Not Dead in the Heart of Dixie (42 page)

He told us that the real military was in North Alabama now, and that we'd probably see them soon 'cause they were visiting every address on a list they had from the government. GULP!

All three of them were skinny and dirty, and they looked exhausted but refused to come in or stay the night. Their shoes were worn out and their clothes weren't far from falling apart. Mick told them to stay on the porch for a minute while he and I talked. We went back inside and closed the door.

Several minutes later
, we opened the door and stepped out to talk to them. We told them that we were going to help them, but we expect them to do something good for someone else when they’re able. I gave them a backpack with a couple days of food and water inside. Mick gave Daniel the key to the S10.

Daniel looked at the dirty truck with all
its bullet holes and battle scars like it was a golden chariot that could take them to the Promised Land.

Mick told Daniel that, when he reaches his destination, he expects him to give the S10 to another needy family who's on their way
home to loved ones.

Daniel was stunned. He didn't want to take any of it
, but I told him that he could “pay it forward” by handing over the S10 to other deserving people in need. Kindness holds more value than most things in the world today.

Mick filled the truck with gas and our hearts felt incredible
joy as we watched Daniel and his little girls head down the driveway in the bullet-riddled Chevy S10. Please, Lord, let that stupid S10 travel all over the USA, carrying good people home.

By the way, if you plan to abandon your vehicle forever, please leave the key with it. Most of us have no idea how to hot wire a vehicle. I'm amazed at the number of abandoned vehicles with no key in the ignition. Daniel and his girls could have already been safe at home if they’d found a vehicle with keys inside.

Dane, Jason and Soo aren't back yet. I hope everything's going okay and they make it back before dark.

Marisa and I have supper duty and we've decided to make spaghetti with meat sauce using ground beef that I canned last fall. It'll be yummy and filling. I don't know if we'll have anything for dessert. I think I'll leave that up to Marisa.

I don't have kitchen duty at all tomorrow. Yay!

I'm off to consult my fellow chef about our supper plans for tonight. It should co
me together pretty fast. See ya later.

10:30 PM...

Rain began falling
during supper, which made Pop and Mr. Hobbs happy because they won't have to worry about watering the garden tomorrow.

Dane, Soo, and Jason were the only ones missing at supper time. We were all worried about them.

We were half-way through supper when we heard a truck horn down on the road. We figured it was our missing boys, and it was.

Soo and Jason came up the driveway in the delivery truck. They were moving slow, and the back looked like it was weighted down, so I figured they'd found more concrete.

Dane was at the foot of the driveway in a big rig with an enclosed trailer attached. He left it and walked up the hill.

They brought home a large amount of concrete. Dane says they probably have enough to go all the way across the front of the property, so he wants to start on the fence tomorrow.

He plans to park the enclosed trailer behind the Hobbs house and use it to store concrete. That sounded like a good idea to Mick because the concrete will stay on the truck until it's needed. Dane said there’s a few more things in the trailer that can be unloaded tomorrow morning.

As I suspected, the delivery truck is full of concrete. They'll unload it into the storage trailer tomorrow.

It was dark and rainy, so we decided to stay in the living room and talk about our plans.

They told us what else was
locked away in the trailer.

There are three gas ovens and two gas heaters. I asked if we could have heat in the bedrooms next winter and Dane said we might be able to, but it takes a lot of propane for heating. We'll get the remaining gas heaters from our Lowe's just in case we decide to use them that way. Maybe we can trade one to the "Gypsy Traders."

There's also set of matching cabinets and a nice counter top for Marisa's house. Jason said he picked out the ones with the most expensive price tags. He brought home a brand new butcher block kitchen table and matching chairs. Marisa threw her arms around his neck and gave him a giant smooch.

Soo says he'll take the cabinets from the ckd's house because the ones in the Stang house are old and nasty. He
picked up a good bit of porcelain tile, glue, and grout, so he can put down new flooring in a couple of rooms. Hisa threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. Her kiss was a little more subdued than Marisa and Jason's big ol' sloppy one.

On the way back
, they saw a pool store. There are two new above-ground pools in the trailer. Yay! Someone was actually listening when I told them we needed to store a lot more water in case of drought this summer.

Mick said he can rig up a way to put one of the pools downhill from the current pool and catch any overflow, which is a good thing because we do have overflow.

The trailer is packed full and all the extras must come off before we load the rest of the concrete inside.

Mick told Dane that he wants
to get several more trailers to use for storage. I told them both that I want a couple of trailers to use as "barns" for the cows and any other livestock we get.

I want those
piglets from the gypsies, if they still have them when they come back around. We'll have to place the "trailer-barns" in deep shade because we don't want the blazing hot sun and heat we get in summer to make the barns miserable for the livestock. Mick said he'd cut out a couple of "windows" for air circulation.

Mick wants to get propane tanks before someone else has the idea to take them. Tomorrow, he'll take Deuce and the hoist truck to pick up propane tanks. They'll line them up in a bare spot inside the tree
-line at the bottom of the hill and we can put them where we need them later. Mick wants to get as many as he can find that are at least half full before he starts grabbing those that have less.

Jeremy says there's still a lot of prepackaged, long term, survival food at the Masterson house. We need to get it up here and into the basement

Dane, Jason, and Jeremy will begin falling trees tomorrow morning. We have two chainsaws here, and there's another in the Hobbs garage. Dane wants to put the fence up in sections using six or eight logs per section.

Soo and Jesse are going to TSC with the flatbed trailer for rolls of barb wire. Depending on how much they get, they'll put two or three rows on top of the fence, and wrap whatever's left around the vertical logs. The barbs will be good as a defensive tool to slice up the hands of anyone trying to
climb the fence.

I asked about gett
ing more concrete for fencing the sides and back of the property and Dane said we'll cross that bridge when we come to it, but he definitely wants a log fence around the entire compound.

Right before I headed to bed
I had an epiphany, so I blurted it out.

I asked the men why we could
n't use the big trailers and place them end to end for fencing and storage at the same time. No one answered. They just stared at me and the room was silent. I saw their “wheels turning” as I headed in here to get ready for bed.

I don't know whether they thought it was a brilliant idea, or whether they were upset because they didn't think of it first.

Mick's still sitting in the living room, talking with Dane, Pop, and Jason. My eyes are ready to close and I'm headed for bed.

Nana and Rebecca have breakfast duty tomorrow morning. I can't wait to see how that goes.

Bye for now.

Friday
, March 7

Nana and Rebecca made biscui
ts with gravy for breakfast. Nana said she enjoyed working with Rebecca. They opened a #10 can of sliced peaches 'cause Nana is cuttin' back on the number of biscuits she makes and needed something to fill any leftover spot in out tummies.

Running out of flour is going to be bad. We all know the day is coming and there's nothing we can do about it except ration what we have left.

Dane, Soo, and Jeremy are trying to find an empty trailer so they can play big-boy games and run a useless vehicle into the side to see how much damage it causes. I asked them who'd drive the vehicle and Soo told me "Mr. Concrete Block" would man the gas pedal. They plan to conduct their experiment at the pull-off so that any HDI’s within hearing distance aren’t drawn to the compound by the noise.

No one has said a word about my epiphany
. They must be considering it, otherwise, why would they conduct this experiment?

Soo said the chickens are sitting on th
eir eggs and don't wanna let go. Yay! Go Rusty! I'll have to mark my calendar for 21 days from today to see if we get baby chicks.

Carisa's birthday is next week, and I need to decide how we'll celebrate. She'll be "sweet-sixteen" and I wanna make it special.

Elaine, Nana and Carisa are doing laundry. I feel lazy and want a nap, but that's not gonna happen. I'm heading out to mop the kitchen.

Since Hisa has no patients, I think I'll ask her and Marisa to go with me to the other side of the woods and loot more houses. Hopefully, they'll be up for it. If Hisa faints for any reason, I swear, I'll never go with her on another loot run.

Well, the floors aren't going to mop themselves so I better get going. See ya later!

2:30 PM

Both crews made it back in time for lunch.

Mick's crew was able to get four propane tanks while Dane conducted the trailer experiment.

Surprise! We're
gonna use trailers across the front, and log fencing up the sides and across the back. Ha! I knew it was a good idea.

We can't use trailers around the entire perimeter. It'd take years to clear that wide of an area of trees, stumps and boulders by hand.

Mick says they'll build dirt ramps and back the trailers into the moat, then use the backhoe to push them into place. The area around the wheels will be filled in with rock and dirt.

Dane said that a vehicle can do a lot of damage to a trailer if it
slams into the side at a high enough speed. He's not worried about it because there's not enough road, or space, across from us for any vehicle to get up enough speed.

They plan to
use trailers with doors on the side as well as the back. There's a Walmart distribution center a few miles away that always has empty trailers lined up cross the back. There's also a couple of trucking companies that have usually have empty trailers waiting for their next job. We need 18-20 of them.

The men will take a look inside the distribution center, if they're able, and use the trailers to bring home anything useful. Mick expects the building to be looted and completely empty of anything
we need. I'll bet he's right, but it's worth a look.

The trailer fence
will be filled with bales of hay and bags of concrete if we have nothing else to store.

Work on the ramps and ditch
began after lunch. It's moving pretty fast because of the backhoe. I bet they'll be ready to begin bringing in trailers tomorrow morning.

I didn't get a chance to
take anyone along to loot houses. Hisa was busy doing inventory of all the medications we brought back from Walgreens. She didn't wanna turn loose.

Pop and Mr. Hobbs have been in the garden all day. I hope this garden
will provide us with enough to get through next winter.

I think I'll head down the hill to see how the work's going. See ya
later.

10:30 PM...

I was right. Dane and Mick will head out tomorrow morning to check for trailers at the
distribution center. I hope the trailers are still lined up like soldiers back there.

While working today, Mick had to shoot two HDI's that came walking across the field from the direction of the Masterson place.

They were walking straight and steady, like uninfected people. He had no idea they were HDI’s until they were about thirty feet from the crew and wouldn't obey his command to "stop right there.”.

Twenty minutes later, Marisa heard screaming from the meadow. She went running out with her Glock in the air, heading to the back of the tractor shed. Hisa ran past her with Soo's rifle.

Merry was doing the screaming. She was frozen in place, standing in the meadow with Buttercup and looking toward the chain-link fence the men put up last month.

Marisa said there was a "very
rotten HDI woman" trying to get through the fence. Pieces of flesh fell from her body every time she rammed into the chain-link or the trees nearby. If she'd walked twenty feet to her right, she would've been at the end of the fence and could have come into the meadow with Merry and Buttercup.