I took a moment staring out into the skies and then headed in. After trips to the bathroom and some washcloths to make them feel more human, they joined Lucy and I at the table. In the candlelight, I saw dark patches on Randy’s shirt.
“Are you hit?” I asked him, concerned.
“No, it’s not my blood,” Randy said softly.
I waited. I waited some more. Ken tried to start speaking a couple of times, but it just didn’t happen.
“Dammit, what’s going on?” I asked.
“The rumors were pretty well true,” Kristen said after a long pause, “Almost one whole subdivision gone, most everyone killed.”
I swallowed hard and Lucy took my hand, giving it a squeeze.
“What happened?” I asked, starting to get upset that they were drawing it out so much.
If we were in immediate danger, there were things we could do, we could also head into the state land behind us and hide if needed… The kids, Lucy… I wanted to protect them, and dammit, I needed to know. They all took a breath at once and it was Brenda who finally spoke.
“We found Frank’s neighbor’s wife. She literally ran into Randy in the dark. When we calmed her down, she told us a lot more than what we’d seen with our own eyes. The gang came in three pickup trucks they’d stolen from somewhere and started going house to house. They kicked in doors, dragged people out and shot them on the front lawns. After a while, they started saving the women,” Brenda said in disgust, “tying them together and to the trucks. Most were too traumatized by the sound of it to fight back. Parents, husbands and children executed in front of them? The lady we talked to was one of them, part of the harem, the gang had called it.
“Whenever they found somebody who’d start shooting back, they’d concentrate to gun them down, or burn them out of their house. As people were trying to give up, they were shot and killed. It sounds like this went on day after day. Most people who could get away after the first night did, but not everyone who did had any place to go other than to their neighbors, or hide outside the neighborhood. They tried to band together a couple of times, but the gang found some military hardware from somewhere and just threw grenades and cut them down with assault rifles,” Brenda finished.
“What about the woman?” I asked them.
“She died while we were trying to give first aid. She’d been part of the harem and had been beaten so much, and she was probably suffering malnutrition…” Brenda said.
“Did they get the whole sub?” Lucy asked.
They nodded.
“Do you think they’re coming this way next?” I asked.
They nodded.
“The woman we tried to help told us that she’d heard them talking about the farms out here, and another subdivision of ‘Skanks’ to play with,” Kristen said with a shudder.
“How long do you think?” I asked Ken.
“I don’t know. They’re eating the supplies from the houses they didn’t burn down. There’s at least forty of them, so between thirty or forty houses worth of food… It can’t be that long, people have been scraping by since the power went out. I can’t imagine there’s a ton of food for them to get. My best guess? From what we saw, maybe another week or two.”
“Damn!” I swore, “We have to get the corn harvest started and now we have to decide how to either bug out and leave everything behind, or figure out a way to run them off.” I said.
“Don’t forget about the neighbors,” Lucy said, standing and starting to rub my shoulders.
“They’re in even worse shape,” Randy said, “About half of them don’t even own firearms.”
“Huh?” I asked, “How would you know?”
“Because of a HOA meeting. George was trying to have guns banned from the Home Owners Association. Half the people who were there, shouted him down. It was the only time I’d ever seen George not get his own way,” Brenda told us.
I chewed on that. George didn’t like hunting; well… he hadn’t liked it. I had to remember to use past tense. I suppose he thought of that subdivision as his own little kingdom, and wanted to see how much he could push and threaten people. I already knew he used forged signatures plenty of times. I wouldn’t have put it past him to use some of those tactics into bullying the folks from the neighborhood.
“Wow. Well, at least half the families will be armed,” I said, “maybe we can get them together and we can all…”
“It’s crazy,” Lucy said, “There’s forty of them.”
“But I doubt they’re military; just thugs, drunks and murderers.” I countered.
“Who went to jail for beating, raping and killing,” said Lucy.
“Do you want to pack up and leave? I have a working truck. If it looks that bad, I mean…”
“No, no,” Lucy said, my shoulders sore as she worked on them, probably relieving her own tension and bruising me black and blue in the process, “It’s just a lot to work with. A lot to take in.”
“I’ve got an idea,” Ken said, “In the military, we use force multipliers. It’s a fancy word that means something that allows you to kill way more of the bad guys than you normally could. When we were in Mr. Matthews’s barn I noticed a pile of chemicals. Any of them bags of fertilizer? Or was he an organic farmer?”
“No, he’d talked about going organic, but he said it’d be triple the cost for about 1/3 of the money. I never pushed him on it, because he was pretty good about soil testing every year and amending the soil to keep it healthy,” I told him.
“Good. If we use the element of surprise, then I think we can take them, mostly in one fell swoop.”
“How do we do that?” I asked, incredulously.
“Remember Timothy McVeigh?” Ken asked the table.
We all nodded.
“Oklahoma City Bomber. From Michigan. Was supposed to have been a member of the Michigan Militia?” Randy asked.
“Yes. Remember what he used?” Ken asked.
“Yeah, a fertilizer…” my words cut off in a moment.
I remembered why the fuel depot at Mr. Matthews was so far away from the barn now. Shoot, he’d told me that once when I was a kid!
“Ammonium nitrate and fuel oil,” I finished.
“Right. We don’t have fuel oil, but we do have a lot of diesel, which is a cleaned up version. Do you think he has some bags of it?” Ken asked me.
I nodded, I’d seen them. They smelled bad, but there had been two pallets worth of them in the very back of the barn, covered by a tarp.
“You know how to do this?” Randy asked Ken.
“I know how it works from EOD. Usually, I was figuring out how to not make it go boom. I think the reverse applies just about the same way though,” he gave me a wicked grin.
“What about the women in the harem?” Lucy asked, “We can’t just blow them up, too.”
“I don’t know if there’s going to be any of them left,” Brenda admitted.
“So why don’t we do something about it now?” I asked, “Go in there and shoot them from a distance? I don’t know, how bad it can be? Forty or fifty guys?”
“Those are overwhelming numbers,” Ken said, “We’d be cut down, even if all they did was charge us. We need to take the bulk of them out and then kill them. I don’t think they’d move the harem with just three trucks. Unless they found more working vehicles, they’d probably leave a few men behind to watch them - if they kept them alive.”
“Damn,” I swore again.
“Hey, where’s the Sandersons?” Brenda asked.
I hung my head; forgetting to tell them had been inexcusable.
“Kristy passed tonight. I guess it was about as gentle as it could be,” Lucy said, giving my shoulders a break.
“Oh man, that’s too bad,” Ken said.
“Yeah, figure we’ll do a funeral service and burial tomorrow. Brandon Sr. already had a spot picked out the last I talked to him. They knew the time was close,” I said.
“We have to talk to the neighbors,” Randy s
aid, “After the funeral. We need to get them on board; even if they can’t shoot, they can help us set up and help us watch.”
“Yeah buddy, we’ll do that tomorrow.”
* * *
Randy and Brenda paid their respects once we’d dug the grave and left for the subdivision, while I tried to remember the words to the service. I couldn’t, so instead we said the serenity prayer and the Sandersons shared what a great mother and wife Kristy had been. The cancer may have been what killed her, but it never changed who she was or what she’d meant to the family. After we filled in the hole the Sanderson boys went and got their rifles and two, of the three went out the front gate, staggering themselves almost a quarter mile apart.
Close enough to hear gunshots clearly, but far enough away that they could relay information a little more quickly. It was these moments that made me really want some sort of portable communications, but the agreement was that at the first sight or sound of motors heading our way, each boy was to fire off one round and start heading back towards the farm. A crude early warning system, one we’d tossed around in our talks early in the morning. They’d link up with the last brother at the gate who’d let them in, and then we’d get ready to defend.
Part of preparations was to drag fallen trees towards the main gates. I planned to lay a few across the road just past the entrance, sealing off access by small vehicles and trucks. It wasn’t foolproof, but it would give us and the people in the subdivision some time. We agreed that if our fences were breached, we’d all head west, leaving the animals and supplies behind. If we didn’t take out most of the group before they even got to the fences, then we’d almost surely be dead anyways, Ken had told us.
Brandon and Lucy kept an eye on the kids while Randy and Brenda went going door to door to warn and offered help. Brandon wanted to do more, but he really wasn’t in any shape and I felt for the guy. I hoped maybe having the kids around would be therapeutic, and help him keep his mind off of Kristy. It might make it worse also, but it’d keep him busy and not dwelling on his loss.
It was a hard call to make, but when we talked, he understood and agreed. He did say something about the root cellar dug into the hillside, but I told him how flimsy the door was and he shrugged his shoulders. It wouldn’t keep people out, but maybe it could be used as a hiding spot. It could, but there wasn’t much more room than a small corridor of about six feet wide by three feet deep. Just enough for me to hang a rope hammock during the hotter parts of summer.
“Coming through,” Brandon yelled, opening the gate as I dragged my third large tree out.
With only one chain, it was hard getting it positioned, and I more than once wished I had a front end loader like the one on my Kubota. The third tree would do it, and provide almost ten feet of obstacle crossing on both sides of the road and shoulders. It’d taken a lot of cursing and cussing, but we were going to stop them and stop them right there.
“Ok guys, I’ll be back, I’m running to Mr. Matthews’ to pick up a load or two.” I hollered over the idling engine.
I got the nod and took off. For a minute I worried that I’d forgot the keys when I did the automatic check most guys get accustomed to doing, but I found them. With a sigh of relief I headed out down the road, passing first one brother and then the other, who only came out of cover to wave. A little past that was the twisting drive to Mr. Matthews’s house. I turned the tractor in and headed up. I stopped at the equipment barn and backed the tractor up to a small trailer with short sides. I think he’d used to haul extra implements on it when he needed to, but it’d be perfect for what I’d wanted it for.
I backed up to the pallets, and loaded four bags of fertilizer, then went in search of his fuel cans. I found them after about half an hour of searching and drove up to his fuel farm. I filled my tractor back up and both five gallon cans, not knowing if that was enough. If it wasn’t, my tractor plus the Kubota would have more than plenty for Ken’s surprise. I knew why he kept things so far apart, but I sweated the whole trip back to the farm, both from having the two fuel cans next to the fertilizer, and the fact that I was driving around loud and proud. Everyone within a mile or two could probably hear me, and my back itched as I imagined a target on it.
I did make it back without incident and parked by the barn. I went in to trade with Brandon and give him the key, so he could do his part next. If things went well, we’d have a big hole dug into the hillside near the road approaching the farm. Ken explained the theory of shaped charges, and this one was no different than C4 in regards to things. When Timothy McVeigh had lit off the Oklahoma City bomb, the barrels had been pointed up. Most of the explosive forces were concentrated in that direction. See, the bottom and tops of those barrels were the weak points… So by burying a barrel on its side, only leaving part of one end exposed, it would create a blast that would go up, but we’d planned on putting these on their sides where most of it would go sideways and, with good timing, we’d fry all three trucks at the same time.
Brandon was heading to Mr. Matthews’ house to get the backhoe. He’d have his sons for protection, and he was armed as well in what really amounted to a civilian’s version of a tank. As long as they couldn’t shoot at him through the glass, he could keep the rear counter weight pointed at them and use the bucket to push, squash or crush a truck if it slowed down enough. Besides, he had his deer gun as well, and quite a bit of elevation, because Mr. Matthews had one of the largest backhoes I’d ever seen.
I waited with Lucy and the kids, watching the monitor and waiting. I’d field stripped and cleaned my AR and .45 a couple of times by the time I finally saw the backhoe heading slowly towards the gate. Two brothers were walking beside it, close to the tree line for cover, and Brandon Jr. opened the gate long ahead of them. I could hear the backhoe’s steady rumble and winced. It was a lot louder than I’d anticipated. It didn’t take him long to move it into place and park it halfway to the house. It’d be an impromptu shooting platform for Brenda, who was by far our best ranged shooter.
We all sat down to a quick dinner of ham, sourdough bread, carrots and green beans. It was one of the best meals we’d had, and we all made sure to eat plenty. We’d all been using minimal food from our storage, as much as we could, but we wanted and needed our strength for the battle to come. For that matter, if the neighbors were going to help us, it wouldn’t hurt to get them well fed and healthy too, even if it meant leaner times for us. If they were too weak to lift and fire a rifle, then they really can’t be counted on to help.
I pondered on that, and listened to Randy and Brenda telling us about the subdivision’s reaction.
“Most of them said they would help. They heard that you’re going to be helping with the meat situation a bit, but I’m guessing that’s from traps mostly?” Randy asked.
“Yeah, I think so, but we don’t know how long it’s going to be until we’re attacked. I wonder if we ought to slaughter two of the younger feeder hogs and bust into some of my grain supplies so we can give them something nourishing in payment. In advance maybe,” I finished.
“That’s going to make food really tight, isn’t it?” Brenda asked.
“For our stored food? Yes. But if we get out of this ok, we’re going to have more corn than we know what to do with. Enough to barter and trade for stuff we’re going to need. Clothes wear out, shoes and boots too, like Ken found out,” I said pointing to the duct taped toe on his right boot. “I want to give this stuff away, but it’s the only thing we have of value to trade and we don’t know how long this is going to go on.”
“Could we pick ears of corn now and eat them?” Lucy asked.
“Well sure…” I said.
“How about this? We do the two smaller hogs, and let the neighbors come in and pick a couple grocery sacks worth of corn. We can still keep an eye on things, and they would be close by if they were needed to help with the attackers.”
“Lucy, I love you,” I said, standing and kissing her deeply.
I onl
y stopped because Randy hooted and the twins were making gagging noises form their end of the table. I laughed.
“You know what, we might as well eat it now instead of jumping into our stored stuff.”
“Here’s what I’m worried about,” Ken said, “We ran the tractor and backhoe today. Do you think they heard it and are going to come looking for the noise? Are we giving ourselves away? We don’t even have the ANFO mixed up, and I think we’re going to have to make some noise once we start doing it. Plus… we still haven’t found any dynamite or blasting caps.”
“Wait, what? I know where you can get some!” Brenda told us. “That George kid, when they got into that hardware store for seeds and tools, he remembered hearing that there were some locked crates in the back room that said dynamite on them. I bet you that it has all we need!” Her voice was excited.
“Dang, how do we go that way? I just blocked the road!” I grumbled.
“We wouldn’t need much,” Ken said smiling, “two sticks maybe, and some caps. The easiest way I heard was to use a smaller charge to light off the bigger one. Two sticks might be overkill, but I know it’ll do the job.”
“Why would the old hardware store sell dynamite?” Lucy asked.
“Because,” I said, “sometimes farmers plowing the fields find a rock they can’t pull out. It’s a big boulder that’s slowly made its way to the surface. So you drill a hole, put in the dynamite with a long fuse. Light and run like hell!” I grinned.
“I’m hoping with blasting caps we won’t need to mess with fuses,” Ken told us.
I nodded. I knew the basics from my father, and had used it once. Almost any wire would work, as long as it could hold the load, and then you hooked it up to a switch or just hooked one end up to the battery, and let the exposed wire on the second side touch when you wanted it to go boom. I think we used my dad’s old John Deere battery the one time I was allowed to use it. We had plenty of charged batteries.
“Ok, so tomorrow’s plan, we need to get people inside here, get them food and get them fed. One or two of us will have to watch them, but we also need to get that old fuel drum I have in the barn out there with the supplies, and get it mixed and ready. Somebody has to go to the hardware store and see if we can break into those crates and, last but not least, we need Intel and a good way to find out when they’re coming. Damn, this sounds impossible,” I grouched.
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