The Blackout Series (Book 4): Shiloh Ranch

by Bobby Akart

  “No doubt about it. Look, I can strap those gas cans on the rear fenders and lay the weapons on my lap. If there’s any food, we can fill the saddlebags. This is an excellent haul!”

  While Chase loaded the four-wheeler, Alex returned inside and took one more look around. She began to feel like she was violating people’s privacy by foraging through their homes. Only a month ago, this lady would probably watch TV and do crossword puzzles. Occasionally, she might have a friend over to play gin rummy and drink coffee. She probably missed her husband and now her home missed her.

  Chapter 15

  Noon, October 6

  Graham Chapel Methodist Church

  Savannah

  Pastor Bryant closed the hymn book and walked to the front of the sanctuary so he could face his congregation to give the Benediction. He adjusted his gold braided stole and bowed his head.

  “May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace—through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.”

  The organ began playing as the half-full sanctuary of congregants gathered their belongings and began to shuffle toward the narthex of Graham Chapel. Suddenly, the heavy wooden entry doors burst open and a group of uniformed sheriff’s deputies brusquely entered the church.

  Pastor Bryant held his hands up to calm everyone, but then another group of men entered the church from the rear, forcing a group of women who were preparing food in the back to come into the sanctuary.

  “Please, everyone, stay calm,” implored Pastor Bryant as he looked at the congregation. His wife, Leslie, sat in the front row, staring back at him. The two of them had discussed their role in the community many times. The Bryants feared the time would come when Ma and Junior would discover their involvement in the secret underground activities of Coach Joe Carey and his Tiger Resistance. He gave her a reassuring smile and then immediately sought out Carey, who sat on the opposite end of the front pew near the fire exit. Pastor Bryant often wondered if Carey sat there each week in preparation for this eventuality.

  Fortunately, per their protocols, the Tigers were not present. After the early days when many of the teenage boys were arrested and forced into working at the quarry by the Durhams, Carey instructed his players to stay in hiding. They were of no use to the Tiger Resistance if they were stuck at the Vulcan Quarry, pounding rocks.

  Junior strode to the front of the sanctuary and discreetly pushed Pastor Bryant to one side. He addressed the crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m sorry to interrupt your church service, but I need to discuss a matter of uttermost importance.”

  Pastor Bryant snickered to himself as the mental midget, Junior Durham, continued to bastardize the English language even upon growing up.

  Junior continued. “It’s been about a week since a carload of strangers came into our fair little town and wreaked havoc. They destroyed county property, attempted to murder my duly lawful deputies, and generally took our offer of hospitality for granted. They returned the favor by shooting at me, wounding several members of law enforcement, and fled.”

  The congregation took their seats and began mumbling between themselves. The entire extraction mission was conducted by Coach Carey and the Tiger Resistance. Very few of the townspeople knew who participated except for the mothers and fathers of the young men involved.

  Over the last few weeks, Pastor Bryant had counseled them and assured the parents that their sons were in good hands. They were not provided any additional details and didn’t care as long as the boys were out of the evil clutches of Ma and Junior. As far as many parents knew, their sons had fled Hardin County to get away from the Durhams’ post-apocalyptic form of indentured servitude.

  The same was true for the parents of teenage girls from Savannah. Most of them fled with their mothers as soon as it became apparent what Ma’s plans were for the local females. Many were not so lucky and had lived to regret it, mostly. The majority of the women fled south towards Mississippi but were stopped at the Pickwick Dam by the military. To their credit, the women of Savannah resisted the urge to return and had remained hidden in the homes of friendly folks in the small towns of Pyburns and Nixon.

  Junior’s men began to walk through the aisles of the sanctuary as a show of force. Junior was intentionally intimidating and it began to anger Pastor Bryant. He took a chance and decided to challenge Junior.

  “Junior, you know that I’ve asked my congregation for information regarding that day just like I promised you. Nobody has come forward, but if they had, you would’ve been the first to know. I really don’t see a need to disrupt our—”

  “Shut up, old man!” yelled Junior, his face turning red with anger. “I waited patiently outside while you finished up your prayin’ and now it’s my turn. Another word and your preachin’ days are over! Do you hear me?”

  “Mark,” muttered Leslie as she rose to join her husband before being forced back into the pew.

  “Same goes for you, Mrs. Bryant,” hollered Junior. “We go way back, but this is serious police business and I won’t have any interference. Got it?”

  “Please, Leslie, sit down,” urged her husband. Pastor Bryant was very much aware of Junior’s anger issues from his wife’s days as his guidance counselor in high school. His newfound power as sheriff, under Ma’s tutelage, provided him the legal authority to be bad. A post-apocalyptic world without rule of law made Junior dangerous. Pastor Bryant elected to remain silent, hoping that Junior would simply blow off steam and then leave.

  Junior began to walk down the center aisle between the pews. He made eye contact with virtually everyone except those who hid their contempt by staring downward.

  “Kathy Austin, where’s that pretty cheerleader daughter of yours?” said Junior as he pressed himself past an elderly man sitting next to the aisle. “Huh? What was that? Where’s your kid?”

  Mrs. Austin began to cry and shook her head and buried her face in her hands. “I dunno.”

  Junior smelled blood. “Where is she? We got some work for her, you know? Where did you send her off to, dangit!”

  “She just left. She got up in the middle of the night and rode off on her bicycle. I don’t know where, I swear!”

  He picked up her hands and held them up for everyone to see. “Do you see how rough this woman’s hands are? She’s been workin’ in the quarry, helping out. Now, I could give her a much better job if she’d just tell me where her daughter ran off to, but she refuses.”

  Junior threw Mrs. Austin’s hands back down and strutted down the aisle once more. He began to return to the front of the sanctuary when he bellowed out, “Hey, where is our championship-winning coach of the mighty Hardin County Tigers? How about it, where’s the great Coach Carey?”

  Carey slowly pushed himself up with the assistance of a cane. The cane was a useful prop to create the illusion that he was too disabled to work in the quarry. Thus far, Carey was able to pull the wool over the Durhams’ eyes. If not, with a twist of the handle, a dagger would emerge, which would allow him to go down fighting.

  “Yes, sir, Sheriff,” said Coach Carey, allowing his voice to drag out the word sheriff. Pastor Bryant shot him a glance, begging him to behave.

  “Coach Carey, winner of championships, why didn’t you let me play on your great football teams?” asked Junior.

  “Well, Sheriff, you were just too mean. I didn’t want you to hurt or frighten the boys from the other schools.”

  Junior cocked his head as he determined whether this was an insult or a compliment. On this day, Junior was full of himself, so he chose the latter.

  “You’re right, Coach. Back then, I was too mean. Today, I’ve mellowed considerably, wouldn’t you agree, boys?” Junior turned to each of his deputies, who grinned at their boss.

  Junior continued his questioning of Coach Carey. “So, Coach, where’s that star quarterback of yours and the two orphans, the Bennetts?”

  “
Now, Sheriff, you might remember that the boys drove to Nashville earlier that day to watch the Cowboys on Thursday Night Football. I’m sure they’re probably walking back home as we speak.”

  “I’m sure they are, Coach,” said Junior as he got very close to Coach Carey’s face. Then he whispered, “Where’s the rest of ’em?”

  “Rest of who?”

  “Who? The whole dang team, that’s who!” yelled Junior. “Where oh where did the whole frickin’ football team go?”

  Junior caught the coach off guard and kicked his cane out from under him. Carey had the presence of mind to stumble and fall to his knees. He’d passed Junior’s test, but his face was hot red with anger. Pastor Bryant saw a scrap comin’ and ran over to aid the leader of the Tiger Resistance.

  Pastor Bryant whispered in Coach Carey’s ear, “Remember, hold your temper, Joe. Nobody can make you angry but yourself.”

  Coach Carey nodded and allowed Pastor Bryant to help him up. Carey whispered back. His words would be remembered by Pastor Bryant for years to come.

  “You don’t have to participate in every argument you’re invited to—just the important ones.”

  Chapter 16

  9:00 a.m., October 8

  Pickwick Dam

  Near Hamburg, Tennessee

  Brown, mud-filled water splashed against the banks below them. The rushing current and the waves were typical of those created by barge traffic on the Tennessee River—except there hadn’t been any boat traffic since the power grid collapsed.

  “What do you think is stirring all of this up?” asked Colton as he dismounted into the slushy field.

  “Two days of solid rain may have something to do with it, but I’ve never seen it this swift,” replied Jake. He tied his horse off to a tree and stepped closer to the edge of the embankment. His large frame caused his boots to sink into the mud.

  “Check out the erosion of the banks across the way,” added Colton. “The water is getting near the porches of those two old houses.”

  Part of the riverbank at Jake’s feet gave way as mud crashed into the water. He quickly jumped back as large clods of sod slid down as well.

  “I can’t imagine that the Corps of Engineers would open the spill gates at Pickwick this much,” said Jake as he retrieved his horse. “They’re gonna wash us out if they don’t cut back on this volume.”

  “How far is it?”

  Jake mounted up and replied, “Maybe five miles if we hug the river. There are several homes along the way as we approach Rock Pile, so we’ll need to keep our eyes open.”

  “Rock Pile?”

  “Yeah. When TVA built Pickwick in the thirties, they had to reduce the width of the river in areas downstream. Just below us here, they built up a thirty-foot-tall retaining wall, using limestone quarried from east of Savannah.”

  Colton mounted up and followed Jake as he headed south along the river.

  Jake continued. “Several small houses were built on top of the wall and were rented to TVA employees working on the Pickwick project. Eventually, a restaurant and bar was opened and the tiny community of Rock Pile, Tennessee, became a permanent fixture.”

  “How many people live down this way?” asked Colton. “Should we bring a couple of Javy’s men with us?”

  “Nah,” replied Jake. “I rode down here with Chase after the power went off to check on things. Most of the property is rented out to summer visitors who clear out by Labor Day. Of course, I know the folks who run the bar. We’ll pay them a visit on the way back, you know, to wet our whistles.”

  The two men rode in silence as they made their way back to Leath Road, which took them to within viewing distance of the dam. As expected, the properties along Rock Pile were shuttered for the winter.

  The tiny town of Hamburg showed little activity. It was settled by a group of German immigrants in the eighteen hundreds, who named it after their hometown in Northern Germany. Hamburg Landing, as it was known during the Civil War, was used as a rear logistics headquarters for the Confederate Army. Riverboats would travel up the Tennessee River from Alabama with troops, horses, and cannons in preparation for the Battle of Shiloh.

  They stopped twice to speak with a couple of kids playing in an overflowing creek and an elderly woman who was harvesting pumpkins from a field. Jake and Colton were primarily interested in learning about suspicious activity and strangers. There was none to report.

  This southernmost portion of Hardin County that adjoined Mississippi was sparsely populated. As they say, you can’t get there from here. In a post-apocalyptic world, Jake and Colton agreed that these residents were better off being desolate.

  The road took them back towards the river, where the effects of the flooding was more pronounced. A dozen homes were built on the west bank of the river near Chambers Creek. Although they were elevated on ten-foot stilts, the water was rushing under them.

  A bass boat had been washed inland along with a couple of Jet Skis. The soybean fields were under water. The river was wider at this point than at Shiloh Ranch, and the west bank was at a lower elevation.

  “Those homes have to be abandoned, right?” asked Jake. “I mean, how long can they last with the water beating against their pilings?”

  “In Galveston, they used to bury the pilings ten to twelve feet,” replied Colton. “I don’t know if they go that deep here, but most of those homes in Texas could withstand a pretty strong storm surge, except for Hurricane Rita, of course.”

  “Rita? Don’t you mean Katrina?” asked Jake.

  “No,” replied Jake. “Hurricane Rita came three weeks after Katrina back in ’05. It was a true Category Five when it made landfall, unlike Katrina, which was a Category Three.”

  “Wow, I had no idea,” yelled Jake over the roar of rushing water from the dam, which came into view. “Let’s go up on top of this hill.”

  Jake urged his horse up an embankment to the top of one of the many mounds constructed thousands of years ago. This provided them a view of the dam from a thousand yards away.

  Stretching across the Tennessee River for nearly two miles, the Pickwick Landing Dam’s twenty-two spillways were all dispensing water to the Tennessee River sixty feet below.

  The immense power of the river was breathtaking when viewed from this perspective. Water gushed through the spillways at the rate of seven hundred thousand cubic feet per second, creating a deafening roar. The crashing of the water below created a massive amount of turbulence and whitecapped waves that crashed onto the shore on both sides.

  Across the river, travel trailers had been dislodged from their vehicles and parking spaces. They were moved inland for hundreds of feet before they rested against the edge of the woods. Homes were destroyed and the Historic Botel, constructed from an old houseboat built on a barge, lay on its side against a stand of trees.

  Jake took out his binoculars to get a closer look at the dam and the vehicles on top of it. He handed them to Colton, who nodded.

  “It’s just like we were told,” said Colton. “The military has a pretty big presence up there. In fact, it looks like several of them are looking our way and at the destruction they’ve created.”

  “I can’t believe they’d allow the dam to open up like this. Normally they control the flow of water so that it doesn’t have such a big effect. Look around, everything on this side is destroyed.”

  The men dismounted and led their horses to an indentation in the ground where rainwater had accumulated. The horses readily drank the cool water.

  “Colton, I think we can add a new threat to Shiloh Ranch. We’ve got Ma and Junior rattlin’ their swords in Savannah to our east. We’ve got groups of marauders, probably both large and small, headed our way from Memphis to the west. Now we’ve got potential floodwaters coming from the south. From the north, who knows what might be brewin’ in Jackson.”

  “It’s just like Nashville,” said Colton. “For several days, I honestly thought we could ride out the collapse and make a life for ourselves
until the government could get it together. Then the neighbors got ugly, opportunists in the form of gangs began to move in, and the fires burned out of control. It was too populated and the powder keg was about to explode.”

  “You guys got out just in time,” added Jake.

  The men climbed back on their horses and took one last look at the millions of gallons of water rushing in their direction.

  “Do you get the sense that the walls are closing in on Shiloh Ranch?” asked Colton.

  “I do, my friend. I do.”

  Chapter 17

  6:00 p.m., October 9

  Main House

  Shiloh Ranch

  The fire crackled as the water and steam trapped inside exerted its pressure on the burning oak. The intense heat caused the water to vaporize, demanding that the freshly cut logs give way to allow its escape.

  POP! POP!

  “Yikes,” exclaimed Alex as sparks flew out of the campfire and sailed over her shoulder. “I like the warmth, but maybe I should scoot back a little bit.”

  The group was exhausted from a long day of harvesting the remaining crops. The rain-soaked soil aided in the retrieval of the root vegetables, but the muck made it difficult to maneuver. They were rewarded with a meal of pork barbeque courtesy of a feral hog shot while rooting around in the mud of Lick Creek.

  Madison was mesmerized by the flames. So much had happened in the short span of six weeks. Her mind recalled the thirty-six hours leading up to the solar flare. She regretted not listening to Alex early on. After living at Shiloh Ranch for a week and a half, she’d made a mental list of the things she could’ve purchased or brought from home.

  Yet, they’d made it. They’d survived the trip down the Natchez Trace and now were trying to make a life for themselves. Everyone else seemed deep in thought as the fire continued to emit the snap, crackle, and pop sounds that could put Rice Krispies cereal to shame.