Story Broken Yet Rising (Complete)

Chapter 93

“Head ‘em up and move ‘em out!”

The boys were psyched to be getting out and going to the farmer’s market to help. It was something new, something different, some place different. Nat, not so much but she was willing to be placated. I’d already been thinking that I would need to be careful not to allow her neediness to turn into manipulation and that only reinforced my concerns. But it wasn’t the time for that discussion even as I allowed it to ferment in the back of my mind.

“Listen y’all. I need you to be on your best behavior, and no wandering off. And I’m not treating you like babies to say that. Things are strict at the Farmer’s Market; it isn’t like going to a flea market or local market. The rules are strict and getting stricter every month. I’m not even how sure you’ll be able to get out of the van. Just mind your p’s and q’s and don’t get involved with any drama you might see.”

Nat quivered, “Drama?”

“Yeah, drama. Like you’ll sometimes hear at the law office. People are hypersensitive on occasion. I stay out of it and people there know me, but ever so often newbs show up and try and make noise they have no business making and creating problems for the rest of us. And that includes government officials who have to be some of the most hypersensitive people I’ve ever met. I need to keep this stream of income as long as I can so I don’t have to break into money I’m trying to safeguard to be there after the world is finished swigging the ipecac.”

Daniel asked, “What’s that?”

Nat answered, surprising me. “It’s stuff you take to make you upchuck if you’ve gotten ahold of poison or stuff like that.”

Both boys made a face but my face told Nat I wanted to know how she knew. “I read it in a book.”

“Uh huh. Which one?”

“The one about medicines used in the colonial times. They used to put it in cough medicine to help with … um … expectations or something like that; but they don’t make it anymore.”

Relieved for some unknown reason I said, “Key-rect. And it is called ‘expectorant’ which means make your coughs get the crud out of your lungs. They stopped manufacturing it in 2010. Now it is just an old-timey saying. Everyone buckled up?”

The roads were surprisingly low volume as I made my way to the Farmer’s Market and when I arrived, everything looked normal. I pulled in line for inspection of my paperwork and that went quickly as well. I figured out why when I got inside the fence and down to the area where deals were made, and digi-dollars changed hands. Well metaphorically anyway. The exchange was done online under the watchful eye of any number of inspectors assigned to that job to make sure taxes were paid. There was about half the number of vendors there compared to normal.

“Guys, I’m going to park in my assigned area. You wait in the van until I call you. I need to make sure all of my contracts are here.”

Thankfully they all were but they were as nervous as I was starting to feel. Quietly I asked a man that like the color of my contract and always had a little extra that he knew I would take, “What’s up. Everyone’s fur is standing on end.”

“They closed the state border for the next week. They’re reporting a credible threat by some o’ them yankee refugees. The ones that got turned away last month for not having valid migration passes.”

“Wha ..?!”

“Shhh. If I was you, I’d get what you can and then head back home and dig in. The story goes they are trying the same tactics the illegals did back in the 20’s. Caravans. It’s said they plan to use numbers to push through the border.”

It wasn’t until that moment that I realized how naïve I had been. Putting myself in danger to make a buck was one thing. Putting the caballeros there was a totally different issue and I did exactly as the man suggested, or tried to. I had no choice but to use the kids as labor and we loaded all of my contracts as quickly as possible with Knox picking up that this was serious and not a game before Nat and Daniel did, but it didn’t take them much longer, not even Daniel who could be kind of oblivious no matter how hard he tried to stay focused. Lucky for me that day was one of his better days. He and Nat would unload the appliance dolly as fast as Knox and I could get it filled and up the trailer’s ramp.

Then I had to leave the kids to do all the loading because vendors wanted to complete their contracts and were literally hunting up their customers and dumping the wares off while dragging an inspector with them to approve the exchange of assets.

We were loaded and in line to leave when a runner came back banging on everyone’s driver side window. “Make a circle! Make a circle!”

All I could think of was the old western call to “Circle the Wagons!” And in the end, that’s exactly what it was.
 
Chapter 94

At first all it looked like was a bunch of people with placards, baseball bats, and blow horns. They reminded me of the “torches and pitchfork” crowds you read about in history. They were chanting and raising their fists. Then I spotted the rifles that some of them carried and if they had rifles they probably had handguns and other weapons. I still didn’t understand how the heck they got through the federal watchdogs until I realized our watchdogs were lapdogs and only dangerous to those of us who were law-abiding. They’d quickly been overwhelmed and beat down by those who had started to encircle us.

Rocks, bricks, and bottles started hitting the windshields of the outside vehicles. I made the kids lay down in what little bit of space was left in the van.

“And stay down,” I ordered. “Knox, grab the furniture pad and pull it over you guys in case of breaking glass. Now.”

“What about you?!”

“Nat. Not now. Knox … do what you can.”

He understood me to be telling him to do the twin thing and keep Nat calm. Or at least as calm as possible under the circumstances.

“Got it covered Mina. Daniel, get one side, I’ll get the other. Nat, you stay between us.”

I heard them in the background but I was busy trying to figure out why the scene in front of me was bothering me. Beyond the obvious of course. That’s when I concentrated and could hear what they were actually saying; or in this case, chanting.

1-2-3-4 We support the people’s war!
5-6-7-8 Organize and smash the state!!

What the heck?

“The only solution is revolution!”

“Hell no, we won’t go!”

“Tell me what you want! What you really, really want!”
“Justice!!”

“If we don’t get it … shut it down!!”

“Whose streets?! Our streets!!”
“Whose land?! Our land!!”
“Whose rules?! Our rules!!”

“The people united will never be defeated!!”

“Turn it up! Burn it down!!”

That was crap out of the history books. Communist goobers from the 20s chanted that trash. It went back even further than that. All the way back to what most people call the original Cultural Revolution set up by Mao Zedong in China way the heck back in 1966.

Then I remembered that Mao used young people and that’s when it hit me. These weren’t Yankee refugees. I mean maybe they were but that’s not really what they were. They were people my age. What most people would consider college age. Draft bait. I bet there wasn’t a single person in the crowd over 30 years of age. Most of them were pretty young. They looked road hard and hung up wet but you could still tell they were mostly young in age. It was the older ones, the ones with the dead eyes, that were armed with more than placards.

I was starting to get worried. It wasn’t that long ago that I’d been in school. The history books were clear. Mao used young people because for the most part they were ignorant of history and easily lead, because they wanted to belong … to something that meant something even if that “something” wound up to be something crazy. But being ignorant of history they didn’t seem to understand that all those types of “revolutions” bring is turmoil, bloodshed, hunger, and stagnation. My history professor called it retrogression.

All of that flitted through my thoughts, increasing my fear and worry, while the crowd continued it’s assault. We weren’t in the center, but I’d managed to keep us from being on the very outside. The trailer had been the problem. Then the truck beside me had what looked like a concrete cinder block thrown through its side window. I barely had time to cover my face when I saw one heading for the van’s windshield. Turns out they had a freaking catapult they were using to lob “missles” onto and into cars and trucks that were not on the outside of the knot of vehicles.

I grabbed the doohickey tool that Dad used to say looked like the bastard child of a three-way betwee a hammer, a screwdriver, and an ax. Of course he told Mitchell that, my delicate ears wasn’t supposed to hear it. It’s the thing that you can use to cut your seatbelt and break out a window in case your vehicle goes underwater or you need to escape from it for some other reason. It also made a bodacious weapon.

Why didn’t I have a gun? Well I did but it was hidden behind the van’s doghouse and wasn’t easy to get to. Kinda stupid but they ran a scanner over everything when you pulled up to the gate and after seeing a couple of arrests for being caught with a weapon, I refused to take a chance. The engine and AC mess kept the small handgun from being caught by the scanners, and even if they had, I had it trigger locked. So stupid.

I had just gotten the window breaking doohickey tool in my hand when there was a bang on the driver’s side door. Those bastards punched the lock and then used a crowbar to rip it open. Well I used the doohickey to smash the person - turned out to be a female - in the mouth as they tried to rip me out of my seat. Idiots didn’t pay attention to me having my seatbelt buckled and it made them angry. I fought better after the lessons I’d taken at Sheepdog, and I did some damage with the doohickey, but numbers still overwhelmed and I went down in pain from a multi person beat down.
 
So today I was watching you tube videos on how to deal with mobs surrounding you car and what you need to do. The major distinction was to know your states laws on self defense. And to fight fir your life, which is considered to be the right action once glass is starting to be broken.
 
You are never allowed defensive weapons in places you really need them. Oh for that useable toy flame thrower. Glass bottles with gas thrown at attackers. Then lite them up. But the good people are still being civilized dealing with rabid attackers. Please another chapter quick to get them out of danger. *ok not completely, but showing hope*
 

Chapter 95​


I still don’t know for how long I was out exactly. About an hour, maybe more. My understanding of “time” still slips in and out. It was a pain in my hip that woke me up. Getting kicked in the butt may sound like a comedy routine but I promise you it isn’t. It hurts. But as soon as I woke up, I was full of adrenaline. It was turning dark, not quite evening but real close to curfew so yeah, I was definitely out for more than an hour now that I’m being forced to write it out or drown in emotions. However, there was still just enough light for me to see what was going on even if my brain didn’t want to process it.

They were using the kids as hostages, in addition to some other people that were even more hurt than I was. I was in a pile of people that for lack of delicacy, were supposed to be dead as we were thrown together in a pile like limbs you pick up out of the yard. What I could see was blood on all of them … us … and lots of what I took to be head or facial wounds.

The goobers were too wound up, they didn’t realize I was back amongst the land of the awake and aware. Why they thought I was dead I have no idea. Maybe I was? Who knows. Maybe they thought I was beyond help and not worth using as a bargaining chip. Again, who knows. At this point I don’t care. It is simply the way it was.

I could see that Nat had been crying at some point. Daniel was shaky. Knox was pissed. That’s the best description. They all had been slapped around and that fueled my wakefulness even more. I had to fight off the depression of regret but didn’t have time to be much of anything, much less that. I was aware they hadn’t taken the doohickey tool away from me. Somehow, someway my hand was still wrapped tightly around the handle.

That’s when things started going sideways.

I could hear megaphones from someplace outside the fence demanding the goobers surrender. They refused. They demanded the release of the hostages. The goobers refused that as well. The goobers demanded that their demands be met. Yeah right. Then one of the older goobers … looked like Shaggy with the scraggly goatee … said if their demands weren’t immediately met they’d start shooting the hostages.

Most of the goobers salivated on that one. Their humanity had paid a price I guess. But a few of them no longer thought things were “fun,” were obviously starting to second guess their participation and looked like they were trying to back out and figure how to get out of the mess they were in.

“And we’ll start with these three!” Mr. I Am In Charge screamed into his megaphone while using the rifle he held as a pointer. Only the idiot didn’t have the safety on and in his excitement he pulled the trigger just enough that it went off.

I don’t know who it would have hit. All I know is that Knox was pushing Nat and Daniel down … but didn’t move after he went down. There was screaming and then dead silence. But whether the silence was real, or if it was just a result of everything but rage shutting down for me, I don’t know. I don’t even remember jumping up but I did. With my arm already in motion. I didn’t hear the doohickey make contact with the guy’s head, but I felt it, and I saw him stumble. I also somehow grabbed the rifle he started to drop. But it wasn’t me that shot him. The shot came from outside the fence and chaos took over from there.

I got to the kids and Knox wasn’t moving. A red stain was already spreading on the front of his t-shirt. I was terrified to turn him over to see the exit wound. There wasn’t one. The hole didn’t look very big and the blood coming out was not bright red, but it was red enough, even in the dark. I quickly took off my flannel shirt I was wearing over my undershirt. Yes, it was dirty but that’s what I had. Part of me noticed the cold but mostly I was trying to stop the bleeding. I added the belt off my jeans to tie the “pad” in place and hold it there tightly.

I knew I needed to get them out of there but I was afraid to move Knox anymore than I already had. Then someone nearly pushed me over running into us. I got up and started swinging the rifle like a club. I’m lucky I didn’t shoot myself I suppose. I was angry and making contact with anyone that came close. More than a few didn’t get up but were crawling around mewling and holding their face or head or for one guy what was definitely a broken arm.

Then the rifle was grabbed and jerked from my hand.

“Don’t take my head off lady. We’re the f****** cavalry.”

“Screw you! I’ll …”

Then I recognized someone from Sheepdogs. “Mina. We’re gonna get the kids out. You need to cover us. Can you do that? With the rifle. You understand what I’m saying?”

Nat latched onto me. “No!”

I peeled her off and looked at Daniel. It all came together in my head fast like things sometimes do.

I put my hand on Daniel’s shoulder and said, “Daniel, I need you to go with Nat. Take care of her.”

“Like Knox.”

“No, like you. You’ll understand what she needs, what you needed.”

He looked at me and then a depth of understanding appeared in his eyes that I rarely saw there.

He took a breath and said, “Got it covered Mina.”

“I know you do.”

He grabbed Nat’s hand and prepared do be the brother that Nat needed. And I prepared to be and do what I’d never wanted, but what those bastards had finally pushed me into being. God help them.
 
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