American Blackout (Book 2): Slaves Beneath The Stars Read online

  Cricket talked into the rearview mirror.

  “God made the material world, a wise woman once told me. And God doesn’t make junk. The stuff in your house isn’t junk. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar.”

  Lawrence gave Cricket a look of profound interest that only he could muster. Cricket knew he had to study her more—the engineer thing, understand what made her tick.

  “Everything gone so quickly,” Marty Kain said. “Like losing a close friend. Can we ever go back?”

  “When they find Mr. Waylon’s body stuck to the La-Z-Boy, I think they’ll burn the house down,” Mrs. Kain said, weeping.

  Lawrence turned around and held her hand for a few moments and then eyed his in-laws. “They can’t destroy your land. You can always rebuild. Anything’s possible. We first need to survive.”

  They crossed the bridge outside of Parkersburg, and Cricket managed almost sixty miles per hour on the Ohio side. She had less debris to maneuver around, and a large truck on the westbound leg rushed by, giving two hoots of his air horn. Cricket waved like a kid seeing an eighteen-wheeler for the first time.

  She kept watching the nimble truck in the rearview mirror and spotted a car and pickup crossing into the Buckeye State, a fast-moving duo.

  “Lawrence—uninvited guests, behind us.” Lawrence turned and swore. “Mr. Kain, can you shoot?”

  “I’ll have to.”

  Lawrence handed him a Sig Sauer 9-millimeter. “Betty, lie flat on the floor—I got the right side and Marty the left. Diesel, stay on the seat!”

  “Shoot out the back windshield,” Cricket said, and Marty obliged. Betty screamed from the floor.

  Cricket accelerated. She checked the side roads but feared a dead end and a final standoff with only three shooters. She thought of playing that hand when in the rearview mirror she caught sight of the yellow Cub gaining on the jihadists. The vehicles were closing in when the first bullets struck the back end. Mr. Kain and Lawrence returned fire.

  “They’re aiming for the tires,” Cricket called out. “Marty, they get closer, spray the front seat with the entire magazine.”

  The growl of an explosion made Cricket gasp, and in the rearview mirror she saw a sunlit cloud of flying metal. A bomb had utterly destroyed the first car. The truck must not have suffered a direct hit but had swerved hard toward the river, rolling several times before hitting the water.

  “My dear beautiful God,” Cricket screamed. Lawrence yelled a similar phrase of disbelief, and Betty cried until Marty could explain.

  “Betty, there’s this airplane behind us rocking his wings. He must have dropped something on the people chasing us. They’re gone.”

  “Well said, Mr. Kain.” Cricket snatched Lawrence’s hand and squeezed it. “Wish we could stop and meet this guy. Maybe he’ll follow us back to the farm. He knows where we live.”

  16

  A Beautiful Little Piper Cub

  In the main driveway alongside Hank’s home, Ann embraced her parents through fits of tears. The boys hugged their grandparents and talked about beekeeping and target shooting and the scarecrow in the woods. Sister Marie and Cricket stood back and let the family have their time.

  Fritz would land soon, and Cricket wondered if he had spotted any trouble along the river, caught a glimpse of the explosion, or seen the mysterious Piper Cub.

  “Are you hurt?” Sister asked Cricket, eyeing the splatter of blood on her vest and boots.

  “No.”

  Peeling off the outer yellow leaves from a head of cabbage, Sister started shaking her head. “You need to wash up.” Cricket circled an arm around her friend. “Cricket, you’re going to break everyone’s heart someday. I lost your dear mother and father. I can’t lose you. This is crazy.” Sister wiped away a tear. “You’re fighting, having to kill all the time—it’s horrible.”

  “I won’t say it’s God’s hand guiding me, but I know my parents and Uncle Tommy are in my corner. What gets me through the madness is coming back to you, my husband, the kids, Hank… everybody. Sister, I’m scared, too. But I have to do my part to protect us.” Cricket paused; a chill had overtaken her, death reaching out, almost touching her. “If it means dying, then I’ll die.”

  For the next few minutes as the boys flew in and out of the kitchen, Cricket helped Sister slice up the cabbage and two large onions. The girls tended the fire at the stone fireplace and began steaming the vegetables. Cricket cleaned the cutting board and soaked the knives in a tub of water for the dishes. She noticed the door to Hank’s room was closed.

  “How’s Hank?”

  “Sleeping. His temperature was slightly high last night but normal today. There’s no other sign of infection. He said he was restless and couldn’t sleep.”

  Speeding across the western meadow was Claubauf and the two mechanics in Hank’s Polaris. Cricket and Sister hurried to meet them. After success with the Mule, Hank and friends had pulled out the very modern, very dead engine, due to its fried electronics, and replaced it with one from an old sixties pickup truck, giving the rugged utility vehicle a new life.

  “Sister, we have big problems everywhere we turn,” Oakley said, leaning out of the cab. “There’s been a terrible killing in Marietta, a man of the cloth.”

  Sister crossed herself and bowed her head in a moment of prayer. “The devil’s opened a four-lane highway these past months.”

  “His demons are still the flesh-and-blood kind,” Claubauf added, nonchalant. “Though quite powerful.”

  “The Halloween monsters?” Cricket asked.

  Forrest shook his head, and Claubauf answered, “I don’t think so. We found pills and crack cocaine on the men who attacked us. They were robbers gone mad with drugs, frantic to find more. This killing seems personal, maybe a loner. It affects me because I was raised a Methodist and have fond memories of my church, summer picnics, that sort of thing. Of course, I grew up quickly after high school.”

  No one commented on Claubauf’s reminiscing, yet Cricket thought: An atheist with a soft spot for that old-time religion.

  Oakley said, “The killer left a message.” Everyone looked to make sure the kids remained out of earshot. Oak lowered his voice. “Cricket, the man was disemboweled and his blood smeared onto the walls of the church, in the shape of a cross.”

  Mr. Kain entered the conversation, his arm around his wife, who stood wooden, head down, unable to make eye contact. “We barely escaped today. How do we fight? You and your husband have that airplane, but if the killers are in small bands, or acting crazy on their own, we’re powerless to stop them.”

  Cricket took in her people and the farm in one sweep. “Today, a stranger in a very slow-moving airplane showed up and saved us. Like that brave pilot, we have to keep planning, defending ourselves, taking risks, and not give in to our fears.”

  Cricket left the group with plenty to mull over. She scrubbed herself in a common bathroom on the second floor. The routine was to pressurize the two-hundred-gallon holding tank with a generator first thing in the morning before moving the two-wheel portable generator to the barn or Hank’s honey shed. From a natural gas well in the corner of the western meadow, the fuel was piped to the home for cooking and hot water. She was in and out of the shower quickly, changed her jeans, and found an oversize white sweatshirt of Fritz’s.

  Downstairs, she and Sister prepared a snack for Hank, who had woken up hungry. As they carried it into the room, he looked up from his daily missal.

  “Always good to see the beautiful Cricket and Sister Marie back under my roof.”

  Sister Marie checked Hank’s dressing, and he teased her about having to dig up another barrel of cash to pay her for all her work. She gave a quick smile and then got right to the point.

  “Hank, up north, I felt we had room to maneuver, had options, most of the time. On this beautiful farm, with very good people, I’m not sure we can protect ourselves, even with help from the neighbors. We hit our limit on Halloween. Could we still have survived if that
group had numbered just a few more madmen?”

  Cricket added, “I feel like we’re in a horror movie, where the monsters just keep popping out of the ground—anywhere, anytime—not only here, but in the Kains’ small town, too. So maybe the first step is to really convince the other Hilltop families to get under one roof.”

  Hank cleared his throat and replied.

  “You heard the answer from Ed Cline the other day. Hilltop folks can’t be talked into giving up their homes and their farms. National Guard coming out of Cincy will handle the big groups, gangs, whatever they are. But no one’s going to walk away from the farms they’ve had for generations. The Kains are the exception.”

  “Hank, they’re alive because they left and joined us.”

  “True, but we have sufficient numbers to guard these acres. I promise I’ll keep talking to Ed. He’s the linchpin. See if we can increase the weekly patrols together.”

  “I think we should move to Cincinnati,” Cricket said. “Fritz is hearing that Cincy received several large produce shipments from the West Coast to get through the winter. It’s a losing battle here. If food continues to be scarce in Marietta and Parkersburg this winter, you can bet they’re headed to the Hilltop. We’d be fighting, killing a lot of decent people.”

  “My dear, you and your husband, everyone, are free to go, anytime.”

  “We can’t leave you. Fritz won’t leave you.”

  “Of course he can. New orders can come today. You have to think of yourselves, the children, and your new marriage. Don’t use me as an excuse to stay here. Why, old Claw and I can withstand a lot.”

  Sister Marie told him of the torture murder in Marietta. Hank shook his head and closed his eyes, processing the latest barbarity.

  “As bad as it got up north, everything down here’s on a bigger scale.” No one openly disagreed with Cricket. “Slavery is making a comeback.” She wouldn’t bring up Ajax’s name. It was just a name. And a name wouldn’t help them an iota in fighting the new-age slavers.

  “Is there any good news today?” Hank asked, sitting up a little taller in bed, ready to be strengthened by an inspiring tale.

  At the side of the bed, Cricket touched his bare shoulder. Tears came.

  Sister hugged her, handing her a Kleenex.

  Her vision blurred. “We were saved today… by a stranger in a beautiful little Piper Cub. Just like my dad’s.”

  17

  Fly Boys and Girls

  Cricket drove the golf cart out to the western pasture with Doctor Claubauf to meet Fritz, who had just landed. Claubauf sat tall and clear-eyed, with a satisfied smile that seemed to say the day promised to be thrilling and eventful. He echoed his confident look with big-game-hunter style: tan pants, white cloth belt, and safari hat.

  The P-51’s nickname was ‘A Lil Somethin,’ written above a luscious blonde with “a body that won’t stop”—Hank’s comment upon first seeing the Mustang up close. The hangar doors were open, and Hank’s Cessna 180 sat inside with its cowling off. Sitting just north of the east–west grass airstrip, the hangar also would accommodate the Mustang.

  Everyone fell in love with the Mustang, especially the children. The boys said they had seen it once in a war movie, and the girls loved the sound of the engine, especially when the pilots made a low pass over the farm. “It roars and whistles at the same time,” Lee Ann had observed.

  As the engine idled, grumbling beautifully, Cricket thought of Grace, the young girl she had rescued after making an emergency landing only two months ago.

  The engine’s power increased, and Doctor Claubauf asked, “What’s he doing?”

  “He’s running the engine up, checking the magnetos. Maybe he heard some roughness taxiing in.”

  As Fritz finished the shutdown checklist and opened the canopy, Cricket returned to Grace. The brief number of days they had shared flooded Cricket’s memory: the young girl alone, running from wasps, her rescue and, later, the look of wonder before a tangle of wildflowers. Finally, there was the child’s terrible death only weeks after her rescue.

  “Cricket, you need to go flying soon.” In his khakis and short-sleeve Air Force shirt, Fritz stepped onto the wing and handed Cricket his charts as he climbed down. He stepped onto terra firma, and before she answered and before he said another word, they kissed.

  “You both need to go flying soon,” Claubauf announced. Fritz looked past his wife’s shoulder and nodded at the man’s suggestion.

  Cricket pushed away. “Fritz, it’s been a long day. A terrible day, but there was an amazing thing that happened.”

  His face darkened.

  “Cricket, let’s wait until we’re all together,” he said. “I’ve got news as well. None of it good.”

  18

  Blasphemy

  At dusk they assembled in the barn. The bronze sky over the meadow began losing its color, softening above the trees. Oakley stayed at the house with Hank, the children, Sister Marie, and Ann.

  Beneath the Halloween decorations, Forrest poured everyone a glass of fresh milk and added a tablespoon of honey after feeding and watering the horses, and milking the cows. He took a seat alongside Betty.

  The Kains were the new additions and both looked lost, especially Betty, spent of tears, the spirit missing. Cricket had felt her own life sucked away after her father’s plane fell from the sky.

  At Fritz’s urging, Lawrence started. He stood behind his in-laws, asking Marty, “When did the prisoners first arrive?”

  “Two weeks ago.” Marty Kain turned to his son-in-law. “We were working on cleaning the inside of the bus. When we walked off, we were greeted by over a dozen large, very serious-looking men in my front yard. And the one you met today—”

  “Stuck to your La-Z-Boy,” Cricket interjected.

  “Yes, he called himself Mr. Waylon. They all wore dark pants and collared shirts, but I could see tattoos popping out everywhere. He said we’d be more comfortable inside the house.”

  Marty looked about, not seeing or focusing on anyone around the table, consumed with a soul-crushing experience. His wife took his hand in hers, and he continued.

  “Mr. Waylon talked about what God wanted of us, and he insisted the right answer came only in the religion of Islam. He said we had two choices: accept their faith, or refuse and forever be separated from God. Now, I told him that I thought Betty and I were pretty good people, but we had never seriously practiced our Methodist faith, and he cut me off, saying we didn’t practice it because we knew it was wrong. He said he’d be returning by the tenth of November, and that he would expect our answer. He added that there were things that our new community would need, like clothing and food, and that everyone would be expected to contribute. Before leaving, he said that Betty must have her head covered on his next visit.”

  “Did they directly threaten you with violence?” Doctor Claubauf asked.

  “No,” Betty chimed in. “They squeezed into our living room and didn’t say a word, just watched us intently. I felt them ready to pounce if we resisted or said the wrong thing. That I knew.”

  “How did they arrive?” Fritz asked.

  “They were walking, going from house to house like Jehovah’s Witnesses,” Marty said.

  “If only they were,” Lawrence voiced.

  “They had transportation.” Betty talked and stared outside at the evening’s pale light. “A few hours later a caravan of cars and pickup trucks arrived, picked up the men, and headed to the river.”

  “What was Mr. Waylon telling you before we arrived this morning and interrupted his door-to-door campaign?” Cricket asked.

  “He was reminding us how we would die if we didn’t convert. But today, we said we wanted more time. He said time was up.”

  “What did he say they would do to you?” Cricket asked.

  “Is that really necessary?” Fritz said.

  “Actually it is,” Claubauf interrupted.

  With sunken faces, Betty and Marty exchanged glances. This was
n’t an interrogation, and Cricket knew she could have asked Marty at another time. She was almost ready to take back her question when Betty spoke.

  “On Mr. Waylon’s first visit, he took us into the woods and showed us what would happen to people who believed that a man named Christ was God. He said such blasphemy demanded punishment. He never raised his voice, yet I died that day after what I saw. Marty is very strong, and he nearly had to carry me all the way back home. I haven’t thawed out yet. I thank you, Cricket and Lawrence, for saving us today, but I’m so terrified. Even here, with all of you.”

  “It gets to you,” Marty said.

  When an owl spoke from the forest, everyone turned toward the door and the failing light. The horses in the first couple of stalls, normally conversant after their feeding, stood silent.

  Fritz rose and paced near the stalls. The horses turned their heads to follow him.

  “I was briefed today on the prison break. Both prison gangs—jihadists and the white power brigade—hate each other. The “religion of peace” headed across the river attempting to occupy towns like Betty and Marty’s. The religion of the never-ending party stayed on the Ohio side. One group is disciplined and terrifying, and the other’s crazy and terrifying. And there’s a possibility that the attackers from Halloween might be stragglers from the prison break outside of Cincy, belonging to neither camp.

  “I’ve received permission for a hundred National Guard troops to infiltrate the Kains’ town in the next couple of days. The plan is to get them moving in with folks and discreetly camp within a short distance of each other. A small group will go out and find those murdered and bring them to a nearby church for a Christian burial. Now, if this doesn’t initially draw out the fanatics, we’ll at least show them that they can no longer humiliate our people in death and those of us still living.”

  “What’s our role?” Cricket asked.