The Bean Times

We’re just two people writing a book about beans, what more is there to say?

Not too much actually.  We’ll be posting updates here, possibly memes.  New chapters come out on Fridays.

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Chapter 11

Schmidt adjusted the musket in Sauer’s hands as they stood together in silence. Not only was the man incredibly rude, but he also couldn’t wield a musket to save his life, which would probably lead to his death by the end of the day.

Though he tried to distract himself with Sauer’s pathetic gunmanship, Schmidt’s mind wandered through the events of the last few hours. The monsters had driven them into the walls of Dijon, immediately blocking the four gates outside; too quickly, Schmidt thought, for mindless monsters. Though most of the civilians had evacuated east, most likely to the city of Stuttgart, some remained trapped inside the walls with the Empire soldiers.

The town was eerily empty with only the two hundred soldiers and several dozen civilians gathered around the western gate. Despite the movement around him and the erratic gunfire ringing through the quiet city, Schmidt couldn’t help but feel a confusing sense of loneliness.

Rob and the angry woman, Gladisch, had left them once they got inside the town. Rob immediately began helping the soldiers fight the monsters at the gate, while Gladisch said she wanted to speak with Captain Bösch, who had headed deeper into the city to develop a strategy.

Schmidt had noticed how terrified Sauer was of the monsters in their struggle outside the city, and thought it would be best to attempt to arm Sauer before the monsters overran their defences. That, and he needed something to keep himself from thinking about the monsters and what would happen when they got inside the walls. 

They stood close enough to the western gate that they could hear the constant drone of the monsters pounding against the wood. With each hit, the monsters were able to make the gate shutter slightly, making a wet slapping sound against the wood which Schmidt would have found hilarious under different circumstances. 

The soldiers stood on the wall, firing cannons and muskets at the monsters, though their attacks did very little to harm the increasing horde. Dozens of monsters attacked each of the four town gates, with others wandering the perimeter of the wall and approaching from the forest in the west.

Though their outer layer seemed soft and malleable, they were able to withstand multiple shots from a musket. The only way they had found to kill them was with a direct hit from a cannon ball, which was unfortunate since most of their ammunition was sitting unused in the countryside a kilometer to the west, thanks to Captain Bösch’s plan.

Sauer broke the uncomfortable silence between them, firmly stating “We should be discussing the creatures, not trying to teach me how to shoot a gun.” He let the muzzle of the musket slowly angle towards the ground again.

“We should worry about getting out of here alive before we talk about those monsters,” Schmidt replied, again adjusting the musket in Sauer’s hands. At this point, the only reason he continued to help Sauer was out of annoyance at his inability to properly wield a gun. “Knowing about them won’t do you any good if you’re dead.”

Chapter 10

Krause was awoken by a frantic knocking at her door. As she opened her eyes, she could see Henry getting up from their bed and making his way towards the door. Annemarie was crying in her crib. As she rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, she heard a woman at the door. “Good morning Henry, is Jules there? I need to speak with her.”

“Loretta?” Henry replied. “What are you doing here so early?”

Loretta avoided his question. “I really need to talk with Jules. It’s important.” 

“Hey, Julia, are you awake?” Henry called into the cottage. “It’s Loretta, she wants to talk to you about something... important.”

Krause began to get up from her bed, noticing Loretta outlined by the early morning twilight just outside the door. The sky was a beautiful shade of dark purple, the rising sun providing the countryside with just enough light to see. She yawned, forcing herself to hide her anger. “I’ll be right there, just let me get my shoes on.”

Henry moved towards the crib, leaving Loretta standing in the doorway. “I’ll get this little devil back to sleep while you ladies talk.”

“I think it would be best if we went for a walk. We might be talking for a while,” Loretta said, remaining motionless in the doorway. Krause couldn’t see her face in the dark, but her voice was tense.

“What’s this about?” Henry asked, turning back to Loretta. “The sun hasn’t even risen yet.”

“It’s about… my husband.”

“If he’s still causing you trouble, I could go have a word with him. I’m sure I could help persuade him to treat you better, Loretta.”

“No, it’s alright. Thank you, Henry,” Loretta said as she and Krause exited the cottage. Krause closed the door behind her, glaring at Loretta as she led them into the countryside.

Chapter 9

Sauer stood in silence. Behind him, the sun rose steadily. To the south, the Ouche river rambled peacefully through the French countryside. Next to him, his colleagues Wagner and Gladisch stood, terrified of what was going on merely a hundred meters in front of them.

The soldiers were silent as the first shot was fired.

They remained silent for a moment, watching as the dead body of an Empire scout was reanimated by a black mass that ran into the shadow of a tree. They finally began to move again when more black creatures began to emerge from the forest, moving steadily towards them.

Sauer, Wagner, and Gladisch could not see what was going on, their view blocked by the army of soldiers and villagers in front of them. And the soldiers were terrified. 

Wagner whimpered, shaking so hard that his teeth clattered together. Gladisch frowned, looking towards the commotion as if the noise was only a mild inconvenience. Sauer had absolutely no idea what was happening, and stood confused as the commotion transpired around him.

The soldiers began to shout over each other as they readied their muskets. The weaponless French villagers began to retreat towards the safety of Dijon’s walls, causing some Empire soldiers to follow. A few soldiers stood motionless in fear as they watched the monsters advance.

Chapter 8

Schmidt heard the hushed voices of his fellow soldiers, the dull thump of supplies being loaded onto carts, the hurried footsteps of men moving quickly around the camp, and muttered one word to himself. “Finally.”

He kept his eyes closed as he lay under his blanket, waiting for someone to shake him awake and tell him that it’s time for battle, to be prepared to lay down his life. He waited, but no one came. He slowly moved his head out from under his blanket, the cool early morning air refreshing, but the warmth of his cot much more relaxing.

For a moment, he considered rolling over and falling back asleep. If no one was going to wake him for the battle, was it even worth getting out of bed?

Schmidt sighed and slowly rolled out of his cot. As he stood up, he noticed that most of the other dozen or so cots that lined the walls of the sleeping tent were empty. Rob’s cot was vacant, his blanket on the earthen ground which had been packed down after a year of use. Only two other cots had people in them, peacefully sleeping away what would most likely be their last day alive. He let them sleep, exiting the tent.

Outside was much more chaotic than Schmidt had anticipated. The entire area was lit by the flickering light of torches, both carried by soldiers and set in improvised sconces around the encampment. Other soldiers carried crates of supplies to and from the many sets of waiting horse drawn carts, with carts that were already filled heading west through Dijon. Schmidt assumed whatever was causing the commotion was in the western countryside of Dijon, the same direction where, as far as Schmidt knew, no one had come from in his entire time patrolling the town.

That was also the direction the Empire didn’t want anyone to go.

Chapter 7

Sauer awoke to the ringing of a bell.

He was sitting up before he opened his eyes. The sounds of hurried footsteps and worried voices echoed through the stone streets outside. As he opened his eyes, he realized that he was alone in the doctors’ sleeping quarters. That in and of itself was not unusual. What was unusual was that there was no hint of the sun outside.

The village of Dijon was filled with torchlight and the amount of movement that would typically be reserved for hours much later after sunrise. As Sauer got out of his bed, he noticed that the other three beds in the room were all unmade. That was what concerned him the most.

The dull ringing of the bell remained. There is only one bell that Sauer knew of, and that was the bell directly above him in the bell tower of St. Gotthard’s Chapel.

That bell was only supposed to be rung in the event of a dire emergency.

Chapter 6

Krause didn’t know why the people of Horb avoided the Church of the Beanmeister. She didn’t know why they only whispered of it, and why those whispers talked of psychotic members and religious zealots. She did know two things, however: the Church wasn’t as bad as everyone said, and no one could find out that she was a member.

Henry was very outspoken against the Church. When they were alone together he would call the congregation insane, saying that the Church was nothing more than a cult making a mockery of Christian values. He believed that the Church was merely using the public’s fear of the disease spreading in France to gather followers, but Krause knew that wasn’t true. The disease really was sent by God, and He really was going to punish unbelievers.

When the unbelievers talked about the Church, they never mentioned the Beanmeister. Krause was sure that if more people knew about Him and the values He preached, they would be more open to joining. Something that still bothered Krause about the Church almost a year after joining was the name Beanmeister. It was a unique name, to say the least. She assumed the name came from the small growths that formed on the infected, said to look similar to some species of beans, though she had no evidence to back up her theory. Either way, she was happy with the Church and still loved the Beanmeister.

Krause had left her home earlier that morning, leaving Annemarie with Henry and telling him that she was going to the market to buy produce. She changed her excuses often, making sure that Henry had no idea what she was actually doing. He could never find out.

She arrived at the edge of town and waited impatiently for Loretta to show at their predetermined meeting place. She played nervously with the necklace Henry had given her. Even though she had done this many times before, she was still scared of her secret being found out. All it took was one wrong move for her life to be ruined.

Chapter 5

Dear Sofia,

If I’m right, this might be the last you’ll hear from me for a while, maybe ever. Something has changed, I can feel it in my gut, and I’m beginning to worry that we may finally be in danger. It’s been an entire year and the Empire hasn’t told us anything about this “disease” we’re supposed to be monitoring, so now I’m more than a little excited to see what’s going to happen next. 

I’m not sure what else to say about it. I’ve left everything I own to you, so don’t worry about what you’ll do without me. I hope Rohrdorf is still as beautiful as I remember, and I hope you’re doing well.

We’ll meet again. Even if it’s in death.

Barry.

Schmidt had the day off duty, so he decided to spend some time wandering Dijon. It had been over a year since Bösch’s company was assigned to guard the village, and in that time Schmidt had seen everything the area had to offer. Exploring the few interesting places in the village and surrounding countryside had long lost its appeal; he could only see the same rolling hills and taverns so many times before it all began to melt together. Dijon was starting to feel like home, and he didn’t like it.

When he was first assigned, he was expecting to be put into a battle of the ages where he could finally die a hero and leave everything to Sofia. People would tell stories of Barnabas Schmidt, the handsome, legendary soldier who sacrificed his life so that his brothers in arms could turn the tides of battle and win the day. Unfortunately, enforcing martial law on a small village in the middle of the godforsaken countryside didn’t offer many epic battles to die heroically in, except the occasional tavern brawl.

Eventually, Schmidt became nothing more than one of the soldiers that monitored the villagers. He helped with some menial tasks around the village, but on his days off there was nothing to do. It was a beautiful day, so he decided to wander the streets of Dijon and think about what he should do before he died.

Chapter 4

Sauer walked through St. Gotthard’s Chapel in the small French city of Dijon, wondering where, exactly, he had lost control of his life. He had spent nearly a year in Dijon doing absolutely nothing, and it was driving him insane. When he had reluctantly agreed to go study the disease that was crippling the Kingdom of France last September, he did not expect to spend his days doing menial tasks around a sleepy village of only a few hundred.

He was never one to change his mind after he set it, but when Hoffmann wanted something, his persistence was much more than Sauer could handle. He went as far as to beg Sauer during their drinking nights to head to Dijon because “These morons won’t get off my back, please Sauer, I’ll do anything.” So, Sauer made Hoffmann agree to buy his drinks when he got back to Nuremberg. For the rest of his life.

Hoffmann, unable to find anyone else around Nuremberg that was willing to give up their time to work cheaply for the empire and desperate for the Empire to leave him alone, foolishly agreed to Sauer’s conditions.

But unfortunately for Sauer, today was not one of the days of the rest of his life, and he would have to wait before he massacred Hoffmann’s wallet. The Empire officials bringing him to Dijon had told him to expect to spend no less than two years of his life on this project. Two years of work for unlimited drinks had sounded like a good idea when he agreed.

Chapter 3

Julia Krause and her two-year-old daughter Annemarie were making their way towards the shopping district of Horb in the Holy Roman Empire. Horb wasn’t the richest area of the world, but the quaint vendors sold some of the freshest produce in the western Empire, and Krause loved them for it.

Krause’s curly brown hair fluttered softly in the breeze as she held Annemarie to her chest. Her eyes sparkled with joy as she looked at Annemarie, her adorable blue eyes looking around the town excitedly.

Her husband Henry was out working the fields, and would be for the rest of the day. She didn’t feel comfortable leaving Annemarie alone at their cottage, so they went to the market together. If something were to happen to her daughter, Krause wouldn’t know what to do with herself.

As Krause walked down the street, she noticed a man wearing the church’s clothes, with a look in his eyes that made her uncomfortable. He was loudly preaching about gaining salvation by joining the church, and she walked hurriedly past him while his attention was on someone else. Once she was a safe distance away, she breathed a sigh of relief, glad she didn’t have to interact with the strange man.

She continued walking down the main street towards the produce vendors when she heard someone in front of her call her name. “Julia!” She looked up to see her friend, Loretta Gartner, half jogging towards Krause with her arms full of bags of produce. She grinned as Loretta approached. “Jules, hello!”

Chapter 2

Barnabas Schmidt said with full confidence, “I know exactly what’s going on in Paris.”

“You keep saying that,” Robert Fiedler replied, “but I’m starting to believe that you don’t actually know anything.”

Schmidt and Rob were marching west towards the small French farming village of Dijon with the rest of the soldiers in Captain Humbert Bösch’s company, the soldiers’ chainmail breastplates and red cloaks the only blemish on the rolling hills of the French countryside. Bösch’s company was instructed to assist the French civilians in need after the partial collapse of the Kingdom of France following the plague outbreak in Paris a few months before.

Schmidt continued, “I’ve known what was going on since I first heard the news. I kept saying the disease would spread, but did anyone believe me? No, of course not. Did the disease spread? Yes, of course it did. Did I say the Empire should have prepared better? And did anyone listen to me? Yes, I did, and no, no one did. Not even you, Rob.”

“Barry, you know I listen to you!”

“Don’t call me Barry.”

“I always listen to you, even when you go on your weird rants, kinda like what you’re doing now.”

“You think this is a rant? I can show you a rant.”

“Please God no.”

“It’s too late Rob.”

Chapter 1

Thomas Sauer was tired of the rumors. He had spent his whole day inside again, working with his patients while they talked about the rumors from Paris. Rumors of monsters roaming the streets at night or the dead returning to life around the city, new rumors sprung up nearly every day since the news about the outbreak of the disease reached Nuremberg last month. Of course, with Sauer being a doctor, he could easily see that it was just a resurgence of the plague.

Though the worst of it had happened long before he was born, there had still been numerous reports throughout the years of some towns and villages in the Holy Roman Empire experiencing small outbreaks. The solution was simple; continue to avoid Paris and the affected areas until it eventually goes away like it always has. Of course, those infected would die and times would be tough in the Kingdom of France for a short while, but that was the cost to avoid a more serious outbreak.

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