Not Dead in the Heart of Dixie (43 page)

If you recall, there's no fence across the back of the property. The men finished the front and both sides before they had to stop. There's nothing to keep HDI's from entering through the rear.

Hisa took the woman HDI out with a precise bullet through the bridge of her nose. She turned and screamed in Japanese at Soo, who was on his way toward her. She grabbed Merry by the arm and led her back to Clinic Diane. Soo followed close behind.

Marisa said
that Buttercup stood and looked at her for a few seconds before going back to swishing her tail and grazing.

We know there
’s HDI's in the woods. I have no idea why we haven't thought about them coming from the rear.

We need
to be very cautious on laundry duty from now on. I'll ask Mick to either quickly throw up a fence, or post a guard, because I'm almost too frightened to allow anyone outside. In my opinion, this is more important than getting the trailers at this time.

I canned stewed
tomatoes with bell peppers, onions, celery, and a lot of herbs last summer. Elaine and Marisa served it over giant pasta shells stuffed with soft goat cheese for supper. They mixed a jar of home canned ground beef with the tomatoes and it was delicious. Everyone cleaned their plate.

It's
close to five weeks until the last frost date, according to the farmer’s almanac, so Pop and Mr. Hobbs planted several dozen trays of peas, okra, peppers, tomatoes, spinach, squash, beans, and herbs in the greenhouse today. There's no tellin' what those men have growing in there. I can't wait for fresh produce. I want a simple garden salad so much that I can almost taste it.

Pop says that he and Mr. Hobbs will
work on getting a fence around the garden tomorrow. They’ve had a little "bunny" trouble. Can you guess what's for supper tomorrow night? If you said "bunny stew," you'd be correct. Thank goodness for traps and snares, otherwise, our cold weather plants might've been eaten to the ground.

I'm anxious to get the gas ovens up and running because hot
weather will be here before we know it. Hopefully, Soo and Jason can get propane tanks in place tomorrow and the ovens can be hooked up and tested in the next few days.

The weather was nice today. Daytime temps were in the mid-fifties and the temperature gauge on the porch said it was forty-three degrees after supper tonight. This is my kind of weather. I love the cool days and even cooler nights. I'm not fond of temps below twenty or twenty-five, but give me sixties during the
day and forties at night and I'll be all set. It's too bad the garden wouldn't like it.

PANIC! We hear gunshots coming from the rear of the property. Jesse and Jason are supposed to be on guard duty back there. Mick just ran out the door with the AR-15 across his back, the Benelli in his hand, and Sam Colt in his big coat pocket. He didn't have time
for a holster and belt.

I don't know what to do.

Mick told me to stay put but... Should I stay put and type on this thing while my heart is racing and my hands are shaking? Can I just sit here while my family and friends are in danger? My brain is screaming that I should get out there and help protect my family.

I hear P
op yelling from behind the barn but I can't understand a word he's saying!

Nana came in the back door, frightened and crying. She doesn't know what's happening or where any of the men went, including Pop. I'm sending her to the basement along with Carisa, Valerie, and Merry.

Carisa will take her .22 along.

Marisa and Rebecca will bring the kids here to hide in the basement with Nana and the girls. They can't go to the tornado shelter because it's across the meadow where the gunshots are coming from.

I can't stay here. I'm grabbing Marley and the Glock, and heading to the back porch.

Saturday
, March 8

It's 11:30 AM and I just got out of bed. I don't think anyone else is awake. We were up until 7:30 this morning.

Since everyone's still sleeping, I'll write out what happened before I have to get out of here and make something for brunch.

Pardon me if I'm still a little groggy and don't know what everyone was doing or when they were doing it. I'll do the best I can.

You know how it started for the folks in this house.

Mick was already gone when I got Nana and the girls into the basement. I told them to lock the door and shoot anything or anyone unfamiliar that comes through it. I headed out to the back porch with
my rifle and pistol. I stood there to listen carefully.

I could hear sporadic gunshots coming from the rear of the property. I also heard Pop's voice off in the distance. It sounded like he was angry and getting farther away from the house with every second that passed. I left the porch to try and find him.

I was walking past the end of Pop and Nana's motorhome when I saw movement in the shadows underneath a tree near the laundry area. I immediately dropped to a kneeling position and yelled at whoever it was to "come out with their hands in the air." No one came out.

I could still see movement, and was trying to decide if I should shoot them right then and there
, or give them another chance to come out in the open.

I was aiming into the shadows when someone from behind yanked my leg out from under me and began dragging me backwards. I couldn't see who it was. I was on my stomach being dragged across the ground as small rocks and dirt were going up my shirt. I started screaming.

I dropped Marley when I hit the ground, but my Glock was still in the holster on my side. I was reaching for it when my free leg slammed into one of the laundry troughs. I grabbed for one of the boat paddles we use to stir laundry as I felt myself being dragged through the fire pit.

I was able to get the paddle, and sent a thank you up to Jesus that the coals in the fire pit were
cold. My back was screaming with pain because my foot was lifted higher than my hips and being used to drag me backwards. I didn't give in to the pain and continued screaming for help as loud as I could.

Suddenly
, my foot was released. Searing pain went up my leg and into my lower back when my foot hit the ground.

I heard a quiet chuckle from a male voice behind me. I immediately knew that it wasn't an HDI.

I felt a hand go around my ankle, and made the quick decision that I was NOT gonna be dragged again. The person behind me deserved a visit from "Mr. Paddle."

I quickly rolled onto my back and swung Mr. Paddle with every ounce of strength I had toward the space above my feet. CONNECTION MADE!

I felt, and heard, teeth crack as the sharper end of the paddle made contact with my attacker between his nose and top lip. I wasn't about to stop there.

The man
was falling, cursing, and grabbing his mouth as I scrambled to my feet. I shoved the sharper end of the paddle into his face several times while he was lying on the ground, trying to get control of the rifle he had strapped across his back.

I slammed the paddle down on his hand. He screamed and pulled the hand close to his body. He was bleeding badly and I didn't care. I
kicked him in the ribs and hit him with the paddle at the same time. I thought about what he might do to my daughters, and my anger flared. I meant to kill him.

There was a loud gunshot. M
y attacker, who'd actually become my victim, stopped moving and was silent. I turned to see Pop standing off to the left about three feet behind me. I could see smoke coming from the barrel of his .45, and imagined that he was the super-duper good guy in an old western movie.

"You're wastin' too much energy, sister" he said, "you
should a pulled that Glock and put an end to him as soon as you got up. We don't have time for revenge right now." I almost fell to my knees. My daddy had taken care of me, again.

I had to call Ralph right then and there. The reality of the danger I'd been in along with the white-hot anger and blood thirst I'd felt hit me like a ton of bricks.

I gave Pop a huge hug and thanked him through tears. I pulled my Glock and began running toward the rear of the property to look for Mick.

I could still hear sporadic gun
fire. My mind was focused on the direction the shots were coming from and I wasn't paying attention when the other boat paddle came shooting out from behind a laundry trough. My ankle connected with the paddle and I fell flat on my face.

I was dazed and confused. I quickly realized that I never found out who, or what, was in the shadows where I'd aimed
Marley a few minutes earlier.

I rolled
onto my back and saw a man, almost as big as Dane, standing over me. "You killed my brother" the man said. I opened my mouth to say something as he lifted his pistol and fired toward the direction I'd come from.

I turned and saw Pop walking towards us. I saw the bullet hit him in the shoulder
, but he didn't utter a sound and kept coming. His pistol was raised and he was firing toward the stranger. I crawled around on the ground, looking for my Glock which I'd dropped when I tripped and fell on my face.

Finally, my hand landed on the Glock. I didn't hesitate. The
big man raised his pistol again to fire towards Pop who was still walking and shooting. I aimed the Glock and shot the stranger right through the temple. I swear, the earth shook when he fell. He had three bullet holes in his body other than the one I put through his head. Pop had put bullets in the man's stomach and jaw, and he was missing most of an ear.

When the stranger finally went down for good, Pop went down. I ran toward him and dragged him onto the back porch. He had a bullet wound in his right shoulder and another in his left thigh
, but his only concern was for me. I assured him that I was okay.

I screamed at the top of my lungs for Hisa. It felt like forever before she came running down the path from Clinic Diane. I handed Pop over to her and
went to find my husband while she was busy assuring Pop that he wasn't going to die.

I heard him tell her that he'd killed a third man and left him lying in the woods behind the goat pasture
, and he believed the rest of them were at the rear of the property. That was exactly what I needed to know. I ran towards the rear of the property and bent down to grab Marley as I passed the motorhome.

I decided to go through the woods and into the tractor shed so I could look out across the meadow from the back door that had been cut out for Buttercup.

There was a quarter-moon out, and I could barely see where I was going. I actually walked face first into Buttercup's neck because it was extremely dark inside the shed and she was as quiet as a church mouse.

I could barely see the outline of the door
, and went to peek around the edge. I could see several shadowy figures in the meadow and found the one that was "Mick shaped."

I crawled toward him on my hands and knees and whispered "it's me," before grabbing him around the knee to pull myself up. He was looking through the sites on the AR-15 when he said "I knew you wouldn't stay put."

He actually turned his head to look at me when I said "There's three dead men near the house and Pop got shot but he's still alive."

Mick must have felt the wind from a bullet pass by because he jerked the AR back up to his shoulder and
looked through the sites, trying to figure out where it had come from.

I stood a few feet directly behind him and he told me wh
at he knew while continuing to look through the sites. He shot once while he was talking. The sound from that AR-15 was so loud that I could actually feel it in my chest. I can't imagine the size of the wound a round of .223 makes.

Mick
got the story from Jason before sending him and Jesse back to the right side of the property to shoot from the tree-line.

Jason and Jesse were standing watch at the rear of the property because of what happened earlier when the woman HDI tried to come through the fence and get Merry.

Jason thought he saw flickers of firelight coming from quite a distance back in the woods, so he went to check it out.

There was a small campfire in a clearing about 50 yards into the woods from the rear of our property. There were eight men lounging on saddles and bedrolls around the fire. There were three horses tied to trees several feet away.

The men were each taking swigs from a large whiskey bottle before passing it around the circle. They were discussing how they planned to kill the first group of survivors they come across and take their food, women, and shelter. Jason said that hearing their plans almost made him physically ill.

One of the men made a reference to Holman prison and said he was "never goin' back."
From the conversation he heard, Jason knew that all of the men had recently escaped from the prison. They were able to escape because the guards lost control and most of the off-duty guards never showed up. The guards on duty gave up and decided to leave the prison.

One of the men laughed because a corrupt prison guard tossed keys onto the cafeteria floor before he "got the hell
out a dodge." They also joked about the prisoners they'd left to starve to death in their cells.