2nd Earth 2: Emplacement (18 page)

Mike and Morgan vow to make several gallons of barbeque sauce tomorrow. They remember why they stopped by, and tell me that my hypothesis was not correct. Mike and James take turns explaining that the material certs, the chemical composition of the metal, are pretty much the same as they were in the other world. Both Mike and James worked extensively with metals and had to specify the chemical composition of the material. They say however that they did find a device to test the hardness of the metal and compared the hardness of the metal against what the specifications call for. This tells them that the fallout from the neutron bombs definitely reacted with the metal, and probably all the building materials within a certain radius of the explosion. They talk some more, but most of what they are saying is beyond me. They get up and excuse themselves, thanking me for questioning what they were accepting as fact. They say they will see me bright and early so we can finish those vanes for the windmills. The girls remind Mike and Morgan that they are going to make barbeque sauce tomorrow as well. They even volunteer to let them use our kitchen.

We do not complete the vane project today, but the barbeque sauce project is a complete success. Something tells me that by this time next week, we will have at least a half dozen different recipes of barbeque sauce in the groups. For example we all agreed that the sauce is good, but we also want to try the same recipe with more honey to sweeten it. The days are flying by heading toward Christmas. We are all busy working on projects and as we get close to completing one project, we find two more that we have to do. With five days to go until Christmas we have cleared as much of the woods out from the front of the church as we want to, and have completed the gravel road around the new settlement. All the houses are fixed up to where they are livable, and have happy occupants living in them. We are continuing to search for more places to settle, within a reasonably close proximity of the others.

The young people have been busy cutting firewood for the new settlement, and have a very nice supply ready for winter. Luckily it has held off so far, but we are hoping for a white Christmas. Our hunters have been bringing in plenty of meat for the holidays, and just in case we get some inclement weather. The women and some of us men have put several dozen quart jars of beef, pork and venison up so far this winter. With four days left until Christmas, we are all wondering what kind of luck Bob and the others are having finding people to join our settlement. Today after helping set the windmill in place, and helping run the wiring to the church, I get home about an hour before suppertime. I no sooner get my coat off, and start getting comfortable when Teddy, Jerry, and Steve, along with Nickie, Mickie, Paige, Hope, and Mandy come in and tell us we have to come and see what they found.  Actually the girls are the ones who shout it out, the boys were going to drag it out for a while.

Since it is getting close to dark we decide to drive, if the young people didn’t say this is important, it could have waited until tomorrow. We go about a half mile past the church, when the young people tell us to stop right here. There is nothing, but woods, we can’t even see a game trail into the woods anywhere near here. The girls jump out of the truck followed closely by the boys and show us a very dim trail that leads into the woods. Once through the overgrowth we can see that there was once a small road leading back deeper into the woods.  We go barely a hundred feet when we see what used to be a very neat small farm. The road doesn’t go any farther than the two houses that are sitting there, with a single good sized barn about fifty feet beyond the second house. We take a few minutes to check out the houses and the barn and they all look just about like the ones we live in. The houses both seem to have five bedrooms and are well built. There do not appear to be any bodies in the house.

We find a mailbox that has fallen down outside, and Dayna seems to remember the name as one of those we found in the church. It is almost dark, so we head for home to tell the good news to the others. In the morning we meet at the new farm, and discuss the best way to use this new property. We decide the first order of business, is to get the road in cleared enough to at least drive in, and then see what we should do from there. Today is Saturday so we do all we can, which is just about what we wanted to accomplish, figuring that we will come back on the day before Christmas and start cleaning the houses, so someone can use them.

On Sunday we hold our church service in the new church building. Many of the young people have been asking if they can come over here to play basketball or volleyball sometimes. We can see no problems with that, as long as there is some adult supervision. Robin is always telling Teddy and Nickie that they can do anything they want to, as long as they have adult supervision. They always turn red, which makes Robin and the other moms extremely happy. We know we should not be working on the Sabbath, but we also know we may not get a better time to set up the tables and chairs for our Christmas celebration. We are planning to have a group meal on Christmas Eve, and leave Christmas day for the families to be together and to visit. Knowing us we will wind up back here on Christmas to visit with everyone anyway, but so far that’s the plan.

We are really starting to worry about our friends who are out looking for others. We have even considered sending out a search party for them, but we have no idea where they may be. We discussed a rough area where they were going to look, but as we all know when you are looking for others; you never know where you will wind up. We all remember them in our prayers when we turn in on Sunday night hoping that they will make it home in time for our Christmas Eve celebration. During the night I have some disturbing dreams in which our friends have come under attack and can’t get back to us. In the last dream I had, I could see that they were holed up in a building, in the city that is about seventy miles to the southwest of here. There were several armed men keeping them from being able to leave.

When I finally wake up, I can remember all the dreams I had, as clear as if I was actually living them. I am telling Dayna and Robin about the dreams when Teddy knocks at the door asking if he can talk to us. He comes into the room and recounts a dream he had that matches the one I just had exactly. We have to hurry downstairs to answer the door before Sara and Gary kick it down. Tim is right on their heels with Charity and the baby. Sara tells me we have to go kick some butt, because our people are being attacked. Tim agrees with her, and Ken and Dan along with Carrie and Cassie make it unanimous a few minutes later. The fact that we all saw the same things in our dreams is a pretty convincing argument, but all we have to go on is the dream. We decide that the worst that could happen is we drive to that city and find nothing. In which case my wives inform me they have a list of items I can probably find there for Christmas presents. If it is true, our friends will definitely need our help.

It only takes us a few minutes to get everything ready for the trip. There is no shortage of volunteers when the others find out where we are going and for what purpose. Robin doesn’t want Teddy to go, but he tells us he will simply wait until we leave, then he will follow on a motorcycle, so we may as well let him go. That young man is getting to be too much like me. Robin, Dayna, Melissa, and Becky tell me they will all kick my butt if anything happens to Teddy.  In the van that we are using to get there, I tell Teddy what a pain in the neck he is sometimes. He just smiles and tells me that Gramma Horton is always telling him how much like me he is. He says that Grampa Gunny always says the same thing, except he doesn’t say pain in the neck. He refers to another part of the anatomy. All of my good friends tell him that Gunny is absolutely right.

The trip to the city seems to take forever. We all saw the same buildings in our dreams, and we know exactly where they are. We drive to a place a couple of blocks from there, and decide to go in on foot. On the way here, we discussed the best way to handle this situation. The women at home all asked us to at least try to handle the situation without killing anyone. They reminded us that after all even the attackers are Gods children, even if they don’t realize what they are doing is wrong. I am going to try to establish high ground, big surprise there, and the others are going to work their way into position to come up behind the attackers. That is if there are any attackers, so far all we have to go on is our dream.

Teddy is going with me. There is an old church with a tall steeple, less than a block from where we think our friends are. We get to the church, and work our way up to the highest point we can get to and still have a view of what we need to see. On the way up we hear gunfire so we are pretty sure of what we are going to find. The scene is exactly like we saw it in our dreams. This is hard to believe, we can see the buses parked outside the building where we saw our friends pinned down, and we can see the attackers working their way around the buildings across the street from there. I am telling the others what we are seeing. They are working their way around to get behind the attackers. It doesn’t look like it is going to be too difficult to end this fight.

I get a very big surprise when I hear a familiar voice come back over the radio, telling me I am underestimating them. I can see the man talking into the radio in the building, so I take aim at him with my .50 caliber rifle. Before I pull the trigger I remember what the girls asked for, and I tell the man that I can kill him and all five of the people with him, before he can set the radio down. I ask them to please surrender and they can walk away from here. He laughs and says he doesn’t believe me. They are in a very secure position. The man is sitting on a chair with the front legs tipped up. I tell Teddy to shoot one of the legs out from under the chair, just to show them that we can do what we say we can. Teddy takes aim and we see the man fall to the floor as quickly as we hear the report of the gun.

He is surprised to say the least, so are his friends, but they all say they quit. They really didn’t mean any harm to our friends they just didn’t want them getting back to the settlement. Our friends have surrounded them by this time, so they come out of the building we can see, plus the one next door to it. We are more than a little surprised to walk up and see the same people that left our settlement only a few months ago. Bob and his group come out, along with thirty-seven new members for our family. We tell Karl and his group that they are free to go. They hesitate then ask if there is any way they can return to the group. They say they realize how foolish they have been, and hope that we will give them one more chance. We have to have a meeting and we even call back to the settlement to see how the others feel about it.

We wind up taking them back with some pretty strict stipulations. When that is all settled, I can look for the stores that I can find the long list of items that I was asked to get. Everyone gets into the spirit and we spend at least a good hour combing the stores in the city for treasures. We can finally get underway back home. We get home just in time to get ready for our Christmas Eve celebration. Karl and his group say they will probably not be welcome after all they have done, but we insist that they have done nothing any dumber than most of us. Only two out of the thirty-seven remember what Christmas is and they had forgotten about it, but that doesn’t stop them from enjoying the friendship and the great food. We even have a Christmas movie to show after we all eat.

Everyone thanks Teddy and the others for finding this great church building. When we get home he tells us that he can’t take credit for finding the building. He says he found that the same way we found out our friends were in trouble, only that time his grandparents came to him in a dream and showed him where to look. He says it was funny, because he was walking down that road with all the grandparents and when they showed him the trail back to the church, Grammas Anne and Diane told our grampa’s that if they went inside the church, it would probably fall down. I can remember Ma Horton telling Gunny that all the time. It looks like they are taking care of me and my family even after they are gone.

We can finally go to bed and get at least a little sleep before Christmas morning gets here. It’s funny how quickly the children have become accustomed to getting presents, but they also enjoy hearing the true story of Christmas. I have a great dream where I am talking to Ma and Gunny, as well as my real parents. They all tell me how proud they are of the way I handled that situation yesterday and for giving those people a second chance. To be honest I wasn’t sure how Gunny would react to that. He seems to know what I am thinking, because he tells me that he has a different perspective on life, now that he is where he is. He even says he wishes he had been a little more forgiving when he had the chance. The dream seems to go all night and I am really enjoying talking to everybody when I feel my eyelids being pulled open, and I am looking into Timmy’s eyes as he tells mommy that daddy is awake now. He tells her that he didn’t even poke me in the eye this time.

It’s great sitting here watching and listening to the children open their presents. I wouldn’t change this moment for anything in this, or even the world I left behind. I am always telling our family that as far as I am concerned, my life didn’t begin until that day Tim and I found our way into this world. We had a discussion last evening, and decided that the new farm we found may be a good place for our prodigals to settle. Of course we will help them every way we can, and they are as much a part of our family as anyone, but they may enjoy being off by themselves, at least a little. My children drew me some really beautiful pictures for Christmas that will definitely have a place of honor in our home. I think I will start breakfast and give the girls a break this morning. I found out last evening that by next year at this time our family will be at least two members larger. Dayna and Robin are both expecting, naturally I had to hear from Sara about having too much time on my hands, if I can accomplish that.