The Escape: Chapter Three: The Plan
James is threatened into action
We followed the General to the Moore family home. He stopped to speak with several high ranking Bishops from the militia, and we waited for him to continue.
JJ and Beau got restless and clearly wanted to be away from the group of adults, where they would be allowed to play. Alaina and my mother calmed them with severe expressions.
Ace and Karter’s wives, Sara and Elise, had a harder time taming their younger children.
As we proceeded, the General said, “Quiet those children.”
If there was one thing the Grand General did not like, it was out-of-control children. I took JJ’s shoulder and pulled him closer to my side so he did not catch any ire. There had been a lot of pressure on me at that age, as the oldest, to be quiet and respectful and obedient. JJ was generally well behaved, thank God.
The home was ancient. Family lore held that Adam Moore himself had it constructed as the colony closed. The women climbed the steps into the home to the kitchen while the men went around back to sit at the wooden picnic tables. The boys took off their coats and ran to the pond.
“I trust everyone is doing well?” said the General.
Expected to answer first, I said, “JJ is progressing well in school. He has been cited for memorizing more verses than any of the other boys.”
The General nodded. “Good. I expect nothing less. Ace?”
“All is well for us. We are having our porch redone. It will be quite the sight when finished.”
Karter puffed up. “The High Preacher indicated my application for the Clergy will be approved.”
Ace clapped Karter’s shoulder. “Here I thought you’d be a Watchman for life.”
Grunting, Karter elbowed Ace’s ribs. “Don’t even joke.”
Hunter sat straighter. “I punched out a Guardian two days ago.”
The General stiffened. Subordinate to a Guardian, Acolyte Hunter would have to have a very good reason for striking a superior. I had been informed of the incident the day after, but had not found it prudent to alert the General, which may have been a mistake. I did not think Hunter would blurt it out.
“Oh?” said the General. “What prompted that?”
The women began to bring out the food and set it on the long tables, beginning with the men’s table.
Hunter, with a mostly expressionless mask, said, “Guardian Blackwood called me an alien-fucker.”
Ace and Karter froze. No two words were more charged than those. Even insulting a man’s virility was less insulting.
I had spent a lifetime studying my father: his moods, his postures, his expressions. It was one thing that kept me safe, for the most part. In that moment, his shoulder tensed and his face darkened. I leaned back before I realized why.
“He said this to you? Truly?”
“Yes, sir. To my face.”
The General turned to me. “What sort of program do you run that a guardian would say such a thing to the son of his general?”
Of course this turned on me.
I adjusted my expression and tone to make sure I gave nothing away. “Francis Blackwood comes from trash,” I said. “His father was professional enlisted, too unliked to match with a profession. His family lives in squalor just outside of town. I expect nothing more from such people.”
Blackwood Sr. was the epitome of what can happen to someone with a string of bad luck. He broke his leg in training and had a limp after, which meant no profession would have him. He had to remain enlisted in the militia, which paid worse than shit.
Dinner continued with similar topics. I half listened as I kept an eye on Alaina, who tried to look like she wasn’t watching JJ. Our boy was down by Beau and Ryder laughing about their games.
When dinner finally ended, the men and women split to begin Bible study. As I was about to sit with the other men to continue our discussion on Revelation, the General grabbed the back of my neck and pulled me to his office. As we entered, I thought my head was going to rip from my shoulders.
He closed the door behind us and went to his desk, where he grabbed two glasses and a dusty bottle. I was not exactly sure what was happening, but the General did not seem overly aggressive.
The office was full of rich wood furniture, painstakingly maintained and handed down for at least ten generations. Dusty books lined shelves, and a dark fireplace took of much of the wall opposite the window. I did not have any good memories of this office, and I had no reason to believe that was about to change.
Taking the glass he offered me, I stared at it for a moment. Alcohol was rare in the colony.
“Drink that,” the General said. “And listen.”
I sipped the alcohol. It was not the common abomination Edgar Wilson made in his barn, but something much smoother.
The General stood just a hair too close. “You seem to think this legacy issue is a joke. Let me tell you, it is not. This is the future of this colony you’re jeopardizing. The Moore line trace straight back from you to Adam Moore, our founder. If one of your ancestors have been as selfish as you, you wouldn’t exist and some other family might be running the Militia now. It’s an embarrassment.”
“I’m sorry, sir. We are not doing this on purpose.”
We were definitely doing it on purpose.
The General gestured for me to keep drinking. I did not drink very often at all, and didn’t really like the sensation. However, he seemed adamant.
“Prove it. You’re going home right now and you’re going to make another son. If she’s not pregnant in three months, you’re not going to be happy. You are going to prove you’re not a useless eunuch.”
The General took the glass and set it on the side table so hard I thought they’d shatter.
“Sir, I am trying.”
Before I could even register it, he slammed his fist into my abdomen. He grabbed the back of my neck and said into my ear, “Try harder. Ace would be more than happy to take your place.”
The Grand General position always went to the oldest surviving son.
“Yes, sir. We won’t disappoint you.”
He opened the door and pushed me out. “Get to it. Now.”
He pushed me out of the office. I went to the front door as quickly as I could. Alaina waited. Her tense expression told me she had not had a better time than I had.
We walked out together. As soon as we were at the road, I asked after JJ.
“He is playing with Beau. I hope he will be fine for the night. Your mother is in a mood.”
The walk to our home was quick, and I looked around the perimeter before we entered.
In the large greeting room, Alaina hugged me until I could hardly breathe.
“That was so awful,” she said. “Your mother gave me three glasses of wine and explained I need to do my duty for the family. Then she went into detail about her doing her duty. Would you like to know where you were conceived?”
I regretted the alcohol immensely as my stomach rolled.
“Closet?” I asked right away.
She led us to the closet in the upstairs hall. Or rather, it looked like a closet. Soon after we moved in, I placed false walls in the fourth bedroom. It was a dangerous undertaking, given my father and most of my brothers had lived here before the General took on his role after my grandfather died. Fortunately, none of them had returned since I took over.
In the closet, I pushed in the back wall. It revealed our planning room. Supplies and maps littered the two tables. This was the only space we discussed our desire to leave. Going against Doctrine in such a way was one of the quickest ways to get yourself killed. I did not want my family endangered, but I did not want them to live this life. My fear of remaining somehow outweighed my fear of being caught by Border Patrol.
I closed the secret door behind us. Within a moment, Alaina pulled me into a hug that knocked the wind out of me. She came up to my chin, and I kissed her forehead to try to reassure her.
“I can’t believe this,” she said.
“We knew it was going to happen when we decided not to have another child.”
“How long do you think we have?”
“A few months, maybe. They would expect you to show soon.”
Our plans were half finished. I still needed to figure out the current patrol patterns of the militia. Being in charge of training, I was slightly out of touch with the day to day operations. I wanted to scout it out as close to our departure as possible.
Alaina stepped back and looked over the maps. I had hand drawn most of them based on my limited knowledge of the area around the colony. I had also spent time in other towns near the border to map as much of the actual colony as possible. Capernaum and Nazareth, closest to the border where we planned to escape, were smaller than our town of Jerusalem, but they took security very seriously.
Alaina moved a bag of emergency supplies aside to look at the paper that started this whole thing.
When I was 14, a neighbor called me up on his porch for a glass of lemonade. It changed my life. over many meetings, I learned he was secretly an Unbeliever, a man who did not believe in Doctrine or in the colony itself. He showed me an unbelievable history that made me question everything around me, including the foundations of my way of life.
The text on the paper was rewritten by my neighbor in neat, compact script. Even reading it was against Doctrine, as it was not the Bible, but I had latched onto it. From the moment I saw it, I couldn’t get it out of my mind. When I could not imagine risking leaving, I thought about my new Doctrine:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
Mr. Turner told me about the United States of America, about its early struggles and evolution into a peaceful land. He showed me books—books!—on the horrors of slavery, of abolition, gaining rights, and never giving up. I learned about peoples I never knew existed.
And I told Alaina all about it after we married.
Raised to be submissive to men, never speak her mind, and simply exist to have children, Alaina could hardly believe what she heard. But that was six years ago, and our lives had changed.
“I blame you for this,” she said.
I laughed, but it was not happy. “Sorry. But it will be worth it all.”
“Unless an alien eats us.”
I was not absolutely certain I was right about aliens not being vicious.
Just about to sit down to discuss our ideas, my spine stiffened.
Someone knocked at the front door.