Sanctuary from Harm - 1. Sanc Chapter 1

Life was going great, well I thought it was until one late Autumn afternoon, I received a phone call from my ex-wife, who informed me that our only child, 12-year Jonah Hunter Langston, had run away from home, after being forced to admit that he was gay, to his mother and step-father, and she admitted that our son had been receiving a number of slaps on the face and a lot of verbal abuse by his step-father.

I had been separated from Karen for over three years now, and the divorce was finalised just over 12 months ago, I was pleased that I did not have to put up with her constant tantrums, verbal and physical abuse anymore, but I worried about our son, especially now that Karen has a long-term boyfriend – Todd, who is no better than her, and they both drink heavily, as I can often smell it on their breaths, when I go over every second Friday, to collect Jonah, for a weekend, once he is home from school.

I wish I could have gained custody of Jonah, but my work commitments, including a lot of regional travelling, makes it impossible to do that, so instead, I make my secretary ensure that every second Friday and the whole weekend is kept free, for me to spend with Jonah. It took me a good twenty minutes of arguing over the telephone to get most of the information out of Karen on what had happened, what shocked me the most was that this has happened over a week ago, and she was only just now starting to worry, after presuming that Jonah had gone to stay with friends for a while.

Dropping everything at work, I jumped into my car and headed to the police station, to report my son missing, when I explained everything to them, they too became very worried, and sent a police car to Karen’s place to get a statement from her, on what exactly had happened 8 days ago. Once I left the police station, I sat in my car and called all of Jonah’s school friends to see if they had seen him, which they hadn’t, then I called the school, and they informed me that Jonah’s mother had called them to say that he was very ill.

By the time that I arrived at my apartment, I was just about ready to throttle my ex-wife, for putting Jonah into this situation, and for leaving it so long to tell anyone that he was missing. I was thinking what else I can do to try and find my son, but I was just too worried and feeling sick, suddenly I made a dash to the bathroom, reaching the toilet bowl just in time before I threw up all of my breakfast and lunch.

Now aged 32, I had two university degrees and a diploma, I rented a furnished apartment, plus I own an old warehouse buildings, a house located behind it and an old office building, as an investment, and I have a great job, as the Assistant Director of Family Care Services, for a non-government community organisation. With a Medical Science degree and Psychology degree, plus the diploma in Education.

I was in charge of managing everything from Family & Relationship Counselling, Youth Counselling, Assisting New Mums, with coping with newborns, Mental Health Counselling, and Emergency Accommodation for abused and homeless people.

The work is varied, and quite a challenge, and I have a large team of professionals and volunteers that help with the big challenges we have each day, but I was not expecting, was for me to be in a situation, that I needed help, not that I would admit to it or accept the offer of help, I felt this was a personal and private family issues that needed to be kept separate from work.

I have been working for this company for nearly 9 years, having completed my second degree and diploma part-time while working full time for the company. For someone with so many qualifications, training and experience, I had no idea what to do next. It is a Friday afternoon, so I had the whole weekend to try and figure out what to do, and put together a plan of action, to find my son. I needed a quiet place to think this through, and the only place I could think of was my little hidden sanctuary.

Well, it wasn’t exactly little, it was the warehouse investment buildings, which had been working on, during the weekends I am alone, it helps me keep busy, and clear my head of everything that has happened in the past week at work. The first building that I began working on, is one of two very solidly built warehouses, constructed in the early 1950s after the Second World War. The walls were made of stone, two layers thick, with each stone being at least 1 metre in width. One is an empty shell, with a mezzanine level, while the other has three levels.

There are no windows, and only two entrances on the ground level, the front door, which has steel shutters, and the wide steels doors at the back, which lead into a large mezzanine storage area and receiving dock.

The other building, I had been working on, is the house that is directly behind it. Also built in the 1950’s, it too was made of solid stone, and it was a three-bedroom, two-bathroom house, with a large central lounge room at the front, kitchen laundry and bathroom at the back and a master bedroom and one bathroom on one side and the other two bedrooms and bathroom on the other side.

All I had done with the house so far was to clear out all of the ruined furniture, removed all of the internal doors, repaired all of the broken windows, replaced the tiled roof with a corrugated iron roof, and replaced any of the ceilings that were sagging due to rain damage.

My main project is the warehouse, which is three levels high, and looking at the steel beams that support the floor of the next level, it is divided into 5 reasonable sized sections. Apart from the collapse of the centre section of the main roof, which has resulted in weather damage to the centre section of the flooring for all three levels, the warehouse was in fairly good condition.

For the past few years, and with the assistance of three close friends, who I met in my first year at university, we had cleared away all of the rubble, rubbish and scrubbed away all of the graffiti on the walls, until it was just one big open area, there are no windows on the ground floor, and only a few on the two-upper levels, so most of sunlight comes from the large skylights in the roof, of which some had to be fixed or replaced, and the big open area in the centre, where the roof had collapsed, which I decided to replace with thick clear Perspex sheeting to allow a lot more sunlight in.

With all the clearing work done, my university friends, Scott Harris was a plumber, who went to university after work, and now has a degree in Social Counselling, Charles Grantley, was an electrician, and decided that he needed to have a change of career, and now has a degree in Civil Engineering, while Nathan Porter, is a qualified Executive Chef, and did a degree in Psychology.

Together we have been spending the past five years, spending all of our spare time on this project, and already we had a magnificent complex, with the centre section on all three levels open, with balcony barriers, to allow each level plenty of sunlight, and on the ground floor, we have turned this area in to a garden atrium, with huge plant pots, and well-established trees and shrubs in them.

The warehouse has two large spiral staircases, that provides access to all levels, with a walkway built on the 1^st and 2^nd levels to allow access to both ends of the warehouse, which are divided by the open atrium. On the ground floor, my mates and I had made the north end section into two tennis courts, and on the opposite end are two basketball courts. One either side of the middle atrium, we built two open living areas, on the north side, a commercial kitchen, sports changerooms, storerooms and a central dining room, that overlooks the atrium, with the loading bay entry behind it.

On the opposite side, we established, a central lounge area, also looking out to the atrium, plus a small staff lounge with bathroom, and three office spaces, plus two small storerooms. At the moment, not much has been done to the 1^st floor, apart from building 2 large bedrooms with a shared bathroom on each side of the atrium, with the area above the loading bay, to be made into a recreation hall, the rest of the space is just big and open.

On the 2^nd floor, we have built two large workshops at the north end of the warehouse, and two storerooms on the south side, were there are also six staff bedrooms, with individual bathrooms, that are fully furnished, and we use them to stay in when working on weekends, along with a large lounge, with a kitchen. Above the recreation hall, there will be a large meeting room and a couple of small storerooms.

On the north side, we have built what will be three large chicken coops, and the area outside will be for the chicken’s run-around area. The two areas on either side of the upper atrium have been turned into a huge garden, with raised garden beds and fruit tree boxes. On the Southside, we have 2 different varieties of 6 large fruit trees, with two apples, two oranges, 2 mandarins, 2 peaches, 2 apricots and 2 plums, plus we have 2 varieties of medium-sized fruit trees, with bananas, mulberries and fig trees plus grapevines.

On the north side, is all the raised garden beds, to grow all of the herbs, vegetables and fruits that don’t grow on trees, and both the gardens and orchard are now well established, and producing an abundance of produce for us all.

Now with this family crisis happening, I wanted a quiet place on my own, so after switching off my mobile, I made my way to the warehouse that I owned, having waited till after dark, before entering, so I would not be noticed.

With just a torch, to show me the way, I made my way to the second floor, where I already had some clothes, personal gear, and some basic foods in the fridge and freezer in the kitchen area of the staff lounge.

After heating up a microwave dinner, I sat in the lounge and watched the news on the television, before having a quick shower and retiring to bed early. I woke up the next morning when I heard some noises, and I remained silent as I checked to see if it was noises of an intruder, and on hearing the voices of my three friends talking made me sigh in relief.

“Hunter, are you in here, man?” I heard one of them call out to me, “Yes, guys, I am just getting up, I will be there in a moment” I shouted back, as I jumped out of bed and made my way to the bathroom. After a quick shower to wake up fully, as I had been tossing and turning with worry most of the night, I made my way out to the lounge room, where my three friends were seated.

“Are you ok? You look like shit man?” Nathan said to me with a big grin, “thanks mate, I really needed that right now” I replied sadly as I sat down. “We are sorry about your boy going missing, it is all over the news, that is why we came looking for you, for moral support,” Scott said to me, and I nodded my head in response.

After some talking and a lot of crying on my part, the guys convinced me that we should do some work in the warehouse. It was a very sunny day today, which I only just now noticed, with the sun shining right through the central atrium.

“So, what do you have planned for us this weekend chief?” Scott asked me, “We need to get the solar panels on the warehouse roof, with solar power storage batteries in the storeroom, to provide off the grid power since we are not connected to the mains power, and using an inverter generator. I was also thinking of having goats to provide fresh milk,” I replied.

“So, you are planning to move here permanently then?” Charles asked me. “Yes, I am going to ask my bosses to work only part-time, so I can spend more time looking for my son and to cut down costs, I will live here,” I answered.

“Well that is interesting, you have my full support in looking for your son, now that we have already done a lot with this place, I can use my free time to help with the search,” Scott said to me, and Charles and Nathan said they would help too.

The two water tanks located on the 2^nd level, allow gravity-fed water to the gardens, so once every few days we just had to pump water up to the tanks. By the end of the day, we had the solar panels installed and they were now operational. Before dark, the lads headed home to be with their families, Nathan had invited me to join them for dinner, and maybe stay over there for company, but I declined and thanked him for the offer.

Once my friends had gone home, I grabbed my car keys, and I spent the next four hours driving around the streets of the city, hoping that by pure luck, that I would spot my missing son and take him home to safety. Feeling tired and even more worried, I had a shower, ate a small amount of a microwave dinner, and headed to bed.

I woke up at 8 am, when the alarm on my watch sounded, and once dressed and having some toast and a cup of tea for breakfast, I headed out again, driving to homeless shelters, which I knew from contacts at my work, as well as places where homeless people tend to hand out during the day, but there was no sign of my son anywhere.

Having decided that I need something to eat, I began searching for some food, when I came across Saturday community markets, I decided to stop and have a look around, and I found all sorts of second-hand gear, as well crafts, fresh foods, preserves, and plenty of cottage garden plants.

When I came across a stall that was selling two-metre tall native trees, I immediately became interested looking at them, and I decided to call Nathan since he has a tray back ute to cart anything in them. It took a few attempts to get through as his phone was engaged, but when he finally answered, Nathan asked where I was as I wasn’t at home or at the other place, and I explained that I had gone for a drive and was now at the community markets.

Nathan told me not to buy anything yet, and that he would be there in twenty minutes before he ended the call. When Nathan finally arrived, forty minutes later, I was getting a little impatient with the delay, and he explained that he was caught in a traffic jam due to a road accident. I forgave him for his lateness, and lead my best friend to the stall with all the trees, which thankfully he had not sold many.

After looking at what the stall had to offer, and some discussion about it, Nathan and I bought 12 mature trees, as I wanted to establish a bit of a privacy barrier between the main streets and the warehouse. There is a 4 to six-metre space between the road reserve and footpath and the warehouse, which was plenty of space to grow the trees, and I would keep them trimmed, so they don’t get too tall and spread out sideways more.

We found a lady selling herbs and veggie seedlings, so we bought a heap of them, and also a man who was selling bantam chooks, so we bought six of them for now, with them being placed in a box with air holes in them for transporting. Once everything was loaded onto the ute, we set off an animal feed stall, to get some chicken feeders, some wheat, pellets, and some bales of hay.

Once we had all of this, we headed back to the warehouse, back into the receiving bay, before closing and locking the solid steel doors. Having done some retail therapy, I was feeling a little better than I did earlier in the day, and with Nathan assisting me, we got to work to unload the ute.

Halfway through unloading, we headed up to the second floor, to prepare the area for the chickens, taking a bale of hay each with us, and on my return to the vehicle, I saw the smiling faces of Scott and Charles, so I let them in, as only Nathan and I have keys to get in, “Hey buddy, do you know where Nathan is, we can’t find him?” Scott asked as they stepped in and I locked the door behind them.

“He is here, we have been out to a community markets, buying a heap of stuff, you are just in time to help with unloading it all” I replied with a big grin, as I led the way to the loading bay area, where my friends saw all of the trees, herb and veggie seedling punnets and a cardboard box with noises coming from it.

“That is the chooks, Bantams, so they shouldn’t be too noisy, come on you two slackers, grab a bale of hay each, and let’s start carting them up to the top level” I said as I picked up the box of chickens and lead the way, Nathan met us as we arrived on the first floor, and after greeting the others, he headed off to grab some more of the supplies.

Once we had everything upstairs to the 2^nd floor, we got to work to install the chicken feeders, filling one with wheat and the other with pellets, we also filled the drinking container with fresh water, before spreading out plenty of hay in the chicken coop, and finally releasing the chickens into their new home.