Redwood Nation

 

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Introduction

Redwood Nation 

 

C. R. H. Books

2014

 

 

Copyright © <2014> by <Casey Horan AKA C. R. H. Books>

 

 

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

 

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

 

 All rights reserved.

 

ISBN: 9781312377028

 

FOREWORD: This book is intended for mature audiances and contains mature context and language. Is it advised that persons under the age of fifteen abstain from reading this piece of fiction.

 

C. R. H. Books is located in Scottsdale, Arizona 85258

 

If you are interested in speaking to the author please contact by email, at crhbooks@gmail.com

 

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Chapter 1

It had rained hours before Sam began walking across the wooden bridge towards the hanging gardens. The trees always smelled best after the rain and Sam wanted to take it in for a moment while no one was watching him. He sat down on the bridge and let his feet hang over the edge as he closed his eyes. After a little bit of thought he decided that the smell made him feel clean, like every tragedy and sin had been washed away with the spring shower. Of course it hadn’t. Sam could see that when he lowered his eyes to the ground floor to see the heinous abominations below him. Those who had once been human, but succumb to the way of the devil, shambled through the ground floor, or so he had been taught.

 Sam let his icy blue eyes gaze at them with their missing limbs and discolored flesh, though they never gazed back. His straight black hair began to fall over his eyes, and he lifted his head. He could almost hear the moaning and grunting from below him when the voice of his mother called out.

“Sam, you know I don’t like you dangling your feet like that…and what if someone needs to use that bridge?” Sophia had asked, directing Sam’s attention away from the hoard below. “Anyway, it’s not polite to stare.”

Sam lifted himself back up to join his petite mother off the bridge. Her hazel eyes glared at him until he stood next to her hourglass frame.

“Would you be doing that if your father was here?” Sophia asked as she stretched herself out to as tall as she could to try and move the hair from his eyes.

Sam lowered himself slightly so that Sophia could reach him. “No, I suppose not. I’d be training for ground missions,” he said casually.

“Don’t be silly, you’re still not old enough for that kind of work,” Sophia said, now making certain that her black hair was still secure in its tight bun. “If I can have my way you’ll never have to go down there.”

“Mom, it’s an honor to serve Alpha by doing ground missions,” Sam rebutted.

“Just because that’s what your father says honey, that doesn’t make it true. There are far better ways to serve Alpha than by risking your life every four weeks,” she snipped back at him.

Sam looked away from her for a moment. “There are more of them down there than last week,” he finally said, not wanting to argue with his mother about the virtue of protecting Alpha. “They don’t even mind the rain.”

She took in a long breath, “No, they don’t,” Sophia said moving his chin to face her. “They slow down in the winter even here, once hell freezes over the rest of the world…but when the lord blesses us with warmer days and his loving sun, they reemerge. Only sinners should be down there Sam, not handsome young men like you.”

Sam rolled his eyes, “Mom, stop it,” he said. “Dad’s down there right now.”

She bit her tongue for a moment before speaking. “Your father’s too handsome to be down there too…but we’ll see him in a few days.”

“I wonder how many sinners he’ll have cut down,” Sam said to himself more than to his mother.

Sophia shot him a look like death, “The bible says the meek shall inherit the earth, let us pray that there was no need for that kind of senseless killing.”

“As our prophet says,” Sam began, “’Smite the sinners, if not by the hand of god then by the hand of man, and may he do god’s bidding by severing the sinner from his body, as the true evil lies in his thoughts and in his mind.’”

Sophia bit her tongue again and thought. “Prophet Paul speaks of the world as though we still live on the ground, as though we may still suffer the trials that our fathers faced,” she finally replied. “Paul is a very old man Sam, and everything he says should be taken with caution. He doesn’t think the same way that we do. He lived through the hell that is the surface, watched his family members turn to sin, and cleansed us at Alpha by leading us all up here,” she looked up to the canopy where several people were walking. “I don’t know what we would have done without this place.”

She then glanced down to the ground floor where a larger cluster of unruly bodies made their way past. “I couldn’t even imagine what it was like down there,” Sophia finally said looking back at her son.  “We can’t even imagine the horrors that he had to live with.”

Sam had been looking past his mother, not listening entirely to what it was she had been saying, but once he realized that she was now staring at him he straightened up.

“It’s hard to think that anyone could have lived down there,” he said.

“You don’t live, that’s what your grandmother used to say,” Sophia said in a soft voice. “You’re lucky if you can survive, but you don’t live.”

“I remember, some of the elders talk about it. The only things down there are the beasts,” Sam said, realizing that his family, or anyone else old enough to remember or tell stories about the world on the ground floor seldom uttered a tale about it. “And all of them are too foul to eat.”

“All except fowl,” Sophia finished him off, and gave a halfhearted smile. 

Sam gave her a hug, and lifted her up for a moment as he did it. Sophia had never been taller than five feet, and by the time Sam started puberty he had been able to lift her into the sky, a fact that he knew she was not too fond of.

“Put me down, right now Samuel!” She snapped at him as Sam already began lowering her onto the wooden walkway.

“Don’t have a cow,” Sam started.

“You realize that if I were to fall, it’d be an 80ft drop,” she began. “And even if somehow I was to make it after that fall, I’d be torn apart by the sinners down there.” She finished fuming.

Sam took a long breath. “I’m sorry for picking you up, it was reckless,” he finally said.

She smiled at him in earnest. “What were you doing before you sat down on the bridge?”

“David had asked me to check on the garden,” Sam said.

Sophia furrowed her brow. “With Mary?”

Sam lifted his shoulders. “I don’t know, maybe.”

“I think she likes you.” She said.

Sam’s cheeks burned as he moved his hand up his cheek and through his straight hair. “I don’t know about that.”

“I think her mother started having kids around her age too,” Sophia said.

Sam started ruffling his hair with both his hands. “I don’t want to hear that mom. I mean she’s like sixteen.”

“She’s the same age as you, Samuel…and if it’s between Mary or Laura I’d rather you be with Mary,” Sophia began. “Both of her parents were born here at Alpha, and if the two of you were to get married you’d probably never have to go on the ground floor.”

“Stop it mom,” Sam said. “I want to serve Alpha on the ground missions. I can’t believe you would bring this up again.” He put his hands on her shoulders. “I know you think you know best, but I have to do this. Maybe I just won’t get married at all.”

“Don’t say that,” She began. “We need you to have someone. I need you to give me grandchildren. God’s plan is for humanity to keep going.” There was pleading in her eyes as she said that.

“You’re too serious,” Sam said. He began crossing the bridge. “If you want the world to repopulate so bad why don’t you have more kids?” He asked once he was sure that she couldn’t reach him.

“Maybe I will!” She yelled back at him, with no care for the trickling masses of bodies inching past them beneath their feet.

            Sam laughed as he made his way up towards the garden along the long winding wooden walkway which hugged the massive tree.

 It had to be expanded on ten years ago due to the growing numbers of individuals at Alpha. The creation of Beta and Gamma had also taken place close to the same time, which thinned out the nation as a whole, but allowed for more coverage of the California coast. It was a good decision to use the abandoned high ropes courses and canopy tours from the Redwood Forest Christian Founders who left them.

 There were only minimal improvements that had been made over the years to make the location safer and more sturdy for continued life up in the trees. Some of the houses had been created by gutting out parts of the trunks of the massive redwoods, while other less thick trees had been given wooden huts which were constructed upon the redwoods branches. It was more common for Sam to see a home inside the tree, as that was the way most of the high ropes course was constructed once Prophet Paul led the people to Alpha. Only later were the huts constructed atop the canopy nearly a hundred and fifty feet above the ground level.

 Sam, like his mother and nearly all of the adults in the redwood clans, had been born atop the tree’s, above the threat of the horrors below.

As Sam rounded the last tree he began to see the hanging fruits and vegetables, and he sighed. The greenery looked smaller than it had been last season, and the winter didn’t affect their yield for produce.

“Do they look smaller to you too?” A meek voice asked as Sam finished his turn and began walking into the heart of the tree.

It was Mary, who nearly bumped into him as he finished his final steps. She had been wearing one of her mother’s dresses, with a floral print. It fit her much better than it fit her mother. She looked a bit shocked as he got that close to her, and she stumbled back and fell onto her rump.

“I wasn’t expecting you,” she said readying herself to stand up.

Sam extended his hand and helped her back to her feet. “You asked me a question as I was walking in? What do you mean you weren’t expecting me?” He asked.

She shook her head. “I thought you were, somebody else,” Mary said.

Sam’s heart sank a little bit. “Oh, well David asked me to come by today,” he said sorrowfully.

“It’s not that I’m not happy to see you,” Mary said placing her hand on his forearm, before retracting it awkwardly. “It’s just, I thought you were my dad.”

“Oh,” Sam said relieved. “Well, like I said, he asked me to come by.”

Mary smiled, and the dimples in her cheeks were visible. “I’m much happier to see you than to see him any day. You know that. I just wish we had some better news. I didn’t want for you to think that the plants were dying.”

“Are they?” He asked. Sam began walking through the dug out cave in the large tree that housed the expanded garden. “I had thought they were smaller. Is that a sign that they’re dying?”

Mary shifted her eyes. “My dad knows more about it than I do.” 

“But he teaches you. You’re probably just as talented at plant growth as he is,” Sam said.

The sound of footprints was heard coming up the same path Sam had just walked.

David was a wide man, with broad shoulders. He would have been a great asset to the ground team, but once his daughter was born he gave up working those kinds of missions in order to teach her to be the new head botanist. Her mother was the old botanist, but had passed away during her birth.

“You still in here?” David asked as he made his way into the dugout with the two of them. “I wasn’t expecting you so soon Samuel, but I’m glad you came.”

“Mary was just asking me if the plants seemed smaller this season,” Sam said, not wasting any time.

“Yes,” David replied. “They do seem smaller. I told Paul last season that we needed to turn the soil. We’ve been using the same soil for too many years. I’ve even volunteered to go to the ground floor and take a fresh supply.”

“When are you leaving?” Sam asked.

David frowned. “It doesn’t look like I am,” he said.

Mary went to her father. “Prophet Paul said that my father had to remain here until I was fully prepared to handle all of the crops on my own, the way he and my mother used to be. It’s my fault that he can’t go out and get us what we need.”

“No,” Sam started, “nothing is your fault. If we just have to get down to the ground and bag the soil, I could go right now, it’s not more than twenty-five feet from training-“

“It’s not that simple,” David replied. He put his hand into the hanging soil. “How many people do we have in the canopy Mary?”

She thought for a moment before answering. “Not more than forty,” Mary finally said.

“Alright,” David replied. “And there are about sixty on the high ropes housing…Sam, how many people would you say live down on the low ropes?”

“Thirty, give or take,” Sam said without hesitation.

“So that’s a hundred and thirty people living in redwood Alpha,” David stated. “It’s a group for a reason Sam. If you leave, even to get something important for the group, you’re out. We didn’t get to be an organized and put together nation by going out alone. We didn’t grow to a hundred and thirty strong in Alpha, a hundred in Beta and a hundred in Gamma because each of us were independent.”

“What should we do then?” Sam asked. “Have you even shown the plants to our prophet? Maybe if he saw how desperate they were he’d agree.”

“I’ve told him,” David said.

“But we’ve never shown him,” Mary softly stated. “I can unhinge one of the tomato plants, it’s not too heavy. Maybe Sam’s right.” She turned towards Sam. “Would you carry it for me?”

“Sure,” Sam said as the two of them began lifting it from its rope sling.

David kept a good distance behind them as they climbed the ladder up to the canopy of Alpha, where Prophet Paul lived and preached on Sundays. It was a long climb, even if they hadn’t been carrying something, and some of the people who lived in the canopy watched them as they inched up.

Once they made it to the front of Paul’s tree they waited to be received inside.

“You can enter now,” the authoritative voice of Prophet Paul said as the three of them waited patiently. “I would have preferred a warning that you were coming, isn’t there a walkie-talkie in the garden?” He asked once they assembled inside.

“You know how children are,” David said. “They need to show and be seen, and they take action before thinking.”

“They do. I was the same way, that’s how I got to be so old,” Paul said.

“We brought this so that you can see how badly we need fresh soil,” Sam said.

He looked at it for a moment. “I didn’t realize this was how bad it had gotten,” Paul finally said. “You should have shown me this sooner David.”

“I had told you about it three months ago,” David replied.

“Telling someone something is like ringing a bell, its sound will only carry so far. Seeing something, that leaves a lasting impression on the soul,” Paul stated.

“Do we have your blessing to go and get more soil?” Sam asked.

Paul scratched his grayed beard for a moment. “The ground team left for Gamma four days ago…they should be there by now, so give it another four days for them to get back.”

“I can go,” Sam said.

Prophet Paul shook his head. “No, I want the ground team back before we send more men out. We’re down too many people as it is.”

 

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Chapter 2

Sam had been counting the days, and spending his time on the low ropes course continuing his training when he wasn’t busy helping Mary and her father in the garden. There weren’t many men to help him train when the ground team left to check the other clans, and there were even fewer weapons to use, but Sam was able to find some help.

Today, as with the past three days, Sam was working with a man named Zach.  Zach usually went on the away missions since he had no wife, and was muscular enough to take on the tragedies below with his bare hands. He would have left if Sam hadn’t asked for him to stay and help with his own training. Sam was less than a year away from being the right age for the ground team. Young men between seventeen and thirty-five were preferred, but there were always exceptions. Sam’s father for example was nearly forty but he still went on the ground missions.

“What should we do today?” Sam asked as he arrived.

“You’re late,” Zach said.

“Hardly,” Sam protested.

“You said you’d be down before breakfast.”

“I was in the garden with Mary; it’s much easier to grab something to eat in there,” Sam said.

“That’s not the point,” Zach said, with a disappointed voice. “You told me before breakfast, and now I’m hungry and you’ve already eaten.” 

“I brought you some.” Sam said, as he took out a small handful of berries. “Like I said, there isn’t a lot, but that’ll change when my dad comes back today.”

He handed them over to the thicker man who slowly took them.

“I wanted us to eat together,” Zach said quietly enough so that Sam couldn’t hear him.

“What was that?” Sam asked.

“Forget it,” Zach said, stomaching them down. “I want you to try your hand-to-hand combat today.”

“What for? I’m not going to be ripping the heads off of sinners with my bare hands.”

“Why not? I’ve done it,” Zach said.

“But you’re a lot stronger than I am,” Sam stated bluntly.

“I wasn’t always strong...” Zach stopped for a moment and thought. “Well I wasn’t always strong enough to do that. Either way, it’s an important skill.”

Sam readied himself for the combat that was inevitably coming. “Fine,” he said. “No time like the present.”

“Well said,” Zach replied, as he too prepared himself.

Zach made the first attack, but Sam was able to dodge it with ease. Sam moved faster than Zach did, but he lacked the control that a more skilled fighter would have.

“So your mom knows you’re out here today?” Zach asked, landing a hit in Sam’s stomach.

He gasped for a moment, catching his breath.

“If she did, do you think I’d be here at all?” Sam finally sputtered out, as he moved behind Zach and took away his footing.

Zach grunted a muffled moan of pain as he crashed onto his thigh. Sam took advantage of the moment and moved in with a punch to the stomach. It did nothing but make Zach laugh.

“I don’t understand her. I mean she married a man who lived his whole life doing ground missions. Not many people can say that, but he isn’t good at anything else,” Zach began.

“What do you mean?” Sam asked.

“He never bothered to learn a skill besides fighting,” He continued. “Look at David for example; he was a fighter, sure. But now he’s a botanist.”

Zach had placed his arms around Sam to inhibit his movement. Sam tried to break free but the hold was too good. He tapped Zach on the thigh to signal that he had lost.

“Some people don’t need to be good at two things,” Sam said, defending his father.

“I’m just saying, it’s funny that your mom hates the idea of you going out, when it’s the only thing your dad ever does,” Zach said.

“I want to practice using a sword,” Sam said, changing the subject.

“One more time, hand-to-hand.” Zach began. “Then we can work with the sticks.”

“I’d rather work with metal,” Sam stated.

“Well I’d rather have someone grateful to train, but we’re both going to have to make due, aren’t we?” Zach asked bitterly.

“I’m grateful to you Zach. I know you could have gone out last week, but you didn’t.”

“The sticks are heavier than the swords anyway. It’s better for you to train with them, trust me,” Zach said.

“I do…I guess I’m just impatient,” Sam finally responded.

The two of them sparred again before Zach took out the wooden swords. Both the wooden ones and the metal ones were taken from a Renaissance fair that had been abandoned and looted by Paul before the redwood nation had been erected. There was chainmail and armor that had been taken up to the canopy and laid out in memorial for all those who had fallen before Alpha became a reality.

The wood was heavy, and it made Sam feel slow, but powerful. He wasn’t strong enough to land any good hits, but Zach congratulated him on his focus and drive.

“You’re definitely getting better,” Zach said.

There was a walkie-talkie near the ladder to get from the low ropes course to the high ropes course which was giving off static followed by five short beeps. Both Zach and Sam put down their swords to see what was transpiring. They had hoped it was a message from the ground team saying they were nearly home.

Instead all they heard was a lingering static, and the possible sound of a girl, but the voice was too broken to make any words out.

“Do you think we should change the frequency?” Sam asked.

“No,” Zach replied. “It’s not meant for us, if it was it would be on our frequency.” 

Sam began changing the channel anyway until the voice became clear.

“-at the second site,” she finished. “Will I see you tonight?”

No,” a second voice came on; this one was a man’s voice, possibly early twenties, like Zach. “Ill be in Urban.”

Dick,” she said.

Bitch,” he replied.

There was a long pause.

“…Peace out,” she said.

Peace,” he replied.

There was a long silence. Finally Sam started moving the walkie-talkie back to its original frequency.

“I don’t think they were part of Redwood,” Sam said once he had finished aligning the radio.

“I agree,” Zach said. They didn’t seem to be. I don’t know what Urban would be.”  

“I didn’t think there were any people left on the ground floor,” Sam stated.

Zach shifted his head.

“We need to tell Prophet Paul,” Sam said. “He’ll know what to do.”

“Listen Sam,” Zach began. “I think it would be better if we keep this one to ourselves, at least until the ground team comes back.”

Sam had already begun climbing the ladder towards the high ropes course. “I’m telling him with or without you,” Sam called down.

Zach sheepishly followed Sam all the way to Paul’s home, at the top of the canopy level. The two of them waited for a moment to be allowed inside.

“I’m getting tired of your unannounced visits Samuel,” Paul began. “I told you that we’ll send people out as soon as the ground team gets back, that’s today if we have the daylight, tomorrow if we don’t.”

“I heard someone on the walkie-talkie,” Sam said. “This isn’t about getting soil.”

“Who?” Paul asked. “I didn’t hear anything from mine.”

“Well you’re a hundred and twenty-five feet further up than I was at the time sir,” Sam said. “I didn’t recognize her voice.”

“It was a woman?” Paul asked.

“A girl, yeah. She was talking to somebody, maybe her husband, I don’t know,” Zach said.

“That’s very odd. Their walkie-talkie must have been too far out of range for the higher zones to pick up on it,” Paul said. “What did they talk about?”

“Not much, she asked him if he was going to be staying with her tonight but he said no,” Sam said.

“Did she say where she was?” Paul asked.

“She said something about a second site. I’m guessing that’s where she’ll be,” Zach replied.

“But her husband said he was going to be in Urban tonight,” Sam blurted out.

“That’s better; it gives me a good idea of where he may be,” Paul said.

“Sir, I didn’t think there were any people left on the ground floor,” Sam said.

Paul shifted his gaze to Zach, “Well, then it’s lucky that we found some isn’t it? Do you boys know if they had a big group?”

“It seemed like it was just the two of them,” Sam said.

Paul held his gaze on Zach, which was making him visibly uncomfortable. “Is that so?” Paul asked.

Zach had been avoiding eye contact with him this whole time, but it was inevitable. He raised his head and looked the prophet in the eyes. “Yes sir. Although the conversation was brief, it seemed to be just the two of them.”

Paul walked toward his own walkie-talkie and pressed down on it. “This is your Prophet, Paul, speaking, I need to ask for all of the able-bodied men to come to my home for a moment. We have news to discuss.”

“Do I have to leave?” Sam asked.

“Seeing as your father isn’t back yet, you can fill in for him. How would you like that?” Paul asked Sam.

“I’d be honored,” Sam said with a smile.

Sam and Zach remained in the hollow house as it began to fill with all of the remaining men from Alpha. There were only about a handful near Zach’s age, and only four as old as David, leaving the remaining twenty-two men over the age of thirty-five.

“What is the meaning of this meeting?” David asked stepping out of the crowd.

“Good news I hope, as it contains to you,” Paul said. “Gentlemen, I have the need for us to hold a brief meeting.”

As he spoke every man fell silent.

“It was brought to my attention today that there may be two survivors living on the ground, possibly trying to find God,” Paul began. “They were intercepted on our low ropes walkie-talkie, so we know they have to be on the border of our five-mile radius for transmission. I’m guessing they’re somewhere near Santa Cruz.”

“You want us to find them?” A voice asked. It was another young man, about Zach’s age.

“I want you to find supplies, we need soil,” Paul said. “Our plants are dying, and we could use more seeds to grow a better variety of crops moving forward. If you happen to see these two lost souls who need to be saved, I say ask them to join us.”

“So why are we here? It’s not like we get to vote on whether or not we find them,” the same voice said.

“As you know, the ground team is on its way back today, and should be here any time. I want to see if we have any strong and brave men who would be willing to go now, so that when the ground team returns they may be able to recharge,” Paul answered.

“I’ll go,” Sam said eagerly.

Paul smiled. “That’s a good lad. Who else?”

“Wait a minute,” David said. “Samuel isn’t old enough.”

“I say if the boy wants to go then let him,” the other voice replied.

“I’m nearly old enough,” Sam said.

“We have these rules in place for a reason, and I say that he’s too young,” David replied.

“The boy wants to go,” Paul said. “And my word is the word of God, I will let him go.”

“I’ll do it,” Zach said. “If he’s going, then I’ll go too. Low ropes is low on weapons though, at most we can only have about five people.”

“I need three of you to volunteer then,” Paul said.

As if a toxin had been mixed into the air all of the other men fell silent, a look of anger and sorrow washed over their mute faces.

“Why?” The young man asked. “Why not just send the two of them, if they get the other two, then that’ll make four. That’s a good enough number if you ask me.”

“No one asked you Stephen,” Paul stated. “But since you are so quick with your tongue, I suppose you’d like to volunteer.”

“I’d sooner die.”

“That can also be arranged you know. I realize you don’t like to play with others, but for the safety of one of our youngest members I have to insist,” Paul said.

“I’m telling you, fuck off,” Stephen said.

“Let’s hold a poll. All those in favor of Stephen going with the two of them say aye,” Paul said. No sooner as he finished his sentence did the great room fill with the voices of all the rest of the men in agreement. “So it’s settled then, three of the five have been chosen.”

“I’ll go,” Said a blonde man nearly forty. “Let my wife know I volunteered.”

“Thank you Eric, I will,” Paul said as he shook the blonde man’s hand. “Your sons will be proud to hear you’ve taken on another ground mission after retirement.

“I hope so,” Eric said. He walked toward the two boys, scooping his arm around Stephen’s shoulder. “You and I are going to be good friends on this endeavor.”

“You’re touching me and it needs to stop,” Stephen said cringing in disgust. He tried to remove the older man’s hand but it only made Eric tighten his grip.

“There still needs to be one more, please men,” Paul said. “We are strong together because we are so many; sending too few of us out may cripple us.”

“Then wait for the ground team to get back,” Stephen said under his breath.

“Sending weak men would be worse,” Paul rebutted.

“I know the kind of soil that we need for the garden and the types of seeds to get. All in favor of sending me out say aye,” David said as he stepped out of the crowd.

The men cried out, and though Paul did not seem terribly thrilled he nodded before he spoke. “Then it’s decided. With any luck the five of you will be back before dinner.”

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