She stared at me with a fearful look as though she was thinking about it. She then started crying, as though she could actually see it in her head. She lowered her head, and I pulled her against me and hugged her.
“I’m sorry Mia, I didn’t mean to be so graphic. I wish I could say that I was exaggerating just to shock you, but I’m not. I’ve seen it in war zones in third world countries,” I hesitated and with a sigh said, “and that’s what we’ve turned into, only worse.”
I hugged her for a few moments and then lifted her head so she could look me in the eyes.
“Listen, if things get better and we can find a SAFE way to find your parents, I give you my word, we will. But until then, you’re going to have to have some faith.”
I meant what I said, but I also knew that the odds of finding a safe way would be the same as winning Powerball.
“But can we try to see if there is anyone around them with a ham radio? If I could just get a message to them, it’d take a ton of stress off of me.”
“Red is already doing that. He just isn’t trying to get in contact with his wife and kids; he’s trying to make contact with anyone in the areas that our families are in. But until he’s able to make contact, we need you here with us,… you’re important to us,…. you’re a part of our family.”
After a long pause, she smiled a bit, “Your right Vince, I’m sorry for acting the way I was, and I know I need to apologize to everyone.”
“Well, you don’t need to say you’re sorry to me. You know, my mind hasn’t been very functional lately,” then after a pause, I said with a mumble “ but I have a way to fix that.” still with Orville in the back of my mind.
She got a puzzled look on her face, “What’s that?”
“Oh nothing, I’m just working on getting back to normal…. don’t worry about it.”
She gave me a “What are you up to?” look and asked, “You’re about to do something aren’t you?”
I gave her a quick kiss, “Don’t worry about it. Now, let’s go out to let everyone know you’re feeling better.”
Mia and I walked out and called everyone that was in the kitchen and Mia said, “I understand that I’ve been kind of a bitch lately and I wanted to say I’m sorry to all of you. Please forgive me.”
They all told her not to worry about it and that they understood. Brandy went up to Mia and gave her a big hug, “We love you, Mia. Everyone understands. We all have family that we’re worried about.”
While they were talking, I went in to see if Kim was asleep, which she was, so I told Mia that she needed to talk to her in the morning.
After a while, Brandy, Paul, Tag, and Wit all decided to hit the sack, so Mia went back to listening to the news with Mike, while I started setting up for my personal mission.
After listening to a few minutes of news, I grabbed my M-4 and told Mike and Mia that I was going to walk the inner perimeter. Mike raised a hand up indicating that he heard me as he continued to listen to the news.
I turned off the perimeter alarm and walked outside, the dogs were soon standing there wanting attention. After petting both of them, I walked out the back gate and went into the garage to pull out a bicycle that Wit had found at an abandoned house. It was an older ten speed that had flat tires, which were fixed very easily. It was hard to stay quiet, as Tag had started turning the garage into additional living quarters and there was lumber spread out all over the place.
Looking around to make sure no one was watching, I rode the bicycle out to the road about 20 yards to the west of the house and laid it in the ditch. I thought about saddling Lucky up but there was always a chance he’d make some noise, and it’s a lot harder to hide a horse than a bicycle.
I walked back around the house to the storage shed and grabbed my bug-out bag and took it over to our bedroom window.
I then walked back into the house and reached into a wood trunk that we had close to the door, for storing gloves, hats, etc. I grabbed a package of zip cuffs that I’d bought a few years earlier, in case we ever caught someone out here up to no good. With the sheriff department being 30 minutes out, I didn’t want to worry about how to keep someone restrained.
I turned the perimeter alarm back on and told Mike and Mia that I was going to bed. Mike raised his hand up as though he was saying ok but Mia gave me a strange look, which I ignored and headed to the bedroom.
Mia whispered, “I think your dad’s up to something.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Oh, just a feeling and when he was talking to me earlier, he said he was working on a way to get back to normal.”
Mike sat there for a moment thinking.
“Well, don’t worry about it. I’m sure he isn’t talking about anything drastic.”
Mike knew me, and he knew my head would be jacked up for a while and he knew sooner or later I was going to want to find Orville. Heck, everybody wanted to find him, and Mike figured that we’d go up as a squad or in force. He thought to himself, “Surely, he isn’t planning on doing something by himself.”
Then more reports came on about Israel, so he put the thought out of his head and concentrated on the news.
I, on the other hand, snuck into our bedroom, making sure that I didn’t wake up Kim. I grabbed my Glock 22 and the spare magazines and grabbed two extra magazines for my M-4. I laid on the bed and held Kim for several minutes. She snuggled up against me like she always does and I was hoping she was in a deep enough sleep that she didn’t realize that the blankets were between us. After rubbing on her back for a while, I gave her a kiss on the back and got up. I reached into my drawer and grabbed two pain pills and dropped them in my pocket. I slowly raised one of the windows and the screen and lowered my equipment to the ground. I climbed out of the window, trying to get my gut through without waking Kim up. As I was climbing out, both Cash and Duke came running up to me, of course making it more difficult to get out and as big as they are, they aren’t the quietest dogs in the world.
Once I made it out, I strapped on my bug-out-bag and snuck out to the bike and pushed it into Aker’s soybean field. I decided to cross part of the soybean field diagonally so that those manning the roadblock wouldn't spot me. You’d be surprised how much noise soybeans make, especially when you’re pushing a bike through them. I had to go slow so the noise wouldn’t be noticed, but it didn’t matter as I had all night.
Once I made it to the road, out of sight of the roadblock crew and the Akers, I jumped on the bike and headed north. It had been several years since I had ridden a ten-speed bicycle, so it took a lot of trial and error to remember how to work the gears. Plus having my bug-out-bag on my back didn’t make it any easier.
Riding through Pine City was a little bit of a worry, but I rode through without seeing anyone. The main road curved to the west on the north side of the town but I continued north on a gravel road. About a quarter mile from the house that Santiago said Orville and Avery had gone to, I hid the bike in some high grass and entered the pasture that was across the road from the house. I walked east into the field about two hundred yards before I started walking back north in the direction that the house was. That way, when I was approaching the house, it would be in front of me at all times.
I’ve always had great night vision, and even though the moon was not out, I could see the outline of the house. When I got parallel to it, I slowly started walking towards it. I could see what looked like a couple of oil lamps downstairs and one upstairs and they all seemed to be on low. Anyone that’s had to use oil lamps as a primary lighting source for a while knows to leave specific lamps burning where the wick is just high enough to where it stays lit. That way, if you had to get up in the middle of the night, you didn’t have to worry about lighting them; all you had to do was raise the wick. Even being on low, as dark as it was, the slight glow from the lamps really stood out.
As I walked west towards the house, I could see something sitting out in the field about twenty-five yards from the road. As I ap
proached it, I could tell it was an oblong 300-gallon stock tank for watering livestock and at the end of the tank was an old style well hand pump. I looked around, and this was the best cover there was as I was about 50 yards from the house. As long as no one came out to get water, it would be an ideal stakeout position, at least for this last minute plan. There was a small space between the tank and the well pump pipe that I could look through, but at a distance, unless someone was using binoculars, I wouldn’t be noticed.
I took off my bug-out-bag, and after watching the house for at least 30-minutes, I pulled out the camo tarp I had in the bag and laid it out. That way I could use half to lay on and the other half as a type of blanket. I then set up the bag itself to use as a pillow. As quiet as it was, moving much on the tarp made a lot of noise, but then I realized that anyone at a distance wouldn’t be able to hear it as long as I at least tried to be careful. I laid back staring at the stars and got ready for the morning, praying that Orville and Avery were there.
Chapter Six
While lying there, I thought about how much everything had changed in such a short time. America used to be the symbol of strength. Since World War II, no one would’ve had the guts to attack us in this fashion. Sure, there had been terror attacks, but even 9/11 was small scale compared to this.
We did it to ourselves though. The American public lets a fringe group of the left grow into a very influential power. They had Hollywood in their pocket, and through television sitcoms, late night talk shows, and movies, everyone was slowly brainwashed to accept being controlled. They were told what to think, what’s acceptable, what to wear, and to a certain extent, that God was a myth. And they usually did it through television series. They’d use the most popular shows to push their agendas, and once the public kept hearing something over and over, they started accepting it without even realizing it.
Shows like Saturday Night Live would put on skits that would make anyone that didn’t go along with the far-left socialist agenda, look very stupid. It didn’t matter if the person was moderate or conservative; if they didn’t go along with the left, they would ridicule them by making them look like idiots.
At the same time, you wouldn’t rarely, if ever, see them do the same thing to a liberal.
I remember an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, called, “Who Watches the Watchers, and the whole message in the story was how dangerous it is to believe in a Supreme Being and that belief in God came from myth. That’s a perfect example of how the left uses Hollywood to subconsciously brainwash so many.
I then laughed to myself as I realized that if all of a sudden the left wanted to push the agenda of beastiality, they’d start putting people on comedy series that like having sex with livestock but they’d make them so funny and entertaining. Then all the reality shows would have several contestants that were into it and may even let them bring their cow on the show. I realized how stupid that thought was, but it is a perfect example of how Hollywood brainwashes people to accept things.
Another example is when the far-left decided to start attacking Fox News. They found out early that Fox News wouldn’t be in their pocket, like so many of the networks and other cable news services are. Fox is well known for giving all the real news and on most of the commentary shows, they usually have a representative from both parties to give their opinion. That’s why they came up with the slogan, “Fair and Balanced.”
The left wants to control the news, though. There are certain stories they didn’t want revealed and they like pushing a lot of fake news to try and draw the attention away from the American people. Fox would have no part of that. So over the years, the left started a strategic attack against Fox New, convincing people that they weren’t legitimate news.
So, Hollywood would actually start making comments against Fox News on television dramas. On the original “Law and Order,” they had one of the main stars make comments in the television show how dangerous the commentators were.
On the series, “West Wing,” when they would mention Fox News, it was only to take jabs at them.
Then soon, late night talk show hosts would start making some occasional snide remarks and jokes directed at Fox News.
After hearing it for so long, a lot of viewers started believing it. Fox still had more viewers than all the other cable news services combined, but how many did Hollywood and the left convince to only watch the network news that they could keep a handle on?
Another stunt by Hollywood was when ABC canceled the very popular comedy series, “Last Man Standing,” with Tim Allen. It had the second highest comedy rating for any comedy on ABC and the third highest rating for all scripted shows. Why did they cancel it? Because of Tim Allen’s character conservative views. His character had common sense beliefs that were very popular with the heartland of America. Hollywood and the left couldn’t handle that.
Then you have the big Tech companies that were controlled by the left. Being in control of Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Instagram, they control what’s allowed to be posted and they’re well known for banning or deleting conservative and religious viewpoints. Even the news headlines they display are biased towards the far-left message.
Even companies like Amazon that control one of the largest book distributing companies was ran by a big supporter of Prescott. The Kindle and paperback review team was well known for having double standards with book reviews. If a liberal writer wrote a book, you could only write a review if you actually read the book, and that’s the way it should be. But, when a conservative writer wrote one, they would allow anyone to write a review, even if they admitted they didn’t read it.
I remember right before the primary season, when Bentley had written a book, and there were two or three news stories reporting that the Amazon review team was removing most of the negative reviews that she received on her book. When questioned by the few news agencies that reported the story, all the review team said in their statement was that they didn’t make comments about their review process.
When you control the press, social media, and Hollywood, whether you hold the majority in the government or not, it doesn’t matter; you control a lot of the information that is being given to the American people. They used deception and intimidation to try and control what people think, do, and say.
Mia is another good example. In Hollywood, she had to pretend to agree with the far left and preach the propaganda, or she couldn’t find work. After faking it for so long though, she slowly started accepting some of the ideas herself. After you hear it for so long, you start accepting it.
Another reason that society is the way it is, is the way many of us raise our children nowadays. A perfect example is how out of guilt, I felt I had to spoil Paul due to my divorce and look what happened to him. He got involved in drugs and ended up in prison.
God said in the Bible, “Spare the rod, spoil the child,” which meant if you don’t discipline your children when they choose to do wrong, they’ll grow up not showing respect and thinking everything should be given to them. The far-left stepped in and convinced people that you should let your children make their own choices, once again, trying to take God’s teaching out of the home. Now, we have a whole generation that wants everything given to them. They feel if someone has more than them, they should get part of it, without earning it. That it is owed to them.
I remember last Christmas seeing a commercial on television for the leading cell phone company. Its message was basically, “If you didn’t get exactly what you wanted for Christmas, we know what you’re feeling. Come on in as we have what you really want.” What a shameful commercial. They had forgotten or didn’t care that Christmas was supposed to be about giving, not getting. The left was doing its best to forbid everyone from talking about the fact that Christmas was the celebration of Christ’s birth. Oh, you're not supposed to talk about that any longer. But now, Christmas is about getting what you want. And if many people didn’t get what they wanted, they’d have a fit or feel sorry
for themselves. The saddest part is we’re all guilty of it. We’ve become such a self-centered society, and it seems like very few objected to Christ being taken out of the equation.
Even the conservatives started accepting a lot of these philosophies over the years. One example is how they let the left start distorting what the separation of church and state really meant. The words Separation of Church and State aren’t in the Constitution. That was another myth that people were brainwashed with. Separation of Church and State is something Thomas Jefferson wrote to a Baptist church twelve years after the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights were ratified.
What the Constitution does say is that the government shall make no law “respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” In other words, they can’t establish a certain denomination as a national religion, and they’re prohibited from making laws against religion. That’s exactly what the left and ACLU tries to do.
It’s a continuing effort to put God out of our lives and when the nation as a whole accepts that, the nation as a whole pays the price.
I was raised to love my country and always have. I fought for it for seventeen years and then served for five more as a police officer. But anymore, I honestly believe that we deserve whatever happens to us.
Even the way they’ve watered down religion, and it’s many of the churches that have done it. People think all they have to do is say they accept Christ as their savior, get baptized and then they’re covered. They feel they can do whatever they want then. Some think they don’t have to really change their behavior because, they think, from that point on, they’re automatically forgiven, no matter how they act. They think they can ignore their own sins but turnaround and judge everyone else for theirs. They say all you need is faith. They seem to forget what James said, in James 2:14, that “faith without works is dead.”
Into the Apocalypse Page 7
