Apple-Dumpling Surprise (Cumberland Saga)

Much to Lliam’s surprise, he missed his family by the middle of the middle of the fourth day. He missed his mom, his girl Peggy...even his pesky sister Mary and his new dad, Blain.

Eddie was a fine guy but they weren’t spending that much time together. One of them watched the drive while the other was off being a kid.

It was Lliam’s turn to cook supper and the meal was biscuits, bullheads and mixed milkweed and turnip greens. Milkweed was one of the few wild greens available this time of year that didn’t need any taming down.

Lliam had poached the turnip greens from the food-plot. He came at it from the backside, away from the house and used the rolling of the land to stay out of sight. The 10 acres closest to the house had been tilled and by the look of it, had just been planted before everything went pear-shaped. Another third was pasture and Lliam was glad to see that whoever had invaded the property had turned the animals out onto it, probably to shut them up. Miss Shannon would lose some of her chickens but some of them would survive. The other animals would be fine as long as they didn’t run out of water.

The data-dump of the fourth day came with a surprise. Blain had ridden his bike and he brought supplies. There are few things that can raise the spirits of a neophyte mountain-man higher than a pan of his mom’s chocolate and peanut butter swirl brownies. It wasn’t just the calories. It was the proof that she hadn’t forgotten him.

Blain also handed Lliam some used, disposable grocery bags from Walmart. “We need to have you do some advance scouting for us” Blain said.

“See if you can find some trees leaning over the driveway. They need to be seven or eight inches at the base. The plan is to drop them across the driveway to prevent visitors from showing up after we are secure the property” Blain said. "Put a rock in the bag and put it at the base of the trees. Ain't nobody gonna look twice at a Walmart bag blowin' in the wind."

Lliam had just the trees in mind. They must have been browsed by a deer or a cow as small saplings. They had responded by throwing up three or four trunks after the growing point was nipped and they were just the size Blain was looking for.

“When is this going to happen?” Lliam wanted to know.

“I can’t tell you because I don’t know” Blain said with a sigh. “Samson and Rosa are kind of playing it by ear. That, and if nobody is sure then nobody can spill the beans.”

“It could be tonight or it could be ten days from now. We just keep putting one foot in front of the other” Blain said.

Just before he left, he handed Lliam a letter his mother had written and a Bible that Sig wanted him to have. “Your Uncle Sig thinks you might have some time on your hands and that it might pass easier if you had something to read. Sig said he marked passages that he was most fond of.” And with that, Blain pushed off and started pedaling away.

Looking at the Bible, Lliam noticed that only one of the passages had been marked with a ribbon while the others were marked with scraps of paper.

He opened it up to the ribbon. It opened to Deut 13 and verses were highlighted starting with verse 7.

***

The infiltration went off with minimal issues.

The team was dropped off beneath the power-line right-of-way two hours after dark. Lliam and Eddie’s reports were that the truck was unlikely to be returning for another two hours, and more likely four.

They humped their way in for a mile, the gear making more noise than anticipated in the darkness.

Three hundred yards from the house, it was clear even though the curtains were closed that there was a TV running in the parlor.

One hundred-and-fifty yards from the house, Samson was able to connect with the house WIFI and put the security systems into “loop” mode where they replayed the last thirty minutes of images.

Before the team swung wide of the house, around to the backside of the house, Samson planted Steve and Larry on the northeast corner. Even though they knew their assignments, Samson repeated them. Samson also reiterated the “Blue coming Through” sign which was a handheld light pointed downward and painting circles on the ground. If somebody came charging out of the house or around the corner without doing that, it was either a goblin or some really bad shit was coming down.

The back door into the kitchen had not been repaired but the screen door was closed, which did little to hold out the night chill.

Based on the dialog from the TV, whoever was in the house was watching vintage, Spring Break porn. A short blast of chain-lube on the hinges of the screen door...and then it was swung outward without a telltale squeak. Even without the lube, it is unlikely that the squeak of a rusty hinge would have seemed out of place with the shrieking and squealing of the over-the-top sound-track of the movie.

The team, less Steve and Larry stacked just inside the door.

Rosa held her AR at low-ready as she slid her feet sideways and eased toward the archway that joined the kitchen and the parlor. Gregor was right behind her, holding his shotgun. She led. Gregor supported. Once Rosa and Gregor were in position and on the verge of entering the parlor, they stopped and signaled the next two teams of two who repeated Rosa and Gregor's movement staged in the middle of the kitchen.

 

One team stayed in reserve and kept eyes on the door between the garage and the kitchen.

Rosa rolled through the archway and illuminated the couple sitting on the aptly named love-seat with her intensely bright weapon-light. Both of them were as naked as jay-birds although they had a quilt pulled up over their laps in deference to the cool evening. “Put your hands where I can see them!” she barked in her command voice as she trained her weapon on the person closest to the arch.

Gregor slid in right behind her and kept his shotgun at low-ready but pointed at the second person, a frowsy, obese, younger woman with saggy breasts and apple-dumpling cheeks. He could hear the pounding feet as the other two teams ran down the hallway and started kicking in bedroom doors. He knew that one of the reserve team had moved to the head of the hallway to provide over-view in case somebody popped out of one of the rooms on the left side of the hall.

“Well, if it ain’t Dippity Dawg” the man drawled, not bothering to remove his hands from his “date’s” breast. “Unless you gotta warrant, yer gonna just have to leave.”

“Well I do declare” Rosa mocked him “If it ain’t little Billy Glossup. Whaddya doing here, Billy?” 

 

"My Memaw Maisy give me this house when she done moved to Florida" not-so-little Billy Glossup responded. "We coulda made this a threesome iffen you had called ahead but you-all ain't invited and you are just gonna have to leave."

Gregor had been watching the woman like a hawk. She had not complied with Rosa’s command to bring her hands into sight. Her left hand had clearly been stroking Billy’s manhood beneath the quilt but the other was not visible.

The woman was squinting and trying to look at Rosa. Due to the intensity of the weapons light she was totally blinded.

Gregor saw the elbow of her right arm start to straighten and her shoulder drop. She was plunging her hand between the edge of the cushion and the arm of the love-seat.

That is when Gregor shot her in squarely in her apple-dumpling face...