Back at the house, Mel packed up a nice supper for the guys. She had made a big pot of spaghetti using venison and some jarred sauce from the pantry. There wasn’t much else, but there was a big bowl for each of them. She made a fresh pot of coffee and poured it into two stainless thermoses. While she was pouring the coffee, I filled a half-gallon Igloo jug with tea to add to it. That much caffeine should keep them up all damn night. And that made me think that two guys weren’t enough for a real watch. I trusted Thad and Jeff to stay awake, but what about the others who pulled the duty? There was too much to think about, and what Thad had said started to get to me: maybe things were unraveling at the edges but I was too busy putting out fires to see it.
Their dinner was packed into a cooler that I strapped on the back of the Polaris. Little Bit came running out as I tightened the last strap and asked if she could come with me. Since all I was doing was taking them dinner, I said she could.
“I wanna drive, Daddy, I know how!” she cried.
“Okay, you sit in front and drive.”
“But you gotta get me through the gate, I can’t do that yet, but then I get to drive.”
“Go tell your momma you’re going with me.”
She turned and ran back into the house. I made sure the cooler was secure and climbed onto the ATV. Since she was coming, I slung the AR on my back so it didn’t bang against her. I hit the starter as she came back out the door. With the ease only a child possesses, she was up and on the machine in the blink of an eye. She reached out and grabbed the handlebars. “Let’s go!”
I maneuvered us through the gate and she took over, steering us down the road. I had to remind her to take it easy on the gas, but she did a good job. Thad and Jeff were leaned over one of the barricades, casually watching the slow but steady procession of people heading north into the forest. Jeff looked back over his shoulder as we approached. Little Bit let off the gas and braked us to a stop. Jeff smiled and looked at her and said, “You let him drive?”
She smiled. “He has to get me through the gate, but I can do it after that.”
Thad asked, “What’s for dinner?”
“Skapetti!” Little Bit shouted back.
“Sounds good to me,” Jeff said, rubbing his hands.
“Well, come on over and get something to eat,” I said.
I opened the cooler and handed each of them a bowl. While they ate, Little Bit and I hung out. She stepped up onto one of the logs so she could watch the people go by. Between bites of pasta and swigs of either coffee or tea we talked about the traffic going by. They said no one had come stopped to talk to them.
Jeff had sauce all over his face. “Where’s the napkins?”
I looked at him like he was stupid. “Use your sleeve.”
“I ain’t gonna use my sleeve,” he said. “You know how hard it is to wash clothes these days? Damn, Morgan.”
Thad smiled, his head hanging over the bowl with noodles hanging from his mouth.
“Use his sleeve,” I said to Jeff, nodding my head at Thad.
Thad slurped the noodles up with a smack. “Ain’t using my sleeve either,” he said with a smile.
Little Bit brought our attention back to what was going on out on the road. There was a little girl approaching the barricade. The two were smiling and waving at one another. In and of itself, this wouldn’t be a concern, but it caused her mother and father to move our direction as well. The dad was pulling a wagon with a younger child sitting in it wrapped in blanket. Even though it was bundled like the kid from A Christmas Story, it was obvious the child was gaunt and malnourished.
I looked at the little girl that was now just on the other side of the logs from Little Bit. The little girl had long blonde hair, but she too looked too thin. It was kind of hard to see it as she was wearing a coat that was too big for her, but the little leggings that hung from her shouted the fact.
“Amy, come back over here,” her mother called.
“Dad, can we give her some skapetti?” Little Bit asked.
The face of the little girl lit up. “I like sketti!”
The woman looked up at me, then back to Thad and Jeff and their dinner sitting on the cooler. She crossed her arms and looked at us, and her husband soon joined her. We should have known this would happen. They weren’t eating on the side of the road, but they were close. The man looked at his wife, then at Jeff and Thad, who by now were standing in front of the ATV. He couldn’t see the cooler with the bowls on it.
“What’s going on?” the man asked.
“They got sketti, Daddy,” the little girl replied.
I reached out and grabbed Little Bit by the shoulder and pulled her back, trying to maneuver her behind me. Being a child, she didn’t catch on to what was happening and stopped at my side.
“I’m sorry, we don’t have any extra food,” I said.
The man looked at me, then at Little Bit, then at Jeff and Thad, “Y’all don’t look like you been missin’ many meals.” He paused for a moment and looked at Little Bit, then added, “Neither does she.”
This scared her and she moved behind me, holding onto my waist. I reached back and patted her shoulder. Thad and Jeff stepped up behind me, one on either side. The man looked at us with contempt on his face.
“Look at you assholes. You don’t look too damn miserable.” He pointed at me and said, “Got all them guns, what are you doin’, goin’ ‘round robbin’ yer neighbors?”
“No, actually we’ve been burying them lately,” I said. I started to add something about raiders and the need to be armed, but decided at the last moment against it. I made a decision and leaned toward the man. He stepped back in fright. I said, “Look, here’s how we’re gonna do this. I can’t have everyone walking down the road asking for food. We don’t have enough, we just don’t. You wait til there’s no one that can see and then bring your family over here. You stand on this side of the barricade while you eat so no one else comes asking. When you’re done, you go. I’m sorry, mister, but that’s the way it has to be.”
His bitter face fell and suddenly he was crying. “You serious?”
“As a heart attack. You think you can do what I said?”
“Sure, mister.”
“And when dinner’s done, you got to move on. I wish we had a place for you here, but we don’t, okay?”
The man nodded through his tears and went to tell his wife.
“Are we gonna help them, Daddy?” Little Bit asked quietly.
“Yeah, baby. But you understand we can’t help everybody, right? We want to, but we can’t.”
“I understand,” she said, but I doubted if she really did.
“Take her home, Morg. They can have the rest of our dinner,” Thad said.
“No, I’ll go get some more. Just make sure no one sees, okay? It has to look like they’re with us. I don’t want to come back here and find a fucking bread line.”
“Yeah, man, we got it,” Jeff said.
“Alright, come on baby girl,” I reached down and put a hand on her back.
I climbed up on the Polaris and pulled her up, planting her on the seat in front of me, “You gonna drive?” I asked.
She sat there with her hands in her lap and said, “No, you do it.”
“Hey, did you bring the goggles?” Thad asked.
“Oh yeah.” I took a case off the front of the ATV and handed it to Thad. “Just in case.”
Thad smiled at me, that big smile, and took them. “Just in case.”
We rode back in silence. I tried to make her laugh, goosing the throttle and rocking the ATV, swerving, just playing, but she sat stoic, not reacting. When we got to the house I set her off and she headed for the house. I followed her in and she went to my room and climbed into the bed, pulling the down comforter up over
her head.
Mel asked what was wrong with her. I told her about the little girl, that she was probably sad. Another little girl, just like her, and she knew even though we gave them dinner, they probably wouldn’t have breakfast the next day, or lunch, or dinner.
Mel went into our room. I felt bad but I didn’t really know what to do. I put together some more food and ran it out to the barricade. The family was there tucking into the spaghetti. They were grateful and shook my hand, but I was glad I wasn’t going to be there when Thad and Jeff had to move them along.
I drove back home and went to the shop. The laptop that Jeff had rigged to my radio was sitting on the bench. Flipping open the screen, I hit the power button and watched as the Windows logo appeared. It felt kind of good to see, like it wasn’t all gone, like it wasn’t all over.
When it booted up and was ready I opened the program and typed where are you old man, we could use some help. After turning on the radio and verifying the frequency, I tapped the enter key and watched as the little LED’s started to blink. The little box squawked like a fax machine.
Chapter Thirty-One
Sarge was stacking gear, sorting out what he wanted to take and what he felt they could do without for now. Mike, Ted and Doc were going through their gear, distributing the extra ammo they had received as well as some of the other trash. They now had two vehicles. One looked sort of like a Raptor UTV, only armored and with seats for four. The second one was larger and could hold seven men. Sarge had decided to use the larger of the two as his. It had some rather interesting goodies onboard and Faggione had taken great delight in demonstrating its capabilities to him.
The buggy had a telescoping mast that held a thermal and conventional camera. There was an LCD display mounted in the cockpit that could be viewed from either of the front seats. Each entry point of the vehicle had a weapon mount and there was one on top. the gunner stood on a platform behind the roll cage. It had a cargo area that was being filled with packs, bags and assorted gear. Fuel was going to be the biggest concern. To address this issue, Faggione provided a trailer. The sides of the trailer were armored with a double layer of thin steel. The plates were armor-grade steel and the two layers meant that even if a round penetrated the outer layer, it would just bounce around inside the void. At least that was the theory.
The trailer would be packed with fuel cans and any additional gear that wouldn’t fit in the two buggies. Their mission was pretty simple: find places where the feds were in numbers and report back so that appropriate actions could be taken against them. Beyond that, the orders were real simple: persecute any target of opportunity.
Sarge had gone to the quartermaster with a list of what he wanted. The colonel had told him that if he needed anything to let him know, and Sarge could have done that, but old habits died hard. Instead, he kept the folks in supply busy trying to find impossible items while the guys cut a fence and went to work. They had driven both buggies straight there from the motor pool and helped themselves to what they needed.
Sarge was berating a corporal when Ted wheeled around to the open bay door of the old Quonset hut. Seeing Ted, Sarge looked at the bewildered corporal and said, “Never mind, you’re useless as tits on a boar!” and stomped off to the buggy. Climbing in, he looked over at Ted, who just smiled and started to move forward. Sarge put a boot up on the dash of the machine and said, “Good.”
Mike and Doc were already back at the barracks when Ted and Sarge returned. Mike was leaning in the doorway as Sarge stepped out he said, “You’ve got mail.”
I sat there watching the little lights blink absentmindedly. Looking over at the door it was obvious that something would have to be done about it tomorrow, but right now I just really didn’t care. I should have felt good about feeding those people, but I didn’t, both because it took food out the mouths of my own family and because I knew it wouldn’t help in the end. Just like all the people that had gone before them, that family was going to end up in the forest and starve. And who knew what horrible things might happen to them before then.
I headed back into the house. Mel was sitting on the couch reading a book to Little Bit. Her sisters were lying on the floor in front of the fireplace reading books as well. I took off my coat and hung it on the hooks by the door. Mel looked up at me and smiled, and Little Bit craned her head around and smiled too. That did a lot to mend my mood.
I flopped down in my chair and put my feet up on the ottoman. It was quiet and the fire was nice. I sat there staring into the fire while Mel finished reading Where the Sidewalk Ends. When the story was done we all sat in the quiet for a bit. Little Bit fell asleep and Mel motioned for me. I picked her up and carried her to her room. She snuggled against me and I dropped my face into her hair. It smelled like it always did, a scent that is hard to describe but it could only be that of a little girl.
I laid her in her bed and pulled the quilt up over her. Back in the living room, Lee Ann and Taylor were talking to Mel. We sat there for little while chatting. Mainly they were telling us about the books they were reading. I sat there looking at them as they talked. They seemed so normal, so out of touch with what was going on. But I was glad, glad they aren’t sitting around worrying all the time. For now anyway they could enjoy their youth.
Mel announced it was bedtime and surprisingly the girls didn’t complain. Lee Ann rolled over and stretched, yawning. They got up and came over to my chair where I had planted myself after putting Little Bit to bed. Each of them gave me a hug, then Mel, saying good night. As they headed for their rooms Lee Ann said, “Dad, can you come say good night?”
“I just did.”
“No, I mean in my room?”
I smiled at her and for a brief second wondered how much longer she would do that. “Of course, I always do.” I sat for another minute and then went to say good night to the girls.
Mel was in our room getting undressed when I came in. She was leaning over kicking her jeans off and I walked up and slapped her on the butt. She looked over her shoulder at me and smiled. Then I realized my rifle was leaning by the front door.
“I gotta get my rifle,” I said as I opened the door.
“Hurry up,” I looked back to see Mel patting the bed.
I went out and picked up my rifle and made the rounds to make sure all the doors were locked then headed for the bedroom. The lamp on my side of the bed was still on when I came back in and Mel was peeking out from under the covers at me, all I could see was her eyes. I leaned the rifle against the wall beside the bed and started to undress.
“Take off your utility belt, Batman.”
“Batman?”
“Look at all the crap you carry around.”
“I got your Batman right here.”
I climbed under the comforter and reached over and turned off the light, then rolled over.
“Oh, Batman,” Mel said, and I couldn’t help it and started to giggle. Mel was soon giggling too.
As had become my custom, I woke up about 5:30 in the morning. Pulling on a pair of flannel PJ pants, I picked up the XD and headed for the kitchen to start the coffee. Once the coffee was brewing on the stove, I looked out the sliding glass door at the shop; it was just like I left it. I went out on the front porch. It was cold out and clear. It was too dark yet to see anything so I just stood there listening. It was just as quiet as it was still.
Back inside I dressed quietly, putting on a tac vest and holster for the pistol, then slinging the AR. By the time I got back to the kitchen, the coffee was bubbling in the pot. I poured it into a stainless steel bottle and wrapped it in a dishtowel then dropped it in a cargo pocket. There was still about a cup left in the pot, so I took an insulated travel mug from the cabinet and poured it in, then added some powdered creamer and sugar in and headed for the door.
The seat on the ATV was cold. Meathead and Little Sister came
running up as I started it up. They ran behind me as I went out the gate. Thad and Jeff were standing around the burn barrel trying to keep warm. They looked up as I arrived and that big smile was on Thad’s face as I walked up to them.
“Coffee?” I asked as I pulled the bottle out of my pocket.
“Damn straight,” Jeff said, snatching the bottle from my hand. He quickly poured himself and Thad a cup.
We stood around the fire drinking our coffee. The road was empty and I asked them how the foot traffic had been overnight. They said it had tapered off around ten and had completely stopped by midnight. There were no more incidents with people walking by and Jeff said he thought the best thing we could do was not to man the barricade, to pull the security farther back and make it appear the place was empty.
“Pull it back to where?” I asked.
“Back there where you guys put them stocks. It would cut down on the amount of real estate we’re trying to secure,” Thad replied.
I looked down the road, “That would put my house on this side of it.”
They just stood there sipping their coffee for a moment, then Jeff said, “You could move to another house. There are some empty ones back there.”
I didn’t hesitate. “No way, not yet at least. That would be hard on my family and I’m not ready to do that to them. I mean, I’ve got power, water, a whole setup. You guys know how busy we’ve been. When would I find the time to redo all that?”
“It may come to that,” Thad said.
“Not yet,” I fired back.
When the coffee was finished I suggested that they go get some sleep. Reggie would have that pig ready later in the day, and I knew they would want to be there for that. It wasn’t a hard sell; they saddled up and headed down the road. I stayed there for a little while, leaning over the log barricade, thinking about what they said. It was still early and there weren’t any people out on the road yet so I decided to ride over to Reggie’s and see how the pig was doing. No one else had showed up to stand watch yet, but I didn’t have the patience to wait and probably be disappointed. I knew that that kind of “fuck it” attitude was dangerous, but I gave in to it because I knew I’d be back in less than an hour.
Surviving Home Page 35