Chapter 15Home Front IV - Saturday, July 21st
Britney was driving a quad down a dirt driveway. A white farmhouse could be seen at the end of the driveway. A large red barn. Its paint faded and peeling was off to her right. On the other side of the house was a small unpainted shed. A large amount of smoke was rising into the air behind the shed.
A hunting rifle was slung over her shoulders across her chest. She was on patrol alone. The way she had come to prefer. This was the homestead of Jules McCreary. She was an older woman, her husband long dead, and any children grown and moved on. The farm hadn’t been planted in several seasons, and the fields had become fallow and weed strewn.
The quad pulled into the courtyard between the house and other buildings and came to a stop. The smoke from the fire was very black. She wondered what kind of trash Mrs. McCreary was burning over by the shed. Britney turned off the quad and dismounted. She first went to the front door of the house and knocked. There was no answer.
Her patrols for the last few days were just slowly driving from one house to the next, checking on the residents and seeing if there was anything that could be donated to the cause or traded for something else. It kept the inhabitants in touch and made sure no one was going hungry or having any trouble.
Her brother was doing the same thing in a different area. She hadn’t seen him for about three days now. Lately, they had been doing this to avoid patrolling with Jim and his minions. She had compared notes with Shane and come to the conclusion that something wasn’t quite right with the Blue Mountain Patrol. At least under the leadership of Jim. It seemed that the benevolent assistance they had been providing to the local residents had warped into something else. Almost like a protection racket. It seemed that Jim was starting to demand more from the people he was protecting. His closest followers had started to follow his lead and it seemed that when she pulled into a homestead, the look of fear passed across the neighbor’s face before they realized it was her. She wondered what that meant.
When no one answered the door, she went over to check out the fire. It had to have been set not too long ago. When she walked around the shed, she was hit with an intense and foul odor. The smell of burning tires, mixed with something else. Something like burned meat hit her hard. As she checked out the fire, she saw that it was tires that were on fire.
The thick black smoke curled out of the bright orange flames. Lingering above the pit before rising up into the air and being swept away by the wind. There was something below the tires. She couldn’t quite make out what it was. She circled around the fire and on the other side she saw something that froze her blood. A hand. Old and wrinkled, stuck out from under the tires. That looked like Mrs. McCreary’s hand.
Britney shrunk back from the fire, un-slinging her rifle and making sure there was a round in the chamber. She looked around the courtyard for any signs of another person. That old woman didn’t get under those burning tires all alone.
When she looked at the courtyard carefully, she saw more tire prints like the ones she had made coming into the area, but where she hadn’t driven. Someone on a quad had been here not too long ago.
She went to check the door and found it unlocked. When she went inside, the saw that the place had been ransacked. The kitchen was a mess, with stuff strewn all about. The pantry looked as if it had been raided. Britney felt tears come to her eyes. The Patrol had failed to do the one thing they had pledged to do. They had failed to protect the residents of their little valley next to the river. Someone had breached their perimeter and attacked one of their own.
Britney jumped onto her quad, fired it up and sped down the driveway. She needed to tell her mother and brother what she had found.