Not Dead in the Heart of Dixie (100 page)

Forget it. Just forget it. I'm gonna write about the news Mick brought home and try to concentrate on that while the house shakes and dust falls on my head. Here
I go, ignoring the gunfire...

The unit has a traile
r with six “wild people” inside.

L
ess 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 b
e 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 g
overnment. 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” c
ompound members to the ranks.

I have to “shhhh” now. I hear voices closer to the house. I'm shutting down. I'll write l
ater 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 Carisa 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 w
as 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.