Currently viewing the tag: "serial fiction"

A serial fiction story for your enjoyment

written by James Rada, Jr.

6: Escape

Brian Johnson waited, hidden in the treeline around President Franklin Roosevelt’s secret mountain retreat. The night was quiet, but the area around the one-story home was still well lit. He could also see two guards patrolling the perimeter of the house.

He needed to move soon. Every minute he waited was another minute someone might find the Marine he had attacked on his way here and another minute closer to sunrise.

He had the element of surprise on his side right now, but he would only have one chance to achieve this victory on behalf of the Fuhrer.

Once he accomplished that goal, he would need to make his getaway. It would be too dangerous to return to the OSS training camp bordering this retreat. Once Brian had assassinated the president, the camp would go on alert. They would realize he was missing. He would be a hunted man from that point.

No, he would need to steal a Jeep and drive as far away from here as he could, even though he didn’t know where he was. He had been brought here to train with the OSS in secret. He would just have to find a road and head east. If he could reach the coast, he was sure he could board a ship.

Now that he was in place, Brian wasn’t sure what to do. This had been more a mission of opportunity rather than one he had been assigned. He was closer to the President of the United States than any other German agent had got.

However, close only counted with horseshoes and hand grenades, and he had neither. Not that either would have helped him right now.

He had to get closer to the house, identify the president, and kill him. It sounded easy in his head, but looking at the house and the guards, Brian knew he might have taken on a suicide mission or worse yet, he might fail.

One thing he had learned in the OSS camp was that the best way to not be detected was to act like you belonged there. Acting suspiciously drew attention.

Brian took a deep breath and stood up. He looked at his fatigues. They had no identification on them and wouldn’t hold up to scrutiny if one of the guards got too close.

He had been timing in his head how long it took the guards to make their rounds. He waited until they passed the closest point to the house where he was. Then he walked out of the trees and across the yard to the side of the house.

He glanced in one window and saw the kitchen was empty. Brian moved to the next window and saw a den. He saw a man with thin hair and spectacles sitting at a desk writing something.

It was President Roosevelt!

Brian raised the pistol from the guard he had attacked. He smashed it against the glass in the window and fired at the president. He sat upright suddenly and then fell over to the side.

Brian had hit him!

He didn’t have time to try to fire another shot at him, though. He heard shouting. The guards would be running this way.

Brian started running around the side of the house. “The president’s been shot!” he shouted. He wanted to take the attention off him and get the guards more worried about the president.

Brian saw guards running in his direction and he waved toward the house. “He’s in there. The president’s been shot. He needs help.”

The guards veered off toward the house. Brian saw a car parked beside the house and ran to it. He jumped into the driver’s seat. As he expected, the keys were in the ignition because many people might need to use the vehicles on the property and didn’t need to have to go searching for keys.

He started the engine, turned on the headlights, and followed the driveway. He kept following it when it reached a road that allowed him to speed up.

As he sped down the road, Brian’s mind raced with adrenaline and fear. Brian had just assassinated the President of the United States. He might have changed the course of the war. He wanted to be around to see how his heroic action would play out, but he was fleeing into the unknown. He had no idea where he was going, but he knew he had to keep moving and stay ahead of the authorities.

Brian saw a swing arm blocking the road ahead of him. He sped up and crashed through it. A Marine ran outside from a small shack and fired a rifle at him.

The road ahead of him twisted and turned through the mountains, and Brian’s driving skills were put to the test. He headed downhill, pushing the sedan to its limit, taking curves at high speeds and narrowly avoiding crashes. His heart raced, and his hands were slick with sweat on the steering wheel.

He drove as fast as he could, trying to put as much distance between himself and the Marines who would surely be following.

As he drove, his mind raced with thoughts of where to go next. He needed to get as far away as possible, but he couldn’t just drive aimlessly. He needed a plan, a destination, but first, he needed to discover where he was.

The slope of the road leveled out and suddenly, he was on the outskirts of a town. It wasn’t large, but there were other cars, homes, and people. All of which could help him escape.

Brian parked the car and got out. Because of how late it was, the streets were empty of people. He ran between two homes and headed down an alley. He needed to find a phone and call his contact to see what he should do now, but the town was too small for anyone to be up this late.

Brian could steal another car, but he still did not know where he was.

He heard a car race by on the main road. The Marines must have followed him into town. They would search it, trying to find him.

He saw a small office for a doctor. Surely, a doctor would have a phone.

Brian looked around and saw the street was empty. He used his elbow to knock a glass pane out of the front door. Then he reached in and opened the door. He didn’t turn on the lights, but there was enough light from the streetlights to make out objects.

He found a phone on the desk and sat down on the floor, so it wouldn’t be obvious anyone was in the office.

Brian lifted the receiver and jiggled the button to alert the operator.

“Okay, doc,” the operator said. “Is there an emergency?”

Brian thought quickly. “Yes, he my father is sick. He’s getting him ready to go to the hospital, but he wanted me to call Dpont 4397.”

“That’s in Washington, D.C.”

“Yes, we were driving there when my father fell ill. I need to let my family know what happened.”

“One moment, please. I will try to connect you, but it is late. Who should I say is calling?”

“Brian Johnson.”

“One moment, please.”

Brian heard silence.

He waited, silently urging his contact to pick up. He wanted to turn a light on and try to find something that would say where he was, but he couldn’t risk the light attracting attention.

“I am not getting an answer,” the operator said. “Would you like me to keep trying?”

Brian clenched his fist and pounded it on the floor. “Yes, yes.”

Suddenly, the front door crashed open, followed a moment later by a door in the back. Marines rushed into the office, shining their flashlights all around until they focused on him.

How had they found him?

“Hands above your head and slowly stand up.”

Someone turned the lights in the office on.

Brian blinked in the light. When he could see clearly, he saw Lt. Harcourt standing in front of him.

Brian slowly stood up, smiling.

Lt. Harcourt raised an eyebrow. “I don’t see why you’re so happy.”

“You may have caught me, but I killed the president.”

Now Harcourt smiled. “No, you didn’t.”

“Don’t lie. I saw him fall.”

“You saw an actor fall, and your pistol only had blanks.”

“No…”

“We started suspecting you were up to something days ago, and we took precautions. I would guess the president is just waiting to hear if we were successful.”

“At what?”

“We let you get away. We wanted to wrap up as much of your network as we could. We had someone with the operator. She never placed your call, but we called our people in Washington and sent them out to the address that goes with the phone number you provided us. Whoever is in that home now should be getting a rude awakening right now.”

Harcourt reached out and turned Brian around. Then he put handcuffs on his hand behind his back.

“I don’t know how you thought you’d get away with something like that among the best-trained spies and saboteurs in the world.”

“If you’re so good, why’d you recruit me?” Brian asked.

Harcourt shrugged and then grinned. “Well, nobody’s perfect.”

~ The End ~

A serial fiction story for your enjoyment

written by James Rada, Jr.

5: On The Move

Brian Johnson had a plan to assassinate President Franklin Roosevelt. It didn’t matter that Brian didn’t know where the president was. He knew the man would come to him, and when he did, Brian would kill him.

He was a German spy, posing as an American serviceman. Luckily, he had been recruited to be a member of the OSS, the Office of Strategic Services, which was America’s newly created spy agency.

Since learning Roosevelt would be at his secret retreat near the camp, Brian had been obsessed with finding the president and assassinating him in the name of the Fatherland. He had found where he believed the retreat shared a border with the OSS camp. An 18-wire barbed-wire fence separated the two properties.

Brian had been digging a furrow under the fence for the past few days and disguising his work with loose dirt and grass. He had considered cutting the wire, but he didn’t have the tools he needed. He also suspected the wires were alarmed. However, because the retreat bordered a military camp here, it didn’t have sentry booths or floodlights like Brian had seen where the borders of the camps diverged. No one expected trouble for the president to come from a military camp.

Brian didn’t know how much time he had before Roosevelt came here. He had given up all his clothing and personal items when he had been recruited, so he had no watch or calendar to know what day it was or even the time of day.

However, he knew when the president arrived because on that day, the shooting range at the OSS camp closed. He had heard Colonel Smith on a phone call say he would do this, so as not to disturb the president during his time away from Washington.

The morning Colonel Smith announced the range would be closed until further notice, Brian knew it was time to act. However, he couldn’t slip away in the daylight hours. It would be too easy for someone to miss him.

He waited until after everyone had turned in for the night. Usually everyone was so exhausted from the day’s training, they fell asleep quickly. Brian lay in his lower bunk with his eyes closed, listening to the other men in the cabin. Their breathing became slower, except for the trainee called Douglas. He snored lightly.

When Brian was sure everyone was asleep, he slid out of his bunk, grabbed his clothes and boots, and walked to the door. If anyone asked, he would say he was going to the bathroom. Outside, he dressed quickly and followed the trail by memory to the fence. Only when he was far enough away from the buildings did he turn on his flashlight. He kept it pointed downward to minimize how far it illuminated. With the president visiting, the guards would be on a higher alert than usual.

He found the fence and then moved along it until he found the spot where he had been digging. He had filled it loosely with dirt and grass, so that it wouldn’t attract attention if a guard happened to stumble on it.

He uncovered some rudimentary tools he had been using and a few sheets of newspaper he had found in the garbage. He folded the pages and twisted them into a point. He had been trained how to do this during his classes on unconventional weapons, where he was learning to turn everyday items like combs and toothbrushes into weapons. His paper knife would probably only work as a knife once, but that was all he needed it to last. He could use it to gain an actual weapon.

Brian knelt down and scooped out the loose dirt. Then he lay on his back and wiggled under the fence. It was a tight fit, but he made it onto the president’s property without creating any noise.

He waited and listened to make sure he hadn’t attracted the attention of a sentry who might be patrolling.

From this point on, he was breaking new ground. He walked away from the fence, deeper into the woods. He tucked his tools into his waistband. He carried his paper knife in one hand and his flashlight in the other hand.

He kept the flashlight off as much as possible. He didn’t want to risk being seen, and he wanted to be able to see any lights in the distance that could lead him to his target.

He had no idea how much time had passed, but he would be noticed missing when all the recruits woke in the morning. He hoped he could complete his mission and make it back to the cabin before that happened.

Brian stopped when he heard movement. He squatted and listened. Then not only did he hear branches being pushed away, he saw a flashlight come on. The beam shone off to his left. A Marine guard was patrolling and must have heard Brian.

He waited, hoping the man would think that whatever he heard was just an animal and move on. He tried to control his breathing and minimize his exhalations.

Then the light swung further away from Brian, only to swing quickly back and land on Brian.

“Stay where you are!” the Marine shouted.

Instead, Brian launched himself at the man. The Marine reached for his pistol.

Brian tackled him and they landed on the hard ground. He stabbed his paper knife into the Marine’s neck. He felt a hard impact, but the paper blade crumpled without penetrating the Marine’s neck. So much for his OSS training. He smashed his fist into the man’s throat so that he couldn’t scream for help.

As the Marine struggled for breath, Brian punched him in the face until the man stopped moving. Brian checked for a pulse. The Marine was still alive. He could regain consciousness at any time. Brian pinched the man’s nose closed and held his hand over his mouth. He counted off two minutes and checked again for a pulse. He didn’t feel anything. He hoped the Marine was dead. Brian didn’t want him interfering with his plans.

He took the man’s rifle and pistol off him and stood up. He didn’t think the fight had alerted anyone. At least Brian didn’t hear anyone rushing toward him.

He continued moving in the direction he thought the Marine had come from. He came to a dirt road. He felt he was getting closer. All he should need to do would be follow the road. The question was which direction should he go?

He made a gut call based on how he felt the Marine had been marching and went left. Within a few yards, he heard a vehicle coming along the road and saw lights in the distance. He quickly hid himself behind the brush along the road. A Jeep drove by without slowing.

Brian walked back out to the road and started jogging the direction the Jeep had gone. This was taking longer than he had hoped and he hadn’t even located the place where the president was staying.

He had to find it soon if he wanted to get back to his cabin in time.

After running for a couple minutes, he thought he noticed light on the horizon. He slowed to walk when he noticed the light was getting brighter as he moved closer. He got off the road and moved into the trees.

Then he reached a slight rise and looked over. The light had been coming from lampposts around a very large hunting lodge. He also noted a few outbuildings that were large cabins.

Brian had found the president’s retreat.

You Won’t Know Until Your Hair Turns Gray

by Sue E. Clabaugh

You won’t know until your hair turns gray, how I’ve loved you

since that first day when I saw you there in your little pink blanket.

How my heart stopped every time you smiled

And what it meant to me to welcome you into my life.

You won’t understand what it meant to see you grow

and to know that I had been a part of those first years.

You won’t know why I took you to church and Sunday School

and the Golden Rule was how I wanted you to live your life.

How learning to walk to the altar to light the candles with your Pappy

gave you courage and made you happy that you had no fears

Which you have carried through the years—in all you do.

You won’t know until your hair turns gray

Why I sat on the bleachers in the heat of the sun

To see you run when you hit your first ball

Or why I froze just to help you make that snowman that you wanted to call Paul McCartney.

Oh and teach you to hold that pinkie up

While holding your cup at our very best tea party.

And then would help you make a cake

With leaves, grass, cinnamon and seeds from the magnolia tree

Just to see you feel like you were the best, when in truth

I needed a rest—but chose you and your joy.

You’ll never know until your hair turns gray

How I loved you day after day

Because you changed my life.

Gave me a cause to be more than just an old lady.

Gave me a reason to live life over again

To be happy when others said “You’re out of your head”

At your age to take on all that.

So, when you grow older and find

that there are days when you are kind

To others and it makes you feel better

Because you did.

When you’re no longer a kid but a woman with children,

Of your own, and teach them to pray

And always say they are brave.

When you have that moment when you play

And pretend that leaves with cinnamon and magnolia seeds will stay

To be shared at your tea party

With your pink plastic cup—with your pinkie up

That’s when you will say

So that’s what she meant when she said

You’ll never know until your hair turns gray!

A serial fiction story for your enjoyment

written by James Rada, Jr.

4: Preparing

Brian Johnson had discovered where President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s top secret getaway in the Maryland mountains was hidden. It was one piece of the puzzle he needed to find before he could kill the president in the name of the Fuhrer.

He jogged back to his cabin in the OSS training camp to change before his training as an OSS agent began in another hidden camp in the mountains. When he arrived, he saw a pair of soldiers standing guard outside.

He stopped running and walked in circles to catch his breath. It gave him time to think.

Why were they there? They had never had guards outside the cabin before. Had someone gotten suspicious about him?

Brian approached the cabin entrance, but one of the guards held up a hand.

“You’ll have to wait out here for now,” the burly man said. Although the guards wore uniforms, no branch of service was identified, which meant they were OSS agents.

“Why? I need to get changed before my first class,” Brian said.

“The colonel is inside and ordered that no one can enter.”

The colonel? Colonel Smith was in charge of the camp. Brian kept the panic he felt under control. He had created a problem by acting outside of the norm with the run. It was a risk he had needed to take to get information. Now he needed to act within the norm and act as if nothing was wrong.

“I’ll get a shower then. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get back inside then to get fresh clothes.”

The guard said nothing as Brian turned away and walked to the shower house. The small building had four shower stalls inside. Two of the stalls had other recruits from his cabin taking showers.

As Brian stripped out of his sweaty clothes, he said, “Did you see the guards outside of our cabin? They wouldn’t let me inside.”

“They sent us out, too,” a recruit called Jack said. No one in the camp used their real names as a security precaution. Brian’s fake name was Adam.

“Are they looking for something?”

“Who knows? They said it was an inspection, and we needed to leave.”

“Weird.”

“What isn’t in this place?”

Brian stepped into the water stream. It was cold and quickly cooled his hot skin.

Jack was right. Most likely, it was just an odd way they did things in this camp, but Brian was a spy inside a camp that trained spies. He had to be very careful, or he would be captured. Even if they suspected him of something, they wouldn’t find evidence of it in his things or in the cabin. The only personal things he had here were what he had been wearing when he arrived from Miami University in the truck.

He finished showering and redressed except for his sweaty shirt. He walked back to the cabin and saw the guards were gone. When he went inside, everything looked normal. Jack was making his bunk.

“See? They’re gone. No problem,” he said.

“They had you leave without making your bunk?” Brian asked.

“Yea, but I’m not going to risk that now.”

Brian nodded, but said nothing. If the colonel had been inspecting the cabin, an unmade bunk would have warranted some sort of demerit, but apparently not. That made it doubtful that the colonel’s visit had been an inspection.

Brian looked around. What had changed then? Had anything? Why had the colonel been here?

Brian wondered if the room had been bugged. Were spies spying on the spies to see if any of them disobeyed orders while in the cabin?

This was a world of suspicion and deception Brian found himself in.

Their morning instruction that day was in the art of safecracking from someone named Capt. Peters. Peters was a small man with thinning hair and a scar across his neck. He grinned every time someone called him captain, which made Brian doubted that he was actually military. He knew his work, though. He showed the recruits the insides of combination locks so they could understand how they worked. Then he showed his group different ways of opening those locks, from feeling for the tumblers to fall into place while turning the lock dial to drilling through the tumblers to blowing up the safe door without destroying the contents.

Brian was so fascinated by what he was learning, he forgot about planning for his own mission for a while.

During lunch in the mess hall, Brian wondered whether he could break into the colonel’s office. It would have maps and information that would make Brian’s planning easier. However, the cabin had two rooms; one was the colonel’s office, and the other was his aide’s. Besides being their offices, they also slept in the rooms. Although Brian believed he could break into the office, it would be too dangerous to try to enter. Too many people were around during the day who might see him and the colonel and his aide were there during the night.

The afternoon training session was on the “trainazium.” Brian had seen nothing like it before, except for perhaps in a circus. He reported to a clearing with other recruits and saw six telephone-pole-size logs were set into the ground and connected by smaller poles 18 feet above the ground. They were criss-crossed with ropes, nets and cables going every direction.

“This monstrosity is an obstacle course,” Lieutenant Price told them. “Your work in the OSS will challenge you physically, not only in strength, but in dexterity. This course will help you learn to deal with those challenges.”

The recruits then spent the next few hours swinging, running, and climbing along the poles and ropes as if they were monkeys making their way through the jungle. Brian was so exhausted at the end, he could barely open his hand so that it was flat.

After dinner, when Brian was supposed to be going to the latrine, he wandered off toward where he knew the fence to Shangri-La was. He stayed in the shadows as he approached the fence. He spotted Marines on the other side and was satisfied that was where the president would be when he visited.

He also realized he knew how he could get a weapon, and as far as getting through the fence, he didn’t need to get through it. The OSS had been teaching him to think of solutions to problems that were unusual. Yesterday, he had learned to create a knife from a newspaper. Now he could put that newspaper knife to use. As for the fence, he would go under it.

Once he did that, though, it would set things in motion, and he would be committed to his mission. He would have to move fast to make things happen in his favor. He would try to survive, but that was not his mission. He had to focus on killing President Roosevelt, even if it was the last thing he did.

A serial fiction story for your enjoyment

written by James Rada, Jr.

1: Recruitment

Seaman Brian Johnson hurried across the campus of Miami University to a meeting in Hall Auditorium. This was a change in his routine of learning to operate and repair radios for the U.S. Navy. Change could be a good thing. It meant something was happening.

He followed the group of other Navy seamen through the triple-arched entry into the stately brick building in front of them. It was primarily a music hall, but the Navy used it when they had large meetings of all the sailors attending radio school at the university.

He took a seat and waited patiently. Once the room was full, a lieutenant he didn’t recognize walked out on the stage. The room fell silent.

“I am Lt. Harcourt,” the lieutenant announced. “I need a show of hands of anyone in this room who can speak a foreign language. It doesn’t matter what language that may be.”

Hands went up. Not a large number of them, but more than a couple dozen out of the two hundred or so seamen in the auditorium. Brian hesitated a moment and then raised his hand.

“Everyone with their hands up, follow Ens. Greene.” Lt. Harcourt motioned to the tall officer standing off to the side of the stage.

About four dozen young men stood up and started shuffling to the ends of the rows and then up onto the stage, where they formed a line. The ensign led them behind the stage and out a back door. They entered another building, where they stood in a line as Ens. Greene pointed one after another into one of three classrooms.

Brian guessed each sailor was being interviewed about something to do with knowing another language, but each interview seemed to be going relatively quickly.

When Ens. Greene pointed Brian into a classroom, he entered and saw another lieutenant. He stepped in front of the man and saluted.

“At ease, sailor.” Brian relaxed, but remained standing. “What language other than English do you speak?”

“German, sir,” Brian replied.

“How well?”

“Very. My parents immigrated here after the Great War, sir.”

The lieutenant stared at him a few moments and then asked, “Would you like to try something different, sailor?”

“Different, sir?”

“Would you like to become a paratrooper?”

Brian’s eyes widened. “I’m in the Navy, sir. We don’t have paratroopers. We’re… swimmers.”

The lieutenant exhaled in what might have been a stifled chuckle. “Well, this is something different. It’s a special training course. Are you interested?”

Brian was right. This change did seem to be leading to something useful. “Yes, sir.”

“What’s your name?”

“Seaman Brian Johnson.”

“Go back to your room and pack your bag. Report back here in two hours. You’ll see a bus out front of the auditorium. Give the officer who will be there your name and get on the bus.”

Things were changing quickly. Brian wondered what was happening.

“Yes, sir. May I ask where I am going, sir?”

“All I can tell you right now is that you will be going on special assignment, and you will be in the states until your training is complete. You’re dismissed.”

Brian saluted. “Yes, sir.”

He spun around and walked back out into the hallway with a confused look on his face. There were about a dozen sailors still waiting to be interviewed. He wondered how many of them would be joining him on the bus in a couple hours.

Had any of them been told any more than he had?

He walked back to the dorm room he shared with another sailor named Jack Witherspoon. Brian hadn’t noticed Jack raise his hand that he spoke another language, so Brian guessed his roommate would be remaining behind to continue studying radios.

Miami University and many colleges and universities had lost a lot of their students when they started being drafted or joining the armed forces to fight in the war. Some of the schools were lucky enough to make up some of the lost tuition by helping train soldiers, sailors, and marines in some of the academic studies they might need.

Brian stuffed his seabag with his clothes and toiletries. He didn’t have much, so it didn’t take long.

He ran down to the cafeteria to grab three sandwiches and a pair of apples. He ate one of the sandwiches in his room, but he packed the other stuff. He wasn’t sure when he would have the chance to eat again, and he appreciated not having to eat Navy chow while he was there.

He sat down at the desk and wrote out a short note, carefully considering the words he used. Then he lifted the bottom of the left curtain on his window and draped it over the curtain rod.

He clipped his seabag shut, slung it over his shoulder, and headed out of the dorm.

As he exited the building, he stepped over the side and squatted down to tighten up the laces on his boots. He quickly scanned the area around him and then quickly shoved the note he had written underneath a flat stone next to the sidewalk.

He stood up, shouldered his bag, and then headed for the bus.

He wasn’t sure what good it would do, but he needed to keep his superiors informed.

A shore patrolman was standing at the bus when Brian arrived. He hesitated for a moment, but he knew no one knew about him. He approached the man.

“I was told to report here for a special assignment,” Brian said.

The patrolman nodded and pointed to the auditorium. “You’ll need to leave your bag in there.”

“What? This is all my gear.”

The shore patrolman shrugged. “Orders. No one but sailors in brown get on this bus and only them. No gear.”

Brian sighed. This was getting weird. He walked into the auditorium and saw seven other sailors milling around.

Lt. Harcourt walked over, so they snapped to attention and saluted.

“At ease, gentlemen. Before we leave for your special assignment, we have to get you ready.” He waved at three ensigns who walked over. “These men will help you. You will change into khaki uniforms and then pack everything, including your current uniforms in your seabags, which will be sent home.”

“Sir?” one seaman asked.

“Yes, sailor?”

“Does that include our wallets?”

“Are wallets part of everything?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then what do you think?” The sailor blushed but said nothing. “These ensigns will help you get ready. I repeat, everything will go into your seabags. The only things getting on that bus are you and the clothing we give you. Now get ready.”

The ensigns each grabbed a group of sailors and headed off to a classroom. Brian walked with three other sailors into a classroom.

“Strip down and tell me your sizes,” the ensign said.

The sailors did so, and the ensign left the room. He returned with uniforms, underwear, socks, and shoes.

“These are khaki,” one sailor said.

“Yes, they are.”

“We’re Navy, not Army.”

“You’re not anything now.”

Brian saw what the ensign meant. There was no insignia on the uniform to identify the branch of the military.

What was going on?

His superiors would want to know about it, so he would need to find a way to contact them at some point, but for now, he had to discover what was happening.

He changed into the non-descript uniform, put his remaining clothes in his seabag, and then walked back out to where Lt. Harcourt was waiting. When all the sailors were changed, Harcourt led them onto the bus. Brian noticed curtains covered all the windows and blocked off the front of the bus from the passenger area. They wouldn’t be able to see where they were going.

As the bus drove, Harcourt stood in the aisle and spoke to them. “I know you have questions. They will eventually be answered, but not here and not now. This journey to your training camp will happen in stages and take most of a day. I won’t tell you not to talk amongst yourselves, but don’t voice your questions or speculation about this assignment. Also, I don’t know if any of you know each other, but from now on, you are strangers. Don’t exchange names or any personal information. None of that will matter where we’re going.”

The sailors looked at each other, but didn’t say anything. Brian wasn’t sure how long they drove because he no longer had a watch. When the bus finally stopped, the sailors exited and found themselves at a rail siding. A train waited for them, and they boarded it. They were assigned rooms and went in to go to sleep. A steward came by with a trolley cart and handed each of them a bagged meal. He also filled a cup with hot coffee for them.

Brian tried to watch where they were going through the window of his room, but the train didn’t slow for any station. He knew they were generally traveling east by the way the sun set, so he assumed they were moving across West Virginia and Pennsylvania, but he couldn’t be sure.

He also had no way to contact his superiors. He knew a number he could call, but with as strict as the Navy was being about this assignment, Brian doubted he would have the opportunity to use a telephone or send a telegram. He was going to have to play things by ear until he could get back in contact.

The train finally stopped about what seemed like a day at a small station that appeared to be in the middle of nowhere. The sign on the station read Lantz, but that meant nothing to him. He didn’t know what state he was in or even what rail line they had traveled.

The sailors were hustled from the train into the back of an Army truck with a canvas covering. Not surprisingly, when they were all in the back with Lt. Harcourt, he pulled the canvas down so they couldn’t tell where they were going. All Brian knew was that the road was bumpy.

“It won’t be long now,” was all Harcourt told them.

The truck stopped once, and Brian heard the driver speaking with someone. After a short time, it moved forward once more. When it stopped again, the driver turned the engine off.

Harcourt threw open the back canvas, turned to the men and said, “Welcome to the Office of Strategic Services. You are about to become America’s secret weapon in this war.

written by James Rada, Jr

A serial fiction story for your enjoyment

5: Thomas or George?

Jessica Weikert might think Thomas Hamilton was a hobo who had jumped off the Western Maryland Railroad train as it passed through Thurmont, but she had to admit he was a good worker on her family’s farm. He hadn’t been lying when he said he knew about farming. He kept the equipment in good repair and, most times, better than new. He had even introduced her father to some new concepts that she had never heard of before, like no-till farming. Her father was skeptical about most of them, but Jessica understood the points that Thomas made and saw the merit in them.

Thomas and her father got along well together. They talked farming during the day’s meals and played chess on the front porch at night. Sometimes, they would argue about both, but they were more like loud disagreements.

Her father definitely liked Thomas better than George Kirkpatrick, although he was very supportive of her engagement to George. He should be. He was the one who had set them up. She suspected he hoped to get better prices at the Kirkpatrick’s hardware store once she was married to George.

“He’s a good match for you,” John Weikert had told her after George had asked for John’s permission to marry Jessica.

“But you don’t like him,” Jessica had said.

“I don’t hate him either.”

“Then why are you okay with me marrying him?”

“Because I want you to have a good life, and I think George will provide it for you.”

But George didn’t make Jessica laugh. He didn’t make her heart beat faster. He was polite and handsome, and he was considered a very eligible bachelor. Jessica’s friends considered her very lucky. When Jessica tried to picture herself 20 or 30 years into a marriage with him though, she didn’t see herself on a farm with fields of crops ripening under a blue sky. She didn’t see George walking with her along the rows of corn to see how they were maturing and making sure they were healthy. She saw herself sitting behind a counter, pushing buttons on a cash register or stocking shelves in a store cut off from the land she loved.

Jessica walked into the barn and saw Thomas bent over a blade from the harvester, sharpening it. He worked hard, even when he didn’t have to.

“Why do you do that?” Jessica asked him.

Thomas looked up and brushed his brown hair out of his eyes. “It needs to be done. I don’t mind. It keeps my mind occupied.”

“Why do you need your mind occupied?”

He shrugged. “I’ve got some things I need to figure out.”

“Like what?”

Thomas set his whetstone to the side and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm.

“I thought I knew what my future was going to be. It seemed all set, and then it all changed in an instant. Now, I’ve got to figure out what I want to do. My future is no longer certain, so I have to ask myself, what do I want to make it?”

Jessica nodded slowly. “I can understand that.”

“Really? I thought your future was planned out. You’re getting married, right? That’s what your father said.”

“It doesn’t mean it was the future I wanted or planned.”

“Is someone making you get married? You’re not…” He glanced at her belly.

When Jessica realized what he was implying, she blushed and punched him in the shoulder. “Of course not!”

“Then if you accepted the proposal, why isn’t it the future you wanted? You made the choice.”

“I wonder if it’s the right choice.”

Thomas rolled his eyes. “Well, if you break up with him, do it in person. Don’t text him.”

“Text?”

Thomas shook his head. “Nevermind. It’s not important. So, what is the future you want?”

No one had ever asked Jessica what she wanted. Everyone just assumed she would be happy with a good match. Sure, she had enjoyed dating George, but she hadn’t ever fallen in love with him. Her mother said that would come with time as long as they were well-suited. Jessica didn’t want to have to wait for it to happen years from now. Being well-suited was no guarantee of future love.

“I wanted to take over this farm. I enjoy farming. I enjoy seeing things grow. I enjoy knowing that this farm not only feeds my family, but dozens, maybe hundreds, of other families. That’s satisfying.”

Thomas nodded. “It is, but it’s not an easy life.”

“I know that. I’ve grown up on a farm.”

“Most people would want an easy life. I love farming, but sometimes even I wish life could be easier.”

She thought about that. “I think most people want a happy life, and they think if their lives were easy, they would be happy. I’m happy now, despite it being hard. Maybe I need the challenge.”

Thomas smiled. “A true farmer.”

“You’re mocking me.”

Thomas held up his hands. “No, I’m just stating a fact.”

“What about you? What will you do when the harvest ends?” Jessica asked.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I hadn’t planned on being here.”

Her father was impressed with Thomas’s knowledge. He knew equipment and how to improve its performance. He had interesting ideas about how to increase the farm yields without even tilling the soil.

He enjoyed the work. She would watch him singing in the fields, and sometimes, he would encourage her to join in with him. She would, when she recognized the songs. It helped the work go faster.

However, there were other times when he would leave the farm. At first, she wondered if he had just up and left, but he was always back for work in the mornings.

Then, one day, she had followed him. He had walked out to the covered bridge at Loys Station, where she had first seen him. He would stand at one end of the bridge, staring across it. Sometimes, he would walk across it and back a few times. Each time he emerged on one side, he would look around and back the way he had come.

Jessica didn’t understand it all. Whatever his fascination with the bridge was, it didn’t interfere with his work.

One day, they were working in the field when Thomas stopped for lunch. Instead of going to the house, though, he laid a blanket on the grass and lay on his back. He ate his sandwich as he lay on the blanket.

Jessica walked over. “What are you doing?”

“We spend so much time looking at the land, I wanted to spend a little of it looking at the sky and think about my future.”

“Does it help?”

“It does. The sky is like a blue chalkboard and the clouds are white smears of chalk across it because someone used one of those felt erasers to wipe it off. But it’s a clean slate that I can imagine my future on.”

Jessica looked at the sky. She would love to see her future written in the sky. A message from God telling her what to do.

She lay down on the blanket next to Thomas and stared at the sky. “So how do you make your future appear?”

“It’s not a crystal ball. It’s just when you stare at the blank space, your mind fills it with images. If you’re thinking about your future, those images will sometimes be about your future, almost like a waking dream.”

Jessica stared at the blue above her and wondered where she would be in five years. Would it be a store or the farm? She saw herself on the farm, but it wasn’t with George.

At some point, she had reached over and grabbed Thomas’s hand, not clutching at it, just holding it gently. She also realized that he hadn’t pulled his hand away. Not in real life, not in the vision she saw in the sky.

written by James Rada, Jr.

A serial fiction story for your enjoyment

1: Arrival

Timothy Ross stepped off the passenger car at the train depot near the Maryland Tuberculosis Hospital. He was used to the large platforms in cities like Baltimore, Washington, and Philadelphia. This was a small 15×30-foot wooden building surrounded on all sides by a wide porch. It could fit inside of the washroom of Penn Station, where he had boarded the train.

He noticed he was the only person on the platform. He expected more activity here, but it was still a bit early in the season for vacationers to be heading to Pen Mar, the nearby resort area. Green was starting to appear on the trees, and the sky was a bright blue. He felt just a hint of chill in the air. It wouldn’t be long before vacationers sought to escape the heat and humidity in the cities and headed for higher ground.

“So this is where I’ll die,” he whispered to himself.

He wondered if he had made the right choice coming here. He was a city boy, born and raised. He had never been able to escape the city, even in the heat of the summer, to come to a place like this. Tim lived in the night, in the gyms and arenas where he made his living in the ring…or at least he had.

His chest heaved, and he started coughing. He grabbed for his handkerchief and covered his mouth. When the hacking stopped, he pulled the handkerchief away and saw phlegm and spots of blood. So much for the clean, fresh mountain air helping him.

Tim walked into the station. He saw no people, just empty benches. There wasn’t even a stationmaster. It was as if people were only dropped off here, and no one ever left on the train, so no one needed to buy a ticket. That thought sent a chill down his back.

A door opened, and a man walked out of the washroom, drying his hands. He was a large man, almost as large as Tim had been before he had gotten sick. He was dressed in white, so Tim guessed this was the man he was supposed to meet.

“Are you from the sanatorium?” Tim asked.

The man nodded. “I’m Frank Larkins, one of the orderlies there and a driver when they need one.”

“I’m Tim Ross.”

Frank smiled and clapped his hands together. “Great! Let’s load your bags in the car and get you to the administration building.”

“Is it far away?”

“Not at all. You’re actually on the sanatorium property now. This is our station.”

“I thought this was the station for the resort.”

Frank shook his head. “That’s Blue Ridge Summit. It’s a little further up the line, just across the Mason-Dixon in Pennsylvania.”

Frank grabbed the two suitcases Tim had brought with him and headed out the front door. He walked down the steps from the front porch to the waiting car. It was a gray four-door Ajax sedan. Tim had seen plenty of them in Baltimore, but this was a newer model that had come out in 1926. Frank went around to the far side and put the suitcases in the back while Tim climbed into the car.

Then, Frank climbed into the driver’s seat. He started the engine and drove along a dirt road that led uphill.

“I used to live in Baltimore until I got this job,” Frank said. “I saw you fight Rusty Barrett last year. I won five dollars when you knocked him out.”

Tim grinned. “Seems like a lifetime ago.”

He hadn’t fought in three months. His stamina and speed were gone. He was withering away. Even if he got rid of the tuberculosis, he wondered if there would be enough of him left to recover.

Frank seemed to read his mind. “Don’t you worry, Mr. Ross. You got diagnosed early enough that this place can help you. You aren’t even in the main hospital. You’re in a cottage. That’s where they put the people who are in good shape.”

Tim shook his head. “No, they put them on top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere. There’s as many trees here as there are people in Baltimore.”

“And that’s why you’ll get better. You aren’t in Baltimore. That’s what made you sick. They did a study last year that said there’s an area of the city that has the highest death rate in the country from TB. The best thing you could do was get out of that cesspool.”

He turned onto a drive that swung around in front of a three-story stone building that could have passed for one of the rich people’s homes in Mount Washington. Frank turned off the engine, and they walked onto the porch and through the front doors. They were in a hallway that led to a staircase to the second floor or the rear of the building. The rooms off the hallway all had closed doors. At a desk near the door, an attractive young nurse sat smiling up at them.

She looked at Tim and smiled, showing bright white teeth.

“Emily, this is Tim Ross, a new patient,” Frank said. He glanced at Tim. “Emily is one of the student nurses at the training school here, and if she wasn’t behind that desk, you’d see she has great gams.” Emily blushed and giggled. “I need to know what shack he’s in.”

Emily nodded and looked at her notes. “He’s in pavilion five. Also, I’ll need you to come back here after you finish putting your things away. I’ll have the paperwork you need to sign, your schedule, a map of the grounds, and a few other things.”

Frank and Tim walked back outside. Frank drove the car around the side of the administration building. Tim saw two rows of long, wooden buildings leading away from the back of the administration building. Frank stopped in front of one, and they walked to the entrance. Tim saw four people sitting on chairs on the porch that ran the length of the front of the building. The building was wood frame, but it sat on brick piers.

Inside, there were two wards, one off to either side of the entryway, which was a large sitting room. Frank looked at a chart on the wall, turned left, and walked to an empty bed near the end of the ward. Tim saw that all the windows on the ward were open, as well as doors that led onto the porch. More fresh air.

“So, this is your bed, but you’ll keep your things in the back,” Frank said.

He walked through a doorway behind the bed that led into a long rear room that nearly ran the length of the building.

“These compartments are where you can change and store your stuff. You have compartment three, which is also your bed number. The toilet room is in the middle.”

Tim nodded numbly.

Frank laid a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry, Mr. Ross. It’s confusing now, but everything will be all right.” Then, he looked around, leaned closer, and whispered, “Be careful. Don’t wander off alone and don’t trust anyone. No one is safe. Don’t say anything about this.”

Frank then straightened up and smiled, but Tim could tell it was a fake smile.

“I’m going to leave you to unpack, because I have some other things to do. Once you’re finished, head back and talk to Emily.”

Tim nodded. “Thank you.”

Frank left and Tim walked out onto the porch, although with the large sliding windows between the wall columns, it was almost as if the ward was part of the porch.

He had to admit, the view was nice if you liked to look at trees and lawn. He started coughing so hard, he nearly dropped to his knees. Instead, he leaned on the rail and watched Frank drive off.

What had the man been talking about? More importantly, what had Tim gotten himself into?

written by James Rada, Jr.

A new serial fiction romance story for your enjoyment

2: Anticipation

Margaret Rosensteel washed the dishes from her family’s dinner while she stared out the kitchen window at nothing. The next farm was over half a mile away to the west, and Emmitsburg was a mile or so to the southeast. She couldn’t see lights from either.

She scrubbed the remains of chicken and gravy from the plates and set them aside.

She remembered the young man she had watched drive past St. Joseph’s Church in town. He was her age, but she had never seen him before. Nothing surprising about that. Margaret doubted she knew everyone in town, but it probably meant the teenage boy wasn’t a Catholic. Between Mass and church socials, Margaret did know all the Catholic boys by sight. She even knew a lot of the other boys in town from her school classes. So, why hadn’t she ever noticed that boy before?

What did it matter? Why was she even thinking of him? Nothing could come of it.

Rebecca came downstairs in a blue calico dress Margaret had never seen her wear. She spun around, making the skirt flare.

“How do I look?” Rebecca asked.

“You look wonderful,” Margaret told her.

“I’ve been working on this all day. I saved for the fabric for two months, but could only buy it yesterday. I wanted to show it off tonight.”

“Tonight?”

Rebecca put her hands on her hips. “Yes. Tonight. The spring dance in town. How could you forget?”

Margaret hadn’t so much forgotten as put it out of her mind. She was going to be a Daughter of Charity, and Daughters of Charity didn’t go dancing, at least none she knew.

“Why was it so important to finish it for the dance?” Margaret asked.

“I want the boys to see me in it. Do you think they’ll like me in it?”

Margaret smiled. “Of course, they will. You look beautiful.” Her younger sister was a cute blonde with an outgoing personality. She was already catching the attention of the boys in town.

“You need to get ready now, so we can go,” Rebecca said.

Margaret shook her head. “I’m not going.”

“You have to, Margaret. You skipped the last two dances. I need someone to talk to. It’s no fun without you.”

“You’ll be too busy dancing and talking with the boys. Besides, other girls will be there.”

“Please, come. I won’t have any fun without you.”

That was a lie, but Margaret and Rebecca did have fun together. They were the middle children in the Rosensteel family, only a year apart in age. Jack and Paul were the eldest, and they were married and starting families of their own. David, Sarah, and Michael were all under 12 years old.

The problem was that Margaret would become a sister in another year. She needed to prepare herself for that. No use dancing with boys when there was no possibility of anything more. Her parents had planned her future already, more than they had any of their other children.

Rebecca took her sister by the hand and pulled her upstairs to their bedroom. She opened the armoire that both of them shared and took out Margaret’s Sunday dress and looked at it.

“Too churchy,” the younger girl said, as she tossed it on the bed.

“It’s my best dress.”

“But not one for a dance.”

Rebecca pulled out the second work dress Margaret owned and tossed it on the bed.

“Not that one either,” Rebecca said.

She pulled out the final dress. It was a light blue dress Margaret had made for Elizabeth’s wedding last year. She hadn’t found an occasion to wear it since. Her mother considered it “too casual” for church.

Rebecca shoved the dress into her sister’s arms. “There, now get dressed. You’re going to go with me, and you’re going to have a good time.”

                      ***

Caleb Sachs sat in his room above his father’s store on East Main Street. His parents had the room at the back of the building because it was quieter, but Caleb’s room looked onto the street. He didn’t mind. He could look outside and see what was happening, and tonight, a lot was happening.

People on the sidewalks headed toward the town square, where the spring dance was being held. Everyone would be there celebrating and having fun. Everyone except the Sachs family. It was Friday night, and the Sachs, being Jewish, began celebrating the Sabbath at sundown.

Weekends were never any fun for Caleb. His was the only Jewish family in Emmitsburg, so while his family observed the Sabbath on Friday night and Saturday, he was stuck at home unless his parents went to bed early, and he could sneak off to enjoy time with his friends. Then, on Sunday, when Caleb was free to do something, his friends’ parents were making his friends observe their Sabbath. With nothing to do during the weekend, it felt as long as the week to Caleb.

He walked out of his room to the parlor where his parents sat. His mother played a song he didn’t recognize, but she often composed her own music. His father sat in his armchair reading a book.

“I can hear the band warming up at the square,” Caleb said.

“Mmm-hmmm,” his father said, as he puffed on his pipe.

“I was thinking that since it’s a special occasion, I could go to the dance for a little while.”

His father removed his pipe. “Just make sure to come home at sundown.”

“But Papa, it won’t even be getting going by then. My friends might not even be there. I won’t stay out late. I promise.”

His friends were more likely to arrive early and sneak out early as well, but Caleb wouldn’t tell his father that.

“It’s Friday, Caleb. You know that.”

His mother stopped her playing and turned around on the bench. “We can take the train to Baltimore next week, Caleb. We’ll visit your grandparents.”

“That’s not the same thing, Mama. I wanted to dance.”

She frowned, wrinkling her smooth, pale skin. “With a guy? Why would you want to do that?”

“I like to dance, Mama, and since we’re the only Jewish family in town, if I’m to do that, it would have to be with a Christian girl.”

“If you want to meet a girl, I will have your grandparents find a Jewish girl for you,” his mother said.

Caleb sighed. “Mama, I don’t want to get married. I just want to go to the dance tonight.”

His mother shook her head. “No, better you stay here and not get yourself attached to someone you can’t have.”

Caleb hung his head. His mother just didn’t understand the idea of having fun. For her, it was about finding him a wife since he would soon be 17.

As Caleb walked back to his room, he thought of the one advantage of being the only Jewish family in town, he wasn’t married yet. If there had been an eligible Jewish girl in Emmitsburg or even nearby, his mother would have already paired them up and been planning the wedding.

He looked out his window and saw Peter Wilhide walking down the street. Caleb slid open his window.

“Peter!”

Peter stopped and turned around. He saw Caleb in the window and waved. “Are you coming to the dance, Caleb?”

“My parents won’t let me.”

“Won’t let you? Oh, that’s right, it’s Friday. Then maybe… later?”

Caleb grinned. “Yes, I think so.”

Peter laughed. “I’ll let the others know.”

Caleb shut the window. He glanced at the clock on his wall. The dance would be starting in half an hour. Everyone would be there by 6:30 p.m. He had that long to plan on how he would get past his parents without them knowing.

A new serial fiction story for your enjoyment about the odd effects of grief.

written by James Rada, Jr.

2: the killing road

“Peter, you make sure you stay away from the road,” Betty Douglas told her son as they ate breakfast in their kitchen.

He spooned his Corn Pops into his mouth and talked with his mouth full. “I always stay away from the road. You told me this before when I was little,” six-year-old Peter said, slightly indignant that his mother still considered him a child.

Betty knew she had told Peter to stay away from the road many times before. It was popular Mom talk. But after seeing what she had seen the day before, Betty felt a need to repeat herself once again. She didn’t trust Old Kiln Road. Not the drivers, not the road. Something about it was wrong. She didn’t even like the name. Old Kiln. She always made sure to pronounce the N in Kiln, but too many people let it fade, so it sounded like “kill.”

Old Kill Road. It lived up to its name.

Betty spent the morning working outside. She painted large yellow signs with black lettering that read: “Slow.” When they dried, she nailed the signs on trees at each end of the dangerous stretch of road. She also put up chicken wire along the road to act as a fence to discourage animals from going onto the road. If the animals went around the fence, they would be far enough away from the dangerous portion of the road to make it to the other side.

For two days, Betty sat on the porch and watched how her precautions affected the road. She saw no road kills, and the cars drove slower as they came around the curve. The road seemed to pale from lack of food. At least Betty hoped the road paled. She imagined it becoming a light gray during the second day of its fast.

Betty sensed victory close at hand. No longer would the road lure animals to their deaths.

Then, she saw Peter’s soccer ball bounce over the backyard fence. It rolled to a stop about three feet from the road. As Betty watched, the ball started bouncing again, this time on its own. It bounced up the slight rise to the edge of the road and then across the road. Peter came running from behind the garage, following the ball. He didn’t even hesitate as he ran across the road to get the ball.

“Peter!” Betty yelled as she jumped out of the rocking chair.

Her son stopped in the middle of the road at the sound of his mother’s voice. As he turned to look at her, a sports car charged around the curve. Betty could tell by the engine noise that it was coming too fast, ignoring her signs.

Peter didn’t even have time to scream. The car hit him, and he rolled over the hood, smashing into the windshield headfirst. The car skidded to a stop. Peter’s body slid forward off the car and fell onto the road, limp as month-old celery.

Betty ran down to the road. Peter lay on the asphalt, a portion of his brain showing through his broken skull. Blood flowed from his body onto the road. The road absorbed the blood like a dry sponge absorbing water…or a thirsty beast greedily drinking greedily. Betty grabbed her son by the shoulders to lift him up, and his head rolled lifelessly backward. She knew he was dead, but just couldn’t believe it.

“Peter! Peter!”

The teenager who had driven the car was standing next to his car with his head buried in his hands as he cried. He slid down the side of the car and sobbed violently, not looking at Betty. Betty held her son in her arms, rocking back and forth, until a Thurmont ambulance finally came half an hour later when a passerby saw the accident and phoned it in.

The road turned a darker gray.

Betty sat on the front porch, rocking in her chair and watching the road. In the week since Peter had been killed, the road had fallen back into its rhythm of killing and eating.

Old Kiln Road was a deep ebony now. It was the road that had killed Peter, not the teenage driver of the car. The road had lured Peter onto it, so he could be killed. Old Kiln Road was trying to get even with Betty for depriving it of food for two days.

She heard the screen door open on her left, but she didn’t look up. She knew who it would be since only two people lived in the house anymore.

Jack set his suitcases down on the porch. “I can send someone else out to Los Angeles. It doesn’t have to be me, Bet.”

Jack worked as an auditor for a manufacturing company in Frederick. He usually had a half-hour drive to work, but occasionally, he went on long trips to the firm’s corporate offices in Los Angeles.

“I’ll be fine. Go,” she told him.

“You’re not acting fine. I’m worried about you. All you do is sit out here and look at the road where he was killed.”

Jack just didn’t understand. It wasn’t just the spot where Peter had been killed. It was where Peter had been eaten. It was the spot where many animals were eaten day after day. And no one ever noticed. No one but her.

“Please, go, Jack. I’ll be fine.”

He kissed her on the cheek. “I left all the phone numbers and places where I’ll be staying on the bulletin board. If you need me, give me a call, and I’ll come right home.”

He left, and Betty sat on the porch, only seeing him go when he crossed over her field of vision as he drove down Old Kiln Road.

Sometime later, the phone rang. The caller wouldn’t be anyone important, so she let it ring until the answering machine picked it up. What was happening out here was more important than anything anyone could say to her.

A small, gray rabbit hopped out into the middle of the road. It sniffed at the asphalt as if he were following a scent across the road. When it reached a certain point in the road, it stopped and lay on its side. A few minutes later, a car came creeping slowly over the hill. Slow enough that the rabbit could have moved in time to get out of the way, but it didn’t. It let itself be run over. It committed suicide.

That’s what she should do, Betty thought. Life wasn’t worth living anymore. Jack still had his work to keep him busy, but her work had been raising Peter, and the road had taken that from her. There was nothing left for her now. Except to destroy the road. To watch it wither away slowly and agonizingly. To let the road know the pain she felt at the loss of her son. That’s what she wanted to do.

Once she made up her mind, Betty knew exactly how she would kill the road. She took Jack’s chainsaw out of the garage and walked over the hill. Finding a medium-sized tree near the road, she sawed into it, so it toppled across the road, blocking any cars from coming over the hill. Then she walked down the hill and did the same thing to another tree, blockading the road. The next thing she did was to take one of the dessert pies from the oven and set it in the field to draw the animals away from the road.

Old Kiln Road didn’t eat that night, and in the morning, it was grayer.