Thanks guys. This is, thus far, the longest thing I've ever written, so bear with me on it.
Alan, I can perfectly understand.
Here's some more.
Chapter 6
After pushing the van as far as they could, Preston, Marty, and Rick double checked the van for usable items, finding a flashlight and some spare batteries. They also emptied the glovebox of official registration and interstate movement authorization papers to use in firemaking.
After an hour or so, the three men established a good pace to get some distance between them and the abandoned van. Pushing straight through without stopping, the men hiked speaking but little, leaving themselves just enough time to make camp before stopping.
Spotting a rock bluff, Preston led them to a spot with a natural chimney and they started gathering limbs to build a large lean-to. A bit later, the men huddled over the warm fire waiting on jerky stew to finish cooking while attempting to get to know one another. They each also took advantage of the calories in an MRE package.
After eating Preston spread the fire out between their beds, adding a small amount of fuel to keep it burning a bit. Drawing for watch duty, Rick drew the short pine needle and settled down at the low 'doorway' to the lean-to shelter. Preston would be second up and handed Rick his antique pocket watch to keep time by.
Just before 2:00AM, Rick heard a limb break at the bottom of the bench, somewhere around 150-200 yards away, he shook Preston awake. Preston, unaccustomed to being wakened, came to sidearm in hand. "Shhh..." Rick motioned for Preston to wake Marty.
As Marty was coming around, Preston and Rick sat outside the lean-to listening, rifles at the ready. After another *snap* and hearing some grunting, they decided a black bear posed a bit less of a threat than did a squad of CFC troops. Seeing it was nearly 2:30, Preston had Rick and Marty turn in, promising to wake them at 6:00.
With nothing to do but occasionally feed the spread out fire and think to keep himself awake and listening, Preston's thoughts soon turned to happier, better times. He thought of many mornings spent waiting for dawn with his father, either squirrel or deer hunting. Thoughts of his father, though, did not stay pleasant for long.
No one knew what the straw was that had broken the camel's back, but Preston figured it didn't matter. The coup de grace had been carried out overnight in a well planned, surgical strike planned by corrupt politicians, a former president, and several prominent businessmen. Millions of Americans had wakened to only one program on television, a looping broadcast that sought to control public perception of the 'regrettable but unavoidable' deaths of so many public officials. The Vice President almost immediately declared martial law, and Congress pushed through legislation that declared the Constitution to be abolished effective directly. Men and women who had appropriately greased the correct palms were appointed to vacant as well as entirely new positions.
Overnight, patriot groups, militias, and similarly minded men and women took up arms to resist. Decades of purging the military brass of conservatives and those who took their oaths to defend the Constitution had led to a military that was indifferent to the rights that had been taken for granted for so long. This military then turned their full might against those who had once bought meals for them, thanked them for their service, and shared the bond of citizenship with.
One of Preston's grandfathers had served in the Marine Corps and seen some of the last combat action in Vietnam, and when Saddam's regime was ousted from Iraq was a full bird Colonel. His Father had been stationed in Japan when North Korea leveled Seoul with a nuclear weapon carried by their Nodong missile system. After his Humvee was hit by an RPG, he was medically discharged from the Corps. Only two years later, he was killed fighting; not in North Korea, Afghanistan, or some other third world hellhole. He shot on American soil by a CFC soldier outside of Knoxville, TN.