Oakton Read online

  Chapter 2. The Big Melt.

  Two days later the TV news sounded more desperate. They were calling for volunteer sandbaggers from Bismarck to Omaha to Kansas City. Hundreds of volunteers answered the call. Dad and I talked about going but decided to wait. The videos on VRnet and on YouTube made it look like it wasn't out of control yet.

  By Wednesday afternoon most of the snow was gone from our yard except where we plowed up piles around the driveway. Same deal in Falls City, only piles at the edges of parking lots and along streets. Everything was dripping. About every store in town had a bucket or two somewhere on the floor and on ladders catching drops falling from ceilings since everything there was leaking too. Muddy water was everywhere.

  After dinner tonight when I was outside enjoying the record warmth something caught my eye, it was Beth across the street. I waved and smiled. She was outside in her yard walking towards their barn, shovel in one hand and a grocery bag in the other. The scene out behind their house where her dog does her personal business was lit from the back of the house and lights by their barn door.

  I watched as she went about her business. I was doin’ my best not to look like I was staring, you know, the feud and all.

  Not sure, but it looked like she was digging a hole in their yard near the barn, a small part of their yard I could see from our driveway.

  Judging by the lights in our house Mom was in the kitchen, Dad was in his office. He loved to play virtual farmer on an interface sort of like a farm simulator, except it used our actual property and the three square miles of land we leased from the neighbors to the south. He has a Deere 8360, the 2nd generation of agri-tractors with AI and the no-cab configuration.

  This new tractor had some features like a drone. They figured out how much it cost to build the big comfortable cab on the tractor and made a new version with none of it, not even a simple steel seat and steering wheel. It dropped almost twenty thousand dollars off the price, cut one ton, and extended the distance you could run per gallon by seventeen percent by not having a cab. It was all fly-by-wireless from the PC in the office. Dad wears his VR headset and sees the farm like he was actually riding in the tractors driver seat.

  Dad runs financial what-if scenarios on the simulator that comes with the tractor. It allows him to compress an entire planting-growing-harvesting season into a couple of hours then make changes like adding seed storage or buying fuel and fertilizer during the winter when prices are lower. This way he can maximize profits and be ready for anything that might occur during the actual season. If something can go wrong, he's already practiced how to deal with it during the winter.

  Sometimes Dad rents land for one growing season. It takes too much work to plot it into the computer and practice drive so he takes his device with the Deere app and rides his ATV from the barn following the exact path he wants the tractor to take, then rides the very perimeter of each field. The device stores the route down to the inch. Then back at home he transfers it to the computer so when he’s ready he can transfer it to the tractor so it can run the land all by itself as long as nothing significant changes to the land and it’s perimeter and it has good Netwise signal on the entire field, which is part of the reason for running the perimeter first.

  One thing I'm impressed with on Deere tractors is their excellent radios and antennas for AI control/supervision.

  Lemme tell you, the new cab-less tractors are strange and look even funnier running across the field with nobody steering 'em. And two of our fields, he doesn't need to even watch the computer because it's totally autonomous.

  When harvest time comes even the trucks from the grain elevator arriving along the road are pilot-less, but they're limited to 5mph on rural roads only. Our Deere can dump its seed into the truck from the grain elevator all without human involvement.

  The fuel company comes around the same way. They use a small unmanned tanker. By law they can only carry one load in an unmanned vehicle. The delivery truck is not much larger than a golf cart with a hundred gallon tank on board. Like the seed trucks they pull alongside each other, extending a mechanical arm to fill the tank all without human intervention. Those are restricted to 5mph on rural roads only. They have lots of rotating lights and beepers. They're fun to watch, especially if an animal wanders onto the road when it becomes the battle of wills.

  It made the news several times when autonomous tractors first appeared at the dealerships then in actual use. People would stop along the road to watch them run, see how well they did being steered by computer intelligence. It seems several cats figured out something was different about these tractors. We all saw video on Youtube, a cat sitting upright on a county road with a farm tractor stopped fifty feet away waiting for it to move. It became a stare down, cat versus AI. Somehow the cats figured out the tractor could see them and would stop to wait for them to move.

  The tractor would even shut off its motor running on battery power watching for the cat to move. Sometimes the cats would stay put for about thirty minutes testing the patience of the tractor without a human on board.

  Back to thinking about Beth...

  I walked across the street. It was almost totally dark outside. Beth was in their backyard digging something.

  “Hey Beth!" I shouted approaching from across the street.

  "Hi John. Whatcha up to?" She paused leaning into the shovel handle, halfway to her ankles in mud. She looked nice in her tight jeans and slightly ripped blue plaid long sleeve shirt, rolled up to the elbows.

  "Just comin by to see what got you out to play in the mud at six o'clock on this nice warm evening?"

  "One of the barn cats died, something got hold of her, maybe a coyote? Got kinda chewed up."

  We both paused to stare at the lifeless feline lying on the grocery bag by her feet. It looked like most of its back end was gone.

  "Looks like it got ate-up bad." I sort of mumbled out loud trying not to gag at the sight.

  "Kinda made me picture a coyote attack, but Daddy says he never seen nothing like it before."

  "Huh, weird? Need'ny help?"

  "Nah, 'sall good."

  "Okay then, we'll see ya tomorrow." I said tipping my cap with as friendly a smile as I could muster.

  "Thanks John, don't be a stranger." She said with a wink and a smile.

  I waved, turned and walked back to my side of the street. Once I crossed the middle I felt like I'd just crossed the 'neutral zone' and actually spoke nice to the enemy, but we talk at school every day. Sometimes I wish I could tell my parents to take their feud with the neighbors and shove it where the corn don't grow.

  Walking along the street towards our footbridge something caught my eye in their yard. It was something shiny, metallic in the puddles along the road. I heard a clicking sound, stopped to look. I could hear the sound of digging back behind me as Beth resumed her grave digging. Then I lost it. No sound, no flash, whatever it was had vanished. All I saw were the circular rings of tiny waves in the puddle of melted snow water. I kept heading for the house.

  -+-

  By the time it was too cold to do anything more outside I was ready to do some reading then turn-in for the day, still got school tomorrow. I couldn't get the picture of that half-missing cat out of my head. More than that, I couldn't shake the image of Beth walking across the yard; flowing hair, tall, slender, the right sizes in all the right places. Even carrying a grocery bag full of dead cat and a shovel, she was still like sex appeal in motion.

  -+-

  In the morning we stood near the shed waiting on the bus. I waved and winked as Beth drove past. Someday I should ask her if I could ride along. It's gotta be better than waiting on the banana-mobile with all the little kiddies and the school rules. Usually I don't talk much on the bus preferring to listen to music on the net. It's about what half the kids do on the way to school.

  On the bus we passed standing water everywhere. We blew huge waves of snow melt water way off into the fields as we headed down Highway 73 fo
r Falls City. Some people were driving really slow. The sky was still clear, the sun felt warm. The whole world seemed to be melting. We got to school late again. I managed to do advisory class from the bus on the way.

  Overnight tons more snow disappeared only to be replaced by standing water along roads, in peoples yards, flooded basements, and leaky store roofs in town. We couldn't count the number of basements being pumped towards the streets. I was expecting to see an Ark being built in someone's yard.

  In school it was more like a grown-ups disaster. We heard stories of a few people with flooded basements or septic systems that were under water and people having to stay at hotels until the ground thawed enough to let more water soak in. Dad said he expected the frost to be gone from the ground by the middle of the week. Until then, Nebraska was a thin layer of mud above the frozen layer underneath the topsoil. He said most of the puddles would disappear when the ground thawed.

  -+-

  I ran into Beth in eighth period Thursday. Actually, she nearly ran into me.

  Maybe I should admit I got a thing for her. She's a classic girl-next-door type, I like that.

  She came running out of the CAD-3D Printing & Metals Shop into the hallway chasing a fast moving metallic thing, sliding across the floor. That was a rather odd sight. Its legs were trying to run back towards the classroom but it was sliding in the other way.

  Made me think she was catching a runaway tarantula or something. It was metallic, making a clicking noise as it seemed to be struggling to gain a footing on the slick hallway floor. It looked like someone kicked it out the door from metals lab into the hallway and under the lockers on the other side.

  Beth was wearing her signature faded denim bib overalls and blue plaid long sleeve shirt. Down on her knees by the lockers across from the shop door her long blonde hair fell around her face as she blindly reached under the lockers to catch what looked at a glance like an aluminum bug or something. I stopped in the hallway to enjoy the sight.

  Her attention was focused on her hands while she stood-up closely examining something she just rescued from under the lockers. The teacher stepped out the door just then. He glanced at me and then coaxed Beth back into the room. You could hear pandemonium in the room as the door quickly shut.

  I know from hearing folks talk that she's into robotics with AI. She buys the electronics and software as a kit but designs her own body and legs then adapts the software from flying to crawling. It's all based on old drone tech from the Middle East wars and the attacks on the USA back in 2018 on the east coast. I hear she also uses cellular technology and apps too but not which ones. I heard she steals old cell phones from recycle bins to get parts for her projects.

  There was a series of bombings and assassinations in cities using semi-autonomous drones in kill-mode. They flew inside buildings. Some had tiny machine guns too, looking for specific people in specific places. They used facial re-cog, AI, AKM (autonomous kill modes), terrain re-cog, and extensive use of Facebook and Google images to identify people to carry out their execution programming. I knew Beth was into miniature smart robotics when stuff became cheap enough to buy online. The tech was cheap and very sophisticated by the time it went up for sale at Hobby Shack and Amazon.

  The people that did those attacks used photos they got off Facebook and tracking technology to find people's cell phone signals or their wifi then facial-recog to confirm them using AI and open fire from small autonomous killer drones with simple small .22 cal guns. Some were rumored to contain anthrax spores inside their hollow tips.

  They were really efficient because some drones were mostly for identification of target humans and others were basically flying smart machine guns. Their attacks were fast and overwhelmed all defenses. Those drones were small and very quiet too. I hear Beth is doing the same thing with her spiders. Some are for ID, some are for tactics or performing specific tasks. I think she said only one is a primary weapon that shoots sewing needles by magnetics like an ultra high-speed Maglev train.

  Beth explained 'swarming' was a feature she put in her spiders too. When two or more are near each other doing stuff they communicate by short range wireless. They share their data and tasks sometimes. If one is damaged or destroyed they all know immediately and alter their plans. Each spider knows what the others are doing and seeing. Each one is willing to be destroyed to save the others. Beth told me she is making one to serve as a combat intelligence command unit for the swarm. She said it acts as a map server and drone manager. It's sort of like the command unit for a small military sniper/extraction team.

  Beth told me once she makes body parts at home in plastic then in metal once her design is perfected using the better printers at school. Nobody makes ground-based drones, they all fly or hover. Beth was really the first to mimic insects on the ground to make an intelligent swarm. Hers can run, jump, climb, hide, spy, attack, or act as a decoy. The big drone makers avoid ground based units because they move slowly compared to ones that fly.

  -+-

  Thursday evening at home I spent more time outside trying to catch a glimpse of Beth in her bedroom window, but her room was dark. Their barn lights were on but the doors were all shut. I haven't been in their barn since almost two years ago because of our parents.

  After dinner when it was dark out around 6:30pm I went back outside to spy some more. Her room was still dark, but the barn lights were still on. Her truck was in the driveway but the other vehicles were gone.

  When I was a kid Dad built a narrow footbridge to cross the ditch along the street when it was full of water, like all of 'em were now, even on our hilltop village of Oakton.

  I crossed into their yard, down their driveway up to their barn door. I pressed my ear to the cold steel door for a listen. I could hear a radio playing or something but not much else.

  I grabbed the doorknob to give it a slight twist. It's unlocked!

  Pulling the door open a bit, I could see Beth from behind. She was sitting in front of a big computer screen, maybe something like a forty inch monitor with some sort of CAD software. I could smell melted and burnt plastic. That could only mean one thing; they must have a 3D printer running. I could hear some machine noises but the sound from the radio drowned out most of it.

  Slowly, silently, I shut the door then knocked loudly. In a few seconds Beth swung the door open with a look of surprise painted all over her face. There was also a look of 'you know you're not supposed to be over here you naughty boy,' written on her face too but she was too cute to be intimidating.

  I stepped back a bit. She stepped out pushing the door shut with her foot. My eyes naturally drifted lower as she gently pushed the door shut, then bounced, smiled, shook her head to move the hair from her eyes. "Hi John."

  "Hey Beth. Can I borrow a cup of sugar? My mom's trying to bake some fudge."

  "John Archer! Your mother never bakes a thing 'cept maybe meatloaf and pizza!" She said with a somewhat sexy and playful grin on her face showing off her pearly whites trying not to look obviously surprised by my illegal visit.

  "Got a spare USB charger? My dad's favorite pepper grinder won't run without a charge, his died."

  "Why you really here, neighbor?"

  "Just wondering what you're doin’ is all? Saw you trying to catch something in the hallway outside metals shop today."

  "Oh, that! My senior project tried to escape with the help of someone's boot. They won't let my spiders swarm on campus! I had no idea the school had an anti-swarming policy." She rested one hand on her hip.

  "Smells like you guys got a 3D printer."

  "Uh huh. Dad lets me print body parts out here when they're not home."

  "My father talked about getting one for metals 'till he saw the price on the net."

  "Yep, they start at about nineteen thousand for an oh-oh-six gauge feed machine, but they’re so sweet. We're running flex matrix recycled thread now. It's a blend of polymer and carbon nano particles. The spools my dad gets cost about two hundred fifty buck
s for five hundred feet."

  "Is that high?"

  "Very. And the muscle fiber polymer is sold by the inch, it's really pricey. I've got four feet of it so far."

  We stared briefly into each other's eyes. I had a dorky smile I couldn't get rid of, she seemed to be mimicking it right back at me. "Wanna see it?" I nodded yes.

  Beth reached behind her pulling open the barn door then stepped aside inviting me in. I stepped past her.

  The radio was on a pop station from Omaha. I think it was on 1180 AM. Only one overhead light was on, right over the computer desk.

  They had a desktop computer running CAD software sitting near a large 3D printer. The printer was big a big glass cabinet, about four feet on a side. I could see it moving in a matrix back and forth, the odor of melting plastic was much stronger now. I couldn't make out what was on the screen, only a small part was visible. My guess was she had made a change to a part she was re-printing.

  On a different work table I saw a small pile of disassembled cell phones missing parts of circuit boards and other components.

  "What you printing?"

  "Legs."

  "For what?"

  "My senior project. I got the rest of the year to tweak the design and submit it to the university in June for their school of AI and Manufacturing Technology."

  "Like what kinda leg?"

  "You on a spy mission tonight?" She briefly looked seriously at me with scrunched eyebrows.

  "I'm not a competitor y'know, just curious is all. I won't tell a soul."

  "That's okay, everyone in class knows what I'm working on."

  She sat on the bare steel stool in front of the computer taking the stylus in her hand on the touch panel next to the keyboard. I noticed then, she's right handed.

  She spun the drawing then zoomed out. It came into full view as a wireframe image about one foot tall on an emerald blue background. It looked like a mechanical spider with stereo camera eyes, two antennas, a tiny spear, and eight legs. I was amazed. So this was her big drone project. She didn't like people calling them bugs because she didn't want the stigma of being known as the girl that played with bugs.

  I had heard what she was doing that was unique was combining several technologies; facial recognition, autonomous operation, swarming, remote video/audio, defensive-offensive operations, and in some cases using a miniature cannon firing magnetically propelled sewing needles at three hundred feet per second, which is pretty darn fast.

  "So I gotta ask, just how much damage can a sewing needle really do? I heard about your weapons platform at school."

  "It's not always about kinetic force or stopping power. A sewing needle at a very high speed can puncture about anything, except maybe not thick steel. That's why this platform is designed to shoot at the vulnerable large blood vessels, eyes and lungs. Any of those will put an enemy soldier out of action and kill them quickly."

  We walked over to the 3D printer to watch it work. It's rather large, probably for making larger parts. She explained how it worked.

  With the CAD software (computer-aided design) you create a drawing for a thing you want to make, in her case it's an articulating spider leg. The drawing you create can be looked at from all angles by using the stylus to rotate the drawing to any position. In this case, the leg segment is about two inches long, somewhat rounded, with places for 'muscles' to be added on the outside to make those legs work like living spider legs. It was basically a 3D model of a plastic spider body she designed in the computer and built with the 3D printer.

  That data is sent to the printer. It has a platter upon which it starts to build things. There is a print head, sort of like an ink-jet cartridge except it's heated and has melted plastic inside. The print head moves in three planes they call X,Y,Z. Those letters represent; side to side, forward and back, up and down, all three dimensions. The print head deposits a tiny thread of melted plastic which knits to the previous layer then hardens as it moves above the platter leaving layer after layer, slowly building up the spider leg segment.

  Plastic is fed into the print head from a spool containing something that looks like fishing line or weed-eater cord. The physical properties of the thing you're printing determine what type of plastic you use. Some large and expensive printers can use a fine roll of wire, heat it to melting, and make things out of metal. The list of things you could print with one of these is endless. I stood in amazement watching this printer slowly building her spider leg segment, one thin layer at a time.

  While we were talking I pulled out my device but she put her hand over the front, "Sorry John, no photos please, not yet."

  While I was sliding my device back inside my pocket I noticed in the shadows that Bullet was inside too. She was in a stall about twenty feet beyond the computer bench silently watching what we were doing.

  "Actually I was gonna look at my schedule to see what I had planned before I asked if you had time for pizza this weekend. Maybe we could talk about your design and the tech you're using?"

  "My folks are gonna be home soon, y'better go." She said with a straight face, but at least it wasn't a firm 'no-way.' I let her open the barn door for me, I started walking towards home.

  "Better walk on the driveway John, the yard's under water that way."

  "Thanks Beth, see you tomorrow." I started walking down her driveway towards the street, but I was listening behind me for the sound of the barn door closing.

  "Good luck with the fudge!" She yelled laughing at me when I was halfway to the street, which means she was watching me walk away the whole time!

  She waved, smiled, then walked back in the barn gently closing the door. I walked down their driveway to the street, then towards our place, up our driveway, in the side door, across the kitchen, up the stairs, and into my room which looked out on the dark side yard towards Beth's house.

  I thought what I should do tomorrow is be outside a little early, stand right in the road and see if she would take me to school with her.

  Friday:

  Ben and I were pacing around in the street waiting on the bus like always when she rolled past in her truck. At a glance Beth looked a little rough around the edges.

  I tried walking into her path but she slowed and maneuvered around me, acting out in plain language that a ride this morning was out of the question, so I backed off and never told Ben about my plans to hitch a ride. Nothing ventured nothing gained.

  It came to me that she probably couldn't stop for me right in front of the bus shed because her parents could see a clear violation of their dumb feud rules. Oh well!

  We were soon on the bus and back in range of the net and the start of school almost before we got off the banana mobile. Everything outside was wet but the sky was blue, the sunshine warm.

  -+-

  I had lunch with Ben today. Even though we're good buds, we don't always talk at school. We're both in varsity football, both first string-wide receivers, even shared some GF's but don't lunch together very often.

  We talked about the weird stuff going on back around Oakton.

  "What d'ya mean the animals are missing? My dog's home. I let him out this morning when I left for the shed." Ben reported apparently unaware of the rest of town.

  "Yeah, but Mel's is okay and Beth said she's lost some barn cats, found one with the back end totally missing."

  "Well that's nice to hear when you're eating this crappy food, thanks teammate." He slid his tray away, which was mostly for show since his lunch was mostly eaten anyway.

  "Look, all I'm trying to say is we need to get ready 'cause something's going on and it could get bad before we figure out what's taking our critters." I said with a more serious tone.

  "Hell, I'm all for that. I'll get my stuff ready tonight. Maybe we should go down by the cemetery and do some shootin’ after school today, make some noise, let whoever's doing it know we're armed and all." Ben looked all excited briefly.

  "That's not a bad idea, but I got a feeling about this one, some
thing's really wrong back home.” I think my look of worry was lost on him.

  "Hell John, last time you told me something's wrong at home all it turned out to be was the thing you lust after, Bethany Meek, was wearing some jeans you didn't like."

  "Can we forget about that crap for a while, I'm being serious. This ain't no fashion emergency. Animals are getting’ killed and I've been seeing some strange stuff too."

  "Like what strange stuff?" He said with a grin slowly spreading across his mouth and his eyebrows lifting slowly. It was starting to get me a little angry.

  "I can't explain it yet, but I've been seeing stuff outside, quick little glimpses of things on the ground and up on roofs and around trees in our yards. All started about the same time as animals started to disappear."

  "Spooks?" He said probably thinking he was funny.

  "Okay. I see this conversation's going nowhere, you 'bout done there teammate?" I asked.

  "I'm done eatin’ ‘til I forget your nice mutilation descriptions?"

  "Whatever, you done?" I asked.

  "Yeah, let's go." We got up from the table to head for class, by the clock on the cafeteria wall the bell was about to ring anyway.

  We got to our feet, set our trays on the cart by the door. Ben whispered to me as we walked out the cafeteria doors, "Just remember, you're unique. Just like everyone else!" Then he slapped my shoulder and chuckled to himself.

  We went our separate ways outside the cafeteria doors after a brotherly fist bump.

  Next time I saw Ben was on the bus after school heading for home. Just a glimpse of him because I was all focused on the video my dad sent me about volunteering on the sandbag lines in Rulo.

  -+-

  On the TV tonight the weather guy on Channel 6 said there was a good chance for rain this weekend. The rest of the news was about the arrival of flooding on the big river in the north-east corner of the state. People were being evacuated. Sandbag crews were working twelve hours a day north of Omaha. Flood warnings were posted for the entire river basin to Kansas City and south to the Mississippi. Our yard was like a giant wet sponge.

  At dinner my sister said she heard that Beth's horse was missing.

  -+-

  That evening after dinner Dad and I went to Rulo in his truck. There were a few sandbag filling lines. Dad wore his VR glasses. If you've never seen one before it looks like large wrap-around sunglasses. In the glasses frame on both corners were tiny video cameras.

  Wearing them is like wearing sunglasses, you see what's right in front like they were sunglasses, but that’s what is actually seen by the cameras, you're actually looking at two small TV screens. Your headset links via Bluetooth-5 to your device which shares sound and video with the world. Dad loves doing it. He uses the better headset to run his tractor.

  The sandbag lines are a two-man operation each. They use a skid-loader to dump sand into the bin. Then an auger feeds it into the sand bag. You slide the open end of the bag onto the bottom of the chute; it senses the bag and dispenses the correct amount of sand. The bottom of the sandbag sits on the lower end of a conveyor. When the auger stops the sand bag drops off the filling chute lying on its' side on the conveyor. A quick twist of the fingers causes the clasp to self-tighten closing off the top of the sandbag. The conveyor takes it away dropping it into the back of a small dump truck to deliver it near the river’s edge by the sewage treatment plant.

  The other person with you by the sand bag machine slides a new bag onto the chute and the process starts all over again. You can usually do four bags in a minute with a good crew and clean dry sand. Dad and me's done five a minute before but you gotta hustle and know your partner. And you gotta have your bags ready to go too.

  We stayed there from 7pm until 9:30 when he said his back was getting too sore. We were basically on our knees on pads the whole time. Tonight we extended the wall around the Rulo Sewage plant by fifty feet on both ends. The main reason is to protect the pumps from flooding. The rest of the plant can tolerate flooding.

  "How many bags you think we filled?" I asked as we were pulling out of the grocery store parking lot near the river where the sandbag filling stations had been set up.

  "The counter was broke on our line but I know they got one hundred bags to a bundle and I opened four bundles, so I'd say we filled almost four hundred bags." Dad answered.

  "You're gonna feel that tonight Dad!"

  "Thanks for the vote of confidence, son."

  "Not a problem old man!" I shouted slapping him playfully on the right thigh. We both laughed out loud. He knew I meant nothing offensive by my kidding.

  "They say anything to you in school about expected flooding?"

  "Nah, only that the school was too high up to flood, it might become an evacuation center if the old school gym in town becomes too crowded."

  "You have gym this semester?" Dad asked.

  "Nope."

  "So that's fine, right?" He continued.

  "Yeah, I just don't want a huge disaster this close to the end of my four years. I'm ready to move on to college."

  "Nice to hear you testify son. You got all your papers submitted to the university yet?" I figured he’d actually know since him and Mom talk all the time in private, I thought he’d know but was just making conversation.

  "No. I need some stuff from Mom yet, then it's good to go."

  "Let me know if you need anything, okay?"

  "Thanks Dad." We smiled at each other then leaned back to watch the wet countryside as we headed west on Highway 159 heading towards Falls City. Our own road doesn't make it this far south so we turn off early on County Road 656, take it all the way up to CR 712 which runs right into Oakton. It's farms the whole way, boring actually, but pretty.

  "Wanna go by the flooding on the creek?" I asked hoping he’d want to go see with me since he didn’t sound like he believed my report.

  "No, your Mom's expecting us home for a snack then off to bed soon."

  "She's the boss!" I said with a sarcastic tone that I intended to poke fun at him being more like the queen and her more like the king of the family.

  We didn’t talk for about a minute then I asked him, “You know what I don’t get?”

  “No, what?” Dad replied.

  “The date on the corner of the old Rulo pump house says it was built in 1918, but I know that place has flooded several times since then. So why not just build a wall and be done with it instead of wasting time making sandbag dikes instead?”

  Dad paused for a moment then answered, “Cost. The government pays for the sandbags and the labor is free. I think the state of Nebraska is hoping the town of Rulo disappears someday soon.”

  -+-

  Once you turn off the highway it's only like three more miles home, so he didn't drive too fast since the roads aren't that great, after the winter they get kinda rough until the county has the chance to grade them flat again. Dad could do ours with his tractor but he won't. Dad says our tractor is strong enough to wrap a chain around the house and yank it right off the foundation. I think he's dreaming. Our house is like almost one hundred years old and weighs as much as three newer houses in town. Sometimes I think that tractor is like an extension of his manliness.

  "Dad, can I ask you something?"

  "Sure, what's up?"

  "Me and Beth's been seeing odd stuff 'round town lately. Would you be willing to meet with the rest of town to discuss our missing animals and all the odd stuff going on since the snow melted?"

  "Wow. Stuff's been going on, huh? Your mother never said anything about it to me. You sure something like a meetin's necessary?"

  "Yes sir I do, certain of it." I said trying to get him to actually listen to me because he usually doesn’t.

  "Well you come up with the plan and let me know and I'll talk with your mom then let you know, that fair?"

  "Yes sir it is." I said to the side of his head as he watched us turn left onto road 712 heading west into town.

  Back at home I to
ok a shower went to bed thinking about all the stuff going on in town. The time Dad and I spent in Rulo was nice, got my mind off it. It scares me that Dad is so casual about what the kids in town see as something really big. I think if the grown-ups in town actually spoke to each other they might get freaked out too.