Not Dead in the Heart of Dixie (58 page)

Dane's jumped from the cab and ran straight to Elaine. He looked to the rest of us for an explanation and Rona gave him a short, tearful version.

He picked up Elaine and started walking. She laid her head on his shoulder as he carried her to Clinic Diane. He bellowed over his shoulder for Hisa to follow 'cause he thought Elaine needed a “sedative or something.” Hisa got up, sighed, and followed them.

Jesse was out getting hay and everyone dreaded the moment he came back.

Rona sent Rebecca and Valerie up to the house for sheets to wrap Mr. Hobbs' body. We all stood and waited for them to get back.

Rick and Ian walked up and we told them what happened. They took the sheets from V
alerie and wrapped Mr. Hobbs' body. They picked him up and carried him to the porch of the Hobbs house. We'll bury him in the little graveyard tomorrow morning.

Pop waited at the bottom of the hill for Jesse and Jeremy to return. The rest of us went back up the hill and hid with our grief in our bedrooms, motorhomes, and little wooden buildings.

I looked out the front door a couple of hours later and saw the flatbed trailer, stacked full of hay, sitting beside the trailer fence. Pop was no longer at bottom of the driveway. Marisa told me he went to his motorhome and would only allow Nana inside.

He came in for supper and
ate in silence before heading back to the motorhome for the night.

Hisa came for supper plates to take back to
Josie, Dane and Elaine. She said Elaine was in serious emotional distress and won't let go of Dane's arm. I don't know where Jesse went. We didn't see him at supper time.

Mick's asleep in the recliner and I'm crawling into my bed. I wonder when I'll wake up from this hellish nightmare.

Bye for now.

Wednesday, March 26

1:10 AM...

Yes, you read that correctly. It's currently 1:10 AM.

Two hours ago
, the Gypsy Trader's bus stopped at the driveway and one of them laid on the horn for about two minutes until Mick and Jason got down there to find out who was honking.

It was dark and drizzling rain. Mick and Jason could only see the bus silhouette. When they got close enough to see the colorful bus
, they went straight to the door.

Samuel's dying. He was shot by two teenage boys is a
pickup truck
. The teenage
boys were parked on the side of the road with the truck hood raised. One of them was lying on the ground in front, and the other was sitting on his knees beside him.

Samuel thought something bad had happened to them and he stopped the bus to see if he could render aid. As soon as he stepped on the middle stair, one of the boys raised a pistol and shot him in the c
hest. Samuel fell backwards on the deck beside the driver’s seat.

The boy stepped up on the first step and declared that he was taking the bus and everything inside. He waved his pistol around in the air and
screamed “Get yer asses out.”

Isaac stood from the front seat on the passenger side and
swung a Guitar as hard as he could toward the boy's face. The blow knocked the boy out the door and onto the ground. Isaac quickly closed the door, jumped in the driver’s seat, and got outa there.

When he was sure their attackers could no longer see the bus, Isaac took left turns and right turns, and put some distance between themselves and the
main road
.
He stopped behind an abandoned warehouse in an unfamiliar area and tried to stop the bleeding. The bullet hit Samuel in the left middle torso underneath his heart. Isaac said he thought he could hear broken ribs rubbing together when they moved him. There was no exit hole on his back.

After an hour of screaming and twisting in agony, Samuel passed out.
Isaac checked his pulse, and he was still alive. The only medic that the group knew of was Hisa, so Isaac started the bus and tried to find his way out of unfamiliar territory. He knew Kapper Hill was 45 miles away and he knew he had to drive through the area where the two survivor groups are at war. He was scared to death.

The bus has one working headlight and Isaac was having a rough time finding his way back to the
main road
. It was dark, foggy, and drizzling rain, and it took h
im two hours to find his way.

He stopped twice to check Samuel's pulse and found that he was still alive but his breathing had
begun to sound rattled. He stopped a third time because he had no choice. They had to
re-fuel
. It took several minutes to get their five-gallon fuel cans emptied into the tank. Isaac was pacing. He knew he needed to get Samuel here
fast, and time was flying by.

I suppose both of the warring survivor groups were staying in because Isaac made it throu
gh the area with no problems.

Hisa has Samuel in Clinic Diane. The look on her face told me that there's no hope. Hisa can't do that kind of surgery, especially since she failed to re-inflate Samuel's lung with the equipment
Josie's doctor left. She told us to get out of Clinic Diane and send in Samuel's grandchildren. All we can do now is wait.

10:00 AM...

We buried Mr. Hobbs in the rain today and it was heart-breaking. Dane had to drive Elaine and Jesse over to the little graveyard i
n the Jeep. She refused to walk.

Pop's voice broke as he said words over the grave. Whenever I hear Pop choke up, I choke up
with him. It was even worse this time 'cause I was already choked up and crying my eyes out. He cleared his throat and, somehow got through it.

Pop repeated the last words Mr. Hobbs had spoken. He
said “Never fear, my good friend. I lived an amazing life and now I'm headed home. Do one thing for me… Survive.” Poignant? Indeed.

Samuel's holding on but Hisa says it won't be long. His grandchildren are ther
e with him. Hisa gave him something from the ckd's drug stash for the pain and he's stopped screaming.

Hisa's sitting in the lawn chair outside the clinic. I noticed that she'd been crying. She asked for a cigarette and I gave her one. I'm worried about her. She has a huge weight on her shoulders and I don't think
we've given her enough credit.

She wants an assistant
to train in advanced first aid. I think Soo is feeling the burden as well. He often sends yearning looks her way. I'll speak to him and find out if he knows of something we can do. Maybe the girls and/or boys can take turns being her assistant. Actually, we all need to do it. We all need to be trained.

We had cold cereal because no one felt like cooking. Some folks
didn't come in for breakfast. .

Jesse is spending the day with his mom and Dane. He stood straight and tall at his grandfather's funeral service. He was holding his grandfather's rifle. I didn't even see him cry and
I pray he's not holding it in.

Mick and the rest of the me
n are working on the fence.

Pop's in the motorhome and Nana
says he's napping. I didn't realize what close friends he and Mr. Hobbs had become until today. I guess that spending hours a day working on a food supply to keep your family alive can make close friends out of any two people you throw together.

I'm gonna head out and help Nana and Marisa get laundry done. It's stopped raining and we can hang it on the line to dry.

See ya later.

3:00 PM...

Samuel is gone. He passed away in his sleep about two hours ago. His grandchildren asked that he be buried in our little graveyard and, of course, we said yes. Kevin is there with the backhoe, digging another grave. We'll have the memorial service at 4:00.
Oh Lord, will this never end?

The remaining Gypsy Traders
will be spending the night here to meet and decide what they're going to do without Samuel.

We're
having a meeting after they go back to the bus tonight. We need to decide whether or not we should ask them to stay. We all need to be in on this decision because, basically, we'll have to cut back our food portions if they decide to stay. I thought I'd be able to turn people away. Now, I'm not so sure.

My conscience and heart are tugging at me, telling me
we can afford to keep them all. My brain is telling a different story. SHUT UP, BRAIN! Try a little tenderness, OKAY?

Anyway, I'm gonna get ready for the service and make sure we have enough food for supp
er afterwards. See ya later.

10:30 PM...

They
say “When it rains, it pours.”

They say “Tuck in your fe
athers and weather the storm.” Blah, blah, blah.

Well,
“They” aren't here... We are. I wanna smack “they” in the head and tell them to mind their own business and stop interfering in ours.

We were holding the service for Samuel, and Pop was reading from a letter
his grandchildren had written. Elaine and Jesse were they only ones not in attendance and everyone understood.

The sun was sinking lower in the sky when we placed Samuel's body into the ground. The remaining Gypsy Traders began to cover his body with dirt using their hands and other
small tools
. They wouldn't allow Kevin to bury him using the backhoe and we all understood. We stayed clo
se as they buried him by hand.

The Gypsy Trader bus was sitting near the grave site. Isaac used the
painted license plate
as a hea
dstone at the top of the grave.

Everyone turned to leave and I saw Samuel's granddaughter lying on the grave. She was quietly crying and talking to her deceased grandfather like he was still there. I headed toward her because I'm a mom and she's a los
t child. That's what mom's do.

I bent down beside the grave and opened my mouth to say something and try to comfort her. Movement from across the creek caug
ht my attention and I looked up.

For a moment
, I was confused and didn't understand what I was seeing. The mountainside was moving towards us. I thought the whole mountainside was moving, but it wasn't.

It was HDI's and there were too many to count. I screamed at the top of my lungs for Carisa to get the kids and run as fast as she could back through the gate. Jason screamed that he would get the kids. He scooped them up and practically threw them past the gate. I saw Carisa and Merry holding their hands and running up the hill before Mick grabbed my arm a
nd began pulling me backwards.

Every man and woman there
had weapons. We never step out the door without them. Mick was firing into the horde as he was pulling me toward the hill. Everyone began firing, trying to keep the horde from crossing the creek.

I saw Samuel's granddaughter still lying on his grave. I yanked my arm out of Mick's hand to go get her
.

Mick was screaming as I ran toward the girl. I was almost there when Isaac ran past me and scooped her up like a rag doll. I turned
, and was running for the gate, when I heard a girl scream.

About 10 feet in front of the Gypsy Trader Bus was Valerie, and an HDI was almost upon her. I raised my Glock and took that sucker out. His replacement stepped up
to try and complete the job.

I screamed at Valerie to get on the bus with the Gypsy Trader girls. Suddenly, I was hit from behind. I lunged forward but was able to keep my feet underneath me and I continued to run. I made it past the bus and looked around the corner to see what hit me. There were four HDI's almost upon me. I turned to run toward the gate again and several HDI's came from behind the bus.

I didn't have time to make it to the bus door, so I dropped to the ground and rolled underneath. HDI's dropped to the ground as well, but they didn't roll. They just laid there stretching their arms toward me, snarling, growling, and howling. I thought my head was gonna cave in from the sound of that howling.

The bus was bouncing above my body and I realized that people on the bus were screami
ng and jumping around.

I could hear, what sounded like, hundreds of gunshots and I was praying that they were all hitting their marks but I could only see HDI faces around the bottom
of the bus, looking in at me.

Two HDI's had dropped to the ground close enough that they were able to brush their bloody, goo covered hands on my pants leg and shoe. It happened once and I immediately took them out. I wasn't abou
t to give them another chance.

I began shooting HDI faces all around the base of the bus. Anytime I saw a
face, I shot it. I was scared to death that one of my bullets was gonna ricochet off a wheel or low part of the bus and come back to haunt me.

The bus was still bouncing and bullets were still flying when I shot the last “living” HDI face I could
find.