Do You Know What I Know: a Holiday Timeline

Oh. OH. 

I'm so sorry. Took me a moment but now I understand. 

My apologies for any offense caused. 

Hohman, Indiana

Shepherd Street was bustling, or so was bustling for this little town on the shores of Lake Michigan. This little town, a nondescript suburb of Chicago, was about its normal yuletide business.

On Shepherd Street was the Hohman City Hall. Outside flew the Stars and Stripes and the star-spangled blue and yellow flag of the state of Indiana. As was normal, there was the elaborately decorated Christmas tree, upon which was a golden star.

Ms. Emily Sadouski was the accountant in charge of the reception area of City Hall. Mayor Parker was busy with something or another, and she was tasked with keeping the people at bay. Or was, hypothetically. Nobody was here today.

Until there were. Lots of them. Dressed in black, with masks covering their faces.

They were all holding guns.

Sadouski became very worried, as was rational when a large amount of armed men enter your place of employment. She pressed a button. An alarm. Fortunately it was silent.

They pointed their guns at her. "Where is the Mayor?" blurted their ringleader at her.

She said nothing. "Where is the mayor?" asked their ringleader, again.

She was petrified.

"Shoot the broad!" one of their number cajoled.

"No," said the ringleader. "Bound and gag her. She'll be good as a hostage."

They therefore tied Sadouski to her chair. She screamed, but the man tying her up strapped a pillowcase around her mouth.

There was soon screaming and hollering from all over the building. Gunshots too.

The ringleader kicked open a door.

There he was. Mayor Ralph Parker. The most powerful man in Hohman, cowering in fear. He didn't have armed guards, because this was a nice suburb, without the undesirables that Chicago had. There was no need for armed guards, because the thugs were elsewhere.

"We used to know each other, Parker, but that doesn't matter. Hands up, head down. Men, ensure Mr. Parker is restrained." He turned to one of the others.

"And Dill, hang the red flag from the window."


"Mr. President! We have a situation!"

Kennedy's eyes were ripped from his papers and looked concernedly at Dean Rusk, Secretary of State, and Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense. They were followed by staffers.

"Go on!"

"We have reports of what appears to be a Communist takeover of several government facilities in the town of Hohman, Indiana."

"Communists? Here?"

McNamara's face, already grave, became even more subdued.

"We are also receiving reports of an explosion at a checkpoint between East and West Berlin."

  It does seem rather strange, albeit very limited, at the moment at least.  More concerned, given the date, with the incident in Berlin as that could be very dangerous. 

  Not sure how this relates to the rest of the story but sure we will find out shortly.

  Agreed, but it seems unlikely for the elven 'bad-guys' as well as they seem to want to hamper the communists.  Unless their planning on triggering a WWIII they are for some reason confident the west would win decisively?

Hohman city hall was thoroughly taken over by this militant group. Mayor Ralph Parker was bound up in rope and gagged like everyone else.

Their ringleader was whisked away to another room. "Sir!" said Dill, one of the lower ranked men. "You have a call from our help!"

They had been given a set of radios that would relay information between their helpers and themselves. Yes, by all means, this aspiring band of revolutionaries had some outside assistance. Where would they get so much heavy weaponry otherwise? They had military-grade machine guns poring out of the windows of city hall, as well as the two police stations and post office they had commandeered.

The ringleader went to the back room they were keeping the radios in.

"Mr. Farkus!" commanded the voice from the radio. "I hear your efforts have been successful! I want to warn you that the military is coming soon. Our scouts have seen military convoys being sent on the highways around Chicago, but hopefully you can last long enough for the rest of the plan to come to completion."

"That had better come soon," replied Farkus. "I am already getting tired of pretending to be a Communist."

"Your 'pure' America free of miscegenation and sodomy will come soon enough, Farkus," replied the somewhat raspy voice. "And if you need emergency help, you know where we are."

"Good, good!" blurted Farkus. "This nation deserves to burn for letting the Communists grow as big as they are, and on our own shores! Kennedy, King, Malcolm X, all of them are bringing this country to ruin! And I have to pretend to be one of them."

"Just be patient. The Berlin and Moscow teams have already been dispatched."

And with that, Gerald Giftbearer turned off his radio, in a little fortified sleigh in Lake County, Indiana.



Krasnoselsky District, Moscow

There were two of them. Policemen.

Policemen with nothing to do. They decidedly didn't do much of anything, for there was nothing to do. It was a boring day in Krasnoselsky, that neighborhood of railyards and not much else.

One wandered off to relieve himself in one of the depots. He was police; he could do what he wanted.

The one that stayed remained there, and continued to do nothing. He turned his face away from his compatriot, assuming nothing would continue to happen, and that nothing would continue to be necessary.

He turned around after some minutes, and found his compatriot lying on the ground, his head turned into red mush.

This policeman looked around, scared. He called for help.

And within a minute he had neither a brain to think with or a mouth to call with.

So we have a group of racist militants pretending to be communists and who knows whom doing god knows what in Berlin and Moscow. This sounds worrying. Especially since Giftbearer is obviously being very secretive about his actual plans and intentions. [Possibly its that I'm a Middle Earth fan but that name sounds especially ominous to me. ]

Lordroel - just because the elves may also suffer from an all out nuclear exchange doesn't mean some nutters don't think they will still 'win'. Plus if you remember what's under the santa hat on the OP.