Snakes in the house
A trilogy:
Part ONE
Serf and Turf
November 1998, Oneonta, NY
Somehow Britt Hume had survived the attack and was reporting on USBC on the situation. It was bad.
Manhattan, San Francisco, Philly, Chicago, Mexico City, Vancouver, even frickin' Albany, all vaporized. He had no idea who was the President was right now. Maybe the Speaker of the House.
News from around the AFD was just as bad. Australia was in flames, Buenos Aires , Rio, Santiago, Lima. Gone. Japan had, from all accounts leveled Korea and then committed nuclear suicide. England was not responding. Hopefully some of the radiation would make its way over to Europe and ruin the snakes' farms.
Wife and kids are pretty shook up. Cell tower is still operating, got a call from my Guard unit. Couple of cases of the insanity from the Snake virus, but we're mostly intact. Heading over tomorrow for status update.
December 3, 1998
We can still see the glow from the ruined east coast. The glow of the firestorm that is raging. Britt Hume says most of the eastern seaboard Is still burning. Portland to Norfolk.
Reports of the Snakes landing in NC. Boys down there gave them a warm welcome. Janet, my wife is hanging in there. Makes sense , she was in the Navy for 6 years. My kids, Missy and Dalton, are uptight.
February 8, 1999
Missy's birthday. She is 9 today. Janet finally breaks down. Says her daughter will not be a serf. Heavy snow.
March 5, 1999
There's nothing to watch on tv. Snakes have taken over the satellites and are in charge of the broadcasting.
Britt Hume, in an iron collar, is now reading the Snake approved scripts. Video of the evening was some poor SOB in North Carolina. He was made into an "object lesson". Tied to a large wheel, femurs broken with iron rod, (screams like a dog I hit with my car in high school) arms broken, (sweet Jesus) then lower legs. (Wife is throwing up)…Then they took him down from the wheel and impaled him on a stake. Bastards.
March 8, 1999
Three of our jets in a dogfight with some Snake planes over the valley. We got four of 'em. Don't think its gonna be enough.
Missy watched with me. "Daddy, are we gonna be serfs"?
"Not if I can help it baby, not if I can help it."
March 20, 1999
The rain that has fallen almost daily as turned to snow. Almost three feet on the ground. Temps have not risen over 45F since the attack.
March 31, 1999
Britt Hume was removed from the broadcast last week. He went off script. I hate Diane Sawyer.
Guard now has 84 AWOL.
April 15, 1999
Draka aircraft flies over town today, drops pamphlets. It's called Slaves First Day. I guess its decision time.
Janet and I watch Missy and Dalton sleep.
April 20, 1999
1834 hours
Seems impossible, Dalton is 6 today. We have a small party for him. His piece of cake and Missy's been laced with ground up sleeping pills.
On SnakeTV, the Draka impale 18 members of the New York State Senate ,two New York Yankees and Tom Reese, Quarterback for the Buffalo Bills. Always hated the Bills, more of a Toronto Argo fan. Will miss those NFL division games.
2105 hours
My kids are safe now. They won't be raped or exploited, chained up, humiliated. I made sure they didn't suffer. God save my soul.
2242 hours
Janet has made sure I won't have to worry about her. 13 good years.
April 22 1999
0749
Tank in the front yard. I've buried Janet and my children.
0758
Snakes in the house, my M16A7 take out the first batch. I set the timer, 2 minutes til the house blows. The C4 I've placed throughout the house should do a nice job. I see one of the wounded Snakes. It's a female. I go over to my kitchen sink where she lays, bleeding on the floor Janet and I installed. "You god damned Snake."
29 seconds
I see Dalton taking his first step
20 seconds
Janet and I getting married in Annapolis.
9 seconds
Missy and her horse, Pepper
2 seconds
I punch the Draka in the face
0 seconds
Peace
Part 2
Serf's Up
June 22, 2000, Valdosta, Georgia
Colonel Malcolm Richards, Alliance for Democracy, Intelligence Division looked out his office window. Gray skies filled with angry clouds, brimming with rain. It was times like these he missed his native Australasia. Sighing, he waited for the monthly update from the remaining Intelligence Officers that still were free. The Draka assault had slowed recently, probably due to the weather conditions that had ravaged the planet.
The printer activated and started spitting out the reports that had been gathered from throughout the Alliance.
NORTH AMERICA
State of Quebec. Snow drifts 25 feet thick covering Quebec City.
State of Vermont. Averaging almost 2 feet of snow per day. No sign of civilian or enemy activity.
State of Wisconsin, Racine. Lake Michigan frozen solid, mass starvation throughout state. Radiation levels still high from Great Plains missle silo annhiliation.
State of North Carolina, Asheville. Snow levels 13 feet. Evacuation routes out of area blocked by snow and landslides.
State of Kansas, Lawrence. Temperatures are averaging minus 45 degrees. Snow fall of 3 feet daily.
State of Western Canada. Moose Jaw. Requesting evacuation
State of California. Palm Springs. Refugees from the Valley and coastal cities continue to pour in. Not enough food to feed them all. Draka presence at a minimum since 29 Palms was eliminated.
Reports from 43 of the 62 states read the same. In the warmer areas, the Draka occupied territory, but were mostly keeping quiet. Occasional guerilla activity from surviving Alliance military units. In the north, the Snakes were content to let Mother Nature take care of the survivors.
UNITED KINGDOM
Cornwall. No report. Scotland. No Report. Wales. No report. Ireland. No Report. England. No report
Malcolm groaned inwardly. So much for the Mother Country.
AUSTRALASIA
The previous reports from his homeland had been bleak. Somehow, a unit of Southern Cross Marines had captured the head of the Snake pacification group, a Ms. Gaynor and had impaled her, seen live on hacked Draka video streams. Since that action, the Draka had broken out their bio warfare bag of tricks and had turned Oz and the islands into a graveyard. No New Report. He had not expected one. Not for the first time, he hoped his wife and kids had died in the nuking of Adelaide.
As he continued to read over the updates, the death notice of his nation, the radar suddenly let out a warning. Dropping his report he ran over to the station. Single jet coming in fast, up from Snake controlled Alabama. He ran over to the air raid siren, but the jet beat him. It rained down four bombs on the city. Fairly small explosions. From his office on the 5th floor of the Alliance building, he saw civilians getting up off the ground. Sirens from the ambulances announced their approach to the affected areas. Thank God, he thought. Maybe just testing us out…Then he noticed the civilians. Grabbing at their throats, falling to their knees. He hit the air raid siren button, but he knew it was too late. He saw a mother and her two children rolling in the street, their faces turning blue. Biobomb. Turning quickly he went over to his comp station to activate room isolation protocol system. Before he could, Malcolm felt a terrible burning in his throat. NO he thought. Conflicting thoughts ran through his mind. Destroy the system, so the Snakes couldn't manipulate it. Send out a warning, let the rest of the Alliance know what happened. In the end, Malcolm accomplished neither. He suffocated as his throat closed and his tongue swelled. The world turned red as his eye balls bled.
June 30, 2000
Almost 15,000 bodies had been counted by the Draka. The biobomb had worked as planned. The 100 or so survivors had been interrogated, abused and now lined the town square, slowing sinking deeper onto the stakes that they were impaled upon.
But the biggest prize was the Alliance Intelligence Office that Centurion Jackson Lee had found. Skull house would be most pleased with this…
The next report from Valdosta to the remaining outposts of Alliance civilization would read something like this.
State of Georgia, Valdosta. No signs of Draka activity. Request in person meeting of high level Intelligence Staff.
Part 3
Serf City, USA
September 11, 2005
Stupid collar, I thought, as the large African Janissary attached it to the bunk. After a long day of picking up debris, here in beautiful (but slightly radioactive) Santa Carla, California, all of us Serfs were wore out. 14 hour days. It wasn't all bad.
My tan was awesome.
Really accentuate the whip marks.
Made my Serf neck tattoo stand out.
We were lead through the showers, given 5 minutes to use the facilities and then chained to the beds for the night. Before the war, I might have enjoyed this. Now, in this strange new world I wished for the ways things used to be.
My star had been rising down in Hollywood. I had started off with commercials, then guest spots in tv comedies, then my own starring role in The Disney Channel Donald Duck & Friends Club. All the teenage girls knew my name. Zac Efron. I knew most of the other young up and coming stars. I had not been home the night the Snakes turned LA into a giant radioactive crater. I had been up in Reno, at a celebrity golf outing. Now I wish I had been home, with my parents in Riverside. Well at least they didn't have to see their son turned into a chained up Serf.
September 12, 2005
Get up Slave, the large Janissary assigned to my group snarled at me. Just to make sure I heard him, he gave me a jolt from his cattle prod. I quickly got in line. The Snakes liked us clean before we started the work day. Back through the shower line, cold, cold water. We were dressed in what they thought was American Serf chic, Converse all stars, skin tight shorts and of course, iron collars and heavy leg and wrist restraints. Connecting chains attached the leg irons to our wrists and then up to our necks. So we could pick up heavy objects and carry them over to the "recycling center", where the female Serfs break them into smaller pieces.
The girls, they have it bad over there. Rape. Humiliation. Beatings.
No clothing for them. The Massas' like to see what the wenches got
All part of this new, exciting California lifestyle.
Last week, Reilly Cooper got to meet Ivan when he tried to help one of the girls. That poor bastard is still squirming on his stake.
He's right by the door of our bunk house.
It's hard not to ask him "how's it hanging bro"?
Dumbass.
September 13, 2005
Abdul, the big Turkish Janissary used me for his pleasure last night. Again. He gave me a piece of candy after. I accept it and thank him the way a pretty buck should thank a superior.
September 30, 2005
Seems my LA good looks and my death camp workout have finally paid off. I have been purchased by a former member of the Snake Senate. Don't know his name.
He likes to be called Massa.
I'm cleaned up and have some new clothes put on me, blue jeans, cowboy boots and hat, western style shirt, then placed in what are called travelling chains. It's nice to have new stuff to wear again. Taken to one of their strange six wheeled cars, I'm placed in it and my chains are attached to an eye bolt in the floor. My new Massa, has two other Serfs in the car, both freshly dressed. The two girls are in long dresses, blond hair in pony tails.
We look like something from a John Wayne movie.
One of the Serfs, a European girl, named Freda, tells us that our new home will be down in Amatlan Province,(formerly known as Arizona), on a Hacienda. We will be house serfs, quite an honor, according to Freda.
Living out The Master Races' new American Dream.
A Dream come true with captured, tamed Americans.
It sounds like a good gig.
I hope I get another pair of shoes.
Epilogue
November 11, 1998, Metairie, Louisiana
1454
Mina Hebert turned over the final card. Knowing what it was, hoping it wasn't. Death. Again. Fourteen previous readings had ended the same way. The spirit world was not just trying to tell her something, they were screaming at her. Across the table, her long time friend looked calm. She knew that the Death card didn't mean Death. Just change. "You need to get out of here, Lindy" Mina said. "All of us do."
2330
The dream was vivd. A giant snake eating a eagle. Flames engulfing the world.
November 12, 1998
0745
She could hear the girls getting ready for school. On the frig, the business card from the real estate developer stared at her. It was time.
1315
Brad Mifflin from the Dwali Mart sat across from Mina. The Dwali Mart had been buying up the property all around Mina's Tarot Card Shop for months. The store had grown at enormous rates since its native country had been conquered in the 70's.
"If you can get me cash by tomorrow, I will sell."
"Well sugar, business don't work like that. $400,000 don't just fall from heaven."
"$50,000, cash and its yours. "
Brad Mifflin couldn't believe it. The papers were signed in 15 minutes.
November 15, 1998
The girls were in the new SUV. Her family and close friends were all parked in the street, with moving vans stuffed full of supplies. Bound for Colorado.
Mina saw the future, Nuclear firestorms, never ending snow. Survivors rounded up. Forced into slavery. Not her family.
April 30, 2442
Malek Hebert and his twin brother Danar looked out across the plains. The large mammoth would feed their tribe throughout the spring and summer…But, it might also draw attention to them. Very rarely did the entire family venture out into the open plain. Danar contacted Malek through mind speak and brought his attention to the large bull Elk near the tree line.
Grasping hands, they concentrated their minds at the elk. It fell to the ground, dead. Malek mentally called out to the tribe, who quickly descended upon the animal and dragged it into the safety of the forest.
May 5, 2442
Marie Hebert kept the smaller children close to her, as the tribe watched the Devil Ship fly overhead. From her connection with Malek and Danar she saw the ship land and one of the Devil People exit. Dressed in all black, the female with long reddish hair looked around and began to set up her camp. Less than 5 miles from the main cave the tribe used for the summer months.
Former Planetary Archon Gwendolyn Ingolfsson smelled something familiar. Something she had not smelled since this continent had been pacified. It had taken much less than the 40-50 years to subdue the ferals. Most that had had survived the climate change were killed. About 850,000 had become serfs. Their children now had been transformed in homo servus. Happily serving the Draka in the sciences and in the bed.
"Humans" she said. After all this time, some had survived. "well, let's see if I can find them and introduce them to the Yoke."
Marie Hebert, listened to the Devil Woman, she called herself Gwen and was looking for some fun. Part of her mind warned her "not now, leave her. Its not time. Yet"
Gathering her clan together, she silently chanted the words for the ritual. The other members of the clan picked up on it "No see, no see". The Devil Woman passed within 15 feet of their camp. Marie added a sense of foreboding to the chant. The Devil woman, picked up on it.
Gwen thought, "I'm actually sweating". Something was wrong here. She started to head back to her ship, to clear her head, when she smelled something else. Something dangerous and angry. Moments later, the grizzly bear appeared…
After her encounter and victory over the bear, Gwen tried to remember what had happened earlier, in the woods, before the bear. "I need to rest", she decided. While Gwen slept, Marie and the elder clan women of the clan erased all memories of Gwen's near discovery of them.
The clan watched as the Devil Woman and her ship left the valley. Nature and evolution had given Marie and her clan, along with the other twenty clans that stretched through the Rocky Mountains, an evolutionary advantage. One the Draka would have to face someday. One that they would not be ready for.