Home: A Stranded Novel (10 page)

Cooper looked around the street and then up at the house they were sta
nding beside. “Okay, let's see if we can get inside this house. It’s a two-storey so we should be able to get a good view of the park from the back upper floor windows. Stay here. I’m going to check the front door to see if it’s locked.”

Dara nodded and Cooper ran to the front door
and put his ear against it. He stayed there for a minute before trying the doorknob. Just like Dara’s house it was unlocked. Briefly wondering if all the doors in town were unlocked, he waved Dara over and they slipped into the empty house.

B
oth teens had not had very loving homes and it had made them wonder about how other people lived, but being in a stranger's house was just plain weird. It felt really wrong to just walk through someone else's house and Dara had the urge to take her boots off and leave them by the front door. Pushing the feeling away, she pointed out the stairs to Cooper and they headed up. They picked a child’s bedroom that faced the park and each took a side and carefully pulled back the pink lace curtains until they could see out over the backyard and into the park.

The extreme changes to the park left them both speechless. The whole area had been transformed and Dara couldn’t even imagine how many people it had taken to change it so much. There were no longer any trees in the park. They had all been cut down. She could see a few
stumps sticking up from the ground but everything else was gone. The next big difference was all the grass had been removed and in its place was row after row of tilled soil. There was some new growth in the rows and she guessed they were some kind of garden crops. With all the trees gone, Dara had a clear view of the back of the schools and community center. She could also see the new fence went all the way around the park and schools. Inside of the fence were people. She could clearly make out women on their knees working along the rows and further away there were groups behind the school. She pulled away from the window and settled on the child’s bed to think.

Cooper paced the room as they both
thought about what they had just seen. He finally settled down beside her and took a deep breath.

“That wasn’t what I expected at all! I thought they would all be in one building. It looked like they were using both of the schools and the community center. I could only count six guards in the Fairways but there has to be a lot more. We’re too far away to see how many are around the buildings.” He was silent for a minute and when Dara didn’t respond he asked her, “What do we do now?”

Dara stood up and went back to the window. She stayed there for a few minutes before turning away and looking at him. “We need info, we have to make contact.”

Cooper stared at her in disbelief. “What…No! We all agreed not to make any contact today. It’s too risky! If we tip our hand and the gang finds out
, we will have no chance at all of freeing this town.”

Dara shook her head. “And if we don’t find out what’s going on here and how many guards there are
, we won’t be able to make a plan. I know it’s a risk but we don’t have a choice!”

Cooper leaned over and rested his elbows on his knees. He stared at the carpet between his feet. Dara stayed silent and let him work through it. She knew he would agree but she didn’
t want to push him so she turned back to the window and watched the people closest to them and the fence. She had just picked out the most likely candidates when Cooper stood up and joined her at the window.

He looked down at the people doing gardening and asked her,
“How are we going to talk to those people?”

Dara pointed out two girls working together further down the fence line. “See those two? If
we count the backyards along the fence we can figure out what house is closest to them. We go into the yard and call out to them to come closer and ask them what we need to know. With any luck they won't do something to give us away. As long as the guards stay over where they are, it should be safe enough. If they don’t work, there is a woman working close to the fence in the other direction. We do the same thing with her. It’s the best I can come up with right now. I don’t want to go back to base without some serious info to make a plan. The longer we sneak around like this, the more chances we have of getting caught.”

Cooper took a deep breath and nodded. “Ok
ay, but we have to be really careful. What color is the house closest to those girls?”

Dara turned back to the window and studied the backyard closest to the two girls that were weeding one of the planted rows. She couldn’t see the house from this angle but she could count how many yards were between the house they were in and the one they wanted to be in.

“I can’t tell what color it is but its six houses down. The nearest guard is half the park away and he looks like he is sleeping on the bench he is sitting on. I think one of us should go into the house if it’s unlocked and keep watch from a window and the other should try and get their attention through the fence.”

Cooper went to the window and took one more look at the park before turning away and walking to the door. They left the house after scanning the street to make sure it was still clear and made their way down the block to the house they had targeted. Again, they found the front door unlocked and they came to the conclusion that the whole town had been searched by the gang. This house was a bi
-level so they made their way to the highest level and found a room with a rear facing window. Nothing had changed in the park in the few minutes since they had last looked except that the two girls had moved to a row closer to the fence.

Cooper looked around the room and went to the closet. He opened the door and looked up before grabbing a nearby chair and placing it just inside the closet door. He climbed up on to the chair and used the built
-in shelves to climb higher. Pushing on the ceiling, he raised up a panel that revealed the access opening to the attic. Cooper stuck his head through the opening and looked around before quickly climbing down. He faced Dara and gave her a serious look.

“If for any reason I get caught, I want you to climb up into the attic and hide while I lead them away. Just climb the shelves and put the hatch back in place. Wait until dark and then slip out and get back to base.”

Dara opened her mouth to argue but Cooper held up his hand to stop her. “Listen to me Dara, I have no one left. You have Jake so I want you to promise me that you will hide and let me lead them away from you.” He could see that she wanted to protest but the thought of her little brother made her slowly nod her head in agreement.

They went to the window and looked out at the two girls again. Cooper checked that the guards were still in the same position before opening the window an inch and telling Dara, “Keep a close watch on the guards. If it looks like any of them are headed this way
, try and let me know but don’t give yourself away.” Dara nodded and gave Cooper a tight hug before stepping back.

“Be careful. Don’t tell them too much
, just try and get numbers and locations for now.”

Cooper nodded briskly and turned and walked out of the room.
He made his way down to the front door and after a quick look to make sure the street was still empty, he slipped out and crossed the front lawn to the gate to the backyard. He winced at the creak of hinges when he opened it but didn’t think it was loud enough to carry into the park. He closed it as quietly as he could and followed the wooden fence to the back of the yard. The panels in the fence had a half inch of space between them and he stopped a couple of times to look through the openings. When he was even with the two girls he took a deep breath and clenched his fists before calling to them in a low voice. The girls didn’t respond. His body thrumming with tension, he called louder.

The girl closest to him froze as she was reaching down to pull a weed
, slowly lifted her head and glanced around. When she was looking in his direction, Cooper called out again and he saw her flinch. She looked to be around the same age as Cooper and he thought he had seen her in the halls of school, but he wasn’t sure from this distance. He watched as she said something to the other girl and then turned to look back where the nearest guard was sitting on a bench. They both stood up and picked up the garbage bags they were filling with weeds before moving a few rows closer to the fence. When they settled back down and started to pull weeds again he was going to call out but saw one of the girls looking right at the fence he was hiding behind. She used her body to shield her hand that was in a stop gesture so he settled back to wait.

Cooper’s nerves were strung tight and he had to fight himself not to fidget. He turned and looked up at the window that Dara was watching from and he saw her hand appear with a thumb
’s up so he relaxed a fraction. The wait was agonizing, feeling like hours as the two girls slowly made their way closer. When they finally were at the last row, all that separated them was the paved walkway and a few feet of grass that ran up to the other side of the fence. Cooper looked up at Dara one more time and she gave him the all clear. Before he could start talking, one of the girls beat him to it.

“Who’s there?”
she asked, in a low nervous tone.

Cooper tried to keep his voice steady as he replied
, “We’re friends. We’re trying to make a plan to free everyone but we need information.”

The two girls shared a quick look with each other before continuing to pull up weeds. Cooper was confused by their response and was going to say more when the other girl spoke up.

“How do we know you aren’t trying to trick us? You could be one of the gang. We don’t even know who you are.”

Cooper was quick to try and reassure them
, “No, I’m not with them! I think we went to high school together. My name is Cooper Morris. I’m a senior at Prairie Springs High.”

He thought that would convince them but it had the opposite effect. Their faces changed to anger and hate and one of them spat out at him, “Get away from us
, you scumbag! We aren’t going to fall for your trap! You and your father are the reason we’re in this mess. You’re disgusting!” The last word was said in a snarl and both girls grabbed their bags and walked back the way they had come and settled back down to continue working.

Cooper was stunned by the venom in the girl
’s tone and fell back onto his butt. He just sat there feeling waves of shame wash over him because of all that his father had done. He couldn’t even blame them for lumping him in with his father. The reputation he had allowed to develop painted him as a bad boy, petty criminal, so why would anyone trust him? He must have been lost in misery long enough for Dara to become worried because the next thing he knew, she was kneeling beside him and staring into his face with concern.

“What is it? What happened? Cooper, what did they say?!” He could hear the panic creeping into her voice and it knocked him out of his stupor.

“Whoa, it’s okay, Dara! They didn’t say anything. When I told them my name, they thought I was part of the gang and that I was trying to trick them. They won’t tell us anything,” he explained.

Dara looked at him in confusion. “I don’t understand?”

Cooper hung his head and muttered, “My father.”

Dara cursed softly
, “Forget about them. We’ll try someone else.”

Cooper was shaking his head in defeat when a voice caused them both to freeze in panic.

“Is someone there?” They heard someone call from the other side of the fence.

The only thing that kept them from bolting was that the voice came from a female. Dara slowly turned her head and peered through one of the gaps in the fence. She saw the woman they had seen further down the field
when they had been looking for someone to approach. The woman was pretending to pull weeds where the girls had been not that long ago and she kept stealing glances at the fence that Cooper and Dara were behind.

Dara pitched her voice low but loud enough to carr
y. “Yes, we’re here! We’re with a group that’s trying to put a plan together to take back the town. We need information. Can you help us?”

The woman looked to be in her forties but it was hard for Dara to make out too many details through the small gap in the fence. The woman didn’t even ask any questions. She just started to tell them the situation.

“The men are all out on farms. I don’t know what it’s like out there but we see them on Sundays and that’s when the guards are rotated. There are just over sixty gang members holding the town. Over twenty are on the farms watching the men and the rest are in town. Most of the women and children are kept in the high school and there are ten guards that watch over us in the yard and the park. The rest of the gang are split up around town at road blocks. They sleep in a few of the nicer homes but most are in the hotel at night. They have a pleasure house where some of the women work. We are all locked in to the school at night and I don’t know how many guards patrol. We’re paralyzed to do anything because they punish our husbands if we cause any trouble and they punish the women if the men do anything. They have executed more than twenty men and women since they took over.” She paused and glanced towards the bench the guard had been sitting on and froze when she saw it empty. In a desperate voice, she whispered “Go! Get out of here! Good luck!”