Chapter 1
July 4, 2021 - Monroe Farm, Shidler, Oklahoma
Fear hadn’t been something she’d ever truly tasted before. Now, the acrid metallic bitterness burned the back of her throat and flowed out of her pores. She hated it’s palpable fog that clung to every nook and cranny in the old clapboard farmhouse. The waning moon cast unearthly shadows that danced and shimmered across the livingroom floor, causing her to shiver uncontrollably. She could hear the click of the man’s boots moving across the hard wood floor, searching, searching.
“Where are you, Lacy?” the stalker called. “I’m going to get you.”
She held her breath until she could no more, praying he wouldn’t find her. She clenched her fists, silently willing him to go away. The tiny space she squeezed herself into, between the couch and the wall, constricted her air. She lost her grasp on her only weapon. The Bowie knife clanked to the floor, lost somewhere underneath the leather sofa. She heard the man stop and listen. Then the click, click, click of his boots continued, coming ever closer. She took a slow breath, breathing in the musty smell of old leather and dust. She stifled a sneeze and the ever present panic that bubbled up inside her chest. His footsteps drew near and she muffled a scream she couldn’t control. What did he want with her? Why was he here? Her brain scrambled for answers that weren’t there. She felt her skin crawl seconds before he reached down behind the couch and pulled her up by her hair.
“No!”
“Checkmate. I’ve got you now,” he breathed in her ear. “Nowhere for you to run. Nowhere for you to hide.” His voice rasped from years of smoking and his breath smelled of death.
Lacy gagged as he crushed his mouth down hard on hers.
He pushed her to the floor, ripping her shirt as she fell.
She screamed and his wicked laugh filled the room. “No one can hear you. Don’t waste your breath.”
She clawed at his face, ripping skin from his cheek. His shocked expression turned to rage as he felt blood drip from the wound. “You really shouldn’t have done that. I was going to make this as painless as possible, but now I’ll take pleasure in hurting you.”
“Why? Why are you doing this?”
“I’ve got a score to settle.”
“With who?”
“That’s none of your damn business. Now shut up.”
She closed her eyes, refusing to let him see her cry. She turned her head as he quickly lowered his jeans. He reached down and tore the rest of her shirt. Her head thumped on the floor as he jerked the material away from her body. He reached for the button of her jeans and she kicked at him. He caught her leg, and forced it down with his boot. She cried out in pain as he crushed the heel into her thigh.
“Shut up!”
His fist connected with her right cheek and her eyes rolled to the back of her head. Dark spots blurred her vision and she prayed for the darkness to consume her.
“Don’t you dare pass out on me.” he snarled. “I want you awake for the whole thing. And when I’m finished, I want you to pack up and move on. You can’t stay here. I’ll kill you if you do.”
He lowered himself down on top of her. The act, violent and brutal, ripped through the membrane of her innocence. She cried out in pain and felt the blood seep out and pool, staining the floor beneath her.
“A virgin.” he mocked. “How rare. How wonderful. This makes it even better.” His cruel laughed tore her heart to shreds.
When he finished, he warned her one more time. “Don’t stay here.” He zipped up his jeans, gave her one last kick and left.
Lacy crawled to the couch in a pitiful heap. So much blood, so much pain. Those were her last thoughts before the darkness consumed her.
She slept until the setting sun the next day. It streamed in the western window, shining down on the couch, blissfully unaware of the turmoil it’s rays touched. She winced in pain and tried to turn away from the light. Her right eye had swollen almost completely shut. She grabbed her pounding head and tried to sit up. The dried blood on her bare legs filled her with despair and she realized with a start that the only thing she had on was her bra. The memories came back in a flood and the decent into hell arced like a flash burn, permanently searing the moment in time when she lost all traces of her virtue. A measure of insanity crept in and replaced her once carefree spirit. She’d never be the same. She needed help.
#
Lacy Monroe wandered around her childhood home and wondered why no one thought to take the pictures off the wall. She removed a family portrait in the living room and stared at her only sibling. Her older brother by three years, Adam, AJ to friends and family, had been her hero, her protector, her guide through life. She missed him terribly. Only two days had passed since her attack and she was still weak and sore. Her thigh, a constant reminder, throbbed with every step she took. The motorcycle ride from her grandparents farm to her home fifteen miles away in the small town of Kaw City, had been brutal. Her eye turned a nasty shade of greenish purple. She gingerly poked at it, wishing for the luxury of an ice pack. She put the picture in her backpack and continued her search.
Her parents hadn’t left much behind, she realized. Not even a bottle of aspirin graced the medicine cabinet in her parent’s bathroom. On impulse, she opened the door to her father’s closet. Most of his clothes were gone. She reached around the narrow oak dresser against the far wall and pulled out the hidden shotgun. She grinned for the first time in days.
“I can’t believe he left it.” she said aloud. “This will come in handy.”
She moved into her bedroom and switched on the television, hoping for some news, any news.
White snow filled the flat screen. “The National Guard will be here soon.” she muttered to herself, remembering the vague rumors that had circulated for weeks.
All forms of communication as she knew it would be stripped. And soon. If she were going to call her parents, her uncle, anyone, now would be the time. She laid down and stared at the posters on her ceiling she’d hung there as a teenager.
“I should’ve gone to California.” she whispered, allowing the tears to flow for the first time. “What am I going to do?”
She reached in her pocket and fingered the broken cross necklace. She’d found it on the floor by the blood stain. He’d ripped it from her neck as he tore her shirt, as he tore through her innocence.
Tears continued to fall unchecked. “Where were You?” she shouted, surprised by the rage that filled her so quickly.
No answer came, nor did the ceiling cave in and crush her. She dropped the cross back into her pocket.
She got up, went outside and sat on the curb, staring at the empty houses.
“Everyone’s gone.” A quiet despair crept in and made her heart it’s home. “And I’m talking to myself. Great. I wonder how long it takes for someone to go insane?”
The wind in the streets whispered of a better time. Abandoned homes stood waiting for their families to return, but she knew better. No one would come back and rebuild their lives in a State that had been taken over by military rule, it’s back crushed on the heels of an economic meltdown.
She picked at the weeds peeking through the cracks in the sidewalk and wondered how many in her neighborhood had actually escaped the newly formed State Work Camps.
The faint rumble of an engine sliced through the air. She looked up to see a white Chevy pickup race down the street and park two houses down.
She squinted against the western sun and gasped. “Travis.”
Her throat closed with tears as she sprinted toward her childhood friend. She threw herself into his arms, tears falling unchecked down her cheeks.
“Travis.” she sobbed. She could feel the solidness of his arms go around her and she clung to him in a desperate attempt for comfort. Travis, her childhood confidant and class-mate, would never hurt her. “Thank you, God.” she breathed.
He gently pushed her from him and she heard him gasp as his eyes grazed over her blackened eye. “What happened, Lacy?”
She gathered her wits before answering. “It’s a long story.”
“Tell me.”
She hesitated. “You believe in God, Trav?”
“No.” Pain streaked through his eyes. “Why?”
Again, she fingered the cross in her pocket.
“Do you?”
She sighed. “If I don’t believe in Him now, in the bad times, I probably never did in the good.”
“What the hell difference does it make now, anyway?”
She shook her head. “None, I guess. How are you here? I thought you moved to Texas with your parents.”
“My parents were killed trying to cross the border.”
She heard the pain in his voice. “I’m so sorry. I thought the border was still open to any Oklahoman who wanted to move there. So it’s closed now?”
“Yes. We didn’t make it in time, but my dad wanted to try to cross anyway.”
“Who fired on you?”
Anger flashed causing his otherwise warm chocolate eyes to turn black. “Our own. The Oklahoma National Guard is armed and willing to fire on anyone trying to leave the state. Did your parents leave in time?”
“I hope so.”
“Where did they decide to go?”
“ My mom was born in California, so she received a letter that gave her and my family clearance through the closed states.”
“She’s lucky. Why didn’t you go with them?”
Pain stabbed her heart. She unconsciously rubbed the heal of her hand over her chest. “My Uncle Tommy called.”
Her Uncle Thomas Monroe, a State Senator in Texas had called asking for his family’s help. Help in freeing Oklahoma of the ties that bound them to a Governor who disregarded the wishes of it’s citizens by ignoring a sweeping vote for secession.
“He owns my great-grandmother’s farm and needed someone to occupy the land. The National Guard won’t bother anyone living there because my uncle owns it now, or rather the free state of Texas does. Whether they follow that rule or not, I don’t know.” Her voice hardened. “I’ll do my part in freeing us. Whether it’s fighting, or planting myself on a patch of ground.”
“That’s a lofty goal for a barely twenty-one year old girl.” He raised a questioning eyebrow. “Why you?”
She sighed. “I was the only one willing to stay behind. There’s bad blood between my grandpa and Uncle Tommy. Besides, I practically grew up on that forty acres. It’s home to me.”
Travis shook his head. “By the looks of it, you should’ve gone with them, Lace.”
“I just couldn’t. How did you escape?” she asked.
“I didn’t try to cross over the river. Thought it was a bad idea.” He lowered his gaze from hers. “Guess it was.”
“I’m sorry, Trav. What are you going to do now?”
“Don’t know. Evade the roundups as long as possible.”
Lacy leveled him a challenging look. “You up for some hard farm work, city boy?”
Travis laughed despite himself. “What did you have in mind?”
“I need protection. You need somewhere to live. I can give you asylum. You can avoid the work camps.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “Protection from what?”
Her face clouded with hurt, fear, and shame. “My rapist.”
He gathered her back in his arms and laid his cheek on the top of her head. “Talk to me, Lacy.”
