General Fiction posted March 12, 2025 Chapters:  ...15 16 -17- 18... 


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I woke up this mornin' feelin' fine...
A chapter in the book No - Say It Ain't So!

NO! Say It Ain't So! Ch 23

by Wayne Fowler


In the last chapter Phil escaped capture by parties unknown by sneaking into the attic. In the darkness of the next night, Phil secured the cell phone that Tom had hidden in the garage. Phil and Tom caught up with events. They agreed that the safe house would be his best hideout.
Tom told Hakeem of the attempted abduction, but that Phil was back in the safe house. Hakeem had learned that Allied Security couldn’t be trusted and promised a new situation, one that could contain Phil while he was Trump. Tom continued to ease Trump’s mental state.
 
Chapter Twenty-three
Phil
(safe house)
 
    It was dusk. Some might call it twilight. I thought I heard a hound, but wasn’t real sure. The lights were off, so I chanced a look out the front window – nothing. Then the area toward the road lit up with gunfire, the muzzle flashes, and the unmistakable crack of rifle fire. I don’t know how I maintained my composure, but I patted my trousers pocket to ensure where the lock pick kit was. In less than a minute, I had the back door open. A minute after that, I was on the roof. I heard men’s voices. They were too animated to make out words. I didn’t use the rope to get off the roof to the outside of the cinder block wall. I used a leap and the good old combat roll that every red-blooded American kid, at least in my neighborhood, learned by the time he was ten or eleven years old.

    I dashed around back and headed for the largest tree I could make out – nothing. Hopping to the next tree, I found the compass and flashlight that Tom staged for me. With my back to the house, I took off as fast as my bare feet could take me, wishing with every step I had my shoes on, but knowing that I had made the right decision. I could easily be a bullet-riddled corpse donning a nice pair of Wolverines.

    Not until I was sure that I would be out of range of the brightest flashlight, did I stop to check the compass and scope out the immediate area with my light.

    I determined north and made my best speed, using the light and checking the compass every hundred steps. My feet were just beginning to kill me. Until then, I was running pretty much on adrenaline. Since there was nothing I could do about my feet, more than likely cut, scraped, and bloody, I kept going. I was really wishing, though. That I had grabbed my shirt. That wouldn’t have taken two seconds. Instead, I was sweating, in the freezing Maryland wind. Maybe not below 32 degrees, but I was shivering. If I’d let them, my teeth would be chattering. I only then remembered to call Tom.

    Only Tom didn’t answer. That meant he was with the President. I thought it might be too early for him to be reading him to sleep, but what did I know? I left no message. After all, what if the phone was taken from him for whatever reason and my message was picked up by someone else? Tom would see that I’d called and return the call when he could.

I was beginning to feel like Trisha in Stephen King’s The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. Every sound was the bear on her tail as she fled through the woods.

    Eventually, I made it to a dirt road. But there was no way to know on which side of Tom’s pick-up point I was. He said he’d put a water jug at the base of a tree. The biggest trouble was the first several minutes that I ran without checking the compass. I could have veered either way – north or south.

    My feet were really throbbing and stinging at that point. Since I didn’t need the water, I decided that we could connect with our telephones and flashlight. I decided to break some boughs off some of the pine trees and make some sort of shelter. Between protection from the wind and jumping jacks… no, make that sit-ups because of my feet, I could stay warm enough.

    When my phone finally rang, my fingers barely worked well enough to press the green button. By the time I did, the call ended. Then it rang again and despite my chattering teeth, Tom understood my plight. He knew to call again when he reached the dirt road. The problem was when he cautioned me not to fall asleep… in case Trump switched back.

    Staying both awake and not killing my feet, or freezing to death, I did what I should have thought of earlier, I used my skivvies to clean and doctor my feet, as best I could. Of course, that meant stripping and then putting my pants back on. But the effort occupied me. And the working of my feet both warmed them, and each spark of pain awakened me. My mind was wreaking havoc. I imagined Tom’s car, him driving, but with a gun in his ribs. I imagined a Sonny Corleone scene where he was Tommy-gunned to shreds.

    Finally, Tom called me. I was beginning to think I was on the wrong road… or Tom was lost himself. I was to wait until I saw headlights and flash my light in circles. If the headlights didn’t go off and on twice, I was to douse my light and get into the woods. I know, regular cloak-and-dagger stuff. I should write a book.

    We connected and before Tom drove away with me, he got out and took off his coat, giving it to me. That, already warmed by his body and the car’s heater helped. I told him the story.

    At first, he missed his Y, but we were on track after backing up to find it. Tom chose a motel that promised both comfort and privacy. He checked in as himself while I stayed out of sight in the car.

    “Okay, Phil. I paid for two nights. I’ll go get you some clothes and supplies – something for your feet. Then I’ll go in to work tomorrow. There’s just no way Schlape can find you here… right?” Tom said.

    “I don’t know how. Unless his men check every logical motel for any single, white male who checked in after dark.”

Tom’s shoulders involuntarily slumped.

    “We have to risk it,” I said.

    “Okay. I’ll go back to that convenience store we passed and get you some coffee. You can reheat it in the microwave. And if you put the TV on something really stupid…”

    “That won’t be hard.”

    “It’s… geez. It’s 12:40. If you can stay awake until I get here… I’ll try to make it by seven?” I gave it the teenage upward lilt.

    “I can do it. Tom, I’ll never be able to repay you for what you’re doing.”

    “Brother, what you’re doing yourself is more than payment.”

    “Go on then, and try to get a few hours of sleep.”

    “Or I could stay and keep you awake? We just can’t have Trump waking up as you right here.”

    “Nah. You have a job to go to tomorrow – an important job.”

    Tom nodded and left me. I’m sure he was hoping that I was still me, Phil, and not Trump when he returned. I seriously debated calling Hakeem. But then, the man was the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States of America, second in line to be the President. And he was currently in the fight of a politician’s life dealing with lunatic changes to the Constitutional Republic. No, I would not call him in the middle of the night over something that needed no immediate attention. Morning would be soon enough.
 
+++

Tom
 
    “No sir, Mr. Speaker. That’s right. We don’t know that anyone stormed the house. We don’t know if the guard was hurt, or if he was in on it. All I know is that the other night two men made it into the house. Last night there was gunfire in front of the house, and I have Phil, who as of last night was still himself, hidden out. But the place is only temporary. I have to move him soon.”

    Hakeem replied with a concern of Trump being himself, signing Executive Order after Executive Order, dismantling a functioning government.

    “Yes, sir, that means that the other is himself, and we need to get our guy in a condition receptive to another switch.”

    “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. I understand. A Mr. Dundee. A man named Dundee will call me on this phone. Thank you, sir… Hakeem.”
 
+++
 
    “Mr. Dundee, you said?” I could barely make out his voice with the traffic noise around me. Additionally, it sounded like he had his hand over the microphone of his cell. “Yes sir, I’m Tom McQuin.”

    “Look, my guy was out there. It was deer hunters. Came through the forest at 6:02. It’s in the guard’s log. I can send you a photo of the entry. 6:02 – dog. deer. hunters. 4 shots fired. 2 hunters. The next entry was an hour later when the hunters returned to load the carcass.”

    I thanked him and told him that the occupant of the house would be pleased to hear the report, that he would be inside resting more peacefully that night.

    “You mean…?”

    “Yes sir. Tonight the occupant will be comfortably ensconced.” I didn’t know what he thought of my language, but I guess I was really into the spy stuff.

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photo from FanArtReview: FamousHouse!20 by nikman

Phil Jansen: woke up one day as Donald Trump
Donald Trump: woke up one day as Phil
Tom McQuin: White House butler
Betty Goodman: White House Chief of Staff
Dr. Schweitz: White House doctor
Hakeem Jeffries: as himself, House minority leader
Kirsten: Trump press secretary
Pate': 3rd daughter of the President
Robert Schlape: fixit man for Trump (using his real name, even here in FanStory, could be fatal)
Jeffrey McKnight: Mar-a-Lago member who owns a yacht
Sarah Huckabee Sanders: Governor of Arkansas
Tom Cotton: Senator from Arkansas
Pays one point and 2 member cents.

Artwork by nikman at FanArtReview.com

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