299 Days: The Restoration

Chapter 294 Tom’s Kids

“Moving!” Pow yelled down the staircase. A faint “Move!” from Scotty could be heard from down on the first floor.

Tom and two older teenagers started to lead the kids down the stairs and back to the first floor.

“You expectin’ anybody?” Wes asked.

“What do you mean?” Tom asked.

“Are any of your people outside and coming back here?” Wes asked. “If they come into the first floor, our men down there will be…” Wes realized kids were listening, so instead of saying “killing” he said, “encountering them.”

“Oh,” Tom said. “No, we’re all here. Trying to wait out the…” Tom didn’t want to say “shooting” in front of the kids, so he said “activity out there.”

Tom still wasn’t sure who these armed men were. They seemed nice. Rough, but nice.

Wes couldn’t help but ask, “Who are all these kids?”

“Orphans,” Tom said. “Not all of their parents are dead. Most of the kids have been separated from their parents. Some were refugees and got split up, others had their parents taken to jail, and a few of them were just abandoned.” As food started to disappear, some parents — the really crappy ones that mistreated their kids before the Collapse — were doing the unthinkable and just leaving their kids to fend on their own.

Wes was trying to fathom how these kids could survive on the streets, during a war, on their own. But he didn’t want to get in a long conversation with Tom, who might be trying to kill him.

“Who are you guys?” Tom asked Wes. The Team didn’t remind Tom of the cops and soldiers in town, who were decent to the kids in the beginning, but, as things became harsh and mean, they started treating the kids like a problem. “Get those damned kids out of here,” was usually what they said instead of, “how can we help?” By now, several months into the Collapse, the authorities didn’t treat the kids like human beings, but like rats or some other nuisance.

As it became more obvious that there was no law of any kind, Tom saw that a few of the cops and soldiers started to prey on the kids. They’d beat, or do worse things to the stray kids they found out on the street. The FCorps were the worst. They had some serious psychos wearing those yellow helmets. The pretty girls would be “sampled” and then sold to the gangs. Tom could see, in his mind’s eye, the faces of some of the girls he’d tried to help, only to see them disappear. Maybe they were okay now, maybe they weren’t.

Tom thought about what he would say to Wes when they could talk and he could explain why he was there and how the kids got there. He would tell Wes that he was a youth pastor at a local church. He was twenty-five and loved working with troubled youths. He understood them and could talk to them. He protected them. He even got a few of them to believe in God, which was his ultimate goal, but theology took a backseat to survival nowadays.

He started taking kids into his church before the Collapse. The economy was in shambles and people who used to live comfortably were suddenly poor, which destroyed a lot of families.

One of the most common reasons kids came to the church was that their families needed to move to live with extended family in one house. The older kids didn’t want to go because all their friends were in Olympia, so their parents would let them live at the church “until things got back to normal.” Or some kids ran away and stayed in Olympia.

There were plenty of orphans, too. The number of deaths from crimes and from people going to jail, usually for political reasons or because the police and prosecutors were so corrupt, went way up.

Once Tom had a bunch of kids at the church, the word went out that he would take in kids. The kids who arrived started getting younger and younger. Tom remembered one crying mother who came to the church, handed him a baby and then turned around and drove away in her car stuffed full of all of her possessions.

Pretty soon, the kids were taking up too much space in the church. Tom gave a mini sermon one Sunday about how the government was supposed to be caring for people but wasn’t doing a thing for all these kids. The sermon was met with scowls from the majority of the church members who, by and large, worked for government and didn’t appreciate hearing that. Tom was asked to leave and take his kids with him.

“Not very Christian,” was all Tom could say to the church elders when he was told to leave. “We just want our normal church back,” one of them replied. “No kids running around and no political speeches. Things are hard enough without all that,” he said to Tom. At that point, they wanted normalcy more than to help people.

So Tom found another place to go. The kids were starting to feel like his family by that point. He had a few older teens to help him as they traveled place to place. They were in regular homes and occasionally businesses during the spring and summer. Sympathetic adults would take in some street kids. As cruel and selfish as life had become during the Collapse, there remained surprising pockets of decency everywhere. It was still possible, early in the Collapse, to be charitable. Food was in short supply, but no one was starving in Olympia, which often had first dibs on supplies because of all the important government people in that city.

In the fall, when things started getting really bad in Olympia, Tom and his kids had to go to their first abandoned building. Luckily for them, there were plenty of abandoned buildings. Then the gangs moved them out. To his amazement, the first gang didn’t try to steal any of the girls. The gangbangers were Mexicans and some of them — the reluctant ones, who were new to the gangs - even prayed the Rosary for the kids, but told them they had to leave.

The second gang to evict them was a Russian group and they were not nearly as nice. Tom managed to get the kids out of that place and they ran for their lives. That was when Tom and two of the teenagers secured some guns. One of the younger kids had them; they never asked her how she got them.

“Tom’s kids,” as they became known, would support themselves in various ways. They scavenged. They did odd jobs. Even though the economy was essentially non-existent, there were still little jobs to be done, like moving things, unloading things, and sweeping a parking lot.

They also stole things. Tom didn’t like that since he was supposed to be setting a good example, but the first time one of the kids came back with a handful of stolen FCards, the decision was easy. They were hungry. Not “snack” hungry, but “haven’t eaten for three days” hungry. And if they returned the FCards, they would never get back to their rightful owners. Tom viewed the FCards as gifts from God, not stolen merchandise.

By now, there were fifteen kids. The youngest was six and the oldest was seventeen. Completing the group was Tom and the two older teenagers, for a total of eighteen people.

Tom asked Pow who they were.

Before replying, Pow put his hand up. He had more important things to get done. “None of these kids leaves this place,” Pow said firmly and quietly. “Got it?” He looked around to make sure no kids were listening.

Pow looked Tom right in the eyes and said, “If one of them tries to leave, we’ll shoot all of you. Okay? No one can know we’re here.” Pow hated to be a dick and really didn’t want to hurt any of the kids, but he couldn’t have them running away and telling some Limas that they were at the brewery.

Tom nodded. “There are eighteen of us,” he said.

Pow said, “Oh, I know, I counted. But thanks. You are responsible if one of them leaves.” Pow gripped his rifle and said, “You understand what I’m sayin’?” He wouldn’t really shoot a kid or Tom, but he needed them to think that he would.

“Understood,” Tom said, believing Pow’s every word. He believed Pow would shoot them because that’s what everyone else in Olympia seemed to be capable of.

“So, who are you guys?” Tom asked again.

Pow put his hand up again and walked away. He had no time for that question. Pow went over to Grant and they huddled together with Scotty, who was talking to the convoy. They were working on getting one of the Team back to the truck where Donnie was waiting and then guiding the whole convoy in. They were trying to figure out where to park the semi. Chitchat about who they were would have to wait. Besides, they didn’t want to tell these kids anything too important, just in case one of these kids decided to go tell the authorities.

Tom went back and told all the kids that they could not leave the building for any reason whatsoever. If they did, the soldiers would hurt all the remaining kids, Tom said.

“Who are these guys?” Carrie, one of the teenagers, asked Tom.

“Dunno,” he said. “If they were a gang, we’d have known it by now.”

“They look like military contractors,” she said. Her dad had been at Ft. Lewis and was now a contractor, though she had no idea where he was.

That’s what Tom had been thinking, too, and it made him wonder if the Team was somehow involved in what was going on outside the brewery with all the explosions and gunfire since New Year’s Eve. That was more likely than them being FCorps or something else.

Tom started to work on getting the kids settled down, making sure they were warm, and keeping their spirits up. If these guys were Patriots, the police and soldiers would want to attack them, which meant his kids would be in the line of fire.

He heard a truck drive up and a few new soldiers arrived. Soon after, Tom heard a semi-truck idling. They pointed their headlights into the building so there was actually some light in there for a change.

More soldiers poured in and everyone instantly became busy getting things in order.

Pow came over to Tom. “I need you to get everyone up to the second and third floors and stay there. We’ll assign a soldier to you so you can communicate with us. We’ll be on the first and fourth floors.”

Tom nodded. Pow pulled something out from under his shirt. It was on a chain around his neck and he kept his hand over it.

Pow motioned for Tom to follow him over to the kids. Once Pow had the kids assembled before him, he said to them, “Okay, you guys wondered who we are.” He lifted his hand and there was his “badge.” It was the concealed weapon permit badge he used when the Collapse started so he could avoid getting shot by the police when he had to pull a gun on someone.

“We’re the good police, kids,” Pow said with a big, warm smile and pointed toward his “badge.” He was a softie and was feeling bad that he had to be so gruff with them. He was trying to make up for it. “I told you earlier that we are the good police and, here, I have a badge to prove it.” The kids were in awe.

“We are here to take the bad people to jail,” Pow said. “But we need your help. You can’t leave here. The bad people might take you and make you tell them where we are and who we are. So no one leaves. Got it?” They all nodded.

With some decent light for the first time, Pow could see the kids’ faces. They were filthy, and looked hungry, cold and scared. No kid should have to go through this. And no more will if we win, Pow thought.