Glen Tate - 299 Days - The Community

Molly heard and saw the cars coming. Since there weren’t any gun shots, it must be their guests. Wow. That was an unusual thought. She wondered if she’d ever thought such a thing. Nope.

Molly tried to mentally prepare herself to have three families of houseguests coming for the next…who knew how long. She was glad to have them there. Her farmhouse was modest compared to the other families’ suburban homes. She had always been bothered by this. Not that she was jealous—she loved her farmhouse just the way it was—but she couldn’t help wondering if she’d measure up to the other wives. After Jeff told her they might be coming, she spent the entire day and into the night getting things ready for her guests. She got out sheets and blankets and figured which rooms would have kids and which would have couples. She got lots of food out of storage; she got the “store bought” food out first because that’s what the other families would be used to. She was ready to feed her guests. The families probably had been up all night and were stressed; nothing would be better than something to eat before they unpacked at their new quarters.

Molly went toward the front door and caught a glimpse of herself in the entryway mirror. She saw that she was wearing her best casual outfit. She was trying to impress. She laughed to herself and realized she would impress them by having a safe place for them to stay until this was all over. That mattered a whole lot more than clothes.

The families came into the house carload by carload. They were all relieved to get to the farm safely. The kids started running around with nervous energy. They wanted to see the horses and cows. Molly showed each family their rooms. There were enough rooms for everyone, but just barely. The couples had a room to themselves, and then all the kids split two rooms, one for boys and one for girls. Molly was proud that her farmhouse could become a comfortable place for three additional families to stay.

“Who’s hungry?” she asked. The kids all said they were. The grownups were busy unpacking. “Come on in here and I’ll make you a farm breakfast.”

After everything was unpacked, Jeff motioned the guys to come into the barn to talk. “Is everyone armed?” he asked. They all nodded.

“We each have a Sig in 9mm, and Brian has a shotgun and some shells,” Ben said.

“How much 9mm do you have?” Jeff asked.

“I got,” Tom said, “I dunno, ten or twelve boxes of shells from that gun store Grant always went to.” At fifty rounds per box, that was a decent amount of ammo. Especially since they didn’t plan on shooting much, or really at all.

“I have some rifles and shotguns. You guys know how to use them?” Jeff asked.

Brian nodded. Ben and Tom halfway nodded. Jeff made a mental note that he’d need to show them how to use them.

“Hey, Jeff, we’ll need to park our cars out of sight,” Tom said.

“Why?” Jeff asked.

Tom explained the POI list.

“Oh, that’s why,” Jeff said, trying to downplay the significance. Jeff knew he was doing them a favor by letting them stay out there, but now he was harboring fugitives. They weren’t fugitives, Jeff corrected himself. They were his friends who needed help. Besides, Jeff had decided long ago that he was going to do something for the war.

Yes, a war. Jeff knew this was coming. Despite being the mailroom guy, he had a very high IQ. He had quietly watched the government get nastier and nastier, and he knew it was coming to a head. Now was that time. Jeff didn’t plan on joining some military unit. He would make his contribution right there at the farm, however he could.

Tom could sense that Jeff was trying to process the whole “terrorist” thing. “If the POI listing is a problem,” Tom said, “we can go. We don’t want to put you in a bad spot.”

“Go?” Jeff said. “Hell, no. You’re my friends. You’re in trouble. I can help. Besides, we get about one stranger a year down this road. They are usually lost. The other houses around here are families we’ve known for years. They’re more conservative than you guys. You’ll be fine out here,” Jeff said, hoping it was true. Oh well. Jeff knew he’d die someday. Might as well be helping his friends.

He was proud to tell them the next part. “We have enough food out here for several weeks for all of us; maybe a couple of months. And we can grow enough for next year. Easy. We can everything from our garden and butcher our own meat. We have milk cows. We have all kinds of food stored out here. I figured something like this was coming long ago, so we’ve been preparing for a while. We’ve been getting extra of things we knew we’d eat, like canned foods. Got ‘em on sale, even. Worked out pretty well.” That was an understatement.

Then Jeff got a really big smile. He pointed to what looked like a gas station pump out by the house. “See that? It’s my diesel tank. I have almost 500 gallons in an underground tank. It’s for my equipment, but my truck runs on diesel, too.” He was beaming. “We don’t have to worry about the gas stations being out of gas.”

This place was perfect. It was almost like it was meant to be a sanctuary for them.

Nancy Ringman had gone insane. After she got in the fight with Lisa Matson, she went over to Sherrie Spencer’s and started screaming about how Lisa had attacked her. Nancy was yelling about Grant being a terrorist and “POI.”

She went from house to house telling people that they needed to come to the neighborhood meeting that night to hear about how she would be organizing a safety committee to protect them against terrorists like Grant. Most people just stared at her, but some believed her.

Ron Spencer was standing guard at the neighborhood entrance when Nancy came by. She was yelling at him about having a gun out. He’d had enough.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” he yelled at Nancy. “I heard you attacked Lisa Matson and now she has left.”

Nancy started in about how Lisa had attacked her. Ron knew that wasn’t true. Nancy started yelling, “It’s you and your guns that are doing this. Things were fine until you and the others started all this macho stuff, like ‘guarding’ us. We don’t need you. Things were fine without you.”

Ron could see that there was no reasoning with her. He didn’t want to be distracted with a crazy lady when he had to watch to see if criminals were attacking, so he waved her off.

Ron was on guard duty for another hour or two when Len came running up to him.

“The Matson house got vandalized,” Len said, breathless. “Go see. I’ll take guard duty.”

Ron ran the two blocks to the Matson house. He rounded the corner and saw “POI” spray painted in big letters on the garage door. The front door was open. He went in, with his shotgun ready for quick use in case the vandal was still in there.

He couldn’t believe it. The house was trashed. Everything was destroyed. It looked like a bomb went off in the place. He had been in that house so many times, and now it was destroyed.

It was ugly in there. He wanted to leave. Before he did, he searched each room to see if the vandal, who he suspected was Nancy, was still in there. She was nuts and might try to attack him, too. The house was empty.

Now that he knew Nancy wasn’t there to attack him, he had time to think. Lisa needed to know what happened. He pulled out his cell phone and took pictures of the destruction. He sent them to Lisa’s cell phone. The message said, “Don’t come back here.”

He ran out of the house. He had to go arrest Nancy.