Surviving Home

by A. American

  • • •

  We rode out of the woods and onto the road, hauled ass down the pavement to the intersection with 445 and made the left onto it for the short distance to the trail. Once we were back on the trail, I heard Sarge call Ted on the radio telling him we were close. They were ready. Through the goggles I saw the UV laser Ted flashed to show their position and soon we were stopped while they loaded up. The rest of the trip was uneventful and we were soon home.

  We went back to Reggie’s house for quick chat. Sarge and the guys were going to stay there that night, but the next day he wanted me to show him the place I had mentioned. He told all of us that we needed to start thinking about bugging out. He said the neighborhood wasn’t defensible, and things were going to get rough soon. Danny wasn’t happy with the thought of leaving his house and neither was I, but he had a point.

  I went home and found the house quiet. Mel was sitting on the couch staring at the fire that crackled in the fireplace. When I went to sit down with her, she moved her pistol off the cushion.

  “You hungry?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “No, thanks, though. I’m tired.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  I looked at her with a half smile. “What isn’t?”

  Her reply was to lean over and kiss me, and then she stood up and grabbed my hand. “Come on, let’s go to bed. It’ll be all right in the morning.”

  We went to our room and I started pulling off all the gear—vest, holster, the carbine—and deposited it beside the bed, then just fell into it. I really wanted to clean up but didn’t feel like taking a cold-ass shower at the moment.

  I woke up and bolted upright in the bed, my heart pounding in my ears. If I had been dreaming I didn’t remember it, but I was damn sure rattled by something. I sat there in the dark, listening for a minute. Everything seemed fine, but I swung my legs out of the bed and pulled my pants on. After picking up the carbine, I slipped my feet into some Crocs and went out to the living room. Everything was quiet and I went and checked on the girls. After making sure they were okay, I went out the front door and stood on the porch, looking at the blackness and listening to the stillness. There wasn’t anything out there, but I still felt weird.

  I went back in the house and grabbed my coat, then walked out to the gate. It was quiet and I didn’t see anything. About halfway to the gate the dogs came trotting up, yawning and looking sleepy. I figured if they were sleeping and nothing was bothering them I should go back to bed. As I walked back to the house with the dogs in tow, a string of far-off shots broke the silence, five or six full auto rounds ripping into the night. In the old days it was nothing to hear a few rounds popped off, didn’t even warrant a second thought, but things were different now, and I wasn’t going to go wandering around in the dark looking into it. I went inside, locked the door, checked on the girls and went back to bed.

  I slept through the night without any more disturbances and woke up feeling good. Knowing I was going to meet with the guys that morning, I decided to make some breakfast for everyone. I set a bunch of eggs out and lit the old Butterfly then headed out to the shop for a can of the Red Feather cheese. I grabbed one of the last two canned hams I had and headed for the house.

  The stove was ready and I set the twelve-inch cast-iron skillet out, then poured in a little oil. After cracking the eggs, chopping the ham and shredding the cheese, I poured the eggs into the skillet and stirred them around until they firmed up then added the cheese and ham. I took the pan from the heat, set it aside and replaced it with our small, flat skillet. Since things had gone south, Mel had been keeping fresh tortillas in the fridge. She made them every couple of days as needed. Taking the stack from the fridge, I heated them one at a time on the skillet and then filled and rolled them.

  When I was done I had about a dozen burritos. I thought about making coffee, but knew Sarge would certainly have some ready when I got there. I felt kind of bad about not leaving any of the burritos for Mel and the girls, but there was plenty for them to eat, even if was only oatmeal. I put the burritos in a plastic grocery bag and went to tell Mel good bye.

  She was still in bed and she let out a little sound—half groan, half sigh—when I put my arm over her, pushed my face into her back and held her for a minute.

  “What are you doing today?” she asked without rolling over.

  “We’re going to go look at the cabins on the Alexander Run. We might have to move there.”

  She rolled over now, far more awake. “Move there? Why would we need to move there?”

  “Things are going to get a little more dangerous around here. We did something last night that’s going to stir up some shit.”

  “I don’t want to leave here. As bad as things are, at least we still have our home. How do you think the girls would take it?”

  I rolled away from her, putting my feet on the floor. “We may not have a choice. As bad as things are, they might get a lot worse.”

  Mel sat up on her left elbow, looking at me. “Well, I don’t want to leave unless we have to. And I mean really have to.”

  “I got it. I’ll see you later. What are you and the girls going to do today?”

  “We’re going to rake pine needles from the driveway and use them to replace the hay on the floor of the porch. The chickens have made a mess of it and it needs done,” Mel said as she sat up.

  “Good idea. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Love you.”

  “Love you too.”

  After strapping on all my hardware and grabbing my sack of burritos, I headed out for the Polaris. As soon as I came out, the dogs were on me, or at least they were on the bag of breakfast. They followed me to the ATV and sniffed around as I climbed on. They followed me to the gate and I had to lock them in to keep them from following me to Reggie’s.

  I found all the guys sitting on and around the picnic table behind Reggie’s house. Sarge and a couple of others had coffee, though I didn’t know how much longer that was going to last. My stock was down to two cans. The burritos really got them excited.

  “Hot damn, breakfast! We were just talking about shootin’ one of the hogs and dressing it out just to have something to eat,” Sarge said, then stuffed the end of a burrito in his mouth.

  We had our breakfast and then it was time to get down to business. Sarge wanted to take his two buggies to go recon the cabins. Since there were eight of us, he wanted four of us to go and four to stay. If he had his way, the four who stayed would start packing up and getting ready to move, but Danny and I held our ground about not wanting to bail out of our houses so quick. Sarge let it die for the moment and then went about making assignments. Mike, Ted, he and I were to go on the recon. The rest of the guys were going to hang out and keep an eye on things.

  I pointed out the general area of the cabins on Sarge’s map.

  He said, “Looks like a good spot. Having the creek there behind it helps it with defense, not to mention having water right at the back door.”

  “Yeah, it’s a nice creek too, good clear water and lots of fish.”

  “Let’s go look at the place, then.”

  We took off toward the back of the neighborhood and picked up the trail out into the forest. Sarge and I led the way. He had his boot up on the dash he looked relaxed with the SAW swinging from the loose grip of his right hand. Our route to the cabins on the creek would take us past a small neighborhood, a collection of houses out in the forest, which made me wonder how those folks were doing. The only real issue they would have was water, the creek was about a mile from them and it would be a long walk to haul water.

  I said, “We have to pass some houses up here in a bit, don’t know if there’s anyone there or not, or how they are going to react at seeing us.”

  “Is there a way around ’em, or do we need to go through ’em?”

  “We’ll be on a dirt road that runs past them. W
e could go through the forest around them if we need to.”

  “Let’s see what it looks like when we get close to ’em. If the road is blocked or looks hinky, we’ll go around.”

  The trip through the forest was uneventful, we didn’t see anyone. We picked up the dirt road that would run us past the houses, and I told Sarge to keep his eyes open. He nodded and we kept going. Sarge called Ted on the radio and told him to keep his eyes open too. Mike was driving the second buggy and Ted was on the SAW mounted to the passenger side. It didn’t take long to find out if there was anyone around; we came across three of the residents walking down the road.

  Sarge and I saw them at the same time. He sat up in the seat and kept an eye on them as we approached. Hearing us close on them, the three turned and stood on the edge of the road looking at us. They were all young guys, midteens from the look of them. Each of them had a rifle of some sort and one of them was holding three or four limb rats by the tail. I slowed as we came abreast of them and they stood there looking at us and at one another nervously.

  Sarge leaned back in the seat, putting a boot back up on the dash. Sarge stretched an arm out and rested it on his knee.

  “Looks like you boys had some luck,” he said. I was sure if he hadn’t broken the ice the three of them would have stood there forever.

  The one holding the squirrels raised them a little, looking at them. “A little. Three limb rats don’t go far, though.”

  “Y’all live over here?” I asked.

  The one that answered had long blond hair sticking out the bottom of a knit watch cap with a skull and crossbones embroidered on it. “Yeah, but most everyone has left. There’s only a few of us left now,” he replied and wiped his nose on the sleeve of his hoodie.

  “Where’d they go?” Sarge asked.

  “Some went to stay with family, some went to the camp over there at the range,” Snot Nose said.

  “Are your folks still around?” Sarge asked.

  The one holding the squirrels answered, “Yeah, they’re back at the house.”

  “Can we meet ’em?” Sarge asked.

  The same one asked, “You guys with the government?”

  Sarge chuckled. “Naw, son, we ain’t with the government, I promise you that.”

  “That’s good. Wouldn’t be good to meet my old man if you was.”

  “If y’all want to hop in, we’ll give you a lift home and meet your folks,” Sarge said.

  The boys hesitated for a moment, then with a shrug they got in. The blond-headed one gave directions to their house. It was only one turn off the main dirt road onto a smaller, secondary dirt road. After turning off onto the side road, we started to see people through windows and heads poking through open doors. In front of the kid’s house, a big, burly man stepped out of a tidy double-wide sporting a Realtree-camoed shotgun.

  He stood there taking in the scene as the boys climbed out of the buggy. His eyes shifted from Sarge and me to Mike and Ted, back and forth. He didn’t say anything, just stood there looking with the butt of the turkey gun resting on his hip. The boy that had the squirrels walked onto the porch and spoke quietly to him. What I didn’t see was the other men who were coming up the drive. Mike and Ted did and Mike let us know quietly over the radio. Seeing his backup arrive, the big man finally spoke.

  “What can I do you for you fellas?”

  Sarge stepped out the buggy, leaving the SAW in its mount. The man on the porch shifted the shotgun to a low ready position. Sarge said, “Easy, there, friend, we don’t mean no harm. Just saw your boys walking down the road and gave ’em a lift is all.”

  The man moved his head in a barely perceptible nod. “I ’preciate it. Anything else?”

  “No, nothing else. They said a bunch of the folks around here have packed up an’ left. Why’d you stay?”

  “We can take care of ourselves. We don’t need no help from no one. The ones that left needed to go.”

  He went on to tell his opinion of people who depended on the government for anything, and it wasn’t very flattering. Once he was on that train of thought, he seemed to open up a bit and relax. Sarge asked how they were holding up and he said that it wasn’t easy but they were getting by. By hunting the woods and making the occasional trip down to the creek for some fishing they were managing to get what they needed. Sarge asked him about how many other people were around, and the man pointed to the five men standing behind us at the edge of his driveway. Aside from them, there were only a couple others.

  Sarge asked him about what the feds were up to around the area. The man said that they had come out once about a week ago and offered people to go to the camp. That was when a bunch of folks left and they didn’t know what happened to them after that. He knew it was at the old bombing range, but it was too far to walk, unless it was a one-way trip and he wasn’t going to do that. He asked what we were doing out in the woods and Sarge told him we were out looking around. It was hard to tell if he believed us or not. Sarge asked him if he was in desperate need of anything.

  “We could use a doctor. One of the younguns is sick; bad water, I think,” the man said.

  “Tell you what, we’re gonna go down the road here for a bit then head back. Tomorrow we’ll bring a doc by an’ he can take a look at your little one.”

  “We’d appreciate it. I’m gettin’ pretty worried ’bout her.”

  We said good-bye to them and backed out of the drive. The men standing behind us parted, letting us through. We drove the half mile down the road to the intersection with the forest road that headed for the creek. The small road to the cabins had seen better days. From the looks of it, during the rainy season the locals had used it for playing with their four-by-fours. The road was badly rutted, but the good thing about it was that it looked as though no one had been down it. We slowly bounced down the road to the cabins and pulled up to the little gate at the first one.

  The gate was made from pipe, a small piece of chain on the end and a padlock secured it to a post. Climbing out, Sarge reached into the bed of the buggy and pulled out a pair of bolt cutters and had the lock off in no time. We walked up to the little cabin. It wasn’t very fancy, basically just a plywood shack. The door and all the windows had padlocks securing them as well. Sarge handed the bolt cutters to Mike.

  Mike took the big cutters and stepped toward the door, “That last one wear you out? What’s wrong, didn’t take your fiber this morning?”

  Sarge’s reply was a swift kick to Mike’s ass, to which he responded with a “Hey!” while rubbing his cheek.

  “You’ll learn to keep yer mouth shut one of these days,” Sarge replied.

  “No, he won’t,” Ted said and we all laughed.

  Mike cut the lock off, opened the door of the little cabin and stepped in, using his weapon light to illuminate the interior. Ted stood at the door where he could see the buggies outside while the rest of us went in. There was nothing inside. It was one large room with a counter running along the full length of the back wall. All the windows had screens over them with plywood covers over them outside. These were secured with the padlocks and could be raised and propped up to allow airflow in the summer, though at the moment keeping the inside cool was the least of our worries. Heating these things would be the real issue.

  Looking at the place, I was already thinking of how I could put my wood stove in, and I had two kerosene heaters as well. Between these, we could heat all of them. The kerosene would run out eventually, but we could get through the winter with them, that winter at least. After looking around the inside, we went out to look at the creek, the source of which was the Alexander Spring, about a mile upriver. The water there would be clean and safe as there were no people in the area to foul it. The run behind the cabin was also full of fish and gators. Large schools of freshwater mullet swam the creek and could easily be netted.

  Sarge said, “We need to
get some boats.”

  “We have them,” I said.

  “What have you got?”

  “Between Danny and me we have four kayaks, plus Danny has a canoe and Reggie has one too.”

  “Perfect, they’ll be real handy. I think this would a good place to relocate to for a while. I know you guys don’t want to, but there’s a lot more resources here and it’ll be safer.”

  “Yeah, Sarge, it’s just like your poacher’s cabin on the river,” Mike said.

  Sarge just shook his head. “Teddy.”

  Ted kicked Mike in the ass and Mike spun around. “What the hell, man?” Ted just shrugged his shoulders.

  I said, “There’s only three of these things; there’s too many of us. I mean, I have five people, and there’s Danny and his wife, Reggie, Thad, Jeff and you guys—where’s everyone going to stay?”

  “You an’ your family take one, Danny and his wife can take one. The rest of us will use the third. You gotta remember that we won’t all be inside here at the same time. There’s gonna be plenty of work and security to pull, so it ain’t gonna be too bad,” Sarge said.

  “I guess we’ll make it work if you think we need to move. I know my girls aren’t going to be happy about it.”

  “They may not be happy, but they’ll be alive,” Sarge replied flatly.

  Chapter 38

  We returned home the way we came and the whole time I thought about moving. How we would even get everything moved, what we would take. It was a lot to take in; it wasn’t like packing a U-Haul in the old days. Trying to move everyone with just the Suburban, some four-wheelers and Sarge’s little battle wagons would take a bunch of trips, not to mention fuel, of which there was precious little.

  We made it back the neighborhood without seeing anyone, for which I was very thankful. There had been too much killing, too much shit for my taste. I was no soldier, no warrior—just a dad and a husband, and that’s all I wanted to be.

  We went back to Reggie’s house and had a short meeting. Danny, Doc, Jeff, and the rest of us stood around the old picnic table shooting the shit for minute. There was a little talk about the night before, though Mike and Ted did give a quick rundown on their assault on the trailers. I wasn’t too interested in the details. The talk finally got around to what was next and Sarge suggested we start the move the next day. Danny was on board with that, and I halfheartedly backed him up. Sarge let the issue drop without saying anything and moved on to his next plan.