As the night wore on, Kirk made his preparations while Clay entertained the group with stories. Tara told Leesha and Clay how much they had come to mean to her. She told her grandchildren that they were the light of her world. She told Sherry of her plan and the two women had cried and talked for hours before Sherry went to bed beside her sleeping children, but she didn’t sleep that night. Tara had even come to hug Kirk and thank him one last time. She made him promise to look after her family. “They’re my family too, now.” Kirk told her. That was all she needed to hear.
Sometime after midnight Tara filled her three dirty syringes with all of her remaining insulin and laid them beside her. She lay in their makeshift bed next to her husband. “I still don’t think you should do this.” Scott said. “But I don’t want to see you suffer either. I just wish we had more time together. Just a little more time.”
“Just be thankful for the time we did have together.” Tara said. “I am.” She rolled over on her side and ran her hand through his hair. “Besides, I have one last wish.”
“And what’s that?” Scott asked, trying to hide the bitterness in his voice.
“Make love to me one last time.” She said as she rolled over on top of him.
Scott was too conflicted with emotions to respond. He didn’t need to as Tara covered his mouth with hers. She pulled off her top and undid her bra. She pulled up Scott’s shirt and ran her hands through his chest hair. He sat up and pulled his shirt off. She assisted with his pants, then removed her own. She eased herself down on him and rode him with the vigor she had possessed when they first married and the experience of all the years in between. She rolled off of him and moved on her side. He spooned her, entering from behind, slowly at first, building into a faster passion until they both came.
Scott breathed in the smell of her hair as he lay next to her. He wanted this moment to last forever. She felt so good next to him, her body perfectly nuzzled into his. She just felt… right. He tried to stay awake for as long as he could, but sleep claimed him.
Tara smiled to herself when she heard Scott’s soft snores. She reached over and grabbed the syringes without having to move away from him. She smiled to herself as she injected the first one. Tears ran from her eyes before she finished the third one, yet she still smiled. She wiggled even closer to Scott, feeling him hug her tighter in his sleep. It had been a good life. She spent the next fifteen minutes remembering the best times of her life. She thought about when Scott had proposed. Their wedding day. When Sherry was born. When her grandchildren had been born. She thanked God for giving her every second of life. She yawned. She was getting very sleepy…
When Scott opened his eyes the next morning, the first thing he noticed was how cold Tara was, still snuggled up to him. He cried softly. He kissed her neck and the back of her head. He rolled her over and took a small bit of solace in the peaceful smile on her lips. If he didn’t know better, he would have said she was enjoying a nice dream.
Kirk dug a shallow grave with his entrenching tool as the rest of the family wept. Sherry and Scott prepared Tara’s body, clothing her in just her t-shirt. They decided that the rest of her clothes and gear would be needed by the other group members. They said a short funeral service for her and filled in the grave. Shortly after nine that morning, they broke camp and continued their journey with heavy hearts.
Chapter 22
Shortly before noon, Vicio looked out the window of his new house on Main Street and surveyed his latest conquest of Booneville, Indiana, a small town just ten miles north of the Ohio River. Nine weeks had passed since everything had shut down. People had only thought they were hungry before. Now, they starved as supplies dwindled and everything was picked clean. Vicio’s group had been able to steal or scrounge up some supplies in the eight other small towns they had raided since he had left Mount Carmel, but Booneville held almost nothing. Vicio had pulled into town without resistance. From what he gathered from the population, over half of the town’s nine thousand inhabitants had died or fled. It took little to coerce the remaining population to turn on each other. He maintained his strategy of letting those who killed a neighbor or friend to join his group. Not only was the psychological devastation beautiful, but it supplied his army with meat.
“Commander Vicio, your captains are here.” Ed said as he knocked on the living room door.
Vicio had formed his fledgling staff a couple of weeks ago. His army had grown too big to manage on his own. He hated the staff and their meetings meetings but found them necessary to run his army. “Bring them in.”
Vicio began his little campaign with a small band of hardened criminals. In just a few short weeks, he had amassed an army just under five thousand people and all of the ass pain that came with them. He had been forced to grow, both as a leader and as an administrator. He didn’t give a shit about the individuals he commanded, but he did care about the power they afforded him. He found himself forced to care about the first in order to maintain the second. Some of the recent changes he had been forced to make consisted of breaking his men into ten units of approximately five hundred soldiers and organizing men on bikes and ATVs to function as scouts. In order to conserve people and fuel, Vicio had his scouts drive to nearby towns and identify ones worth attacking.
Transportation had become a big problem. They found less and less fuel at the towns they raided. It seemed that desperation had driven some of the survivors to find their own means of pulling fuel out of sleeping gas station storage tanks. His army still found some fuel, but it wasn’t enough to transport his army. To move the bulk of his army to attack new targets, he had scavenged every trailer that his army could find. By piggy-backing the trailers to the buses and the few trucks he had, he made a sort of roadway train to move his troops. The process was slow but far better than marching.
One saving grace was that one of the men he had recruited in Mount Carmel had been a radio technician in the Air Force. Ed had first approached Don, Vicio’s second in command and former cellmate, talking about how he could fix radios for extra food. Don had turned the tables on the nerdy, lanky cracker, making him fix a couple of busted CB radios and walkie-talkies or die. When Don mentioned it to Vicio, he had Ed put to work organizing all of their communications. Ed set up a radio net and trained several men on their basic use. He had worked himself up to become something akin to Vicio’s executive officer and head of communications. Ed was the one who had begun calling him Commander Vicio.
Vicio looked over the map on the small table in front of him as his captains, his staff, and Ed walked into the room. His ten unit commanders stood in the back of the room. Vicio’s supply captain and Don stepped up in front of the other ten, knowing they would be the first questioned.
Vicio looked at his supply captain, Brad, and wondered what shitty news he had for him today. Brad was a tall, painfully thin black man who sported a pair of rather effeminate, rimless glasses. He been a manager at a grocery store before the shit hit the fan. That experience made him Vicio’s best candidate for managing their dwindling supplies. Vicio looked down at the map before he spoke. He had crucial decision to make today and knew what Brad and Don had to say could change the course of the army. He had two targets in mind, Evansville, Indiana or Owensboro, Kentucky. Evansville was a large city, maybe too large. Owensboro was smaller, but still a big place. He needed to cross the Ohio River, and one of these two towns would be the lucky one to provide that crossing. “What have you shitheads got for me today?” He asked Don and Brad.
“You want da scout report first, boss? Don asked. Vicio nodded.
“Well, seems our boys didn’t find nothin good at Evansville. They said da place was a mess, Boss. Said they was cars blocking most of the roads. Said it’d take a lotta work to move them out of da way. They also said they saw at least four big compounds on the way to da river. They didn’t see no ready supplies. I think it gonna be a real bitch to move our guys through there.” Don reported.
Vicio frowned. He
had hoped to find more devastation, more supplies, and less resistance at Evansville. He had no way to tell how well populated or armed the compounds were or what resources they held. He studied the map. They’d have to fight through the better part of the city to get to the bridge. It would be tough to fight their way through while having to move road obstacles. “What about Owensboro?”
“Better story there, Boss. Road’s clear right up to da bridge. They got a wall of cars set up on the far side of the bridge. Da boys said from what they could see, that da place is pretty beat up.” Don finished.
Vicio nodded and was about to make his decision when Don asked. “I don’t get it, Boss. Why you wanna go down there?”
Vicio’s first thought was to cut the man for questioning him. If it had been anyone else but Don, he would have. He took a deep breath to calm himself. “Because, to the south of these towns is the most places to attack. Like our scouts reported back, big cities are a mess. They’ll either be destroyed or full of compounds and roadblocks and shit. We need to concentrate on medium to small towns. They should have held together better. They’ll be the best place to find supplies and easy food.” Vicio made his decision. “Once we take Owensboro, there will be dozens of places to raid to the south and east.
“What’s left of our shit?” Vicio asked Brad.
Brad addressed Vicio nervously. He had seen how violent and unpredictable Vicio could be, and this scared him, just the way Vicio liked it. “Well….Well…sir, we’ve got about four days’ worth of food. We’ve been holding back on the preserved stuff and stretching it out, like you ordered, but I’m afraid even that won’t get us very far.”
“What about weapons and gas?” Vicio asked.
Brad sweated under the pressure. He knew the story of his predecessor. When the fuel had started running low, the man had argued with Vicio about how to ration it. He was cooked up the next day after Vicio cut his throat. “It’s….Well…..It’s…..”
“Just fucking say it!”
Brad winced. “The fuel truck’s about half empty. We found less than two hundred gallons in this town. If I may suggest…I mean, if it were me…. Maybe, if it’s ok, we might want to march the army instead of using the trailers.” Vicio looked displeased. “It’s just a suggestion, Commander. Having the trucks and buses pull all of that extra weight is burning up more fuel than we thought. I just…”
Vicio smiled. “It’s ok, Brad. Now, tell me about the weapons.”
“A little over half of our people have guns now.” Brad said. “And those that do have guns, they’re low on ammo. We…”
Vicio cut him off. “What about the rest? What kind of weapons do they have, Mr. Supply Man?”
“I… I don’t know.” Brad said.
Vicio smiled at him again and stepped up to Brad. He saw the sweat beading on the man’s brow. A quick backhand sent those drops of sweat frying across the room and Brad to the floor. The man lay there, quivering and clutching his bruising face. Vicio leaned over and yelled at the man. “Listen you little bastard! I don’t give a fuck what you give them, but you get all of my men armed! Give them axes, knives, shovels, fucking anything! You got me?” Vicio stood up. “Also, get them shields.”
“Shields?” Don asked.
Vicio fixed him with a hard stare. “Yes, shields. Anything to protect them. Scrap metal, old car doors, fucking anything that might stop a bullet. I’ll be damned if they won’t be able to fight just because they don’t have guns. Even against a walled town with guns, five thousand men charging the wall should be able to get through and overrun the place. They’ll do better with some sort of protection.” Vicio turned to Brad who had managed to sit up. “You get them shields, you little bitch. You get them shields or we’re going to have a little extra food for the next supply man to count. You got me, pork chop?”
Vicio turned to his ten unit captains in the back of the room. “You all help Pork Chop here find your men some weapons and shields. Be quick about it. We’re marching for Owensboro tomorrow morning. Now get the fuck out of here.”
As the group left, Vicio called to Don. “Stay back for a moment.” Once the others had left, shutting the door behind them, Vicio addressed Don. “We’ve been friends a long time, lived in that shitty cell together for a long time. But things have changed. You’re still my deputy, but I’m the commander now. Don’t ever fucking question anything I do or say in front of the rest of the men again.” Don nodded. “Good. I’d hate to have to feed you to the troops. Now, one more thing before you go. Help Brad and find some way that we can mark our people. There’s just too many of them now, and I don’t want our men killing each other because they can’t tell the difference between our army and these pitiful fucks in one of the towns we raid.”
“You mean like a uniform, Boss?” Don asked.
“Nah, that’s too much. I’m thinking a bandana or some type of cloth tied around their arm. Just something that says, ‘I’m part of Vicio’s army. Don’t shoot me, asshole.’” Don nodded and left the room.
Now alone in the room, Vicio picked up the map and looked at it again. He needed to plan this out a little better. He had to have a plan for when they broke Owensboro. He maintained a firm grip on his army, partly through fear and partly because he was the man with the plan. To keep that grip he had to be a step ahead of the army with his plans, never letting them see any doubt. Today’s meeting had been a little too close. He studied the map. The best targets seemed to be along the route southeast from Owensboro to Bowling Green. From there, a steady supply of easy targets led to the east. He didn’t know where he would end up. He supposed that at some point, he might need to set up a permanent headquarters and send out his army from there to raid and bring back supplies. But that was a ways off yet. He still didn’t know where he wanted to have his new base. He had been to Atlanta once before and liked it. Perhaps he’d steer them in that direction and see what was left of the place.
Chapter 23
Kirk, Jimmy, and Clay hid in the bushes on the north side of the Ohio River while Scott and the ladies camped on the bank of the river some two miles away to the northeast. The three men could see the Glover Cary Bridge that led into downtown Owensboro about a half mile to the west. Kirk had led them here because they needed to cross the river to continue on their journey south. Only two places held a bridge that might be crossable, Owensboro and Highway 231 the bridge over to the northeast. Kirk had ruled out their other option because of his policy of avoiding people, something he figured would prove impossible in Evansville. He had chosen to make camp halfway between the Owensboro crossing and the 231 bridge. That way the group could scout out both locations and see which was safest. Kirk used the opportunity to test Clay and Jimmy on recon skills such as moving invisibly through the woods and fields and basic observation skills. He had been training them almost two weeks now and hoped this exercise would bring it all together for them.
Kirk thought back on the last couple of weeks. They had covered a lot of ground in the ten days since they had buried Tara. Kirk had expected Sherry to be the most distraught over her mother’s death. She had cried herself to sleep for the first couple of nights, but that passed. She soon accepted her mother’s choice and understood why she had done it. Scott had taken Tara’s passing much worse, slipping into depression. He still performed everything the group needed of him but was almost lifeless. Kirk suspected that if it wasn’t for his daughter and grandchildren, Scott would have offed himself the day after Tara had. He tried to keep the old fellow busy, but there was only so much to do. When Kirk had killed the small deer five days ago, it had been a welcome relief, not only for the food, but to give Scott something to do. He had him build six different fires to smoke as much of the meat as quickly possible. It hadn’t dawned on Kirk until they broke camp the next day that he had assumed leadership of the group. Scott deferred to him now. No one seemed to mind.
Clay broke his train of thought. “It looks like they’ve got the bridge pretty much sea
led off.” Clay remarked as he lowered his scoped thirty-thirty.
“Yep.” Kirk agreed as he looked through the scope of his three hundred magnum rifle. The residents of Owensboro had blocked the bridge with a wall of cars two deep and two high about a hundred yards north of the south bank of the river. “Guess we’ll go with option B.” He looked over to where Jimmy sat by a tree a few feet away. Kirk had taught them how to attach local plants to their clothing, compensating for their lack of camouflage. He also had them paint their faces. Jimmy looked like a clump of dead grass with eyes. The young man seemed to love this type of training. Kirk felt good about being able to pass on what he had learned from his grandfather and the Army to someone else who loved it. He used hand signals to tell Jimmy that it was time to go.
Kirk looked up to see the sun hanging midway in the west. He figured they had plenty of time to make it back to their camp before dark. Just as they had stood to go, Jimmy asked. “Do you hear that?”
“No. What do you hear?” Clay responded.
Jimmy held up his hand. Kirk heard the low rumble coming from the northwest. He could tell by the look on Clay’s face, that he heard it too. “It sounds like a big truck or a bus or something.” Kirk said. He motioned to the two men that he was going for a better look. He ran through the trees and stopped just short of the small county road that ran beside the river. The grasses in the untended fields kept him from a clear view. He looked around and found a low branch on an oak tree. He climbed the first branch, bringing him some six feet above the ground. “Fuck me running.” He whispered to himself as he looked through the scope. Through the trees lining the main road to the bridge, Kirk saw several thousand people walking beside a large bus. Seconds later, another bus appeared, followed by more people. He scanned the field cross from him to make sure none of the people were cutting across to their location. None were. They all used the road.
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