Not Dead in the Heart of Dixie (99 page)

Velma asked Kenny to help her sit him up so she could listen to his lungs.

Several minutes later
, she whispered that he had pneumonia and she needed to start him on antibiotics immediately. She and Kenny searched the medication boxes until she found what she was looking for. She filled a syringe and stabbed Kevin in the upper hip. Then, she forced him to take two puffs from an inhaler.

Kenny helped her roll up linens and towels until they had enough to put behind Kevin's back to keep him in a sitting position. She turned to Dane and told him we needed to get Kevin out of the tunnel room. Rona sat beside him and held his hand. She covered his mouth when he coughe
d, trying to muffle the sound.

I felt incredible sadness. I knew we had to get out of there, or get some fresh air inside. The ventilation ducts must not be working as well as Chri
s' soldiers thought they would.

Nana and Emma mixed biscuits in the second tunnel and were cooking them in a cast iron pan on the propane grill. We ate buttered biscuits for breakfast
.

Two hours later
, Michael began coughing. Velma examined him and said his lungs sounded wet but he wasn't to the point of pneumonia yet. She started him on antibiotics and gave him one puff of the inhaler. She also dug out a children’s decongestant liquid from the “over the counter” medication box and dosed him with it. He was asleep an hour later.

We heard nothing that morning. We heard no voices, no gunfire,
and no engine noise. We were ready to send someone out of the tunnel to take a look.

Jason offered to go but Ian refused to let him. He said that Jason had no experience blending in to the
scenery, and he preferred to don his Ghillie suit and go out alone. He was almost ready when the tunnel door opened. We thought for sure we'd been discovered and I'm not ashamed to say that I wet my pants a little.

A voice called from the doorway and traveled down the tunnel. “Hi ho
ney, I'm home” the voice said.

I jumped from my pallet and ran down the tunnel.

I threw my arms around Mick's neck and almost knocked him to the ground.

There were s
everal soldiers standing nearby, and I was wet with pee and I stank from not bathing for three days, but Mick didn't care. He picked me up and carried me straight to our room. I used cold water and a wet cloth to clean myself as he watched. I have no idea what everyone else did.

Mick and I are headed to the large bathtub to wash ourselves and get into clean clothes. I'll write about the da
mage on the compound tomorrow.

Bye for now.

Monday, May 12

Remember when I told you that Deuce was
cutting a hole in the wall inside his closet? That's where I am now.

I pulled
out everything he had blocking the hole, climbed inside, moved everything back, and replaced the sheet rock panel.

I have a full charge on the computer and I'll write 'til the battery goes dead. I'm in a
tiny space and I barely fit.

I was afraid to use the cord for the generator in case the NK's get inside and follow the cord right to me. I'm also afraid to sit in my own closet because they'd find me i
f they simply opened the door.

There's a battle raging outside. I can hear loud guns and occasionally the ground
rumbles and the house shakes.

I can't run to the tunnel because
the NK's on the hillside might see me, and that would put everyone in more danger.

Anyway, here's what happened.

Chris, Mick and the rest of the unit arrived on the compound and found no one. The houses and motorhomes
were ransacked and the gasoline tanker is completely empty of fuel. Every vehicle on the compound was empty of fuel.

They checked all the buildings be
fore checking the tunnel.

Mick said he was relieved to find no dead bodies or people hurt in any building or motorhome
, and he figured we were either in the tunnel room, or at the cave. He counted vehicles and decided we must be in the tunnel room because all the vehicles were on the compound.

He
walked to the tunnel room, opened the door, and found us.

While Mick and I were getting reacquainted, the rest of the folks were busy going through their own private quarters to
assess the damage and begin cleanup. They were happy to be out of the tunnel room and wanted to put everything back in place to try to get back to normal.

Most of the furniture has been cut and slashed with the
stuffing lying on the floors.

The walls have holes in them and the wooden furniture
, including tables and chairs, have been thrown and broken into worthless, splintered pieces of wood against the walls.

North Korean words of warning have been painted on the walls with little
, single serve packages of ketchup and mustard from a basket we had on the kitchen table. I have no idea what the words mean, but I'm sure someone from the unit can decipher them.

There's lots more to tell, like the fact that poop is in the bathtubs and corners of each room. Urine and other stains have run
down the walls and pooled on the floors.

Anyway, I need to move on. I have no idea how long a full battery will last because I've never timed it but I'll hit “save”
every three or four sentences.

We were all on the porch after h
aving supper in the mess tent.

We heard sporadic gunfire in the distance and never guessed anything unusual was going on. We simply thought that the rear guards were taking out the “groupie” HDI's who usually appear behind the unit when they tr
avel.

Chris and Josie were sitting on the porch with the res
t of us. They were wrapped in each other’s arms. Several minutes went by without hearing any gunfire in the distance and I noticed Chris looking at his watch every three or four minutes. He stood and went inside the house with his hand-held radio.

He was inside only one or two minutes before we heard so
mething whistle through the air. There was a large explosion, and we saw an area inside the camp on the onion field explode into flames

Then, people were running and screaming. Everyone from the compound began ru
nning back to the tunnel room.

Mick told me to get myself and the kids to the tunnel as fast as I could. I screamed at Jason and Marisa to go immediately and find Carisa and Deuce to take with them. I don't know if they made it to the tunnel without being seen and I can't take the chance of leaving the house and leading NK troops straight to them. I feel in my heart that they're all safe. I
just feel it. I can't explain.

I knew Pop was in the right guard tower, talking to one of the sol
diers who was standing watch.

I knew Rona and Kevin were in the clinic several yards inside the trailer fence.

I grabbed a can of gasoline and ran to the golf cart which Jason had moved from the meadow to the area in front of the basement door. I poured half the gas in the tank and drove the golf cart down the hill to get Rona, Kevin, and Pop.

I met Rona and Velma trying to carry Kevin up the hillside. They jumped on the golf cart and I drove them to the back of the house so they could head to the tunnel on foot.

I heard, and saw, several more explosions before I saw foreign troops coming down the mountainside behind the onion field. There were too many to count. I prayed that the entire NK unit of 2,000 soldiers was not coming down that mountainside. I don't know how many were actually approaching the compound and shooting their way through the camp.

I didn't hear the rapid fire from the badazz guns and figured the folks manning the guns couldn't shoot into the mixed mass of foreign troops and camp members fighting ha
nd to hand in the onion field.

Tents were on fire
, and several small explosions shook me to the core but I had to get back down there and find Pop.

I drove the cart behind the line of wooden buildings and down the hillside near the tree-line on the right. I was halfway down before I noticed smoke coming from the tower
where Pop was supposed to be.

I felt
fear coming on strong. I thought my Father had been killed inside that tower. Then, I noticed a soot covered person walking toward me and waving a stick in the air. I recognized his gait. It was Pop, and he was waving his cane in the air.

I drove down and helped him onto the golf cart. He was coughing li
ke crazy and covered in soot.

He told me that someone shot several flaming arrows through the top floor window where the badazz guns used to sit. He was grateful that we hadn't moved the .50 caliber ammo back inside
.

The wooden floor caught fire quickly and Pop turned to find the soldier who'd been standing watch in the tower with him in flames from an arrow that pierced her
side underneath her left arm.

He knew he couldn't help the woman
, but he tried anyway. He sliced open several sandbags, allowing them to spill out onto the floor. He pushed the soldier down in the loose sand and tried rolling her body around and throwing handfuls of sand on top of her.

He stood and sliced more sandbags on the wall beside her. Sand poured from the bags and covered part of her body. Smoke was quickly filling the small room and
the wooden floor was burning.

When he saw that he couldn't save her, he said a short prayer over her body and headed for the
stairs.

He made it down to the second floor and took a moment to look around and see if there was anything he needed to carry out with him. Soot and ash begin falling through the cracks of the floor above his head.

He continued down the stairs and heard the bulk of the first floor fall onto the second floor. He was covered in a shower of ash, soot, and dust. He ran out the door and started up the hill. That's when he saw me on the golf cart.

I drove him up the hill and let him off at the back porch. He assured me that he could make it to the tunnel on his own, so I
headed back down the hill to look for Mick or anyone else who might still be there.

I guess I was going too fast down the hillside because I hit a large dip in the ground and the cart turned over on
its side. I was scrambling out of the cart when the front gate was hit and the chain broke.

I crawled
behind the nearest wooden building and watched NK's slide the gate open and walk into the compound. They were met by soldiers on the hillside, and the hand to hand combat began.

I decided to use my Glock and shoot 'til I was out of bullets. I knew I'd have seventeen or eighteen chances to
thin the NK group a wee bit.

I took careful aim while laying on my stomach
and shot from behind the corner of the building. There was so much gunfire, I knew I wouldn't be discovered. I shot seventeen times and I think I killed nine or ten NK's.

I was out of ammo
, so I took the Ka-Bar from my belt and held it in my mouth as I crawled into the tree-line and up the hillside. I arrived at the top and ran out of the trees as fast as I could. I hid behind the outhouse and peeked around the corner to see the battle advancing further up the hill. I belly-crawled to the back of the house and inside the kitchen door. I grabbed the computer and almost headed for the closet when I remembered Deuce's little hidey-hole.

Here I am.

I'm sitting in a tiny space, and each elbow is touching sheet rock. I can hear the battle raging. I have no idea where Mick is and I have no idea how many of us made it to the tunnel. I can only pray that no mortars land on the hilltop above the tunnel room.

I don't know what else to do except sit here until the fighting stops. I wonder how I'll know when it really stops. Will it be over when the gunfire and explosions stop? Will there be men fighting with knives and their bare hands on the front lawn? Will Mick come inside and call for me? I have no idea, but I plan to sit here until I hear voices speaking English inside the house. I pray that'll be soon. I can't imagine sitting
in here for hours and hours.

What if the house is set on fire or bombed? If that happens, I'll be toast. I suppose I can't worry about it because I have no choice
in the matter. I'll simply pray and pray, asking God for the survival of my husband and children.

Another explosion just shook the house and I hear automatic gunfire.

Lord, where am I? Where did America go? How could any human being with a heart have allowed this to begin? I can't understand, and I don't want to be the type of person who
would
understand.

How many times must we go through this before we're allowed to simply survive? Surely there's som
eone out there with the answer. I just checked, and the battery on this stupid computer is 87% charged.