Not Dead in the Heart of Dixie

by R Kralik

  What did Mick learn from the man on the porch? He learned several things.

  He learned that the gang who attacked us is not military, and always has two members scouting ahead. They're following a group of survivors. When that group stops for the night, one of the "scouts" heads back to let the gang know their location. The other scout stays behind to keep an eye on the survivor group.

  The bulk of the gang then travels to the area where the survivor group is resting. The gang can travel 24 hours a day if needed. They take fuel from vehicles and other survivors along their path.

  When the survivor group heads out the next morning, two scouts head out behind them and the whole process repeats.

  The people in the survivor group are "a bunch of do-gooders," and they always make friends wherever they stop. This gives the gang information about where other groups are and what kind of supplies they have. They have killed men and stolen supplies from the military and a lot of survivors.

  They'd been watching us all day, through binoculars, from the mountainside behind Mr. Peterson's house. They hung back last night because they wanted to take our property and stay put for a while. That idea didn't work out for them, did it?

  What's the most frightening thing he told Mick? The survivor group that the "gang" has been following is Rona and her friends!

  I'm not telling Pop and Nana. Pop would be in his truck in no time at all, heading out to hunt and kill the rest of that gang. It's a hard decision, but I can't handle Pop out, getting himself killed. We need him here and alive.

  11:30 PM...

  The kids helped all day. God, bless 'em, 'cause I'm not sure I could have made it without 'em. I almost fell asleep on my feet several times.

  Opie and Tig scratched at the kitchen door around supper time. I can't tell you where they've been, 'cause they won't 'fess up. They marched right in and took their spots by the fire like nothing had happened.

  Carisa and Merry were busy all day. They were carrying food, running drinks to injured people, and picking up dirty dishes. They washed the dishes as they brought them back, and that kept the dirty dish pile to a minimum. They were "grabbing a blanket" for this one, and "bringing a book" to that one. They are amazing.

  Mick and Soo buried Diane.

  Mick cleaned up empty shells and cartridges and checked out Marisa's trailer, and Soo's motorhome. He scooped the remaining water from the pool and did a hundred other things. He also spent time helping Soo measure and dig a few post holes.

  We had pinto beans, rice, and sliced onions today. Nana's caring for Pop and Hisa's caring for numerous patients.

  Marisa's having a lot of trouble with her foot and Hisa hopes that nothing's fractured or broken. The top of the foot is covered with a huge bruise and is swollen so much that it almost looks round. That poor kid! We sent her to war carrying Multiple Sclerosis, a pistol, and a pocket knife.

  We made it through the day, licking our wounds, and planning our strategies. Everyone was exhausted and in some type of pain.

  Pop's knee looks terrible. Hisa has him on pain medication, elevating his knee and staying off his feet until the swelling goes down. Nana's has him in the motorhome and is alternating the icepack with a warm cloth that she heats in a pan of water on the stove top.

  Mick is in bed, trying to sleep. He's had all his cuts and scrapes cleaned and bandaged. We kept ice on his goose egg for a while, but he said it was giving him a major headache and he refuses to use it again. He says he is sore all over.

  Hisa believes that Jason's ankle is badly sprained. She has it wrapped in an ace bandage and told him to elevate it and stay off it as much as possible.

  Jeremy's leg is stitched up and it was a nerve-wracking experience for all of us. I gave him three shots of Jim Beam before Hisa started on him. He yelped, hollered, and gritted his teeth all the way through it. I don't know if the cleaning was worse than the stitching. I gave myself a shot of Jim Beam during the process.

  Hisa didn't like giving him pain pills with the alcohol, but did it anyway and he has two pills on board. She didn't stitch his hand. She cleaned it and put butterfly stitches on both cuts. She bandaged the hand up so much that it looks like a fingerless mitten. He's on a 14 day antibiotic regimen.

  I have butterfly stitches on my cheek and they itch. My back is killing me even though I've taken a pain pill. I couldn't care less about the other little nicks and scratches, but Hisa made me clean them anyway.

  I can't remember the last time I had a tetanus shot but I know it's been more than ten years. Hisa said "That's unacceptable." I said "Fine, give me a tetanus shot please," and she got mad. I believe she cussed in Japanese as she stomped out of the room.

  Hisa cleaned and put butterfly stitches over the cut on her own chin. There's nothing we can do about the chipped tooth, but we cleaned her scratches with alcohol pads and I enjoyed it even though she didn't. She was still having "tetanus shot rage," and I figured that alcohol pads on fresh scratches would give her something else to think about.

  She says Diane died because the bullet severed her femoral artery causing her to bleed out fast. Every single one of us is heartbroken. We didn't have Diane long, but we already loved her.

  Hisa has Jeremy in Diane's motorhome because there's heat there and she wants him to rest comfortably while she keeps an eye on his leg to watch for any sign of infection. Soo's there with them.

  Hisa, Soo, and Merry will be moving to Diane's motorhome because their own is "over-ventilated" with bullet holes.

  I'll figure out breakfast after we get off watch duty in the morning, and we'll go from there. From now on there will be someone standing watch day and night.

  Mick and Soo will head to the pool place tomorrow and see if there’s another pool we can loot. If not, they'll try to do something with the one we've got. Duct tape can do amazing things. I told Mick to keep a watch out for pools that might be in neighborhoods they travel through.

  Jason and Marisa will be on watch duty while they're gone. We have plenty of lawn chairs, so they can sit and prop their feet without causing themselves more pain.

  The men will begin fence building tomorrow, if any of them can move. I'll help them all I can. I'll pull out the old back brace I used to wear and see if it fits.

  The first area we want to fence is the front of our property, the Stang property and Caleb's property.

  We’re extremely lucky that none of those idiots made it up to the house. Some of our canned food will be moved to the tornado shelter in case we get attacked and are unable to defend our supplies.

  Mick says that, if we can get enough fencing, we'll fence in Mr. Peterson's house and field across the road. The field would make a great garden spot and we hope we can find someone who wants to live in the house and provide an extra set of eyes or two for standing watch. That'll have to wait 'til we get the fencing on our side of the road finished.

  We haven't been more than six or seven miles away from home. We should still have a pretty good bit of gasoline in the tanker. We use it mostly for running the generator, and we don't run it all night.

  Mick says that, when summer comes, we might have to run the generator all the time. It gets as hot as hades here, and there's no way can we rely on our food to be safe if we cut the generator off during 85 degree nights. We may not have anything but goat’s milk to refrigerate by the time summer gets here.

  Mick wants to find a bigger generator so we can run more things in the house. He would prefer finding a solar set up, but I have no clue where we'd find one. He says he knows of several homes and commercial buildings that have solar panels on the roofs, but our priority right now is the fence.

  One of our does gave birth to two little buckling’s today. They're doing fine. I thought about how much Diane would have liked to be here and meet "BBQ3" and "BBQ4."

  I have no way to contact my sister and let her know she's being followed. I'm praying for her safety as well as the others who are riding with her.

  I'm goi
ng to lie down beside Mick.

  Jason and Soo have the first watch tonight and they will wake Mick and me at 3:00 AM for the second watch.

  Bye for Now.

  Saturday, January 25

  Pop says we are officially in trouble with our ammo supply. He has a little stash back at his house, but it's not even close to the amount we need to have on hand.

  I’m going into town with Mick and Soo sometime today or tomorrow. We'll take the Jeep and our little enclosed goat trailer. We're going back to the place where Mick found the pool. The name of the place is "Poolin' Around." Oh, how clever (sarcasm).

  We'll make a list of any place we see that has chain-link fencing, propane, or anything else we need and can't grab right then and there. Jason and Marisa will stand watch while we're gone.

  I am heading out to the porch for a cigarette before I go in the kitchen and make a gazillion biscuits and muffins.

  3:30 PM...

  As soon as I finished cleaning up from breakfast, Mick told me to meet him and Soo at the driveway because we were going to town. "This is a little too soon, isn't it?" I asked.

  "We have to get this done as soon as we can, baby" he replied. "There's probably not much left out there after a month of this crap. If we don't get to it, someone else will." He smacked his hand down on the table and said "If we had a fence, Diane might be alive and the rest of us might be walkin'. We are in a dangerous situation, baby. We need the fence and supplies as fast as we can get 'em. I don't care if it takes all day today and every day. As long as we have gas, we're going out there and get what we need to protect ourselves."

  He shuffled his feet and I could tell he was rarin' to go. "What'll they do if I'm not back to fix lunch?" I asked. He looked at Carisa, who had just come back from grabbing dirty dishes. “I don't care if they have to eat peanut butter off a spoon, and you can tell 'em that if you need to" he said. He turned and headed out the door.

  I, wrapped three muffins in plastic wrap and threw them in one of our emergency backpacks. I took three bottles of water and put them in a different backpack. I told Carisa to "babysit Pop, and tell Nana to run in here and throw something together if I'm not back in time to fix lunch." I stuck the Glock down in the back of my waistband, slung three backpacks over my shoulders, and headed after Mick. My stinkin' back was hurting.

  As soon as I sat down, Mick said "take the damn pistol outa your pants. If you fall on it, you'll break your back. You are not Laura Croft and this ain't TV." I growled at him and took the Glock out of my waistband. I stuck it in my big coat pocket and wished I’d grabbed my holster. It was too late for that 'cause we were already headed down the driveway.

  There's nothing left at the pull-off. The place looks almost like no one was ever there. The only thing that remains is a hole in the ground filled with ashes. Mick looked at it and swore, then he pointed the Jeep towards town. I noticed that the little HDI girl I'd seen on our last trip to town was no longer jumping on her trampoline and I wondered where she went.

  The road to town was empty. We saw no living creatures, HDI or otherwise. We came to the little shops on the edge of town and saw garbage strewn here and there. We saw papers and leaves floating around and landing, sitting silently until the breeze scooped them up again and sent them on their next short journey.

  It looked like a ghost town until we turned off the main road and onto the road with the pool business. Then, we saw HDI's, and there were too many for me to count. I'm telling you, I almost peed my pants. Don't tell anyone I said that.

  They were shambling around all the little shops at the strip mall where "Poolin' Around" is located. They were on the sidewalks, in the parking lot, and glaring at us from broken shop windows.

  A couple of them headed toward the Jeep. Pretty soon, there were a lot of them headed toward the Jeep. Their arms were outstretched like actors in some B rated horror movie. Some were fast and some were slow, but they all wanted us for a mid-morning snack.

  It seemed like there was a hundred of them coming toward us. Mick continued down the street and made a right turn onto the next street over. He parked behind a corner building and got out to look around the corner and see if they were still following us, and they were. He ran back and jumped into the driver’s seat.

  A "man" missing his right arm came around the corner. He had strands of ligament, tendon, and muscle hanging out of his bloody stump. He had no pants, but he did have boxers, thank goodness. His shirt was hanging from him in shreds and half of his bottom jaw was gone. He kept swatting at his face and I could see little things squirming around the barred teeth of his bloody mouth. I knew they were maggots and I almost called Ralph at the top of my lungs. I had to look away.

  Why are there maggots? It's too cold for maggots!

  I couldn't help myself. I know my brain is a little "sick 'n twisted." Even though my knees were knocking together, my mind kept singing "Magic Man" by "Heart," but it was coming out as "he's a maggot man, momma, he's got maggot hands." I had to get that out of my head. I was disgusted with myself.

  Behind him were more HDI's and they were all missing various limbs or chunks of flesh from just about any part of the human body you can think of. They were dressed in an assortment of clothing from fancy formal gowns to skateboard attire. We were pulling away and they were still coming toward us.

  Suddenly, we heard a loud thud on the roof of the Jeep. An upside-down, gore covered face appeared at Soo's window. I couldn't tell if it was male or female. It was on the Jeep roof and its head was hanging over the side, looking straight at Soo. I imagined it holding on to the luggage rack with one hand while sticking its butt in the air.

  I saw its eyelids blink, then it slammed a bloody fist against the window and started howling and snarling. Mick yelled "It must a come outa one of the... or off the top... I'll try to sling it off... but I don't... with this trailer... I don't know!"

  Mick looked as panicked as I've ever seen him. He swerved and took a turn that made me think the Jeep was about to turn over on its side. The creature kept banging its fist on Soo's window, snarling, and howling. Soo said he almost crawled into the backseat with me.

  Mick suddenly made a sharp right turn into a fast food parking lot. He sped around the building and drove straight up the drive-through lane.

  The trailer is homemade and it isn't as tall as the Jeep. The awning over the drive-thru lane pushed the monster right off the top of the Jeep. Then, the monster was hanging off the tongue of the trailer. Its head was dragging the ground and pieces of it were hitting and sticking to the front of the trailer.

  Mick drove 'til the monsters head looked like a ground-off stump. He stopped the Jeep in front of an empty building, went around to the back, and kicked the remaining parts of the roof monster off the tongue of the trailer.

  He ran behind one of those stupid little ornamental pear trees and called Ralph loud enough for Papaw in heaven to hear.

  We couldn't stay there. We now had the attention of HDI's who were shuffling around the bus station about 50 yards from us. I screamed at Mick to "Get back in the Jeep now! They're comin'!"

  Mick ran back to the Jeep and jumped in. He wiped his mouth on his shirt sleeve (yuck) and put the Jeep in gear. I could hear, and feel, the trailer wheels roll over what was left of the roof monster.

  We plowed through two HDI's who were on the roadway in front of us. The sound was sickening.

  One of them flew off to the side and the other went underneath the Jeep. The wheels rolled over it, and the jostling caused me to almost hit my head on the ceiling.

  We were headed down the street and Mick was driving fast. There was a public park up ahead, and past that was the high school. I told Mick, and he said he was "tryin' to think." He took a right turn past the park. There were no HDI's in the park. I couldn't believe it!

  We came to a residential neighborhood. By this time, Mick was driving slow and looking carefully at each house. Soo was writing down the address of any place we saw that ha
d tall, chain-link fencing.

  When Mick finally saw what he'd been looking for, he pulled into a driveway and around to the back of the house. Sitting there was a big above-ground pool full of icky green water.

  Mick and Soo jumped out of the Jeep and Mick yelled at me to "keep a watch out." He and Soo pushed the sides of the pool straight down, and the icky green water poured out of the pool and over their arms, legs and feet as it flooded past them. It only took five minutes to get all of the water out of the pool. Mick and Soo pulled, pushed, and rolled the pool around to the back of the trailer. It took another twenty minutes to get it loaded.

  Both of them were soaked to the skin from the elbows down. Mick looked around the neighborhood and said "We're goin' in some houses." I thought that was just dandy, not!

  Of course, we began with the house we were standing behind. As we walked to the back door, I told them they had to make sure the houses were clear before I'd step foot in them. I wanted them to check every room, every closet, and under every bed. I was afraid I'd run into an HDI in a dark hallway or bathroom.

  Mick was about to kick the door open when Soo said "wait." He reached out and turned the doorknob. The door was unlocked.

  It was a nice house. It was typical of what you'd expect to find in any middle class neighborhood, except for the three dead people in the living room.

  I immediately knew that it wasn’t long ago when these people took themselves out of this frightening new world. Their bodies were just beginning to smell.

  The woman was laying on her back and there were pink crocheted house slippers on her feet. Blood had come from her ears, nose, and mouth, and had run in streams down her face and neck. Her head looked like it was partially sunken into the rug and there was a puddle of blood around it. I realized that the back of her head was mostly gone and that's what made it look like it was sunken in the carpet. Her right arm was curled around a young boy.

  The little boy couldn't have been more than three years old. He still had the cherubic face of a very young child. He had no wounds that I could see and looked like he was sleeping.