War Zone: Homefront

by Thomas A. Watson

  With a cringe, Amanda stuttered, “Ah, uh, the house wasn’t in very good shape. Looked like they’d been attacked. Nathan was not happy.”

  “Did you see any of the people there?” Shane Bertram asked. He was the younger of Rusty’s two boys and while he was nearly the same height as his older sibling, he looked like a stiff wind might blow him away. “Any of their kids, I mean?”

  “Aw, Shane, are you still sweet on Sharla?” Gina Conklin teased, and then sat back a bit when Amanda flashed her a warning glance.

  They might be the same age, but there was just something about Amanda. She wasn’t that big, though her slender build made her seem taller than her actual height. No, it wasn’t necessarily a physical threat, but in the primitive part of her brain, Gina recognized Amanda as someone not to be trifled with. Someone dangerous.

  “Sorry, Shane,” John broke in with his answer. “We didn’t see anybody but the sheriff and a few of his deputies. I know they’ve taken in some women and children from town. I heard Nathan say something about one of the dispatchers. She didn’t make it, but the sheriff managed to get her child out, at least.”

  “I feel so bad for them,” Gina said in a near whisper, her earlier teasing attitude gone. “The people in town, I mean. I wish there was something more we could’ve done for them.”

  “They tried,” Robin piped up again. Not one for video games, she was instead searching through a box of books she’d slid out from under her older brother’s bed. Looking up, Robin caught Gina’s eye and continued, her tone serious. “I know my dad, all yours, and Nathan, tried to get the other deputies to join in here. I know the supply buy-in wasn’t cheap, but our family managed it. So what, if we didn’t get a ski boat, or go on a Caribbean cruise every year? Our parents made the sacrifice and begged them to do the same.”

  “All right,” Tyler interjected, holding up a hand and finally getting drawn into the conversation. As the oldest of the ‘Little Posse’, he often found himself playing peacemaker in their little group. “I agree. I wish we could’ve done more, but you can’t sit here feeling guilty about it. Soon enough, we’ll get our chance to help out. I know they won’t be letting us go out to fight, but we can still man the security bunker here and take watches up on the bluffs. That’ll free up more of the grown-ups to fight.”

  “Uh, when Nathan goes to fight,” John started, then paused, looking around. All of Nathan’s kids already knew, but he didn’t want to cause problems later. “I’m going with him.”

  “Me, too,” Amanda added, her own eyes like a hawk’s while she watched the reactions of the others.

  Tyler sat back, bumping the television with his sudden move, while shaking his head in denial.

  “John, no offense, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. I’ve had more training than anybody else here, and I don’t think my dad’s going to let me go with them.”

  John smiled his easy smile and patted Tyler on the back.

  “Tyler, I get what you’re saying, but that’s the way it has to be. I’m not saying I’m ready to head out tomorrow because I know I still need some training, but Nathan’s already given me his word. When he goes to war, I’m going with him. I’ve seen what happens if you don’t fight evil away from your home.”

  “And me, but that’s it,” Amanda added, her look daring anybody to dispute her. Of course, nobody but Natalie and Casey were willing to buck her pronouncement.

  “If you’re going, then so am I!” Natalie cried, her features clouded with emotion.

  “Me, too!” Casey exclaimed. “I might not be able to use that stupid pistol good, but I can still use my rifle.”

  “Whoa,” Tyler said, again shaking his head. “John, if Nathan agreed you could go with him, then I know he’ll keep his word. As for you ladies, again, I’m not trying to be sexist, but I don’t see Nathan going along with this plan. Do you want to know why?”

  “Because he loves us,” Casey said softly, bowing her head as she spoke. Tears formed in her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. “When he thought Amanda and I were…when he saw us get shot, something changed in Nathan. It was like his soul was bleeding.”

  “That’s what I meant,” Tyler said. “You are his kids. I can see it in the way he looks at you, just like the way my mom and dad watch me and Robin. I can’t imagine how hard it was for you guys to get here, but now that you’re somewhere Nathan thinks of as safe, it would be a terrible distraction for you to go back out with him again.”

  “That’s why the military won’t let siblings serve in the same unit,” Randal piped up. “Dad has a brother just eighteen months younger than him, and they both went into the Army to become Military Policemen. When Uncle Sammy joined up, they never even got stationed at the same base.”

  “Where’s your uncle now? If it’s okay to ask, I mean,” John queried. Even after his interaction with Nathan and the rest of their crew, John still felt a bit apprehensive with new people.

  “I don’t see why not,” Randal replied. “He was working for the U.S. Marshal’s service after he got out. He worked out of the office in Portland, but there’s no telling where he might’ve been when all this happened. All we can do is pray for him.”

  “Well, I want to talk about something else,” Tyler said, breaking in and trying to raise the declining mood. He knew everybody likely had some friends or relatives they worried over, but sitting here stewing didn’t help. “Who’s going to take me on at Blast Dropout? Fair warning, folks, I’m pretty good.”

  “I’m out,” Robin said quickly. “I’m tired of getting my butt kicked at that game. Any takers?”

  “I’ll give it a go,” Amanda chimed in, ready for the challenge. “Now, what do I do? Is this like a mouse?”

  While Amanda and the rest of the kids occupied themselves in Tyler’s room, the adults were gathered out on the patio exchanging stories about how their day had gone. Nathan, having cooled off from his earlier anger, proved to be in a much-improved mood.

  None of the men seemed to notice, but at various times, Libby, Janice, and Penny cast curious looks at a slightly blushing Jasmine, while Sherry just sat there rocking Nolan with a Cheshire cat smile on her face. She knew where the two had spent their afternoon.

  “I’m telling you, Bill, that little firecracker outdrew Mack like he was standing still,” Rusty declared, spinning out the conclusion of his tale like they were sitting around a campfire instead of clustered around the grill. “And her language! Man, that Amanda could make a sailor blush without working up a sweat. But boy, I tell ya, she had that grown man buffaloed.”

  “She’s really that good with her pistol?” Aiden asked, and he paused to take a sip of his coffee.

  “She can hit what she’s aiming at,” Nathan confirmed. “And she doesn’t know fear. Jasmine’s the same way. John’s better with a rifle, though. The others are still learning.”

  “Well, they all did good at the range today,” Bill allowed, falling into his range officer role. “Followed instructions better than most adults, and hit their targets fine. Could stand some more work with their speed, and we didn’t really get into transitions this time.”

  “Would she have shot Mack if he’d gone for his pistol?” Janice’s question brought all eyes to Nathan, who replied without hesitation.

  “Definitely. You have to understand,” Nathan paused now, trying to find the right words to describe what he’d experienced. “I know you guys have had it rough here, but out there, where we’ve been, there’s only you, your friends, and valid targets. If Amanda judged Mack as a valid target, she would’ve killed him with no more hesitation than you or Rusty would give shooting a rattlesnake.”

  Janice tried to hide a shiver as she digested this news. Looking away, she saw where Chip and Emma were playing. She noticed that while the little girl seemed happy to be digging up tiny shovelfuls of sand in the sandbox, Chip was otherwise occupied with chasing Ares around the fenced-in yard.

  “He still hasn’t spoken?” J
anice asked, her voice shadowed with concern. Jasmine followed her eyes and shook her head. Nathan watched the interplay and added his own thoughts.

  “He will when he’s ready. We keep him fed and safe, and let him know somebody cares about him.”

  Jasmine nodded, thinking back to the freezing little boy Nathan had rescued from the flood. He’d only been wearing a pair of filthy underpants, and the only way they’d known his name was from checking the waistband to see where someone, likely a loving mother, had written his name.

  “He’s already come a long way,” Jasmine said. “He’ll say something in his own time.”

  Sensing the mood shifting, Rusty decided to change the subject and broach a topic Nathan had only hinted at before. “You said you had something you wanted to discuss with us, Nathan. Is now a good time?”

  Nathan nodded, taking a quick glance around the group before opening his mouth.

  “You guys heard how I reacted at seeing the house,” he started, ducking his head sheepishly. “And I want to apologize to you, Rusty, and to you as well, Tim.”

  Nathan looked around again, meeting the eye of each man in turn. “I know you men have a high opinion of Sheriff Hargrove, and usually I think he’s a decent guy, for a politician. But I was just so angry when I saw what’d happened to the place, I lost my cool.”

  “Nathan, if I knew what was going to happen…” Tim started, but Nathan held up a hand to his friend.

  “Tim, don’t worry about it. If you hadn’t let them stay, the whole place would likely be nothing but cinders now. I was just upset at the time. Seeing the damage. Then, when I saw that little girl, and I heard what the sheriff had to say, I just couldn’t follow through with my threat.”

  “I understand,” Rusty said. “When I saw what those animals did to my place, I wanted to bust some heads.”

  “Well, on the way back from town, I’ve been thinking. What could we do to help? Even if we wanted to, we couldn’t support all of them here. But…”

  “What’re you thinking?” Jasmine prompted, when Nathan became lost in thought.

  “Well, before we can do anything, we need to take this to Vince and the rest of the board,” Nathan said, still making calculations in his head.

  “For what? You still haven’t said what you had in mind, Nathan. Use your words,” Rusty chided, and Jasmine wanted to pat the older man on the head for saying what she was thinking.

  “Oh,” Nathan mumbled, then looked around again. “Sheriff Hargrove said he had a bunch of women and children they’d rescued, along with their own families holding out at my folks’ place. I was just thinking, since Jeremey and Vickie are stuck out of town, they wouldn’t mind if we temporarily moved some or all of those dependents over there.”

  The silence that followed made Nathan wonder if he’d misjudged his friends, but then Rusty bit back a curse as he looked at his wife, and Aiden walked over to rest his palm on Penny’s shoulder. Bill, standing there with the spatula in hand, didn’t even have to look at Janice before answering for the group.

  Enunciating slowly at first before speaking normally, Bill chimed in, “We. Are. Idiots. Of course, you should take this to Vince to raise at the next meeting. This would be a perfect use for that monstrosity.”

  Nathan gave a nervous chuckle as he sat back in his wrought iron patio chair. Jasmine beamed, taking her man’s left hand into her own and kissing the knuckles, but gave her man a curious look.

  “What’s wrong with Jeremey’s house?” she asked cautiously, still feeling the waters.

  “Jeremey was one of the original investors in the retreat,” Rusty supplied, getting into the story as he told it. “He bought the only house on the property at the time, that three-story Victorian some banker back east thought would make for a wonderful resort hotel. As you can guess, the front Victorian is just a facade. The rest burrows back into the mountain like ours. That banker bought the land sight unseen, and had the house built based on pictures the real estate agent sent him. That agent got her commission all right, and the banker spent a fortune trucking in the building supplies, but never bothered to check for little things like utilities or road access.”

  “Took ‘em a year to build it, sandwiched between the winters,” Bill tossed in, not to be outdone in the storytelling department.

  “Just about the time the last of the sod was laid, the Market Correction in ‘87 wiped out the banker, or so the story goes. Anyway, he ended up losing the property as part of the bankruptcy,” Rusty continued, not missing a beat. “When Jeremey saw the thing, he wasn’t just impressed with the house itself, but also the mountains all around and the valley. He approached Vince and some others, and the development corporation was born.”

  “It was Vince who came up with the idea for Bedrock City,” Aiden added for good measure. Seeing the lost expression on Jasmine’s face, the deputy just waved away the comment for later explanation.

  “Anyway, that big old mansion, well, really it’s more like a fancy motel, was where the first settlers lived when we were carving out the rock houses,” Rusty continued, smirking at Aiden as he spoke. “Jeremey and Vickie continued to live there even after the rock houses were completed, on account of Vickie’s claustrophobia. The mess hall, barns, and Heath and Joan’s house came after we finished the excavations.”

  “So you think Vince and the board will approve?” Nathan asked hopefully.

  “If it was just outsiders, I don’t rightly know,” Rusty admitted. “But with at least some of the refugees being the wives and children of other deputies, and some orphans in the mix, I can’t see Vince turning them away.”

  “That would be a good deal,” Nathan said, then he continued laying out his plan. “If we can free up some manpower, once we clean up this gang problem, maybe Sheriff Hargrove and the other surviving deputies can get back to the job of protecting the area again. I say, we insist that’ll be the cost of our aid.”

  “Isn’t that kind of cold, Nathan? I mean, are we holding their families hostage for them continuing to do their jobs?”

  Nathan regarded his friend for a long moment, his smile from earlier fading.

  “The world has turned into a real cold place these last few months, Bill. You’ve heard the broadcasts from FU-GMAN and witnessed the violence around here, but I pray you never have to walk over bodies piled up like discarded ragdolls.”

  Nathan’s voice caught at the end, and Jasmine knew he was thinking of the massacred women and children they’d passed on the road, gunned down by either their own troops or foreign hirelings. She sat carefully in Nathan’s lap, straddling his hips until her forehead pressed gently into his. From the look on his face, Jasmine worried he might be approaching another migraine from the stress.

  “UNC BIWIE!”

  The shouted exclamation caught everyone off-guard, causing long-time parents to instinctively cast about for their little terrors. Nathan and Jasmine, despite being still new to the parenting business, immediately knew the source of the imperious voice.

  “UNC BIWIE, UP!” Emma shouted again, straining her little body with her arms raised to the heavens. Clearly, Emma’s vocabulary was expanding, as were her demands.

  Bill and Janice Engvist had two sons more than half-grown, but had never experienced the joys of raising a little girl. So, frozen by the sudden outburst, the couple just stared at the tiny child at their feet.

  “I think she wants you to pick her up, Uncle Billy,” Nathan choked out the words over his growing laugh.

  “Grrrr… Nathan, you know I hate that name,” Bill ground out, his lips drawn back in a remarkably good impression of Emma’s own tortured-looking grin as he looked down at the little girl. He was trying to play nice for the tot, but he really wanted to chase Nathan around the yard like Chip was doing with Ares.

  “Oh, lighten up, Francis,” Aiden quipped, again referencing a movie that went completely over Jasmine’s frame of reference. In one part of his mind, Nathan took note and resolved to fix some of that
ignorance with the next movie night.

  “Well, you’d better pick her up quick, before she starts having to flex her mental powers,” Tim chimed in, fighting to suppress his own laughter. “Nathan is convinced that little one can put thoughts in his head.”

  “Oh, she can,” Nathan added. “And not just her. The other ones can, too.”

  “What other ones?” Janice asked, sharing a wink with Libby and Penny as she prodded. “The other kids you brought back with you?”

  “Uh-huh, but just the little girls,” Nathan continued. “Amanda and Casey. Natalie, too, but she doesn’t use her powers as often. Not Jasmine, though. She’s all grown up. Seems to have outgrown that ability.”

  “Uh-huh,” Bill remained noncommittal as he scooped up the little child, who now proceeded to jabber away in her own language. Whatever she was saying, Bill noticed Nathan seemed to be paying close attention. Whatever, Bill thought, mentally forgiving the child for using the name he detested. He knew he only had Nathan to thank for that little gift.

  “No, I can’t seem to mentally convey my wishes into that thick head of his,” Jasmine confided, “but I’ve learned to get my point across in other ways.”

  “Yes, ma’am!” Nathan all but shouted, grinning like a fool, and that was the last straw.

  When Natalie and Gina came out to check on the food, the two girls couldn’t figure out why the adults were all laughing hysterically. It wasn’t like they had YouTube to watch anymore.

  “Man, grown-ups are just weird,” Gina observed, and Natalie just nodded, unknowingly repeating the boys’ recent observations on the matter.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Nathan felt better after sharing charred meat with his posse, and over the next few days, he took the time to seek out each one of the council members to request a meeting in the dining hall. Well, all except Anita and her husband. He delegated that odious task to Vince, but then, that’s why he was president of the association.

  After dinner, folks started filing out and Nathan’s posse came by, one by one, to wish him luck with his proposal, but each one knew getting the council to make a quick decision was low. Not that any of them, except for the Gasmeyers, would be opposed to extending a helping hand, but the key lay in getting something done in a hurry. Vince took his responsibilities seriously as head of the community, and he would want to take his time in considering the proposal and all the likely ramifications.