Fire From the Sky: Firestorm

by N. C. Reed

  “Sure would.”

  “Well, let’s start looking through these books and see what else we can think of,” Patricia started passing out herbal remedy books. “We have some seeds already, especially aloe. But let’s see what else we can come up with.”

  –

  “And this does what, exactly?” Gordy asked as he, Zach and Corey worked to place small water turbines in the creek on the back of the Sanders' property.

  “It's a water turbine,” Deuce told him as he tried to keep the lines straight. “This creek is fast enough to power a turbine generator. It's not perfect, but it is a source of power. This is the closest the creek comes to the houses, so this is the best place. Plus, it's hard to get to, so it's not likely someone will just stumble across it.”

  “And just how much power will these things generate?” Zach asked. “It had better be a lot for me to be standing hip deep in this cold ass water all afternoon.”

  “Well, individually they wouldn't help so much after we factored in the loss to the distance from the building where the batteries are stored,” Deuce admitted. “But there are eight of them here, and I've got four replacements. They won't last forever of course, but they are fairly sturdy. Thing is, we’ll have to reclaim them before winter so we don't lose them when the creek freezes. And we're building these covers so strong because of flood waters after storms. With the screens in place, water can still rush through and turn the turbines, but brush and stuff can't get in to them. Hopefully that will make them last longer.”

  “Hopefully,” Gordy sighed. “This seems like a lot of trouble for a little electricity.”

  “It will keep the batteries charged, and that's worth a lot,” Deuce pointed out. “We don't have to be totally dependent on the solar power, and we can carry a larger electrical load with these running. That means we can run the washing machines more often for laundry day, among other things.”

  “And this will help run all that equipment we're using in the com shack, too. Right?” Corey asked.

  “Right,” Deuce nodded as he finally straightened out the lines he had been trying to untangle. “That's really the main point, to keep all the radios running and the other equipment we're adding. But for now, you’ll get a lot more appreciation for the laundry room being operable.”

  “Yeah?”

  –

  “I hate laundry,” Leanne grumped as she loaded yet another washer. There were four machines in the small laundry room, and four more taken from the laundromat that had been placed outside the room in anticipation of the power being increased soon.

  “Weren't you just here yesterday?” Lainie asked as she pulled now clean clothes into a hamper to be hung outside to dry.

  “Yes,” Leanne fumed. “But it's Tandi's turn today, and I made a deal with him to do his laundry chores in exchange for him teaching me to use my swords.”

  “You have swords?” Lainie stood abruptly, looking at her 'niece' quizzically.

  “Yes,” Leanne didn't notice her 'aunt' looking at her so strangely. “I bought them just before everything went to hell. I was trying to teach myself with books and videos when I noticed Tandi practicing. He's been using a blade since he was four. And he's a surprisingly good teacher,” she admitted.

  “Well,” Lainie went back to gathering clothes. “I admit I didn't see that coming.”

  “Tandi using a sword, or me learning how?” Leanne asked.

  “Yes.”

  –

  “Are you sure you should be-?”

  “Ronny, if you ask me that one more time, there will be repercussions,” Alicia Tillman declared, just short of angry. “I am pregnant. It's not a sickness or a disability. Well, not technically,” she amended.

  “Let me worry a little now and then, alright?” Ronny deflected her anger with a soft embrace and kiss to the forehead. “It's my prerogative as a husband and father-to-be.”

  “You're already a father,” Ally reminded him. “And a good one at that,” she added. “Now stop trying to manage me. I can't do everything I should be doing, but I can still take care of my family. And with Leon and Leanne both doing the work of a grown up, the least I can do is wash dishes and cook. And let’s be honest,” she gave her husband a wry look. “Leanne's husband, should she ever get one, will be eating here rather than letting her cook for him.”

  “That is likely true,” Ronny chuckled. “She's so smart it scares me sometimes, but she can't cook, bless her little heart.”

  –

  “What's wrong?” Lainie asked as she saw Leanne stand up and run a finger in her ear, jiggling it.

  “Nothing, I guess,” Leanne shook her head slightly. “My ear is buzzing. Must have gotten a fly in there or something.” She scratched at her ear again.

  “Or someone's talking about you,” Lainie teased.

  “I don't believe in wives' tales,” Leanne scoffed. “It's just a bug.”

  “Okay.”

  –

  “Switchboard, how can I help you?” Janice said as she picked up the receiver in the little radio hut.

  “Just checking the system, Janice,” Tandi told her. “You can label this line as 'Cabin Mess Hall' now and show it as up and running.”

  “Okay, Mister Tandi! Will do! Anything else?” she asked as she made a note on the switchboard.

  “Nope, that's it. Talk to you later.”

  “Okay. Bye!” She rang off and looked at Jonathon, who was working with her on this shift.

  “It's nice to have a phone service again,” she smiled.

  “Better than having to run all over the place to carry messages,” Jonathon nodded. “Makes it that much more important to protect everything, doesn't it?”

  –

  “Can we protect everything?”

  That was the million-dollar question so far as Clay and the other former soldiers were concerned. They weren't accustomed to being on the defense. They had always been the spear that struck, not the shield. It was different and they weren't comfortable with it.

  “If by everything you mean the entire ranch then the answer is a big fat no,” Clay admitted. “We're looking at almost four thousand acres counting that little spread Leon bought just after the lights went out. No way we can spread out that far.”

  “That's why we concentrated our emplacements where we did,” Jose Juarez indicated the places on the map that showed the locations of bunkers, foxholes and observation posts. It was woefully small.

  “First attack should go in our favor,” Victoria Tully said in a rare bit of input from her. “We'll have weapons superiority, at least for the most part, and good overwatch. Unless they come with an army, they're destined to lose, and lose big. After that, when they get a taste of the firepower waiting for them here, things will change.”

  “That's a good point,” Clay frowned. He hadn't considered that. “That means we should try and plan to keep our cards close and reserve a trump or two for next time, or for the future.”

  “What do you have in mind?” Michel Nolan asked.

  “We don't use the SAWs for one,” Clay said, ignoring the mighty frown on Victoria's face. “No Claymores either. No heavy weapons other than the fifties from the towers. We do use the rest with our rifles and, if we need them, a few grenades. With the AKs thrown in, we should be able to manage. We can keep them ready in case we need them, but I don't want them used in the first attack unless we absolutely need it. So. . . .”

  He looked at the map for a few seconds, considering.

  “Vicki, I want you in the tower with Heath if possible,” he said finally. “We can store a M249 there with ammunition and assuming we need it you can put it in motion from there, right?”

  “It won't be as effective from there, but it will work,” she nodded slowly. “It will depend on the target being in the right position, but I can definitely put fire down wherever there's an opening.”

  “Good. Unless and until we need it, you can spot for Heath and keep an eye on his back and take t
argets of opportunity yourself. You can also spot movement from there easier than we can on the ground, so we’ll depend on you for that.”

  “Roger that,” she nodded again.

  “We’ll still need lookouts behind,” Nate ran a finger along the rear of the storage buildings. “Or else pull this one,” he pointed to the icon for the rear facing bunker behind the Troy farm buildings,” back to about the same distance as the front one you want to build.”

  “Ignore the rest?” Clay pondered. “Nothing back there but grass and cattle I guess,” he nodded finally. “This will change how we pasture the stock,” he made a note of that in his pad to discuss with Gordon later, “but we can do it. How are we coming on the basement to the house?” he asked Jose.

  “Finished today, for the most part,” his friend reported. There had been a basement in the old Troy house that the family had used both as a root cellar and a storm shelter. It was sturdy and roomy enough for all the dependents to fit inside. Now with a far heavier door, and an escape route, the cellar made a good shelter for anyone who was at the house when things went bad. Food, water, weapons and ammunition had been stored inside already.

  “All right them,” Clay sighed. “This is our plan. We will use these assignments in case of an attack, but if you can't get to your post, report in as soon as you figure that out, and then report where you're going to fight from. If we can make some moves to cover a hole in our deployment then we will.”

  He didn't like what he was looking at but he couldn't see a better way to manage things. Not with what they had to work with.

  “We're going to lose people,” he said suddenly. “Maybe not this time, or even the next, but. . .we're trying to do too much with too little, and we're going to lose people. They aren't used to that,” he reminded the soldiers. “Nothing we say will prepare them, either. So, we have to be prepared for them. It's all we can do. Try to make sure they all know to keep low and not take chances. If we can keep them alive through a few engagements, maybe they’ll learn enough to protect themselves better. It's all we've got.”

  “Let’s go,” he said finally. “We got work to do yet.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  -

  Gordy sat in an old deer stand in the middle of one the Sanders' larger pastures, wishing he was sitting in his favorite chair, or even laying in his bed. He lifted the night vision binoculars his uncle had loaned him and took a look around him. The eerie green glow took some getting used to, but he had reached a point where he could recognize most things pretty well.

  The cows took on a surreal look when viewed through the glasses. Mostly asleep or otherwise standing dormant, a few were pulling idly at new grass and would move one or two steps every so often, then stop.

  My God, this is the most boring shit I've ever had to do in my life! Gordy thought to himself as he lowered the glasses. If you'd seen one cow chewing the cud, you'd seen them all. He didn't actually have to be here, he knew, but. . .these were his family's cattle, so he figured it should be him or another family member who was trying to stop whatever predator it was that was preying on their cattle. Another calf had been lost two nights before, torn to shreds in a way that suggested either an entire pack of canines, or else a cougar. A great damn big cougar from the look of it.

  And here I sit, right in the middle of his hunting ground, with a pea shooter rifle, he thought wryly. The things I do for my family and this farm.

  He tried to think about something other than the fact that he was only nominally safe from a cat large enough to bring down a yearling calf alone. Of course, it could be the aforementioned pack of dogs, but he didn't see where that would really be an improvement in his -

  His thought process stopped as he heard one of the Kangal puppies start yapping back in the general direction of the main barn. In seconds, another had joined in and then another.

  “What the hell?” Gordy wondered. He scanned the area with the glasses again, making sure he wasn't missing something. Nope, nothing out there. He lowered the glasses and looked back toward the barn.

  “What have they treed up there?” he wondered. He debated only a few seconds before deciding to go have a look. Leaving the stand, he started for the barn, maybe three hundred yards from where he was sitting. It was open territory but it was also dark, so he had to take his time and make sure he didn't trip. He happened to look up just as he saw something seem to spark. Stopping, he flipped the cover off the rifle scope and looked toward the spark. Was it one of those electric wires Deuce ran from the creek? Or maybe a short somewhere in the small electrical system that lit the barn when needed. What else could-

  In the strange green glow, he could see two men huddled together at the rear of the barn. One was holding a light while another was trying to coax a fire out of a bundle of hay and a few sticks of wood probably taken out of the barn.

  “Son-of-a-bitch,” he muttered to himself. He flipped the safety off of the rifle and took aim, stopping short of pulling the trigger.

  I can't tell who it is from here, he thought. What if it's someone with a perfectly good excuse for doing what they're doing? He shook his head angrily at that. There's never a good reason to be playing with fire around the barn or any of the other farm buildings. That lesson had been drummed relentlessly into both he and Abby since they were old enough to follow their grandfather around the farm.

  Reassured, he looked through the scope. In a last-minute bid to take precautions, he aimed for the legs and squeezed the trigger.

  A startled yelp reached his ears as the flashlight went flying, helpfully falling on the ground to reveal the holder still standing obligingly still, looking around him in fear. Gordy didn't recognize him and decided that meant it couldn't be one of the farm occupants. That decision made, he raised his point of aim and squeezed again. He was rewarded with the sight of the figure collapsing to the ground in a heap.

  “Dave?” he heard a voice call out into the dark even as shouts from the farm reached him. “Dave, are you okay? I need you to help me! Dave!”

  “Looks like Dave checked out,” Gordy said as he neared the place where the man he had shot first lay on the ground holding his leg. “Who the hell are you and why are you here?”

  “Fuck you!” the man spat.

  “Well, in that case,” Gordy stepped into the light and raised the rifle.

  “Hold it!” he heard someone call, and backed out of the light, just in case.

  “Gordy? That you?” Nate Caudell's voice was easily recognizable.

  “Yeah,” Gordy called back. “Two idiots back here trying to burn the barn down,” he added.

  “What?” Nate's voice carried his stunned surprise. “Seriously?”

  “Very seriously,” Gordy replied. “I was just about to finish the other one off. Pretty sure I got one good already.”

  “You murdering bastard!” the man holding his leg shouted. “Dave wasn't even carrying a gun!”

  “Well, Dave should carry a gun if he plans to burn down a barn that belongs to someone else,” Gordy shrugged easily. “Not my fault you jackasses came here trying to damage my farm, now is it?”

  “We was just following orders!” came the bitter reply.

  “Well, that's a shame,” Gordy's voice showed no remorse whatever. Nate arrived just then, followed shortly by Clay himself, and then by Gordon, with Zach walking with the older man.

  “Who in the hell are you?” Clay demanded.

  “I ain't gotta tell you that!” the man shot back.

  “Okay,” Clay said far too easily. “Gordy, go ahead and finish him off,” he told his nephew.

  “Hey!” this brought a different tone from the man on the ground. “You can't do that!”

  “Sure, he can,” Clay replied. “He's a great shot. At this range he can't miss. Go ahead, Gordy. Sooner he's dead, sooner we can get rid of him and get back to sleep.”

  “Damn it, you can't just kill me!” the man screamed. “I ain't even got a gun!”

  “Sh
ould have brought one,” Clay shrugged. “Not my problem.”

  “Stacy?” Gordon said suddenly. 'Stacy Jergens?” Gordon walked into the light and shined his own floodlight down on the injured man.

  “And I guess this is. . .” Gordon turned the downed man over, “Dave Perky. You boys are cousins ain't you? You mom and his dad are brother and sister as I recall?”

  “What of it?” Stacy demanded.

  “Well, I don't know of any hard feelings between your family and mine, son,” Gordon said. “What prompted you to come out here and try to burn down my barn? What did I do to rate that sort of treatment?”

  “You sitting out here on all this food while the rest of us starve and you gotta ask that?” Jergens demanded, pain evident on his face. “You deserve that and more!”

  “If you were hungry why didn't you just ask?” Gordon replied. “We helped the church in Jordan when they was seeing over people from the fire, and we've helped others since then. Had you asked, I would have fed you, boy. So, I'm asking you again, why did you think you needed to come out here and set fire to my barn?”

  “Old man Holman said if we did, he'd give us a week of food extra once they took these cows from you,” Jergens sneered. “Said you had it coming for letting people starve all winter, and he's right!”

  “Only I haven't let people starve,” Gordon pointed out. Realizing he was getting nowhere, he made a difficult decision for a man who tried to live by the bible in all things.

  “Clayton, reckon I’ll leave this to you, son,” he said, voice soft but firm. “I hear my bed calling me.” With that simple statement he turned and trudged back toward his house. Clay nodded to Zach and the teen followed the old farmer, ensuring he got back to his house okay.

  “Gordy,” Clay said softly. “This is yours to clean up,” he looked at his nephew. Gordy nodded and drew a large knife from his belt.

  “Hey now,” Jergens suddenly realized the state he was in. “Now look here! All I did was-” and that was as far as he got. Gordy had knelt and drawn his razor-sharp hunting knife across Jergen's throat, severing his vocal chords. As suffocation raced with blood loss to see which would claim Jergen's life, Gordy wiped his blade on Jergen's clothes and stood.