Picarillo. That’s familiar. He wasn’t a Captain last time. “Good afternoon Captain. It’s good to see you and your people again. Did you get a promotion? I remember you, but don’t recall your rank.” For whatever rank is worth when a bunch of assholes sit in a room and hand out titles to each other…
The man spit again and nodded. “Yes sir, thank you. I was Lieutenant last time we visited.”
Bart hated how small and dark the man’s eyes were. His dark hair, dark eyes, and olive skin told Bart the man had to be Italian or Latin in heritage and no more than thirty. The last name served as a dead giveaway as well. He had nothing against Italians as a rule, but this man seemed tiny and angry, like a rat who’d been left in charge of the cheese for too long. “Congratulations then. What can we do for you today?”
“This is a welfare assessment, Bart. Your name is Bart, correct?” Captain Picarillo asked, his voice still loud.
“Barton or Bart works. You can call me Mr. Wilson if you’re wanting to be called Captain. Formality for formality.”
The little Italian man with his arm on the giant gun grinned and spat again. “Mr. Wilson it is.”
“Welfare assessment you say? Could you explain that exactly?” Bart cradled his shotgun in an unthreatening way, but wanted to emphasize that he did indeed have a gun. It was a much smaller gun than they had, but still.
“We are now doing welfare assessments to determine the suitability for habitation and overall safety of people in the populace. If folks are found needing, we’re helping them move back to the Northern Valley Cooperative territory. Free relocation, guaranteed protection, work and food.”
“You think the Nazis told the Jews that?” Barton posed.
The Captain straightened up in the hatch of the tank. “Not sure I like your sense of humor, Bart. We’re good people, trying to help other good people by maintaining order and providing security.”
“Well I do appreciate good intentions, Captain. I’m happy to report that we here at Wilson Auto Salvage are doing just fine. Plenty of food and water. Safe as can be. Nothing to worry about,” Bart said with an air of finality.
“That’s great news. Do you have a headcount of citizens here? We’re trying to establish a population count. For resource allocation. What about medicine?”
Bart spoke skeptically. “I don’t have an accurate number. Somewhere between one and fifty. Lots of folk coming and going. We got enough medicine for the little stuff. If anyone gets cancer, we’ll call.”
Captain Picarillo looked to Bart as if his patience waned. “Mr. Wilson please understand we ask these questions and do these things for the betterment of all.”
“For the betterment of the NVC is what you meant to say,” Bart said, helping the younger officer.
“Sir in the absence of the American government someone must step up to provide security and order. We gladly serve,” Picarillo said in a voice that sounded anything but altruistic.
“Well, I do not recognize the authority of the body you represent, and while we are fellow human beings, I do not answer to you or them. I am happy to trade with you, and be civil, but you’ve no right to anything beyond my kindness.”
The small statured ‘officer’ dug into his lip with a finger and pulled out the wad of black tobacco inside it. He flung the loamy looking material out and took several minutes to flush his mouth out with water from a canteen he was handed from inside the tank. Once satisfied his mouth was clean, he looked at Bart with clear and present anger. “Look buddy. I need to go home with answers, or new citizens. If you don’t give me the first, I’ll take the second.”
“How decidedly American of you,” Bart said, switching the carry of his shotgun so his hand went to the stock where the trigger was. Two of the soldiers nearest and facing his direction pointed their weapons in his direction, though not at him. They had adrenaline in their expressions. Fear too.
“What?”
“America annexed the vast amount of its territory. Annex means ‘we took it.’ Those who had it before, we simply defeated by strength or guile, and that’s what you’re doing right now. You’re expanding your influence and territory by force.”
The captain had an expression of incredulity. “The fuck you say. We haven’t done anything by force with you.”
“I beg to disagree my friend from the north. Showing up here in three humvees and a tank is a swinging dick show of force. You don’t bring tanks to a diplomatic endeavor, kid. You bring cars and trucks and gifts to show goodwill. You bring compromise. This little dog and pony show was intended to intimidate us.”
Picarillo sighed and looked up at the clear blue sky, as if glancing at it would give him patience, or an idea of what to say. Bart delighted in the consternation he was causing the young man. When Picarillo spoke again, the Italian had reset his charm to ‘pleasant.’
“Look Mr. Wilson. I am doing my level best to be pleasant and conversational, but as I said, I need information about your little… settlement. If I can’t get that information, then I’ll simply order my unit here to take you into protective custody while I search your little scrap yard here anyway. And if you choose to resist us Mr. Wilson, my men will respond with force. I didn’t come here to hurt anyone, but as you see,” he patted the massive girth of the machine gun at his side, “we came well equipped to do so if needed.”
Bart’s face wrinkled into a muted snarl of frustration and he immediately hated himself for it. The look of satisfaction on Picarillo’s face at his displeasure gave Bart a hemorrhoid on the spot. His hand was forced. “There are twenty eight of us here. We have everything you can get for over-the-counter medicine but we’re out of antibiotics. That enough for you?”
“Thank you. Now what about your firearms?” Picarillo asked as the two soldiers nearest to Bart seemed to ease up.
“What does that have to do with anything?” Bart responded back fast, irritated.
“We need to know what outlying communities pose a threat, and what resources they have that can be brought to bear in the event a larger force action is called for. Good fences make for good neighbors right? This question amounts to a nice big fence,” Picarillo punctuated his word by drawing a long rectangle in the shape of a fence with his fingers in the air.
“We got two nuclear bombs. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.” Bart pronounced the word nuclear like nuke-you-lurr. It drove his wife crazy when he pronounced it wrong like that. He wondered where she was with the pistol. She should be in the house, protecting the others.
Bart’s smart-assed response put a look on the high-falootin officer’s face that gave Bart the impression he too had just gotten a hemorrhoid on the spot. “Look, asshole. My good mood is about to take a walk. Quit being difficult and just tell me what I need to know so I can get out of here.”
Bart opened his mouth to tell the man in the tank to go fuck himself with that giant machine gun barrel but a single gunshot interrupted him. Bart didn’t see where the shot came from, but he clearly saw Picarillo’s head snap to the side, bouncing off his left shoulder as if he’d been struck upside the head by a 2x4. A tiny puff of red mist appeared above his head though his skull stayed intact. He had been grazed by a round and kept his brainpan in one piece by the grace of God.
Picarillo’s head righted itself and his eyes blared in shock and betrayal. He screamed, “Open fire!” and as he ducked down into the recesses of the tank his hand went to the massive machine gun and triggered it, sending off a short burst of incredibly loud gunfire. As the gaping maw of the barrel smoked, he disappeared into the tank through the hatch.
Bart had a second to act. Maybe less. Had he been a few years younger, and had he served in the Marines like his father wanted him to, he might’ve been a bit faster to act but alas, he wasn’t, and he hadn’t. One of the soldiers on his knee close to Bart lifted his rifle and squeezed off a succession of rounds at Bart, even though the old man clearly hadn’t pulled the trigger of the shot that started the chaos.
He rolled to his side and got the pump shotgun back into his hands. Geez. Sure got cold fast. Bart planted the stock against the top of his thigh and aimed it over the edge of the flatbed. He closed his eyes–that was easy, really–until they were slits, and he played possum. A young man’s head appeared with a rifle at his cheek, his eye behind the iron sights. Bart squeezed the trigger and the shotgun kicked hard against his leg. The soldier’s head ruptured as a series of heavy pellets were driven into his face. He dropped from Bart’s view immediately and the old man heard more snaps of gunfire.
Vaguely he felt his body move of its own accord as if someone was tugging the strings of his puppet.
Mighty cold.
He racked the 12 gauge’s pump downward but lost the strength to bring it back up. His balloon was deflated. The world went dark for Barton Wilson, though he could hear more gunfire in the darkness for a few more seconds.
Captain Picarillo stormed around his convoy of vehicles, his Beretta in one hand, the other holding a bandage to the top of his head as his seething frustration boiling over. Multiple trickles of red blood ran down his face and neck from the painful wound. He pointed his gun angrily in all direction, stabbing the barrel at the sky, the earth, and people with blatant disregard for safety.
“God-fucking-dammit! Fucking assholes! Fucking cunts! Who the fuck do these people think they are? Don’t they fucking get it? We are the fucking ARMY! Do as we say!”
Despite being the leader of the military-style convoy and the men and women in it, he stood the shortest of them all, and as he marched in their midst–acting the fool–his subordinates hid laughter. He was ridiculous; a man who walked far taller than he should’ve, and who yelled far louder than he had any right to, but he had rank, and friends that mattered, and he had earned his two silver bars regardless of what they thought of him. Sometimes you tolerate an officer. Sometimes you follow them.
“Who the glorious FUCK fired the first shot at me?” One of the Specialists that Picarillo served with in the Guard stood nearby. Picarillo turned to him. “Specialist Rodriguez do you fucking know who fired the first shot?”
The Latino soldier hated the Captain, and hid it. “Sir, Sergeant Powers just said he found a woman with a revolver inside the house. It’s the only other gun they’ve found so far.”
“He shoot the twat?” Picarillo said as a medic came over to swap out the bandage on his head.
“It would appear so, Captain,” Rodriguez said with regret.
“Good. Fucking nut job. Who just shoots at people anyway? Damn it. I’m trying to do this as peacefully as fucking possible and so many of these fucking people are wannabe patriots fighting to keep some shitty kind of lone wolf independence. What gives?”
“May I speculate, sir?” Rodriguez asked.
“Let’s hear it community college boy.”
“Captain I think these people are distrustful of government after the dead came back. I think they are all used to doing it on their own. I think just like us they have an idea of what’s best for them and the world, and when we show up and tell them what to do with their lives, and intrude we look like the aggressor.”
“You don’t know shit,” Picarillo said with a wince as the bandage came off his head. The wound was a furrow that ran across the top of his head running in the ear-to-ear direction. His hair would never look the same.
The medic spoke over the distant sound of dogs barking. “You’re gonna need some stitches to close this up. I can do some here, or we need to move to get back home. You’re gonna get a fucked up scar that’ll ruin the part in your hair if we don’t take care of this.”
The captain looked at the young male medic and scoffed. “Let’s get home. Boys, ram this goddamn gate open and take everything of value. Anyone here still alive gets zip-tied and brought back with us.” He walked away towards the lowered ramp of the armored personnel carrier before stopping and turning. “And someone shut those fucking dogs up.”
Many miles to the south Pacer and Knick, Jay’s two dogs let out a series of barks to the north. Of all the people walking to the cornfield only Jay heard the tiny pops of distant gunfire. The faint noise continued for a minute or two before abating. A few minutes later he heard a few more shots, then silence. The birds began to chirp again, forgetting the interruption to their summer day. Jay wiped away the single tear that ran from his eye, and started to think about what to do next. He looked at his sister Sharon, then at Frank and Frank’s two daughters Aubrey and Emma. Roy was closest to him, swaying back and forth like Frankenstein’s monster, laughing as the two little girls hopped and skipped, oblivious as to what just happened far away.
I suppose we’ll need food no matter what.
October 6th
It’s not hard to stay busy. There’s always a pile of shit to do around campus and as one of our resident ‘big guys’ I am always tapped to help lift heavy things, move heavy things, or supervise someone else lifting heavy things or moving heavy things.
Heavy lies the head that has to lift heavy things all the time. It’s like being the one friend with a fucking pickup when someone has to move.
…and now you know why I didn’t have a pickup before the apocalypse.
Been a few days since I wrote anything Mr. Journal. It’s a strange thing that I feel guilty again when I go too long between entries. I’m also fairly sure that with Abby breastfeeding (I think being a mother has grown her itty bitties to a solid B cup, she must be thrilled) and taking care of her son she isn’t writing in her journal, keeping up with the history that we’re making here at Bastion. Sometimes I feel guilty that I passed on the responsibility of the journal to her, but she’s tough and smart, and my fatigue at being the record keeper of the apocalypse wore me down.
I feel recharged now, and am happy to write.
We’ll see how long that feeling lasts.
After the incident at the scrap yard we’ve elevated our security a bit. I hated to do it but with the threat of the fifty cal and a possible tank roaming around we had to. I spoke with our community leaders and we reallocated resources to the roof of the McGreevy-Russell apartment building downtown in the event that anything came towards us from the east. It also helped that it is the highest elevated position for miles around, and controlling that position allows us to control town, or at the very least, it gives us the eye in the sky we need to see things coming and moving.
Michelle, Kevin, Ollie, Patty and Mike all agree that the incident was auspicious, and that we had to act a bit more carefully.
Yesterday we had a scheduled meeting with the people who live to our south in the National Guard base, and as you can imagine… we figured we were heading into a very awkward conversation at best, and a very ugly firefight at worst. Granted that’s like, normal now, but the issue of our visit yesterday was exacerbated by the still unexplained events at the scrap yard.
Kevin’s long years in the infantry as well as with the Rangers, then working for the private military contractor Warden Protective Group (anyone else realize the name of that company and think to themselves, ‘just how long were the powers that be working on the apocalypse before they set it free?’) lead him to take a very militaristic approach to all problems.
In this situation it’s hard to argue with him. Unlikely as it may have been for the base to have been the attackers we had to assume that it was possible, and if they were indeed the attackers, we had to assume they could be aggressive to us during our regular visit.
As a res
ult, we rolled out south very heavy yesterday. Wasted fuel be damned.
The Westfield HEMTT Mike brought over from his unit plus Kevin’s two humvees. No box truck this trip, but we had our QRF of three pickups waiting a mile away down the road in the event shit hit the fan. Kevin, Blake and myself rode point in a humvee, Joel the parajumper, Clayton, Angela and Danny Junior rode in the second humvee. Eddie from Texas and James Halwitz from Westfield (whose ankle is all good after shattering it in the big school fire over there back in the day) rode in the HEMTT.
That’s a rogue’s gallery of ex military shooters, or people whom I trust with my life. I might even trust these people with my money or porn collection, if I still watched porn. (thank you Michelle)
The truck had our second stringers led by our other parajumper Ethan. Kevin and I figured we’d need them under tight supervision in the event we called for help. Ethan’s shit is razor sharp, as you’d expect of a special operations guy. I should just go on record and say again that Ethan and Joel are both boss mode badasses. Their medical expertise is something we couldn’t live without (something I couldn’t live without after being shot in the damn neck) and their military training has been priceless. And, get this; they’re nice people too. The triple threat.
After our initial standoff with the southerners months ago that resulted in them shooting at us and us almost shooting back we agreed that a neutral meeting point would be beneficial. Someplace with no buildings or prepared fighting positions. Someplace high, so no one had an elevation on it.
Nothing is perfect, so after talking with their leader, a Captain named Maria Hunt we decided that an overpass off of Route 18 would work, just outside their small town. No houses nearby, flat land on all sides and the trees had been cleared away years ago during its construction. One vehicle each would meet in the center on top of the overpass and everyone else would remain a hundred yards or more back. Each meeting would happen at one in the afternoon.
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