Chapter 15

The trip back wasn’t a long one.  David knew the woods around the house as well as he knew his wife’s body.  He maneuvered the four wheeler through the woods with ease.  The little cottage wasn’t far from the house.  It only seemed like it in the dark.

Once inside, David went for his suitcase while Brie sat on the couch and waited for him.  “David, you really make too much of a fuss over me.”

“I do no such thing, Brie.  Just get over it.  I got you something for your birthday.”

“So, I can get you something for your birthday next year?”

He laughed as he walked back into the living room.  “If it will make you happy then yes.”

“It will make me happy and I thought that’s what you wanted was for me to be happy.”

He laughed.  “I do.  Fine, you can get me something for my birthday.”  He held a small box out to her.  “Here, baby.  Happy birthday.”

She took the box with a soft smile.  Upon opening it, she saw something that stole her breath.  It was a simple bracelet with a diamond heart in the center.  “David.  It’s beautiful.  Thank you.”  She leaned in and kissed his lips.  “You really spoil me way too much”, she laughed.

“No, I don’t, but you’re never going to believe that so I stopped trying to convince you that you’re my inspiration.”

“You sound like that cheesy song by Chicago from the seventies.”

“Cheesy or not, it’s the truth.”

“Matt told you to keep trying to drill it into my head, huh?”

“Yeah.  I kinda gave up a couple of years ago.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m not recording anymore.”

Before she could respond, there was a knock on the door.  “Mom, Dad, it’s Jake.  I come bearing two of your grandchildren.”

Brie laughed.  “Come in, son.”  She looked at David.  “You had me convinced a long time ago, love”, she whispered as the door opened.  “You didn’t have to stop.”

David smiled.  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

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All of the kids were settled in for the night, and Jordan sat in her old room and bitched to Davina.  “I’m not a fucking child”, she fumed.

“I know you’re not, Jord, but you have to realize that someone fucking shot at you a couple of months ago.  You have stay safe for the kids, Jordan.”

“I’m tired of having to follow one set of orders and being told that I’m wrong; that what I’ve been doing wasn’t the initial order.”

“I know sweetie.  Just calm down, Jordan.  Tomorrow we’ll go to the mall in town and get some clothes for the two of us and the kids.”

“Are you serious?  We’re going to go shopping tomorrow?” Jordan said as she cracked a smile.

“Yeah, baby.  We’ll go shopping and we’ll get some clothes.  I think Maddie needs to go to town anyway and I was just going to go with her and Delilah.”

“Do you think Delilah and Maddie will mind us going along?”

“No.  Come on, Jordan.  One of them is your little sister and the other is your twin brother’s wife.  Seriously?”

Jordan sighed and sat down on the bed.  “I know, but Jake’s been acting like a fucking Nazi recently.”

“Jordan, before you go calling your brother a Nazi, you should remember that he has been to the concentration camps before.  We haven’t.”

“So, what does that have to do with anything?”

“I’m just saying, baby, you need to relax.  We’ll get out of the house tomorrow and we’ll go shopping.”

“Sounds good, baby girl.”  Jordan pressed her lips to her wife’s.  And, the wheels started turning.  How am I going to get away from the house without an escort.  The details would work themselves out, but she knew that she needed to do it.

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With the grandchildren asleep, David and Brie settled into their room and were watching TV themselves.  Brie was nodding in and out of consciousness.  The day had been rather exhausting for her.  She just wasn’t as young as she used to be.  Not that she was old.  She was still as active at 70 as she was when she was in her late twenties.  She always had been.  She just needed a little more time to recover now than she did when she was younger.

David laid in bed and held her against him, his eyes half closed as he watched the news.  His fingertips traced lightly over her skin as he listened to her breathing even for sleep.  The news was upsetting.  The Utopian Party was neck and neck with the Democratic Party in the polls.  Not news he wanted to hear.  He actually laid there and questioned everything he’d done almost forty years before.  Had it all been in vain?  Surely not.  Surely the shit he, his family, and the other guys’ families couldn’t have gone through all the shit they had for not.  It just couldn’t have been possible.  There had to be a way to convince the American people that the Utopian Party was just spouting a bunch of bull shit.  But, at least they were going about getting into office through election this time around.  Last time they just pulled a hostile takeover.

There was a point where he closed his eyes for what he thought was only a moment.  Then, he heard screaming and crying.  Certainly he was dreaming.  That was until he felt his wife jerk awake and jump from their bed.  That’s when he remembered that they had two of their grandchildren with them.  He jumped from bed as well and went into the living room.

“Shh, baby, it’s ok.  Tell Gramma about your dream”, he heard his wife say as he walked into the room.

“There were scary horses with scary riders.  The pond that Daddy used to take me and Ira to out near Morbus’s house was red like blood.  Everyone had guns and they were all shooting at other people trying to overrun the house”, Miri sobbed

“Where were Grampa and I, baby?”

“I don’t know.  I didn’t see you.  I know Mama was trying to get me to go back to the panic room.  Mattie was out too.”

Brie nodded slowly as she clutched their granddaughter to her chest.  “David, call Jacob and tell him to get his ass out here stat”, she said, shooting him a glance.

David nodded.  “On it”, he said, grabbing his phone off it the charging pad that he and his wife had brought with them.  It was a simple way to charge multiple devices at once rather than having a million different chargers poking out of the wall.  When Jake picked up the phone, he spoke.  “Jacob.  You need to get out here stat.”  He paused.  “I know you were asleep, son, as were your mother and I when your daughter woke up screaming and crying because she had a nightmare.”  Another pause.  “Oh, I see that got your attention.  You gonna drag your ass out here now, or are you going to leave your mother and I to comfort your little princess?  Yeah, that’s what I thought, Micah.  We’ll see you in about five?  Great.  See you then.”  He looked down at his wife.  “Your son is just as stubborn as you are.”

“Hey, I can’t take full credit for him being a stubborn Jew”, Brie laughed softly.  “You’re half to blame for that too.”

“I thought we agreed many years ago that Jordan was my fault and Jacob was yours.”

She laughed softly as did the little girl in her arms.  “That’s funny, Grampa.”

“I’m glad I could make you laugh, sweetheart”, he said to Miri.  “Are you a little calmer now that I’ve told a joke?”

“A little.”

“What has me shocked is that Zeke has slept through this whole fiasco”, Brie said softly.

“That boy sleeps like a rock; just like his mother”, David said with a chuckle.

“No kidding.”

There was a loud knock on the door and David moved to answer it.  “Bang on this door like that again and I’m going to plant a boot in your ass, Jacob Micah.  Your nephew is still asleep.  Wake him and you die.”

“Sorry Dad.  But, when you said Miri had a nightmare, I broke the sound barrier getting out here, I swear.  I pushed that four wheeler as hard and fast as it would go.”  He moved to where he was kneeling next to his mother where she was holding his baby girl.  “Miri, baby, you want to come to Daddy?”

She nodded and pulled away from her grandmother, folding herself against her father’s chest.  “Daddy, it was so scary”, she sobbed.

“What did you see, sweet pea?” he whispered as he wrapped his arms about his little girl.

“Scary horses and scary riders.    The pond you used to take me and Ira swimming in out by Mr. Morbus’s house was blood instead of water.  Everyone was shooting at each other and I don’t know where Gramma and Grampa were.  I know that Mama was trying to run me off to the panic room and Aunt Jona was trying to do the same with Matt.”

Jake nodded slowly.  “Anything else, sweetie?  Is there anything else you can remember?”

She shook her head wildly, her brown curls slapping against her face.  “Isn’t that scary enough?” she cried.

“I know it’s scary, baby girl.  Can you give me any more details than that?”

“One of the riders looked dead, another like he was bleeding; one was sick and the last one looked like he hadn’t eaten in a long time.  No one else could see them but me and Matt.  We were trying to tell the adults, but no one would listen.”

Jake nodded.  “Ok, baby.  I believe you.  Do you want me to put you back to sleep?”

“You mean with that stuff that tastes like bubblegum?”

“Yeah.”

“Please, Daddy.  I’m scared to close my eyes again.”

“I understand that, baby girl.  Daddy needs to step outside for a moment.  Will you be ok with just Gramma and Grampa for that long?”  She nodded and he stepped away.  When he came back in, he had a small chewable tablet in his hand.  “Here sweet pea, take this and lie back down.  I need to talk to Gramma and Grampa real fast.”

Miriam nodded and took the tablet from her father.  “Ok, Daddy.”  She popped the tablet in her mouth and laid back down.  “Can I get some water before I go back to sleep?”

“There are small bottles of water in the fridge”, David said with a nod toward the kitchen.

Jake nodded and grabbed a small water from the fridge and gave it to his daughter.  “Can I talk to you two in the kitchen really fast?” he asked.

His parents went into the kitchen with him.  “What’s going on, Jake?” his mother asked.

“I’m going against what I was told to do by the Shaman by telling you this, but I can’t keep this to myself anymore.” He sighed.  “Jordan’s going to defy the order not to leave the house alone at some point.  But, Albert said that she has to be allowed to do it and get her revenge if we’re going to keep the Utopians from taking over again because if they take over again, we can pretty much count on it being the end of the world as we know it.”

David and Brie both looked at their son skeptically.  “You’re serious?” Brie asked Jacob.

“That’s what he said, Mom.  We can call him in the morning so that you and Dad can talk to him if you like.”

David and Brie exchanged a look.  “What do you think?” she asked him.

David took a deep breath.  “I don’t know.  This is shit that’s so far beyond me at this point, that I don’t know what to do anymore.  If this is what the Shaman said, then I do want to hear it for myself.”

“Ok, Jake.  When we come in first thing, grab Colton and we’ll go to your office to see if the Shaman is off his rocker or not”, Brie laughed.  “Go on back to the house and try to get some rest.  Once Miri’s back to sleep, we’ll do the same.”

“Ok.  I noticed two four wheelers out front.  Did you two do that on purpose?”

“Yeah.  We raced”, Brie laughed as she showed her son to the door.  “Go back to bed, Jacob, and try to get some sleep.”

He stopped long enough to kiss his daughter before heading for the door where he kissed his mother’s cheek.  “Alright, I’m gone, I’m gone.  I’ll see you two in the morning.”

Once he was gone, they sat back down on the couch to watch a little TV while they waited on Miri to go back to sleep.  Miri looked at her Grampa.  “Grampa, can I lay my head in your lap?  Please?”

David sat down and got comfortable.  “Come on, baby.  If it will help you get back to sleep”, he replied and patted his thigh.  Miri scrambled up into the couch next to her grandfather and go comfortable enough to try to drift off to sleep.

Brie smiled and grabbed her camera, snapping a picture after turning on a lamp.  “This is too cute.  Totally going in Twitter.”

He chuckled.  “Why not your blog about our travels?”

“Oh, it’s going there too.  And it’s not just about our travels.  It’s about life after you retired.  I started it after we moved to Israel.”

He smiled.  “Nice.”  He sighed and rubbed Miri’s back.  “I’m still trying to digest what Jake just said.  How bad do you think the state of things is when the Fate of the World is resting on Jordan’s reckless behavior?”

“I really don’t want to know how bad things have gotten, David.  I’m seriously afraid to speculate.”

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Jake went back to the house, but couldn’t sleep.  He took the opportunity to listen to some music and do some reading.  The list was going to be long enough to get him through his work out and target practice.  Marc had shown him a way to transfer his list from whatever his it was on to begin with to his iPod or MP3 player, depending in whether he was using Mac or PC technology.  

As much as he loved his father’s band, and his brother and sister’s for that matter, he wasn’t in the mood.  He scrolled through his music library on his iPad, trying to decide what he was in the mood for. 

Nickelback, he thought.  They were a pretty good band back in the day, he thought and added them to his play list.  A few more of the older bands from when Disturbed was getting started were added like Lifehouse, The Calling, Evanescence, Hinder, and Buckcherry.  Songs that he’d enjoys growing up.  Songs that were now considered classic rock and had been for some time.

Once he had “Kryptonite”, by 3 Doors Down playing softly in the confines of his office, he started his search for answers.  He wanted to know just what the Utopian party was planning for his family to be the only defense for the nation.  It was time to put a few more skills that his baby brother taught him to use… if only he knew where to look.

Marc had always been the hacker and knew how to keep his tracks covered.  When it came down to it, Jake just wasn’t a computer guys.

There was a gentle knock on the door.  “Jake, it’s Marc.  Can I come in, bro?”

“Yeah, Marc.  It’s not locked.”

Marc walked in and cracked a smile.  “Going old school with your musical tastes today, big brother?”

“Not nearly as old school as Dad, but close enough”, Jake laughed.

“Dad still listens to Metallica and Maiden.”  He walked around the desk to see what Jake was up to.  

“Whatcha doing bro?”

Jake chuckled.  “Hey, Metallica and Maiden are good bands.”  When Marc was moving around the desk, Jake sighed.  “I’m looking for answers and what I need to do is above my skill level.”

“Answers about what?”

“This whole mess with Jordan and our family.  Why is it that anyone with the last name Draiman seems to be a target of these monsters?”

Marc nodded.  “Let me sit.  I wanna show you something I found.”  Jake scooted back and let marc have a seat at the computer.  “Alright, big bro, stand back and watch the master work.  You’ll never believe what I found with minimal snooping”, he said as his fingers flew over the keys of Jake’s keyboard.  He pulled up a site that had been encrypted in another sight.  “And here we are.”

Jake’s eyes nearly popped out of his head.  “What the hell?”  He looked over the site for the radical Utopians and saw familiar names on a hit list.  “The People in Support of a Utopian Society is just a cover?!” he practically shouted.

“Shh… Jake, you don’t want to wake everyone up, do you?”

Jake shook his head.  “Why does Dad still have a target on his head?” Jake asked, pointed at the picture on the screen of their father.

“Because Dad’s a loud mouth who speaks his mind.  He always has been and always will be.  He’ll be that way until the day we put him in the ground.”

Jake nodded as he looked over the screen.  “I see Mom’s still a target as well because of her activism.  Jordan, Malachai, Logan, Caleb; those four aren’t a surprise.”  He looked down at Marc.  “How did you find this?”

“I’m a computer genius, Jacob.  I have my ways.”

“Wow.  And you found this on that site I was on?”

“Yeah.  It was an encryption.  They stored an entire sight in a single word.”

“How the hell did they do that?”

“You’d be surprised, Jake.  Believe me.  You’d be surprised.”