Eliot Strange and the Prince of the People

In Stuart, Virginia (History Lesson Two/Part One)

Author's Note: Part Two History Lessons will catch you up on what is happening elsewhere.

It is hot on the roof of the old hardware store. Joe spent the night waiting for an opportunity to end this horror. He is on the highest building in the small town. He can see the other two snipers on lower level buildings. "Snipers" is a generous term for these two. They're more like volunteers with rifles and some hunting experience than snipers. Joe hopes they can shoot a human being they don't know. They are amateurs, not soldiers. One of them might be asleep, he hasn't moved in an hour.

Sniper Joe sees the third volunteer on the street. Patrick is not really a volunteer, he was recruited by Joe. Better to keep him close by than to risk him getting killed in the battle. He's just a kid, or at least a kid to Joe. The kid has survived so far, but Joe doesn't know how. Patrick is impulsive, and just to prove that point, Patrick is no longer in hiding. Damn, fool kid. Joe told him to lay low, not get too close, and be ready with the truck. The kid does not listen.

Patrick gradually walks toward the crowd gathered for a hanging. He is so close now, he looks like a participant about to be hung too. Patrick stops to look up at the girl hanging from the gallows. He didn't witness this, it must have happened last night before they got here. Like a car wreck, Patrick finds it impossible to look away.

As Patrick stops and stares, Joe scans for trouble. He hopes the kid can keep his cool. Everything depends on it. One shot is all Joe needs.

General Kerry One Nation is angry. Not an uncommon emotion for him, but Jane has been with him for years, and she recognizes signs that anger is on the edge of rage. Rage leads to horror. A few weeks ago, the general slaughtered a young family who ran when he ordered them to stop. After he beat the parents with a tire iron, he strangled their twin sons and flung them to the ground like so much trash.

Jane didn't see this, but she heard about it from his next in command, Lieutenant Bolger, who interrupted her nap and begged her to - "Calm the general the fuck down". Jane did just that. After, she had the men bury the family in a mass grave. Together. It was all she could do.

Kerry does not like rage. He does not like the loss of control. It terrifies his own men, but he wants them to follow him for the right reasons, not out of fear. He has nothing against fear as a tactic, but it is difficult to tell your men to stop throwing babies off bridges when they witness what you just did.

Jane tells herself this is one of the reasons she stays. Rage cannot become indiscriminate death for all those in the way. There has to be something left when this is over. There has to be.

Jane hands Kerry a glass of water and his medicine.

General Nation does not like the medicine, but he understands its role. He takes it, sits down, and sighs like a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders. "It's so hard," he says.

"I know," says Jane. "I know." She places her hands on his neck and massages gently, so much tension there.

"That feels nice," he says.

"Don't worry, we'll get the prince back. We know he is with Eliot. We know where they're going."

He sighs deeply again and tenses up. Jane moves her hands lower to his shoulders.

"Eliot," he says.

One word and Jane's brain flashes to this man choking a child.

Thirty minutes later, the medicine and the attention paid result in a calmer than normal mad man.

The occasional gunshot and screams from outside distract General Nation. He wants to go outside and play. He wants his girl by his side as he inspects the progress of his earlier orders.