Not Dead in the Heart of Dixie (25 page)

Pop has one or two more
weapons to outfit someone. Soo and Mick are at Pop's house to pick up ammo and a few other things.

Nana said there was an old wash
ing machine with a wringer in the loft of the barn but she doesn't remember when she saw it last. She says "it's been yeeaarrrs." I told Mick to be sure and look for it. Oh, how I'd love to stop wringing out clothes by hand. The yellow dish gloves are a thing of the past. We've put holes in them and scrubbed them to shreds. My hands must be toughening up because they don't hurt after doing laundry as bad as they used to.

Mick and Soo plan to get the new pool bleached and set up when they get back. After that, they'll start the work on the fence. I'll take lunch down to them because I don't want Carisa walking up and down the hill in broad daylight.

Jason says his ankle feels a little better. Hisa shook a wooden spoon and told him he couldn't be running and playing on it yet.

Hisa says I can take my butterfly stitches off day after tomorrow. I can't wait 'cause they're driving me bonkers.

Jeremy's leg looks pretty good and there's no sign of infection. He'll have a big ol' battle scar when that leg heals. I hope he behaves and stays in bed so it can heal properly.

He doesn't like peeing into a plastic milk jug, but at least he's able to sit on a bucket with the door closed for brown potty. I told him I was gonna start feedin' him less so he can start poopin' less. He didn't appreciate my sense of humor and turned bright red.

Marisa can't walk on her foot without a lot of pain. She's using one of our walking canes. Hisa told her to keep it propped up and to continue to put ice on it. Michael, Amber, and Caleb are making sure the icepacks stay up there.

I he
ar a car coming up the driveway and I can tell by the sound of the engine that it's Mick. I'm off to see what he brought back.

2:00 PM...

Mick and Soo got the washing machine. It's still in the bed of the S10.

I did a load of laundry, anyway. I have a lot to do, and the old washing machine needs to come off the truck and have all the spiders and cobwebs washed out of it. The laundry is hanging on the line to dry.

I took fat pieces of homemade bread with chunk chicken and sliced peaches down to Mick and Soo for lunch. I came back up and cleaned the kitchen, and now I'm taking a breather.

I'll be heading out in a few minutes to split wood. With everyone, basically, ordered to stay off their feet and Soo and Mick on fence duty, there’s no one else to do it. It'll have to be me. I've taken a pain pill and I'm waiting on it to start working before I go out there.

Carisa and Merry say they can help by picking up pieces of wood after they're split and putting them on the wood pile. They'll also be placing the logs up on the big stump
so I don’t have to lift them. I'll make sure they stand way back when I'm swinging that ax.

Tomorrow, we're going to loot Lowe's. We're hoping to find concrete so w
e can start setting fence posts. Hisa and Soo will move into the Stang house when we get the fence finished.

We'll convert the motorhome they're using into a small medical clinic. All the medications will go there, and since there are three beds, Hisa can stay with any patient she needs to look after. The motorhome belonged to Diane and her Dad before they both went on to their heavenly rewards. Our clinic will be named "Clinic Diane" so we can keep her memory alive.

Right now, Jeremy is on the couch and Soo and Hisa are using the queen sized bed. Merry is staying in Carisa's room.

I can feel the pain medication working, so I'm off to
split wood. Wish me luck, 'cause I haven't split wood in "yeaarrrs."

10:00 PM...

O M G, I hate splitting wood. I'd forgotten how
tedious it is.

The
girls and I added enough wood to get through another five days in total. I'm hoping Jason's ankle feels better by then 'cause we need to cut down more trees and make more logs. I swear, I never want to see another ax handle as long as I live. The blisters on my hands are sayin' the same thing. My back is better than I thought it would be, but it protested the entire time I was swingin' the ax.

Nana made
shepherd’s pie for supper with real mashed potatoes. I sat on the floor and ate in front of the fire. I thought I might fall asleep in my plate if I sat comfortably at the table.

Mick and Soo don't look any better than I feel. They're covered in red dust. Only the places behind their sunglasses looks clean. Mick had to change clothes and take a bath before I let him climb in bed. He still plans on lootin' at Lowe's tomorrow.

The new pool is set up and collecting water.

I'm exhausted, and I'm signing off.

Bye for now.

Monday, January 27

5:45 PM...

I am in pain, worn out, and an emotional wreck. We looted the Lowe's and got concrete.

We brought back a Grandpa, with a grown daughter and grandson. They have their own guns. They have a Chevy Silverado with a tiny camper. They don't have food.

We found a girl tied to a post in a barn. She was naked and sick. She has been abused. We killed the man that had her. She's been eating bugs and raw squirrel.

We have three white chickens. They led us to the girl. I don't know what kind they are. I hope they lay eggs.

We killed a bunch of HDI's.

I can't stay up to write. My back is really hurting and I'm gonna lie down. I'll write more tomorrow if I can get out of the bed.

Thursday, January 30

Hey, Mick here. Its three days after the Lowe's trip.

Robin told me to write
this and I don't like doing it.

I'm sorry, Robin can't come to the computer right now. She killed her back splitting wood, doing laundry, and
going on the Lowe's run. She is dying from pain.

Hisa took her butterfly stitches off so she can look pretty in her coffin.

There was real goat’s milk on her lunch tray today. She tasted her first rabbit stew and liked it. She might write a sentence the next time she has to get up and go pee.

Marisa can walk now. Jason can walk too.

I have to go put fence posts in the ground. Thank You.

Love, Mick

Friday, January 31

10:00 AM...

She Lives! Muwaaa haa haaa.

Yes, I’
m alive. I'm still in some pain but I'm much better! Mick brought the metal walker that we looted from Walgreens up from the basement and it works pretty darn good! I can take myself to the potty now. I can also sit in the computer chair. Boy, are you in trouble!

I've spent hours, and hours, alone. I need to spend time out of this room with more of the human species. Opie and Tig come in to lay on the bed with me occasionally, but they can't talk back. I need some serious conversation time. I also need to know what's going on around my house.

The goats are giving us almost one gallon of milk a day. We're drinking it and Nana is cooking with it. It's absolutely delicious. We have three more does who are due to kid at the end of next week.

Jesse (that's the grandson we got at Lowe's) is doing the milking and daily goat care. He says he loves animals and wanted to be a farmer with a big cattle or horse ranch, but the end of the world has taken that dream
away.

The chickens haven't laid any eggs yet, but Soo says it's probably because we're in the middle of winter and chickens don't lay as much this time of year.

They're probably freaked out 'cause they're living in a motorhome and eating whatever bugs the kids can find along with winter grass they've been pulling up. They've found quite a number of Japanese beetle larvae. Yay! I hate those stinkin' things. Soo says the Japanese government sent them here long ago to take over the United States. I told him I thought that was why they sent honeysuckle. He said that "honeysuckle was the Chinese attempt."

There's several rolls of chicken fencing in Mr. Peterson's shed, so Jesse is building a run for the chickens. Hopefully, they'll calm down and give us nice fresh eggs. I told Mick that
I wanted to find a rooster so we can make more chickens, get more eggs, and have enough for the cook pot someday. We're keeping our fingers crossed.

Well, I know I have to start with the Lowe's run and catch you up with everything that's been happening. So, here ya go.

It was hard to get out of bed. I was still exhausted from the day before but Mick and I agreed that there was no use continuing to scavenge chain-link unless we had concrete to go with it.

Nana had already packed a bag of jelly biscuits. We had plenty of water bottles in the back-seat of the Jeep, and we each had a thermos full of hot coffee. We also had an emergency backpack in each vehicle. We each took our own weapons along.

We took the Jeep with the goat trailer attached, Jason's Dodge with the flatbed attached, and the S10. It was Soo, Mick, and me. We had to ride alone and I didn't like it.

We pulled out right after the sun came up and headed to the Lowe's ten miles south of us. If we didn't find anything there, we would head to the Lowe's thirty miles south of that. We each had a full tank of gas and Mick put four full gas cans in the floorboard of the Jeep. We added two empty gas cans to each vehicle in case we came across an abandoned vehicle we could loot.

Mick has come up with a plan to use re-bar for reinforcing the fence. He wants to weave re-bar through
it, sort of like weaving a blanket. The vertical re-bar will be sharpened to a point and will be two or three feet about the fence line depending on what lengths of re-bar we get. Hopefully, we can find enough re-bar.

We took back roads to get to Lowe's and saw only four HDI's the entire ten miles.

When we pulled in the parking lot, we could see that the front windows were busted out and glass was laying everywhere.

Mick headed arou
nd to the back of the store. Soo and I followed. As soon as he turned the corner, Mick slammed on his brakes and I almost rear ended him. Soo had to slam on his brakes right behind me.

Mick was about 10 inches from the front of a Chevy Silverado with a tiny camper attached. There was an older man and a teenage boy fighting off seven or eight HDI's. There were three hunting rifles lying on the ground, being trod upon and kicked by HDI's. There was a man
lying on the ground at the back of the camper and several HDI's were making a meal of him.

The older man had a pistol and was trying to put bullets into the heads of the HDI's. He was having trouble because an HDI kept grabbing
the sleeve of his coat and trying to pull his arm up to its bloody mouth. The older man kept kicking the HDI. It would fall back for a few seconds and then come at him again.

The teenager was laying on the ground and an HDI was on top of him. The boy had his hands clamped around the HDI's throat and
was pushing it up, and back, trying to keep its mouth from clamping down on his face and arms. He was trying to squirm and kick his way out from under his attacker

There were several HDI's bangin
g on the door of the camper and the barrel of a pistol was sticking out the side window. The person behind the pistol was shooting HDI's in any part of their bodies they could hit. The window had those little roll out shutter blinds, and I could tell that the shooter was having trouble getting the pistol through the tiny slits.

A couple of HDI's went
to the window, and the pistol barrel was pulled to safety. The HDI's began slamming their fists on the little window, snarling and growling at whomever was inside. The shutter blinds began to chip and break.

Mick and Soo grabbed their pistols, jumped out of their vehicles, and started taking
out HDI's. They were dropping like flies.

I aimed my Glock
17 out the window of the S10, toward the HDI attacking the teenager on the ground. I was scared as all get out that I was gonna miss the HDI and hit the teenager's hands instead. If I didn't get the HDI off the boy soon, it wouldn't matter.

I aimed carefully and took the shot. The bullet went in the left ear of
the HDI and he fell limp on top of the boy. The boy came squirming out from under that HDI as fast as he could and started checking himself in a panic, looking for bite wounds.

Mick, Soo, and the older man took care of the HDI's at the camper window.

The man pointed to an empty lot between two buildings about 75 yards away. There were quite a few HDI's coming out of the empty lot and heading toward us. "They'll be here in a few minutes," the man said, "the gunshots attracted 'em."

Mick told me to get out of the S10, so I did. He and Soo jumped in and headed toward the HDI's
, making their way across the field.

It was like watching a movie. Mick and Soo put down a large number of HDI's. They continued over to the empty lot between the buildings and took a look at the remaining monsters.