299 Days: The Restoration

Chapter 309 “It Will Show Everyone the Legitimate Authorities Are Still in Charge”

Ron Spencer grabbed his shotgun. He was half asleep on the couch at almost midnight. He slept there when he thought someone could be trying to break in, which was always lately.

He heard it again. There was a knock at the door, a timid knock. A “sorry to wake you” knock. If this was a home invasion, it was by the most polite people.

“Who is it?” Ron yelled.

“Judy Kilmer,” a woman’s voice said. It sounded like her. She was the former administrative law judge who lived in the neighborhood. Everyone was a “former” whatever they were before the Collapse. Now, Judy held hearings for prisoners a few hours a week which got her a big, fat FCard.

“What do you want?” Ron yelled. He didn’t like Judy. She was one of those typical government workers in this neighborhood, fully integrated into the system. She was one of its minions. For years before the Collapse, she had screwed people on a regular basis with the little administrative hearings she performed. She was part of the kangaroo courts that let the government take things from people, but gave them a “hearing” so they felt like it was somewhat fair process. No one could ever explain why the government won 99.5% of the “fair” administrative hearings.

“We need to talk,” Judy said through the door, trying not to yell and wake people up.

“It’s the middle of the night,” Ron replied, but he was already awake, as was most of his family by now. It was hard enough to get any rest with a war going on all around you, and now this.

“We need to talk,” Judy repeated. “I have important information for you.”

Ron would open the door to get some important information, unless this was the Carlos Cabal and some ambush, which it very well could be. Ron had been expecting an ambush any time. It was so weird that the Carlos Cabal—Carlos the FCorps guy, Ron Maldonado his right hand man, and Scott Baker the Lima snitch—had all taken off when the shooting started. They must know something Ron didn’t.

Ron gripped his shotgun. This might be the big fight he was expecting. He was actually relieved that it was happening. Living in constant fear of being attacked was brutal. It was no way to live. Might as well get this over with.

Ron had a plan for this. He had hours a day on his hands with nothing to do but think of things just like this.

“Just a minute,” Ron said to the door. “I need to get dressed.”

He was already fully dressed and even had his shoes on. Sherri hated it when he wore shoes in the house, but she understood that they might need to run out of the house with no warning, so now the whole family wore their shoes inside, even to bed. The floors were taking a beating, but it was worth it.

Ron ran upstairs and told Sherri to get her gun and be ready to get the kids out. “Just like the plan,” he said as he ran out of their bedroom. He heard Sherri running to the kids’ rooms.

Ron ran downstairs and out the back sliding glass door. He ran around the house toward the front door and stopped at the bushes at the front of the house. He saw Judy at the door, illuminated by the porch light. She appeared to be alone.

At first, he wanted to run back in the house and let Judy in because he didn’t want to leave someone waiting at the door. Proper manners were that you didn’t leave someone waiting at your door. You let them in. Ron started to run back into the house so as not leave his guest waiting.

Guest? This bitch? Who had sided with Nancy Kingman early on when the weenies were trying to take over the neighborhood? The same Judy who wanted to get rid of the guards and ridiculed Ron for having guns? The same Judy who seemed to have plenty on her family’s FCard because she was a “judge”? A judge who made a living from signing the paperwork that let the government steal from people and put them in jail just to maintain their power? This person deserved courtesy from Ron? Courtesy that might cost him and his family their lives from an ambush?

He successfully fought the urge to let the waiting guest in the door and just stood there watching her. She was still alone and there were no movements of any kind around her. She wasn’t looking back or whispering to anyone. She was either truly alone or was a magnificent actress and highly trained assassin. Ron laughed to himself. He knew which was more likely.

He started to move from the bush he was behind to one that was closer to the front door. He was moving out away from the house so he was more and more behind Judy. He couldn’t believe she didn’t hear him. But, then again, he had been out spray painting graffiti in the night and had become very good at moving slowly and using cover. It was slightly windy and that made it hard to hear tiny little sounds of bushes rustling.

Pretty soon, he was several yards behind Judy and had his shotgun pointed right at her back.

“Okay,” Ron said out loud, causing Judy to jump, “what do you want to talk about?”

Judy was looking around for Ron, looking at the front door. She had no idea he was behind her. Ron enjoyed seeing her terrified.

“Over here,” he said. After locating him, she nervously looked at the shotgun. She thought guns “just went off” and could explode at any given moment. They frightened her.

“What do you want?” Ron asked gruffly. She had woken him and his family up, and she was a Loyalist bitch.

“Carlos, Ron, and Scott are coming back at dawn to get you,” Judy whispered.

This was simultaneously a surprise to Ron and perfectly expected. It was a surprise because no one had ever told him people were coming to attack his family; it was expected because he’d spent hours planning for this. But hearing it made it real.

“Why are you telling me this?” Ron asked. He didn’t necessarily believe her, but was curious why she was telling him this.

“For you and your family,” Judy said, stunned that anyone would ask why she was warning them.

“Judy,” Ron said, “you’re not exactly a friend of mine. You’re a Loyalist. I’m not. You are part of the shitty system that caused all this.” Hearing that the Patriots had taken the capitol earlier in the day gave Ron a sudden burst of confidence to speak his mind. He kept going, because he’d bottled it up for so long. “You have a fully stocked FCard while I have to scratch out food for my family. I’m not really interested in your pure motives.”

Judy was stunned. She was a “judge.” No one ever talked to her that way. But she was hurt that Ron was questioning her motives.

“Your kids,” Judy said, still stunned, “your adorable kids. I don’t want anything to happen to them.”

Ron couldn’t help himself with Judy. He had held back on the truth for so long it was like an avalanche now.

“It might be true, Judy, that you don’t want anything to happen to my kids, but ‘teabaggers’ like me need to go to one of your TDF concentration camps. The camps run by your little friend, Nancy Ringman. Nope, Judy, I’m not buying that you care about me or my family.”

Judy was absolutely floored. She had expected to be treated like a hero for risking arrest to warn the Spencers. If the legitimate authorities caught her out after curfew, she’d lose her FCard. This was the most courageous she’d ever been in her entire life. Her heroic moment wasn’t turning out like she’d thought.

Judy just stood there in the cold on Ron’s front porch, unable to speak, staring at a man with a gun, which was against the law to possess, her judge mind started to tell her.

Ron was starting to sense that Judy might actually be sincere. Or, again, she was a magnificent actress. He thought he’d test her.

“Why did you really come here, Judy?” Ron asked. He knew that the first thing people blurted out was often the truth.

“I was just trying to keep my job,” flew out of her mouth. “I’m not really a Loyalist. I’m not. I have just been doing what I needed to do keep my job and my FCard. I didn’t want any trouble. Things were changing so fast. Everything got crazy. I didn’t know what to do. I just did what everyone else was doing.” She started to cry.

“I’m sorry,” Judy whimpered. “I’m sorry for what I’ve done.” She had her face in her hands and was crying loudly.

Ron was a sucker for a crying woman. There was something genetic about it. Ron relaxed his grip on his shotgun.

Then he regained his senses. He swung around and swept the area with his shotgun. A hysterically crying woman would be a great trigger for an ambush. He swept some more as Judy had her face in her hands. There was no one. She really was alone.

He started walking up to her, with his shotgun lowered, but ready to point and aim instantly.

“Let’s go inside,” he said and she quietly followed him inside.

“I hope I didn’t wake your family,” she sobbed as they got inside.

“Too late,” Sherri said from the living room, where she stood with a revolver in her hands.

The sight of the gun startled Judy. Those were strictly illegal. Judy wondered if her FCard would be taken away for even being the same house as a gun.

Ron offered Judy a seat on the couch. “Okay,” he said, still not entirely convinced that this wasn’t a scam or ambush of some kind, “what is it that you want to tell us?”

Judy had felt miserably guilty for weeks. It welled up in her and was pouring out right now. She started her confession by repeating how she was just doing her job. She spent several minutes rationalizing why she went along with the government.

“I was just trying to help people,” Judy said. Yeah, Ron thought, trying not to roll his eyes. She was trying to “help” people by presiding over “fair” hearings that took everything away from them? By accepting all the benefits of system that took things from people? Ron wasn’t persuaded by Judy’s ramblings, but was letting her get it out of her system so he could find out about the supposed Carlos Cabal raid coming at dawn.

“I was just following the law,” Judy stated. Ron almost asked if Judy ever thought to question the laws she was following, but he didn’t want to get into a philosophical debate. He wanted information that could save his family’s lives. He’d put up with the left-wing babble for a little longer if it meant getting that information.

“So that’s when I decided I had to come over here and tell you,” Judy finally said. That was Ron’s cue to find out what really mattered.

“Tell me about what Carlos is planning,” Ron said patiently, relieved that she finally was telling him something he cared about. He motioned for Sherri to take the kids back into their rooms. They didn’t need to see one of their neighbors describing how some more of their neighbors were trying to kill them.

“Well,” Judy said, defensively, “he and I talk,” referring to Carlos. Ron let that go. Judy talked to Carlos, Ron wanted to say, because they were two Loyalist peas in a pod. A “Lima bean” Ron joked to himself. Humor was his coping mechanism these days

“Apparently,” Judy said in a whisper, “the tea-bag…” she corrected herself, “the Patriots have taken the capitol.” Ron grinned. Yes, we have, Ron wanted to say. And, Ron thought, that’s why you’re here, you sniveling little bitch. You’re here so the “teabaggers” don’t haul you out and shoot you. And stopping by my house is your desperate plan to stay alive.

“Carlos, Rex, and Scott got scared,” Judy said.

“Why would they be scared?” Ron asked sarcastically. “They’re the ‘legitimate authorities.’” He was having too much fun.

Judy crinkled her face and scowled. She didn’t appreciate the smartass comment. She was used to being the judge, where no one got to be sarcastic to her. “I’m trying,” she said, “to help you. Can you just let me talk?” She was coming out of her crying and turning back into the bitch she was. Oh well, Ron thought. Who cares if she’s a bitch? She might have useful information.

“They’re scared,” Judy continued, “because on Christmas morning they had black ‘L’s painted on their doors.” She whispered, “I think that means ‘Loyalist.’”

“That’s what I’ve heard,” Ron said, trying not to smile, though the tone of his voice did the smiling for him.

“When the attack started,” she said, referring to the New Year’s offensive, “they left to go to the capitol and help. They turned around when they saw all the tea…”

“Patriot?” Ron said sarcastically.

“Patriot soldiers,” Judy said. “They came back here a few hours ago and then left. They said they’re going to come and get you.”

“How do you know all this?” Ron knew that Judy had talked with them, but wanted to test it anyway.

Judy looked down at the floor. She was ashamed. “They told me.” She looked like she’d betrayed someone. She had.

“Told you when?” Ron asked.

“A few hours ago,” Judy said, looking down at the floor again. “Right after it was dark.”

“And you guys were just chatting,” Ron said, dripping with sarcasm, “about the weather or whatever and they said, ‘Oh, hey, we’re going to kill Ron Spencer and his family.’”

Judy started to cry again. “You’re making this hard on me.”

There was that crying again. He couldn’t be mean to a crying woman. He just couldn’t.

“I’m sorry, Judy,” Ron said. “But I need to know the circumstances of that conversation.”

“Okay,” Judy said, recovering from her crying for a moment. “They were over at my house because we often… talk.” She looked down at the floor yet again.

“It’s how I keep my FCard,” she explained, her eyes still pointed downward. “I have to do this. I have to. I’m dependent on them. I don’t have silver like you do.”

Oh, the word was out about his silver. Great.

Ron chose not to react to her statement, which would just verify the rumors out there.

Dependent. Yep, Ron thought, you sure are, honey. That’s why you were selling out your neighbors. Dependent. It’s why Ron didn’t have to sell out his neighbors. He wasn’t dependent. That’s what it all came down to.

Ron started to feel like a bully. He had been pretty hard on Judy. More than a couple of times, she had admitted that what she had been doing was wrong. And she was taking some risk by trying to warn him. Ron needed to be a decent person and quit batting her around like a cat with a mouse.

“Thanks for coming to us,” Ron said very sincerely. “Thank you, Judy.”

Judy cried some more. That was what she’d been waiting to hear from Ron. Finally he had said it. She was so relieved.

“Now tell me about their plan,” Ron said.

“They will come here right before dawn,” she said, once again looking down at the floor. “With guns. They have guns.” She paused. This next part was hard for her to say.

“They’re going to burn down your house,” she said, with her face in her hands. She started crying again. This was a deep and shuddering cry. She was letting out a monstrous evil that she had been carrying with her.

Oh God, Ron thought. Burning down the house. Their house.

“Then Len’s,” she said, referring to Len Isaacson, the other Patriot in the neighborhood.

She cried some more and then said, “They said it will show everyone that the legitimate authorities are still in charge.”

The “legitimate authorities” burned down houses and shot people trying to flee? That was “legitimate”?

Judy saying the “legitimate authorities” would burn down people’s houses starkly illustrated just how illegitimate the authorities really were. The authorities Judy worked for. And now she was finally realizing how evil that system was. It took something like this to open her eyes.

“Thank you, Judy,” Ron said and got up to hug her. “You are a hero for coming here and telling me this.” Judy needed that hug. She deserved it.