by John Grit
Kendell yelled out, “Who are you?”
“US Army. Sent to protect the people who live on this farm. Come out with empty hands and you won’t be harmed.”
Kendell raised his head enough he could see Caroline sitting there. As their eyes locked, she fell over on her side and was out. On seeing that, Kendell yelled at the soldiers, “We have children with us. Don’t shoot.” He left his rifle on the ground and stood with his hands in the air.
A soldier approached, barely paying any attention to the children, keeping his eyes on Caroline and Kendell.
Kendell motioned with his head. “We have a wounded woman.”
The soldier yelled over his shoulder, “Marcel, get over here.”
A wet-faced seven-year-old boy cried out while sitting on the ground next to the other children, “Please don’t hurt us.”
A soldier looked over the group of children, his face softening. “Don’t be afraid, kids. It’s over.”
Chapter 28
Brian and Kendell listened with great interest to the adults talking about Caroline. She had just come out of surgery and Brian’s father was discussing her prognosis with Drs. Brant and Millhouse.
“The main threat to her life was the loss of blood,” Dr. Millhouse said, “but the medic on the scene gave her an IV, which kept her alive until she was flown here.”
Nate’s eyes were on Brian when he asked, “What about her leg?”
Dr. Millhouse smiled. “It should heal up fine. It’ll be sore and she may have another limp to deal with when she walks, but I see no threat of her losing it. We have antibiotics in her IV now, and the wound seems to be clean and free of damaged flesh that could later go septic. I had to trim a little off but not much.”
Kendell leaned against the hallway wall and turned away, wiping his face.
Brian noticed. “She’s been through a lot, but she’s tough.”
Kendell turned to face him. “You have no idea.”
“Oh, I think I do,” he countered. “I was with her when she was shot in the leg she lost, and she wouldn’t stop fighting. It’s probably why she lost it. She wanted Dad to operate without any painkiller.”
Raising an eye, Kendell started to speak but didn’t.
“You don’t believe me?” Brian motioned with his head. “Ask my father.”
Mel and Chesty walked up.
“How is she?” Mel asked.
Drs. Millhouse and Brant excused themselves, explaining they had patients waiting.
Nate answered Mel’s question. “The docs say she’ll be okay.”
Relief crossed Mel’s face. “I’ve got a HAM operator waiting. He promised to give the folks at the horse farm the word on Caroline’s condition as soon as I got the message to him.” He turned and rushed down the hall, disappearing when he turned left for the stairs.
~~~
Mrs. MacKay limped wearily down the hall and heard Samantha in a bedroom asking a woman about Caroline for the hundredth time, her voice full of worry. The woman tried to calm her but to no avail. Few of the children were asleep, though it was nearly midnight. They lay in bed or on mattresses on the floor crying and were still too upset and nervous for sleep. The little child Mrs. MacKay worried about most was Samantha. She had wanted to go with Caroline, but her pleas didn’t produce the results she so desperately wanted. Everyone knew there were two people the little girl trusted; one was Caroline, the other Deni. On this night, she didn’t hide the fact she felt alone, despite all those around her.
Ramiro approached his former employer in the hallway, the grief of losing his wife Rita in the fight still on his face, but also the look of a man with a purpose, a man fulfilling a duty to others. His sense of responsibility drove him on through the pain.
He leaned forward so she could hear when he spoke softly so as not to disturb anyone who had managed to fall asleep. “The soldier Mel, he radioed that Caroline will live and keep her other leg.” There was no smile on his face, but his eyes little up a little at the elderly woman’s reaction.
She reached out for Ramiro’s hand and he gave it to her. She held it in both of hers and said, “Thank you for your kindness, my friend. I grieve so painfully for Rita, one of the finest women I’ve ever known.” After looking him in the eyes, she said, “I must tell little Samantha that her friend will be back soon.”
Ramiro nodded. “Yes, please do. It pains me to hear her cry for Caroline.”
She turned and walked to the bedroom door, stopping to rub her bruised right shoulder for a second. It was sore from firing a pump shotgun her late husband left her. She had only 3-inch magnum 00 buckshot and the recoil had been a bit too much for her slight frame. Even at this late hour, there had been no time away from her worries for others, no time for herself. Later, she would come to terms with the fact she had taken human life in her desperate struggle to protect the people on her farm. Giving Samantha the message that at that moment glowed warmly in her heart would be one of the few chores of the day she expected to enjoy.
~~~
As the nights grew longer and colder, progress on the large farm allowed for a small cold weather crop, and the fresh produce – as limited as it was – supplemented dry and canned goods from the warehouses and military handouts, mostly MREs. A three-family cooperative had successfully started a catfish farm, but they had yet to solve the problem of finding a source for enough feed, so their production was temporarily limited. A hog farm that also raised chickens, turkeys, and goats had struggled to get established and was producing a little food to add to the community’s supply. They too, were having trouble coming up with a source for enough feed for their livestock. Some men had taken to not only running long trotlines in the nearby lakes and rivers for catfish and anything else worth eating, such as soft-shelled turtles, but had also started night hunting for alligators. The meat from the younger ones was prized, and their skins made tough leather.
There had been little recent trouble with the anarchists, as people had started calling them, though no one was sure exactly what kind of ideology they espoused with such fervor. It was clearly not just simple Anarchy, but held elements of Socialism and anti-Capitalism, also. Interrogations of the captured fanatics produced rambling rants and tirades that were almost indecipherable. There were obvious common threads in each individual’s rants, though. Besides hatred of government, Capitalism, and technology, they hated corporations in particular, blaming all of them for the plague. Many of them also harbored a deep hatred for the U.S. military. The farm by the lake, Mrs. MacKay’s little group on her horse farm, the town, and even the Army represented a new start of all the things they blamed for the plague and every social ill that existed before. As such, they considered them all a threat to the human race. This explained their motivation for the bloody attacks. Unfortunately for them, most of the blood spilt was theirs.
Donovan had expended considerable resources hunting for the main Anarchist group, never finding a clue as to where they were hiding out. He never even found the group that attacked Nate, Deni, and Austin. The few campsites they found had been abandoned months or at least weeks before. Many of his officers and noncoms suggested they had moved on to where they didn’t have the Army to deal with. He had to agree that was possible, but his gut told him he hadn’t seen the last of what he considered to be fanatical terrorists. They may have been incompetent as warriors, but they were still deadly enough and a threat to civilians.
~~~
Deni had Nate and Brian over for dinner. Kendell and Caroline had long since returned to Mrs. MacKay’s horse farm, and their other friends were patrolling the streets of the town.
The menu included fried gator tail, lima beans, and cornbread, the conversation light, covering the local news, such as a mother of three giving birth to her first daughter.
Nate sipped a glass of water. “Well, good for her and her husband, they’re doing their part.”
Brian dropped his spoon back in his lima beans. “Doing their part?”
<
br /> “Rebuilding the human population,” Nate answered.
“The birth rate in town has started to rise.” Deni eyed the small nugget of gator tail on her plate but passed it over. “As food and healthcare have become more plentiful, people have started to act more like normal people in normal times.” She sliced more cornbread for herself. “Marriages are up too,” she added.
Brian suppressed a smile and continued to chew.
“On a related subject,” Nate said. “Have you heard anything new about you being discharged from the Army?”
They had decided not to get married until the Army let her reenter civilian life. As long as she was a soldier, she could be transferred to another part of the country or even another part of the world, and Nate didn’t want to face being separated from his new wife.
Deni’s expression changed. “No. As shorthanded as they are, they’re reluctant to let anyone go.”
Nate’s chest rose and held, as if he were about to lose his temper. “I think they’ve gotten enough of your blood sweat, and tears. Your time was up months ago. As for your service to the country, you can do just as much good for the American people as a civilian.”
She raised her hands. “Hey, you have my vote. I’ve driven Donovan nuts lately, badgering him about it. If he were not such a patient man, he’d have busted me back to buck private by now.”
The crevasses on Nate’s face that were not there before the plague deepened. “Of course he says it’s out of his hands.”
Coming to her CO’s defense, Deni said, “Well, it is.”
Nate reached over and lightly touched the discolored skin left by the impact of the bottle the punk had thrown, and then went back to eating without a word.
She regarded him in silence for some time. “Hard to hide that one with my hair,” she said, indirectly referring to the ragged scar that ended just below her hairline in the front, a scar left by a bullet that came within a fraction of an inch of killing her. Nate had sutured her scalp himself and his handiwork was none too professional.
Nate tried to read her emotions. “I was just thinking of how loyal you are to those you know. Donovan’s your CO, and that compelled you to defend him.”
She smiled. “Well, it is out of his hands.”
“It’s not right,” Nate said. “You’ve done your part. I’m sure there are plenty of hungry young people who would sign on just for the three squares. It’s time they let you go.”
They went back to eating, and the conversation became light again.
“Hey.” Brian reached for another slice of cornbread. “People have been gathering at radios at 8PM to listen to a new program that started a couple days ago. Someone has gotten a shortwave radio station restarted. I guess they found enough fuel for a generator big enough to power the equipment.” His eyes were question marks when he looked at his father. “There’s time to finish with dinner and listen at the church.”
Nate didn’t seem very interested. “What kind of program is it?”
“I think it’s a news program,” Brian answered.
Nate raised an eyebrow. “Well, that might be informative. It’s always a good idea to know what’s going on beyond the horizon.”
~~~
After dinner, the three of them piled in a truck and drove to the church – the one place they knew a shortwave radio was available for the public to listen to. All three brought their weapons. They weren’t so complacent that they no longer thought it necessary to keep weapons close by, and Deni had orders to keep her rifle and pistol with her at all times.
The entrance to the parking lot was guarded by soldiers and so were the front and back doors of the church. Such a large gathering would be a tempting target for the strange nihilist militia. There had been no trouble of late, but someone in the Army wasn’t taking chances. Most likely it was Capt. Donovan.
They found the church half full. The crowd enjoyed ice cream someone had made. A man at the door handed the three each a bowl and a spoon. It was strawberry. Where enough sugar and other ingredients had been found, Nate had no idea. The milk and strawberries were easy enough, but the sugar in particular was something no one had seen in many months.
It turned out the ice cream was made from real cream and had a much stronger taste than what Brian was used to. Even the fresh strawberry taste was stronger. “This is good,” he commented. Other than MRE cookies and powdered drink mix, it was the only sugary food he’d tasted in months. They had cows on the farm before the plague and he had drunk whole milk much of his life, but no one in the family had ever found the time to make ice cream with it.
Deni smiled. “You have a mustache.”
“It’s real ice cream,” Nate said, “not the mass-produced fake stuff people are used to. That’s why it tastes different. They finally got an ice company’s machinery going and somebody must’ve found some rock salt.”
It seemed everyone had on their best clothes. About a third of the men were wearing tattered jeans and shirts, but they were clean. Most wore handguns under their coats and jackets, and at least half of the people there had a rifle or shotgun slung across their back.
The radio produced only noise until the program started, even then, the noise to signal ratio wasn’t the best, but with a little effort, most could make out the words. The church’s PA system helped. It was powered by 12-volt batteries and a power inverter that jumped the 12 volts of direct current to 120 volts of alternating current. A man turned up the volume and the chattering crowd grew silent and began to sit in the pews, ignoring the blood stains on the floor that wouldn’t wash off – a reminder to all of the days when the church had housed wounded from the battle with the gang they finally ran out of town.
Everyone was eager for news from another part of the country, and it had been said this program broadcasted from out west somewhere, maybe Denver. A few people in the church had relatives in Colorado, or prayed they still did, and took intense interest.
Heavy metal music blared out of the speakers for 30 seconds of acoustic torture, while a young man who must have thought he could sing screamed at the establishment and how the last generation had ruined the world, startling everyone and irritating the older people there.
Then there were several seconds of silence. People glanced at each other, wondering if something had gone wrong, when an excited loud voice that sounded like it came from a man in his early twenties proudly announced, “This is Chip Horace.”
Another man with a weak monotone voice chimed in. “And this is Doug Shifler.”
They spoke at the same time, finishing with, “Together, we’re the Chip and Doug Show!”
“Now, let’s get the less important stuff done and out of the way,” Chip said. “Since our first broadcast, we’ve received many requests from local listeners here in Denver – many of them accosting us on the street or beating the studio door down – to reach out to lost relatives for them, asking if anyone knows if Uncle Billy Bob is alive, or whatever. Well, this ain’t that kind of show folks. We’re here to talk about the so-called rebuilding and the crimes Washington is committing nowadays. You’ll just have to wait until a few other morons waste their time getting a radio station up and running and start their own program, if you want to know how Uncle Billy Bob and Aunt Bee are doing.”
“Yes,” Doug added, “we’re just two morons blabbering on the airwaves and have only seven listeners. So please stop pestering us. Chances are you could scream down your street and find out more about what happened to your lost family members than by pestering us to ask about them on our show.” He waited a second then added, “So please stop it.”
“Morons? Seven listeners? I guess that’s supposed to be funny,” a woman whispered to her husband. Both sat in the pew in front of Nate.
“I guess,” her husband answered, a pained expression on his face. “Sounds like they’ve been sipping the moonshine.”
Nate coughed and looked up at the ceiling, examining the religious paintings. He liked the w
ay they were washed in the yellowish flickering light of several kerosene lanterns, making the images dance like spirits coming down from Heaven.
Deni squeezed his hand.
He lowered his eyes from the ceiling and looked at her.
She smiled and whispered in his ear, “You get bored quick, don’t you?”
“I’ve already lost nearly all hope this is going to be worth listening too,” he whispered back.
Her shoulders racked in silent laughter.
“I’m sorry I mentioned the program,” Brian muttered. “Maybe it’ll get better.”
Chip continued. “We know our seven listeners don’t want to hear us ramble on. After all, we’re morons. So we have a recording of an interview we did a few days ago with General Creedmoor of the National Guard. Listen up folks. We think you’ll find it sickening, uh, interesting.”
The General explained how they had been working with the remains of local and state law enforcement and had made great strides in restoring law and order to Colorado and several surrounding states. Reading between the lines told those in the church he was painting a rosy picture, but his words were somewhat reassuring just the same. Federal law enforcement, evidently, was out of the picture, since he didn’t mention a single federal agency other than to discuss the Border Patrol briefly.
Nate caught several signs the recording of the General’s comments were many months old. One of those hints was his mention of the plague still killing people in great numbers. That made him wonder how he could trust anything the two radio ‘morons’ told them. Unfortunately, many in the crowd believed he was saying the plague had returned and were upset by the ‘news.’
The General went on to inform them the Border Patrol had collapsed early in the pandemic, with most agents refusing to report for duty. The resulting invasion of illegal immigrants into California was unstoppable, and the state had been written off as a lost cause. Much of LA was burned to the ground within a week of the plague hitting the U.S., and there was no one to care how many illegals snuck in and no one in authority to stop it. Illegals from Mexico had pretty much taken California back and destroyed it in the process. They tried the same tactics in Texas and New Mexico but met with such violent resistance, they soon retreated back across the border. The trouble with Mexico was complete news to everyone in the church, and a low murmur began to rise. Nate and Deni eyed each other, and Brian’s eyes kept darting to them both, checking their reaction.