Not Dead in the Heart of Dixie (16 page)

Mick grabbed a
tote of bandages and other supplies. He placed it on the buffet beside the table. Hisa yelled for alcohol, so I quickly ran to the bathroom, grabbed a bottle, and brought it to her.

Her hands were moving so fast that
I had trouble keeping up. She went into that tote and grabbed all sorts of stuff. She grabbed a clean dish towel and began cleaning the wound while ignoring Soo's screams of pain. I think she was talking to herself while she was working because her lips kept moving but no sound came out.

She cleaned the wounds, smeared antibiotic ointment on both, and sent Meredith down to their motorhome for a bag of medications.

While Meredith was gone, Hisa stitched up the wounds with the only sewing needle I could find. She bandaged and taped up the parts of Soo's arm that were now ventilated and wrapped gauze around his arm several times.

Meredith came back w
ith the bag. Hisa dug through it, grabbed a pill bottle, took two pills out, shoved them in Soo's mouth and screamed at him to "swallow them!" She stood up from her crouch over Soo… and fainted.

We went into a frenzy again. Jason l
ifted Hisa off the floor and laid her on the couch. I grabbed a cool, wet washcloth and placed it on her forehead. Her eyes fluttered open a few seconds later. "I don't know what happened" she said. "I stood up and went right out, probably from the stress of seeing Soo hurt." The third year resident in her was coming back to the forefront.

We sat her up
, and Carisa heated enough water over the fire for tea. We practically had to force Hisa to sit there for a few minutes, sipping tea, before we let her go back to Soo. He was still lying on the table and was out like a light. Mick and Jeremy were watching over him.

Hisa was worried about the mess she made and
began picking up boxes and wrappers until Marisa told her she would take care of it. Hisa looked grateful and went back to Soo.

I told Hisa that I didn't think it would be a good idea to send Soo back to the motorhome for his body to heal and fight the cold at the same time. I thought we should put him on
the sofa bed in our living room and she could sleep on a thick pallet on the floor. Meredith could sleep in Carisa's room.

Marisa
reminded us a couple days ago that there was still propane in her huge tank behind the house trailer, and the trailer has a large propane heater in the living room. The oven also uses propane.

She suggested they stay in her house trailer and turn on the heater. I'm more than worried a
bout that since the trailers close to the road. Hisa wants to take her chances.

Jason went down and turned on the heater. The place was warming up nicely when the men carried Soo down there. Hisa and Meredith grabbed bedclothes from their motorhome and went to the house trailer.

The pills Hisa gave Soo were pain pills, and she has several more, so he'll be gettin' some sleep over the next few days.

She’s putting
him on an antibiotic regimen to ward off any bacteria that may be lurking. I told her I'd have one of the guys bring down a tote of the antibiotics we got from Walgreens and she can go through it to look for what she needs. I'm praying that Soo will be okay. Hisa says it was a clean through-and-through shot and the only thing she's really worried about is infection.

Jeremy was in severe emotional pain. He sat on the floor and didn't want to move. He asked Marisa and Jason if he could build a fire at Caleb's house and stay there tonight. They
said it was fine.

I reminded him that the
windows haven't been boarded up, but he didn't seem to care. He's already headed over there. I believe he wants to be alone for the rest of the day.

We all looked at each other. No one really wanted lunch except for the kids and Pop. Nan
a said she’d fix PB&J sandwiches in the motorhome and the rest of us should stay in front of the fire and gather ourselves before going on to other tasks.

Marisa cleaned the table and floor with bleach, then she joined Mick, Jason, and me in front of t
he fireplace and they told us what happened. I'll type it out for you later tonight, but right now I have to get back to the laundry and do what I can.

I feel a little woozy and sick. I'll grab a few more salt
ines and my coffee thermos on the way out. I don't wanna go back out there, and I feel like I'm about to call Ralph, but it has to be done. Thank goodness Jason, Marisa, and Nana are able to help.

9:30 PM...

Nana and Carisa made little veggie
pizzas for supper. They used Bisquick and home canned tomato sauce. They opened cans of spinach, carrots, corn, green beans, and diced tomatoes. They sprinkled the last bag of mozzarella I had in the freezer over the top of the veggies and baked them in Nana's motorhome oven. Those little pizzas were yummy! We had sliced peaches to go along with them. I ate like a horse. I'm feeling much better after having a good meal.

Mick took Pop back home this afternoon and they brought back a couple
of propane canisters, several cases of canned food, a ton of Nana and Pop's clean clothes, and Pop's F350 truck.

Pop's happy for the moment, but he says those are the last of the propane canisters and we'd better start thinking about how we're gonna cook and eat. I told him we could cook on Marisa's gas stove in the trailer. He said "Nana's not gonna stay that close to the road for any length of time." That mea
ns I'd lose our number one cook unless... Mick needs to get that cook stove. He needs to get it, like, yesterday.

We got almost all of the laundry done. It's hanging all over the house and back porch because it started
raining. We had to grab everything off the line before we ran in the house.

We brought it all in 'cause Mick said that it would freeze overnight and not
lose any moisture. The weight could pull the clothes line down. I decided I was not gonna pick up clean laundry out of the dirt and wash it again. So, it looks like a clothing store threw up in here. I'll finish the remaining laundry tomorrow morning if it isn't raining.

If you want to see something funny, watch a big, tall, burly guy with
ill-fitting yellow dish gloves try to ring out clothes and hang them on a line. That's all I'm saying about that, Jason!

Hisa and Meredith didn't come up for supper. Hisa threw together something from their motorhome
on Marisa's gas stove. Carisa begged me to allow her to spend the night down there in the warmth. I told her there was no way I was allowing her to stay in that trailer so close to the road with its thin walls. So, Meredith is staying up here tonight and they're in Carisa's room, hanging their clean, damp, undies all over the place to dry. They’ve become "BFF's," which stands for "Best Friends Forever."

Carisa was mortified when Caleb came walking into the living room with a pair of her panties on his head. I thought she was gonna breathe fire and scorch us all for laughing.

Merry and Carisa don't want anyone to see their underwear. They plan to keep it out of the public eye (snort). I told them they'd be better off hanging it out here where the fireplace is going, or in Marisa's trailer since the heat is on, but Soo and Hisa might "see" it and we can't have that! At this point, I don't care where my underwear’s hangin’ as long as it’s clean and I get to change it often.

I'm having a rough time staying awake but I want to type out what happened and how Soo got shot. I may be brief in my story telling. Please forgive an old woman if she's plum tuckered out and propping her eyelids open with toothpicks.

It took 20 minutes to get to Jeremy's house. Mick parked in the driveway and Jason parked on the side of the road. Mick was standing behind the open
driver’s side door and yelling "Hello!" towards the house. Jeremy was out of the truck and would have headed straight into the house if Mick hadn't motioned him back.

Soo climbed out of the Jeep because he noticed something blue in the ditch. He thought it looked like clothing, so he went for a better look.

There was a girl lying in the ditch with her throat slit from ear to ear. The wound was gaping open. She also had a bullet hole in her left temple and looked like she's been dead at least two days. Soo yelled for Jeremy to come over and look to see if he knew her. It was Jeremy's younger sister, Brittany. She was only seventeen.

Jeremy fell on his knees beside her body. Then he stood and faced the house. His face was red as fire and he had his teeth clenched in a grimace. He
took two steps toward the house.

Soo was reaching to grab hi
m and hold him back. A gunshot rang out and Mick saw Soo grabbed his own arm and double over. Several more shots followed and one pinged off the top of the S10.

Jason pushed Jeremy down in the ditch, stuffed Soo inside
the jeep, and crawled over him to the driver’s side. Mick was squatting behind the driver side door of the S10 and reaching in for the Benelli when a male voice yelled from the front door of the house.

"Get back in your cars and get outa here!
” the voice said.

"This is my house and I'm trying to find my family" Jeremy shouted from the ditch. "
It ain't your house anymore. Your family got infected 'n dead, an' we're livin' here now!" the voice shouted back.

Another shot rang out and Mick noticed a man standing at the corner of the house with
a long gun in his hand. He looked up and saw another long barrel sticking out a second story window.

Mick decided it was best to get out of there immediately. None of them were trained for a shootout and Soo was already hit.

He crawled in the driver’s seat, backed out, and motioned for Jason to follow. Jeremy crawled out of the ditch and into the back-seat of the Jeep. Jason said that Soo screamed and Jeremy cried the entire time it took to get home. They came flying home on a wing and a prayer.

You know the rest of the story.

I’m exhausted and ready to fall asleep in this chair. I’m headed to bed to lie down and pray for Soo.

Bye for now.

Tuesday, January 14

I put off finishing the laundry for a more important task.

I allowed everyone to eat the remaining pastries for breakfast. I wanted to try for the cook stove after breakfast. I was so focused on getting the stove that I blew off making something hot. They ate every one of those pastries and smacked their lips afterward. I wanted them in a good mood and hyped up on sugar for stove wranglin'.

We did it, by golly.

It took me, Mick, Jason, Marisa, Carisa, Merry, Pop, Jeremy, and Hisa, but we got the cook stove loaded onto our little trailer and all the way into the house. I won't say it was pretty to watch, but we did it. My back hurts
a lot
. Don't tell Mick.

We can't use the
stove 'til Mick gets the wall bricked up and the base in place. Then, Pop will get the ventilation pipe installed. They're gonna work on it all day and we can use it in a day or two.

Mick's using square stepping
stones from Mr. Peterson's walkway to build the base and bricks from the shed at Caleb's house to build the wall. We have several bags of quick-Crete in the basement. Mick says there's more than enough to get the job done.

Pop said
that everything they need to run the ventilation pipe was in the shed with the stove, but he needs "flashing." Mick said they’d take flashing from a business up the road. I have no clue what that means and I don't care. I'm a southern lady, and only our men folk know about cook stove flashing. Anyway, it better be done right and as fast as possible.

At this time
, they're measuring, sorting, hammering, cutting, and sawing.

I'm in my bedroom on this computer
, trying to block out the noise and pray my back starts to feel better. I'm happy that the cook stove is up here.

Before we move it in
place, Nana and I will clean it thoroughly. It was a pain to get that beast in the door.

Nana said that both lunch and supper will be a huge stockpot of hamburger soup and a loaf of buttered bread. Carisa says I have almost thr
ee cases of hamburger soup downstairs, canned and ready to open and heat. That sounds good to me.

Nana seems sad today. I think she's worrying over my sister again. I'm with
her there. I wish they were here and safe with us.

1:00 PM...

The hamburger soup was de
licious, if I do say so myself. I licked my bowl clean.

Mick noticed that I'm walking all hunched over and not in the screaming excited mood he expected to see when the
cook stove got here. He sent me to lie down and rest my back until supper.

Marisa and Jason said they’
ll gather up the dry laundry, fold it, and put it away. They'll also finish up what's left outside. I told them they could hang it on the line since the rain has stopped.

I noticed today that we're all losing weight.
I'm sure it's from the extra work we're doing. We need to be more careful about making sure we eat enough to maintain us. I could stand to lose a few pounds but I can't go out and buy a new wardrobe and neither can anyone else.

Jason has been
splitting wood every day, and he looks like he's lost the most weight of us all. I'll talk to Nana and figure out how to get more calories into our diet so we don't keep tightening our belts.

Jason still plans to head out tomorrow and look for his son. He'll take Marisa's Saturn since it
gets a lot better gas mileage than his Dodge. His ex-wife lives only 50 miles away but he needs to be cautious. He'll take enough food for three days and two of our five-gallon gas cans full of gas. He's taking Mr. Winchester and his Smith &Wesson as well.

Mick wanted to
find some kind of two way radio before Jason pulled out, but we haven't been able to go to town and look for anything. We'll be expecting Jason back within one week. Keep your fingers crossed.

10:00 PM...

I'm hurting. I can't sleep and I can't sit in this chair. I'll just say that supper was good.

Mick and Pop finished the base and wall for the cook stove. We'll have to wait ‘til it dries before placing the cook stove on top. They also got the wall ready for the ventilation pipe and plan to go get the flashing tomorrow.

I'm headed out to the couch with a warm blanket, a book, and pain medicine on board.

Bye for now.

Wednesday, January 15

My back hurts so bad that I don't know what to do.

Mick and Pop went out and got flashing today. They also brought home a huge
, above-ground pool and a several long pieces of 6" PVC pipe.

I had oatmeal for breakfast and PB&J for lunch..

Marisa's in a foul mood because Jason left this morning. She brought breakfast and lunch in for me. Carisa came by and picked up my dirty dishes.

Mick said Hisa told him that Soo’
s feeling a little better today, but he is still in bed and in serious pain. Hisa’s keeping him grounded and taking care of him. Merry's still here with Carisa.

They're
gonna move the cook stove onto the base after Marisa and Nana get it cleaned. They'll get the ventilation pipe in after the stove is in place. I feel so guilty, not being able to help, but Mick won’t allow it and I can’t argue. I’m miserable.