Chapter 19Home Front V - Sunday, July 29th
Lori lay in her bed as the darkness filled the room. Rain pattered on the roof of the house. Usually a calming influence on her, but tonight she felt uneasy. Britney was in her room, hopefully sleeping. She heard a key turn in the kitchen door, which opened and closed, and Shane softly called to the house, “I’m home.”
He had been on patrol with one of the other guys from the Blue Mountain Patrol. She had heard the quad pull up and drop him off about ten minutes ago, but he must have done something out in the barn before coming inside.
The last few days had been hard. She sent out a wish for Clayton to hurry home. She had such a strong feeling that he was getting close. She had no idea why she thought this as she hadn’t heard anything since the day he left for his training exercise in Georgia. Still the feeling was strong.
Things were getting unsteady in the area. The activity going to and from the mountain, most likely to Clayton’s workplace, Mount Weather, had increased a lot lately. Buses traveled along Highway 50 very frequently. She had no idea who was on the buses, but it didn’t seem good.
So far, the Army or whoever occupied that base had left them alone, but the Blue Mountain Patrol, or BMP as the kids referred to it, that her two kids belonged to, had scaled down their operations to a smaller area of operation after several incidents started to attract attention.
Something bad was happening in the area. They didn’t know who was doing it, but they had discovered three more people in the nearby properties since Britney had found Mrs. McCreary in that burning pile of tires.
This person or group of people were preying on people who were alone, usually older and usually more or less helpless. It didn’t seem like the person was robbing the people they found. They just seemed to be killing them for fun. Sometimes there was torture involved, either to gather some kind of information or just someone’s sick idea of fun. A few days would go by, then a new body would be found. Sometimes the culprits burned the bodies, but usually halfheartedly, without much success of eliminating any evidence. Sometimes, they were left in staged displays. Maybe sending a warning or something that so far, she didn’t understand. It made everyone snappy and on edge.
Lori got up and went downstairs to the kitchen. Carrying a lantern that had been by her bedside. She entered the kitchen and there sat Shane, her seventeen-year-old son. Dressed in dark jeans and a black tee shirt. A yellow armband, the mark of the BMP on his right arm. He was eating an apple.
“How was your patrol, Shane,” she asked the young man.
“Good,” he said between bites. “Quiet,” he added. “There was a lot of traffic along the Highway tonight. About thirty vehicles, Steve had counted.”
“So, you were on patrol with Steve, huh?” Lori asked. “How is his mother doing? I heard she had the summer flu the other day.”
“He didn’t mention her,” Shane replied. “He did seem to be distracted tonight though. Like he had a lot on his mind.”
“Did you try to talk to him about it?” Lori asked.
“Na,” Shane said. “We don’t talk about that stuff out there.”
“What do you talk about?”
“Things.”
“Things?”
“Yep.”
Lori sighed and went over to the jug of water on the counter and poured herself a glass. The Blue Mountain Patrol, led by a boy hardly older than Shane named Jim Henry had been doing ok since being established about a week after the bombs had fallen. When Jim had come around to recruit Shane to help with the BMP, she had had her doubts, but she had let him join and Britney had also joined that day. Their main mission was to travel around the area and check up on the local residents, helping where they were needed and always on the lookout for food in the form of wild game or traded goods that the neighbors were growing. It was usually a safe thing to do, but lately she was regretting letting her kids be involved. A couple of the guys in the group seemed to be getting used to having power and this power might have been starting to corrupt them some as it always does.
With the recent unsolved murders, her apprehension had grown by leaps and bounds. When one or both of them were out on patrol, she didn’t sleep until they were home safe.
“I’m gonna head back up to bed,” she told her son. “Don’t forget to check the chickens in the morning if you are heading out early.”
“I’m off for a day or so, but I’ll check them out,” he replied. “Good night, Ma.”
Lori went back up the stairs to her bedroom, crawled back into bed and doused the lantern. She lay staring up at the dark ceiling and listening to the house make its small creaks and cracks. She reached for the necklace she had around her neck. The necklace had a small crescent moon shaped charm. She squeezed it and thought of Clayton. He had given her the necklace before his first deployment. The family had a ritual during the kids’ early years when Clayton was gone for several weeks or months at a time on deployment. Clayton would tell the kids to always look at the moon when he was away, and they were missing each other. “I’ll look at the moon too, every night,” he told them. “If we are both looking at the same thing, we can feel like we are together.”
Lori quickly falls into an uneasy sleep, perchance to dream.
She sees her husband, Clayton, hiking down a trail. He turns to her and smiles. He is dressed as an ancient warrior, with armor and a large sword. Behind him is a tree with a long white strip of white paint. As he stands there other people start passing him on the trail. First a tall Wizard, dressed in a brown robe, holding a long staff with a large crystal on the top. Next is a short, squat Dwarf. He holds a large axe balanced on his shoulder. A blond woman comes next. She had a lute in her hands and plays a short melody on the instrument, humming to the tune as she moves out of sight. Two young hobbits pass her view next. A male and a female, both with large hairy feet. They are holding hands and hurry to catch the others. Last to pass her sight is a large red fox, with black feet and a black tipped tail. The fox looks back at her before it moves out of sight behind Clayton, her warrior husband.
“We will be there soon,” the fox says to Lori, shocking her at its ability to speak.
“When the moon is full again. Look for us,” the fox added before turning and disappearing from view.
Lori rolls over and her sleep deepens as the house continues to creak and crack.