’. They won’t accept that, Hal. If they won’t accept that, your will and strength behind the guns will not be there a hundred percent.”

  “Then we’ll get it there,” Hal said.

  “How?” Joe asked. “You tell me how and I’ll agree. We’ll all agree.”

  In Hal’s loss for words, in his fight to spew forth a resolution, Frank quietly entered the conversation.

  Frank’s words were spoken as if he was focused on something else and he was, a small map on the table. He drew a circle over and over on the map as he talked.. “I don’t think we’ll have to do anything. The Society will give our people all the reason they need to accept that we go to war against the Society. George is stupid, George is lame, and George will think without planning,. He’ll do something, and we can jump on that.”

  Joe looked at Frank. “We’d need a very strong reason to cross the lines and invade that side of the country.”

  “He’ll give it and soon. Trust me,” Frank spoke quietly.

  Curious, Hal glanced at Frank. “Your tone speaks as if you know exactly what that will be.”

  “Oh, I do.” Frank’s hand tapped on a map. “So do you, all of you. You just didn’t think of it yet. I did.”

  “Well, do you care to share?” Joe asked crassly.

  “Absolutely.” Frank smiled. “Doyle’s out of there. Doyle’s exposed so now they are exposed. Knowing that they are discovered, how long do you think George is going to let them sit?”

  Joe shook his head. “What are you talking about?”

  “George’s mistake. The deceleration of war we need.” Frank lifted his pen and pushed the map center of the table. “Lodi.”

  ^^^^

  “Lodi.” George’s hand lay on a map that hung on the wall as he faced a table full of advisors. “Lodi’s been there for a while. People have been living there since post plague. They have not been trouble, or at least from reports because . . . if they were . . . Sgt. Doyle hid it, just like he hid their presence from us. Anyhow . . .” George walked to the table. “Our messenger should be there shortly. He will ask to set up a meeting between me and their leader. While doing so, he will get as much info about Lodi as he can because basically, we know nothing.”

  Steward Lange raised his hand. “Are you asking Lodi to join our fight?”

  “Absolutely,” George stated. “From initial view they have accumulate quite a bit of men. Men, no women. During my meeting with Lodi I will give them all the perks of being part of the Society. I will give this leader some authority so there is no resistance from his men. I would like nothing more than to wipe them out but Callahan suggests that wouldn’t be a good idea when we are trying to build moral with our men to take on Beginnings. So, we approach them. We offer them. We let them know they are perched on our side of the country. If they turn us down, we give them time to pack up and leave. If they don’t . . . then without hesitation, when time is up . . . we wipe them out.”

  ^^^^

  Jess watched the coffee being poured from the carafe into his coffee cup by a thin man dressed in a waiter garb. With a slight chuckle, Jess nodded a ‘thanks’ then looked across the two seat table to James. James sipped his coffee. The wind from the ocean blew slightly as they enjoyed their outdoor café style seating.

  “James, was that man a waiter or is he a soldier in costume.”

  “I gave him a choice.” James shrugged. “He wanted to do the waiter stuff so I gave him the opportunity. What do you think?”

  ‘Of the waiter?”

  “This.” James held out his hand.

  “You cleaned it up.”

  “One of three,” James said. “We have a really good cook who does what he can with what we have. That’s where your reception is tonight. But right now, we serve more of a pre-fabbed lunch that the cook brings here.”

  “How often do you have lunch here?” Jess asked.

  “Every day,” James said. “I’m the commander. The Society gives me a ‘class’ ranking, so I abuse it.” He chuckled. “Did you like how we refurbished the museums and stuff?’

  “Why?”

  “Moral. So our men have something to do after training.”

  “How many men live here?”

  “Just the uppers,” James answered, “Corporals, Sergeants and so forth. Enlisted men live in a small community about four miles from here. They live with the workers. You know, farmers, rail movers.”

  “So this is for the elite.”

  James laughed. “Yeah, it’s fun. And you, my new friend, are part of the elite.”

  “I don’t think of it that way.”

  “Neither did I until I saw how much I got away with.”

  “How . . . how did you get in the position you are in?”

  “Work ethics I guess. That’s has to be it. It’s not like I know much about the Society other than what is in my own world right down here.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  “I suppose I could ask.” James shrugged. “But why? Why give myself more worries, more headaches. I do what I do and that’s it. Look at you. You seem stressed.”
<
br />   “I do not,” Jess defended with a snicker.

  “Yeah you do. Why? Look at all you do. You were running things for a while up there while Hadley was somewhere doing something I don’t want to know about. You are now down here searching for some bogus defector camp.”

  “Why do you say that? Hadley believes . . .”

  “Hadley doesn’t have the gut instinct I have. I come from a long line of family members with a good instinct. But hey, that gives you something to do, right? Then you stay. Of course I thought they had you on the ‘Starter’ problem.”

  “Ex . . . excuse me?” Jess asked.

  “That place. You know where the other side is.”

  “Oh.” Jess laughed. “Beginnings.”

  “Yeah. That’s it. You know all about that. All I know is we have people on the other side of the country opposing the rebuilding of the United States and the way of freedom.” James looked curiously at Jess when Jess choked on his coffee. “What?”

  “Nothing.” He cleared his throat. “It just strikes me as odd that you . . .” Jess stopped. He smiled brightly. Puzzled solved or so he thought. George didn’t want Jess to say anything about Beginnings. That was it. Jess had been kicking himself the entire trip wondering what the hell Jess knew that he wasn’t suppose to open his mouth about.

  “Jess? Finish your sentence.”

  “Oh.” He snapped out of it. “It strikes me as odd . . .” He stared at James. “That you aren’t worn.”

  “What?” James laughed.

  “Worn. Yeah.” Jess nodded. “Why don’t you appear apocalyptically worn? All of us do in a way, living in the hard world after the plague.”

  “That’s because I didn’t.”

  “What?”

  “I was cryogenically frozen about four days before the plague.”

  “No way.” Jess sat back. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “How did you get picked?”

  “They said it was a lottery. In fact, I had no idea that I was getting cryogenically frozen to be preserved to work after a plague,” James explained. “They told me I was needed for an experiment and would be heavily compensated afterward. I guess my compensation ended up being luck and life.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I’m alive, right? I was very fortunate to have been scheduled for the experiment just before the plague. That’s luck. That’s real luck. Imagine if the experiment ended right before the plague. “James whistled. “I probably would have died.”

  “Wow,” Jess said, less than enthused. “So you were just a temporary test subject who inadvertently happened to be locked in a safe place for . . .”

  “Six years. It was six years post plague that I came out. I almost died then but they gave me a serum.”

  “You don’t think they preserved you on purpose.”

  James scoffed, “What? No one knew about the plague. That was not planned. Besides, who am I? I’m a flunky. I am subject number. . .” James tossed a napkin, “CSSAP56764.” He pulled down the collar to his tee-shirt then separated some of the chest hairs just below the collar bone and exposed a tattoo. “My mark forever. My name, because when I went in, I had to turn over anything and everything that gave away my identity. I guess we were top secret.”

  “I guess. So what happened when you woke up?”

  “After I got well, I searched out my belongings which were nowhere to be found. My keys to my house, you name it, were not there. So I had to hoof it.”

  “With no problem from the Society?” Jess asked.

  “None. I was adamant about seeing for myself that my family was alive or gone. I didn’t care that they said over ninety-nine percent was gone. I didn’t care. So I went home for my wife.”

  “And?”

  “I didn’t have to look too far,” James said sadly. “She was in bed, or her body was.”

  “Then what did you do? Did you have other family?”

  “Fuck yeah,” James said, “I packed up what I could in a good old fashion huge green duffle bag. Clothes, pictures, everything and I took off. I headed north. First stop, the family home where I grew up. I thought for sure if someone survived, evidence would be there. I knew there would be . . . but nothing.”

  “Then you came back?”

  James lifted a finger. “Not yet. I still had one place left, one place within traveling distance to go to. If no one from my family was there, then I knew chances were slim that any of them survived. So I head even further north to a small town. I had nieces and nephews and a sister there, but when I got about fifty or so miles from there, I ran into Society solders. They had already cleared out the town. They even had mementoes. But there were no people.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah.” James sniffed then cleared his throat. “So am I, but enough of me. I hope I didn’t bore you with all this shit.

  “Are you kidding?” Jess asked. “Not at all. I feel like I’m talking to an old friend.”

  “Really?” James asked in a quirky way. “Why’s that. We just met.”

  “The phone calls maybe, who know, but there’s something really familiar about you. I can’t put my finger on it, but I will. “Jess smiled. “I will.”

  ^^^^

  “It seems kinda odd,” Johnny said quietly as his hand bushed across the tip of the picture frame that set on the dining room table in front of Mike.

  “What does?”

  “This is the first time I saw a picture of her in the house. Then again, it’s the first time I saw a picture of your wife.”

  “I have them,” Mike stated, “in my room.”

  “Was it all the women, Mike?” Johnny asked. “Were they all killed in the attack?”

  Mike nodded. “And the kids, except Tigger because he was small enough to hide. But when we were raided by those Savages, they got the women and kids. I know it had to cross your mind why there were no women or kids. That’s why. We aren’t Beginnings or that other town.”

  “I thought maybe you were like Bowman and my Uncle Hal. I was beginning to wonder where the House of Lesbians was.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “My Uncle Hal leads the UWA. His town has women, but he keeps them in a safe house, or rather did. They are starting to get out now, but forever they were locked away safe. They were treated like royalty.”

  “He’s smart.”

  “I don’t know how smart he would be classified. The women turned lesbian.”

  “For real?”

  “Yep.” Johnny nodded with a smile. “May I?” He asked of the picture.

  “Sure.” Mike slid it to him. “Before I put it back.”

  “She reminds me of someone I know from home.”

  “Really? Who?”

  The knock at the door interrupted them.

  Mike stood up. “I’ll be back.” He walked to, then opened the front door. “Hey, Buzz, what’s up?”

  “We’ve got a visitor at the front,” Buzz said with some concern.

  “Can you handle it?”

  “He asked for you. Not specifically, but asked to speak to the leader.”

  “Who the hell cares? Just tell him I’ll get to him later.”

  “He’s not staying.”

  “What?”

  “He’s not a straggler. He’s a messenger.”

  “A messenger?” Mike questioned. “What the fuck kind of messenger?”

  “One we may not want,” Buzz explained. “He’s a messenger from . . . the Society.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “Spare me, Ellen,” Hal opened up the truck door. “Of your poorly sung rendition of a hundred bottles of beer on the wall.” He walked over this his side of the truck.

  After gasping in offense, Ellen climbed into the truck, dragging her duffle bag with her. “I’m telling Frank you’re insulting my singing. It’s only a ten mile trip, Hal. Then again, with the way you drive, it is a long leisurely vacation.”

  Hal merely turned his head to her as
he adjusted himself. “And what is that bag doing there?”

  “Though you wear the same clothes every day, it doesn’t mean I do. It’s my change of clothes. I’m staying in Bowman tonight.”

  “Can we not insult me? I meant the bag should be in the back. We need room for Elliott.”

  “Elliott’s coming with us. Oh good!”

  Hal mocked, “Oh good.”

  “I’m telling Frank you’re mocking me. I just thought the meeting was running even later.”

  “No, they’ve finished so move over.”

  “Only if you promise not to cop a feel when you shift gears.”

  “Is one of my brothers responsible for the gutter insinuations that are coming from that mouth?”

  “Why are you in such a pissy mood?”

  “Pissy?” Hal asked.

  “Pissy.”

  “I am not pissy.”

  “Yeah, you are and I’m telling Frank. It’s a good thing Elliot’s riding with us.”

  “Yes, it is so put the bag in the back of the truck.”

  “You’ve lost all chivalry. I will tell Frank about this.” Ellen shook her head and opened up the truck door. Fully planning on getting out then grabbing her bag somehow, Ellen’s body tried to accomplish both tasks at the same time. Her foot caught in bag handle and the other leg was out of the truck. Ellen got caught up and, knees and face first, fell straight out of the truck door,.

  “Good God, Ellen.” Hal leaned over her way to help but stopped when he saw Elliott and Ellen down on the ground before him. “Hmm, you just have women falling all over you, don’t you?”

  “Are you all right?” Elliott reached down.

  “Yeah, fuckin Hal. It’s all his fault. I’m telling Frank,” Ellen groaned when she straightened up.

  “How about making a list, Ellen?” Hal suggested. “That way it will make it easier on you when you tattle on me to my big brother.”

  Ellen just spun and stared hard at Hal.

  Elliott looked at them both. “Did I miss something?”

  “Only Hal insulting me,” Ellen stated. ‘My singing. My bag. My . . .”

  “Ellen!” Hal snapped. “Can we . . . just . . .” He faked smiled. “Move on, please, thank you.”