299 Days VIII: The War (9 page)

Carol looked forward to a great new year. Things were on the right track. There was
way too much suffering out there, but people could still make it into Seattle. They
would be safe there. They could have their own little country there. There would be
no more rednecks telling them what to do.

The news—NPR was the only station left—was positive. There were small groups of terrorists
in the South and mountain West, the “Confederates” as the news called them, who were
still performing their killings. New Congresspersons and Senators had been appointed
for those states and Congress was meeting again. Somewhere.

But, order had been re-established. The federal government was functioning just fine.
There were lots of news stories about national parks being open and full of visitors.
Well, a few visitors on camera. The postal service was working. There were long delays
because of the restrictions on using the freeways and the gas rationing. Carol hadn’t
actually gotten any mail, but she’d heard on the news that the postal service was
working. There was no more junk mail; one good thing to come from the Crisis. There
were lots of stories on the news about celebrities and how things were just like the
old days for them. Shopping, having parties. Just like normal.

Seattle was certainly doing fine. While food was in short supply, Carol, as an FCorps
employee, had plenty of credits on her FCard. And the utilities were on. Not bad.

But all the good things in Seattle came at a price. Carol wondered how her brother
was doing. She hoped he had just grown out of his rebellious “Patriot” nonsense. He
was always a practical guy—a survivor. She and he had survived their terrible childhood,
so he would probably be fine. Besides, he was smart. He probably realized the right-wing
stuff was a lie. He had probably renounced it and was pitching in for the Recovery
there in Olympia. He would be fine. And so would his great kids. She missed them,
too.

Carol started thinking of little stocking stuffer gifts for her FCorps students. While
they didn’t have anymore “Christmas” traditions in Seattle—that was so divisive—they
could still do stocking stuffers. She had heard stockings were a Scandinavian pagan
tradition for winter solstice, so it was okay.

Carol got her coat on and went out for a walk. She was getting a latte at the university
bookstore. As long as there were lattes, everything was fine.

(December 24)

The “Collapse Christmas” in Forks was truly memorable. Steve Briggs knew people would
talk about it for generations thereafter. It was an amazing mix of being incredibly
different than other Christmases while, at the same time, being very similar.

Christmases in the few years leading up to the Collapse had been slowly changing in
Forks. With D2, the Second Great Depression, going on before the Collapse, Christmases
became poorer and poorer. So a sparse Christmas, when it came to presents, not traditions,
was not new in rural Forks.

This was true in Steve’s family. A big part of his pay as the manager of the local
parts store was his performance bonus that was given out on the first of December.
Steve would wait all year for it and planned his household’s major purchases around
it. He tried to split the bonus between necessities—new tires for his wife’s car and
a new water heater—and nice things. The year before the Collapse, he managed to get
his wife the really fancy food processor she wanted. He got himself a gun safe, which
turned out to be a very valuable thing to have.

Needless to say, there was no “performance” bonus this year from the auto parts store.
Hell, there was no job at the auto parts store after the Collapse in May. So there
would be no food processors or gun safes. Of course, there were no trucks making deliveries
to Forks, so there weren’t any gifts coming in even if people had money.

The total absence of big gifts this year was really different. Steve, who prided himself
on self-reliance and not needing “stuff,” was surprised by how ingrained the “stuff”
part of Christmas had become for him. He even looked at the calendar to make sure
it was really December 25 because he couldn’t believe it was actually Christmas without
all the usual holiday shopping.

That being said, the gifts were better this year because they actually meant something
for a change. He went to one of the many “garage sales” in Forks, where people bartered
their things to each other, and got a nice rolling pin for his wife. It cost him 10
rounds of .22. She had mentioned that she needed one to make pies.

His wife made him a gift, a comforter cover sewn out of pieces of their old clothes.
A scrap of shirt here, a scrap of a pair of shorts there. Each scrap had a memory
to it. He remembered wearing a shirt or her wearing a dress that was now part of the
comforter. Best of all, his wife told him that they could snuggle under the new comforter
cover anytime the kids were asleep and, as she put it, “you might get lucky.”

That was one thing that was way better for Steve these days – sex. Lots and lots of
really great sex with his lovely wife. They had way more time now that they weren’t
rushing around all the time. They spent most of the day together and that turned both
of them on. On top of that, they both really needed each other now, and they appreciated
each other. Not to mention that it was cold, and they needed to make the best out
of some bad circumstances. Steve would take the comforter—and all that getting lucky—over
a gun safe any day.

The traditions of Christmas were back in the Briggs’ home and Forks, in general. One
was the Briggs’ tradition of the kids opening a little present on Christmas Eve and
putting milk and cookies out for Santa. There were only a few dairy cows in town.
The owner made sure all the kids in town had a little bit of milk for Santa that year.
Steve almost cried when he saw the kids putting the milk and cookies out. Some things
were the same, even with all that was going on around them.

Steve had hope for the future. Despite the Collapse, his kids could put out milk and
cookies for Santa. And their kids would also be able to years later. There was continuity
between the generations, even with all the massive changes and misery.

The community made a big deal out of Christmas this year. It was a time for them to
pull together. They’d been doing that all year long, but instead of pulling together
to shoot some looters, now they got to pull together for something positive.

The local churches started caroling. They’d never done that before, and it really
was quite magical. When they came by the Briggs’ house, the whole family stopped doing
what they were doing and just listened. They listened to the words of the carols and
thought about their meaning. No one in the family said a word for half an hour after
the carolers were gone.

Christmas Eve services at the Forks churches were packed. Lots of people who hadn’t
been to church in decades were back in the pews during the Collapse. In fact, most
of the town was attending church, including the Briggs family.

Steve had never felt closer to his family and his community than he did that first
Collapse Christmas. Things seemed so much more real and were boiled down to what mattered,
which wasn’t food processors.

The gentlemen of Forks decided to start a new Christmas tradition. Steve and his friends
snuck out of their houses after Christmas dinner and went to city hall, which had
become the guard headquarters. They cracked open some moonshine. With all those hillbillies
living in Forks, there were plenty of people who remembered grandpa’s ‘shine recipe.
Some guys had been making ‘shine all summer and fall. It was a good business to be
in. People needed it, especially now.

They sipped moonshine that night and talked about the past year and the coming year.
Through Don Watson, the local ham radio operator, they got dispatches from the rest
of the world. Landline phones usually still worked, but cell service and long-distance
texting. The internet didn’t work because the only service provider out there went
out of business. One person in town had some spotty satellite internet service, but
it was nothing to count on. Ham radio was the main link.

Don, sipping some ‘shine with one hand and holding his handheld radio in the other,
got real serious at one point.

“You know, guys,” Don said, “there are tons of rumors out there that there’s going
to be something big in a few days.”

“Will they try to cut off the utilities again?” someone asked.

“No one is saying for sure what’s coming,” Don said, “but if I had to guess, I’d say
it’s a Patriot military move of some kind.”

The room fell silent. Everyone thought about what that meant for them in little, and
totally isolated, Forks.

Not much, Steve thought. This would have very little effect on them.

“No government here in Forks to overthrow,” Steve said as he raised his cup of moonshine.

“Cheers!” everyone said. They’d drink to that.

(December 24)

The EPU team and Carly seamlessly fit into the WAB families out at the Prosser Farm.
Everyone there was doing all they could to give the kids as normal a Christmas as
possible. Everyone spent time figuring out little gifts to give each other. There
was no access to stores, so they were on their own.

There was one exception. Dennis, on one of his runs into Olympia to secretly distribute
the Rebel Radio CDs, got some candy canes. They were left over from a prior year and
some street vendor was selling them. They cost Dennis a fortune (a box of 12-guage
shells), but it would be worth it to see the look on the kids’ face, when they had
a real candy cane. That would make Christmas “normal.” Sorta.

Things settled into a day-to-day routine after the EPU agents arrived. There were
still a bunch of chores to do every day on the farm, so that kept everyone busy. The
agents pitched in, of course.

When they arrived, the agents started setting up communications and a very sophisticated
guard system. They still used the Prosser neighbors for guards, but as a first ring
of defense. The agents were the second ring. They came up with detailed escape plans
and trained everyone on how to start running down the escape paths on a moment’s notice.
They had supplies and weapons pre-positioned in two sets of vehicles. If they had
to evacuate people, they would essentially drive out the back pasture into the forest
and take a logging road to the power lines, which were cleared of brush. From there,
the Delphi guards would pick them up after being alerted. The Delphi guards didn’t
know who the families were. They just knew that if Jeff Prosser said they needed to
be at the power lines and used a certain code phrase, a select team of guards needed
to be there. And they needed to be ready to fight their way back to a safe house,
which was the home of Ned, the guard commander.

All that Ned knew was that Jeff was a Patriot, he had guests from Olympia, and some
Secret Service-type people were out there with them. Ned was starting to think some
Patriot big shot was hiding out there … until Ned found out about Tom’s rich father.

The Prosser Farm neighbors and the leadership of the Delphi guards were told that
Tom Foster had a rich father who had hired these people to protect Tom. That story,
which would have been absurd before the Collapse, explained everything to Ned.

Now, when anyone with a gun, and especially a badge, could be rented—this story made
perfect sense. What would have seemed outlandish was that the Patriot’s future governor
was living right under everyone’s noses and a bodyguard team of defecting state police
had been sent to protect the new governor. That would have been crazy.

The EPU agents had amazing radios and even private email devices that didn’t use the
internet and were totally secure. They could email with the Think Farm and other Patriot
headquarters. It was some data packet ham radio thing; pretty clever.

“We need to talk in private,” Brad Finehoff, the leader of the EPU team, said to Ben.
Brad seemed very serious. The families had just celebrated Christmas Eve. The kids
put out milk and cookies for Santa. They had fancy desserts made from the meager sugar
reserves they had out there. It was an amazing time. The kids really enjoyed having
a “normal” Christmas; it was much needed. So did the adults. Ben could tell that Brad
had waited until the festivities were over before giving him something to worry about.

Ben and Brad went out to the shed closest to the house. “What’s up?” Ben asked.

“We’ll be moving out in a few days, probably the day after New Year’s,” Brad said.
He seemed a little nervous.

“Where to?” Ben asked.

“Olympia,” Brad said and then smiled, “Your new office in the capitol, Governor.”

Hearing “Governor” still stunned Ben. It took him a while to get his senses back.

“Let me guess,” Ben said, “We’re not just strolling down the road to Olympia. We’re
waiting for some people to go ahead of us and clear things out.”

Brad nodded.

Ben was silent for a while as he was trying to comprehend what they were talking about.
The Patriots would fight over Olympia. If they won—and that was a big “if” to Ben—then
he would be the new governor. At least, he would be in the interim, until there were
elections that he would probably win.