Not Dead in the Heart of Dixie (19 page)

10:00 PM...

Nana's pork chops were out of this world. Pop and Mick ate two each. She fried them in lard. That'll add some fat to our diet.

There's a lot of mashed potatoes left
, and Nana said she'll fry them like pancakes for breakfast tomorrow morning. She'll do it on the cook stove 'cause Pop's been turning off the propane in the motorhome during the day.

Everyone was here for supper. The kids were buck wild 'til they
got warm in front of the fireplace and got their little bellies full.

Soo looks great! Hisa said she's weaning him off the pain medications because she doesn't want him to get addicted. He seemed like his old self (what little I know of him before he got shot). He's looking forward to getting back to work and helping Mick put up a fence. An hour after supper
, he started getting tired, so Hisa took him back down the hill. I stepped outside to have a cigarette and heard her talking sweet, like a new girlfriend, as she held his good arm and led him down the driveway.

When Jeremy saw Diane I thought he
might have to pick his jaw up off the floor and wipe drool from it. That boy looked like he was smitten. They sat close together and talked quietly through supper. A little while later, Diane got up and went back to the futon. I'll stick my head in there before I crawl in with Mick, just to make sure she has enough blankets.

My back is sore
, but much better than it was. Mick's already asleep and snoring quietly. He says he'll be working on the water situation tomorrow.

He's sending Jason and Jeremy back to TSC to pick up
the rolls of fencing they left. They'll take Jason's Dodge and the flatbed trailer. Mick said he forgot to check the back of the warehouse area for propane canisters, so they'll check on that as well.

Pop
plans to work on a greenhouse idea he has. He thinks he remembers how to build it and can use small PVC pipe and clear plastic that we have in the barn loft. He said it's called a "hoop house."

He said
it's time to start planting and growing early crop seedlings. Most of them need to grow in a greenhouse until after the last frost, but we can put some cold weather stuff straight in the ground right now. The only problems is that we don't have a garden spot ready. I told him to start planting them in my flower beds, around the hedges and roses. He said "sounds like a plan."

Jeremy said all the herbs and flowers at Caleb's house look dead but there's a big patch of
sun chokes (Jerusalem Artichokes) in one of the garden beds. The stems and leaves are dead but the root tubers should be good. I've heard about sun chokes. They look kinda like small potatoes. They're supposed to taste like water chestnuts. I'll go over there as soon as I get a chance and check them out.

I know we can eat dandelions and dollar weed, but none of that is up and growing. I have a book on mushrooms that has pictures of poisonous and non-poisonous varieties, so I'll pull that out for studying. I wonder what Mick would say if I served him a weed salad.

I'm gonna check on Diane before I jump into my own bed. Tomorrow's laundry day again, and I'm not looking forward to it, but I refuse to let that pile get back up to my knees.

Bye for now.

Sunday, January 19,

Nix the laundry and the water situation plans.

Mick sat straight up in bed last night and said "she didn't say anything about the restaurant."

There's a restaurant at the big truck stop.
The entrance is near the back of the convenience store and through a little hallway, past the bathrooms. There's a payphone and a couple of newspaper boxes along with an ancient Pac-man machine in the hallway.

Diane didn't mention anything about the restaurant when she told Mick what had happened. We asked her a
bout it this morning and she didn't even know it was there.

We finished our breakfast in a hurry and Mick hooked up the flatbed trailer to Jason's Dodge. We took the Jeep, the S10, and the Dodge. We were going to loot that restaurant. The entire way there I prayed that the military convoy had missed it. I prayed hard.

We saw the white delivery truck Jason had mentioned and decided to wait 'til we were on our way back to check it out.

The front of the truck stop is a mess. There
’s cars and trucks abandoned in the parking lot, and most of them have their windows busted. A couple of them have bullet holes through their shattered windshields. They're parked all willy-nilly, with no rhyme or reason.

The inside of the convenience store, and the garage area on front of the building, is destroyed. There's no food left in the cooler
s or on the shelves.

There's plenty of motor oil, windshield wiper fluid, air gauges, magazines, and stuff like that. Mick
said "take all the motor oil," so we did. He said we also need to take all the tools from the garage, but we'd get them later. He wanted to get to the restaurant first.

I saw a pretty little crystal dragonfly on one of those standing displays near the counter. I stood there, wondering how it made it through the destruction and chaos. I wanted to take it, but I didn't.

We headed to the back of the store and crowded into the little hallway that leads to the restaurant. The doors were closed, and there was a big ol' chain wrapped through the door handles with a big ol' padlock holding it together. Mick turned, and the group parted like God parted the red sea, so he could go back to the truck and get the bolt cutters. We held our breath while he was gone (not really).

Right as that big ol' padlock snapped we heard a crash from the front of the store. Mick whispered, telling us to get down on the floor and be quiet while he and Jason checked to see what was going on. Not even a full minute after they left
, we heard Jason yell "IT'S A MOB!"

"GET UP HERE AND SHOOT!" Mick hollered.

I felt like my heart had jumped into my throat. I led the way for the rest of us as we ran, with pistols raised, straight to the front where Mick and Jason were aiming and firing as fast as they could into a big crowd of HDI's. Two HDI's had already made it into the store and were crashing through the aisles toward us. A third was almost over the windowsill behind the sales counter. Marisa and I aimed our Glock 17's and took those monsters out.

We turned to the front and joined the shooting spree. It was Mick, Jason, Jeremy, Marisa, Hisa, and me. We took down a total of twenty-two HDI's and we didn't get a scratch on us. After we were sure that they were all dead for good, Hisa fainted.

Maybe I was being insensitive, but I knew Hisa was gonna be fine. I told Mick to put her in the back-seat of the Jeep and get us into the restaurant, and to "hurry it up."

As soon as we opened those big metal doors the smell hit us. Their last buffet was already growing mold, and it stank. We looked around and could plainly see that the place had gone undiscovered.

We all shouted various "hoorahs," jumped up and down, and gave each other high fives. Marisa was doing that dance where you move your fists around in a circle while she sang "oh ye-ah, it's your birthday, gonna partay, gonna e -eat." I had to stop jumping, because of my back, but I was no less excited than the rest of 'em. I hoped that the kitchen and storage area wouldn't disappoint us.

Jeremy, Jason, and Mick went out to the vehicles and drove them around to the back door entrance so we wouldn't have far to travel while loading
.

Mick had to cut another big ol' padlock from another big ol' chain on the back door before we could open it.

The big sign that hangs above the back door entrance was laying upside down on the pavement. It used to read "Jack's Grill," now it reads "J k ri l."

Mick said
that Hisa was sitting up, holding her head in her hands, in the back-seat of the Jeep when they went to pull it around. He opened the door to make sure she was alright and she looked at him and said "owww what happen my head?" He told her "you passed out again." She said "owww sorry," and Mick told her to lay down while we loaded the booty..

Mick sent Jeremy to the front of the station to stand watch and let us know if any danger approached. The rest of us headed to the kitchen and storage areas.

It was a glorious sight. There was food, rotting in pans on the stoves and counter tops, but there were unopened, #10 sized cans stacked on the shelves.

We got green beans, carrots, corn, peas, stewed tomatoes, diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, squash, pumpkin, beef stew, chili, sweet potatoes, nacho cheese, spinach, turnip greens, b
lack olives, crushed pineapple,, canned ham, fruit cocktail, canned potatoes, apple halves, peaches, prunes (ick), pear halves, pesto, cherries in jars, olives in jars, and sun dried tomatoes in jars.

We got a few smaller cans of tuna, chunk chicken, canned shrimp, and imitation crab meat. There were assorted packets of dry gravy mix, dry dip mix, and dry sauce mix. There were boxes of cake mixes, pie crust mixes, pizza crust mixes, muffin mixes, cake frosting, gra
ham crackers, Jell-O, and several boxes of Ritz crackers.

There was 200+ pounds
of self-rising flour, 50 pounds of grits, an opened 25 pound bag of powdered sugar, 150 pounds of white sugar with one of the bags three-quarters full, 150 pounds of biscuit mix, 75 pounds of pancake mix, 75 pounds of white rice, 75 pounds of cornmeal, an opened 50 pound bag of cornbread dressing mix, and 100 pounds of regular cornbread mix.

There was lemon juice, vinegar, salad dressing, mayo, ketchup, mustard, co
oking oil, cooking spray, 50 pounds of potato's that have started sprouting from the eye's but-who-cares, and 30 pounds of onions that are also sprouting.

We got all sorts of pasta, pasta sauces, gravies, honey, syrup, steak sauce, salt, pepper, and other seasonings. We got lard, lard, and more lard.

Jason opened the freezer and the smell actually wasn't too bad, or we had already gotten used to it by that time. We got six-dozen eggs and close to 20 pounds of margarine. I know I've forgotten things, but I'm sure Caria will bring me a complete inventory sheet if she ever gets finished counting all this stuff. I'm just shaking my head, thinking about all the meat that was ruined in that freezer. No tellin' how much was in there.

Jason asked Mick why the stuff in f
reezers had thawed out, 'cause we haven't had any warm weather. Mick said it's because we've only had a few days of below freezing temps, and the sun is heating up the buildings by shining on the roofs and siding, and coming in the windows. There was probably a lot of heat left inside when the power went out.

We loaded the back of the jeep, the flatbed trailer, and the bed of the S10 with enough food to last at least two months. If we stretch it with the food I already have stored
, we might get four months out of it. We're feeding a lot of mouths.

Mick, Jason and Jeremy used yards of rope, and dozens of
bungee cords, to tie everything down. They put two tarps over the flatbed, ran the ropes underneath the trailer to the other side, and tied them down tight so nothing would fall off.

Jeremy had to shoot another HDI at the far end of the
parking lot as we were leaving. We went past the wrecked delivery truck without stopping.

The entire group is unloading the booty into the basement. I'm in here under the influence of a pain pill, typing on this computer, and putting an ice pack on my back.
See ya later.

2:00 PM...

Nana made a huge pot of rice and we heated up a #10 can of beef stew to put over it for lunch. It was delicious.

Nana says that Diane has been stuck like glue to her all day. Diane says Nana is "prissy," and reminds her of her Grandmother. Nana just smiled and shooed us out of her way.

Mick believes the HDI's are attracted to sound because they weren't at the truck stop until we started making noise. He and Jason think they came out of the tall grass covering a big field to the right.

Pop made a greenhouse while we were gone. It's only 6x8' but it looks cool! He says we need at least two more just like it. Jeremy told him he would help build them later and asked if Pop would help him build one at Caleb's house. Pop says we have plenty of plastic, pipe, and concrete blocks, so, why not?

Jeremy has almost all the bottom floor windows at Caleb’s house boarded up. Marisa says she's waiting for a cook stove before they move in. Jason told her she was just "making excuses," and they’re gonna move in before spring, cook stove or no cook stove.

Mick, Jason, and Jeremy are headed back to the truck stop to pick up three 100 lb propane tanks that Mick saw behind the grill area. Oh, how I wish we could use some of our precious water to heat up and take showers in Pop's motorhome!

They'll also grab any tools they think they need from the garage. They'll stop at the wrecked delivery truck on the way back. I'm a little nervous for them, but Mick says someone will be keeping watch the entire time.

I told him we'll have to make another trip soon. We need to grab all the paper goods from the restaurant.

Diane asked Mick if there was any way she could get her motorhome and park it near Caleb's house. He told her that he’d figure it out later, but he was sure we could make it happen.