Power Play- America's Fate by Diane Matousek Schnabel

Author:Diane Matousek Schnabel
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2016-11-01T04:00:00+00:00

60

District Four, Florida

THOMAS CALHOUN HAD been tending to this citrus grove since the day he could walk. The small, organic orchard had been in his family for three generations, and when neighbors implored him to join their pilgrimage to a government FEMA camp, he had stubbornly declined. His wife and twin daughters were buried in this land, and he wasn’t going to leave them.

Each day, he walked the acreage, inspecting for pests and signs of citrus greening. The bacteria spread from tree to tree via a tiny insect called the Asian citrus psyllid, and the incurable blight was so devastating to crops that the U.S. government had declared it a bioterror weapon.

Thus far, his trees showed no signs of the yellowing and falling leaves that would prevent the fruit from maturing, no signs that his grove had entered an inescapable death spiral. Healthy green nubs had replaced the orange blossoms, but faint traces of the beautiful scent lingered.

Is that just my imagination? Or am I losing my mind?

Sometimes, Thomas swore he could hear his daughters’ giggling voices. They used to play hide-and-seek amongst the trees, unaware that their brightly colored sundresses made it easy for him to spot them. A mournful smile tweaked the corners of his mouth, and the breeze picked up, carrying with it a rumble of thunder.

A shower is exactly what the grove needs, he thought.

Turning back toward the old farmhouse, he noted the sky to the west was churning with black clouds. Thick bands of precipitation swayed with the gusting winds, connecting sky and earth, and the smell of rain hung heavy. By the time Thomas reached the house, the temperature had dropped ten degrees, and he could hear the dull slaps of water droplets striking the parched ground. He settled onto the porch swing, missing his wife of nine years. They had spent many evenings there, marveling at flashes of heat lightning that imparted a magical quality onto the landscape.

Rocking slowly, he closed his eyes and tried to imagine the love of his life curled up beside him.

Unwelcome memories seeped into his mind. Six days after the pulse, he’d ventured out to fetch water from a lake less than a mile from the house; close enough to hear the gunshots and shrieks; too far away to stop them. The image of his slain family on the front lawn brought tears to his eyes.

Initially, he had blamed himself; if only he had stayed with them; if only he had been more worried about them than the damn orange trees. But over the past year, Thomas had faced a brutal truth: he never could have stopped two dozen men with assault rifles.

Stricter gun safety legislation would have kept those weapons out of the hands of that vicious gang. Confiscation would have saved my girls, he thought. The government couldn’t protect us because we refused to give them enough power.

A sequence of harsh thuds jarred him from his torment, the sound of hail drubbing against the roof of the porch.

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