Chapter 21Home Front VI - Friday, August 3rd to Saturday, August 4th
Lori was sitting in the kitchen. A new day had arrived. Rain was in the forecast, as far as she could tell. Large thunder boomer clouds sat on the horizon to the west. She could see them from the kitchen window. Her children, both pretty much adults now, were upstairs. She could hear them moving around, so she deduced that both were awake and starting their day. She had made a large pot of coffee on the stove, using the gas stove to heat the water and a large French press to turn it into coffee.
Britney came down first, went straight to an empty mug that was waiting for her on the counter and poured herself a cup of steaming fresh brewed coffee. She added a splash of whole milk, traded for with Mr. Cooper for some of their vegetables that had been growing nicely through this tough summer. Lori had brought the milk in from the old spring house they had just to the right of the barn. Lori was so happy that old time feature was still around. It made things last much longer in this new time without electricity. They had been working on gathering parts to set up a small solar system, just to keep a few things running like a small refrigerator, but they were still missing a couple key items.
Britney sat at the kitchen table and smiled at her mom. “Good morning, mother,” she said happily.
“Good morning, daughter,” was her reply. A small smile coming to her worried face. “What are your plans for today?” She asked.
“Shane and I will be going out for a short patrol over to the east today,” she replied. “The BMR quads are all down, gas is getting low and starting to go bad, so we will be walking our patrol today. We plan on heading down towards route 50, then follow 723 east towards the mountain, circling back north up 621 to the river, then back west on 651, checking the five or so farms along the way.”
“Better take your rain gear,” Lori advised. “Those clouds look heavy off to the west. It looks like a wet day.”
Shane came into the kitchen, still rubbing some sleep out of his eyes and repeated the same motions his sister had done to get that precious go juice into their system. He appeared to be in a slightly foul mood.
“You guys be careful today,” Lori said.
“We will,” they both replied in unison.
After a quick breakfast of old stale cereal doused in that precious, fresh milk, the two siblings rose up and gathered their small patrol packs. Filled with necessities to keep them going for a long day’s patrol and enough gear and supplies to spend a night or two away from home if needed. Each picked up a shotgun and shouldered it.
They went to the door and turned to say goodbye to their mother, then headed down the driveway towards the road that led to Route 50. A slow roll of thunder came to their ears as they moved off. Lori was right about the coming storm. And it was going to be an intense one.
Lori went about her morning chores, trying to get as much done as possible before the storm hit. She checked the garden, gathering some ripe cucumbers and tomatoes and a few other things, then went to check the chicken coop and gather any eggs the ladies had left them. She started to do a little bit of weeding in the garden when the rain started. It wasn’t a soft start to a drizzly day. It was large drops from the start. Just a couple here and there. Then more joined the fray and suddenly, she was getting soaked as the heavens let loose. The storm had arrived.
Lori kept herself busy inside the house as the storm raged outside. It would rain very hard for about twenty minutes with lots of lightning and thunder, then the rain would slacken off, but never stop. Then it would pour again. This was definitely a large storm, that was coming from the southwest.
When darkness came and the rain continued, Lori started to worry about the kids. Some times their patrols lasted all day, and a few times, they had stayed out overnight when they found themselves too far away to get back before dark or they were doing something that took a long time.
When they still hadn’t come home at midnight, she tried to go up to bed, but knew sleep wasn’t going to come.
She tossed and turned all for several hours and was up making coffee a couple hours before the sky started to lighten up by the mountain to the east.
The bulk of the storm had passed, but the sky was still cloudy and low hanging and a few sprinkles would still fall every twenty minutes or so.
She decided she was going to walk down to the main road and see if she could find any sign of her returning children.
She walked down the long driveway and turned left on the road, the direction that they were supposed to finish their patrol. She walked the road for about a half of a mile, stepping around the large puddles that pooled on the side of the road. A soft wind had picked up from the south. It was warm, but wet.
She turned around and started back down the road towards the farm. As she was approaching the driveway, she saw someone come over the rise, walking down the middle of the road. The person was staggering and having trouble walking. She watched as the person fell to the ground in the middle of the road.
She hurried towards the person. When she was about fifty meters away, she realized it was Shane. She started to run to her son and the first thing she saw as she came up to his prone body was a lot of blood.
He had been beaten about the face and most of the blood was coming from a wound in his side. She didn’t think she could carry him up to the house, so she tried to bring him back to consciousness. She called his name a few times and his eyes fluttered. He stared at her for a few seconds, as if his eyes were taking too long to focus and finally whispered “Mom.” Tears were coming down her face as she smoothed the hair from his brow. “They took Britney,” he continued in a halting voice. “I tried to stop them, but there were too many.”
With Shane’s weak help, she was able to help him to the beginning of the driveway. They walked about fifty feet up the driveway when Shane stumbled again and went back to the ground.
Lori ran back to the barn and looked around. In the corner was a large wheel barrel. She grabbed it and started pushing it towards Shane’s rag doll body.
She was able to get him into the wheel barrel and pushed him up to the house. He was coming around again and they were able to get him inside and on to the couch in the living room.
“What happened, Shane?” she asked her son, her voice raising in panic and fear.
“Some soldiers from Weather,” he said softly. They surprised us up by the river. They all had guns. They took ours and tied us up. We thought they were just going to question us or something, but…” His voice faded off. He was unconscious again.
Lori got to work cleaning his wounds and bandaging him up. The wound in his side, looked like a stab wound. She fixed it up as best as she could with some butterflies, but he was going to need a doctor. Probably stitches and antibiotics, too. Where was Britney? She thought as the panic and fear came back a hundredfold.