by Steven Kagey
“What is that supposed to be for?” Daniel asked.
“After you’re done with that I need you to take the hunting rifle and go back behind the workshop. Sight the rifle in at 200 yards and make sure you’re hitting inside a four-inch circle every time. The powders you mix up are for a binary explosive compound known as Tannerite and can only be detonated by being hit by a high-velocity bullet. You saw that they parked two of their vehicles down at the gate the last time they were here? Assuming they will do the same thing again, the Tannerite in that bucket and that steel water tank will create a massive explosion with tons of shrapnel that should ruin the day of whoever is down there when you shoot it from the upstairs window of the workshop. Tannerite is made to be an exploding target for fun, and they recommend not using not more than two pounds. We will be using forty pounds. Make sure you can hit the four-inch hole in that stone with the rifle, you may not get a second shot if they start shooting back.”
“Got it,” Daniel said.
“Sean, I need you to take David and go down to the bend in the road. Go about 200 yards up the hill and dig an LP/OP. Make it about six to seven feet deep, put a roof over it, and camouflage it with the hillside so it can’t be seen from the road.”
“What’s an LP/OP?” David asked.
Sean was glad David asked the question because he didn’t know either and didn’t want to look stupid.
“A Listening Post/Observation Post,” Brian responded. “We will have two people up there, and they should be able to see a long way down the road in either direction. We expect them to be coming from the south. Once they’re spotted, everyone up here at the house will get into positions.”
David said, “So it’s like a foxhole?”
Brian nodded. “Yes, though Marines don’t call them foxholes, we call them fighting holes. They are similar, but an LP/OP is made to observe the enemy more than fight from. In this case we will be fighting from this one as well.
“Brenda, I have some rolls of security film that I need you to put on the windows in the house in case they try to lob a flash bang or tear gas in the house. Avery and Patricia, I need you two to grab the sandbags from the shed and start filling them from the pile of sand behind the shed. Once you have a load filled you can bring them up to the front porch and then, Brandon, I need you to start placing sandbags below every window in the house, all the way up to the sill, two rows deep and extending three feet to the left and right of each window.”
All the kids said they understood their jobs.
“I will be working on an improvised mortar scrap mine aimed at the gate area from across the road, and I’ll be digging a spider hole on the right side of the driveway because we’ll need a way to get behind anyone that takes cover behind vehicles parked in the driveway. The spider hole will be a two-foot-deep ditch with a cover over it, and the person inside will stay hidden until they need to pop out.
“Doc, Janice, and Lillian, you all start gathering supplies and fall back to the campsite in the woods.”
Brian had built a survival shelter back in the woods closer to the far edge of his property. He, Evelyn, and Avery had spent many nights camping in it. It had two platform beds, a fire pit, and walls made out of logs all the way around it.
“You three, the girls, and anyone else that does not have a job will stay there out of harm’s way. When you hear gunfire you can grab your medical kit and come up to the house. By the time you get here the fighting should be over, the winner will have been decided, and we may need medical assistance.”
Brian then began telling people where they would be stationed. “Daniel, you will be upstairs in the workshop with the hunting rifle ready to shoot the Tannerite. Sean, you will be in the house with the pistol. Since you’re the best with a handgun, your job is to make sure they don’t get in the house before the gas ignites and then to help with the clean up once the dust settles. Any questions?”
The men said they understood.
“I am expecting we will have one or two taking cover behind their vehicles. I will be in the spider hole with the shotgun. Once the gas and Tannerite have done their job, I will handle any of them taking cover from behind. Craig, you and David will be in the LP/OP with the AR. You will be the lookout and provide suppressing fire at anyone shooting at the house, and then you will also be the ones to trigger the improvised mortars if anyone is left over after the Tannerite goes off.”
“Dad,” Avery said, “I should be the one with the AR at the LP/OP. It is my AR after all, and I am a better shot than Uncle Craig.”
Brian looked at Craig, who shrugged. “She’s right, she is a better shot.”
Brian shook his head. “No, you are not going to be at the LP/OP. You are going to be at the campsite with Doc.”
“Dad!” Avery protested. “You know I can do it!”
“Yes I do. You’re excellent with a rifle. If you ever need to, I am confident you can pull the trigger to protect all of us, but until there is absolutely no other option, I will not be putting my 10-year-old daughter behind the trigger expecting her to take someone’s life.”
“You already had Brandon on guard duty with a rifle,” Avery said.
“Yes, I did. The main point was so he could use the scope to see further and then alert the rest of us to come if we needed to. If he needed to use the rifle he would have it ready. I do not expect the person on guard duty to have to pull the trigger unless the rest of us are pulling ours too. The LP/OP may be the only one that has to pull the trigger to neutralize the enemy, besides Daniel shooting at the Tannerite which I also expect to result in casualties. Or we may all have to unload and start using our weapons as clubs when we run out of ammo. Anything can happen, and anything can go wrong.”
Avery lowered her head. “Yes sir, I understand.”
Brian pulled Avery to the side away from the group and gave her a big hug. “I love you so much. I need you to take your bow and arrow with you to the campsite. Your job is to keep everyone up there safe since we don’t have any firearms to spare. You’ll be their primary defense.”
Avery looked pleased with being tasked to guard everyone at the campsite.
Brian returned to the group. “Can anyone think of any other weapons or scenarios that haven’t come up?”
“I have some illegal fireworks I got from across state lines I was saving for New Year’s,” Craig said. “The mortar kind you launch from a tube. I have the three-inch kind and a few eight-inch shells.
“Those eight-inch ones pack a wallop,” Brian said, nodding, “but fireworks are not going to do any real damage to them.”
“They don’t have to do any damage,” Daniel said. “When shit starts exploding right next to you, whether it is a firework or a grenade, your survival instinct takes over and your body is going to seek cover whether your mind wants to or not.”
Brian thought for a moment. “You know, that is a good idea. We may need the distraction at some point, and those types of explosions are going send them into chaos. We still have that water balloon launcher that two people hold and one person shoots. We can put two posts in the ground and connect the handles to them. Then one person can load it, light the fuse, and launch it. We need to empty the propellant out of the fireworks so they don’t fly all over the place. They need to explode where they land. We can put it behind the workshop, and someone can shoot them over the roof. Brandon, that will be your job.” Brian put the finishing touches on the diagram he had been drawing.
Sean said, “Kevin, it looks good.”
Brian was confused. “Kevin?”
The kids started giggling, and most of the adults were catching on.
“Yeah, Kevin McCallister. That is an awesome battle plan you drew up. We will catch them Wet Bandits yet!” Craig laughed.
Avery said, “C’mon, Dad, Home Alone!” She giggled.
Brian realized what they were talking about and sighed. “Y’all do understand that we are discussing a plan to kill fourteen or more people righ
t?”
Everyone became silent, and with a serious face Sean said, “Yes we do, and we either laugh, or we crawl in a hole and cry about it.”
Sean was right; their world as they knew it had ended, and they were right to try and lighten the mood. Brian wrote something at the top of the paper and then something at the bottom of it. “If y’all keep on, I’m going to ask Santa for a new family!” He tossed the paper onto the table.
Everyone looked at what he had written and laughed, some of them even crying while they laughed.
Chapter 17
Monday, September 23rd
Brian woke up with a major headache. He had tried to stand guard duty last night after their meeting ended but Sean and Craig said they would do it, and that he needed to sleep due to the knock on the head he suffered.
When he walked into the kitchen, a few people were already there, and some had gone out to start on their assigned task.
“Hey, Doc,” Brian asked, “you don’t happen to have any horse pills for a migraine do you?”
Doc said he did and went out to their trailer, returning with two of the biggest pills Brian had ever seen.
“Doc, I was only joking about horse pills!”
Doc laughed. “I’m not. These actually are horse pills, but they’re the same medicine humans would take. You only need to take half of one every twelve hours. That’s two days’ worth.”
Brian thanked him and sat down as Evelyn put a plate of food in front of him. He ate quickly so he could get to work. When he got outside, the homestead was a flurry of activity. The trailer had already been moved up to the pad, Doc’s car had been pulled back to the edge of the woods and placed up on blocks until they could find new tires for it, Craig was installing the mister system above the front porch, and the banister and railing around the front porch had already been removed.
There was a steady stream of sandbags coming to the house, and Brandon was stacking them below all the windows in the house. The windows of the workshop were already fortified with sandbags. Brenda had already started putting the security film on the downstairs windows of the house.
Daniel was standing guard duty in the workshop. They had been hearing gunshots far off in the distance all morning, and everyone was on edge.
Brian started on his tasks. First he pulled two five-inch steel pipes from the shed and then tack welded a steel plate on one end of each tube. He found two bottles of reloading gunpowder from the workshop and fashioned two charge bundles. Each had an electric match used to ignite model rocket engines in the middle and one full can of gunpowder wrapped in a foil pouch and duct taped together. He grabbed some shop rags, a thousand-foot spool of wire, two big boxes of nuts and bolts, and a shovel, and headed down to the entrance of the driveway.
Across the road from the gate, he dug two trenches that the pipes would lay in. He took the time to angle the tubes and ensure they were aiming to where the target vehicles had parked the previous day. Once he was happy with the locations he mounded and compacted dirt over the tubes. Next, he gently pushed a charge bundle down the tube, followed by some shop rags for wadding, and then put half of the nuts and bolts into each tube. Wire leads from the electric matches were coming out the front of the tubes; he connected the spool of wire to them. Before he left, he placed duct tape over the front of the tube to waterproof it, and then covered the entire setup in leaves to keep them hidden.
Brian trailed the wire from the devices down the road and under the road through a water culvert, then beelined straight to the LP/OP location that Sean and David were busy digging. Brian was careful to press the wire into the dirt and allow enough slack so it wouldn’t get tripped on by someone walking over it. The guys had a good dirt mound from what they were digging out, and Brian spread it along the wire to cover it up and then he kicked leaves over the fresh dirt.
The LP/OP was looking good. Nice, deep and wide. Sean had dug a drainage and grenade pit on one side, and they were putting the roof on.
Brian was impressed. “As long as we have known each other, where the hell did you learn to dig a fighting hole this good?”
Sean grinned. “I found your Marine student manual in the basement on how to construct a fighting position.”
“Ah, that’s why it’s so good. If we need to use the grenade pit we are in some deep shit. I’m going to walk down the road and see how it looks.”
To finish off the front opening Sean hung down a small strip of camo netting and then covered the entire thing with leaves. When Brian got to the road, he took a look and was thoroughly pleased. He knew where it was and still could not see it.
As Brian got back up to the house Daniel hollered out, “Sean said there’s a group of fifteen armed people coming down the road!”
Brian rushed everyone to take cover and hide. Daniel already had the rifle up in the workshop window, and handed Craig the pistol. Brian donned his plate carrier and grabbed the AR-15. Sean, who did not have a weapon, relayed that they were 100 yards from the gate. Brian had taken up a position on the left side of the driveway using the slope as a way to see over the hill down at the gate.
The group came into view, and everyone saw it was ten men and five women. There were a few hunting rifles and shotguns in the group. One appeared to have an AK-47, and the remaining had pistols in their belts.
Brian radioed everyone to play it cool. “We don’t have the ammo to sustain any type of firefight. If it comes to it, I should be able to drop a few before they scatter.” He wished he had taken the Claymore firing clacker up to the LP/OP when he ran the wire. At least then they would have had the option to use the mortars if need be.
When the group arrived at the gate, most of them were pointing their rifles up towards the house. Brian suspected the group was using the scopes to investigate, more than attempt to shoot anything. One of the men, who appeared to be leading the pack, started to climb over the gate. Brian had put a padlock on it to slow down any would-be government thugs and buy the group a few more seconds to get into position.
“That’s far enough!” Brian yelled.
The man stopped, and the group started talking among themselves. The man on the gate dropped down. “Do you have any food or water you can spare?”
“No,” Brian said. After a few seconds passed and no one said anything, Brian added, “We’ve heard there is food distribution being set up at the high school in town.”
“Yeah, that’s where we came from,” the man said. “They’re confiscating weapons of anyone that goes near it, and then they are not letting anyone leave. We had six more in our group who went in to check things out. When they tried to leave against their orders, they were shot.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Brian said. “Unfortunately, those same bastards came out here yesterday and raided our food supply. We have nothing left.”
Chatter erupted among the group. Brian couldn’t hear what they were saying. The way the lead man was speaking back towards some of the group, he suspected they were debating about rushing them. One of the most vocal towards the rear of the group came up and pulled himself up on the gate.
“If your man continues to cross the gate,” Brian shouted to the man he had been speaking to, “he dies.” Brian asked into the radio, “Daniel, do you have a good shot on the man climbing the gate?”
“Yes, do you want me to drop him?”
Brian was torn. He did not want to deal with these people right now, nor potentially start a new war when they were already preparing for a war with someone else. “If you can, put a warning shot into the gate right next to his hand, as close as you can get without hitting him if possible.”
The man was still standing on the railing of the gate arguing with the rest of his group. It looked like the main man was telling him to get off the gate. He pulled himself higher on the gate and a shot rang out. The man climbing the gate jumped off and landed on his butt in the dirt, holding his hand in pain. The group raised their weapons and crouched down. They now knew t
hey were up against more than one person since the shot hadn’t come from the direction of Brian’s voice.
“That was a warning,” Brian called out. “Is your man okay?”
The main man responded, “It was just a graze. Thank you for not shooting him.”
“Good luck to you all, sorry we couldn’t help.”
The man waved, and the group headed down the road. After they were out of sight Brian called the all clear. Everyone resumed their assigned preparations.
Sean returned to the house, and he, Brian, and Craig went up to critique the encounter they had with Daniel.
“Good shot, Daniel,” Brian said.
“I’m glad I practiced and sighted in the scope earlier.”
“We need more weapons,” Sean said. “I felt helpless out at the LP/OP without one. That location would be optimal to help squash any would-be intruders.”
They all agreed, but there wasn’t anything they could do at the moment.
“We need a more fortified location closer to the gate to challenge people from,” Brian said. “Peeking my head over the hill was not ideal.”
Again, they all agreed, also agreeing it was not at the top of the priority list until after this thing with the sheriff’s department was over with.
After they got done discussing the encounter, Brian jumped on the bicycle and rode down to check on their neighbors. He had meant to do it since the visit by the deputies yesterday. The property to the west of them was owned by the Gary and Nancy Palmer, who were in their sixties. He had the AR with him, but left it slung behind his back as he approached their house. The front door was open, and it looked like the house had been ransacked.