Pilliars in the Fall (13 page)

“Bugging out,” I corrected his terminology and shook my head in frustration at everything. The misuse of the phrase, the fact that they left, and the fact that I was here having this stupid conversation.

“Hmm, I guess you won’t be finding them here then,” the Militia Captain smiled oddly.

“So let me get this straight,” I closed my eyes to collect my thoughts. “They left; you guys are here just to be helpful, and I’m an idiot? Is everyone happy with that assessment?” I asked opening my eyes again and looking around at all the blank faces that were staring back at me. Danielle gave me yet another dirty look.

“Why in the world would they leave and where in the hell would they go?” I asked no one in particular and immediately regretted it because I just knew that in the very intellectual group I had here, it was inevitable that at least one of them would have an answer for my rhetorical question.

“May I remind you, you are in the house of the Lord. Please watch your language,” the door greeter reprimand me.

I had to physically close my eyes again to stop the first three things from escaping out of my mouth and finally just chose to ignore him completely from here on out.

“It sounds like your friends were smart ones to get out while the gettin’ was still good,” the mean looking black haired guy pontificated and somehow managed to redouble my irritation.

“Well since you won’t be finding your friends here, I guess you’ll be going along on your way then. I can have a man help you two get back out to the interstate if you’d like,” the Captain sounded genuine in his offer, but it struck me as strange, almost as if he were eager to be rid of us.

“I’ll go with ‘em Boss,” the burly guy with the HK finally spoke for the first time.

“I don't think so,” I caught Captain Short saying as he eyed the big man before I interrupted them.

“So I take it we’re not invited to hear the sermon anymore?” I implied.

“What? Oh sure, I mean I just figured...” the Captain stumbled over his words.

“What don’t you like about buggin’ out?” The Eagle Scout suddenly piped up.

“Sometimes leaving creates more problems than answers,” I replied simply after a short pause.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” the Captain arced an eyebrow at me.

“It’s kind of like being in a Militia," I smirked, "bugging out might be well intentioned, but it's ultimately ineffective. Even if you’ve prepped a place, how long are you really going to be able to stay there? What happens when that tooth ache starts getting worse? You have a dentist out there in a buried cache?"

“What do you need that nature cannot provide?” the Boy Scout tried his best to sound profound.

“You go running to the woods and expect what exactly?” I asked. “People think they’ll find a year round apple tree and squirrels roasting on a spit when they get there? Nuts piled up on logs and the birds leave them eggs to cook every morning? The trout will just jump out of the water into their outstretched hands... Well there aren’t any trout in these streams and Mother Nature is a mean mother-” I bit back the last part, remembering the previous scorn that we were, in fact, standing in a church lobby. “You know where the nearest stream feeds from around here? It comes from the sewage ponds this side of Wrangle. The others run through fields that have been dusted with chemicals so many times that you’ll grow a third… never mind,” I sighed and stopped myself again.

I knew I was lecturing now but this was relatively elementary stuff to survivalists, or so I had thought.

“But you can hunt in the woods,” the kid tried again, thankfully sounding less and less sarcastic.

“And probably get shot doing it,” I turned to him. “What was the country’s population the last time you heard?”

“Something just over three hundred million,” Captain Short answered after it was obvious the kid who had just recently attended an institute of higher learning didn’t know the answer.

“Right, and around the first Great Depression we were at a hundred and twenty five million… and wild game almost got hunted to extinction. So now you are going to go out and hunt with thousands of other people chasing the same limited food supply, the chance of actually being alone in the woods without a bunch of idiots with high powered rifles is tiny,” my own words were starting to trigger an alarm in the back of my head but I was too busy being annoyed to pay attention to it yet.

“Hunters are usually pretty careful,” the Captain rejected my opinion, scoffing at the notion of there being unsafe gun handlers in the world.

“True hunter’s maybe, but they won’t be hunters; they’ll just be someone in the woods with a gun. Hunters have skills. Once the normal people or even regular shooters who have never hunted before, once they start seeing how hard it is to feed their families, they will get desperate and start setting up just outside of town. They wait for the real hunters to return with their kill. One bullet later and it’s their kill now.”

“Sounds like a good time to bug out then to me,” The Boy Scout thought he had somehow scored a point with that little comment.

“Do you know how to preserve meat, or grow food, really? A single deer might feed a family for a little bit, but not if the meat isn't put up correctly. The average hunter has never smoked, jerked, or salted meat. I take mine to the butcher in town. How ‘bout you?” I turned back to the small group that was listening, “All I’m saying is that there is no one single answer and limiting yourself through isolation really doesn’t make sense to me.”

“Look in the mirror,” I heard Danielle mutter under her breath. I didn’t react and she said it quietly enough that she didn’t think even I would hear her, but if anyone had scored any points in this debate, she just had.

“After a while, the population will eventually die off… excuse me, stabilize,” I amended, “until then, this wont be pretty. That’s why I’m wondering if you really know what you’re getting yourselves into,” I told the Captain who narrowed his eyes at me, apparently not liking my tone.

“And just what exactly does that mean?” the contempt of my thought process oozing through in his tone. "We are here to help protect these people. There're wolves and there are sheep, then there are sheep dogs. We're here to protect the sheep from the wolves," he proclaimed as if I hadn’t heard that tired diatribe before.

"Yeah and sometimes the best way to fight a wolf is with another wolf," I muttered and stuck my hands in my pockets, trying to look as non-threatening as possible. “Talk to me about your militia,” I inquired.

“What would you like to know?” he perked up, happy to be the center of attention again and all too eager to tell of their greatness.

“Well we’ve all seen these groups come and go. Guys get together, pretend it’s not about politics and they might last a couple years even, but the groups always fade away. So are you guys just all gung-ho now that you might actually get to play soldier for real?”

“Young man, the climate in this country is…” he started to say before I waved him off.

“No. No rhetoric, what’s your angle? I’m wondering just what side of the revolution you think you’re on?”

“What’da you mean?” the mean guy with the AR interjected hotly, letting a bit of a slurring back woods accent slip out.

“You guys are geared up for war, but we’re not at war. We’re just down and almost out, so who are you warring against?”

“If you haven’t noticed, this is no longer peace time,” the Captain conjured. “We are at war with those who brought us to where we are today. The Government became so
corrupt; it ran roughshod over its own people until now. Picture just one patriot taking a single aimed shot at a uniform a couple of times a year on his way to work. You get fifty people doing that nationwide and you have a serious, serious problem. And if you get just one percent of gun owners doing that, well that’s a half million people. Suddenly they have a nightmare to deal with,” the Captain proclaimed.

“And how do you think that scenario will be dealt with at the local and national level?” Danielle questioned, unable to keep from finally joining the discussion.

“The people know who the real enemy is,” he proclaimed.

“So let me get this right, you don’t like the policies enacted in DC, so you’re going to assassinate the mailman because he is a federal employee? The economy crashed and the government went bankrupt and
now
you’re fighting mad? Well who are you fighting but yourself?  You want to take shots at people in uniforms? Those are normal people just trying to do their jobs to feed their families, just like you.”

“If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem,” the Captain prophesied dangerously.

“That’s right! One man’s freedom fighter is another’s terrorist,” the irritating Boy Scout quoted.

I stared at him for a second in half disbelief before posing my own question “One guy pushes an old lady in front of a bus, another pushes her out of the way, are they both old lady pushers or does motivation come into play? It’s never that simple kid.”

“It doesn’t seem to me like anyone who looks forward to the violence of open rebellion and warfare has a good idea who they are really going to be shooting at,” Danielle supplied, being a little more tactful than I was.

“Hey, this is the time for revolution!” the kid said excitedly.

“The only revolution that could have happened in the last two hundred years is a political revolution where states threaten and maybe even follow through with secession. The first revolution happened the way it did because of the reality of close proximity of the population to its government. Today you couldn’t even afford the gas for a trip to DC even if you could get through on the roads,” I was having a hard time processing their ignorance and was getting really tired of the whole debate.

“There are already riots sparking up. If people start sniping at officials, all its going to trigger is a backlash reaction by the government with a declaration of marshal law. We truly will be fighting ourselves then,” Danielle pointed out.
 

“Ma’am, I don’t think you know who’s who in all this,” the Captain eyed her with renewed suspicion.

I cracked my knuckles nonchalantly in my pockets and sighed.

“Okay, fine, enough of Current World History 101. Let’s bring it back to the here and now. I can deal with the idea that you guys are trading food for work in this community and at this church, and again no disrespect, but I asked you before, do you know what you’re doing?”

“Again, I’m not sure I get you... nor do I appreciate the question,” the Captain responded.

“Well you’ve got Dick Face and the Boy Scout here, some surplus store camos and a couple of guns... I bet you’ve even read a book on guerrilla tactics, but do you really know what you’re doing with a security gig like this or with the winter coming on?”

He looked insulted and I didn’t stop long enough to let him start firing off his resume at me.

I lowered my voice again slightly, trying to give them the courtesy of not calling them out in front of the last few people still milling around in the front of the church. “Are you guys ready for all this? Do you have a plan or are you just winging it? And if you are just winging it, do you at least admit to yourselves that's what you’re doing?”

“We are doing what we have to in order to get by and at the same time we are the best choice this place has at being secure. We have training and assets. You see my man Marcus there in the foyer out front? He is a world class shooter. He's placed in the Camp Perry shoots more than a few times. Yes, I think we can do okay,” he had an edge in his voice and I could see he was being truthful, he thought they really were up to the task.

I looked over at the man who was back again standing outside in the middle of the concrete pad that was part of the main entrance of the church.
 He was tall but otherwise fairly average looking. There was something about the way he stood though, his body language and how he held his rifle, a very nice, and very expensive, M1A. Even from behind him, he just exuded confidence. He was also completely exposed.

“You got all that?” I asked, thumbing the transmit button again on the radio in my pocket.

“Copy,” came back the reply in my ear.

“Well, you might have the tools but you don’t have shit for tactics. My guys in the field have your top shooter pegged in their scopes… and if your hand drifts to that gun one more time I’m going to cut it off and shove it up your ass until you burp,” I added noticing the Captain’s expression and the Boy Scout's nervous movements.

"Lets everyone just stay calm..." Danielle appealed soothingly in a low voice, possibly talking more to me than to the Militia dopes.

"Don’t you try to threaten me!" the Captain responded angrily.

“Look, you guys seem pretty well meaning and if the people here want to shelter you and let you run them, then that's their deal, but don’t kid yourselves,” I answered him sounding as cool and calm as possible.

"I believe its time for you to be leaving," Captain Short suggested.

“We said before that we didn’t want to cause any trouble, I hope you guys feel the same way,” Danielle said again, trying to keep the peace as she grabbed my arm, forcing me to walk backwards toward the door with her.

“Hey Boss, they seem to have their acts together, maybe we should tell them,” the burly HK guy attempted to implore the Captain in a low voice about something. I was close enough to hear it and to see the evil look he got in return.