They almost passed the tiny islands up on their way to the coast. Massive ships just a few miles off the horizon. Unknown markings. We all thought they would just keep going until we tried to use the phones, nothing was going through. No radio or television signals were coming in or going out. The troop transports got as close as they could to the placid shores of our tiny islands. Their landing craft had no resistance coming onto our beaches. Those on the beach watched in awe as thier doom and troops with unknown markings and uniforms took the beach, then thier lives. The gunshots were unmistakable in the cool morning air. The smell of the salt in the ocean tainted with cordite and something else. The metalic smells of blood and charred flesh.
They took the beach easily. They forced their way into the town that was just beginning to line the streets and stand in their front yards in response to the shots that had the seagulls in an uproar. Stunned citizens were pushed, and if they didn't comply, they were shot. It didn't take long to learn. The small island town and all of it's surrounding islands and properties were taken in about 2 hours. Anyone in uniform was shot on sight. Firemen and police officers alike lined main street like a stalled parade. The town was taken so quickly that anyone off duty was at the high school football field and under troop supervision in mere minutes.
The people of our small town were escorted by troops who were carrying a newer version of the AK-47. It caught my eye as I met up with the other off duty officers on the field. The troops filled the bleachers on both sides and lined the track that circled the field. It was a sight to behold for those of us that were still taking it in.
They processed us all fairly quickly and held the rest of the police department. We were led to the beach and lined up in front of the Wooden shower house on the beach. The bodies were still there, having laid in the cool morning as our town was invaded. The blood soaked into the sand and pooled on the wooden walkways here and there. The smell was stronger here. They ordered us to bring in our weapons, they had the forms from city hall that served as registry for our town, indicating who owned what. They made us kneel. They put four of us against the wall and aimed four rifles at us. The rest had to watch. Their language screamed out, "Ready- Aim- Fire!" and the shots rang out. Two of the riflemen held their fire and next to me bodies fell. I looked over at Pesser, the other officer that had been in that line, and back at the riflemen. In busted English their commander stepped forward and instructed us to return with every weapon in town by three PM to this same spot or we would be buried along with our fellow men. That our families would burn, that our children would drown. That anyone found with a weapon in their possession would be publicly murdered. It was our honor to prevent that, to protect as we had sworn. As they were speaking their radios began to sqwak excitedly as chatter began to flow. Their faces lit up with joy and they all begn cheering, at this they turned and left. The rest of us gathered, and began the slow work of the day. Our friends bodies were still warm in the sand, and the sun had barely peaked in the sky. It would stink when we returned in three hours.
There were troops everywhere. In gas stations, in grocery stores, at different intersections in our small town. They surrounded an overturned school bus that was a smoking heap of wreckage. The back tires had been blown off. As we looked over the forms over the various stops we were going to have to make and plotted the quickest way to go around town we saw names and addresses that we knew. Places that we had served and protected for years. At each house we stopped at we were met with accusing eyes. Sometimes the owner theirself would hand over the weapon, at others the recently widowed spouses would give them over to us. Everywhere we were questioned as to why were were privy to this. We were all asking what had happened. The troops were all in a much better mood. It was obvious something huge had happened.
After we rounded up all the weapons we returned to the spot as we had been instucted. The police weaponry all lay in open boxes that resembled long metal caskets. I saw that they had a rubber gasket around the rim. There were three of them, two of them were full. The third was for the weapons we had confiscated around the town. We filled it and then the remaining weapons were destroyed on the beach. The smell stung our eyes. The breeze from the ocean was moving it, but slowly.
The troops commanded us to pick up the containers, and then led us to a landing craft. We boarded and closed and sealed the containers. We were led out about one mile and then we dropped the containers overboard. As the transport continued out toward a larger troop ship on the horizon, the seven of us that were left alive were told, in broken English again, that the farther out we got, the less chance of survival we had. Taking our cues we jumped from the ship. It wasn't too much longer and a couple of shots rang out, sounding much different than the automatic fire we heard earlier that same day, and spray hit us as bullets whizzed by. Then there was nothing but to swim. Six of us made it to shore. No one saw when Mendez had gone under, but he had. We collapsed on the wet sand and stayed there. It was 5 pm. The invasion of the islands had taken less than 12 hours.
Flyers littered the ground on the way home, on them was a simple message, "Continue life as you always have. Do not resist. Continue life as you always have."
When I arrived home that night, the front door of the house was kicked in and the house was eerily empty. Dread filled me from toe to top. But what I dreaded to find I did not. Jessica was no where to be found. My wife was gone. I searched the streets for her until dark and some troops found and beat me and dropped me at the nearest house. "Ca-few!" they yelled. Over and over and I yelled that I just wanted to find my wife. They left me bloodied on the front step of Hannah Gagnards house. I wasn't found until the morning.
The following morning I knocked on her door. She opened it with some trepidation and saw me lying on her porch. She helped me up and inside and tended to my wounds and asked me about Jessica. I told her I didn't know. She said that she hadn't heard from her mom, there was no way to communicate on the island right now. Her mom lived on the beach in a bay on the other end of the islands. The troops had hit us from all sides, so she had to have known something was going on. If Hannah was frantic, she was frantic on the inside. After three days of laying on Hannah's couch, I hobbled up and down the streets as best I could and yelled Jessicas name so many times that my voice left me. Soon all I could do was whisper to others and hear their own stories of loved ones that had been missing since that day. The island was tiny, but no one knew where they had been taken. No one even remembered losing them in the chaos of that day. The only place we could think of was the high school. The elementary and the junior high were in the same small building. The high school was new and large. Plus the troops that remained on the island had built fortifications there, but why they would need the various assortment of men women and children that had dissappeared was a mystery to everyone. We had no idea the horror that lay ahead for those of us missing a loved one.
(at this point my dread trurned to confirmation, and i just knew that my wife was dead. i never found out for sure in the dream, but everyone just knew.)
Hannah and I decided to try and go to see her mother. We made our way across the island to the bay. I got delayed and when I found my way back to house, Hannah had already crossed the bay. There was smoke rising from the massive house on the beach on the other side of the bay. I jumped in and swam it. When I arrived on the shore I sprinted inside and began to look for the ladies. Jaune, her mother was carrying what looked like furniture that had been reduced to tinder. She had a huge fire burning in the inner patio of her house. It was piled high with what used to be priceless antique furniture.
She later told us that the soldiers came in and smashed everthing. They left the outside of the house perfect, but destroyed everything on the inside.
At this point in the dream, time passed, and suddenly I was speaking to some islanders about a theory of mine that stated there weren't as many troops on the island as we thought. That we could rise against them. Cut to four of us heading out to find the weapons in the ocean. I remembered that the containers were water proof and the area where we dropped them. We rode out in the dark. In secret on a rowboat. After a few over night trips and failures, we found the guns. The dream literally ended with us in a boarded up living room opening the containers. We had weapons, we had a plan, we had the means to fight. Buzzing phone, it's 0400. Time for work.
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