Destroyers - Dave Mckay (classic literature list .TXT) 📗

of forest, and who ventured into the mouth of the cave, using only matches, soon turned around when they reached the bats. Amy and the children had come to appreciate the bats, who fed on mosquitoes, deterred visitors, and provided them with protein.

"The road was empty, so we jumped out and ran into the forest without anyone seeing," Rosy explained. "I hope we didn't scare you. The truck will be back tonight for more pamphlets. Then they'll be off to Uganda."

It was the sound of the truck stopping that had alerted Jo-Jo and Simon. Normally the older children would arrive and leave late at night, under cover of darkness, so that no one could witness their movements.

The family had been hiding in the forest ever since that day two and a half years earlier, when they had created a false trail that led Moses and others to believe they had gone to Nairobi. It was a simple enough task for Josephat to guide them back, in the middle of the night, to where they had previously spent time exploring "God's good earth".

Over those years, the four older children had often left Amy with the three youngest ones, so that they could assist Josephat and other members of the secret underground movement in northern Kenya and Uganda. Because of their youth, Amy's teens were able to wander freely through the streets of various villages, without arousing suspicion. They would surreptitiously visit members of the movement, often leaving pamphlets and posters to be further distributed by the ones they visited. Josephat was responsible for about 1,000 members of this movement, but there were more than 10,000 others in an area overseen by two leaders in Turkey.

Back in the interior cavern, Amy added a bit more avocado oil to the lantern. They squeezed the oil themselves, from the big green vegetables that grew wild and in abundance in that part of Kenya. Josephat had a secret beehive in the forest, from which they were able to get honey. They used the beeswax to make candles. On the floor of the jungle there were inconspicuous crops of everything from passionfruit and tapioca to guava, pumpkins and wild spinach. Even if someone stumbled onto some of these plants, they just marvelled that they had started growing "wild" in the lush conditions.

Monkeys were a constant threat to anything edible, but root vegetables and the very hard jack fruit always survived in sufficient quantities to keep the family fed, as well as feeding teams that passed through.

During their first year they had raised rabbits high up in the rocks, and used the skins to make blankets, rugs, and even clothes; but it was considered too risky to continue raising them, after a tourist almost discovered one of the hutches. Now they had to rely on more exotic sources of meat.

"Micah, do you feel up to checking the traps?" Amy asked when they had eaten their fill of a hastily prepared lunch, and after they had caught up with the highlights of the latest outing. "We have plenty of time to make stew before the others get here, but I need some meat."

"Can Gene come with me?" Micah asked, looking at Gene to see if he was in favour of it.

"Of course," Amy said, and Gene showed his enthusiasm by leaping up off a box of pamphlets to join Micah on the walk out through the tunnel.

The children all knew how to set string traps for wild birds and moles, which, along with the bats, added flavour to Amy's famous stews.

There was very little that these cave-dwellers needed money for. The last time any of them had gone shopping was when Lucy broke her arm quite badly falling from a tree five months previously. Josephat had taken the last of the stamps that Moses had donated years earlier, and had traded them in Kakamega for pain killers. He knew it was risky, but he could not stand to see her suffer.

Just after Micah and Gene left to check the traps, the other children decided to go outside and scatter themselves around the cave's entrance, where they talked quietly with each other about all that had been happening in Uganda and elsewhere. They always tried to keep someone posted at the entrance, to alert the others if they noted any movment in the forest.

Amy and Rosy stayed back in the chamber to talk.

"Meshach thinks he saw Moses on the road between Shinyalu and Kakamega this morning," Rosy said. "I had to keep down, but I wanted to look so bad."

"Do you miss him much?" Amy asked.

"Course," said Rosy. "He's my brother. But he made his choice, didn't he?"

"Mmm, he did, girl," Amy said sadly. "But it don't make the pain go, does it?"

Rosy just nodded her head, said nothing for a while, and then changed the subject. She had her brother's talent for not dwelling on the negative.

Very late that night, Josephat returned with an older member of the underground movement. The boys had moved boxes of posters down closer to the dirt track as soon as it was dark, so they could load them into the truck quickly before anyone spotted it parked on the road. Fortunately, almost no one ventured into the forest in the middle of the night, for fear of leopards.

Amy had a full hour with Josephat, catching up on news. When he left, he took Rosy and the twins, leaving Micah to help Amy till he returned in two weeks' time.

 

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Chapter 23 Abundance

Chapter 23. Abundance

From the moment that Dangchao returned to office, after the shooting, his approach to government seemed to change. People in Shinyalu did not take much notice at first. In Jerusalem there were wild parties for dignitaries and strange press conferences right from day one, but the changes which affected the masses of the world were more subtle.

Restrictions on factories, mining, exploration, logging, infact, on anything of environmental concern, just seemed to disappear overnight. It was like hundreds of emissaries had sneaked into the homes of powerful officials all over the world and had whispered thoughts into their heads as they slept... thoughts that would change their entire outlook the next day. They did not even need to wait for approval; they somehow knew that there would be no problem if they chose, from now on, to ignore the rules for the sake of increased production once again.

It would be years before the masses would become aware of what was happening, but in the meantime people were just just too busy rushing to participate in the business boom and too excited revelling in even greater wealth, to be bothered. Investors were making money faster than they could count it; shops were filled to overflowing, and, most importantly, everyone had enough money to buy far more than they needed. The extravagant parties in the former Templein Jerusalem epitomised the mood of the whole world. Millions... maybe even billions... who had never known much more than a meager existence, were now experiencing the kind of obscene wealth that had led to America's downfall.

It had an effect on the moral fibre of the world too. People wanted more and more indulgent ways to spend their money. Those who were not addicted to wealth as an end in itself would find themselves with more leisure time, to be filled with shopping, being entertained, travelling, eating, and engaging in every form of sexual pleasure that they could imagine.

Some industries, like the travel industry were struggling to keep up with the demand. It took time to build two, three, or four times as many planes, buses, and cars to carry everyone who wanted to use them; but for those who were prepared to pay the increased prices, labour and resources could still be found to create and produce, almost miraculously, all that they wished for. The gods of science and technology were working overtime to feed an insatiable appetite for more and more.

Moses was swept up in all of this too. As had always been his way, he looked ahead, far ahead of his peers. He sold his bike, mortgaged his house, and bought a beautiful new super deluxe Toyota Coaster bus with power steering and an automatic transmission. It had a bigger engine and smoother suspension than any of the other matatus in Shinyalu, plus air-conditioning, and a top quality music system to soothe his passengers on their journeys. People had so much money that he could charge twice what the other drivers were charging and still get passengers, because he gave them each plenty of room in luxurious seats.

The Kakamega road was being sealed too, making the ride even more pleasant for his pampered customers.

Moses had only been working six months when he felt confident enough to buy another Coaster and he hired Jiddy to drive it. Each day, one of them would do the Kakamega run and the other would do the Kisumu run. Each evening they would meet back at the house where Moses would count the takings while Jiddy headed into the village to spend as much of his wealth as he could before getting some sleep and starting another day.

Moses found his pleasure by making plans... plans for when he would have a fleet of buses to cover the entire area. It never bothered Jiddy that Moses made more than him. After all, he himself was getting many times more than he had ever received while pedalling a bicycle, and he hardly had to move a muscle to do it. It was a dream come true for this unambitious young man.

The village itself was transformed too. Where once there had been street stalls selling tiny piles of vegetables, plastic bowls, and second-hand clothing, now there were air-conditioned shops going up, with rows and rows of shelves full of things to choose from. Electricity had only become affordable during the first three years of Dangchao's reign, but now it was common place for homes to have refrigerators, colour TVs, automatic washing machines, and a host of other electrical appliances.

The markets had been extended to include two movie theaters, the busiest one showing nothing but adult movies around the clock. Atamba, the woman who had introduced Moses to sex, now had her own brothel, and the prices were no longer cheap. Dozens of local girls were finding their fortunes by working in it.

People's taste for alcohol had become more sophisticated by this time too. The locally and illegally brewed chang'aa was being replaced by imported wines and spirits. To help meet the demand, some maize fields were being turned into grape vineyards. On top of that, more of the Kakamega Forest was being cleared to make room for crops which would provide badly needed bio-fuels.

In the middle of this most exciting time in human history, there was news of a seditious movement out to destroy all that had been so carefully and wisely established. There were two fanatics who were using the internet to preach a message of fear and deception aimed at destroying the government. Official news reports said that they possessed paranormal powers. There was even talk of them being from another world. Their goal was to destroy modern civilisation by first convincing people that Dangchao was evil, and then by getting people to desert him and to drop out of the whole amazing economic utopia.

Alien or not, Moses became convinced that Josephat himself was one of those two men. There were no names and no photos to help people identify them or where they were speaking from, but millions visited their website to hear for themselves the wild ravings.

Moses had his own computer now, and so he occasionally browsed through the site, mostly hoping that it would give a clue as to Josephat's whereabouts. The man obviously had super-human abilities, because news reports said that the posters which had appeared on trees and sign posts all over Kakamega even before Amy moved out, had appeared all over the rest of the world as well.

While Josephat had once been allowed to openly preach and to circulate his crazy ideas, loyal followers of the new world order were now being urged to report anyone seen putting the posters up, or anyone suspected of having connections with the movement. The mood had