by Newman, AJ
“Can’t blame you for that. We’ve liberated a few trucks and airplanes ourselves,” Jon said, before asking Barbara to get in the green and black John Deere utility vehicle. Walt said, “You going to let your woman come along? It could get dangerous.”
Jon chuckled, “I know. I already feel sorry for the cattle rustlers if she gets to them before us.”
“Can she shoot?”
Jill entered the barn with her M4 and said, “Dad, women can shoot just as good as men. Let’s go deal with some scumbags.”
Walt took off on his four-wheeler, followed by Bob and Jill in a John Deere Gator, followed by Jon and Barbara. A few minutes later, Walt stopped and said, “See that cloud of dust? The rustlers are over there. Bob, you follow me, and Jon, you flank them from the right side. Let’s don’t shoot each other in the crossfire. I’ll stop about a thousand yards out and start picking them off. You two shoot any stragglers.”
“Yes, sir,” Jon said and then drove to come out to the south of the rustlers. The area was so flat, Jon knew they could be seen a half-mile away, so sneaking up on them would depend on Walt drawing their attention. Barbara kept watching ahead through the binoculars even though the ATV shook her around. “Jon, stop. I think I see them.”
The John Deere slid to a stop, and Barbara zeroed in on something and then passed the binoculars to Jon and pointed north of their position. Jon saw a small heard of cows, three pickups, and a school bus. Barbara said, “They’re infected, aren’t they?”
Jon peered through the lens and wasn’t sure until he saw a woman wiping blood from her cheeks. “Crap, they’re infected.”
He moved the binoculars to a man standing behind the woman when suddenly, there was a silent explosion and a crimson cloud for a few seconds. Jon heard the crack of Walt’s high-powered rifle just as the woman and man fell to the ground. The others just stood there in a daze, and then there was another explosion of blood, flesh, and bone before Jon heard the sound of Walt’s rifle barking death.
Barbara said, “I see how they’ve kept the area virus free. Shoot first and ask questions later. Jon, all of them are walking dead people just spreading the virus from town to town. Unless they’re stopped, the virus will never die off. Move closer, and we’ll pick them off before they can escape.”
“Darn, there are children in the group.”
“I know, Jon, but they can also spread the disease and remember there is zero recovery rate. They’ll die a horrible death if we don’t put them out of their misery.”
Jon drove to within a hundred yards of the infected. The people scrambled to get out of the line of fire and into their vehicles to escape. “Barb, shoot the tires while I pick off the people. We can’t let them escape.”
Jon had tears running down his cheeks before he’d finished killing the last of the infected near him. Their five rifles had caught the infected rustlers in a devastating crossfire with only their vehicles for cover. Jon shot into several of the vehicle's gas tanks, and they soon had several explosions and a burning inferno beside them. They had no choice but to run from the intense heat. However, they were cut down as soon as they broke away from their cover.
The last one fell, and Jon wiped the tears away. “Walt, Bob, stay back and let us mop up. Remember, we’re immune. Let’s go check for survivors. We’ve done this before.”
Jill joined them as they walked among the dead and dying, slowing only to put a bullet into everybody’s head.
Ten minutes later, they’d finished killing the wounded. Walt saw the big yellow bulldozer stirring up dust as it approached. He said, “The burial detail has arrived.”
Jon replied, “We’ll scavenge for weapons and anything useable."
“No, we just bury everything to avoid the virus,” Walt said emphatically.
“And if we weren’t immune, we’d do the same. We’re immune, and a couple of days out in the sun and heat will kill the virus. We’ll handle that duty until the rest of you are immune,” Barbara said.
Walt said, “And if you do that in front of the burial crew, you’ll have to explain why you’re not afraid of becoming infected.”
Jon patted Walt on the back and told his friends to get away from the bodies and back to the barn ASAP. They left while the dozer was still quite a distance off. Walt oversaw the burial and burning of the vehicles. He told his other friends that Jill’s friends had gone back to the house to keep their promise of staying away from the others. Walt yelled some instructions to the other ranchers and then followed Jon and the others back to the barn.
After supper, they sat around on the back deck, enjoying the stars and swapping tales of their experiences right after the virus hit the USA. Everyone had bad and good experiences, but Jon, Barbara, and Jill had the worst. Jill told them more detail about saving Jon and their airplane crash. That jogged Jon’s mind into solving something that had had been bothering him.
“Pat, it’s the kid’s bedtime, isn’t it?”
He winked at her, and she shooed the kids off to bed. Jon saw the door close behind them. “Walt, the work y’all are doing to eliminate the virus has one flaw that I think we can help solve.”
“What’s that?”
“You have to wait until one of your group sees them on your property or close to one of the group’s property. I know you send out teams from time to time to hunt them down, but that exposes you to potentially catching the virus.”
“What’s your solution?”
“Jack and I could begin a search and destroy mission from the air. We’d only need to get a couple of small aircraft flying, and we could clear a landing strip nearby.”
Jack said, “We could take a couple of shooters up with us and, at a minimum, run the bastards away.”
Barbara said, “Molotovs.”
Jon’s eyes popped wide open, “My new bride’s one tough broad.”
Granny Jane said, “She takes after her Granny Jane. I like the idea, but can you make sure they’re infected before you turn them into crispy critters?”
Walt snapped, “It doesn’t matter. If they’re trying to steal cows, we’ll fry the bastards.”
Jon was astounded. “Yes!... It does matter. We won’t kill any non-infected who are just trying to survive unless they’re trying to harm us or take from us directly. How can we know if they aren't just assuming the cows are there for the taking like you and your friends did when they liberated them from other ranches?”
Walt was mad but tried to control his voice. “That’s different. We took them from abandoned ranches. We can’t allow them to steal from us.”
Jon said, “Then you’d have to make sure they know they would be stealing. Your cows look just like the free-range cows we saw flying down here.”
Walt calmed down a bit. “I see your point. Let me talk to the other ranchers and see if they have an idea. You decide whether to kill or run off at your discretion. We’ll mark our boundaries, so you’ll know from the air what you’re protecting.”
Charlie had been quiet since he’d received two and a half pints of blood during the last two days. He and Walt would receive another half-pint in a couple of days. Charlie said, “Here we’re out in the middle of Texas, calmly talking about shooting and firebombing our fellow citizens. My God, how the world changes when someone’s always trying to kill or infect you with a deadly virus.”
Pat shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know what to do about the kids. Bob Jr. is now sixteen and needs to begin learning how to protect himself and his future family. Sally’s twelve, and I’d like to shelter her from the violence, but now think I should treat her as an adult. I don’t know what to do.”
Granny Jane said, “You know what to do. You’re just having trouble doing it. I’ll bet the kids are listening right now. BOB Jr.! Sally! Stop eavesdropping and get your butts out here now.”
The screen door slammed, and the kids walked over to Granny Jane with their heads hung low. “Your mom has something to tell you.”
Chapter 1
1
Southeast of Lubbock, Texas – October 2038
The travel trailers arrived the next morning after breakfast. The men dropped off three campers on the road in front of Walt’s home and then took off to bring three more. Jon summoned Samantha and told her Walt wanted the trailers lined up beside the machinery shed. All Jon had to do was to hitch the trailers to Samantha. Samantha placed the campers exactly where Walt had said to put them.
Walt watched Samantha expertly maneuver the trailers by herself and said. “I hear they have newfangled farm tractors that can be programmed, and the farmer never has to leave his home. I don’t like that.”
Jon said, “I would agree, but that truck has saved my life several times and makes me laugh. It’s silly, but she’s one of my best friends.”
Walt almost jumped when Samantha spoke through her outside speaker, “Aw shucks Jon. I love you too.”
“See what I mean, Walt?”
“No. She’s just a machine.”
Jon laughed. “Be careful what you say. Samantha has feelings.”
Jon talked Walt into showing him how to use the backhoe on the back of the tractor and began digging holes for jury-rigged septic tanks. They used two fifty-five gallon plastic drums for the containers. Bob assigned the kids to drill the holes in the drums with battery-powered drills. The windmill generator and a bank of solar cells provided the electricity for the farm and could easily keep the drill’s batteries charged. Bob and Charlie ran water lines above ground until they could borrow a ditch witch to dig the narrow trench to place the pipe below the frost line.
The farm’s auxiliary power supply didn’t have enough capacity to power all of the trailer’s needs. Still, they did run wires to give each one the ability to run one light in the living room. All the campers had propane-powered cook stoves, and two had their solar panels on the roof.
They worked hard, setting up the trailers, and soon they all had their own private camper with Jill staying with her family. Jon and Barb were happy with their thirty-six-foot camper with four slide outs. It was larger than Barbara’s apartment in Atlanta but still tiny for a home, but they were delighted. Bo stayed in the house with the Scotts. Walt gave each group adequate supplies of toilet paper, food, and cleaning supplies that his group had scavenged from the abandoned stores of Lubbock.
They still had almost a week of quarantine left before they could scavenge for synthetic blood or find the airplanes to use for searching for the infected people. Jon and Granny Jane had several meetings and implemented a plan to get the kids and rest of the family up to speed on the use of weapons, hand to hand fighting, and how to scavenge. Granny Jane also had Cindy and Betty teach first aid classes to everyone. Granny Jane made a vest for Bo, and he was trained to carry a first aid kit and extra ammunition. Everyone had to be ready to fight or help a wounded comrade going forward.
Walt, Jill, and Bob performed the weapons and fighting classes. The pace was grueling but satisfying for the ladies. Only Jill had any fighting experience other than what they’d had to do to survive recently. All of them understood that it could be them who’d have to save their families or their own lives.
The days passed quickly but were long and punishing on their bodies. Everyone except Jon, Jack, and Cindy had been raised on a farm or ranch. They were used to the harsh life of a farmer. Granny Jane made fun of their blisters but was the first one to apply her unique home remedy to their wounds.
She told Jon, “My granddaddy used to pour coal oil on every cut and blister and bacon fat on bee stings. It’s a wonder I lived to this ripe old age. Not that I’m old or anything,” and then secretly poured him two fingers of whiskey for ‘medicinal purposes.’
Barbara amazed Jon. She pitched in on the most challenging jobs and could operate the tractor and backhoe as well or better than Walt could. Jon and Barbara were underpinning their new home with old barn roofing when she sliced her hand on a sharp edge. She looked at the wound, wrapped her handkerchief around her hand, and kept working. Jon shook his head. “Darling, don’t you think you should get that wound treated?”
“We’re almost done.”
“Babe, you’re an immunologist. You do know if it gets infected, we can’t just take you to the doctor or a hospital.”
Barbara stopped and went to the house to get Betty to doctor her hand. She came back about fifteen minutes later and kissed Jon. “Thanks. People will die from cuts like that once modern medicine is all used up. I’m glad we brought our medical supplies. I’d hate to use up all of Walt and Meg’s.”
The ones giving blood were assigned lighter duty, but none of the jobs was easy. On the fifteenth day, Jon and Charlie approached Walt. Jon said, “We have to get a major effort started to find the synthetic blood and also find the suitable aircraft for our search and destroy missions.”
“Let’s hop in my truck and go meet the neighbors. I’ll call a meeting for tomorrow, and we’ll get some help,” Walt said
Jon told Barbara they were leaving. They stopped at Walt’s first neighbor north of his spread and saw two men working on a tractor when they pulled into the neighbor’s driveway. Both men jumped up with rifles ready when they heard the bell ring from the sensors at the start of the driveway.
The older of the two walked toward them. “Hello, Walt. I’ll bet the fourteen-day quarantine is over. I’m Jim Brown, and this is my son Willy.”
Walt introduced Jon and Charlie and then said, “Jon here came up with a great idea. It seems Jon and his dad are pilots. They can begin scouting around the area for bleeders squatting around us. We can also send shooters up and safely eliminate the infected bleeders at a faster rate than before.”
“That sounds like a great plan. I saw several planes at the airport, and several around the area at the larger ranches. We can all provide shooters and ammo.”
Jon was worried because the man wouldn’t look him in the eye. “We also need to stockpile some medical supplies. I’ll be heading into Lubbock and some of the other towns to scavenge what we can find.”
Jim said, “We’ve got a large supply now. We even have enough to take care of the added people.”
Jon said, “Medical supplies won’t be made for fifty to a hundred years. We need to get some medicines in as cool a place as possible, and the others stockpiled. The community will double in size over the next twenty years just due to births, even if no more outsiders join us.”
“Darn, you’re right. There must be forty or fifty young ones from fifteen to a couple of babies. Good thinking.”
Jon said, “We brought two nurses and my wife, who was in medical research before the crap hit the fan. They keep us on our toes.”
Jim grinned. “That’s the best thing I’ve heard in quite a while. We only had two nurses in the bunch. We’ve got about one hundred and forty people in our community. But, Jon, there still are regular people and infected people in all of the towns around Lubbock. Hell, there was just shy of four hundred thousand people in Lubbock when the virus hit. The Navy had just brought in some pilots from Georgia, the country, not the state. We figure they brought the disease here a week or so before anyone knew about the infection. The whole damned town was dying before we were warned. Peg had a brother in the state department, and he gave her a heads up to isolate herself quickly. She passed it on to us, and we put up roadblocks. The fighting was fierce, but we kept the infected away from our folks.”
Jon said, “Oh, my God. That explains the fast spread of the disease. I’ll bet every Russian visiting their embassies in every large city brought the shit to us.”
Jim said, “We cleaned all of the infected out of Lubbock, but a gang’s moved into the town. They know we have them outgunned, so they leave us alone. They control the hospital and medical plaza.”
Jon said, “I believe there’s an Air Force base west of here. Was it abandoned?”
Jim got a strange look on his face. “Yes, the base was closed forty years ago but opened back up about sixteen or seventeen yea
rs ago by the Navy to train foreign fighter pilots. That was right after the second massacre at Pensacola. I heard they wanted the foreign pilots to be isolated from all large civilian population centers. That was a joke around here with almost half a million people in the area. The foreigners weren’t allowed to leave the base, and the base grew to the size of a small city. Anyway, the remaining personnel flew out the day after we heard about the virus. We heard they shot the foreign students and most of the infected. Every plane that could hold people and supplies hauled ass out of here and left us to fend for ourselves. They left behind a butt load of equipment, food, and other stuff. That’s where we got most of our supplies. It took a month for the coyotes, rats, and insects to strip the bones. There’re damned skeletons everywhere.”
Walt jumped back into the conversation. “My Jill is also a policeman. She can help us organize a small police force.”
“Sounds good to me. I’ll spread the word to the north if you can get Peg to spread the word to the south,” Jim said.
“I’ll git ‘er done,” Walt said.
There was some lively conversation back at Walt’s place when they discussed the ‘Rancher’s meeting’ and who would be invited. Walt explained that only the men and women who owned ranches were allowed to attend, so Walt would be the only person attending from their group.
Jill said, “Dad, that’s stupid and very unfair. What about people who’d lived around here and work in town but didn’t own ranches or farms?”
Walt said, “None of them are in our group, and we don’t want them.”
Jon was angry but controlled himself. “Walt, how many people in this area aren’t in your group?”
Walt hissed, “I don’t freaking know and don’t care. There’re too many of them, and they need to leave the area.”
Granny Jane said, “Why should they leave? This’s starting to sound like a bad cowboy movie where the rich ranchers are pushing the small ranchers out of the area.”