Blood in the Sand. Dream Sequence 10-18-2011.

They almost passed the tiny islands up on their way to the coast. Massive ships just a few miles off the horizon. Unknown markings. We all thought they would just keep going until we tried to use the phones, nothing was going through. No radio or television signals were coming in or going out. The troop transports got as close as they could to the placid shores of our tiny islands. Their landing craft had no resistance coming onto our beaches. Those on the beach watched in awe as thier doom and troops with unknown markings and uniforms took the beach, then thier lives. The gunshots were unmistakable in the cool morning air. The smell of the salt in the ocean tainted with cordite and something else. The metalic smells of blood and charred flesh.

They took the beach easily. They forced their way into the town that was just beginning to line the streets and stand in their front yards in response to the shots that had the seagulls in an uproar. Stunned citizens were pushed, and if they didn't comply, they were shot. It didn't take long to learn. The small island town and all of it's surrounding islands and properties were taken in about 2 hours. Anyone in uniform was shot on sight. Firemen and police officers alike lined main street like a stalled parade. The town was taken so quickly that anyone off duty was at the high school football field and under troop supervision in mere minutes.

The people of our small town were escorted by troops who were carrying a newer version of the AK-47. It caught my eye as I met up with the other off duty officers on the field. The troops filled the bleachers on both sides and lined the track that circled the field. It was a sight to behold for those of us that were still taking it in.

They processed us all fairly quickly and held the rest of the police department. We were led to the beach and lined up in front of the Wooden shower house on the beach. The bodies were still there, having laid in the cool morning as our town was invaded. The blood soaked into the sand and pooled on the wooden walkways here and there. The smell was stronger here. They ordered us to bring in our weapons, they had the forms from city hall that served as registry for our town, indicating who owned what. They made us kneel. They put four of us against the wall and aimed four rifles at us. The rest had to watch. Their language screamed out, "Ready- Aim- Fire!" and the shots rang out. Two of the riflemen held their fire and next to me bodies fell. I looked over at Pesser, the other officer that had been in that line, and back at the riflemen. In busted English their commander stepped forward and instructed us to return with every weapon in town by three PM to this same spot or we would be buried along with our fellow men. That our families would burn, that our children would drown. That anyone found with a weapon in their possession would be publicly murdered. It was our honor to prevent that, to protect as we had sworn. As they were speaking their radios began to sqwak excitedly as chatter began to flow. Their faces lit up with joy and they all begn cheering, at this they turned and left. The rest of us gathered, and began the slow work of the day. Our friends bodies were still warm in the sand, and the sun had barely peaked in the sky. It would stink when we returned in three hours.

There were troops everywhere. In gas stations, in grocery stores, at different intersections in our small town. They surrounded an overturned school bus that was a smoking heap of wreckage. The back tires had been blown off. As we looked over the forms over the various stops we were going to have to make and plotted the quickest way to go around town we saw names and addresses that we knew. Places that we had served and protected for years. At each house we stopped at we were met with accusing eyes. Sometimes the owner theirself would hand over the weapon, at others the recently widowed spouses would give them over to us. Everywhere we were questioned as to why were were privy to this. We were all asking what had happened. The troops were all in a much better mood. It was obvious something huge had happened.

After we rounded up all the weapons we returned to the spot as we had been instucted. The police weaponry all lay in open boxes that resembled long metal caskets. I saw that they had a rubber gasket around the rim. There were three of them, two of them were full. The third was for the weapons we had confiscated around the town. We filled it and then the remaining weapons were destroyed on the beach. The smell stung our eyes. The breeze from the ocean was moving it, but slowly.

The troops commanded us to pick up the containers, and then led us to a landing craft. We boarded and closed and sealed the containers. We were led out about one mile and then we dropped the containers overboard. As the transport continued out toward a larger troop ship on the horizon, the seven of us that were left alive were told, in broken English again, that the farther out we got, the less chance of survival we had. Taking our cues we jumped from the ship. It wasn't too much longer and a couple of shots rang out, sounding much different than the automatic fire we heard earlier that same day, and spray hit us as bullets whizzed by. Then there was nothing but to swim. Six of us made it to shore. No one saw when Mendez had gone under, but he had. We collapsed on the wet sand and stayed there. It was 5 pm. The invasion of the islands had taken less than 12 hours.

Flyers littered the ground on the way home, on them was a simple message, "Continue life as you always have. Do not resist. Continue life as you always have."

When I arrived home that night, the front door of the house was kicked in and the house was eerily empty. Dread filled me from toe to top. But what I dreaded to find I did not. Jessica was no where to be found. My wife was gone. I searched the streets for her until dark and some troops found and beat me and dropped me at the nearest house. "Ca-few!" they yelled. Over and over and I yelled that I just wanted to find my wife. They left me bloodied on the front step of Hannah Gagnards house. I wasn't found until the morning.

The following morning I knocked on her door. She opened it with some trepidation and saw me lying on her porch. She helped me up and inside and tended to my wounds and asked me about Jessica. I told her I didn't know. She said that she hadn't heard from her mom, there was no way to communicate on the island right now. Her mom lived on the beach in a bay on the other end of the islands. The troops had hit us from all sides, so she had to have known something was going on. If Hannah was frantic, she was frantic on the inside. After three days of laying on Hannah's couch, I hobbled up and down the streets as best I could and yelled Jessicas name so many times that my voice left me. Soon all I could do was whisper to others and hear their own stories of loved ones that had been missing since that day. The island was tiny, but no one knew where they had been taken. No one even remembered losing them in the chaos of that day. The only place we could think of was the high school. The elementary and the junior high were in the same small building. The high school was new and large. Plus the troops that remained on the island had built fortifications there, but why they would need the various assortment of men women and children that had dissappeared was a mystery to everyone. We had no idea the horror that lay ahead for those of us missing a loved one.

(at this point my dread trurned to confirmation, and i just knew that my wife was dead. i never found out for sure in the dream, but everyone just knew.)

Hannah and I decided to try and go to see her mother. We made our way across the island to the bay. I got delayed and when I found my way back to house, Hannah had already crossed the bay. There was smoke rising from the massive house on the beach on the other side of the bay. I jumped in and swam it. When I arrived on the shore I sprinted inside and began to look for the ladies. Jaune, her mother was carrying what looked like furniture that had been reduced to tinder. She had a huge fire burning in the inner patio of her house. It was piled high with what used to be priceless antique furniture.

She later told us that the soldiers came in and smashed everthing. They left the outside of the house perfect, but destroyed everything on the inside.

At this point in the dream, time passed, and suddenly I was speaking to some islanders about a theory of mine that stated there weren't as many troops on the island as we thought. That we could rise against them. Cut to four of us heading out to find the weapons in the ocean. I remembered that the containers were water proof and the area where we dropped them. We rode out in the dark. In secret on a rowboat. After a few over night trips and failures, we found the guns. The dream literally ended with us in a boarded up living room opening the containers. We had weapons, we had a plan, we had the means to fight. Buzzing phone, it's 0400. Time for work.

Coming Soon

My Friend The Reader.
I will be posting the revised edition of A Close Call soon. I have returned to working on it tho I still ask your patience. I get chunks of story, and then it's up to me both to write it down and to put it in order. The same is to be said of the other story which shares this page. Comes in chunks, but I have to put it in a coherent order. It's because of thise that I don't know why anyone would be a fan of mine, I write these stories mostly to pass my time, but I do appreciate your feedback and time that it takes you to read these. I will always try to make it worth your while. Don't lose hope!
    Jon

The Introduction.

You had to like his style. Just the way he introduced himself. One minute he wasn't there, and then I looked back up and there he was, smiling down at me from the roof. Impecable suit. Salt and pepper hair and beard. I had been dispatched to this house about 3 minutes ago. I was happy for the diversion. I had only been back to work from an extended absence for about 3 weeks and I still couldn't adjust to this new life that lay before me. It seemed more barren, somehow. More bleak. I realized as I looked up at him, a little taken aback, that I was smiling back. It was the knee-jerk reaction to a smile like his. I quickly adjusted my face to match my badge, all business, expressionless and to the point. I blinked up at him, the sun at his back, shining right down in my face, and in the red behind my eyelids I saw her face, but it was fleeting. I hated that. I wanted her to stay. I opened them back up and addressed him.
     "You doing alright up there sir? Everything ok today?"
     "Yes officer, I'm just fine. Beautiful day today." He spoke matter of factly, as though there was nothing unusual about the fact that he was standing on the roof of a two story house.
     The call had come in from a neighbor, that a man was standing on the roof of the house next door. The unusual nature of the call came from the fact that the neighbor couldn't say with certainty if the man on the roof of her neighbors house was indeed her neighbor. A bit of a recluse, we don't see him much, she had said. The kind of lady that would call the police on kids playing football in the street on a fall afternoon, but ask that the responding officer not stop in front of HER house.
     "I'm Officer Martinez, and I am here to make sure that everything is okay with you sir. Is there anyway that we can talk? Perhaps you could let me inside the house?" I was very careful not to say any of the key words that might encourage someone to jump from that height, if that was his goal.
     "Yes Officer Martinez, I know why you're here. But the reason that I know you are here for is not the reason that you think you are here. Why don't you come inside, the door is open." His voice was gravelly, unaccented. Soft even though he was speaking at a higher volume so that his voice would carry all the way down to the ground. The temperature was perfect that day, but I began to sweat just a little bit. The caution lights started flashing in the back of my mind.
     "I would be more comfortable sir if maybe-"
     "I met you on the porch, of course! How silly of me to forget your procedures. Yes, I know the rules you follow, and the reasons. I'll be down momentarily."

As I waited for him to come down it dawned on me that I needed to take control of this situation. I was the police officer. I was the law enforcement representative on scene. I knew my Leutenant was watching somewhere, it was his way of following the rules. I had been on the force for three years, but when an officer went through a Traumatic Experience such as I had, it was common practice in Pineville Louisiana for the commanding officer on shift to shadow the officer for a short time, just until he was aclimated to the job again. And to make sure that he didn't lose it on anyone. The city decided this and it was definitely more for their own protection than that of the Citizens. Citizens could sue. We couldn't have that.
At the same time, in hindsight, now I can see that he was teaching me about himself. He loved a dramatic entrance. This would be the first of many meetings. But today, he was just a crazy man on a roof. One I was hoping would not leap to his death to fulfil his word of coming "down momentarily."

At that moment, just as I had glanced back up at the roof to see if he was still up there, praying his final prayer, or haiku, or whatever last crazy or profound words went through a persons head just before they ended their life, the front door of the house swung open, and he stepped out into the light of the day. Again, his smile was that of a man who had complete control of the situation at hand. My steps for this meeting had been plotted out for some time, but, again, this is all in hindsight. Hindsight is twenty/twenty as they say. That day, I just smiled back. I asked him for some identification and he produced some, I noted that his home address was indeed the house in front of which we were standing. I called in to dispatch and had them run it just the same, and checked his address, I had patrolled this neighborhood many times before and couldn't place his face or his presence.  Dispatch dutifully came back over the radio that he checked out, everything on his ID through the state computer came back and passed that particular little test with flying colors. He was Mr. Ren Pasalle of 316 Hudson Street in Pineville Lousiana, for that day anyway. Still, I hadn't become a cop by not trusting some of my stronger gut impulses, and the one tugging on me wasn't quite right just yet, so I kept my guard up.
The initial conversation continued just as I thought it should, the why's were answered with somewhat comical vagueness, the who's had already been covered. After my vocals passed their cold and business like stage and I found out that he did apparently belong here I softened my tone. Ever try to put the Citizen at ease. Not that this was necessary with this individual. I advised him to excersize just a little more caution the next time he decided to go for a stroll on his roof due to the alarm it caused his neighbors, when he caught me off guard with a simple question.
     "What made you decide to be a police officer, Jonathan?"
     "I don't recall giving you my first name Mr. Pasalle. How did you come by that information?" Back to the cold voice, if I wasn't at ease before he said my name, I was downright on edge at this point in the conversation. I had put my hand on my pistol, my trusty Beretta, without thought. I heard the brakes of a vehicle squeal lightly and looked to the street to see my Leutenant pull up and just sit there, just letting us both know that he was there. I heard him go out on the radio that he was on scene with unit 54. Mr. Pasalle was still looking at me with bright eyes that were somewhere between grey and slate. Flat but bright, unusual. I knew that he could very well have picked my name out of any number of newspaper articles in the recent month and a half, but this thought was but a tiny bleating voice in the back of my head. Back there with my caution lights, which were flashing more brightly now, and quicker.
     "Ah, but Jonathan isn't your first name now is it? You go by Jon on the local police force, but if my memory serves me, your first name is Gen-"
     "Hold on now man, this is getting strange. How do you know this stuff? Are you some kind of psychic or something? Is the circus in town?" I couldn't help but to laugh. Laughter had long been one of my defense mechanisms, but funnily enough, the past two months I hadn't laughed once. Not once. The laughter that sounded now was not the hearty full laughter of a Law Enforcement officer In Control of the situation. It was more like a childs unbelieving laughter after seeing a magic trick that he just quite can't put together. Right then a voice came over my portable radio, it was dispatch, calling out to the Leutenant that another officer on our shift needed him at a burglary scene. I looked over my shoulder and thought about asking him to stay, but gave him the nod anyway. He acknowleged the radio call and got in his vehicle. The springs creaked and then he sped away.
     "Mr. Pasalle, I would really like to know how you know that about me. I understand that I have been in the newspapers recently and see how you could have gotten to Jonathan from Jon, but as far as my first name..."
     That smile crossed his face again.
     "All of that information was as easy to come by without having to delve into the pathetic rag that these locals consider a newspaper." He stopped, looked out at the lawn.
     "I hope this isn't a let down for you, some kind of claim to fame?" His eyes found mine. He sat down on the porch and motioned to the seat next to him. I was too perplexed to leave, like I probably should have, but I wanted to ask the magician about the secret to his trick. I sat down. I had no idea what was in store for me.

It's gone.

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