The Drop-Outs

(10 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

I snuggled back into his body, the warmth of his skin battling the cold clean air of the morning.  Bright, crisp air. We hadn’t been fogged. That bode well, I thought as I pulled my head away from the now-familiar heartbeat and listened intently.  No one in camp was stirring yet, there were no sounds that didn’t belong to my woods. I curled back in, knowing I would not be able to regain sleep, but enjoying the feeling of safety of the moment.  Safer than I had felt in a very long time. My hand instinctively sought my gun in the darkness, laying beside us.  I had buried one person I loved already, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to let them wrest my boys from me without a fight.

I sidled out of sleeping bag silently, and slipped on my jeans and sweatshirt. Early riser me, and the creator of all things coffee for the crew every day. Not a bad job description, I figured, chuckling to myself.  I have a minimum daily requirement level of solitude that gets sorely tested with the drop-outs, no matter how much I adored them.  And slipping away alone was seriously dangerous these days.  As was an encampment too large.  This one was starting to worry me, as tree bulletin board system had brought more than I had anticipated. But no is not in my vocabulary.  I’ll figure something out.  But these mornings were mine alone.

The decision to go drop-out got easier quick.  I had a brush with the law and got away, something that never happens anymore.  Thank God I picked up a bag of groceries before leaving the Demonstration.  The Frat boys swooped down and cuttled us in like sheep, beating and arresting us all.  My saving grace was the receipt in my pocket; the torn paper strap I clutched in my hand, dripping with blood from the zip ties.  But evidence enough that I was simply a by-stander caught in the fray.  

I suppose it would have been more noble for me to go with my friends, but battles can’t be won from cages.  Some of us need to elude the bastards.  They had no idea I was me, and not one of the trapped narc’d me out. They knew. They protected me.

And now they are gone.  Just gone, and I work hard at not imagining what has happened to them.  I pumped the well handle with tears in my eyes at the thought, its heavily greased handle not making a sound. The coals from last night’s fire were still warm, the relight was going to be a breeze.  Finally, too, a break from the incessant Spring rain.  

Camp life is weird, and I shook off the blues with the memory of my son catching a look on my face, a look not meant to be caught nor shared by him, between my sweetheart and I. He announced rather pointedly, “I’m gonna stay up and listen to my iPod really LOUD, Mom.  Sit by the fire for another hour or so, you guys don’t mind do you?”  My son knows me, and also adored the man I had found love with again. The kid is generous and kind to a fault, but the art of his subtle smartass-ness just made him too freaking cute. Intimacy is a rare commodity too these days, certainly not a priority to survival.  But it certainly made life better once in a while.  So, he sat out in the cold drizzle by the fire, to create that time.  

“Yeah, it was a good morning,” I thought, afraid the tell tale grin would have people teasing me all day.

It was ACADEMI’s world now.  We called them Frat Boys.  They, in turn called us Drop-outs. Word went out quickly when the latest round off arrests had lead to door to door abductions.  Trusting your allies is one thing, but expecting the to endure untold tortures and not spill your name is pure hubris, deadly hubris.

People had begun to take to the woods in Livingston County, an area ripe with fresh waters, hills, woods, hiding spots.  The Kensington/Island Lake area was first to be dusted, and Bishop Lake soon followed.  It was like a pepper spray fog that was brutal, and would send people running towards water for relief.  Which, of course, let the Frat Boys pick them off one by one, killing them on sight. But sometimes, they just randomly fogged any woods.

The last thing I packed, in our hasty departure, the last minute impulse became one of the most valuable.  I grabbed two bundles of paper to cram into my backpack.  The computer paper and ruled looseleaf, along with markers and pens.  I had thought to write, I need to write like I need to breathe.  Then something made me grab that ancient plastic box of thumbtacks my pack-rat ex had saved for centuries.

In a way that became the saving grace of our whole group. Some of the veterans of the 60’s knew the symbols of the homeless, and we altered them to fit our needs.  There was a sign for water-hunters for where the Frat Boys stalked the waterholes like they were on some African Safari.  There were signs for dusting areas.  There were signs for safe spaces.  There were signs for raids.  Yes, we had become guerrillas, raiding and retaliating by stealth rather than the overt confrontation which had proven futile.

We tacked them to trees, abandoned houses, we tacked them to anything we could, removing the tacks, and re-using the papers as we migrated.  Parks are not the only open land here, and while stumbling toward an old abandoned gravel pit, we had found the remnants of the ruins of some ancient hunting cabin.  No more than a meager pile of round rocks and scraps of mortar through the grasses, but there it was.  I studied it more for its beauty, the thought of better times, who had lived here, were they happy, when it occurred to me.  No plumbing.  No nearby water source.  There had to be a well somewhere. I looked at the lie of the land, the vegetation, and noticed a nearby stand of sumac, wrapped in the shoots of wild blackberries.  “That’s the well!” I nearly hollered. “And you without your divining rod?” my darling smartass replied.  “Its Mommy-magic,” the lesser smartass chimed in. Yet, trusting my instinct, they both bloodied their hands with me pulling back the prickly bramble to reveal the well.  There was still a rusted head and handle on the thing too.  

It was a mile or so hike back to where we had seen the last abandoned vehicle.  The hard part wasn’t getting the oil filter off, and draining what we could into empty bottles, the hard part was doing it cleanly.  Our hearts raced being on the open road, and not one drop could lead a trail back to us.  There were not even any deer trails nearby. We could not afford any tell tail sign that would mark the area as a place of interest.  We oiled the handle, and the feared screech of metal on metal did not manifest.  It was blessedly silent, and woefully unproductive.  We needed to prime it. It was me that froze on that one.  Using the last of our water for the week meant going back to the killing fields to replenish our supply.  Neither one of us was remotely young and fast anymore, and I refused to risk the kid. It was my man that took the leap of faith, looking in my eyes and telling me to trust him.  I was a sucker for those eyes. I had to look away, I swear it, I wept when the water came.  Silent, safe water.  The one thing that meant life. The Frat boys had one less advantage.

It was never even a question for the three of us. This was not our good fortune to be hoarded, it had to be shared.  We were the Commies after all, Drop-outs from the World of obedient subjugation. We recovered the well with less hostile bramble, and set the tent up under the heavy oak cover nearby, already filling in for the season.

We spent a couple weeks doing surveillance, and posting signs, always removing them before nightfall, when the searchlights of the drones would be drawn to a flash of white in this green and brown world. They mostly hovered around the cities, then the obvious parks anyway, but no need to take chances.

Soon, our community had become 20, now almost 30.

The benefits of this balanced the risks.  We now had decent hunters, we had a nurse, we had community of so many varied skills.  The need for risky trips to the empty cities to scavenge lessened, while the need for both stealth and food production increased.  

I startled greatly at a twig snap, looking up from the small smokeless fire and the perking pot.  The newest guy to join the Drop-outs was coming back from his morning pee. I wondered if I would ever not jump at every sound, and resolved to teach these newbies how to move in the woods without sounding like a wounded bear.

We needed desperately to find a back up spot, somewhere to go when or if this place was compromised.  I’d have to call a council about that, send out scouts. The last one someone called resulted in some pretty good ideas, like a distance restriction on shooting down drones with arrows, and a further one for discharging firearms.  Sure the echo of the surrounding hills helped mask those shots, but it was agreed to err on the side of safety.

We’ve got a decent arsenal of firearms going, but what we need is more bows.  Stealth wasn’t on our radar not so very long ago.

The people started crawling out of their sacks, and head toward the fire, breaking me out of my reverie. You see why I need my quiet time to think?  I need to sort this all out, think and plan, and reflect on what has happened thus far.

I brought two mugs of coffee to the tent to nudge my boys out of their slumber.

The signs had been pointing to a war council in the basement of the Gregory Police Station with a bunch of other Communities. Funny that, they never thought to look for us at abandoned Police Stations.  One of our former cops thought of it, since most of the cops had long abandoned aiding the Elite’s Army against us as the rivers of blood flowed.

Soon, we were going to take back the County, if not all of Southeast Michigan.  

There were purportedly some ex-real-military who had concrete plans and means.

“Big day, sleepy heads” I said as I pushed the warm mugs toward them.

Strange how having so little, and living so mean could leave me happier, fuller and more content than ever before in my life.  We had purpose now, we were safe for the moment, and we had love. We were the Drop-outs, and inside that circle, we were family. And my family was drinking my coffee, looking at me with hope.

Yeah, it was a good morning.