Neighbors

by Jerry D. Young

  Hank showed up on the four-wheeler, and Juan came running up, in fear for his wife’s safety.

  “What can we do for you’all?” asked Hank.

  “Just out and about, looking for supplies,” said the obvious leader. He’d been driving the pickup, and just had the ‘I’m in charge here’ aura. “You seemed to have something to hide here. What’s with all the barricades?”

  “Just protecting what we have,” Hank said evenly. “There are quite a few of us and we’re barely making it, food wise, so I suggest you leave and don’t come back.”

  “Aw! Come on! Be sociable. How about a tour of the place. Maybe we can do some business.”

  Uncertain, Hank asked, “What kind of business?”

  “You give us what we want, and we give you something in return.”

  “I don’t know,” Hank said, thinking rapidly. The group of people were beginning to spread out. “It would be up to the individuals whether or not they wanted to trade away their goods. What kinds of things to you want, specifically. And would pay with what?”

  “Well, now, that depends, Ol’ Son…” He was fast. Faster than Hank would ever hope to be. But Juan, a closet Cowboy Action Shooter, was faster, by just enough.

  The man’s pistol cleared the holster hidden just behind his hip. Juan had his Colt SAA .45 Colt out and three rounds fired before the other man pulled the trigger of his gun. Juan’s bullets all entered the man’s chest. The man’s bullet hit the ground between his feet.

  Hank, still on the four-wheeler, unslung his PTR-91, but the battle was already over by the time he was ready to shoot. He decided then and there he’d be a lot more ready in a similar situation. Juan had undoubtedly saved his life with the quick draw and accurate shooting.

  The rest of the armed neighbors that had taken up their positions, just as planned, made short work of the rest of the gang. Not a single neighbor was hurt, and everyone of the gang died with multiple gunshot wounds.

  The firing stopped and the neighbors looked around at the dead and at each other. “A few of you check the rear perimeter, in case some are trying to infiltrate while we’re occupied here,” Hank yelled.

  Getting off the four-wheeler, Hank hobbled over to Juan, who was just standing there, the single action revolver pointed down alongside his leg. Juan was staring at the boy of the dead gang member. “I never killed anyone before,” Juan said softly. “I never even shot at anyone before. It was all against a timer at a paper target.”

  “You saved me, for sure, Juan,” Hank said. “Probably several others, by your quick action. Thank you.”

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” Juan said then, going ashen.

  He stumbled away and Elizabeth went over to him as Hank turned to take a look at the carnage.

  “What do we do with them?” someone asked.

  “Strip everything useful off the bodies and out of the vehicles. We’ll dig another grave, with the excavator. And this time, we put up a sign. Boot Hill. And leave an empty grave, ready for the next one. Maybe it’ll make some others think twice.”

  No one moved toward the bodies. Limping badly Hank began the process of inspecting the bodies and taking weapons, ammunition, and accoutrements, along with whatever else there was of use to the community. Finally, a couple of the others began to help.

  It was a somber group that went to their homes late that afternoon. Another hard job was at hand for most of them. Explaining to the children, kept safe in the shelter, what had gone on. And why.

  The eclectic accumulation of weapons, ammunition, and accoutrements was divided up among those that wanted them. Several additional people opted to take a weapon, that hadn’t before. The lessons being learned were hard ones, but made a real impression.

  Hank again took only one of the weapons. No one else really wanted it, anyway. One of the Model 2900 Trillings imported for a while by Armsport. It was a three barrel shotgun, similar to a drilling, but nowhere near the quality of most drillings. The action was sound, however, and Hank cut the barrels down to just past the forearm. The butt stock was cut down and contoured to pistol grip form.

  When Juan saw Hank carrying it stuck in his belt in cross draw fashion, he offered to make a holster for it. Juan made all his own leather gear for Cowboy Action Shooting, and picked up a few bucks extra making custom gear for other shooters. In addition to the holster, Juan made up two six-shell ready loops so Hank could carry twelve extra shells for the gun.

  Though a constant radio watch was maintained, and contacts had been made, there had been none close by. Shortly after the harvests began, one of the pre-teens monitoring the radio while babysitting suddenly perked up. The signal was a strong one. Someone was talking to another person that Angie couldn’t hear.

  Calling for one of the other teens to watch the kids, Angie ran to find Hank. He was making rounds on the four-wheeler, giving advice and helping where he could with the harvest of the community garden and his huge garden, while keeping an eye on the woods around the cul-de-sac.

  “Mr. Smith! Mr. Smith!” Angie called, running up to the four-wheeler. “Someone on the radio. I think they’re close! Talking to someone I couldn’t hear!”

  “Okay, Angie! Thanks. Would you get Henry, Pete, and Elizabeth for me, please? You don’t have to run.”

  Angie ran anyway. The three requested co-leaders of the community showed up a couple of minutes after Hank got to the radio. They were followed by about half of the rest of the population, Angie’s loud explanations heard by many more than the ones to whom they were intended.

  Hank listened to the one-ended conversation. He paled, as did the other adults that could hear the radio. The strong voice on the radio was giving battle orders to someone.

  “You think it’s military?” asked Bren.

  Henry spoke first. “They wouldn’t be using an amateur frequency. They have encoded radios.”

  “I agree,” Hank said. “I think it is a gang of some sort. Trying to take over a community, probably much like ours.”

  Several people began to utter their concerns, but were quickly hushed. The final words out of the radio, before it fell silent, was, “Go! Go! Go! No survivors!” Everyone waited for quite some time, and Hank began to scan the same band, in case the gang had changed frequencies. But he didn’t find anything else.

  “We need to discuss this,” Hank said quietly. “But this evening. We need to get on with the harvest.”

  People turned away, talking quietly among themselves. Henry, Pete, Elizabeth, Stan, and Bren lagged behind to talk to Hank. But Hank was thinking and limped past them without even seeing them.

  They watched silently, following Hank outside, as he got on the four-wheeler and headed for the gate. “He’s surveying the defenses,” Henry said.

  “I hope he comes up with some ideas,” Bren said. “That didn’t sound good at all. A bunch of yahoos is one thing, like we’ve come up against already. That sounded like those people knew what they were doing.”

  The meeting began as an uproar and got worse as Hank tried to get everyone’s attention. Hank finally gave up and sat down. It was a good ten minutes before the group seemed to have argued itself silent. All heads turned to Hank when he stood up again.

  “Okay. We have a potential problem. We need to decide what to do. I take it the word has spread to everyone that there is a much more organized gang out there than what we’ve faced in the past. A gang we might have trouble handling, given the small amount of information we have.”

  There were nods and a few calls to do this or that. Hank’s expression went hard when Sara, barely able to get out and around due to the radiation sickness that had decimated her family spoke up. Only she and Steven were ambulatory, and very weak. Bernie was keeping the three children alive, but barely. She had told Hank privately that they stood little chance of recovery.

  “We should try and contact them,” Sara said. “Offer them some food and fuel to leave us alone.” There were a few murmurs of support of the
idea.

  Hank was adamant. “If that becomes the plan, you’all will have to do it without me. I’ll pack my Suburban and trailer and go. Appeasement doesn’t work for long. It only gives a group a better insight into the group making the offer.”

  “I’m with you, Hank,” Henry said. He was angry again. “My dad fought in World War II because the world tried to appease Hitler instead of taking him on when he was still weak. No appeasement!”

  There were some supporting Henry and Hank, but the overwhelming majority of the community was still undecided.

  “Well… What do we do if we don’t try to make a peace with them?” asked one of the others.

  “We seek them out and do as much damage to them as possible,” Hank replied. “Then we let them chase us back here and catch them in an ambush.”

  “That’s crazy!” shouted Steven, Sara’s husband. “We’ll just get people killed and then lead them right to our door step!”

  Bren spoke up then, a bit reluctantly. “He’s got a point, Hank. Do we really want to lead them back to us? If we just stay quiet, maybe they won’t discover us.”

  “You’re forgetting Chap Hunniker. He knows where we are and what we have. If that gang catches him, or even anyone with whom he’s trading goods, the word will get back to the gang. It’s only a matter of time before they come looking for us.” Hank’s words had a profound effect on many of the members of the group.

  Chap Hunniker had showed up one day, offering to trade salt for food and fuel. Salt was one of the items that neither Hank, nor any of the others, had stocked up enough for the long term. He would show up about once a month with another mule load of salt and empty panniers on two other mules. He left each time with his two five-gallon cans full of gasoline, and food stuffs on the other mules. He was closed mouth about where he was trading. He didn’t want the community doing their own trading, leaving him without a way to make a living.

  Though he provided a needed service, no one trusted him. He would talk to save his own hide.

  There was silence for a long time. Hank finally spoke again. “Let me see what kind of plan I can come up and we’ll vote on it the next meeting. Hopefully, if the group has just taken over a place, they may not be on the warpath again for a while. Hopefully we’ll have time to find them and do something before they find us.”

  As the meeting broke up, Hank signaled for several people to stay behind. “I’m going to need your help and support on this, if you are in agreement with me,” he told the small group that was the de-facto government of the community. All nodded and then went to their own homes to think about the situation.

  Hank, after surveying the entire property they were trying to protect, went home and got out his laptop. Over the years of visiting prep web sites, he’d saved a tremendous amount of information. He spent most of the night reviewing anything about fortifications.

  Finally, with a few ideas in his head, Hank went to bed.

  As he woke slowly the next morning, the plans for the community defenses finalized itself in his mind. As soon as he had eaten breakfast, he set out on the four-wheeler and did another complete survey of the property, making sketches on a large pad as he went.

  The harvest was still going strong, and Hank waited for the late afternoon before he brought his team together and went over what he had planned. Just about all of them had a suggestion or two, amidst a steady stream of questions that Hank answered in detail.

  “Where are we going to get the stuff?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Juan will know, I’m sure,” Hank said. “But Home Depot and Builders Mart should have much of it. The Farm Store, too. And we can get the bentonite at the big golf course. I’m sure they use it to seal their water hazards.”

  “Going to be a lot of work,” Pete said. “I think we should go ahead and put a couple of people on the preliminaries. Digging the fortifications, mainly. And send someone to try and locate the gang. Someone that won’t get caught.”

  “I’ll bring it up at the meeting,” Hank said. “Just to check, we’re all in favor of the plan. There are going to be several that don’t like it at all.”

  “I see it as the best possibility to save ourselves, if that outfit tries anything,” Elizabeth said.

  The meeting that evening started much like the last one. A raucous mass of sound with little meaning. But it quieted down when Hank stood up. He spent all of twenty minutes outlining the plan of action, and the increased fortifications the team wanted to do.

  There was silence at first, when Hank sat down. Then murmurs as family members talked it over with each other and with those sitting near them in the community building. Silence fell again. Sara was the first one to speak up.

  “If trying to cooperate with the gang is out, I say we pack up and leave, lock, stock, and barrel. We have all the trailers just sitting, and enough trucks to pull them, if we make several trips.”

  “Where would we go, that has the advantages this place does?” someone ask.

  Sara shook her head. “I don’t know. We’d have to research that.”

  Hank looked over at the door suddenly, seeing some movement out of the corner of his eyes. It was Juan. He was on gate watch. Stepping around him, Chap Hunniker came into the room.

  “Hank, Chap wants to talk to you. From what he told me, the whole community might want to hear it direct from him.”

  Hank nodded and motioned for Chap to come up to the table behind which Hank was sitting, facing the group.

  “What’s on your mind, Chap?” Hank asked.

  “You guys are in big trouble. If I was you, I’d pack up and leave. Right now.”

  There was an uproar, but Hank lifted a hand and quiet resumed. “Why?” Hank asked Chap.

  “There’s a big gang out there gunning for you. They… Uh… found out about your place here and aim to hit it after the harvest is done so they can take it all. They ain’t very nice folks, let me tell you.” Chap rubbed his jaw. It showed the effects of being roundly beaten for the information he’d given the gang leader. Even though Chap had told all he knew, right off the bat. The leader wanted to make sure Chap had given up everything.

  “I just want to trade for a few supplies and take off for safer parts. I hear the National Guard is getting their act together, cross state. I’m heading for them.”

  “And when did you plan on telling us about the National Guard, Chap?” asked Pete. “That could make a big difference in what happens from now on.”

  “Don’t matter here,” Chap said, shrugging. “They aren’t going anywhere until spring. Supposed to have fuel and stuff they need then.”

  It was a disappointment. “Can’t we get them on the radio and ask for help?” asked Sara.

  “Done been tried,” Chap said. “The last place tried it. They were turned down flat. Everyone is on their own until the National Guard can mobilize properly. At least that’s what the guys there told me. That was after Gustav… that’s the head guy of the gang… contacted them and told them to surrender… or else. The idiots chose to fight.”

  “And just how did you managed to get yourself caught?” Hank suddenly asked.

  Chap turned red. “I tried to save my stuff. Couldn’t get away fast enough when the group decided to fight.”

  “Chap, why don’t you hang around for a bit? We might want to ask you some more questions.”

  Chap didn’t look happy, but seeing several of the group standing near the door, he found an out of the way place and sat down.

  “All right,” Hank said, looking out at the crowd. “Those that want to go should make their plans. Those of us staying need to know how many people we can count on for the battle that looks inevitable.”

  There was pandemonium for a few moments, but it quickly quieted as Hank held up his hand. “I plan to stay and fight for what we’ve done here. If we weather this, and the National Guard will be around later, we should be safe for a long time. Those of you that run… well… you’ll be on your own, open to attac
ks by any small force.”

  “That’s not fair!” cried Sara. “Everyone should help those of us that are going to leave!” She looked around and saw only a few faces that seemed to support her. Most of those looked away when their eyes met hers.

  She slumped back in the chair. “I guess we’re staying,” she said softly.

  That was enough to kill the idea in any of the others that had been thinking about joining her in an exodus.

  “We need to get started on a plan,” Hank said. “And we need a volunteer for a dangerous job. We need someone to go keep an eye on this gang, and warn us when they get ready to make a move on the community here.”

  People looked around at one another in dead silence. At least for a few moments. Finally Stan stood up and said, “I’m your man, Hank.” His wife put a hand on his arm to urge him to sit down.