© S.B. 2023 All Rights Reserved.
Reproduction and distribution of this writing without the written permission of the author is prohibited. This writing is not to be included in any publication--free or otherwise --, except the author's self-published works.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events, and incidents are the products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
"Dad! Huey found something in the backyard. Come, and take a look! DAD!"
Lewis buried his aching head under the linen pillowcase and sighed. "Not again!" he muttered under his own breath.
His six-year-old only son Jack was always yelling and jumping around, especially on Saturday mornings when all the energy school and homework had kept in check came back in full force to haunt his weekends. Lewis loved his son more than anything, but he also loved sleeping in late whenever he had the chance and God knew how much he needed the rest.
Lewis was a truck driver who mostly transported fresh fruit and vegetables to make sure no supermarket stand ever ran out of produce. At the beginning of the year, a massive strike, which he wanted to be no part of but had no say in the matter, had threatened his livelihood in a way he never believed possible. Those had been scary and uncertain times he had no interest in reliving again. After the fright, he had committed to doing extra runs every month to make up the money lost, and the straining effort was now taking a toll on him.
"Dad! Please come here!" Jack screamed again and he would not stop doing so until his father humored him. Lewis stretched in bed and tried to get up, but his sore muscles immediately resented it. He had driven almost 2,500 miles the week before and his energy levels hadn't recuperated yet. He hated to admit it but perhaps he was getting too old for such long adventures.
Lewis was almost fifty years old. The hairs on his head still had the same healthy golden-brown color that had made many a girl swoon in his prime days, but the signs of age were showing off elsewhere. Every morning when he looked in the mirror, he spotted a new wrinkle or a hint of flabby skin. His smile had lost part of its natural splendor and one of his teeth hurt every time he took a bite at something hard. He didn't remember the last time he had been to a dentist let alone any physical check-up. The money was better spent elsewhere, anyway.
The weary man took a deep breath and tried to get up again. Walking a hundred feet to the spot where Jack and his best friend Golden Retriever were frolicking around shouldn't be much of a hassle except it was. His body refused to comply, demanding two additional hours of sleep before allowing him to walk around the house again. Normally, he would listen to its demands, but he couldn't. If Jack came running into the bedroom, Huey would follow him, and the last thing he needed was the furry beast's muddy paws making a mess of things again.
Finally, he got up, glancing at the bed groove where Kathryn should have been sleeping, too. "Groceries, right," he mumbled, rheumy eyes and half-open lips working in unison to bring him back to reality. He left the bedroom behind, descended the small flight of stairs leading to the ground floor of the house, took a hard turn into the kitchen where the smell of blueberry pancakes was still in the air, and walked toward the door that marked the threshold where the sanctity of his abode ended, and the uncertainties of the outside world began.
It was a cold November morning and the garden outside had seen better days. the once proud green grass was starting to look brown and withered. He immediately noticed the freshly dug hole. Huey was sniffing the soil and wagging his tail while Jack looked hesitantly at the strange wonder his dog had uncovered. What was it this time? The plastic bone from last Christmas? The pair of blue socks he could never wear? No, sadly nothing so mundane and therefore easy to ignore. It was...
... a bomb.
"What the fuck?" Lewis muttered and pinched himself to verify he was truly awake and not having the weirdest dream of his life. The sudden pang of pain confirmed his expectations and made all his senses go on high alert. This was real and potentially dangerous.
There was no doubt about it. The gray and red logo on the right side of the dormant projectile was a stark reminder of a 20-year attack that could have resulted in one of the greatest tragedies known to man.
They called themselves the New Amazonian Movement, NAM for short, even though no one used the acronym not even for propaganda. They were a radical group that believed in Female Supremacy as the only true way of life and its members were willing to do whatever it took to make their visions of a new world come true. In its early years, NAM thrived mostly in online forums and in the deepest recesses of the dark web, seducing young impressionable minds with tantalizing ideals of a sexually charged global matriarchy that was to rise from the ashes of failed men-centric worldviews. As a fringe group, no one took them seriously, and while various intelligence agencies monitored their communications regularly, no one believed that their threats of overthrowing the government would ever amount to anything more than a group of old men and women yelling at clouds. Their resolve was severely underestimated and that could have been fatal.
Lewis wasn't in the capital when the first artificial pheromone explosives detonated, but he remembered watching the panicked reports on the news and thinking that the world had finally gone insane. Fifteen thousand men were enslaved that day and an equal number of women awakened to dreams of unrelenting dominance they had never experienced before. The purple gas clouds spread violently across the city, changing people's belief systems from within. A small exposure wasn't particularly dangerous resulting mostly in a bad case of migraines and some confusing thoughts that lasted about a week, but things were different the more people breathed the gas. Its interactions with the nervous central system could become permanent after two or three hours. There were also reports of extreme susceptibility cases where the same mind-altering parameters became a reality after little less than fifteen minutes. For many innocent people caught in the blast radius, life would never be the same.
The attack on the capital was a harrowing moment and a wake-up call to the many horrors lurking within the country. The group's nefarious ambitions were thwarted two days after the first blasts, but not before a dozen more devices exploded in other major cities. How an unaccounted bomb had found its way to Kennebunkport, Maine was a mystery and not one Lewis was eager to solve.
"Dad, what is it?" Jack asked.
"Stand back. And get Huey out of here, too!" Lewis replied, relying on his faulty memories to observe the half-buried device. He had never seen one of those up close but fragments of images on the TV came to him to show him how to proceed. The bomb's outer casing appeared to be intact but there was no way of knowing for sure until the contraption was completely above ground. Each explosive device had four gas canisters, two on the inside and two on the outside, with the latter ones clearly missing. Was this a relic from a failed detonation? Was he looking at a dud?
"But Dad..." Jack insisted, unhappy about his fun being cut short."
"Do as I say, young man. This is not a toy for you to play with. This could be dangerous."
"Okay. Come on, Huey, let's get some ice cream," Jack called his energetic pooch and they both ran to the kitchen. Lewis continued to observe the device, all the while mulling on the best course of action.
He could try to take it out himself but that was a reckless move, and he had no intention of either playing the fool or the hero role. Calling the authorities to properly dispose of it seemed like the most sensible move but did the Kennebunkport Police Department even know what to do in a situation like this or would federal intervention be required? There were too many questions on his mind and not enough answers. The most important thing was not to panic.
"Deep breaths, come on," he said as he dashed to the garage to get a tarp. When he returned to the garden, he covered the hole with it and returned to the house to make the necessary arrangements.
Jack was already sitting on the sofa watching some weird-looking cartoons while the dog desperately tried to lick the caramel ice cream off the bowl he was holding. Lewis picked up his phone and called the police.
He was still trying to get a connection to the department when his wife returned with two paper bags in hand, one of which was filled to the brim with an assortment of colorful vegetables. Kathryn was looking as lovely as ever with her golden curly hair shining in the morning sunlight. She was wearing the same outfit as the day Jack had been born, a not-so-subtle hint that she wanted their son to have a baby brother or sister before she lost the ability to conceive.
"Hello stranger," she teased him, waving a bag in front of his troubled gaze. "Look at the size of these carrots! They're even bigger than your..."
