James Patterson’s Journal – The Story of The Congregation of Andria Church During the Dark Time (Patterson’s Tale #8)
PASTOR LEE AND HIS MILITIA LEADERS MEET WITH LEADERS FROM ANDRIA VILLAGE TO DECIDE UPON THEIR FUTURE COURSE OF ACTION
“On a cold morning in Winter of A.D. 2409, Pastor Lee and his son, Edrood, along with their 100 or so militia men, plus leaders from the three main groups in Andria village—the Jesus followers, the pagans, and the uncommitted and timid group—met at a small clearing deep in the forest a few miles from our village. While the militia stood guard, we all met to discuss what our path of action must be from now on in order to give ourselves a chance of survival. We knew we were badly outnumbered by our Enforcer enemies, and always would be. The others stood quietly while the Christians in our group asked for God’s direction and His blessings on us. A few of the uncommitted suggested that we had the choices of abandoning our village and relocating to other villages up and down the river, or even much farther away if we could find places willing to accept us; or we could all become pagans and beg the Enforcers to leave us alone; or we could fight them to the death.
THE PEOPLE OF ANDRIA VILLAGE DECIDE TO RESIST THE GOVERNMENT OF THE OVERMASTERS AND THE COUNCIL, NO MATTER THE CONSEQUENCES
“The Jesus followers all refused to consider abandoning their faith—even the pagans with us thought that was a bad idea. We all knew that most of the other river villages were also being targeted for the same fate as was Andria, and Edrood Lee explained that larger villages in the entire area were already under the tyrannical rule of the Overmasters and their masters, the Council. After much heated talk, we all agreed that our only choice was to fight them as long and as hard as we could, and never capitulate to their evil. All of these leaders (I was considered to be such) agreed to tell our people that constant resistance was our only choice, even though this would probably lead to the deaths of all of us. Over the next few days this was the message we shared with our fellow villagers.
“All of the pagans agreed with that advice, most of the Jesus followers did also, and about half of the uncommitted group did, so we had a majority in Andria who were willing to fight our enemies to the death. Pastor Lee and Edrood began secret meetings with us, always deep in the forest at night, during which they proposed that we take the battle to our enemies—that is, that we organize and attack them and kill as many of them as possible rather than continue as we were, just letting the Enforcers pick us off a few at a time. Our biggest enemy gathering was the fortified Enforcer station a mile or so upriver. We all agreed that it was pointless to just ambush a few of our enemies at a time, for they would soon be replaced. Our goal was to attack their fortification and kill all or most of them at one blow. We knew that if successful we would eventually be invaded and hunted down, but by this time we had resolved to die in battle against the enemies of God and His people. Even the pagans agreed, of course, since they were always in a mood to kill Enforcers. Some of our JS members admitted that they were bothered by the plans to kill our enemies rather than submit to their evil, but they were in the minority in the village. We understood their reluctance to resort to violence, but the rest of us held firm in our resolve.
“Life continued in Andria as it had, but our determination to resist the continued predation of our enemies must have given them some pause, for the harassment against us decreased greatly for a few months, even though it never totally ended during this time. The Lees and their trusted leaders began to plan a significant attack against our Enforcer enemies, and they planned to deliver a strong blow. Our fellow villagers had been watching the Enforcers for weeks, reporting their movements and strengths to our leaders. We hesitated to involve other villages in our plans for fear that some who sympathized with our enemies would learn of our plans and alert them. Eventually we all agreed that we of Andria village would have to fight our own battles, trusting our Heavenly Father to grant us victory.
“By this time the people of Andria village had around 60 firearms of all types that we had managed to hide from the Enforcer raids. We had managed to accumulate enough projectile ammunition to give us around 20 shots from each of our weapons. Our main offensive weapon was to be our plentiful fire oil. Our archers could shoot over the fortified walls of the Enforcer station, but we devised a plan to get much larger amounts of this potent weapon delivered upon the heads of those who had hated us for as long as any person could remember.
THE ANDRIA VILLAGERS CARRY OUT THEIR FIRST AGGRESSIVE STRIKE AGAINST THEIR ENFORCER PERSECUTORS
“By the middle of Fall Late of 2409, we were ready to strike at our enemies. We had decided to attack them about two hours before dawn when most of them would be asleep. They had long before stopped sending out routine nightly patrols in our area because so many of them were ambushed along the river trails. They usually kept to their paved roads used by their motorized trucks and armored sedans, which we found too difficult and too dangerous to easily ambush. Over many decades the Overmasters had built their paved roads which connected the river villages to the larger towns in the interior, on both sides of the Tomak river, so they could get around rapidly. Most of our larger villages, and some of the smaller ones, had Enforcer stations in them. Since Andria and the other local villages up and down the river were so small, the Enforcer station about one mile away from us served to police at least six villages, including Andria. We all knew that the people who lived deep in the forests seldom saw any Enforcers and had little sympathy for villagers, but most of us who lived in and around Andria were born there and we were not going to let the beasts from our government destroy us without as much resistance as we could mount, even if it killed all of us.
“Our people prepared the attack for several days, and on the cold and moonless night we had chosen, we struck a fierce blow against our enemies. At exactly sundown, the Enforcers closed and locked the big metal gates at the front of their installation. Surprisingly, those gates were the only entrance into and the only exit out of their fortified station, and if they were blocked our enemies would be trapped inside. This was our plan, for just before our attack our men moved three large trees in front of those gates. It took almost an hour to move them into position, because we had to do it quietly. Each corner of their walled station had a tall light tower, which made the interior as bright as day. The walls were about ten feet tall, with another three feet of barbed wire on their tops, designed to keep their enemies out. But this night they would help to keep our enemies inside.
“Our spies had informed the Lees that most nights the Enforcers did not bother with posting any guards on the raised walkways on the inside of their walls. The night of our attack was one of those times. Edrood had positioned 12 of his best marksmen up in the trees which easily overlooked the inside of the Enforcer’s fortification. They had only open sights on their rifles, but the militia experts had installed ‘silencing tubes’ on the ends of the rifles used by our men up in the trees. We knew where the six armored trucks were parked, and when the signal was given, our people shot many fire arrows up into the sky. Most fell just where we had planned, instantly igniting all of the trucks.
“Many other of our archers shot fire arrows into the darkness, which fell on the third of the main building that had a wood and pitch roof. Soon it was blazing. Three nearby storage buildings had wooden roofs also, and soon they were blazing. Of course, within a minute or two Enforcers started running out of their main building, which was mostly on fire by this time. A team of our villagers with very strong arms ignited the fuses on much larger fire oil bombs and threw them over the fence, thereby adding to the conflagration already beginning, plus igniting several of our enemies at the same time.
“One group of Enforcers tried to push open the metal gates but they were blocked by the big trees. As they bunched at the gate, trying to force it open, our men in the trees started to fire at them, killing and wounding at least 8 or 10. Meanwhile, the Enforcers ran up on the inside walkways with their rifles, and started shooting blindly into the darkness. Since our marksmen were using their silencing tubes on their rifles, our enemies could not tell where our shots were coming from. Another 10 to 15 Enforcers were picked off this way before they finally discovered we were in the trees around their station. They had rapid-fire rifles, and soon they were hitting some of us up in the trees. Our marksmen continued to shoot until all of their bullets were gone.
“By this time the entire interior of the Enforcer fortification was almost totally ablaze. Our marksmen in the trees signaled to Edrood that at least 30 Enforcers had retreated into a smaller building. It had a metal roof, so our fire arrows were useless. Meanwhile a few of the enemy began cutting away the barbed wire that they believed would protect them, but that was now imprisoning them in their burning fortification. Our many experienced archers poured deadly arrow fire onto them from just outside the perimeter of the walls, forcing the enemy to abandon those attempts to escape.
“We who were attacking our brutal enemies could hear them screaming inside their inferno, and to most of us it was pleasing to our ears. A group of our men pulled away the trees from the front of the metal gates and cautiously pulled them open. A group of our experienced shooters, about 30 of us, led by Pastor Lee’s militia men, charged through the gates, completely surprising the few Enforcers who were trying to defend them. They were cut down quickly by our men, who spread themselves out in the open areas inside the fortification, keeping away from the flames. At just this time the electric power generator must have been destroyed by the fire, for all the lights went out. Now we could see only by the fire of the burning buildings.
“Our men took some losses as the Enforcers tried desperately to rally themselves. But most of their leaders had either been killed or disabled, or had retreated with the others into the one building not on fire. Within ten minutes our shooters, plus another 50 or so archers behind them, had taken control of the inside of the Enforcer installation except for that one building where at least 30 of them had barricaded themselves. It was a strong cement block building with one large window in each wall, and it had a wooden door. Rachard Lee ordered his men to shoot away one of the windows, which were made of regular plexal glass. A few shots from our people totally shattered the window. Lee ordered the same for the other three windows. To my death day, which will probably be soon, I’ll never forget the vision of our Pastor, Rachard Lee, standing in the light of the burning Enforcer fortification, screaming toward our enemies in the building that now they would feel the wrath of God’s Divine punishment for the evil that they had perpetrated upon us over many years. Some of my few remaining brethren recently told me that they believed our Pastor should have forgiven his enemies, as our Lord commanded. But in the heat of battle, and the desire for revenge, I’ll admit, we considered these Enforcer beasts to be God’s enemies, and we had no feelings of forgiveness toward them, I must confess.
“After this was over, and for many weeks, what we had done troubled many of us in the JS community, and we began to feel guilty for having done what we had done to our enemies. A few of our members began to question our pastor’s wisdom in proclaiming the destruction of all the Enforcers, conveniently forgetting that they had all been in favor of our action before it happened. A troubled few JS followers began to ask Pastor Lee if killing our enemies was really what our Savior wanted us to do. I remember that meeting with him, not all that long ago, when he told us that God wanted us to forgive our personal enemies and turn the other cheek as much as was humanly possible. I recall his strange look as he told us that we were not to forgive God’s enemies, and that we had only been God’s instruments—his hands, so to say, in destroying His enemies who had been so intent on killing His children. That answer mostly satisfied me, but other members were not so certain if they had done the right thing in killing all of the men who had brutalized us. We never did totally resolve that concern. Our only consolation was that those who had been killed while brutalizing us would never do so again!
“Anyway, with all four of the windows of the Enforcer refuge shot out, Pastor Lee ordered our people to begin to throw their large fire oil bombs through the windows. I heard Edrood ask his father if he really though that was the best thing to do, instead of asking first for the surrender of the men inside. I saw Rachard Lee shake his head, and again order the fire oil bombs to be thrown into the last retreat of our Enforcer enemies. Several of these deadly bombs were ignited and thrown through each of the windows. Soon the building was an inferno. Within a few minutes the door of the building was opened and the 30 or so Enforcers inside tried to get out to escape the fire. Our men poured rifle fire onto them, and our archers shot many arrows into them. I estimate that no more than ten or twelve of our enemy got outside the burning building firing their rapid fire rifles as they ran out. They killed or wounded a few of our men who were directly in their fire line, but none of them managed to run more than a few feet outside their burning building before being shot down like the beasts they were.
“By the time that dawn arrived the Resistors of Andria village who had determined to stand up against the evil that was destroying us had been victorious. Our pagan villagers killed all of the wounded Enforcers that had survived the attack and the fires. We worked all morning to pile their bodies into a large group, then we ignited them all with many fire oil pots. We took our dead back to their families, and did our best to help our wounded. Andria village lost 36 good men in the attack on the Enforcer station, with 15 or 20 wounded, some of who died later. The entire village gathered around the remains of the station and watched as the pile of enemy dead burned away. At least they would never commit their evil against us again.
NEXT TIME: The Andria villagers realize that they are now on the short kill list of the government of the Council. Some Andrians flee into the interior to try to escape from the Enforcer’s vengeance. The villagers begin fortifying their village and devising and constructing traps to use when the inevitable Enforcer army attack came. They arrange to buy a large amount of ammunition from a nearby village, including ‘dynablast’. The Enforcers begin to construct a large heavily fortified fortress near Andria. The fatal year of A.D. 2410 sees a growth among the Jesus Sect. It also sees the final major attack by Satan’s minions against Andria village, but not before the Andria Resistors strike one last time.
