“I don’t fight, Harry.”
“I can tell that.” Harry winked. “And you wouldn’t fight that kid. It’s not worth it. Why bother. So… then he takes five of your dolls.”
“I’d be mad.”
“Sure you would. I’d be mad too. But suddenly, you know longer have all the collection, you have most, but he still has a piece of your collection. He has your stuff, even just a small amount, and by doing that, he controls a part of you, whether you like it or not. And you have two choices. Let him have them or fight him for them.”
“What if I just wait until he’s sleeping and take them back?”
Harry smiled. “That would work. No violence that way. Maybe that’s what the US is doing.”
While Tyler still didn’t get the entirety of it, he got enough. He wondered what the United States was going to do. He even asked Harry that, but Harry didn’t have an answer yet.
But he would, he promised he would. Then they finished their meals.
A lot of people sat in the fire hall and ate. It wasn’t a big meal, just something to tide them over. Harry was told, eventually, they’d sneak out to get more food and everyone in town was pulling resources.
George invited Harry and Tyler to stay with him. By the time they walked the secret path to George’s house, Harry was even more tired. He asked Tyler if he minded if he went to bed.
Tyler didn’t. He knew Harry was older and even though he looked strong, he was bound to wear out early, just like Mr. Newman who lived two streets over. Mr. Newman was Harry’s age; he sat on his porch all the time but went to bed early. When Tyler asked his mom about that, she simply told him that the older a person gets sometimes they just need a little longer to rejuvenate.
Tyler wanted Harry to get all the rest he needed. He wanted Harry to be strong.
Harry was all he had, at least until he found the rest of his family. Tyler couldn’t get his hopes up that they were alive. What if they were like his mother?
His mother.
Sipping on a juice box, as he stayed close to Harry, Tyler thought of his mother. And as he did he started to cry again. He loved his mother more than anything in the world and she was gone. She looked so sick lying on that couch. It wasn’t fair and it was cruel to make her suffer.
And his father.
What did his father ever do to deserve to die like he did?
When all the other kids in school complained about their parents, Tyler didn’t. He thought his parents were cool, a bit goofy at times, but cool.
He and his dad played Friday night video games when his mom went with the girls to the movies.
He loved his life and now it was over and everything had changed. Tyler didn’t know what to make of that and he wasn’t quite processing the severity of all that occurred. Somewhere in his mind he believed that it was all a bad dream and that it would change back at some given moment.
He wasn’t tired, not at all. He sat with his back against the bed listening to Harry’s heavy breathing.
What is in the box, Harry?
Tyler could see it sitting on the dresser. At one time that box was gift wrapped beautifully, but now it was tattered and torn.
It was time for Tyler to open that box. He had permission and looked forward to seeing if he knew what it was.
He lifted the box. It was heavy. Carefully and quietly he removed the gift wrap paper and folded it.
The box wasn’t as old as Tyler expected. It was silver and heavy and engraved on the lid were the words, ‘Freedom leads to prosperity. Freedom replaces the ancient hatreds among the nations with comity and peace. Freedom is the victor.’
“Wow.” Tyler read the words. He wasn’t quite sure what it all meant together, he’d ask Harry, but he knew the words Freedom and Peace, and even if he didn’t have a clue what was in the box, those words truly fit what was happening.
The hinge was a small silver knob and Tyler turned it.
He lifted the lid, the box had a black interior and it was thick. But he didn’t expect to see what he did.
There was an envelope and inside there were papers and a picture of a president and another of a man with a sledge hammer ready to hit something.
But those weren’t what surprised Tyler. He could see those being important. But that other thing in there baffled him. Why was it there?
It was simply a small, fist sized, piece of rock.
How, Tyler wondered, was that so important?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Brendan considered himself a geek. Actually a lot of people did. He was a computer guy in his thirties who had maybe two girlfriends his entire life. He favored video games with his friends over nights out at clubs looking for girls. He loved the BBC America channel and wouldn’t think twice about staying up all night watching documentaries.
He attributed those documentaries to saving his life.
Civil war, Cold war, future wars, biological weapons, he loved those programs. He wanted to leave New York City, but he stayed an extra day, finding a great hiding spot in an office not far from the tunnel where the invaders were setting up what seemed to be a complex camp.
He dared not go into the tunnel, but he watched and took note of everything they brought it. He wrote it down in a tiny notebook.
When items and trucks stopped coming, it was time to make his way from the city.
He went higher in the building to see where they were and what direction he could take.
A car was out and by foot was his only means of travel.
Once he actually made it out of the inner city, Brendan found a bike and started to peddle.
From that moment on, he started to count how many times he was shot at.
In five days since emerging from the train wreckage, he made it out of New York City and New York state but not without being shot at nineteen times.
Twice on the bike he was shot at so he ditched it and ran. He was chased. He found a car but that wasn’t such a good idea; he was shot out there, too. While on foot… he was shot at. But the farther away he got from the state, the more he started to think he was safe, and he was. Despite how far he got, each passing day there were still the sounds of war. Gunfire, explosions, airplanes over head zipping by followed him.
He found a horse and deemed that his main means of transportation,
Then again, he had never ridden a horse and he fell off three times. He thought he might have broken his wrist.
But he kept moving on.
He ate only a minimal amount of food and had only sips of water.
Food was only what he could scavenge from homes and store, and most of them had already been ravaged.
He was trotting along on horseback when he saw the sign for Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
He thought it ironic and began thinking of Jesus. In fact he prayed. Maybe Bethlehem was a sign. It was four miles outside of Bethlehem that he spotted a truck.
He pulled on the reins of the horse to move him from sight and as he did a plane flew over and fired at the truck.
The truck pulled off the road and soldiers jumped out, flying into the trees, taking cover. They began loading anti-aircraft weapons and firing.
But there was something different about the soldiers that fired at the sky.
They were Americans.
Brendan breathed a sigh of relief.
He had been lucky thus far in not getting shot and he wasn’t going to take a chance on friendly fire. He hid himself in the brush after securing his horse and waited for a pause in shooting before he called out.
He kept calling out until someone heard him, acknowledged him and eventually found him.
He did it.
He made it from an attack zone, into territory occupied by allied forces and he did that all in his homeland.