by R Kralik
The unit has a trailer with six “wild people” inside.
Less than half a percent of HDI infected people become wild people instead of full blown HDI's. This mutation is named HDI4. Does that mean there’s an HDI2 and an HDI3 out there somewhere?
Can a cure be discovered by studying them?
There are so few “wild people” that non-military “hunting parties” have formed simply to hunt, track, and kill the wild people for pleasure. It's a new sport. Isn't that just dandy?
The unit was taking the wild people to home base to be examined. They'll probably serve as guinea pigs to be experimented on by heartless scientists.
Mick said he would take me to see the wild people but I declined. I want nothing to do with that mission. I do not want to look on the faces of innocent beings destined for examination, experimental procedures, and dissection. It makes me sick at my stomach.
More news...
High ranking officers have been meeting in secret to decide what their next moves should be. Mick heard rumors that they decided to join together until the fake military, NK's, and Chinese have been beaten back and destroyed or forced out of the country.
After that happens they will begin concentrating on a movement to reinstate the constitution and elect a new government. It may take years.
Mick says that's the only info he has about these “secret meetings.” He's not a high ranking officer and he’s not privy to confidential info. He simply follows orders.
He says he's learning a lot being with the unit. He plans to head back out with them when they leave again. He's determined to fulfill his year commitment and he wants to make sure the compound receives the extra supplies promised to us for “lending” compound members to the ranks.
I have to “shhhh” now. I hear voices closer to the house. I'm shutting down. I'll write later if I have enough battery.
Bye for now.
Tuesday, May 13
2:23 AM...
I'm still here.
Deuce must have planned to hide things in here because there's no way he could fit his body inside and be comfortable. He's bigger than me. He'd probably be stuck sideways and couldn't lie down.
I still hear gunfire but the explosions have stopped. I haven't heard voices since I last wrote. The gunfire seems to have slowed a bit and isn't close to the house. I'm worried sick about Mick and the soldiers. Mick said there were 614 members in Chris' unit. Forty or so are somewhere on leave. I pray that the NK's didn't have their entire unit on that mountainside.
I'm almost worried out of my mind about my children. Oh Lord, please let them be inside the tunnel. Please let the tunnel be undiscovered and still safe. I feel sick at my stomach and my mouth is dry. God, please don't let the NK's get hold of my children. I can't stand to think of it. I'm in agony. I'm being tortured! I have to push this out of my head. I'll climb out of here and go looking for them if I don't stop thinking about it. Nope, I need to think of something else.
The cows were gone. I forgot to tell you that. Didn't I? Yep, they took the cows, but I'm guessing the freaky uniforms spooked the horses into the woods because they were in the meadow when Deuce and Jeremy ran to check. I was surprised. I thought they would eat the horses as well as the cattle. If they couldn't catch the horses, why didn't they just shoot them?
The pigs were alive. They must've been hiding under the straw and mud. Surely they could sense the danger? Surely the NK's smelled them. I just realized how stupid the NK's were. If I were an NK soldier, I'd walk along every big hill on the ground looking for tunnels or doors, especially in a good sized compound.
Maybe we're the stupid ones. How could we have believed that they stopped here, destroyed a few sets of furniture, ate the cows, and went on their merry way? Yep, we are pretty darn stupid.
Did they know we were here all along? Did they know the unit was on the way, and waited to ambush the soldiers and us? Were those NK soldiers standing on top of our tunnel room, laughing their asses off at the stupid Americans underneath their feet?
I know! They took the cattle with the bulk of the unit and left a quarter of their troops on the mountainside to ambush us! That sounds like a good plan to me.
But, why would they do that? Why wouldn't they take all the resources and leave the humans to starve? Why would they be bloodthirsty enough to wait on a mountain side just to kill Americans? Never mind, I just answered my own question. There's plenty of “folks” in this world who'd like to make a sport of shooting Americans like fish in a barrel.
I don't know! Frustration!
Did I tell you that Rick, Soo, and Isaac came back with the unit as well? They look great. I realized how much I missed them when I saw them again.
My brain is jumping all over the place. It's hopping from one subject to the next, and then back again. Please forgive me if my writing reflects this.
I'm terrified to walk out of this house in the daylight and see bodies all over the hillside. I can imagine it. I know there's no choice.
I bet we have tons of damage. There's no telling how many little wooden buildings are gone. I hope the trailer fence is still there. I can't imagine losing all that hay.
Dear Lord, thank you so much that we didn't have time to move our food back to the house from the tunnel room or the cave.
This end of the house seems to be okay. Who knows? I may be sitting inside the only wall left standing. The explosions shook the house, but I didn't feel anything big enough to make me think a bomb or mortar hit the house.
I'm miserable, but I'm not crawling outa here in the middle of the night. I'd probably crawl smack dab into the middle of a group of NK's with night vision goggles. They're probably sitting on Deuce's bed, waiting for me to crawl out. I'm kidding myself. If they knew I was here, and had the chance to get a hold of me, they'd grab me around the neck and pull me outa here like stuffing from a pillow. They might just shoot me through the wall and lave my body here to rot.
I have my weapons and knife. I might be able to take one of them out.
Oh good grief. I'm sitting here, blubbering, and wasting battery time. I'm shutting down now. I have 57% battery life left.
Mr. Wilson, Please come down here and use your “gift of gab” to get through to them. Tell God that we need his help! I'm sure he already knows, but tell him anyway. Okay?
See ya later, hopefully.
11:13 PM...
I'm out of the wall. I'm sitting on a pallet on my bedroom floor because my mattresses are destroyed.
Most of us are alive. Most of us made it to the tunnel or some other hiding spot.
My children and grandchildren made it to the tunnel. Mick made it through the battle. I stayed alive inside the wall.
When the battle began, Luke and Larson were with their parents in Clinic Diane. Rona sent them ahead to run to the tunnel room. Larson made it there. Luke didn't. He's not dead. Oh, no... He’s alive and perfectly fine. He shimmied down the rope we have tied to the bucket for the well. He sat on the bucket, hanging from the rope, during the entire battle. Thank you Lord!
An hour after the battle ended, we heard someone yelling for help near the pools. We thought the voice was coming from someone injured and laying among the dead bodies. We ran down the hill to search and heard him yell “I'm in the well!” The men hauled him up by the rope and he's fine. Rona almost fainted with relief.
Marisa was on the back porch with Amber, Michael, and the three kids from Wilky Place. They were playing while Brody and Serena were trying to get their little building cleaned up enough to sleep there.
Marisa heard the explosion and immediately took all five children to the tunnel room. She made them sit against the wall while she headed back out for Nana, Valerie, Anna, and Sabrina.
They were sitting at the table, playing cards, when they heard the first explosion. Marisa met them halfway between the house and the tunnel room. She turned and ran with them. They stayed inside and waited for others to appear.
Jesse and Ca
risa were next to come through the door. They'd been “taking a walk” along the path between our house and Marisa's when the battle started. (Yes, Carisa and I will have a discussion tomorrow).
Deuce and Jeremy ran in from the meadow within seconds of Carisa and Jesse's appearance.
Marisa was having a hard time with Nana, who wanted to go out looking for Pop and Emma. She practically had to force Nana to sit and take care of the kids while she stood at the tunnel door to make a list of people coming in. She made the list by scratching names on one of the post supports with a piece of gravel.
Larson came through the door next, and he was followed a minute or two later by Rona, Kevin, and Velma.
Marisa said a short minute went by before Chris and Dane practically threw Elaine and Josie through the door. Chris had to drag Josie in. She wanted to stay by his side and fight. Marisa grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her to look at the kids. Then, she put her hand on Josie's stomach. She didn't need to say a word. Josie sat down and shut her mouth.
Marisa went down the list of names and made a second list on a post beside the first. She was missing me, Mick, Pop, Emma, Luke, Dane, Jason, Merry, Shawna, Lisa, Ian, Pao, Kenny and Tim. She began to panic. Her brain was telling her to stay put but her heart wanted to run out the door and find us. Thank you, Lord! She listened to her brain.
Rona was having a fit and Kevin was trying to get up, get out of there, and find Luke. Nana talked to them softly until they settled down and listened to her. She told them they'd be putting us all in danger if they left the tunnel room. She placed her hand on Larson's shoulder and told Rona she could risk losing one, or both.
Finally, they decided to stay inside, but they didn't stop worrying, fidgeting, and cursing. Kevin begged Velma for a shot of divine concoction to knock out his pain from being carried halfway up the hill. I think he wanted to be knocked out to keep himself from heading out that tunnel door to find his son.
Pop came through about two minutes later. Nana jumped up, grabbed a pack of wet wipes, and began washing his face and hair. He was still coughing like crazy. Velma had him drink a lot of water and snort some into his sinuses. It wasn't pretty. I'll just leave it at that.
Emma's sneaky. She has a hole dug in the floor underneath her sewing table. She was sewing when the NK's attacked, and she knew exactly where to go. She lifted the rug and floorboards and crawled in the hole. She stayed there throughout the entire battle. Her little wooden building wasn't hit. Thank you, Lord!
Mick found Pao and Tim when he went to the outhouse. They were hiding beneath the bench seat, right up against the waste buckets. Both of them still have a sickly, green look to their faces.
Shawna came wading up the hill through the bodies. She was carrying Lisa over her shoulders like a sack of potatoes.
Lisa and Shawna were fighting, back to back, against NK soldiers. They used their training well. Lisa was shot by a stray bullet as they were heading toward a small group of NK's. An explosion caught the attention of the NK group just after Lisa was shot.
Shawna took advantage of the diversion and carried Lisa into the tree-line. She forced her up into Dane's old tree-stand and climbed up to join her. They took turns shooting NK soldiers from the tree stand until they ran out of ammo. They laid there and watched the rest of the battle. Shawna wanted to get down and fight, but Lisa begged her to stay put, and she did. Thank you, Lord!
Jason and Dane fought well. Both have minor injuries and Jason's been beaten up pretty good. Dane injuries were mostly caused by himself. He fought, bashed heads, shot, stabbed, hid, ran, slid, and made his rounds taking out NK's.
Elaine found Kenny's body near the front porch. He was shot through the chest and had knife wounds on his arms.
We thought that Lieutenant Colonel Chris Knellson's body was found near the front gate. The body was almost destroyed. Mick thought it was him because of the uniform decorations. The man was obviously killed in one of the explosions.
When Chris actually jumped down from the top of one of the trailers, we were shocked. Mick stared at him, looked back at the body, and looked up at Chris. “Dude! We thought you was dead” Mick said. Chris assured him, and Josie, that he was far from dead. The body belonged to another man who'd been traveling with the unit on his way to take command of a unit in Mississippi.
We found Merry curled up in a ball between two round bales of hay inside the trailer fence. She whimpered and wouldn't say a word. Velma has her now and I think she's given her a sedative.
Several yards away, we found the body of Saitou Yamatsu, aka “Soo.” We will bury him in the graveyard beside his wife tomorrow. I can't come to terms with the fact that he's gone. He was a good man, He will be missed. I'm positive that Hisa's welcoming him with open arms right about now.
We haven't found Ian, Rick, Isaac or the Wilkerson's. Tom Sulligent went to a different unit, so we didn't look for him. Shawna says she's heading out to look for Ian as soon as the sun rises.
Cleanup begins tomorrow morning. There's a lot of cleanup to do and a lot of bodies to take care of.
Before I came in here, I heard Chris tell Mick that he saw more than a few NK's run back through the woods and up the mountainside. Great. Just wonderful. Bye for now.
Wednesday, May 14
Well, we know that Ian and Rick are alive. Shawna found a note on the front of the trailer fence. It was written in blood, presumably from the dead NK lying underneath. The note said “Yo S, Me gud, IaR X, LU.” Shawna interpreted it as “Hey Shawna, I'm fine. Me and Rick are going after the ones who escaped. We're gonna X them out. Love You”
Okay, if she says so. I wonder how many soldiers went with them.
The little wooden building where the Wilkerson's slept was blown to smithereens. Chris thinks it took direct hit from a grenade or small mortar. Brody and Serena's bodies were found in the wreckage.
Valerie and Elaine are helping Marisa care for the kids. Josie's there as well. I think she may be researching motherhood.
We haven't found Isaac, but the body cleanup isn't finished.
The troops who survived are taking special care to record the names of the fallen.
Anything found in the pockets is bagged and tagged for return to any family members still living.
There's no way to take the bodies back to home base unless the unit empties the refrigeration truck and loads them inside. Chris won't allow that to happen. He says that food for the troops is more important than returning bodies. We offered up our reefer trailer but he said there's too many bodies for one trailer.
I made sure to ask that the bodies not be burned at the power lines. Chris says they'll be buried in a field near one of the little country churches.
There will be a ceremony tomorrow afternoon and each name will be read aloud. One dog tag will be buried with the body and the other will be returned to the family. If the soldier has no family listed, the tag will be stored at home base. Bodies that can't be identified will be listed as “unknown soldiers” with the date, place of death, and burial spot.
Chris doesn’t expect to have an accurate count of the dead until tonight at the earliest.
Enemy bodies will be burned somewhere far away. There's a lot of them and not enough space at the power lines. I don't wanna know about it.
In the meantime...
The Mississippi unit whose leader was killed is on its way to merge with the remaining members from Chris' unit. They should arrive by mid-week.
The compound looks horrible.
Both swimming pools are gone. They were shot, trampled, and ended up with several bodies in each. Thank goodness for the well.
We have six more little buildings damaged or destroyed. I don't know who lived in them. There's debris and trash all over the hillside. It looks like a war zone in some third world country.
The trailer fence will need four new trailers, which means every trailer will have to be taken out to replace the damaged ones unless we find some kind of huge forklift to
pull them out. The iron gate needs to be put back on its tracks and a have little welding done here and there.
The guard tower where Pop was visiting needs to be power washed on the inside. Dane says we can use the fire trucks and water from the pond. I reminded him about the HDI's in the pond and he said “We'll give it a good rinse with bleach water after it's clean.
The floors and stairs will also have to be rebuilt. Loose netting over the windows will be removed and metal screens will be secured over all windows to keep flaming arrows as well as flies from coming inside.
Shutters or steel roll down doors will also be mounted on the windows with some sort of switch or device on the inside to close them. “Gun holes” will be cut out underneath the windows so the barrels of the badazz guns will have a full range of motion. A soft, flexible, rubber molding will be placed around the holes on the inside.
The onion field is destroyed. There are several small craters in the ground and the fence is flat in most spots. Bodies are everywhere. It reminds me of a scene from a movie where deadly gas was dropped into a huge party of 500 NK's mixed with real military troops. The number of soldiers lost is gonna be staggering, I'm sure of it.
The trailer that held the wild people was destroyed. One of them must have escaped because they only found five bodies in the rubble. We may find the sixth among the dead in the field where the real mess is located.
Bodies, tents, vehicles, and debris are all over the onion field. I'm not sure we'll be able to grow anything there. The ground is saturated with blood.
I thought I would feel happy when I got out of that wall. I should be happy that Mick's here, my kids are alive and well, and our home is still standing. Instead, I feel depressed and sad. Is this all we have to look forward to?
I need to walk back in the meadow and watch the horses peacefully graze and act like nothing has happened. I don't wanna look at destruction and death any longer.
See ya later.