Hell in the Homeland (4 page)

John started again with, “If the Mayor interrupts again, tie her up and gag her. You have to take charge of your town or have this happen again. Elect a real Mayor who will fight for a strong defense of this town, start your own army and protect yourselves or die. Don’t rely on others or the government to protect your town. We are leaving you enough weapons and ammo to fend off an army. You just need the backbone to fight those that try to take your liberty.”

One of the crowd asked, “Can’t you stay and protect us? You have a duty to protect us.”

John replied, “You are what is wrong with this town; you want someone else to do your dirty work. We're leaving and we genuinely want you to survive, but assholes like this jerk should be run out of town.”

John waited for his words to sink in and added, “Does anyone have military or police training?”

Five former women captives and three men came forward. They had a wealth of experience and several had fought in Vietnam and Iraq. John told them to report for duty at 7:00 a.m. sharp by the waterfront. John then asked volunteers to become the town’s police and army. He told them that he would get them trained to protect their families and town. About a hundred women and forty men came to John to be trained.

The next morning John found that one of the men had been a Marine drill Sergeant and two of the ladies had been MPs so he left all of the biker’s guns and ammo, but did accept half of the silver that had been collected to cover his teams time and trouble taking the town back.

As John, Beth and Gus walked away, three women came up to him and told him that they would like to join John’s group.

The one that appeared to be the leader of the three spoke up and said, “John, we can earn our keep and fight when necessary. Karen was an MP, Jill was a supply Sergeant; both were Army. I am Meg and I was a Warrant Officer and helicopter pilot. All of us saw action in Iraq and have had to kill a few times.”

John listened and replied, “Certainly y’all are welcome to join, but this will not be a cake walk.”

Meg replied, “John, y’all saved our sorry asses and I want to make sure that we repay you and help others like we were.”  They all shook hands and headed out.

The convoy was back on the road early the next day.

              Highway 65 south was a sea of stalled cars, trucks and many people walking to only God knows where. Most of the people kept to themselves, but several groups tried to get the convoy to stop to no avail. It was hard driving past so many women and children who wanted food or a ride to anywhere besides where they were. They had been shot at a couple of times, but no one was hurt and only one window shot out.

Beth pointed at the numerous tractor-trailers parked among the stalled vehicles and said, “I wonder where they were going and what they are carrying?”

John hit the brakes and came to a full stop behind the nearest trailer. He waved to the team to gather around him.

John addressed the team, “As y’all know, the power grid is down; food and water are getting scarce and we are the law. Beth just pointed out that most of these trailers that we have been passing have food or supplies that we need. We are going to start checking them for food, weapons, supplies, and take as much as we can with us to the bunker. Does anyone have any objections or ideas?”

Scott replied, “We need to commandeer a couple of trailers to pull behind the trucks so we can carry more supplies. We also need to tell Steve to do the same.”

They all agreed, so Scott led a team to go find four trailers while John led the team to check trailers.

Bill took a crowbar and removed the lock from the first trailer they found. The lock came off easily and the door was opened to deliver the smell of rotted meat. Lesson one was don’t open refrigerated trailers. John opened the next one and found that it was loaded with canned goods and grocery items. He felt like he had hit the mother lode. Several of the guys helped him go through the contents, Scott brought a trailer over and they loaded it full of canned meat and vegetables. John found six different flavors of Spam and was sure that God was smiling down on him. Jalapeno Spam was his favorite. As John watched the last case loaded on the trailer, he wondered why no one else was raiding the stalled trailers.

They found one tractor-trailer with fresh vegetables that were edible, but only found car parts, plumbing supplies and several other trailers with rotted meat, but nothing useable. The sun was setting, so they decided to set up camp and go at it again in the morning. They only covered about five miles due to checking out the trailers. John surprised the cooks and started frying Spam by the pan full. Fried Spam, corn on the cob and fried potatoes were enjoyed by all that night.

Scott took several of the men and two trucks to drive back to a town that they had just passed about three miles back. He hoped to find four abandoned trailers or at least trade for some trailers with food, ammo and some of the guns they had captured. They knew that they had to be very careful approaching the town because even good people could shoot first and ask questions later.

They got about a quarter of a mile from the town and Scott took one of the guys with him to scout the town to determine if they were friendly and if there were any trailers that could be used. The closer to the town that they got the more they noticed that there was no one in sight. The town was the typical Alabama farm town that had many gas stations, churches, fast food restaurants and a Wal-Mart. Scott used binoculars to scan the town for a few minutes and saw several burned out cars and buildings. There was also evidence of a large battle that left pockmarks on buildings and thousands of shell casings scattered around the streets. In front of the courthouse was a black Humvee that was shot up and partially burned. There were no bodies or for that matter, any signs of people around anywhere.

They entered the town and slowly crept down a side street while being careful to keep cover nearby. They finally spotted about twenty trailers in a Tractor Supply parking lot. Most were small, but several were sixteen feet long and a couple of goosenecks were enclosed thirty-foot horse trailers. Scott used a walkie-talkie to get the others to join them at the trailers.

They arrived in about ten minutes and were hooking up the trailers when one of the guys went up to Scott and said, “Scott, I saw something move between those buildings on the right.”

Scott replied, “I’ll slide away and sneak up behind the building and flush them out. You go over towards the front and be ready if they come that way.”

Scott backed out of the group, circled around the building, and went into the back lot, which had a hedge that gave him cover. He stayed behind the hedge and covered about two hundred yards when he heard people talking. He listened to the conversation for about ten minutes and heard them trying to decide if they should make contact with these intruders. The argument revolved around do they hook up with a larger group or keep hiding from the DHS. Scott stood up and raised his hands to get their attention. They raised their guns towards him as he walked towards them.

He said, “I’m Scott Harris and we only came here to get four trailers. If they belong to you, then we’ll pay for them.”

There were three young women and two older men standing in front of him with guns aimed at his chest.

Scott said, “If you lower the guns we can talk about y’all joining us and what happened in this town.”

One of the men spoke up and said, “Lower your guns, he’s not here to hurt us.”

He looked at Scott and said, “Where did you get the fancy military guns?”

Scott replied, “We took them from some bad guys who were trying to hurt us. It looks like y’all have had a run in with the same bad guys. The DHS was supposed to be helpful to citizens, but it appears they have become an occupying power with an agenda that is not in our favor.”

By this time, Scott’s backup had walked up to the group with his rifle aimed at the group. Scott waved for him to lower the gun. They all walked over to a picnic table and sat down to share stories.

The leader was the pastor at the First Baptist Church and had been in the Army right out of high school. He told them that the DHS had come into town several times trying to talk them into moving into the relocation camp. The mayor and city council met with them and adamantly told the DHS leader that the two thousand citizens of Pineville are doing great and did not need help. They suggested that the DHS go find someone who needed help. They had plenty of food, water and all other necessary supplies and were mainly farmers so they were in great shape. They even had several mechanics that were getting many of the trucks and cars running by retrofitting them with engine parts from the 60s and 70s. The DHS leader told them that there were many bands of bad guys out there raiding towns like this and taking women and children as sex slaves. The mayor told him that he had over five hundred armed fighters that could handle themselves.

All went well that week, but several families came into town reporting that raiders had hit them during the night, shot up their cattle and drove trucks all through their crops. Every day afterwards the violence escalated until there were farmers and town folk being killed or burned out.

The raiders killed a family of five and hung their naked bodies from a tree at the edge of town. The woman and three girls had been raped and sodomized and had words carved into their chests. This scared the hell out of the women and whole families started to travel to the camp in Mobile. It didn’t take long until there were only a few hundred people were left around the town and nearby farms. That was when the DHS came back and tried to force the remaining people to go to the camp in Mobile.

The Pastor said, “They came with four armored Humvees, five trucks and ten buses. They were ready for the people to drop their arms and load up like cattle. Well, the bastards were wrong.”

He continued to say that many of the locals had gone home to get a few personal items and was ready to load up when the DHS told them no pets or guns could be taken to the camp. When the people balked, one of the DHS thugs butt stroked a man with his rifle. All hell broke loose! Two men tackled the thug and were shot. Suddenly everyone with a gun began shooting at the other side. The town folk had the upper end in just a few minutes, killed almost all of the DHS men and burned all of the buses and trucks before the DHS could get the Humvees into the action. The twin machine guns on each vehicle quickly put the fight to an end and the remaining town folk went into hiding.

There were only ten DHS men left alive at the end of the battle and they only got out alive because they were in the armored Humvees. The Pastor then said something that scared the shit out of Scott.

He said, “You know those bastards are overdue, they usually come back through every two to three days about this time and we haven’t seen them in five days. We usually pick off one or two and go hide until they leave.”

Scott replied, “We need to get the hell out of here. What can we do to help you?”

They told him that they needed some more powerful weapons.

Scott gave them their M4 rifles and ammo, then told them, “Look, y’all have to stop ambushing them in your town. They will eventually carpet bomb your asses. Hit them on roads ten to twenty miles from here. Hit different locations. Our home base is only a short distance away and we need allies. We also need a pastor to marry my dad and soon-to-be mom. We will bring you better weapons and plenty of ammo and we will teach you better tactics.”

The Pastor replied, “Thanks so much for the help and I will be glad to conduct the ceremony.”

They shook hands and parted.

***

Scott’s team drove up with the two horse trailers in tow and were warmly greeted by their friends. Scott quickly told the others that they had to go back and get the other flatbed trailers and then told them about the town’s experience with the DHS. John told Scott to take a couple of extra men and a load of rifles and ammo for the town. He also took Scott’s advice on watching for the DHS on their way to the town.

They were only gone about two hours and came back with two trailers in tow and another piled on top of each trailer. Scott reported that the town was excited to get the guns and ammo and would be happy to work with them to defeat these DHS assholes.

John and Beth had the last guard duty slot for the night and reported in for duty at 4:00 a.m. Bill informed them that Alice and he had heard something or someone messing around the last trailer that they had opened. John told Bill that he would check it out once the sun came up. They grabbed a cup of coffee and toured the camp while talking about the world falling apart. They made a couple of laps around the camp and found nothing unusual. They really enjoyed each other’s company and told each other their life’s story.

They had been on duty about thirty minutes when they heard sounds like someone rattling pots and pans. John told Beth to go wake up Scott and Tom and get back quickly. John got down on the ground and crawled towards the sounds, which appeared to be coming from behind a car about fifty yards away. John got to a pickup about 10 yards from the noise and took cover. John heard his backup crew before he saw them. He waved them to join him behind the pickup and then told Scott and Tom to go around the back of the car while he went around the front.

Scott lunged around the tail of the car and found himself staring at a big gun aimed at his chest. The gun was in the hands of a very scared little boy about eight years old who was standing in front of two toddlers about two to three years old.

Scott said, “I’m not going to hurt you or the others.”

The boy looked Scott in the eye and said, “I know you won’t.”

Just then, Scott saw someone tackle the boy as there was an explosion and Scott was knocked down. He felt a searing pain in his right side and wondered if this kid had just killed him.

John had knocked the boy to the ground just as he pulled the trigger on the Colt 1911. The bullet hit Scott’s pistol, drove it into his ribs and knocked him backwards. Bill ran up and took care of the boy while Alice led the two little kids to the camp. Beth had Scott take his shirt off to determine the extent of his injuries. There was no blood, but he would have a hell of a pistol shaped bruise on his side.

John helped Scott back to the camp where they saw the kids being fed.

Scott had the kid’s Colt in his belt and the kid said, “Give me my gun back!”

Scott replied, “So, 'Little Gus' wants another chance to shoot me.”

The group broke into laughing.  Beth placed the boy in her lap and asked him where his parents were.

The boy’s name was Billy and he talked a mile a minute. He told them that about two weeks ago some men drove up to their farm and ordered everyone to come out of the house. His mom hid his sister, brother and him in the basement and she and his dad went out to meet the men. There were gunshots and screams so the kids kept quiet and hid until there were no sound coming from the front yard. Billy left the younger kids in the basement, went upstairs to his parent’s bedroom and got the Colt out of a closet. He loaded it and then went out the back door to stay out of sight until he could make sure that the bad guys were gone. As he peered around the corner of the house, he saw two men dragging his parent’s bodies back into the house. Then the men doused the porch and front room with gas and set the house on fire. Billy wanted to shoot the men, but he knew he had to get his brother and sister out of the burning house.