by A. American
“I want to go out and take a look at the camp over at the range and we’ll need to do it during the day,” Sarge said.
“How you wanna go about it?” Jeff asked.
“We need to be careful with this. I’ll leave the operational things up to Ted and Mike. How do y’all want to go about it?” Sarge asked.
Mike and Ted shared a glance, then Ted spoke. “I think we need to take both battle buggies and two four-wheelers as outriders. When we get to the range, we’ll need at least two to stay with the machines as backup for those going to take a look. We need to have a SAW on each buggy and those going in need to take Sarge’s SPW.”
The talk went on around the table for a while until a plan was ironed out. We would go out before daylight tomorrow. We weren’t sure where to get a look, as there was a fence all the way around the range and some thick brush between the fence and the actual range. There were two entrances, one on the east side, one on the west. I didn’t think we would be welcomed at either one, so we were going to have to find a way in.
Sarge passed out MREs to everyone for dinner. Danny and I both took a pass as I knew there would be something at home. I told Danny to bring Bobbie down and we would talk while we had dinner together. With that, we told Sarge and the guys we would be back in the morning. He wanted us back at 3:30. I rolled my eyes at him and he just shook his head and said, “Pussy.” I smiled at him and got on the Polaris and headed home.
Mel had made a shepherd’s pie for dinner using ground venison and instant potatoes. Thankfully, the pan was big enough for everyone. Mel came into the living room and gave me a kiss and a hug, then commented on my need for a shower. I hadn’t taken one that morning and knew I needed to, so I told her I would go freeze my ass off and get cleaned up. She was happy when I told her Danny and Bobbie were coming down for dinner as she hadn’t seen anyone but the girls in days.
The water was cold and made for a quick shower. Getting out, drying off and putting on some clean clothes felt so damn good. After pulling on some clean socks, I walked out to the kitchen to find the girls still at the table.
It was nice to sit with them and talk, a brief moment of normal. The girls were playing a round of tic-tac-toe and I got in on it with them, passing the paper back and forth, laughing at one another as we took turns. The dogs barking outside announced that Danny and Bobbie were there and soon they were knocking at the door. Since the girls had already eaten, we shooed them away from the table so we could sit together. They went into the living room and messed around on Jeff’s iPad, and I felt even more respect for him realizing that he had never asked for it back. We ate our dinner and talked amongst ourselves.
The talk finally got around to the move. Danny brought it up when he asked about the cabins. I told him what they were like and the girls were immediately against it. Mel asked about the chickens and what we would do with them, about bathroom facilities and how that would be handled. When I told her we would probably have to use an outhouse of some sort, she was really not happy. Danny and I tried to get across to them that we were not convinced yet that we needed to move, but we might have to and we should start getting ready just in case.
The conversation carried on for a while longer about the whys and why nots of moving until Lee Ann came back into the kitchen with a Scrabble board in her hands, wanting to play. The rest of the evening was spent playing. Little Bit came in and sat in my lap and the two older girls joined in the game. The game took an hour or so and when we finished it was time to head for bed as Danny and I needed to get up early. The girls gave hugs and kisses and Mel and I walked Danny and Bobbie out. Mel carried the pan with the leftovers in it out for the dogs, who were very happy. Once they were headed toward the gate, we went back in and started shutting the house down.
After tucking the girls into bed and making sure all the doors were locked, Mel and I went to bed. I was leaning my carbine beside the bed when Mel pinched my ass. She was wearing only her bra and panties and quickly dropped those and climbed into bed.
“You’re clean enough now,” she said as she patted the bed.
I smiled at her and turned off the light.
I hadn’t told Mel what we were doing, so when I got up at three she was curious. I told her we were going to check something out and I would be back soon. She told me to hurry because the girls wanted to spend some time with me, pointing out that I had been absent a lot recently. I told her I would try and kissed her, collected my gear and headed out.
Danny was already at Reggie’s when I got there and the rest of the guys were milling about getting gear ready and loading the machines. Reggie and Jeff volunteered to stay behind and keep an eye on the place. Sarge, Doc and Thad would ride in Sarge’s buggy. Mike and Ted would take the other, Danny and I would be the outriders. We performed a radio check using Sarge’s radios and headsets and then the old man laid out a map, a surprisingly good map, on the picnic table.
Using the hybrid satellite map, he picked out the area he wanted us to look at. It was on the north side and we were on the south side, so we would have to work our way around the range. With our destination selected, Sarge looked to Danny and I for the route in. What he wanted was a path that wouldn’t go anywhere near where we were last night. I told him we could use the route I had walked in on; it would take us to the west of the range and bring us up on the north side. Using my index finger, I traced it out on the map.
Sarge nodded his head as I traced the route. He then picked two rally points out, one for the ride in, one for while we were there, and then pointed out the route to use on the way back. It would take us to the east into the forest before turning south to head home. With the plan laid out and everyone confident in it, we headed for our vehicles.
For this trip Thad was carrying one of the MP5s captured from the raiders. He had his trusty coach gun with him as well. He was riding in the back of Sarge’s buggy. The H&K looked ridiculously small in his big hands. Since I knew the route, I once again took the lead. Danny would ride parallel to us, keeping to our east as we moved north. We all had radios and could maintain contact, though it was understood we would keep transmissions to a minimum.
The trip to the north side of the range took a couple of hours. Every road we crossed required security precautions to be taken, slowing things down even more. We didn’t see anyone on the way, and that surprised me. As we got closer to the range, I got more nervous, remembering the Humvee I had seen at the barricade and what the hippies had told me about the DHS troopers coming out and making sweeps. I remember the kid with the messed-up teeth saying if you went along with them they wouldn’t bother you, but if you crossed the line they’d drop the boot on you. We were almost a mile to the west of the range, moving down small trails that rose and fell when Sarge called me and told me to stop on the next rise for a piss break.
At the crest of the hill I stopped and climbed off the Polaris. The two buggies soon pulled up and shortly after Danny came out of the woods as well. Sarge used the break to give a few last-minute instructions. We would leave the rides on that side of the road that ringed the range and go in on foot. Two men would stay with them and the rest of us would go in. Ted and Doc volunteered to stay behind, and Sarge liked that idea, Doc staying back in case anyone got hurt.
We loaded back up on the rides and headed for the point we would leave them. It didn’t take too long, and again Sarge called for a halt. The two buggies each had a SAW mounted on them. Mike picked up Sarge’s SPW, the shortened version of the same weapon, and slipped the sling over his head. Little was said as we trotted off toward the range, with Sarge in the lead and Danny and I bringing up the rear. At the road that separated us from the range, Sarge paused, taking a knee and checking the road. After a moment, Sarge waved Mike forward and he sprinted across the road.
After another short pause, Mike gave a thumbs up and one at a time we crossed the road. Once we were on the other side, we i
mmediately set off again. Mike stayed in the lead, working his way toward the fence. Once we were at the fence, a new problem revealed itself. On the inside of the fence and immediately behind it, the ground had been plowed up for about twelve feet and dragged with what was probably a piece of fence weighed down with something. What this did was create a track trap; if anyone walked across it, it would be obvious the ground had been disturbed. This was a problem.
The best solution was to wait out the patrols and time them and see if they were regular or random, and then plan an entry, but we didn’t have that kind of time. Instead, Sarge positioned Danny at the fence where he could see down it in either direction for several hundred yards. If he saw an approaching patrol, he was to call it in and we would bug out. Not the best plan, but all we could do at the moment.
Mike cut a small hole in the fence and we quickly moved through it. The final approach was made much slower. Mike set the pace and we slowly made our way through the pine brush. Eventually the trees started to thin and the camp started to come into view. We spread out in a loose line and crawled up on our stomachs, staying just inside the tree line but with a full view of the camp from a small sandy hill. What stretched out before us was impressive and intimidating at the same time.
Rows and rows of tents, the big military style, ran off for what looked like a mile. There were neatly painted signs that I could read through my binos. They were marked with letters and numbers and at intersections there were posts with signs that read MEDICAL, MESS HALL, SHOWERS and LATRINE. The place was not what I had expected; it looked nice. I had been expecting a concentration camp.
I told Sarge that.
He said, “What do you see down there?” looking through his binos.
I scanned the camp again. “Tents, people, chow halls and latrines. Looks like a well-run refugee camp.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” Thad said.
“I see that too, but there’s more,” Sarge said.
I scanned the camp. “Like what?”
“You see the yellow tape?” Sarge asked.
“Yes.”
Yellow caution tape like you’d see on a construction site ran down the two sides we could see, supported intermittently by four-by-four posts.
“See anyone outside the tape?”
I scanned the area, then I saw what Sarge was getting at. There were guard towers at the corners with machine guns mounted in them.
“You see across the camp? See those towers?” Sarge asked.
I looked across the camp. We could only see the tops of several towers, but coming out from behind a row of tents was a part of a cage made from chain-link fence. It even had a top on it. Inside I could see two people in orange jumpsuits. They looked like inmates at the county jail.
“I guess they probably have some bad apples,” Thad said.
I grunted.
“All right, do you see that group of people down there working, the ones with shovels?” Sarge asked.
I looked down on the camp and did see a group of people that were filling what looked like sandbags. They worked in twos, one holding a bag, one filling the bag with white sand. Standing around them were several armed men forming a loose ring around them. I still didn’t think it was as bad as Sarge was making it out to be. A cloud of dust rose from the front of the camp, and all the people looked toward it, which was what caused me to look that way.
A row of four white buses came rolling to a stop, escorted by Humvees with gunners and machine guns in their turrets. Hearing faint shouts, I looked back to the group that was working. The armed men were shouting at them, pointing and running around. The workers went back to their task, though most of those holding the bags kept an eye on the buses.
A group of armed men gathered around the buses before the doors opened. The doors soon opened and people began to pour out. The group of armed men waiting on them began to drive them toward a fenced area with kicks and shoves. It was obvious the people getting off the bus were disoriented, and that’s when I noticed the windows on the buses were blacked out.
“How’s that look for friendly?” Sarge asked.
I scanned the camp again, looking back to the group filling bags as shouts drifted across the camp. Two women were working together; an older-looking woman was holding the bag as another filled it. The one filling the bag paused for a moment and looked up toward the woods. She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, then looked down at her palm and rubbed at it. She turned a bit and I could see her face. I reached over and hit Thad. He looked at me and I pointed.
“Look at those two women,” I said.
“Where?” Thad asked, looking at the group.
“On the right side, she’s looking this way, see her?”
Thad stared through the binos for a second. “Yeah, I do.”
The radio cracked. “There’s a truck on the fence line,” Danny called.
“Let’s go, move, now!” Sarge barked.
We crawled back from the trees and rose to a crouch and began to sprint back to the hole in the fence. Sarge called Danny asking for an update. He told us to hold inside the trees. There was a small hill the truck would start down in a moment and we would be able to cross without being seen. Mike was kneeling at the edge of the drag, the SPW pointed down the fence.
“Move, move now!” Danny called.
We sprinted across the drag and pulled ourselves through the fence. It seemed to take forever with mag pouches hanging up and other things snagging. As soon as we cleared the fence, we all started moving toward the road in a sprint. Mike hit the road first and took a knee, scanning the road. Once everyone was at the road, Mike sprinted across and I followed him. Just as I cleared the road, Thad started across. He was at a full run in the center of the road when a Humvee rounded the corner fewer than one hundred yards from him.
The truck gunned its engine, and even over the sound of the diesel I heard the gunner yell, “Contact front!” and then his machine gun opened up. The driver drove hard and fast and was between our two groups in a flash. Mike immediately opened up on the truck. We gave them fire from both sides of the road and the driver began to back out as the gunner shouted.
Mike was screaming for us to move, and in the radio I could hear Sarge say he was moving south to cross the road. The firing let up on his side as they started to move. Mike called out, “Reloading!” and suddenly it was real quiet, with only Thad firing. I hadn’t even pulled the trigger. The Humvee roared its engine again and the gunner brought his weapon to bear on our side of the road. The amount of lead slapping into the trees around us forced the three of us onto the ground. Leaves, pine needles and debris fell on us like a storm.
The sound of all those bullets cracking over our heads was terrifying. Mike was screaming into his radio and suddenly Ted appeared, standing over me. He fired the SAW from his shoulder in long bursts and brass spewed from the hot weapon down around me.
He let off the trigger for a second, looked down at me and screamed, “Get up! Get up and fire your goddamn weapon!” Then brass was pouring from the weapon again, a constant flame erupting from the muzzle. Mike had his weapon reloaded and joined in. I pulled myself up and flipped the carbine to fire and began firing at the windshield of the now-retreating truck.
On my radio I heard Sarge call out, “Let’s go, dammit! Get your asses to the buggies!”
Ted called out, “Reloading!” then looked at me. “Go, go, go, go!”
Thad was just as wide-eyed as I was. The two of us took off at a run toward the machines. We broke out of the trees to find Sarge and Danny already there. Somehow they had crossed the road and made it there before we did. In a flash, Mike and Ted were there as well. Everyone mounted their machines and Sarge called out for us to follow him. He took off wide open to the north, with Danny and me behind him, and Mike and Ted bringing up the rear this time. We ran hard and f
ast, not knowing if they had a reaction force on the way or not. Any minute I expected to see a helicopter overhead, but we were moving too fast to be too worried about it.
We ran north almost to Highway 40, then turned east, going as fast as we could on open trails. Without slowing or waiting, Sarge crossed over Highway 19 with the rest of us hot on his tail. As I crossed the road, I looked both ways real quick and was relieved beyond words not to see anything. We were on the back side of Grasshopper Lake, a good six miles from where the shootout happened, when Sarge stopped. Ted and Mike pulled up beside him and were talking. I pulled up on the other side of them and stopped beside Thad in the rear.
I looked in at him and said, “Dude, was that Jess?”
Epilogue
Jess grounded the tip of her shovel in the dirt and looked over at the buses that had just arrived. Mary hissed, “Come on! We gotta meet our quota!” She held out the sandbag she and Jess were filling.
One of the DHS goons barked, “It’s not break time! Keep working!” and Jess went back to digging. After the raiders had hit her neighborhood and killed her parents, she had been happy to get on the bus to the FEMA camp. There was nothing left at home: no family, no food, no hope. But at the camp, things didn’t turn out the way the black-uniformed men had promised. Families were split up, malcontents were beaten or disappeared, and there was no going outside the fence. After a week of denial, Jess understood that she had volunteered for a prison sentence. A week after that, she thought something different. It wasn’t a prison; it was a concentration camp.