299 Days: The Restoration

Chapter 295 Bedtime Story

“I don’t want to run a fucking daycare,” Ted said after he assessed the brewery situation and found Grant. “Not to be a dick, but we’re not here to be a daycare.”

“I disagree, Sergeant,” Grant said, asserting his authority, but doing so away from the hearing of the other troops. Ted had never heard Grant call him “Sergeant” like that.

“You’re totally right that we can’t let these kids put us in danger,” Grant said, “but we’re here to take care of them. And all the others in Olympia who aren’t trying to kill us. We’re here to be a daycare, and a kitchen, and a hospital. After we kill and capture all the Limas.”

Grant paused for a moment and said firmly, “Our civil affairs mission starts right now. With these kids.”

“Yeah,” Ted said, realizing Grant was right, “but how are we supposed to take care of them when…”

Just then, Ted and Grant saw Franny walking up to the kids with a case of MREs.

“Hey,” Franny said to the kids with a big smile. “Some of these even have Skittles and M&Ms. Who is going to find them first?” The kids started grabbing the MREs. It sounded like Christmas with ripping open presents. Or looking for the toy prize in a box of cereal.

Tom and the teenagers were opening up the MREs with pocket knives and dumping the contents on the floor. The kids were scrambling on the floor to get all the food.

“I got the Skittles!” a little girl yelled out.

“You have to share,” Tom said. “We share everything.”

“I got the M&Ms!” a twelve or thirteen year-old boy yelled out. With the semi idling, there was no danger that someone outside would hear the kids.

After dividing up the candy, the kids starting sharing the rest of the meals. Even the cold clam chowder was devoured. The finicky palate of a kid becomes less finicky when he or she hasn’t eaten in days.

“Thank you, good police,” a five or six year-old said to Franny, who swelled up with pride. This was exactly why he was doing this.

“We’ll keep them locked up on the second and third floors,” Grant said to Ted. “We’ll stage from the first floor and use the fourth floor for observations. We’ll go out now and clear all the other surrounding buildings. The kids’ leader tells us that the other buildings are locked and empty.”

“Fine,” Ted said. “But the kids aren’t coming with us, right?” Ted felt like a heartless bastard saying that, but he didn’t want Grant to take in the stray kids and get them all killed.

“Oh, hell no,” Grant answered. “That would be crazy.”

Grant thought about it. “You know, we might stay here for a while. It’s too hard to move a semi around the city streets. We’re right here on a key off ramp. We’re about a mile and a half from the capitol,” he continued, pointing north. “It’s right down this street, a nice wide street. There is plenty of cover the whole way down that thing.”

Ted thought about it. “Hmm… it’s not a bad idea. They’ll never suspect this old abandoned factory is our base. Brewery. I guess it’s a brewery, not a factory.”

Grant nodded. “What else do we need to be doing now?”

“Securing the buildings, setting up defenses,” Ted said. “Coms are up and running. We’ve called in to HQ to tell them we’re here and that any friendlies in the area are welcome to assemble here.”

“When all that’s done,” Grant said quietly, “I need to take a nap. Is that okay?” He didn’t know if taking a nap in combat was uncool, especially for a commanding officer.

“Sure,” Ted said. “How long you been up? Thirty-six hours?”

Something like that,” Grant said, suddenly noticing how tired he actually felt.

Over the next couple of hours, Grant was all over the place coordinating things, and working out problems. Details were starting to get blurry to him and he began having a hard time talking.

There were plenty of sounds to keep him awake. The sound of gunfire would go up and then down. There were some pitched battles taking place. HQ told them that the Limas were falling back quickly to the capitol campus, which was the beautiful park-like grounds where the domed legislative building and Governor’s mansion was. The place was heavily defended; mortars, according to HQ. A couple of tanks, even.

According to HQ, the main Lima threat was roving bands of gangs sometimes mixed in with renegade cops and National Guard. They were desperate and killing everyone they could. They knew they’d be killed by the Patriots so they were going to go out with a bang.

Grant decided that he could no longer function without a nap. He wanted a smile on his face before he napped, so he slowly went up the stairs to the second floor where the kids were. He wished he could tuck in Cole, but saying goodnight to some runaways would have to do.

He walked onto the second floor and saw something amazing. With the light of a lantern, one of the female soldiers, Corporal Sherryton, the former air defense computer tech, was reading the kids a bedtime story. Grant felt tears fill his eyes. He made sure no one saw him, while he stood there watching, taking it all in. He knew he was seeing something that would stay with him the rest of his life.

The story was over quickly and the kids were begging for Sherryton to read another one. At that point, Grant trudged—his feet felt like they weighed a hundred pounds each—up to the fourth floor to the observation point.

There were about a half dozen soldiers up there. They were illuminated by a big lantern and many of them were wearing headlamps. It was quiet there and the whole scene was surreal to Grant. He sat down on the concrete floor of the empty shop floor and closed his eyes.

Lisa was there. She was crying. She was asking him why he left a second time. She said no one was there to tuck in Cole. She started to push him.

Grant opened his eyes. A soldier was waking him up.

“Sorry, sir,” he said. “Sgt. Malloy said I needed to wake you up.”

Grant looked at his watch. It was 11:06 p.m. He’d been out for about three hours. He simultaneously felt great and horrible. The rest felt amazingly good, but he wanted, and needed, more. The thought of getting up was awful. He wondered if he could stand up, but he acted like it was no big deal. If the commanding officer was asleep… well, that set a bad example. He jumped up like he was wide awake, just like he wanted all his soldiers to be.

“Thanks,” Grant said to the soldier. “I’m up now.”

There were more soldiers than before up on the fourth floor. Something was going on.

The unit had one set of night vision binoculars. They were a civilian model which was available before the Collapse. HQ managed to snag a bunch of them and got one to Marion Farm about a month before. They were a Godsend. Grant wished that either he or someone on the Team would have not bought yet another cool knife or holster and instead bought at least one set of night vision binos. Grant wished he’d had them for the scouting work they ended up doing, but in all the confusion of them taking over the scouting duties, they didn’t get the one pair the unit had. There were lots of little mistakes like this. It was inevitable. There were too many details, things moved too quickly, and everyone was sleep deprived.

One of the infantrymen, Kenny Barlow, was looking through the Nibs, as they called the night vision binoculars.

“Yep,” Barlow said. “One, two, three… seven armed men are coming down that street. About 350 yards.”

“ID?” Sap asked him, meaning could they be identified as good guys or bad guys.

“Negative,” Barlow said. “But they have various weapons. Looks like AKs and ARs.” Everyone was quiet so Barlow could concentrate.

“Whoa,” Barlow said. “They’re passing a container around.” He looked some more. “Nope. It’s actually a bottle. They’re passing a bottle around.”

Good, Grant thought. The unit’s first kills would be easy ones. Hopefully.