"The Dome" (closed)

Parker Lee was standing in the middle of his rye grass field when he felt a tingle raising the hair on his arms. The ground began to tremble below his boots, and the sky above the forest at the field's edge suddenly became black with the instantaneous lifting of thousands of starlings, blackbirds, crows, and other species of birds.

It was all so very strange, and Parker's first thought was that an earthquake was imminent. He'd heard that birds and other animals sensed such natural disasters before they happened. Out here in the field, away from structures that might crumble in a quake, Parker figured he was as safe as could be.

He was wrong, or at least very nearly was, because what happened next was neither an earthquake nor natural. There was a loud crashing sound, like the biggest of boulders or redwood trees suddenly hitting the ground, along with a huge, quick movement of the earth below his feet.

Parker stumbled a bit, regained his balance, and looked around himself for some sign of what had just happened. He suspected it had been an explosion, but there was no rising flames or billowing cloud of smoke. What there was Parker couldn't explain. Right through his field there was suddenly a narrow, shallow trench where previously there had only been calf high grass. It almost looked as if someone had made a pass with a single-blade horse drawn plow, from one side of his property to the other.

He walked through the field toward the groove, and as he did another strange event occurred. A pair of crows flying a few dozen yards over his head were about to pass over the trench when they suddenly stopped in midair. Parker stopped cold and watched the now crumbled birds fall from the sky and strike the ground just feet from him. He moved forward and picked one up by its now broken leg. The bird looked as if someone had knocked it out of the air with a bat.

Parker stood again and looked at the trench. He moved up to just a foot from it. That was when he notice the butterfly. Butterflies weren't uncommon around here this time of year, of course. But while this butterfly was in the air before him, it wasn't flying. It was just … there! Right directly in front of him, as if it had landed upon a home's window. Only, there was no home before Parker and there was no window.

Or was there?

He reached out slowly toward the butterfly, extending a finger until he just barely touched the edge of its wing. It took flight, flew around for a moment, then flew over the trench again and seemed to bounce off that non-existent home window before once again landing on something that wasn't there.

Parker reached out again, not to the butterfly but near to it. He jerked his hand back when static electricity zapped his fingertip. He hesitated, trying to understand what had just happened. He reached out again, felt something he couldn't see, then laid his hand out against it. It was there. He didn't know what it was, but it was most certainly there. It was impossible to see -- invisible -- but it was real.

He moved his hand left and right against it, then up and down. He moved a few steps to his left and repeated, then farther down to repeat it again. Parker was at a loss. This didn't seem possible, but it was. He followed the trench a few yards, then a few hundred yards. He crossed the irrigation ditch to another field, then leaped the fence to walk through the filbert orchard. Here, limbs, trunks, and entire trees seemed to have been cleanly cut through as if with a giant samurai sword. In places, Parker found some of the cut limbs leaning against the invisible barrier. It was odd looking.

Beyond the grove the trench and invisible wall continued through Parker's clover field and onto his neighbor's property. He looked to the neighbor's barn, which appeared to have been cut through from roof to ground right over the trench. Just this side of it, the man's pickup truck was neatly cut into two pieces. It was all just too surreal.

He returned to the farm house, hopped into his pickup truck, and headed for town. He would soon learn that what he was seeing others were seeing in their own neck of the woods. Ultimately they would find out that the barrier was dome shaped with a diameter of 10 miles.

Julie Kay looked up from her cup of tea at the still naked man coming out onto the back deck from her bedroom. Well, he wasn't entirely naked. Carl wore one of the kiddy fireman hats that he and his volunteer firemen cohort handed out to the grade school classes when they came to visit the station for field trips. His cock hung long and low, only semi-erect at the moment. It was probably worn out from the previous night's usage. It would harden soon enough, she knew. It was almost all hard around her. She laughed at his swagger and chastised, "Go put on some fucking clothes you reprobate."

Carl only waggled his hips to cause the hose dangling before him to whip to and fro. "You like me like this. And like it like this. In fact, you wouldn't have me any other way."

He pressed up against her and engaged her in a passionate kiss while his hands gripped her ass cheeks firmly. They separated, and he stretched his arms out wide and gave out a loud long Tarzan-like yell.

"Stop that!" Julie chastised, slapping his bare ass. "Someone's going to see you."

"No they aren't," he countered. He gestured toward the lawn, the open field beyond it, and the forest beyond that. "You live on the total edge of town. The closest house is half a mile away. You've got no neighbors on this side. It's perfect."

She looked downward into her mug. Reflecting on his reason for visiting her just for sex, she said softly, "Hey, regarding what I like and wouldn't have any other way..."

He knew what she meant. And his reaction was one of sympathy. Carl raised Julie's by her chin, kissed her, and told her, "It's already on your bureau."

She smiled with appreciation. And a bit of shame. Growing up, Julie would never have imagined that she would end up paying her bills by letting men put their cock in her mouth, pussy, and ass. Oh, she had a day job as well. But her part time, minimum wage job at the Chester's Mill Café wasn't going to pay her monthly bills, cell and cable, student loans, and health care. That last one had only recently begun to include some rather large costs for a rare condition she'd picked up while on a family adventure in South America. It required weekly injections of a very expensive drug that the pharmacy had had to start stocking specifically for Julie.

She told him she was going to make coffee, but really she was going back into her bedroom to look at the wad of mostly twenties sitting atop her bureau. She didn't count it, but it looked like the $300 that he paid on most visits, a hundred bucks for playing about in each hole. Oh, Carl didn't always spend that much. Usually it was just a hundred for a very satisfying blow job. But last night he'd been celebrating. He'd just found out that his wife was pregnant with their first child.

Julie looked back to the deck to find it empty. She returned to it and found the still naked Carl running barefoot out across the yard and into the wild growing field beyond. She hollered at him to come back. In between yells, she laughed hysterically at him. "You're fucking naked! And you're fucking nuts!"

"I know!" he called back. "On both counts"

Julie trembled as a shiver ran up her spine. The world about her trembled as well. And a moment later, the same phenomena that her friend, Parker Lee, was experiencing on the other side of town occurred in front of her. The same trench appeared. The same crashing sound echoed off the side of her rented home. Julie, too, thought that maybe the town was experiencing an earthquake for a moment.

She looked out to the field and saw Carl appearing as stunned as she was. He looked left and right to the trench, which was a little closer to him than it was to her. He hollered Julie's way. But, she didn't hear him. He made no sound, despite his mouth obviously making the appropriate movements to produce words. She hollered back, but his response was again soundless movements of his mouth.

Carl began jogging through the knee high grass back toward the house. At the trench, he gave a comical little leap and bounced back into the field. Julie called out in panic as Carl was laid out in the grass. She hurried donned some slip on shoes and descended the deck to run out toward him. She slowed as she neared the trench, then stopped short of it as Carl was rising. They met on their respective sides, and although they were talking to one another, Julie was hearing nothing coming from Carl's mouth.

She began to cry.

Carl Rivers was at a total loss to explain what was happening. His head and body ached from having smacked into the barrier that -- like something out of a science fiction story -- was like some sort of protective shield for a spaceship. As he probed it with his hands flattened out before him, he found that it followed right along with the trench at his feet.

On the other side, he could see Julie crying but he couldn't hear her. He looked past her, toward the distant grain mill. Every morning, 24/7/365, you could hear the old, squeaky elevator distributing corn, wheat, rye, and other seep crops throughout the facility, unloading and reloading trucks, filling bins and bags.

On crisp, easy mornings like this one had been, you could hear the mill across almost the entirety of Chester's Mill. And yet now, even with the top of the elevator tubes in view, Carl couldn't hear a peep from the mill. Whatever this barrier was that was separating him from his town and his lover -- and his wife, possibly -- it was even keeping their words and sobs from getting from one to the other.

"I'll be back!" Carl hollered at the invisible wall, as if raising his voice might help. He repeated as he gestured to his body, "I need to find something to wear. I'll be back. I promise!"

Carl made some more obvious gestures to ensure that Julie understood him, looked up and down the length of the trench and, presumably, the barrier, then gestured where he was going. Then, still naked as a jaybird, he went running off for the dirt road that separated the wild growing native grass field from an adjacent corn field, now little more that dirt with inch tall sprouts breaking the surface. A couple of minutes later, he disappeared into the woods flanking the road.

(OOC: Carl is going to serve two purposes. He will provide some "exposition" on what's happening outside. And -- possibly -- he will provide some tension in conjunction with his wife and lover.)

Martin Breeze was knees deep in the Green River when what would soon come to be called the Dome came down. He didn't actually see it happen; it had fallen to the ground or risen from it or magically appeared or what the fuck ever it did out of his sight.

But he'd heard the sound of it, even over the flowing river, as well as the sound of a car crash less than a minute later. He emerged from the water, hung the fish by its gills on a fork sticking up out of the ground near the fire, and began the short walk up the bank to where his rig was parked just off the highway. There, he found the devastation of a delivery truck that had collided with the Chester's Mill side of the Dome.

He hurried toward the crumpled mass from which steam was rising, hoping to find the driver still alive. He wasn't. The man's body had simply been mutilated by the thousands of pounds of truck that had continued forward from behind him as the barrier stopped the front of the vehicle dead. Martin's first sign that something was amiss was the lack of a second vehicle in what he'd first assumed was a head-on collision. As with Julie, Carl, and Parker near their own distant proximities to the Dome, Martin reached out to touch the invisible force field.

Behind him, he heard the sound of an approaching vehicle and waved the driver to a stop. He explained that, well, he tried to explain that something was across the road preventing vehicles from passing through.

He asked, "Can you call 9-1-1, tell the cops to get someone out here?"

The driver tried but didn't have any cell service.

Martin turned and looked down the road to the two hills atop which were one tower each, the only sources of cell service to Chester's Mill. They were on the wrong side of the Dome.

He asked, "Can you head back into town, then. You aren't going anywhere this way, that's for certain. Tell them what's happening here. I'll wait and signal anyone else not to try to pass through whatever this thing is."

The driver complied and headed back toward town. Martin went to the back of the truck to find something to create a makeshift barrier across the other lane of the narrow country road. He created a multi layered tier of whatever he could find in the wreckage to block the road.

When he delved deeper into the twisted wreckage, Martin found himself shocked at lifting the top to broken open crate and finding it was full of assault rifles. A second crate was filled with ammunition, a third with handguns and their own ammo, and a fourth smaller but equally heavy one was loaded with explosives, from bricks of C-4 to hand grenades to flash bangs.

"What the fuck?" he thought of the cargo, then of the driver he asked himself, "Who the fuck were you, and where were you taking all of this?"

Another car arrived and Martin sent it back for help. After it was gone, he quickly began unloading the crates to the nearby wood. He didn't know what the hell was happening or who this driver was or where the arms had been going. But Martin wasn't the kind of guy to pass up on an opportunity. And this was one hell of an opportunity.

He was off in the woods hiding a box of food -- everyone has to eat -- when he heard the siren of the approaching police car. He hurried back up to the road in time to see it stop and its beautiful Sheriff Deputy step out and approach. He ogled her and smiled, nothing new between them.

All he could say when she got to the truck was, "What the fuck, Deputy?"

He would have preferred to ask Want to fuck, Deputy? But that wasn't their thing anymore. And while they still didn't agree upon who was at fault for that, Martin blamed her.

Nicole Carlton had been getting the strangest calls from all over the town all morning. Every time Nikki prepared to jump into her SUV and respond, she got an even stranger call. The only things the calls had in common were a foot deep, foot wide trench, an apparently invisible wall, and devastating slices through everything from cars to homes to cattle. Thankfully there hadn't been any reports of deaths.

"Sheriff, sheriff!" a citizen called out as she approached Nikki. The woman reported the truck crash, adding ignorantly, "That hunk Martin Breeze is out there right now, directing traffic."

Nikki grimaced at the mentioning of the name. Theirs had not been an amicable breakup. Only one thing got her through her memories of him. Few people had known that they'd been bumping uglies. That meant few people ever asked her about him. Nikki was contemplating leaving Martin out there to deal with the situation on his own. He was a capable man. But Highway 77 was the most important portal from Chester's Mill to the outside world. She hopped into her SUV and headed his way. She had to pass through two thirds of the little town on her way. People kept flagging Nikki down with their concerns and tales. Repeatedly, she told them to call 9-1-1 for emergencies or visit the Sheriff Substation for other concerns. Finally, she just had to roll up her vehicle's window and keep her attention on the road.

A quick 4 miles later she was slowing at the accident sight. It was horrible, looking just like the head-on collision Martin had thought it to be, less the second vehicle necessary to make it happen. When Nikki caught sight of Martin emerging from the woods, her stomach turned over anxiously. He was wearing his familiar fishing gear and looking as if he'd lost his razor a month ago. But he still caused her to feel yearnings deep inside her woman parts. She missed those days when they'd slipped off to anywhere that they could be alone to drive each other crazy with their hands and mouths. She'd never been so sexually adventurous with anyone in her life before that or since. Martin had ruined Nikki for other men. So much so that she'd tried to make a go of other women for a short time. But lady parts hadn't had the same appeal for her. For the most part, Nikki's orgasms were now brought to her by way of Eveready, Duracell, and all the fun things they fit in.

"What the fuck, Deputy?"

She responded with the same tone of mixed humor and slight disgust, asking, "What the fuck, convict?"

Nikki registered and easily ignored his reaction to her use of the word. Whether he was or wasn't one depended upon how you defined the word. Also, how far back into his past you reached. And also whether or not you included the things he'd done that he hadn't been convicted of. Nikki didn't care anymore, though. Martin wasn't her concern anymore. He had no outstanding warrants, at least in this County. And he wasn't being actively investigated for any crimes. There were a lot of crimes she and the Department were investigating that were just the sort of thing Martin might be involved in. But he hadn't been named in any of them. Yet!

"Is he dead?" she asked as she headed forward toward the cab of the truck. She asked some more questions and listened to Martin's answers. She glanced off toward the woods from which Martin had exited. She asked suspiciously, "What were you doing out there?"

He told her he had to pee. She questioned the truth of his statement. Moving to the back of the devastated rig, she wondered whether or not Martin had been looting the contents. She should have checked the woods. But she found it hard to simply accuse him of stealing from a dead man without some sort of proof.

"Unit Two, come in, Unit Two," her radio crackled. She responded, and the dispatcher reported, "Nikki, Victor Timms called in. He said--"

The woman went quiet. Nikki asked her to repeat, thinking she'd been cut off. The dispatcher continued, "Victor Timms called in. He-- He says this thing, this wall-- He says it killed his wife."

Nikki looked to Martin with a confused expression. She asked, "It killed her how?"

When the dispatcher responded, the emotion was tense. "He ways she was in her garden, hunched over, weeding. It-- Oh, God. He says-- He says it but her in half at the waist."

Nikki had to turn away from Martin. Marla Timms had been her teacher in grade school and an inspiration for her throughout her tough times. The dispatcher came back on with, "He says her legs are-- Nikki, her legs are on this side of that thing. And-- And the rest of her. Well, it's on the other side."

Nikki tried to respond but couldn't. She looked to the truck, to Martin, to the woods, to the truck, then headed back toward her SUV. Into the radio she reported, "Let him know I'm on my way."

When she reached her vehicle, she stopped to look at Martin. They had history. It was bad history. But Nikki also knew what kind of a man he was out of bed. She told him, "The Sheriff and the other two deputies are in Black Brier for some meeting on drug enforcement. I'm here alone with Yanni, and, well, he's been on the force six days. I-- I could use some one with experience. I could forget the restriction on you carrying firearms if you could stand in as a Deputy until we figure out what the fuck's going on here."

She didn't wait for Martin to make a decision. Instead she jumped into her rig, backed it up quickly, and pulled what her grandfather had once called a Rockford. (It was a quick 180 maneuver from reverse to forward without slowing. Apparently it had been a signature getaway move of the main character of a 1970's television series The Rockford Files. With her sirens blaring, she headed back for town once more.

Mama Prittle (her real name was Leann) didn't know what the strange phenomenon taking place at the edge of her family farm was. But she'd seen enough unrest and mayhem during her 60 years to know that there was going to be more of it in the days to come. It happened every time something unknown or unexpected occurred. The people panicked, they rushed the stores for food, water, batteries, and fuel, and without fail some innocent person or persons got hurt in the process.

The best way to prevent that from happening to the ones she loved was obvious: guns. She called her four sons, two daughters, and their accumulated 8 children above 10 years of age together and told them exactly what each and everyone one of them was going to do, right now, without question. Within minutes, they'd been mobilized like an army going to war.

The Prittle farm sat on the inside of the curve of the Green River with the town of Chester's Mill on the far, outside of that river curve. The dome's curving base had fallen on the backside of the farm. In essence, the majority of the Prittle farm was now situated in a football shaped section of land isolated away from the rest of the town (situated 3 miles away) and its soon-to-be-rioting populace. Mama considered that damn fine luck. But she wanted even more isolation and security than what the river and dome had to offer.

She had The Boys (which was her general term for all who worked for her, whether relative or not, male or not) unload the contents of two shipping containers they used for farm storage. Next, they trucked them out to the only two bridges over the Green that accessed this new football field and put them smack dab in the middle of those bridges. And just like that, Mama had control of any vehicle movement in or our of her little piece of Chester's Mill's rural farmlands.

There were two other properties inside the football, a cattle ranch and a laying hen hatchery. The dome had fallen just 15 yards from the main house of the Cooper Cattle Ranch, separating it from nearly all of its land and cattle. A similar situation had befallen the Red Rooster hatchery. Although the entirety of the property was inside the dome (home, buildings, birds, and all), the owners of the business and their foreman had been in the next town over negotiating with the local Farmer's Union about labor costs and worker benefits.

Mama wasn't shy about taking advantage of such situations. In the days to come, she would meet with both the Coopers and the Baxters (of Red Rooster) and promise to act as caretaker of their properties. Once out of their view, though, she would pillage the properties of their livestock and other values. The dome was about to make Mama Prittle one of the most powerful residents of Chester's Mill.

(OOC: This power play, as our Host defines them, is made with his permission. Gotta have a bit of drama in the story! Hungry for steak? Like pickled boiled eggs. Talk to Mama.)

(OOC: Power play confirmed. )

Despite being barely 18 years old, Kyle Washington was left to run City Market on his own today. The store's owner, along with more than 2/3s of the town's population, had formed a caravan and traveled to the County Seat for the high school baseball championship.

Kyle wasn't much of a baseball fan. His sports were soccer and swimming. He'd been concerned about being the only one here, and yet he'd only had three customers all morning and taken in $22.

At least before the dome. No sooner had the panic begun in town than people started showing up and filling carts with water, food, batteries, propane canisters, and more. Fearing a run on the store and looting, Kyle decided to close up. The current owner wasn't from Chester's Mill; he'd come from some big city back east where he'd had similar little markets in urban neighborhoods that sometimes had to deal with social unrest.

Because of this, after he'd purchased the market, he'd installed roll down security barriers out front and a heavy duty steel door in the back. When he got a break in the sales, Kyle shut the place up tight. He could see and hear people banging on the barriers, trying to get in. Soon enough, they started tossing heavy objects at the front. They couldn't get past the metal barricades, but they were able to smash all of the windows.

All Kyle could do was just hide down one of the rows and wait to see if things settled down.

Marta Jackson wasn't a resident of Chester's Mill. But the morning the dome came crashing down she was here. She found herself trapped in an unfamiliar town with nothing but the clothes on her back and $3.75 in her pocket. She found herself inside the City Market when the first signs of panic were beginning. The young man running the place alone was overwhelmed. Marta was able to slip into the store's backroom where she began stuffing food and other things into a backpack she'd snatched from a display.

Then, she realized that the mayhem she'd been listening to seemed very distant. She poked her head out and found that the store had been closed up tight. She was trapped inside. After a few minutes of contemplation, Marta realized that wasn't entirely a bad thing. At least she was safe in here. Well, until that young store operator found her and shot her with a shotgun. She wondered whether or not she'd seen a gun. She poked her head out from her hiding place, then fully emerged in an attempt to find the young man. She didn't see him. But what she did see was a security camera on the wall above her, looking right down on her. A moment later, she heard footsteps hurrying her way.

Fuck.

To our readers:

Alice2015 and I are taking Kyle and Marta's immediate adventure to a separate thread found here.

They will conduct their first discussion there, then return right back here to this very post so that you can resume your reading of this, the parent thread, right where you left off.

We hope this will make reading what's happening in both threads easier.

Also, once we have concluded the other thread, I will put any information that is important to the overall story in a Hider below. This way, if you do not want to read the other thread, you will not have missed out on any details needed to understand and appreciate the larger story. You can open that Hider now and continue reading here, or go enjoy the other thread and return here.

Thank you.


The secondary thread above has been completed and closed. In case you chose not to read it, the essentials written are these:

• Kyle and Marta are going to run the store together until the owners return from outside the dome. (They won't, obviously, but Kyle can't know that yet.)
• They have devised a way to sell without the fear of having the store overrun by looters.
• Kyle is desperate to have Marta as his new and first girlfriend.
• Marta, who is from outside the dome and has nothing here, is going to play nice with Kyle, but most definitely she will manipulate him at every turn to get what she needs out of the situation.

Out at the dome's crossing of Highway 77:

Martin Breeze was nervous standing there before the Sheriffs Deputy who was also his former lover. The day they'd ended their relationship, she'd shot at him several times. Oh, Martin had never believed that Nicole Carlton had actually been trying to hit him. He'd seen Nikki shoot before, and if she'd wanted him dead, he would have been.

When she started asking him about why he'd been out in the woods as she arrived, Martin was sure Nikki knew he'd been pillaging the truck's contents. But she was interrupted by a call on the radio that the very popular school teacher, Marla Timms, had been killed by the dome. The invisible barrier had literally cut the woman in half. What the fuck was this thing?

She turned to leave, but then stopped to explain that the Sheriff and the other two deputies were in Black Brier.

"I'm here alone with Yanni, and, well, he's been on the force six days. I-- I could use some one with experience. I could forget the restriction on you carrying firearms if you could stand in as a Deputy until we figure out what the fuck's going on here."

He didn't get a chance to respond as she got in her rig and sped away. He stood there for a long moment, watching the SUV disappear around a forested corner. Work for the cops, he considered. Be on the other side of the badge and bars. Might prove helpful.

He looked to the accident, then to a car that was slowing on the other side of the dome as he saw the makeshift barricade on this side of it. Martin contemplated trying to explain the invisible barrier to the other man, but he knew that eventually the word about the dome on the inside would soon begin to spread on the outside. So, why bother?

Instead, he returned to pillaging through the crumpled truck's cargo box. But cars on his side of the dome began arriving as Chester's Mill residents began to panic and tried to get away from this unknown. He repeatedly attempted to return to his piracy, but his fear that his current loot would be compromised led Martin to just give up on the rest of it.

He hurried to his 4x4, moved it carefully through the forest to as close as he could get to the cache, and spent an hour loading it all up. After that he headed toward home, which was an 18 foot travel trailer illegally parked inside the a Wilderness area south of town.

Only, when he got near to where he would turn off the dirt road to hide his truck in the undergrowth, Martin found a tree across the dirt access road. He jumped out, grabbed his ax and chain saw, and walked forward with the intention of cutting up and removing the downed tree.

Only, when he got close, he found the same trench across the dirt road and through the big tree's trunk as he'd seen back at Highway 77 and the truck accident.

"No, no-no-no-no, no!" Martin began chanting with despair as he looked to the thick foliage in which his trailer was parked and realized that it was on the wrong side of the dome. "You gotta be fuckin' kidding me."

He reached out to touch the invisible barrier, then in pure anger swung the ax at it. The tool's metal head simply bounced dangerously off of it. Martin hit it several more times but to no effect. He fired up the chain saw and carefully pressed the underside of the tip to that which he couldn't see. Sparks flew from the rapidly rotating chain, and then suddenly there was an explosion that sent the chain and other metal parts through the air like shrapnel.

Martin fell away as he dropped the saw. After he regained himself and found only some minor cuts to his face and hands, he found that the fuel injection controls had exploded. Why? Had the dome done that? Did it react poorly to machines? to machines attacking it? To electronics?

He would find out in the days to come that it was a bit of all of that. Right now all Martin knew was that he was on this side of the dome, his home and all his stuff was on the other side, and now he had decisions to make. He thought about Nikki's offer for an hour, as he drained the last three beers in his truck. Then, he jumped back into it … and headed for the Sheriffs Department Sub-station.

Carl Rivers ran away from Julie's house grasping his cock in an attempt to keep it from swinging back and forth before his naked body. Like so many others, he didn't understand what was happening in Chester's Mill, but what he did know was that he was likely to get more help and answers from those on the outside of the dome if he wasn't stark ass naked.

He cut across the field, down a dirt road, through the woods, and up to the edge of one of the roads that connected the town to the County Seat. Earlier this morning, the road had been bumper to bumper cars heading one direction toward the high school baseball championship game. In a few hours, it would bumper to bumper cars coming back, only to find out that there was no getting into Chester's Mill.

At least, Carl knew, not right here on this road. To his left about 10 miles away was the county seat, while to his right about 10 yards was a trench cutting across the highway. And sitting just this side of that trench was a thoroughly destroyed, burnt out mini van from which black smoke was still rising.

Carl hurried over toward it, stopping when the continuing flames were too hot. No one could have survived such a crash and fire. He didn't recognize the van, not that there was much left to identify. But a suitcase several yards away had survived, likely thrown from the vehicle's roof rack to bounce off the barrier. Despite the morbid feeling of doing so, Carl dug through it for something to wear.

He found a pair of sweats and donned them. They were pink, women's, and three sizes too large for him, but they were better than having his dick hanging out when the next car arrived. Moments later, as he was using a cell phone charging cord as a belt to secure the massive sweat bottoms, another car did arrive.

But it was no normal car. It was an Army National Guard Humvee, followed by another dozen military vehicles. A thumping sound drew Carl's attention to the air where he found six military helicopters closing from several miles away. As the first vehicle stopped, the man at the roof gun began ordering Carl to the ground. He tried to explain who he was and what he was doing there, but within seconds other soldiers had disembarked from the vehicle and were taking him down to the ground.

"I don't understand! What's going on?" he hollered as they searched his pink sweats for weapons. Another soldier held a device close to him, and as it clicked softly and slowly, Carl recognized it as a Geiger Counter, for detecting radiation. "What's going on?"

As the soldiers pulled him to his feet and bound his wrists behind his back with zip tie cuffs, a roaring sound above drew Carl's attention to the sky once again. He looked up at a pair of fast moving fighter jets. They passed overhead, and suddenly one of them simply exploded into hundreds of parts. A moment later, the main portion of the debris exploded into flames.

As the soldiers on the ground reacted with surprise, Carl could see the debris falling in a way that suggested the barrier with which he'd been dealing was in fact a dome. His detainers moved him quickly away from the trench in the ground, and no sooner had they gotten past their vehicle then the first big chunks of the plane came slamming to the ground, where some of them leaned against the invisible barrier as if it were a window without a frame.

He would find himself tossed into a Humvee and scurried away. He wouldn't see the dome, Chester's Mill, his lover, or his wife again for days.

(OOC: So, Carl is done posting until the rest of the characters are on Day 3, unless I need him for exposition purposes. But as far as interactive role play with other characters, he's done for now. So, catch up you slackers! Just kidding. Take your time.)

Julie Kay was in total panic, disbelief, and confusion. An invisible wall had cut her off from her lover, Carl, who'd then run off for help with his cock hanging out. It would have been comical if she wasn't certain that she was going to be killed by some act of terror. She hurried from the trench back to the house, dressed more appropriately, and jumped into her car. Five minutes later she was outside the Sheriffs sub-station, as were dozens of other people.

Everyone was clamoring for help from a lone, young deputy who was desperately trying to keep everyone calm. Julie didn't recognize the man named Yanni. She would, though, later. She'd recognize him very well. Every inch of him. But right now, he was just another unfamiliar face in a sea of them. After she'd been outed as a whore years earlier, Julie had stopped socializing in Chester's Mill. The only people she knew these days were those from her pre-prostitute days, those who came into the café where she worked a part time shift, and those horny men with expendable income who knew to find her in a back booth of the Long Pour Tavern on Friday and Saturday nights.

"Julie?" a familiar female voice called from the crowd. A moment later a nurse friend of hers stepped up to grasp her hand. "Come with me, honey."

"What? Where?" she asked as she felt herself being tugged away. "I need to talk to the Sheriff."

"Sheriff's not here," the woman said. "He's not in the Mill. I need your help."

"What? What help, where?" Julie asked, still being tugged along down the sidewalk.

"At the hospital," the woman said, throwing open the door to her car. "We have multiple trauma cases."

"I'm not a nurse!" Julie reminded her. "I serve coffee and pie!"

"You'll do fine, and I'll show you what to do, Jules," the woman said, practically shoving Julie into the car. "I need you. The town needs you."

And with that, she'd been recruited into the medical profession.


(Julie is okay with not posting again for a couple of days, too, unless another character needs her. I'm/she's good to go.)

Patrick James was absolutely thrilled with the way this day was going. He was probably the only guy in Chester's Mill who looked at the dome as an opportunity to prosper.

"Everyone!" he called out to those assembled before the steps of City Hall. "Everyone, quiet down, please."

Of the 500+ people who would be found to be inside the dome, more than 200 of them were gathered here. They'd come on their own or by a public invitation to listen to City leaders about the dome. But after 8 hours of searching, it had been discovered that Patrick was the only City Council member to be inside the dome. The rest of the Council, the Mayor, most of the town's paid administrators, and most of the influential, non-governmental types had traveled with the caravan to the County Seat to root on the baseball team.

It wasn't as if Patrick didn't support the team. Publicly he did, despite the fact that he hated baseball. Patrick liked golf, tennis, darts, pool, and other sports and games in which the individual, not the team, was celebrated. It was probably because he'd never wanted to share glory with others.

Patrick's chosen career had followed a similar, solo path. He was a third generation horse breeder, something for which he'd never needed a team to win. And win he and his family had. Between the three generations of James's, they'd bred and trained 18 cup winning horses, three of which had been Triple Crown winners.

They'd made a fortune in horse breeding and racing, and Patrick had turned that fortune into an even bigger one via hard work, shrewd investing, and a touch of dishonesty, betrayal, and outright theft.

That latter part was the only reason Patrick was a Council member and not Mayor. Five years earlier while he'd been the front runner for the Mayor's position, his name had come up in an investigation of fraud in the handling of the City's Pension Fund. Oh, he'd been cleared of wrong doing -- despite being guilty as hell -- but not until after the election. Since then, he'd been happy to remain as just a Council member after learning that it was easier to embezzle from the City if he wasn't the top dog.

"I know you're all scared or confused about what's happening," he spoke out over the quieting crowd. "But I want to reassure you that whatever this is, whatever's happening, whatever that thing out there is, I want to reassure you that we will figure this out and we will get through this."

He continued speaking to the crowd and, when they were asked, answered as many questions as he could. When he thought an answer wasn't in his best interest, he either said he didn't have the answer or gave one that was false but beneficial to him.

"I want everyone to go home, now," he said when the crowd began to get uneasy. "Go home, be with your family, with your children. I beg of you, please, please remain calm. The trouble we suffered on the streets this morning, the panic at the stores, the looting and destruction, this can't continue. We are neighbors one and all. We must stick together."

Patrick looked out upon the crowd and saw agreement on the face of most. But there was doubt in the face of others. He smirked a bit when he also saw another expression: opportunity. And he wasn't surprised at which sometimes familiar faces on which he saw that expression. He knew who these people were, what they wanted from life, and what it would take to him to get them on his side.

"We don't know how long this is going to last, this invisible barrier," he continued. "In the meantime, I want to ask something of you, above and beyond staying calm and being good neighbors. I know that many of you don't care for KLBL's choice of music--"

The local low power A.M. radio station about which Patrick was speaking was an independent station owned by a local. The music they played was … well, it wasn't Patrick's cup of tea. He continued, "--but I want you all to begin tuning in. I have already made arrangements for an hourly newscast, every hour, on the hour. Please, tune in. You will get the latest updates on our situation."

There was a flurry of questions, and although he answered a few, he waved off the rest. "If you have more questions, please, we are going to begin using this--"

He gestured to the standing box near the building's entrance that looked like a corner mail box. It was actually for drop off of election ballots. He again continued, "--as sort of a Suggestion Box. Drop off your questions, comments, complaints, whatever, and I and a team of people I'll will appoint today will do our best to respond."

He made some final comments, answered a couple of more questions, then made his way inside. The town's most senior Deputy -- one of only two under the dome -- was standing by as requested. "Deputy Carlton, thanks for waiting."

Patrick spoke to her about the current lack of law enforcement and the potential for trouble. He then gestured to three men who had also been waiting for him. As they approached, Patrick explained with a polite smile, "You need help, our people need security. As the only elected official left in Chester's Mill, I have taken it upon myself to deputize these three men."

Each smiled like a cat that had eaten the canary as he shifted their jacket or shirt to reveal a Deputy badge pinned to their clothing. Patrick continued, "I do not personally have access to the Department's armory, so, I'll need you to outfit these men with weapons, uniforms, cuffs, and the like."

After returning to town from the crash on the highway, Nikki was inundated by a never ending wave of problem reports. They included everything from people not being able to find their pets to people being horrifically killed, such as the favored teacher. She was relieved when Councilman James arrived at the Substation. He convinced those clammering for police help to wait outside City Hall for his talk to them later that afternoon.

Nikki had never cared too much for Patrick James. He was a self important, self serving, self indulgent shit. Of course, she kept that to herself. He was a powerful man with connections that could make or break her career if he chose to act for or against her. Almost as important as that, he was well liked by a majority of the town's population. And now he was the only elected member of the City's government left inside the dome. Until and unless some sort of election was held to displace him, Patrick was theoretically the leader of Chester's Mill.

She stood just outside the doors of City Hall listening to Patrick's speech. She had to admit, he was good at public speaking. And no matter how panicked the people might have been, he was able to calm them down. At the same time, he only strengthened his control over them. Amazing.

When he finished and the two of them went inside, he introduced her to three men. He announced that he'd deputized them, and they eagerly flashed their badges. Patrick had the right, Nikki assumed. The Mayor could deputize anyone anytime, if there was a need. And with the Mayor gone and Patrick filling in, she assumed he had that right as well.

But she wasn't tickled about his choices. Nikki knew all three of these men, and not in a good way. Two of the three had records, one with a felony for which he'd done 3 years in the State Penitentiary. The third was suspected to have ties to not just one but two different drug rings. And a friend of Nikki's had once claimed the man raped her with two other men whose names she'd never learned. So, why the hell was Patrick deputizing these men? He had to have some personal use for them, but he wasn't selecting them for the town's benefit.

Nikki didn't argue against their appointments, though. She figured the best way to find out what they were up to was to have them close. She feigned happiness to have them, telling them all, "Welcome aboard. Follow me over to the station, and I'll get you all what you need."

Patrick thanked her, and they planned a meeting for midday tomorrow to talk about the town's security needs. She was about to leave when someone came in to report shots fired at the City Market. She told the men before she left, "Meet me at the station in an hour."

She hopped into her SUV again and headed the three blocks to the store. She was shocked by what she found. The sidewalk was littered with glass and the steel grating was dented in places. But it had held up to what Nikki assumed had been quite an act of rioting. A hand painted sign behind the grating announced that the store would be reopened in the morning.

"Kyle!" she called from just outside the store. "Kyle, are you in there?"

When he came forward, she asked what had happened. She made sure he was safe, then asked if he would be okay through the night. "I can't leave anyone to guard the store for you, Kyle. Sorry. But if you can hold out, I'll have someone here for you in the morning. I promise."

Suddenly, there was a second face beyond the grating. Nikki didn't recognize the young woman. She asked for a name, got it, looked to Kyle to ensure he was in there with her by choice, then took off to do something she found important. An hour later, she showed up at the station to arm the new deputies...

...all 8 of them. After leaving City Market, Nikki hurried around to the homes of some people she trusted as deputies a lot more than she did Patrick's choices. She armed them all, then assigned them jobs for the evening.


Nikki is done for the day. She is ready for tomorrow unless something happens for which she must respond.

Also, Mama Prittle and Julie Kay are done, not that this post has anything to do with them.

Marcus Drewer has only arrived in Chester's Mill two weeks before the dome. He'd been standing in as a substitute for a math and sciences teacher who'd begun her maternity leave at her mother's home in an adjacent state.

Almost from the start, the handsome, young, single teacher had found him the target of half a dozen, horny teenagers who would have loved to be the first -- if not only -- girl to be able to brag about spreading her thighs for Mister Drewer.

Marcus liked young, tight pussy as much as the next horny guy, but he respected his teaching credentials too much and -- even more importantly -- he had a serious allergy to prison bars. He'd very deliberately maintained his distance from the sweet and not-so-sweet young things, never allowing himself to be caught alone with one of them.

Today Marcus was hopeful that this crazy phenomenon would finally keep the girls at bay. They'd surely be more worried about staying alive or posting their experiences to social media or getting their makeup perfect for their end-of-days selfies. By midday, the school superintendent had cancelled classes and sent all the students home.

Marcus left class and went out to look at the dome. He spent a couple of hours measuring the trench and -- indirectly -- the invisible dome above it. He'd initially thought it was a vertical wall, until the air force jet struck the dome, broke up into dozens of pieces, and slid down the curved shape of it. By the time he arrived at City Hall to listen to Patrick James's speech, Marcus had concluded that the dome was about 9 miles in diameter. (He didn't know that the dome was actually a sphere, nor that it was actually closer to 10 miles across. No one would for quite a while, if ever.)

After the speech, Marcus told Patrick James what he thought he'd learned and that they should get together to talk about it. They made plans for the next morning; Patrick seemed very uninterested in what Marcus had to say, which disturbed the teacher. Knowledge was power, and yet the Mayor-to-be didn't seem interested in hearing what the teacher had to disclose to him.

Marcus returned to the school to contemplate what he'd learned. He was reworking his calculations and considering the science behind what some in town were already calling an act of God when the door to his room opened. Holly Stevens stepped inside and shut the door behind her.

"That thing out there," the 18 year old Homecoming Princess said as she began unbuckling her belt. She popped the button on the front of her shorts and began unzipping them as she told him, "We're all gonna die."

"Stop!" Marcus demanded, hopping up from his desk and moving her way. "Please, don't--"

"I don't want to die a virgin," she said as she pushed her shorts off her hips. They fell about her ankles and she stepped out of them as she begged, "Please, don't let me die a virgin."

Marcus stopped short, at first simply afraid of getting too close as the barely legal teen became progressively less dressed. But he was also finding himself enthralled with what he was seeing. She pulled her tee shirt off over her head, popped loose her bra, and pushed her panties off her hips. In seconds, her wardrobe had been reduced to a pair of running shoes and the socks on the feet within them.

"Make love to me," she begged as she neared Marcus. She pressed against him, stood on her toes, and pressed her lips to his. She pleaded in whisper, "Make love to me. Make me a woman."

Marcus knew he should resist, but he simply couldn't. He wrapped his arms around her back, then reached down to grasp her young, firm buttocks. He lifted her off her feet, feeling her wrap her legs around his waist. Turning and setting Holly atop his desk, Marcus kissed her passionately as he rapidly began loosing his own clothing. He knew he should stop. He knew this was so wrong. But Marcus couldn't resist the girl. He'd been resisting for weeks. It was time to stop resisting.

He was nearly rock solid when he pulled his cock out and leaned Holly back onto the desk. And then laughed as he asked, "Virgin, huh?"

Looking down to the folds of flesh between her thighs, Marcus found a diamond studded clit ring and a tiny tattoo on her inside thigh that showed two little bunnies getting it on. She only laughed herself, reached out to grasp his cock, and lead him to her wetness. Marcus pushed, penetrated Holly's tight hole, then quickly went to work thrusting hard, fast, and deep into the teen.

It wasn't long before he exploded inside her with a loud groan of satisfaction. Marcus slumped down against the teen, kissing and groping her youthful form. Once he regained some control over himself, he rose tall again, slipped his arms under the back of Holly's thighs to grasp her hips, and returned to pummeling her again until he drove her to her own orgasm, followed a minute or less later by his second climax.

Once he'd pulled out of her and put his clothes back together, Marcus knew he'd done wrong. He'd just fucked one of his students. An 18 year old girl Not a woman. A girl! And he'd fucked her right here on his school desk. He turned away from her, knowing he couldn't do as he needed while was staring at the wet folds between her parted thighs.

"Go home, Holly," Marcus demanded. "Go home. This was a mistake."

He could hear the student rising, moving about, donning her clothing, but he didn't look her way until she was at the door ready to leave. Marcus wanted to rip those shorts down again and have another go at her. Holly hesitated at the door, smiling. Before she left, she only said, "Thanks, Teach."

Marcus shook his head in dismay with himself as he listened to her running shoes squeaking away down the hall's linoleum. He spent several minutes contemplating what he'd done, then packed up his work and headed for home.

As darkness fell on the first night after the dome's fall, Patrick James's plea to the people of Chester's Mill for peace, calm, and civility fell on a great number of deaf ears. There was no mass rioting, but break ins occurred throughout the town, at commercial businesses that offered resources many feared would soon be in short supply and at homes where the such basics as food, bottled water, batteries, and even toilet paper were loaded up in bags, bed sheets, back packs, and curled arms.

Despite having his comfortable and very secured home a couple miles out of town, Patrick had thought it would be better to spend the night in town, to make his presence known. He hoped it would reassure the populace. He also hoped it would convince the people that he really cared about Chester's Mill.

He had met with some of the few influential people left inside the dome, had a final conversation with the most senior Deputy in town, Nikki Carlton, and then settled down for what he hoped would be a quiet night disturbed only by his own orgasms as his mistress serviced him in that very special way she did.

But a quiet night wasn't to be had. Even before total darkness had fallen, the reports of active crimes began sounding out on the police band radio Patrick had been carrying with himself all day. He listened to the calls coming in for more than an hour before ordering all Deputies -- new and old -- to assemble at KLBL's little broadcasting station just outside town. Arriving at the station, he told Wally Plimpton -- the volunteer weekend DJ who had volunteered to man the station during the evenings -- to record the emergency broadcast message he was going to give live.

"Attention residents of Chester's Mill. This is Councilman Patrick James," he began. He spend a minute or two repeating much of what he'd said that afternoon outside City Hall, then begged for those on the streets to return to their homes. Then, he laid it all out on the line. "As of 11pm tonight, which is 75 minutes from this very moment, I am declaring a state of emergency throughout Chester's Mill and throughout the entire area within the barrier now known as the dome. Any persons caught on the street tonight after 11pm will be considered to be in violation of the law … will be considered a threat to life and property of those good people who have made the commitment to remain indoors … and … if the Sheriff Deputies who are putting their lives on the line to maintain peace and order believe that it is necessary … those people will be shot. I repeat … I am declaring a state of emergency as of 11pm, and I am authorizing deadly force be used by the members of Chester's Mill's law enforcement department."

Patrick signaled Wally to end the recording, then told him, "I want you to play that on a loop until I tell you to do otherwise, understand?"

Next, Patrick descended to the ground level where most of his Deputies -- including Nikki Carlton -- were assembled. Some of them appeared shocked by his message, while others looked like they were ready to hit the streets with the policy of shoot first and ask questions later. It's 10pm now."

He pulled the sidearm and skillfully checked to ensure that it was loaded. He finished, "In one hour, anyone on the streets is to be considered in violation of the State of Emergency. And they are to be shot."

He jacked a round into the pistol's chamber, holstered it, and asked firmly, "Do I make myself clear?"

Deputy Nikki, as most called her, was becoming overwhelmed by the mayhem in town. Every five minutes brought another report over the police band about a break in or a fight or an act of vandalism. She would respond to one call only to have people rush up to lure her to another. Then, acting-Mayor Patrick James called and ordered her to the radio station. When she got there, she was shocked to hear him call for a State of Emergency and shoot to kill orders.

He told them, "In one hour, anyone on the streets is to be considered in violation of the State of Emergency. And they are to be shot. Do I make myself clear?"

Two of the three men Patrick had deputized himself today were there. They immediately acknowledged their leader's order. But Nikki asked Patrick aside for a one-on-one and warned, "Sir, you can't do this. You can't send us out there with orders to use deadly force. These are our neighbors. Our friends. I understand that-- I'm not blind, I see what's happening. But, let me try it another way. Something less final."

She explained that the Federal Government had just recently given the City a trunk full of non-lethal crime fighting gear for training. "Stun grenades, mace sprayers, tear gas. All the gear we need for our own safety. It'll stop the looting without causing seriously harm. Please, Patrick."

Nikki used his first name on the hopes of reaching him on a more personal level. To date, she doubted that she'd ever called him by his given name. But she was desperate to get through to him. She looked over her shoulders at the two men Patrick had deputized, then back to him. She begged, "And please! Don't put those two on the streets. Or that third man. Where's he? They aren't trained. They don't know what it means to be peace officers. Please, Patrick."

She didn't know whether or not she'd gotten through to him. If in the moments to come, he gave into her request, Nikki would suggest that the two men were to be sent to the Substation to watch over the dozen citizens who had already been arrested and thrown into cells. Yanni was there now. Nikki wanted him relieved of that task so that he could help her in the streets. He was new, but he was trained. She would get out the non-lethal gear and hit the streets and bring this mayhem to an end.

Nikki had seen Martin Breeze in town earlier and demanded that he take a police band radio. She didn't know for certain that she could count on him. He had a criminal history of his own. And the two of them hadn't exactly split on good terms after she'd taken shots at him. But he loved Chester's Mill, and he was stable, and he wasn't a killer, as Nikki feared Patrick's three men could be or already were.

If Patrick stuck by his guns, all Nikki could do was go along. She would still employ the non-lethal gear. The difference would be that she had those three men on the streets, likely looking for any excuse to shoot and ask questions later without just cause or due process.

She awaited Patrick's response.

Martin Breeze didn't come into Chester's Mill during the daylight often. He didn't really like the attention his appearance got him at times. The people of the Mill were of two minds when it came to him: he was either a wonderful neighbor who would do anything to help you through your current dilemma, or he was a untrustworthy thief who would take advantage of you during your dilemma to better his own situation.

To be honest, he was a bit of both. Oh, he wasn't an entirely bad guy. He wasn't and had never been a violent man except for when pushed into it by someone else's violence. He didn't hit women, even after they'd hit him. He didn't steal from homes to pay for a drug addiction. Hell, he'd never suffered a drug addition, even though he did like his Jack Daniels enough to warrant AA meetings, though he'd never partaken.

But then he wasn't an entirely good guy either. He had a criminal record, and it was deserved. But he'd never hurt anyone who either didn't deserve it or couldn't have easily recouped their losses through insurance or other means. In fact, most of the people he'd ripped off over the years -- such as Councilman Patrick James -- had themselves gotten a considerable portion of their wealth through misdeeds of their own.

But today, Martin did indeed come into town and well before sundown. He paid a visit to his cousin's café, then picked up some additional ammunition for his firearms of choice at the Peterson Pro Shop, also run by a cousin of his. Martin caught sight of Nikki Carlton at one point as she was trying to break up a conflict between two men fighting over a gas pump at one of the two local stations. She saw him, too, he was sure. But he'd turned away before she'd had a chance to wave him over, if she'd considered it at all.

Finally, after dinner and sex at the apartment of one of his handful of lovers and another couple of hours of watching what was happening on the main streets surrounding the town square, Martin made the decision to help out. He crossed to the Substation into which he'd seen Nikki taken a handcuffed woman and held his hand out.

"Badge," he said simply. Then he added, "This is just until this fucking barrier thing is gone."

He was given the seven pointed piece of metal, then pointed toward the armory to retrieve handcuffs, zip cuffs, a bullet proof vest, radio, utility belt, and more. When he headed outside, he felt like he was back in Syria again. Looking about the downtown area didn't prevent that thought either. There was already a car burning out in front of the post office, and in the distance the night was flickering orange and red from a structure fire.

He headed out into the night with Cooper, one of Nikki's newly appointed Deputies, a 20 year old who'd once been a basketball star heading for college and maybe even the Pros before blowing out his knee. These days, he worked on his father's used car lot, cleaning interiors and swapping out dead batteries for used ones that had been cleaned up to appear as if brand new. They moved quickly from incident to incident, trying to enforce the peace.

Often, just the sight of Martin Breeze with a badge and a gun was enough to send people back indoors and away from whatever it was that they were doing, whether if be active or reactive in nature. But he and Cooper did find themselves zip tying some wrists as well. The latter took the offenders back to the Substation while Martin continued onward.

When the pair got the call to meet at the radio station, Martin knew what was ahead. He wasn't surprised in the least to hear Patrick James call for a State of Emergency. He was, however, very surprised to hear the man call for the use of deadly force for such a minor level of civilian unrest. No one had been seriously harmed during the very minor rioting and looting, Martin told himself.

He was wrong, however.

(OOC: I'll write the second half in a bit. Busy. It doesn't affect anyone but Patrick's missing third man, who I've been told I can write. So, the other characters can move ahead.)

Patrick listened to Nikki's concerns, about his declaration and about his three deputized thugs. He had reasons for being so strict and firm, but then he also knew he had to placate the new Chief of Chester Mills's police force.

"Break out your non-lethal gear, Sheriff," he told her. Seeing her reaction to the title, he stressed, "You, Nicole Carlton, are now the Mill's Sheriff. Until this is over, you wear that badge. I'm sure there is an extra one in a drawer at the substation. Swap if for your Deputy badge, because from now until the actual Sheriff returns, you're in charge."

He looked to the two men who were now wearing law enforcement uniforms and all the gear to match the badges Patrick had given them earlier in the day. "Those men, however, are here to help you. I trust that they will do the right thing."

To them, he said with a commanding voice, "Sheriff Carlton is your supervisor. You will do as she commands, without question. She needs coverage at the jail, so, go."

The men looked hesitant, unsure of whether they were to follow his new public order or his previous secret order about which Nikki had no knowledge. Patrick demanded, "Do it! Do your jobs."

As the two men headed away, Patrick smiled to Nikki and gave her a comforting pat on the shoulder. "I have faith in you, Sheriff. I'm going to remain here at the station for a bit. They've been getting a lot of calls from land lines, since the cell towers are--"

Suddenly, there was a sharp, loud boom in the distance and almost instantaneously Chester's Mill went dark. Patrick murmured, "Transformer blew. That's not gonna help."

A moment later emergency lights outside the radio station turned on and the sound of a generator out back could be heard. He told Nikki to keep doing the good work, then headed inside. He found the land line still working and dialed a number. At the other end, a male voice responded, "Yes, sir."

Patrick only said, "Do it. Get what I want. I don't care how you do it."


(TiredFingers, that's your cue! )

After Patrick James departed, Martin Breeze moved closer to talk to Nikki Carlton about their orders. The police band radio crackled again, and the dispatcher back at the Substation reported that someone had reported movement, then screams inside the actualMayor's house.

"I got this," Martin told Nikki. "You get the riot gear … and watch these two thugs."

He smiled at the use of that word. It had been used to describe him in the past, and even Nikki herself had called him such on occasion. Once she'd done it to incite him to fuck her hard, fast, and repeatedly during their time of bumping uglies. It had worked. He still remembered that night when he was with other, lesser women in these more recent times.

Martin hopped into his own SUV and headed the six blocks to the Mayor's house. He found the front door open, announced himself, and immediately heard a woman's muffled scream for help. He pulled his sidearm and made his way carefully inside. Arriving at the open portal into the kitchen, he peeked around the corner to find a woman bent face down over the kitchen table, dress pulled up to reveal her bared ass as an audibly grunting man slammed his groin into her hard and deep.

"Stop!" Martin hollered as he raised his weapon. Only then did he remember what he was now. He added, "Sheriff's Department!"

Suddenly a second figure in the dark room stepped into view, and a moment later the gun he'd raised began firing rounds Martin's direction. He pulled back, dropped low, peeked out around the door frame from only half height, and let loose three quick shots. The second man flinched and dropped.

Martin pulled back again in case the other man began firing, then looked out again to find the man running off. Martin cautiously entered the kitchen, watching for the second man as he tended to the woman. She was sobbing madly into a gag tied into and around her mouth. Her hands were bound behind her back, but Martin now whipped out his switch blade and swiftly cut her free.

"Find a place to hide," he told her quietly, still watching for the second man as he watched her pull the gag away from her face. "Hide and don't come out. Understand?"

She sobbed, "He was in … my husband's office … when I heard him. He was … he was going through--"

But Martin interrupted her and again told her to find a place to hide.

That was when she surprised him with, "He started a fire. The office … my husband's office … it's on fire!"

He told her to get out of the house, then went in search of the man. And he did indeed find a fire. One room off the main hall was rapidly being enveloped in flame. The amount of papers and wood and fabric would soon create an inferno. Martin considered trying to stop the blaze, but it was obvious that it had been fed with gasoline. A conflagration was imminent.

Movement caught Martin's eye, he turned, and more shots rang out. He moved out of sight, then took chase out the back of the house to see the rapist heading across the yard. Martin took a solid, calm stance and -- just as the man was slipping through the open gate -- fired. The man flinched and cried out as the bullet hit him.

Martin was going to take chase, but behind him the leaking gas lines in the home caused just enough of an explosion to send him out onto the lawn with a thud. He got up and away and circled the house to find the Mayor's wife being comforted across the road. He questioned her as a fire truck arrived, but she couldn't give him anything of value about the two men. The fire fighters did what they could, but the house was a total loss. There was no way of identifying the crispy critter inside either.

What in the world has the men been after?



Half an hour later, Warren "Warchild" Tate signaled the stand in Mayor from the shadows outside the little radio station building. When Patrick James was able to get out to him, Tate turned to show the bloodied mess of makeshift bandages wrapping his shoulder. About the cop who'd shot him, he told Patrick, "Fucker killed Remo. Saved the Mayor's wife, I think. I don't think she can ID me. She never saw my face."

He wasn't about to tell Patrick that he'd been in the middle of raping the Mayor's wife when he'd been interrupted. Instead, he said, "The house is gone. Burnt it down. All his papers, gone."

He pulled out a couple of wrinkled and now bloodied pages, handing them to Patrick as he said, "Except these. I think this is what you were after, right?"

He watched the wannabe-Mayor's face as the man looked over the pages and knew that he'd gotten what Patrick had wanted. He said through the pain, "Now, can we get me a fucking doctor? The bullet was through and through, but I think he hit an artery, 'cause I'm bleeding like a stuck pig."



An hour after that, Martin finally had an opportunity to have a quiet moment with Nikki. He told her about what had gone down at the Mayor's house, something he hadn't wanted to say over the radio.

"It was one of James's deputies," he told her. Martin saw the reaction on Nikki's face. "I saw the fucker. Now his face. But I saw the uniform. The utility belt. I know it was him. I think I put a bullet in him."

He looked around himself, suddenly beginning to wonder whether Nikki could trust the people who were supposed to be working for her. Then he thought about Patrick James. "He wasn't in there just for a little play time with the Mayor's wife. He was there for a purpose. And he burned that house down to hide something."

Martin heard things, and he'd heard that Patrick was crooked and that the City Council and even the County District Attorney had been looking into the man's financial dealings. But would Councilman Patrick James send a man to burn down his boss's house to cover up whatever he wanted hidden? It would explain why he'd deputized three men like these.

"We need to find this man, see if he has a bullet in him, and see if what he was doing was at the behest of Patrick James."

After her partial win with Patrick, Nikki headed back to the sub-station. She took with her James's two thug cops and two of her own more reliable deputies. They broke out the non-lethal gear. Patrick's men reluctantly followed Nikki's orders and watched the jail. They processed new arrivals being brought in by the other hastily deputized men and women. Nikki and her more trustworthy types headed out onto the street. They employed tear gas, pepper spray, flash bangs, and when necessary rubber bullets to clear the streets.

It took almost two hours to fully clear the streets. They took eight people into custody and transported twice that to the clinic for various degrees of care. But in the end no one had died. Nikki didn't believe that Patrick's first option would have rendered such a conclusion. Then Martin Breeze arrived to tell her in person about the attack, rape, fire, and possible theft of unknown papers at the Mayor's house. She fully believed that it had been a targeted event, not a random attack. She caught up Martin on some of Patrick James's suspected illicit dealings.

"We need to find Patrick's man," she agreed. "I will go find the wannabe mayor and talk to him. You take charge here."

She ordered the good deputies to follow Martin's lead, then headed away to speak to Patrick. But he wasn't at the radio station, and no one knew where he'd gotten off to. She tried him on the police band, knowing he had one. But to no avail. Nikki actually began to worry that perhaps something had happened to him. Perhaps she and Martin had misunderstood the attack on the actual mayor's house?

(OOC: Once again, Nikki is done for the evening unless another character needs her. She's good to wake up in the Sheriff's chair in the morning.)

Patrick's stomach turned over at the sight of a bleeding "Warchild" Tate, not because he was adversely affected by the sight of blood but because the blood and the act that had led to it meant that things had got horribly wrong at the Mayor's house. He led Tate out behind the radio station to where Patrick's bodyguard and fixer, Paulie Briggs, was waiting.

"Fucker killed Remo," Tate began explaining as Patrick and Paulie got him into the Councilman's car for transport elsewhere. "Saved the Mayor's wife, I think. I don't think she can ID me. She never saw my face."

"You fucked up, you stupid cock," Patrick was growling. "Get in, get the papers, get out. How fucking hard is that?"

Tate explained, "The house is gone. Burnt it down. All his papers, gone."

That was good news, at least. Tate handed over what he'd taken, and a cursory examination in the low light of the emergency lights reassured Patrick a bit.

"Now, can we get me a fucking doctor?"

"Take him to the ranch," Patrick told Paulie. To Tate, Patrick said, "I'll can't send a doctor out to help you. It would look suspicious. But my Vet can put you back together as well as any trauma surgeon. I'll call him and have him there in under twenty minutes. Just hang on and don't die."

Patrick closed the passenger side door, then curled around the vehicle with his fixer. As he did, he reached up to pat the firearm in the holster in Paulie's left arm pit, whispering, "Take care of our friend. Quietly."

He watched the rig drive off, knowing that his fixer would take care of things and bury Tate's body next to the last man Patrick had had killed to protect his own ass.

(OOC: TF, what happens between these two men is ENTIRELY your call. Live or die? Surprise me.)

(OOC: RobbieRand and I are once again writing the interactions between Kyle and Marta in their side thread. It begins at 9pm the first night at Post #16 of "Kyle and Marta". If you click here, then click the link in the upper right hand corner, it will open the "Kyle and Marta" thread and allow you to read on for as long as the scene continues. Thanks for reading.)