The Hunters

by T J Reeder

  The stuff we had already was separated and placed in cells. The laundry was up and running so no washing clothes in a creek so much. All in all it was a sweet deal for sure.

  I called a general meeting and held it in the guards mess hall which was crowded but had coffee which was good. After everybody was settled down I laid out my thoughts which consisted of things the leadership group had mulled over.

  I proposed we divide into 4 sections, one would remain at the base while the other three headed out in different directions and when one crew returned the base guards would head out in sort of a rolling relief, or we could all just agree to return to base with our goodies after a certain time and stand down for a few days then head out again.

  I did raise the question about what we were doing and if it was worth it, a show of hands proved 100 % in favor of the job we were doing.

  I then said that not everybody was cut out for this job just as not everybody was cut out to remain in the base and anybody who wanted to stay put was very welcome to because we really needed a permanent cadre just to keep things running in the same way.

  When I asked for volunteers nobody moved for a minute then one of the couples raised their hand and that got more moving. When it was done we had a good size cadre remaining behind.

  The main food prep crew were staying and a couple of them were going with each hunter group. We had enough HV’s to handle most heavy fighting and the rest of the teams would be spread out among the transport trucks. All in all we had about 25 hunters in each team, heavily armed and pretty experienced.

  Each team had some of the lock pickers or as they preferred to be called “ The burglary crew” so all in all we were well prepared to do some looting and hopefully no shooting.

  We always took time to assure ourselves there were no survivors in the towns since we didn’t want to deprive anybody of something they could use. And mostly what we were after wasn’t high on anybody’s list except for weapons and those we didn’t need although we would take them when we found them.

  What we are trying to do is save as much as we can to help rebuild down the road when we can have a more peaceful life.

  Finding the equipment we had found on the Air Force base was both a mystery and a boon. I have pondered it since the day we found it and still don’t have a clue as to what it was there for. As a rule the AF has no need for that kind of equipment and it was stored not being used. We all assumed it was a pre located part of a supply chain needed for some purpose we never found a clue to.

  But I’m not complaining! And God knows we need it more then most anybody else. Since we know our hearts are pure and all that shit.

  I said that to Sandy one day and she made a gagging sound while pretending to stick her finger down her throat. She just don’t get the concept, whatever it is.

  After looking at the maps each team picked out their route and picked places along their route which would be called into the base as a check point in case a problem came up we could all merge on the last known area. It was the best we could do and frankly anybody willing to tackle our teams with our firepower had to be crazy.

  My team were heading north where there were several small towns and other places of interest. Our first target was about 40 miles or so and we hit there in a couple of hours. I was starting to wonder how long the road system would last with no repairs being made, I was betting 10 years at the outside.

  We approached the town slowly with one vehicle , not mine since we had scout teams with us and because I had promised Charley, Joe and Willy I would keep my bullet magnet ass down out of sight. I didn’t smile at the magnet ass thing.

  The scouts wheeled thru the place and after getting the all clear we rolled in and parked on the main street. The town looked like everybody just up and moved away which made no sense to me because it was a nice looking place and the sign at the edge of town said Pop 350, It wasn’t all shot up or burned. After we started looking we could see it was stripped of most of the usual stuff which we weren’t interested in but it had a look of a place where the people had cleared out in a hurry.

  We looked for anything we might want to take but in truth it just wasn’t the place to have much. A general store with fuel pumps and when we checked the gas tank lock had been removed but the diesel tank was still locked, We were good for fuel but we marked it as a future source if the need arose.

  The businesses that had safes were found with their doors open and empty. Strange isn’t the word for it. There just didn’t seem to be a reason for their all leaving but they did. Who knows maybe they all moved to a ranch or farm out in the hills and were doing just fine.

  The next place was close to 70 miles away so we headed that way while looking for a place to over night. We found a nice road side rest area not more then 20 miles from our next stop so we rolled in and set up our vehicles in the usual circle and set a guard detail for the night while the scouts moved out to see what might be out there.

  We spent a quiet evening with a fire in the middle of the circle and talked about what we thought was going to happen to America in the next few years and of course we all had thoughts on it but nobody really knew anything.

  I had long ago told the whole group about the mysterious doings in Idaho and the ambush that was awaiting us after we would have left Shiprock and they would have got us but they screwed up and killed some of Charles’s people and that cooked their goose.

  But the one who could have told us something died from my bullet that was supposed to be thru the shoulder but that didn’t happen so we knew nothing except they had some super cool gear and we took that.

  Sandy got to it first and liberated some sweet stuff before leaving the rest for Charley and his bunch. This woman loves her fire power and if she keeps collecting it we will need a 18 wheeler just to haul her personal arsenal. But she did get me some sweet goodies too so I’ll shut up.

  We had a quiet night with nothing even causing Walker to rumble, he was turning into a hell of a watch dog just like his folks and was getting big!

  He knew without a doubt that the only reason the sun rose in the morning was because Sandy said it should. I tried to tell him it wasn’t so but he just yawned and walked away.

  But he never leaves her side except to do his duty and then he’s back and for that I feed him steak if he wants it.

  We had split the teams with Willy and Joe each leading one and Charley had come with us which pleased me a great deal, he has become as close as a brother and I love having him around because he just seems to know stuff before anybody else. plus he has a calming presents that even has some effect on Sandy, some being the operative word.

  I really wonder if he don’t have senses that none of us have, I mean like the ability to look into …. Shit I can’t explain it but if he said duck I’d damn sure not stand there looking to see if it was a mallard!

  He reminds me of those movies where the little oriental guy watches the bullet coming and turn aside just enough to make it miss.

  Maybe I need to stop smoking that stuff which is funny since I haven’t…..lately lol.

  Anyway whatever Charley has I’m glad he’s here and on our side, I know the younger men who make up the scouts almost seem to worship him but in a good way. I guess he is the elder and that’s what they respect.

  I do ramble on, but it’s my story so get used to it. Anyway we had a nice night and woke up to the cooks trying to out do themselves with breakfast which will always win me over. We rolled out and washed up as best we could and headed for the coffee and chow.

  SOS ( chip beef on toast or in our case hash browns) I learned in the Corps you can eat this in the morning and if need be it will carry you thru a long day. Good Grub!! God bless the cooks!

  We rolled out after we all pitched in to help clean up after chow and hit the road. And hour or so later we rolled into the town of Bitter Springs and I think we learned why the last little town was abandoned .

  It was shot to shit and the remai
ns of a lot of people left laying where they fell. It was a hell of a battle from the empty brass laying everywhere. No way to tell but it looked like nobody won. The attackers found more then they could handle easy and it cost both sides it looked like and it happened from the looks of it like right around the time of the EMP or not long afterward. One clue was several shot up Harley’s and several other junkers somebody got running.

  If I had to guess the folks here fought them to a stand still and both sides back off to lick their wounds and after the raiders left the survivors just pulled out.

  I’d bet they headed towards the empty town and all moved on together away from a bad situation. We took our time and looked thru the entire town and found some places we could “mine”.

  The Burglar crew went to work in the remains of a small gun shop with safes still locked. There was no sign that anybody had tried to open them meaning I guess that the raiders kept on going and the citizens left fast and maybe the owner died in the fight and nobody knew the combos, who knows.

  While they worked on the safes we searched the town looking for clues but found nothing like one. We got back just as they popped the door on the first safe and found it full of guns as one would expect none of a military style but all in good shape and mostly new. They hit the second safe and really had to work their asses off to crack it and there was the good stuff.

  This guy must have had a class three lic because all of the weapons were full auto. Rifles of the usual kind m-16’s and a few 9mm sub guns and a beautiful old Thompson with the case and all the trimmings, The lock crew just handed it to you know who, who hugged each and every one of them and promised a couple of bottles of my best Johnny Walker! Thank you love!…not. It was Just nice stuff that would come in handy when we found good folks who needed it. Where in hell she was gonna stick that Thompson is beyond me.

  The back of the shop had a safe room with a heavy steel door and dead bolt locks but the boys knew how to deal with them. And it turned out to be the ammo room, and it was pretty full making me wonder why these weapons weren’t passed out to the people to use ?

  I guessed the raid came so fast that there wasn’t time to do so but it looked like the locals had plenty of fire power of their own and knew how to use it. And I expect the owner died first. And they loaded up and beat feet in a hurry.

  We loaded up all the guns and ammo and some tools from a garage down the street. Anything that would make rebuilding easier went with us. We didn’t mess with the homes since maybe some day these folks would come back.

  After we were rolling I guess I was to quiet because Sandy asked me what was wrong and it took me a bit to pull out what my mind was chewing on. It had come to me after we left that town and the one before that while we were maybe doing a needed job it just seemed all we were doing was collecting guns and god knows we had plenty of them.

  Sandy listened to me and said she had kinda been thinking about that her self and had thought on what we should be looking for other then this stuff and her idea was maybe we should think in terms of preserving knowledge so someday somebody could use the stuff we were salvaging because we had provided the tools to learn to use the tools to build a future.

  I dragged her over the center obstacle and kissed her and told her I loved her more for her brain then her ass or shooting abilities, she said to not get to carried away with it.

  That late after noon we found a place with a creek and set up our camp as usual and after looking we found a pool of water deep enough to soak in so the girls got first call while we men set up for the night, the scouts declared the area quiet whatever that means since it can get un quiet damn quick.

  After the gals were done we men folks took our baths a few at a time since it wasn’t the biggest pool but we all got clean and dry before the evening desert air got chilly as it does. The fire felt good and the cooks had made some spaghetti using sauce from the prison stores and it was filling which was all we required. After the usual bullshit session around the fire we all headed for our bed rolls. Sandy and I were using the big one we used on our trek back to Texas before we got the trailer and Dodge. It was still very comfy and we slept great with a big assed mutt on the bottom of it on shorty’s side.

  When morning came and after chow I called a meeting and laid out what Sandy and I had talked about and asked for comments. One of the women had been a teacher back in the day and she said she had been bothered by the same thoughts and felt it might be more useful to look in a bigger city where they had a large library or a college where we might find what we were looking for plus a bigger place would have back up files of some sort we might be able to do something with if the EMP hadn’t wiped them out for good but the books for sure should be saved.

  I looked around and most of the team just nodded and a couple shrugged while one of the safe crackers said they really enjoyed doing what they were doing and while they understood the value of books they wanted to be able to keep doing their job to which I had no problems because whatever we could save we should.

  So we were going book hunting or whatever we could find, one of the men said we should also be looking to save any art from museums before it just rotted away. I said I wouldn’t know art from a can of beans which got a laugh and he said he knew art as he had been an artist and fairly good. So he was now the art boss. I liked this handing off the work to others!.

  Sandy and the teacher had their heads together and had decided that we should head to a not too big city but a city as opposed to a town. Whatever that difference was.

  We now had a plan and after thinking about it we had base contact the other crews and pass on the thought.

  We studied the maps some more and decided to look at Cedar City Utah. I had a feeling it was a waste of time since I knew the Mormons had pretty good control of their area and would not go down without a major fight. Which made me stop and rethink that idea of Cedar City. It was a long drive and would eat up a lot of fuel.

  At this point I was beginning to think this whole idea might be a big waste of resources. I knew Texas had gotten a fast grip on everything except the biggest cities and most Texans wouldn’t see the loss of most of them as a loss.

  They had become hell holes to a degree before the EMP and while many may not agree with that assessment any city with a million Illegal’s and somewhere in the area of 35 to 50 thousand Gang members has a lot of problems that the elected officials chose to ignore so as to get reelected and the fools who elected them got what they got because they wanted those people in office, case closed!

  But my point is that we were running around collecting stuff to save mankind when there was everything needed already safe in places like Texas, Utah, Oklahoma just to name a very few.

  Well crap now I felt like an idiot, this started with me and Sandy out poking around looking for most anything and now it was all grown up into a monster. I needed a drink , a stiff one and I could see a good place for it right up ahead at an old rest stop and I headed into it.

  After everybody had pulled in and gathered around I laid it out to them and it was funny watching their faces, they all saw it right away but hadn’t before. I was simply blown away because this wasn’t a bunch of fools. I started laughing and it spread like fire, pretty soon everybody was just roaring. Sandy walked over and handed me a bottle of the good stuff and I took a drink and passed it on, she started a couple more bottles moving around the bunch and it’s damn hard to laugh with a big swallow of hooch sliding down the old trap.

  After everybody was done laughing one of the women asked what we were going to do if we weren’t going hunting? Well I hadn’t thought about it so I tossed it out to the bunch and within minutes we had a new agenda!

  Nobody wanted to go back to living the way they were before we rolled out, all admitted they were most alive while hunting down and killing the Cannibal’s.

  What everybody wanted to do was just head across country and see what was out there and who might need help and who might need killi
ng. Sounds cold looking at it written down but it really wasn’t because we had all seen enough to know that out there in the heartland good folks were being killed for nothing more then their food or women and girls. And we had the means to stop it wherever it was.

  We were still hunters but the game had changed from books and tools to bad folks who just wouldn’t play well with others. So that was now our job. We were the new Sheriff in town and some cleaning was about to be gittin done!

  Damn I felt better right now then in ages! Sandy was smiling like the canary that ate the cat. I wondered if she was getting a bit trigger happy. Right then she looked at me and said “ NO! I’m happy to see you happy”

  Sometimes she scares the shit out of me then I saw Charley smiling and shaking his head and then say something to her and she laughed! She had been hanging out with Charley a lot but there was no way she could have picked up the language. Could she? More about that later when I had time to ask.

  Right now I had our Comm people contact base and ask the other teams to stop and head back to base. As soon as that was done we rolled out and dropped the hammer. Now we had a better purpose for our time and we wanted to get it going!.