Not Dead in the Heart of Dixie (97 page)

The cruel, inhuman side of me wishes we had HDI pits with hungry HDI's all over the field, waiting to be fed the bodies of our enemies. How could I even think that? Someone needs to slap me hard and fast.

Oh, heck, I don't know!

I need to stop trying to make all the decisions myself.

I need to get out of here and walk into my nightmare.

Bye for now.

Thursday, May 8

             
I fell asleep with my head on the kitchen table about 3:30 this morning. I was awakened by Josie yelling through the kitchen window about 5:00 this morning.

It startled me so bad that I fell out of my chair and hit the floor. It took a moment for me to realize where I was and why I was there. I jumped up and ran straight to the window to find out what was happening.

North Koreans are 25 miles northeast of us and they're heading southwest. The North Korean group numbers approximately 2,000 men not including officers and high ranking officials.

At this time, they're camped and not moving
, but that could change at any moment.

Josie will receive click codes if the N
orth Korean's begin to break camp and move. They have vehicles, large and small. That means they could possibly arrive here within 40 to 45 minutes of leaving camp if they follow the speed limit signs (snort).

Josie calls them “NK’s,” so that’s what I’ll call them.

We are warned to expect scouts in the area by this afternoon and most definitely, tonight. We may see them, and we may not. My guess is that we won't see them at all but they'll see us. They'll see our fence, and our guard towers, and the fence around the onion field. Oh, I have no doubt, we'll be discovered.

Will the scouts b
e in vehicles, or on foot? We don't know, but Josie and Ian say they could be utilizing both methods. We have no idea how many scouts will be roving the area, looking for enemies.

This means that we need to have everything inside the tunnel rooms, including ourselves, as fast as we can and pray that the scouts are not already here, which Josie says is possible.

We don't want them to see us moving supplies to the tunnels but we have to take the chance and move everything we can before lunch.

TWO FREAKIN' THOUSAND NK'S! We're in big time danger.

Josie's sending out click codes for more information as fast as her clicker can click. She's also sending out codes to her contact with Chris. We'll have the radios inside the tunnel, but we haven't tested them yet for a signal. I pray they work and I pray we can tape one to Josie's ear to keep the volume way down.

I'm freaking out that her transmissions are being picked up by the NK's
, even though she's using unusual channels to send them.

Ian was ticked off when he found out about the cave
, but he said he didn't have time to talk about it and he'd discuss it with us later if we live through this.

A thought occurred to me and I asked Ian if the NK's might check the entire hillside with metal detectors, looking for buried bo
mbs or mines. He said he doubts it, but anything's possible. He also said that, if they use metal detectors, he'd expect them to check the front of the hillside and around the buildings instead of the overgrown area where the tunnel enters the hillside.

There's about 25 metal shelves with a whole bunch of ammo down
there. If the NK's use metal detectors, I pray their batteries are dead. I pray that the shelving and ammo is too deep in the ground for any metal detector to pick up a signal. I have no metal detector experience and neither does anyone here. Can't you tell?

The goats are already inside the second tunnel room and I've sent Deuce, Luke, and Larson to gather the chickens and take them there. They'll get along fine with the goats.

The horses, pigs, and cattle will remain outside. There's not enough room for them all inside that second tunnel room, and if they started fighting they could ram into the walls and possibly weaken them enough to collapse. I'm pretty sure a squealing, neighing, baaing, mooing, clucking animal fight could easily be heard from the surface. We have no choice but to leave the larger animals outside.

The decision to stay in the tunnel room or head for Beggar cave was debated over breakfast. We all agreed that it would be safer to stay in the tunnel room because the cave is also in the line of expected movement and, well, you can't hide a cave as big as that one unless you weave plants into ropes and grow some sort of covering to blend the entire entrance into the mountainside. The entrance is pretty well hidden by all the greenery, brush, and trees that
have grown tall over the years, but someone with military instinct and eyes trained to scout will find the cave, especially now that our vehicles have traveled there and flattened the grass.

We simply cannot defend the cave entrance against 2,000 troops. We could take along two of the “Ma Deuce”
badazz guns but we don't have time to remove them and take them to the cave. Ian doesn't believe we have 2000 rounds of ammo left for them, anyway. The cave will serve better as a place to shelter in case Kapper Hill is destroyed.

Our best chance of survival is to hide.

We have three weeks of food and water inside the tunnel room. We have guns and ammo as well as knives and grenades.

We have blankets and quilts to sleep on.

We can build a fire for cooking because there are ventilation holes. We will use hardwood for the least amount of smoke possible.

We can also use the propane grill since the cave is ventilated. How will we disguise the smell of fire and food cooking? I don't know the answer to that. We can only pray that the troops search the compound and leave instead of camping
out. Surely they won't camp only 25 miles from their previous location. Surely they'd want to travel farther than that. Oh Lord, please let their goal be 100 miles or more from here.

Ian is outside the compound. He's wearing some kind of super wham-a-dine camo suit he made himself from vines, leaves, and twigs. He called it a “Ghillie suit.” I don't know where he is, but I do know that he's scouting for scouts.

I don't know what to do, but I feel I'm wasting valuable time on this stupid computer.

See ya later.

1:00 PM...

Josie has received word that the North Korean's are breaking camp and preparing to move.

This will be my last entry before I head to the tunnel room. There's no generator there. It would make too much noise.

I killed a person. A real, living, bad person.

He had my pregnant daughter by the hair and was trying to pull her up and over the log fence. He didn't look Asian
, but he did speak an Asian language. I wouldn't know the difference between Chinese and North Korean if it was pounded in my head by the world's number one brain-washing machine. I intend to get those little language books from the library, if we live.

Right now, I'm numb.

I came in here to write out what happened before I head to the tunnel. Most everyone is already there.

Dane's in the living room waiting for me to finish writing
, and Velma has Kenny's aid in packing up the last of the supplies from the clinic. Josie and Ian are finishing up with the radio building and packing their last load to take to the tunnel room.

I feel the need to write this down in case I'm dead when Mick gets here. Maybe he'll find the computer and be able to read my last entry.

We were all carrying supplies to the tunnels when Marisa decided she'd forgotten something from her house. I decided to go with her.

All of us were wearing our guns and blades. We're so accustomed to having them on our bodies that we feel naked without them.

Marisa and I were on the second floor in the kid’s bedroom when I noticed a lone chicken wandering in the meadow near the fence. The top floor windows aren't boarded, so I could clearly see the little hen.

Marisa agreed to run out there and grab it while I finished packing toys and games to keep Amber and Michael occupied while
we're stuck inside the tunnel room. The golf cart was beside the log fence and the chicken was jumping around, inside, and on top of it.

Suddenly, I heard her scream, and it was the scream of my child in fear for her life. I felt
my blood boiling and bubbling in my veins as I ran down the steps and out the back door.

By the time I arrived, a tall, blonde man had Marisa on top of the golf cart and was trying to climb over the fence
, pulling her by her hair. She was fighting like a crazy woman.

She has hair down to her waist and usually wears it in a low ponytail. The man had a tight grip on that ponytail and he had one leg over the top of the fence as Marisa struggled and caused him to move carefully to avoid losing his balance.

Then, I realized I'd left Marley on Amber's bed when I heard my child scream. I pulled my Glock, fired toward his head, and missed. I needed to get closer.

As I ran toward them
, I noticed Marisa's belt with her holster, Glock, and knife lying on the ground beside the golf cart. I saw the frazzled edge where the belt had been cut from her waist.

Marisa had her hands over her head and was clawing at his hands while he continued to pull her closer to the top of the fence.

I screamed at him to let her go or I'd blow his brains out. He screamed something in a foreign language back at me.

He continued to try and pull Marisa over the fence and he was succeeding a few inches at a time. Barbed wire was cutting into her skin and I saw a trickle of blood run down
her upper arm and disappear inside her shirt.

I was finally close enough to be confident I could blow his brains out. I raised the Glock as he pulled his neck down to his body like a turtle pulls its head into the shell. It didn't matter, because the Glock jammed.

I felt something primal rise inside me and pulled the K-bar knife off my belt. I knew right then and there he was NOT going to pull my child over that fence.

I ran to the golf cart and stood
on the edge of the floorboard and jammed the knife into his calf twice.

He let go of Marisa and she slid to the ground.

He lost his balance and fell to the ground beside the golf cart, grabbing his calf as he fell. He landed hard on the ground, screaming in pain.

I don't know what Marisa was doing when I threw myself upon him. I stabbed him in the heart, the belly, and the face. I twisted the knife in his gut like I'd seen on TV shows. I stabbed his arms and his neck until he was unconscious and obviously dead, but I didn't stop.

I stabbed him through both eye sockets and began to cut his head from his neck. Marisa had to physically pull me off him by grabbing my ankles and dragging me backwards.

It took several seconds before I realized where I was and what I'd done, and I didn't care. I stood and looked at Marisa to make sure she was okay. She said she's never seen true rage until she looked in my eyes.

I can't remember every move I made or how many times I stabbed the man. I can barely remember stabbing him in the calf, hoping that he'd let go of my precious child.

I lifted Marisa's shirt and checked her for wounds. I lifted her pants legs and did the same. She has several cuts from the barbed wire woven into the log fence but, other than that, she's fine.

She had to help me back to my house like a boy scout helps a little old lady crossing the street, encouraging me with every step.

When we reached the back porch
, I noticed that I was covered in his blood from head to toe.

I didn't care who was watching. I removed every piece of clothing I was wearing and flung it to the ground. I asked Marisa for the bucket of water from the kitchen and she brought it out to the
porch. I poured cold water over my head and it ran down my body.

She dipped another bucket of water from the blue barrel beside the porch and carefully washed the man's blood from my hair with a bar of soap.

She used a wash cloth and began washing my face. I took the cloth from her hand and washed my entire body using close to half a bar of soap before I was satisfied. Marisa wanted to run back to the house to retrieve Marley but I was afraid to let her go. I was afraid there might be another man out there, waiting for her.

When I was clean, I looked up and saw Marisa standing on the po
rch with a set of clean clothes. I got dressed and then held her in the tightest hug possible. I asked her if she was really okay about ten times and then sent her to the tunnel.

Dane was walking from the outhouse and saw us on the porch.
We told him what happened and he said the man was probably working with the NK's as a scout, and that Marisa and I were lucky to be alive I asked him to stay on the porch while I came in to write on this stupid computer and get it packed up to take with me to the tunnel room.

The man's death isn't bothering me a bit, and that scares me more than anything.
I'm ready to head to the tunnel now.