299 Days: The Restoration

Chapter 319 “We Know Everything. Everything.”

She must be telling the truth, Ron Spencer thought as he was looking at Judy Kilmer. There was no faking that kind of shuddering, body-shaking crying.

Ron hugged Judy. She needed that. She needed to know that she wasn’t a monster, that there was still some forgiveness and decency left in this world. Ron hugged her as she finished crying. He wasn’t hurrying her; he wanted her to get it all out.

When she was done crying, she meekly asked, “What are you going to do, Ron?”

Time to lie, he thought. As horrible as that was, he had to play it safe. After all, until five minutes ago, Judy was a Lima. She was very emotional and scared. For all Ron knew, Judy might run out and naively try to tell Carlos, Rex, and Scott that everything was okay and no one had to do anything like shoot someone. Ron knew otherwise.

“You can stay here for a while,” Ron said, looking at the clock and noticing it was now after midnight, officially January third. Three days into the new year and look at how much had changed. A sobbing and apparently confessing Lima, like “Judge” Judy was there on Ron’s couch begging for forgiveness.

“Sherri and the kids will take care of you,” Ron said. He knew that Judy loved his kids. She had a son of her own, but he never liked her. She had been so focused on her career that she never spent much time with him. He became a left-wing activist, which pleased Judy at the time, and moved to Washington, DC to work for a big union at the beginning of the last presidency. She hadn’t heard from him since. This ended up meaning that Ron’s adorable kids were Judy’s window into the world of functional families and happy kids.

“Oh, the kids!” Judy said, suddenly happy. “Yes, yes, that would be nice. I can stay here tonight. It’s best not to be out there tonight. There have been some shooting sounds.” That was quite an understatement.

“You bet,” Ron said, half feeling guilty about using his kids to keep Judy put, and half proud that he thought of it.

Ron put his shotgun down and said, “I’m going to go talk to Carlos and the others. Unarmed. I just feel like we can work this out.”

Judy clapped her hands like a little girl. “Oh yes!” she said. “That would be so great. Violence only begets more violence.” She thought that was in the Bible or something. That was the only part of the Bible she ever remembered.

“No need for that,” Ron said, pointing toward the shotgun. “I’m going to go warn Len.”

Judy nodded. Awesome, she thought. This really is working out. Without violence and guns. What a relief.

“Sherri,” Ron called up the stairs to his wife. He went upstairs to explain why Judy would be staying at their house that night.

Ron explained that Judy had told him about Carlos and them wanting to burn down their house and Len’s. He told her not to worry, and then explained his plan. Ron told the kids everything was okay and he’d be back in the morning.

He went back downstairs with a coat on. “See you in the morning when everything’s been worked out,” he said to Judy.

She gave him the thumbs up, feeling so glad this could be worked out peacefully.

Ron walked out of his house and headed to Len’s. He wondered if that had been the last time he would ever leave his house. He quickly got there and did their secret knock on the door. It was kind of childish, but it was effective. A “daa daa, da da da, daa daa” knock.

Len came to the door with a shotgun, but also knowing it was Ron. Len asked who was at the door and, when he heard Ron’s voice, opened it.

“We have some work to do tonight,” Ron said. He told Len what had happened. Len was stunned, but not that surprised at the same time. He wouldn’t put anything past the Carlos Cabal, but this? Wow.

Ron told Len the plan and asked to borrow a shotgun. Len nodded and they quickly headed out.

They waited a few hours—long, long hours out in the cold and occasional drizzle—at the one point in the neighborhood on the route to both Ron’s and Len’s house. A chokepoint.

Sure enough, at 4:35 a.m. Carlos, Rex, and Scott came walking into the neighborhood. Scott had a rifle or shotgun and Carlos had a gas can.

Ron and Len silently watched as the three walked—they thought they were being so stealthy—to a place about twenty-five yards away. It was a pre-planned place Ron and Len came up with where there were no houses directly in front of them.

Ron raised his borrowed shotgun. Len raised his, too. Each of them put three rounds of 00 buck into the three men. Just like they’d planned, Ron put one round in each of the three men from left to right and Len did the same from right to left. That would avoid confusion and make sure each target got two rounds of 00 buckshot.

It was hard for Ron to shoot his last two targets because Len’s round had basically torn them in half. Fortunately, the spread on 00 pellets at twenty-five yards is pretty forgiving.

Their ears were ringing as they reloaded. They had duck hunter guns that only held three rounds to make them legal under the game laws.

Ron and Len waited a minute to see if Carlos had any back-up coming, which was very unlikely, but it was a reasonable precaution to take. People starting stirring in nearby houses. Six 12-gauge blasts in a subdivision was pretty hard not to notice, even when the surrounding city was in the middle of a battle.

As part of the plan, Len kept his shotgun pointed at the bodies and in the direction any bad guys would come. Ron started knocking on the doors nearby. He was waking people up telling them to come out and see what had happened.

There was Carlos with a full gas can—well, it was punctured with buck shot and the gas had leaked. There was Rex. Ron hoped Rex was wearing that stupid Che Guevara t-shirt when he died, but Rex’s chest was so blown apart and blood soaked that Ron couldn’t tell what shirt he had on. Ron really, really hated that shirt. Scott was dead and holding a shotgun. All three were blown to pieces. Blood was everywhere and was flowing in the street.

Ron started to scream out, “These men were coming to my house and to Len’s to burn us down. Judy Kilmer told us so.” Ron wanted everyone to know what had happened and why.

When another crowd of people timidly came out to see the commotion, Ron repeated what he’d previously said about Carlos and the others and what they were planning to do.

Then he added, to the now-larger crowd, “They said they were going to show us that the ‘legitimate authorities were still in charge.’”

Ron pointed down at the dead bodies and yelled, “There you have it, folks. The ‘legitimate authorities’ with a can of gas coming to burn out two families. That’s your ‘legitimate authorities’ for you. That’s what they do. But they’re ‘legitimate’ so it must be okay — right?”

Everyone was silent. It was time for Ron to yell out what he’d been wishing he could say for months.

“The Patriots have won!” he screamed. “We have taken the city. And our intelligence is telling us about things like what these guys planned to do, how they planned, and when they were going to do it,” he said pointing down at the bodies. “We know about everything. Everything.”

He paused. He wanted the word “everything” to settle into them.

“So this is your chance, your only chance, to come clean,” he yelled, looking each of them in the eye. “Come and tell me all the things you were forced to do for the ‘legitimate authorities’ and you will be pardoned. I will see to it that you are pardoned. Work with us and we’ll take care of you. No revenge. Forgive and forget. Forgive and forget.”

Ron paused and then yelled, “But if you continue to fight us, you’ll end up like them. We know everything. Everything.”

Later that morning, people came over to Ron’s house and wanted to talk to him privately. Ron had a notebook of paper and took notes as people confessed what they’d done for the government. They were ashamed. The most common thing they admitted was turning in neighbors in an attempt to get extra FCard credits. No one did anything that led to anyone dying or going to a TDF, but still. People were tattling on, or outright lying about, their neighbors to gain favor with Carlos so they could get extra little things and not be a target themselves.

Everyone stressed that to Ron. “We just did this so they wouldn’t come after us,” they said. Exactly, Ron thought. Help out the system that you know is doing terrible things, just so you will be left alone. So you will keep your privileges. So no one will think you’re a “right-winger.” Helping the system so they don’t come after you. That’s how it had been for a long time.

Ron looked at his notes. Confession after confession of shameful and regrettable things. Friends betraying friends. What he read bothered him, disturbed him. This was sick and stuff like this wasn’t supposed to happen in America. But this wasn’t America anymore.