by Newman, AJ
“Jack, I think our guys shot a couple of the ones shooting at us. Can you circle back so I can use the binoculars?”
“I’ll do it, but I won’t get much closer.”
Cindy gazed out the window and said, “Yes, they’re pinned down. Oh, I see a woman who must be Jill moving along the boardwalk heading to the shooters. I can’t see Jon, but I think I see Barbara and Gina hiding behind some brush.”
Cindy saw something odd behind the plane. “Hey, Jack. There’s a stream of something like water coming from the plane. It’s making a pretty stream of vapor like jets do when they pass overhead. ”
“Oh, shit! The bastard must have hit one of the fuel tanks. The gauge has only dropped a bit, so we’re not losing a lot of fuel. We need to land and plug the hole.”
Jack landed about a half-mile north of Anclote Key and taxied to land. He quickly found the bullet hole and was thankful it had hit the tank near the top. He searched the toolbox to find something suitable to plug the hole. Jack smiled when he saw the golf tee in the bottom of the box. He wrapped the tee with plastic electricians tape until it was slightly larger than the hole and pushed it until it seated. He tugged at it and found it to be secure. He was proud of his redneck engineering but knew there would have to be a proper repair later.
There were several extra gas cans in the plane, and Jack topped off the tank to see if it would leak. He was pleased when there was no sign of gas leaking from the fuel tank.
“I’m topping off the other tank, and we’ll go back to see if we can help.”
“What can we do from up there?”
“Help me fill these bags with those rocks and seashells.”
☣☣☣
Only Jon and Jill had rifles, so Jon said, “Jill, I need you to get to the other side of the raised boardwalk and work your way down to the elbow. That puts you about two hundred yards away from the group. You should have a clear view of them. While you keep them pinned down, I’ll go back into the brush and come at them from the north. I think I can get within about fifty feet from the boardwalk to the dock. We’ll have them in a crossfire. Shoot anyone with a gun.”
Jill was tired of the daily fight to survive but knew she had to do her part. “Let’s give the women a chance to surrender.”
Jon had a scowl on his face but reluctantly replied, “Good idea. Let’s go.”
Jill crawled under the raised boardwalk, looking carefully for snakes. She hated snakes, rats, and spiders. The boardwalk to the beach and dock was only a few feet above the sand, so she had to crawl. The boards were still rough underneath the walkway, and splinters stuck her in the butt every time she bumped against them. The sand and seashells were coarse on her hands and knees, but she persevered in her attempt to flank the group that had attacked them. Jill stopped and wiggled to pull her shorts down to flip the sand from them. She used her hand to brush the sand from herself because the sand had rubbed her raw. She kept her mind busy with finding a way to end the standoff peacefully. Every solution she came up with was too risky for her friends. This pissed her off, but she resigned herself to killing everyone but the kids and perhaps one of the females.
Jill reached the point where the boardwalk made a sharp bend to the east and sank into the sand. She was pleased there was a ridge that hid her from the people who had attacked them. She also noticed she could stay in the shadows close to the boardwalk. No one could see her while she low-crawled toward the armed group.
Jon’s route through the brush wasn’t a cakewalk. His bare arms and legs were scratched from thorns and sawgrass. He could walk upright, but the going was slow due to the thick grass and brush. He ducked and fell to the ground. The dense grass parted, and Jon almost stumbled into the backside of the boardwalk. Jon peered under the walkway and could see the group huddled against the pilings holding up the walkway to the pier. Four men and one woman had guns. The other women and kids cowered in the shadows under the walkway.
Jon listened for a minute and heard the women under the walkway plead with the others to stop shooting and leave the strangers alone. Jon raised his pistol and hoped Jill was ready. Before Jon could shoot, he heard a plane overhead, and there was the sound of something hitting the boardwalk above him. Some of the boards broke, and he prayed whatever had hit them wouldn’t go through and kill him. Jon saw splashes of sand and rocks hitting the ground around the men. A few seconds later, a man fell with a rock chunk embedded in his skull. Another clutched his bloody shoulder and fell to the ground.
The remaining men started shooting at the plane that had bombed them. Jon aimed at the closest guy and pulled the trigger. The shot rang out, but before the man fell, Jon had aimed and fired at the other man. Just when Jon moved his sights to the woman, she fell to the ground, and at the same instant, something hit the piling beside Jon. Splinters hit him in the face, and he saw a bloody hole in her back. Jon said, “Shit, the bullet passed through and almost killed me.”
The last woman returned fire at Jill but was struck in the throat by the .30-.06. Blood sprayed all around the woman as she was spun around by the bullet’s impact. She fell to the ground making gurgling sounds as bubbles busted when she exhaled. Then her breathing stopped. All of the armed people were down. Jon came out from under the boardwalk and said, “Hands up, or I’ll shoot!”
One of the women yelled, “Don’t shoot! We’re not with the others. They forced us to come to the island with them.”
Jon was confident the woman was lying, so he kept his distance from them while he waited on Jill to join him. “Are you infected?”
The woman said, “No, we haven’t had contact with anyone, but the people here for about a month.”
Jill shook her head and kept her rifle trained on the group. “If we let you live, what will you do?”
“We’ll try to get back to the mainland and leave you alone.”
Jon said, “No, stay here. We just landed to repair our plane. You’ll find some supplies at the end of the boardwalk. We’ll be leaving soon.”
Jon saw one of the men move and shot him in the head. He then shot all of the dead and dying to make sure they were killed. Jon would make this a habit even if it wasted ammunition. The sick people reminded him of zombies, and he knew what to do with zombies.
Jon waited for Jack to circle back and motioned for him to land. The husky Beaver swooped down and made a smooth landing. The old plane had been manufactured over seventy years ago but was in perfect condition. Jack jockeyed the plane to the dock, and Jon went with Bo to greet his dad and Cindy while Jill helped Barbara and Gina with the women and children.
“Dad, are you and Cindy okay?”
“Yes, but they hit the plane and put a hole in the right gas tank. I had to land to plug the hole. How did you like our homemade bombs?”
Jon grinned, “They turned a potentially nasty gunfight into a massacre. You took out half of the men and distracted the others, which made it easy for Jill and me to pick them off. There were some innocent people in the bunch. We’re leaving them on the island to fend for themselves.”
“You’d better get the girls back quickly. There are a couple of speed boats heading this way.”
Jon’s grin disappeared. “I’ll run and get them.”
Jon took off up the boardwalk and began yelling when he was close enough for his friends to hear. He yelled, “Boats are coming!”
They all turned toward him, and suddenly all hell broke out. Barbara and his friends were in a close-quarter gunfight with those so-called innocent people. Jon was only fifty feet away when he began shooting. He hit one woman in the side and the young boy in the chest. Barbara shot the girl and one of the women before falling to the ground with Gina. Jill shot the last two women standing, and there was silence.
Jon ran to Barbara, who sat up, holding her thigh just as Jon bent over to check on her. Barbara said, “That little bitch stuck me with a dagger when you yelled, and the others pulled knives on us. Only one woman had a gun, and she shot Gina before G
ina killed her as she was falling.”
Jon pulled Barbara’s shorts leg up to reveal blood weeping from an inch-long slice. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a package of a blood-clotting agent. He tore the end of the pack and poured it into the open wound. Jon said, “You’re going to be okay,” while he lifted her.
Jon said, “Boats will be here in a few minutes. Jill, can Gina travel?”
“Yes, go ahead. I’ll help Gina to her feet. Let’s go!”
They’d found Gina on the island several weeks earlier, along with her female friends. The women had been stranded on the island due to a tremendous storm. Gina was a born leader and had chaffed a bit at Jon being in charge of the group. She was in her early thirties and a good-looking woman in a rawboned way. Her short-cropped blonde hair and tall, sinewy frame made her look like a female long-distance runner. She and Jill had quickly become a couple and made a good team. She learned quickly and began contributing from the start. Something about her bothered Jon, but he couldn’t put his finger on it or mention it to Jill, who loved the woman.
Jack arrived, took Gina from Jill, and lifted her into his arms. He walked briskly behind his son while they hurried back to the plane. They were on the long pier when the boats popped into view to their northeast. They quickly loaded their wounded, and Jack hopped back into the pilot’s seat. He checked the controls while Jon unfastened the hold down ropes. Jon climbed into the seat next to Barbara, and the plane taxied away from the dock and the boats. Jack increased the engine speed to full throttle and raised the flaps. The aircraft rose quickly and was soon miles from the danger below.
Jon tended to Barbara’s wound and soon had a bandage on her upper leg. He knew if the slice had been four inches to the inside of her leg, she’d be dead. A sliced femoral artery was something you couldn’t throw a bunch of blood clotting agent into and walkaway. He held Barbara tight to him and thanked God she was going to be okay.
Gina’s wound was more severe but not deadly. She’d been shot on the outside of her upper arm, which was only a through and through flesh wound. Jill had already packed the entrance and exit wounds with the Wound Seal clotting agent on the beach and only had to apply antibiotic salve and a bandage. Gina soon fell asleep, and Jill whispered, “Jon, thanks for charging in guns blazing.”
Barbara was asleep in Jon’s arms when he reached back and tapped Jill on the leg and whispered, “Thank you?”
Jill had a puzzled look. Jon whispered, “For saving me from the CDC bounty hunters, so I could meet the love of my life.
Barbara stirred. “I want to thank both of you for not saying, ‘I told you so’ about saving the women and children. That bastard kid could’ve killed me.”
Jon chuckled but didn’t say a word.
Chapter 2
North of McComb, Mississippi – September 2038
Mississippi was in the middle of a heatwave that year, and the flies and ticks were plentiful. The night air was thick and humid as sweat rolled down their bodies, mixed with the dirt, and made dark beads on the men’s skins. The stench of a skunk hung heavy in the air and covered up the sour smell of the unwashed bodies. These men were the trash of the south and hadn’t had a bath in weeks. Even the mosquitoes avoided them.
The three men slipped silently through the woods on their way to the large chicken houses. They’d hunted these woods most of their lives and knew how to be silent as they stalked their prey. Their families hadn’t been prepared for the pandemic and usually had only a few days’ worth of groceries in their pantries. They were good men who were a bit lazy before the shit hit the fan and now found themselves stealing other people’s food instead of trying to grow their own. They lived in a trailer park on Highway 570 just north of McComb and planned to bring home several dozen chickens from the farmer a few miles north of them. They thought they could slip in before the sun rose and get the chickens before the farmers were up and out for the day.
They each had an AR 15 rifle and a pistol on them. Probably stolen from their neighbors or the local pawn shop before the virus had killed everyone. None of the guys had been in the military but had hunted most of their lives. Game was scarce, and their kids were hungry. They thought the farmers should share their food and had asked several for handouts. All of the farmers had told them to go away and grow their own damned food.
That night had been Charlie Payne’s and his son Bob’s turn to guard old man Jerry’s chicken houses. There were five buildings on the lot, with each being five hundred feet long by forty-five feet wide. There had been thousands of chickens, but half of them had to be killed and eaten or canned. Old man Jerry and the other chicken farmers didn’t have great stores of chicken feed, so they fenced in a huge part of the farm and let the chickens free range on their own. That meant someone had to patrol the chicken yard to keep the foxes, hawks, and other predators away.
Bob tried not to take a deep breath because the disgusting odor of chicken manure filled the air. He hated chickens but loved fried chicken for Sunday dinner at Granny Jane’s home.
Bob asked, “Do you think Barbara will show up one day?”
“Son, I know she has the skills to survive, but it’s rough out there for a woman on her own, But if any woman can do it, my red-headed fireball can.”
“My little sister is rough as a cob and can lick most men in a fair fight. I pity the men who try to harm her.”
“She can be a handful. I’d like her to meet a nice guy and settle down and give me some more grandkids.”
Bob interrupted his dad and tapped him on the shoulder. “A man is sneaking across the meadow, heading to the chicken houses. Hey, there’s two more.”
Charlie replied, “I’ll bet it’s that trailer trash from down north of McComb. That'll be the third time in two weeks for those idiots. Get on the walkie-talkie and get the guys out of bed. We need them to be the jury.”
Bob woke their friends and then followed his dad to the other side of the building the three intruders had entered. They busied themselves, chaining the doors around the building until their friends showed up.
Charlie saw his neighbor. “Fred, we got them locked inside. They’re busy putting chickens in bags about now. Are we going to let them go again, or end this here and now before one of us gets killed?”
Fred said, “Charlie, you’re the leader of the MAG. I give up pleading to save their miserable lives. Stealing another man’s food is now a death penalty crime.”
Bob whispered aloud, “Hey, they’re coming to the door.”
The men had their rifles and two bags full of squawking chickens slung over their shoulders when they exited the building and saw the guns pointed at them. One of the men begged for mercy. “We didn’t know these birds belonged to anyone. We thought they were abandoned.”
Charlie stepped forward, “Jed, who are you shitting? I recognize you and your brother from the last time you tried to steal our food. Set the bags and rifles down very slowly, or you’ll be shot before you can pray to your maker.”
Jed said, “You wouldn’t shoot a man for trying to feed his family, would you?”
The bags and guns were on the ground when Charlie replied. “No, I wouldn’t execute you for trying to feed your family, but I’ll execute you for trying to take food out of my family’s mouths. You have a minute to say a prayer before your sentence is executed.”
All three begged and pleaded for their lives while wasting their time to pray. Three shots rang out in the early dawn, and three thieves were dispatched and then buried by the road after Bob fetched a backhoe. Later that morning, they placed crosses on the men’s graves, and Charlie made a big sign that read, Chicken thieves, shot on sight.
Charlie was in his late fifties and had been a farmer all of his life. His face had the look of weather-beaten leather, and his hands had battle scars from fighting hay balers, old tractors, and barbed wire. His teeth were tobacco-stained from the wintergreen can of Copenhagen in his back pocket. He didn’t talk much, but when he d
id, others listened carefully with their mouths shut. He didn’t joke around much, but would be the one who pulled a prank on his son or grandson and snicker to himself. He hadn’t pulled any pranks since the bloody face disease hit the country.
Charlie drove his old GMC truck home while Bob drove the backhoe back to their farm. His son parked the backhoe in the barn and then rode up to the farmhouse with his dad. Neither took pleasure in ending the thieves’ lives but knew the thievery had to be nipped in the bud before it was open season on the farmers in the Mutual Assistance Group (MAG). A farmer had been killed, and his daughters kidnapped by a roving band that’d come through one night. That was when they’d decided that no one could join them, for fear of the people being infected and the harm any outsiders could do to them.
Granny Jane, Charlie’s mom, and the matriarch of the family sat in her rocker, enjoying a nip of whiskey in her coffee while her daughter-in-law, Betty, fixed breakfast. Granny Jane wore a flowered blouse and long black skirt to hide her disfigured legs, which had been caught against a hay baler’s PTO unit. Her hair had passed the silver stage many years ago and was now in the dingy white faze, but she didn’t care and wore it in a tight bun. Usually with a pencil or darning needle stuck through it. None of the kids or grandkids knew her age. When her son Charlie was asked how old Granny was, he just said, “Dirt.” The person would ask, “What?” Charlie would snicker and reply, “Older than.” Her sharp wit and thirst for knowledge had helped her live a long life and would help keep many of her family alive for a bit longer.