by A. American
“Damn, they’re moving faster than I thought they would,” Sarge said, looking down at the trail as he walked.
“You expected it?” Doc asked.
“Well, sorta, yes. Under martial law the postmaster can be tasked with conducting a census and compiling lists for things like work details and relocations. I guess they are getting to work on it already. Shit. I really thought it would take them longer. How many of them were there?” Sarge said.
“He said there was one guy in a postal uniform and one in a DHS uniform who was covering him. The guy told them they would be getting a letter in the next few days with instructions, and then there were threats. He wanted to know what you thought he should do.”
Sarge walked for a moment and then said, “We’ll have to think on that one for a while.”
Chapter 10
The next week went by without much happening. Food was the growing concern for almost everyone in the neighborhood. We had managed to conserve ours and were in pretty good shape, especially since I had shot a deer one night in the front yard.
I had been sitting on the porch when I heard something and clicked on my flashlight and saw three sets of lights shining out in the yard. At first I was shocked to see them there; after all, with so many hungry people out there I thought the deer would have been wiped out, but there they were. I stepped inside and got my .22. It was an old Mossberg bolt-action. The best part about it was the scope I had put on it. It had an illuminated reticle that used a 2032 coin-style battery.
Turning the sight to the lowest setting, I held the flashlight in one hand and propped the rifle on the porch rail. Centering the crosshairs between the set of glowing eyes, I fired a Stinger. The other two immediately bolted and were gone. I found the deer right where it had bedded down for the night. Since it was so cold out still, I gutted the deer, saving all the organs except for the digestive tract, and hung it high in a tree where I usually processed deer for the night. All the organs I took inside and put in a bowl in the fridge. My plan was to save them for the dogs, as dog food was getting scarce.
Hanging the deer had unintended consequences, as the neighbors to my east saw it the next day. This just added to the hard feelings in the neighborhood. I had killed a deer and everyone knew I had meat. They already suspected that I had other food, since I didn’t take any of the food Mark got from the county. Maybe I should have, but it felt like the right thing to do. It was five more meals a day for those in the community when my family wasn’t there in line. But it didn’t gain me any points with anyone. Mark, Danny, Rick and Reggie were the only ones that would work the barricade with me, or even speak to me, for that matter.
When I was butchering the deer I took a ham over to my neighbor and offered it to him. He refused, acting like the meat was tainted. I just looked at him and said, “Then just let the kids eat it. They won’t care.” He finally relented and took the meat after looking back at his two children playing in the yard. They already looked skinnier than I had ever seen them.
Even that act of generosity didn’t help, and it seemed to only make matters worse. Danny and I were on the barricade one morning early when some of the folks from down the road came up. They were going to go out hunting in the forest down the road a bit.
“Where you guys headed?” Danny asked.
One of the three men, one from down on Danny’s end of the road replied, “We’re going to go and see if we can kill something, anything, to eat.” He paused for a moment and looked at me. “We can’t all kill ’em in our front yard.”
I thought I would offer some helpful advice, maybe try and break the tension. “Try looking for them at night with a flashlight. That’s how I got mine.”
“That’d be great if I had batteries for a flashlight,” the man replied and then the three of them walked through the barricade heading toward the forest.
I looked over at Danny. “How in the hell can they be pissed that I got a kill? It’s not like I took it from one of them.”
“They all think you have a mountain of food you’re sitting on. What Pat said really stirred them up. Some of them feel like you killed them just to shut ’em up.”
“That’s not why I did it and you know it,” I said.
“I do, you do, but that’s about it. And you gotta admit, it was fucked up.”
“If I hadn’t have done it they would have done me just to get what they think I have. Hell, you have almost as much as we do. Why aren’t they beating your door down?”
Danny gave an evil little grin. “I guess ’cause you killed Pat before she could talk about me.”
We stood in silence for a few minutes, and then Danny said we should start a fire in the barrel. As he was putting together the makings of a fire I thought I heard something. “Hey, man, you hear that?”
Danny stopped what he was doing and walked over to where I was standing, cocking his head to listen. “Yeah, I do. What is it?”
The sound was a low rumble of sorts, but was definitely getting louder. “Almost sounds like a big truck,” I said.
“Yeah, it does.”
We stood there listening for a few minutes, the sound getting louder until there was no doubt that’s what it was. It didn’t take long before we could see the truck coming down the road, heading north on 19. “Check this shit out,” I said.
As we stood there, a large tanker truck came rumbling past us. It was escorted, front and rear, by Humvees. As the Hummers came toward us, the gunners in the turrets trained their weapons on us. We both stepped back from the barricade with our hands held up in front of our chests. The M249s mounted to the turrets were way more hardware than I wanted to tangle with.
The rear gunner kept his weapon on us until they were out of sight down the road. Danny and I exchanged looks. “What was that?” Danny asked.
“Had to be a fuel truck; that’s the only thing that would warrant that kind of security. You know folks would do about anything for several thousand gallons of gas right about now,” I said.
“You’re probably right, but where was it going, and why was it coming through here?” Danny asked.
“The only thing I can think of is the bombing range. Remember those guys I told you about, the ones that tried to shoot down the helicopter? They said there was something going on over there on the range. Maybe that’s where it was headed.”
“But why come through here, and where was it coming from? There’s a fuel depot in south Orlando, but I would have thought that was used up long ago by now.”
“Maybe coming from Tampa and just varying the route to prevent ambush,” I said.
Danny went back to making the fire and we didn’t talk about it anymore. I made a mental note to tell Mark about it, for no real reason other than the curiosity factor.
For most of the morning the sound of a chainsaw had come from old man Howard’s house. He was busy cutting wood, and from the sound of it, a lot of it. The saw would run for a while then stop for a while in irregular intervals, but always in the same manner. You could tell when he had cut enough to stack or haul or whatever he was doing with it, so when the saw stopped abruptly, I turned to look back that way.
With the saw stopped it was quiet, the air was cool and it was a nice morning. Then the air was ripped by a bloodcurdling shriek, followed by shrill, short screams.
I took off at a run toward Howard’s house. It was one up from mine toward 19. His gate was closed and locked, but I was over it in a flash. As I ran up his drive I saw his wife on her knees off to the side. She was holding Howard and she was covered in blood.
I skidded to a stop on my knees beside her. Howard was on the ground, his right leg severed just below the knee. He had his hands wrapped around his leg just above the knee, but with every beat of his heart, bright red blood spurted from the leg. The ground in front of him was covered in blood; the chainsaw was lying on his severed foot. Without s
aying anything, I tore the trauma pack off my vest and pulled out the tourniquet. Wrapping it around his leg, I found it was still attached by a thread of skin. I placed the tourniquet just above his knee, pulled it tight and began cranking it down. The spurts of blood slowed, then stopped.
I grabbed the Sharpie out of the kit, looked at my watch and wrote a big T on his leg, then 7:47. Howard’s wife was still in hysterics, and Howard looked like he was going into shock. I pulled out a casualty blanket and covered him with it, then elevated his other leg. He was still conscious, but he didn’t look good. Pulling the JetScream whistle out of a pocket on the vest, I blew three long blasts, paused and blew three more, then repeated it a third time. I told his wife to go in and get a blanket for him. She didn’t move, so I grabbed her shoulder and shook her. This brought her around and I finally got her moving.
I could hear people coming over the gate and it wasn’t long before Danny, Rick and Mark came running up. When Rick got close enough to see the scene, he stopped abruptly and said, “Oh shit!”
Mark and Danny were both looking down, mouths agape. Mark looked at Rick and said, “Go get the Mule and bring it up here. Shoot the lock off if you have to.”
Howard’s wife came back out with blankets and we covered Howard, who was still conscious. He was one tough old man. Out at the gate came the sound of three rapid shots, then the sound of the Mule racing up the drive. Laying a blanket down in the bed of the Mule, we picked Howard up and laid him in.
“Where are you taking him?” cried his wife.
“Up to the forest vet,” Mark said. This was something we had discussed earlier, even paying a visit to Doc Peters to talk it over. He was the only kind of doctor around. The fire department in Altoona had an ambulance, but it didn’t run and was seldom manned given the current situation.
“To a vet?”
“You got a better idea?” Mark said.
Mark jumped into the Mule, then looked at her. “You coming?”
She made her way around to the passenger side and climbed in. Rick managed to wedge himself into the bed with Don to help stabilize him during the ride. Mark kicked the buggy into gear and took off down the drive toward the road, leaving Danny and me standing there. Danny looked down at all the blood on the ground. “Think he’ll make it?”
“He’s a tough old man,” I said.
After they were gone, Danny and I walked back up to the barricade. We still had about an hour before we would be relieved. We talked a little about Howard and what we thought his chances were. Neither of us gave him much of a chance, and both of us were glad it wasn’t us. We had both been doing some cutting, though we both had quite a bit of wood already cut and stacked. With wood being the only real source of heat, and the abnormal cold, having a pile of wood on hand was a good thing.
Our conversation turned to power after Danny commented on what the guys going out this morning had said about batteries. Since things had gone bad, Danny had been bringing down his rechargeable batteries to the house for me to charge. That got me to thinking, and I said, “You know, I have two spare panels and a spare inverter.”
Danny paused for a minute. “No, I mean, I guess I did, but I never thought about it.”
“We could take them to your house and set them up, maybe use your deep-cycle batteries from the boat. It wouldn’t be a lot, but it would be something for you,” I said.
His eyes lit up. “Dude, that would be awesome. Having some power would be great.”
“Even better than that, I have three sockets you screw into a regular lamp and it makes them take the twelve-volt bayonet-type bulbs, which I also have. We could wire it to one of the circuits in your house and you could have some light.”
“That would be great. I’m also running low on lamp oil,” he said.
“I have more of that too,” I added.
“When do you want to do it?” Danny asked.
“We can do it today if you want, after we get relieved.”
“Sounds good to me.”
We were interrupted by a group of people coming down the road. They were quite a sight to see, probably ten or twelve of them. It looked like an extended family group. They were pushing and pulling every sort of cart and wagon you could imagine, with one boy of about eight or nine pulling a Radio Flyer. As soon as they saw us, the group moved almost as one to the opposite side of the road, with the men staying between us and the women and children.
As the group got closer, two of the men broke off and walked over to us. They were both carrying rifles and one had on a pistol belt with a revolver in it. One of the two said, “Mornin’.”
“Mornin’, what do you hear?” Danny asked. This had become a most universal question when two people met.
“Not much. We saw one of them utility vehicles haulin’ ass down the road earlier, looked like someone was hurt.” I took this guy to be the leader of the band.
“Yeah, he’s one of our neighbors, bad chainsaw accident,” Danny said.
“That’s a shame, probably a death sentence,” the other man added.
“Where you folks headed?” I asked.
The leader pointed down the road, “Into the forest, trying to get away from some of the damn people. Things are starting to get bad in town.”
“Where are you guys coming from?” I asked him.
“We all lived in Eustis or Mount Dora,” the other man said, then, pointing to the Igloo cooler sitting on a little stand by the burn barrel, added, “Is that water?”
I glanced over my shoulder at the cooler. “Yeah, it is. Y’all need some water?”
The leader spoke up, “If’n ya could spare it. We ran out of the bottled water a long time ago. Water went out in town a couple of weeks ago. We stored water in everything we could find, but we’re almost completely out now.”
“You’re welcome to it. It’s almost full. Just have one or two of your people bring the bottles over, no offense,” I said.
“None taken. You just can’t be too careful these days,” the leader said.
He turned to his group and called out to a couple of the ladies with them. They started pulling out bottles and jugs, old soda bottles and milk jugs from the looks of it. The two women carried them over and Danny walked them through the barricade to the Igloo. They emptied it, filling what they had, and still had empty jugs.
After the women were headed back across the street, the leader came up to the barricade and stuck out his hand. “Fellers, I can’t thank you enough. Everyone we’ve seen so far keeps their distance and gives ya the stink eye. It’s nice to know there’s still some good folks in the world.”
“No problem. We’re nice to those who are nice to us,” Danny said and shook the man’s hand.
We talked to him for a few more minutes. He was vague about exactly where they were headed, just as we were vague about how many people were on our street. I did tell him that everyone was armed and we had a security system, stretching the truth a bit about that part. Then he made me a little uncomfortable by asking about food. We told him that we were all barely getting by, then I turned it on him. He told us that was another reason they were heading into the forest: “There’s more to eat out there,” he said.
I didn’t say anything, but inside I knew better, and it made me think that soon the right to hunt on land that had been public might be another source of conflict.
They finally moved off down the road. Once they were gone, Danny said, “More to eat?”
“Yeah, I wasn’t going to say anything, but if that’s the reason they’re going, unless they got Euell Gibbons with ’em, they’re going to freakin’ starve. There’s some stuff in the spring and summer, but you know the winter is damn thin out there. I hope they like palmetto hearts and swamp cabbage.”
Danny laughed. “That’s what I thought, but you know more about it than I do. Hell, Little Bit shows me st
uff.”
“Yeah, she thinks it’s the coolest thing in the world to pull something off a vine and eat it. The women at the bus stop like to have had a heart attack one day when she pulled the tip off a greenbrier and ate it. I was sitting in the truck and saw the woman try to stop her. Little Bit told her I said she could, so the woman comes over and asked if I let her do that. I told her I let her. Hell, I encourage her.”
Danny laughed again. “I bet. She cracks me up. Maybe you can bring her down when you come.”
“Shit, you’ll probably see all three of them. They haven’t been down to your house in a while.”
“Just feed ’em first; this ain’t like the old days,” he said.
I asked how they were doing with food and told me they were still all right. I had given him a hindquarter off the deer, and he was making jerky out of some of it, and they had cooked up some already as well. The rest was hanging on the back porch since it was still so cool out.
Hearing an ATV coming up the road, we looked back to see our relief coming. It was Lance and another guy, a young kid. I didn’t remember his name, but I knew he was Reggie’s nephew who had come to stay with him. We told them about the procession that had been by and to keep an eye out for them, just in case. Lance then had a great idea. He said, “We need something like a bell or something up here to sound in case of an emergency.”
“I have that old bell out on that post in the front yard. It’s probably rusted and won’t move right now, but I bet I can clean it up,” Danny said.
I looked at Lance, then at Danny. “That’s a damn good idea. Great idea, man, we’ll bring it down here later and put it in.”
Lance smiled and walked over to the barrel to warm his hands. I grabbed the empty Igloo and climbed onto the back of Danny’s Polaris as he started it up. We headed down to my house and when we pulled in I told Danny to hold on for a minute so I could refill the jug, then he could take it back before heading to his house. We agreed that I would come down around noon, using the Suburban to move the panels and inverter/charge controller. Danny wheeled the ATV around and headed for the gate.