Chapters One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven, Twelve, Fourteen; Christmas.
(Flyover Planet, SF, starts here, and that’s the teaser.)
The kitchen door opened, light spilling out.
"Sure you won't stay longer, Craig? There is plenty of room!"
"No, no," Craig's good-humored voice was the same as always, "I've got a meeting in town, it's a fella used to be in law enforcement, he might have something that could help your boy Martin out —"
Ben didn't stop to think. It was the work of a moment to pop the phone back into Craig's pocket; then Ben was out the door and at Craig's car; a moment later he had slid into the back and hunkered down on the floor behind the driver's seat. It was already dark out, and the little car was cramped and had a musty sort of smell to it, but that meant that Ben could escape being seen, if only Craig did not check the back, and Ben prayed fervently for that.
Craig did not; after what felt like an eternity of goodbyes he popped the driver's door open and slid into the seat, and the little car rolled forward. Ben could tell they were going fast; he could have peeked at the dashboard but he didn't want to even risk giving himself away. What would he say if he got found out? Ok, he could say he did it on a dare, for a prank—
Craig rolled down the window, switched on some loud music and slid his seat further back, almost crushing Ben, who flattened himself against the backseat, wedging his skinny body into the small gap between it and the floor. An adult would have asked himself why he was there in the first place but Ben was thinking furiously about the messages he had read. The name at the top, J.O.D., meant nothing to him; what about the photos? What did it say, photo of a kid with guns?
That was when Ben remembered: some weeks ago in the forest, Craig showing up unexpectedly, and fiddling with his phone in the clearing where there was no reception. While Ben was walking away with two guns! But what did that matter? Why was that bad?
He didn't know though he felt instinctively that it was. His mother once said to his dad, "it's like they hate everything that makes us human," and being able to shoot and hunt surely was a human thing.
And what about the recordings: "Collect the recordings by Friday?" What was that about?
Craig was slowing down. He switched off the radio.
"Hiya," he said loudly. For a terrible moment Ben thought he'd been spotted but:
"Where are you?" the voice came from the loudspeakers. Craig must have gotten a call while Ben was doing his thinking.
"Pretty close to town actually. You there?"
"I'm not showing my face in there again after last time. Pull over when you reach the turnoff, and just drive for half-mile till you see my car."
"Very old school," Craig said, and Ben could tell he was grinning, "and I thought I was the one hanging out in the sticks with the useful idiots." Ben bit his lip. His fingers curled in on themselves to form fists.
"Less of it," the voice said and signed off.
They must have been close; Ben felt the car make a rough left-turn and speed up for a few moments and almost immediately slow down. It pulled up. Craig killed the engine and got out. The window was still open. Ben very carefully raised his head to peek in the crack between the driver's seat and the door, keeping himself in shadow. A man was getting out of a car just like Craig's. Craig was walking toward him saying something. The man shook his head and Craig stepped off the road into the bushes, while the man walked a few steps forward.
Ben shimmied forward into the driver's seat, swung his feet out the window and dropped on the side of the road. Craig was coming back out, fumbling with his belt; Ben rolled off the side of the road into the ditch and lay still. There was little cover but at least he was wearing dark clothes; he bellycrawled forward as Craig joined the man by his car, lighting up a cigarette.
"You sure they don't suspect you?" the other man was asking. Craig laughed.
"They are yokels, Larry, simple countryfolk. They didn't warm much to me at first but now the old half-and-half thanked me for taking care of his son!" this time both men chuckled. Ben crawled closer.
"Here, this is the one from the farmhouse today."
"Why didn't you use your phone?"
"It's bad enough that I carry it around the place; they don't like that much. I will collect the other ones by Friday, as the boss says. Anyway, why the rush? And why not just go in and —"
The other man interrupted him with obvious irritation:
"You street punks are all the same! Do it now, go in and grab 'em, all that crap. It ain't the Nineties anymore, all right?"
"Sure, things are easier. You got feds anywhere and everywhere and the people just lie down and take it," Craig said.
"Things are harder. We watch and listen, but so do they. And these are all armed hicks, you know, it don't make it any easier. The cops are soft over here, and they don't like us. Besides..." He paused, then added in a quieter voice, so Ben had to crawl a bit closer:
"They are not the only ones."
"What do you mean?" Craig asked.
"Not the only ones, are you stupid? Everywhere you go these days... It ain't that bad in the cities but the moment you go to the sticks, small towns, especially some states... Man. There they are with their guns and their rights and their amendments," the man spat on the ground and added a few bad words Ben was not supposed to know, or at least use.
"And they tell each other all about their ... fight. That thing with that doctor witch," at least it sort of sounded like "witch" because the man spat again at the same time, "that didn't go off the way it should have, and the same day it's all over the Internet and people all over the country are sharing it, and then they got that medicine woman trick going... I tell you, if we don't catch a real good break soon... Well, you know what's on the cards for you."
"Hey!" Craig sounded really spooked. "We've got a deal! I ain't going behind bars!"
"Yeah yeah. Show some results, then we'll see. Now enough yapping, listen."
They spoke urgently for a few minutes, with Ben, shivering a little with the cold, straining to hear and remember everything. He thought he would never forget it anyway, two men's voices above, in the dark, plotting the destruction of his home as casually as he took out the trash; and he was getting angrier and angrier as he listened.
The man opened his car door. "And make sure that farmer boy gets what's coming to him. We got nothing good the judge so far, but you tell him that can change real quick."
"Yeah, you can just make it. He will toe the line, don't worry," Craig said.
"We shouldn't meet again but you know how to get in touch," the man said. He didn't say goodbye, but just drove away. So did Craig, after a few minutes, leaving Ben in the dark, in a ditch, about twenty-five miles from home.
Ben did not go back to the Valley that night. He walked into town, hitching a ride for the last few miles with a bunch of laughing men who were going over to the bar (the same bar where young Martin Forrest got arrested). As they pulled into the parking lot in front of the bar Ben saw Craig's little car there too; and when he peeked into the windows of the bar he saw Craig sitting there with a glass of beer, chatting to a tired-looking blond with circles under her heavily made-up eyes.
Ben walked waawy from the bar and to the shop where his dad would take their milk and eggs; the owner, Miss Carton (she spiritedly resisted being called "Ms.," explaining she was a woman not a manuscript), hadn't gone to bed yet. She was surprised to see Ben so late but she gave him some dinner and a bed in the spare room; and she also sent a message to Ben's parents to let them know where he was.
Ben woke up at dawn. His dreams had been pretty bad, but he had gone to bed worn-out, so at least he never woke up till the first rays of the sun touched the window of his little room. He let himself out after leaving a short note of thanks for Miss Carton. The town was stirring, and it was easy to catch first one ride, then another. He was a little worried that Craig might be out and about; it would be hard to explain what Ben was doing in town alone, and Ben was afraid that if he saw Craig he would get too angry and say something stupid. But Craig was not an early riser; and by the time Ben was walking through his favorite wood that led to his Valley home, Craig hadn't even stirred in his bed in the small apartment in town.
The Valley looked particularly lovely that late summer morning, with the sun gilding the windows here and there, the roofs partly obscured by clouds of green leaves, the tall church steeple. It had never sounded so homey before, or at least that's how Ben felt as he came out of the woods to the top of the hill and looked down. The crowing of the roosters, the occasional friendly bark, the lowing of the cattle. Every house he could see, and those he couldn't, was a friend's house; he could knock on any door and be welcome. Why would anyone want to destroy that?
He had thought long and hard last night and this morning. He wanted to save his home. But this was bigger than anything he had ever done, bigger than getting his sister back, bigger than getting some old folks out of that clinic, bigger than just jumping out of a kitchen window with a friend and two little girls. He could not do it alone. He was really scared that it could not be done at all. And if it could be, there was only one person in Ben's world at that moment who could figure it out.
So Ben ran down the hill, and all the way down to his house. His mom was starting breakfast for the family, and his Dad was drinking coffee and waiting for his eggs when Ben burst in. It was what it had always been, their happy messy kitchen in the light of dawn; but to Ben it looked like a minefield, a great hiding place not for one, but for dozens of spy devices, cameras, mikes... He tried to catch his breath.
"Benjamin!" his mom was surprised, and she laughed to see him. "Drat that boy, you never know —" she saw the look on his face and broke off. Ben's dad put down his cup, eyes on his eldest son.
"Dad," said Ben, shook his head, and mouthed soundlessly:
"Please, outside."
Iris, this seems like part of a novel! I’m intrigued.