It was always a relief when Oliver did the government sweeps through the neighborhood. Years ago, when he discovered May and CJ’s thirty “friends” he somehow decided they were a peaceful clan. Peaceful or not, he should have arrested them all. But he didn’t. Now he wasn’t just their protector, he’d become their friend as well—or at least Carrie’s friend since the shy patrolman mostly spoke to her. Half the time, she didn’t even know when he searched the empty homes for other squatters they didn’t know about since he stopped bringing the dogs with him. Yes, life could be a lot more miserable without Oliver.
“We just had a great dinner,” she said. “Would you like some?”
“Yes…but no.”
She nodded. Oliver’s social phobias weren’t helped by the fact that most the people in the Trenton home despised what he did. They didn’t trust anyone who had aligned themselves with the new government. President Rigsby had given patrolmen too much power to destroy their lives.
“I…” Oliver played with a button on his green uniform. “I brought something today. For Zach.”
“Really?” That was a first.
“For his birthday. It’s just a shirt, but I thought maybe…” He shrugged again.
Zach’s birthday had been a few days earlier, but Carrie couldn’t remember telling Oliver about it. Zach would be thrilled since the only shirt that fit him had a growing hole in the corner.
“It’s on your porch. I hope it fits.” His gray eyes flickered to her. “Sometimes it’s hard to tell…”
She waited for him to finish his thought. When he didn’t, she smiled.
“I’m sure it will. Thank you. Zach will be excited.”
A cool breeze had blown in after the storm. Carrie hugged herself, relieved the whole card thing had cleared up so easily. Oliver really was a good man.
“I…I put something in there for you, too,” he said.
“You did?”
All of a sudden, he was backing up as his explanation came out in a rush. “It’s just clothes in a sack—a white sack—but I’d better go now because it’s late, and I need to work because I have a lot to do, so I hope they fit, but if not, let me know and I can get different ones because it wouldn’t be a problem to get different ones if you need. Bye, Carrie.”
By the time he finished his run-on sentence, he was to his patrol car.
“Thanks!” she called.
For whatever it was.
He yanked open his door but didn’t get in, as if deliberating. Oliver wasn’t the type to be pushed, so she waited.
“Any direct relatives of homeowners are eligible for full citizenship,” he finally said.
She rocked back. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. If CJ’s family can show proof of kinship, like a birth certificate or something, and if they agree to stay here permanently, sign a waiver, and pay their taxes, they should be able to get yellow cards as well.”
With that shocking bit of news, Oliver got in his patrol car and drove away.
Carrie couldn’t believe it. May was going to flip. Heck, the whole clan would. Yellow cards for Mariah and Greg? Not only were they not getting arrested, with cards like that, they never would.
She ran all the way inside where the tension was thick in the air. CJ met her at the door with Greg on his heels. She spoke to the younger of the two.
“Oliver doesn’t need to see your cards,” she said.
“But…” Greg looked outside. “How’d you get him to change his mind?”
“Because she’s Carrie!” May said, clapping her hands.
“And because he’s Oliver,” someone sneered behind them. Probably Jeff Kovach, who not only hated Oliver, but called him a coward as well.
Mariah gave Carrie a quick hug. “Thank you, darlin’. I’m not sure what we woulda done. Greg and I had been so careful up until today, but I figured once we got here we’d be safe.”
“No harm done. Actually,” Carrie said, “I have more news. Oliver said you and Greg can apply for citizenship.”
Mariah’s brows shot up. “You don’t mean…?”
Carrie smiled. “As long as you can prove your relationship to May and CJ, you should be able to get your yellow cards. You didn’t happen to bring your birth certificates, did you?”
Mariah’s emerald eyes turned to liquid. “Greg made us go back to the house. When we snuck out of that municipality, he made us go back.” She laid a hand on his clean-shaven cheek. “How’d you know?”
Greg shrugged, still watching Carrie. For the first time since meeting him, he wasn’t glaring at her. “Somebody said it might be a possibility. Once we got here, I figured we could try. But, well…it’s nice to know for sure.”
“Nice?” his grandma cried. “It’s wonderful!”
The negative charge dissipated in the room. Oliver had saved them yet again.
Carrie shrugged out of her coat, hung it on her usual hook, and turned for the kitchen table out of habit. Thankfully she caught herself. She didn’t belong at that table anymore. CJ and May had family now. Real family.
“What about taxes?” Greg asked, still behind her.
“Oh, yeah,” Carrie said. “Oliver said you’d have to pay some taxes, but he didn’t say how much. I assume it’s the same as May and CJ.”
Mariah turned to her dad. “Aren’t taxes through the roof? Can you afford two more people?”
“No!” Jeff Kovach called out. “CJ’s money is already stretched thin.”
May whirled around. “Hush up, Jeff. This is none of your affair. If anyone gets our money, it’s our own flesh and blood.”
Jeff folded his arms. “The day you run out of money is the day we don’t have a place to hide. The government is itching to get the last home in the subdivision. You have to consider the rest of us, too.”
“He’s right, Ma,” Mariah said. “Y’all can’t even afford to turn on your lights, let alone pay dues for two more people. No, it’s fine. Greg and I won’t be takin’ what’s not ours. Bein’ here with you is good enough.”
CJ wrapped an arm around his daughter’s shoulders. “We have money enough. You two go get your citizenship.”
“But—”
CJ put a finger on her lips. “No fighting me on this one. It’s done.” Then he looked at Carrie. “Did Oliver mention when the sweep is this week?”
Greg’s hand shot out and grabbed Carrie’s arm so fast, she jumped. “He tells you when the raids are?”
“Sweeps,” Carrie corrected for the hundredth time in her life. Or at least that’s what the patrolmen called looking for illegals, vagrants, or any of the other choice names they used. Sadly, that described half of America’s dwindling population, and that half of the population called what they did ‘raids’ since more often than not, they took whatever they found.
She pulled free of Greg.
“Oliver stops by each Thursday to tell us if there is a government sweep. He’s scheduled for the one this Saturday, so we’ll stay home while he searches the other homes,” she said. “When he can’t come, we cram in here like we did that first year and hide from the other patrolmen.”
“Oliver has been an invaluable friend to our community,” CJ said loud enough more than Greg could hear. “We should never forget that.”
“Yeah, but can he be trusted?” Greg pressed.
Carrie fought the urge to snap at him. “We haven’t posted a guard in four years. Does that answer your question?”
Greg looked her over head to toe as if seeing her for the first time. “Wow. This is quite the setup y’all got here.”
She forced a smile. “Yes, it is. Welcome to Logan Pond.”
eight
“IF I’D KNOWN HOW COLD Illinois was,” Greg grumbled, “I never woulda come.”
Greg’s mom pushed her hood back as they made the two-mile walk into town. “Quit your grouchin’. You just need to get some meat back on those bones.”
Speaking of meat, Greg wasn’t getting that anytime soon either. Appa
rently, the clan didn’t always eat so abundantly. His stomach groaned on cue. That’s what an egg and a slice of bread did to a man. True, sleeping on a mattress had been nice. He’d slept four straight hours. But still, as they traipsed through deserted woods, frozen corn fields, and an old abandoned golf course, the snowflakes swirled around his face and the grass crunched under his frozen feet. His toes felt like ice blocks, an all-too-familiar feeling.
He swatted the snow. “Not that bad? It’s snowing and it’s mid-March. March! It’s probably summer back home.”
“It’s barely snowing,” his mom said, “and this is home now.”
Home.
That shut him up.
It was crazy to make this four-mile round trip into town, especially in a snowstorm. He knew why he was going. Cards. Anything to save them from another scare was worth any trip anywhere. Almost as enticing was getting out of his grandparents’ house for a few hours.
Coming north, his mom wanted to hop clans and meet up with other people. Greg had refused. Too many chances for discovery, too many government spies. But he didn’t realize how antisocial he’d become until he spent a day with thirty loud, overbearing people. Add to it the hours since then that he’d endured his grandma rambling off every detail about every person in the clan—including an hour-long monologue about her beloved Carrie—and he was ready to pull out his hair. When his grandpa offered to show them the way to Downtown Shelton, Greg convinced him they didn’t need help. He craved the solitude he’d come to depend on. But his mom could have talked him out of this trip with a plea for better weather. After all, they’d just walked a thousand miles. It was crazy to turn around and voluntarily walk four more. But, bad weather or not, she didn’t want to wait. She never did, which was why they arrived in March and not June.
“Besides the snow,” she said, “what’d you think of it so far?”
“I’ve been to Grandma’s before,” he said. “I remember it just fine.”
“That’s not what I meant. What do you think of the clan? The setup? Gettin’ legal? Other than mouthin’ off to that poor girl yesterday, you’ve been awful quiet.”
“I wasn’t mouthin’ off.”
She eyed him. “Don’t you go defendin’ that behavior. One of these days, you’re gonna learn to keep quiet until you got somethin’ nice to say. You owe Carrie an apology. Several apologies, actually.”
He pulled out a small piece of paper, his map of sorts. Interpreting his grandpa’s chicken scratch was a challenge. They were taking a back route into town with no trail whatsoever. According to his grandpa, Shelton once had around 18,000 residents. It now had 224 official citizens—soon to be 226.
Hopefully.
Once he got the paper facing the right way, he pointed to the left. “I think we gotta head that way. Grandpa said we’d crest a small hill before comin’ into town.”
“Greg…” his mom said in her you-better-agree-with-me-before-I-start-one-of-my-lectures voice. “Tell me you’re gonna apologize to Carrie.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
After eight months trekking north, he and his mom had a relationship akin to conjoined twins. He bossed her around, and she obeyed. She bossed him around, and he obeyed—mostly. It was the only way to survive twenty-four-seven life together. Besides, he’d already decided to apologize the second Carrie’s boyfriend showed up. Ticking off a friend of a patrolman wasn’t a good idea, but especially a girlfriend. Had Carrie only mentioned her relationship earlier, Greg would have never told her off. That’s what he got for listening to his grandma. Although, in all fairness, he hadn’t given Carrie a chance to explain.
Oliver’s girlfriend definitely needed an apology.
Still, something didn’t sit right in his gut.
“Do you seriously trust that Oliver guy? Or all this?” he said, waving the map. “One little slip of that patrolman’s tongue, and the whole clan’s dead.”
“They all trust him,” she said. “Why shouldn’t we?”
“It’s like trustin’ a rattlesnake if you ask me. They gotta know he could strike at any time.”
His mom eyed him. “Not everybody in the new government is bad, son. Maybe this clan found a way to beat the new system.”
“Yeah. It’s called sleepin’ with the enemy.”
She slapped his coat. “Hush! That’s not true, and you know it.”
It was completely true, and he knew it. Why else would Oliver help the clan? Stuff like that happened all the time now. But if his mom and grandma wanted to turn a blind eye to Carrie’s relationship, he wouldn’t burst their little bubble. In the meantime, Oliver’s girlfriend definitely needed an apology. Soon, if possible. Because card or no card, citizenship or not, an angry patrolman could destroy anybody’s life.
His mom rubbed her hands together and cleared her scratchy throat. In another minute, she’d start coughing. With temperatures this low, if she started coughing, she wouldn’t stop. Greg slowed down.
“So…” she said, “you never said if you like it here.”
He watched the snowflakes blow around them. Pleasantly cool, my foot! Yet in the same frozen breath, he would take cold freedom over hiding in the heat any day. His mom had a place to sleep, food in her belly, and the chance to quit looking over her shoulder. Plus, she was reunited with her parents. Her happiness made all the risks and losses worth it.
“I like it good enough,” he said.
She peeked at him around her hood. “Good enough to stay?”
He stopped and looked at her. “Yeah. Why wouldn’t I?”
“‘Cause I know you don’t wanna be here. ‘Cause I know you didn’t wanna come. You’ve been caged to me long enough, and I’m scared givin’ you a card today is gonna be like givin’ a bird wings. It’s gonna be so easy for you to fly away now, and maybe you should.” She smiled sadly. “I’m just not ready to lose you yet.”
“Wings?” he scoffed. “Givin’ people yellow cards is like givin’ a bird wings after takin’ away its eyes. Just where do you expect me to go, Ma? Back to a university that shut down? Back to a job that doesn’t exist? A home they leveled? I’ve got no money and no prospects. Gettin’ a card today only means I won’t have to watch my back—or yours. I’m not goin’ anywhere, so get used to it. I’m stuck with you now. Hermit ‘til I die.”
Her frown deepened. “I’ve ruined you, haven’t I, keepin’ you with me all these years?”
“Geez, am I that bad?”
Her silence carried the blunt answer.
Sighing, he started off again. They entered a small grove of trees, a welcome reprieve from the incessant wind as he replayed her words. I’ve ruined you. What the heck was that supposed to mean? He knew he’d been a little grumpy, but ruined?
“You could…go back,” she suggested softly.
He rolled his eyes. As if he’d leave her now. He’d made his choice. Surely after a thousand miles, she knew he didn’t regret it. “I’m not goin’ back.”
“But what if you went for a short time to see if—”
“Ma, it’s over.”
Thankfully she let the subject drop. A day into the trip, he made her promise never to mention that subject again. Up until now she hadn’t. Hopefully, she wouldn’t again.
“You ever gonna forgive me for makin’ you leave?” she whispered.
He studied his map again. “I already have.”
Up ahead he spotted the back of the township office, exactly as his grandpa described: a long, one-story, red brick building. The closer they got, the more his muscles tensed. Trusting their safety to a patrolman went against every instinct he had. When they were within thirty yards, he stopped and looked around.
“Why does it feel like we’re walkin’ into a trap?” The new government loved owning people. They’d legalized slavery simply by turning millions of people into criminals. Two of the easiest arrests were about to walk into that building. He shook his head. “I don’t know about this.”
“If Officer Simmons wante
d to arrest us,” his mom said, “he coulda done it yesterday.”
“He almost did!”
“But he didn’t. Don’t forget, he’s the one who sent us here.”
“‘Cause it’s a trap.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re gonna give yourself ulcers. Everything’s fine.”
“Your flippant attitude is only makin’ it worse. How do you know he wasn’t misinformed? Or mislead? Anything can go wrong in there.” He scratched his jaw, deliberating. They still stood in the safety of the trees. It wasn’t too late to turn around.
Or change plans.
“Wait here,” he said.
She huffed. “They kinda need to see my face to take my picture.”
He took his mom’s arm and led her back into the thick pines. After how far they’d come, after the million precautions he’d taken to keep her alive, he wasn’t letting her get careless now. A government work farm would kill her in a day. He was sure of it.
“Wait here,” he said firmly. “I’ll come get you if this works.”
Her hands went to her hips. “And what if it doesn’t? Just what’d you expect me to do? Run down the patrol car that carts you off?”
“Nah. Just come visit me in prison every now and again.”
Unappreciative, her expression turned to steel.
“This is ridiculous. I’m goin’ with you.”
She tried to march past him, but he caught her arm. “You stay here or neither of us is goin’ in. I’m serious, Ma. Stay,” he ordered. And before she could argue, he turned and trotted out of the trees.
Shelton’s Township Hall was small, but not inconsequential. It was better than a municipality office because they dealt with full citizens instead of quasi, down-trodden, blue-carded, fenced in ones. He hoped they’d assume he was a yellow card holder so he could speak before they pounced.
Crouching low, he peered around the brick corner. Deserted cars and boarded up buildings lined Main Street. Old leaves and debris blew over everything, including the cars that only a handful of government employees could afford to drive. Greg spotted the flower shop Carrie mentioned on the corner, Buds and Roses, looking as pathetic as everything else. Shelton Township wasn’t a ghost town, but it was pretty close. This far out of Chicago, he hoped patrolmen didn’t stalk every corner, but who knew.
Citizens of Logan Pond Box Set Page 6
