by A J Newman
“There have to be some DVD players and TVs out there sitting in metal cargo containers that are useable. We will need some kind of entertainment.”
***
“Dad, while you were gone, we received a call on that long range radio that Mr. Gold left us. It was Davi. She said that they arrived at their destination and that things were much worse than expected. They were okay but moved on to their secondary location. She said that she might be out of range for several weeks. That was all.”
“Darn, I wanted to talk to her. Did you tell her what was going on up here?”
“No. I just said things were the same as when she left. I didn’t know who else was listening.”
“Good girl. Until things get back to normal, never talk longer than a few minutes and don’t give away your location.”
“I guessed as much. Oh, by the way, what did she mean by asking me to ask if you were thinking of her every night?”
“Nothing.”
Chapter 7 - Free Food
Daviess County, Kentucky
Talking our community of farmers into trading 100 pallets of the new found food and a small part of the vegetables that had ripened to the people of Owensville was easy. Convincing them that the town wouldn’t try to seize all of our food was the difficult part. We held a meeting the next day after the food was found and all agreed we should trade the extra food to the local charities and food banks for trade goods. That would set the stage for there is no free lunch and still, gain goodwill from the people of Owensville. We would also offer free classes on how to grow backyard gardens to help them become more self-sufficient. We asked the Sheriff to contact the local church charity groups and the food bank to tell them to be ready to accept our food with the conditions that they trade for it with items that we need. He was to inform the Mayor after we had started the transfer of food under the watchful eyes of his deputies. The thought was that the farmers would get the goodwill and the Mayor wouldn’t try to seize the food. The Mayor was down to less than eleven policemen, and they were rebelling at the long hours and lack of food. Part of our plan was Bert would make a delivery to them behind the station and let them know we appreciate their service and understand they don’t have time to farm. They were told we would keep them fed as long as we had the ability to do so. That was Chuck’s idea.
We split up and made deliveries to the Catholic and Protestant charities and the Owensville Food Bank at 6:00 am, which was an hour before they opened for the day. I covered the Food Bank since we thought the Mayor and her people might show up there over the others. Since there was no major announcement by the plan, there was the usual crowd of 20-30 people at each charity looking for food. The organizers and directors of each group were very pleased with the assistance and our overall plan of trading the food for trade goods. We gave a list that had everything from old cars, tractors, farm supplies and fencing down to gas and diesel. We also offered training on how to grow vegetable gardens for anyone who desired the training.
All, but a few of the people were happy with the arrangement and promised to bring trade goods in over the next week. We told them we would trust them and would keep bringing food as we found it until the crops came in.
The Food Bank Director said, “Zack thanks so much for the help. Only about two-thirds of our people are trying to help themselves, and I’m afraid they will starve this winter or riot for food. You do know if they start going hungry they could try to raid your farms.”
“We do, and that’s part of our reason for helping them with the training. I hate to say it, but we are also ready in case they try to raid us. We have had months to prepare, and it won’t turn out good for anyone who tries to attack our farms.”
“I couldn’t help but notice that all of your people are heavily armed and several appear to be on watch.”
“That’s right. Every one of our group has had extensive training and is prepared to fight to protect our lives and our farms. Why hasn’t the city of Owensville done more to get large scale farming going in the parks, golf courses and vacant land around the city? We will be glad to help even though it’s too late for some crops.”
“I don’t know, but I suspect it’s because many of our leaders including me thought that the government would come and help us through this disaster.”
“Don’t wait for help. Help yourselves, or many of you will starve. We can help if our crops come in without any issues, but we can’t produce enough for ourselves and all of the people in the city this year.”
I had just finished speaking when the Mayor’s car and a police car drove up. She was red in the face and walking fast at the Sheriff and me.
“What the hell is going on here? You should have obtained permission to deliver this food, and it should have been delivered to the city to dole out.”
I spoke out, “Mayor, it’s our food, and we’ll damn well do with it what we want. The charities we traded the food to have been doing this for many years and are much more capable of handling the distribution than a bunch of politicians.”
The Chief of Police and Bert were talking off to the side when the Mayor called them over.
“I want this stopped and the food confiscated to be used for the good of all of the people of Owensville.”
The Chief and his deputy looked around, took note of the ten heavily armed farmers and said, “Mayor, they are trading food for trade items they need. They are doing nothing wrong, and the charities have been handling food distribution to needy people for over a hundred years. I doubt the city could do as good a job as these volunteers. They’re not breaking the law, so my hands are tied.”
The director of the Food Bank said, “Now Alice, these fine people are helping feed our people when they could have kept this food for themselves. We should be thanking them not trying to bully them. Zack, I’m sorry for this, and I’m sure that the Mayor means well.”
The Mayor quickly noticed the people were all standing on Zack’s side and pointing at her when one of the crowd said, “Mayor Bonner, are you trying to take this food away from us? What have you done to help us grow our own food?”
That brought shouts from the rest to leave their food alone. The Mayor glared at me and said, “I’m sorry. There has been a communication error, and the city just wants to make sure that the food is fairly given away.”
I spoke up, “Mayor, we are not giving the food away free to anyone. We expect these great people to trade goods to us that we need for the food. This is not welfare.”
She jumped into her car and left.
The Police Chief came over and said, “Zack, you farmers have made a lot of good friends by getting the barter for food going, but you’ve made an enemy out of the Mayor. Watch your back around her and Prescott’s people. He is the real power behind her. Thanks for the food for my men and me. It’s hard to work 16 hour days and then try to feed your families. The Mayor doesn’t get that. I have lost over 60% of my men and women thanks to her edicts and demands. We are dropping back to 12 hour days, and I’m giving every man a day off thanks to Bert covering for us. Thanks again.”
The word quickly spread and hundreds of people showed up with goods to trade for food. We drove back to the farm after all of the food had been unloaded, and we had received several loads of everything from tools to gas that had been siphoned out of family cars.
“Zack, that’s another warning about the Mayor and Prescott. We need to figure out how to deal with them.”
“Well, undercutting their base of support from the citizens was first on my list.”
“Damn, you’re way ahead of me.”
“No, just a yard or two. Let’s get the group together after we deal with the Ohio gang and start planning.
Chapter 8 - War
Ohio County, Kentucky
We had watched the gang members from a distance for several weeks and made notes on their weapons, manpower, and fortification of their compound. I only used a small group of my most trusted friends to plan, surveil t
he enemy and conduct the attack. Grant, Mary, and Carrie were kept in the dark. There were only about 55 gang members along with 70-80 women and a handful of children staying at the gang’s compound and the houses close by. They were actually conducting their business from a strip mall at the crossroads formed by Highway 33 and Old Barn View Road. There were dense woods behind the strip mall and several abandoned farms across the road from their headquarters. We had our pick of places to watch them.
Sally suggested we throw the gang a barbecue as we did for the biker gang in Vincennes. However, the gang up in Indiana was barely getting by and was ready to throw a party, when we helped the cow wander in among them. It turned out to be a slaughter. They also only had a few women and children hostages.
This gang had terrorized the local farmers into bringing half their crops into them every Saturday morning. Once we noticed the pattern, it was easy to lace the food with the laxative and ipecac. This had proven very effective down in Rolling Hills; I wanted to try to avoid as much gunfire as possible around the women and children even though we knew most of the women were armed.
While the Sheriff wouldn’t join us in the attack, ten of his men did join us while another nine guarded our farms against attack while we were conducting the raid. He also contributed greatly to our ability to attack in silence by giving me three suppressors that fit ARs. His crew had taken them from one of the gangs that attacked right after the lights went out.
“Try to bring in some captives. No one will believe you had to kill them all,” Bert warned me. “Please help me out with the Mayor.”
“I will, but make sure your guys keep Grant and Mary from leaving my farm until we get back. They are bound to notice our absence.”
“Frank will handle that and guard against any surprise attacks. I’ll personally cruise the roads in your neck of the woods until y’all get back. I don’t want any detail, but how long do you think it will take?”
“It’s a crap shoot, but as little as four hours or as long as two days.”
The attack started several hours after the farmers delivered their crops to the gangs. We had four teams of two follow the gang’s enforcers out to several farms to make sure the farmers would send a larger load next time. The farmers were not growing enough to feed the gang and themselves and were holding back enough to prevent starvation. The gangs didn’t care. Our snipers shot six of the gang enforcers out at the farms, and the gang didn’t know they were under attack. Lynn and Callie were supposed to get close enough to the remaining two to shoot them with their pistols, but a farmer’s wife accidentally warned the thugs just as the girls were about to fire.
Lynn suddenly found herself in hand to hand fight with a huge man armed with a tire iron. He was just about to break a farmer’s hand when he turned and charged Lynn. Callie started to shoot both of the men, but the farmer’s wife and kids were in the line of fire. The man reached for his pistol when Callie turned, raised her leg and kicked the gun out of his hand. She came back around and chopped him in the throat, but he turned enough that the blow hit the side of his neck. It gave him a lot of pain, but he was able to charge towards her. She rolled left at the last second, tripped him and kicked him in the ass as he fell past her.
Lynn ducked as the tire iron whizzed over her head and struck a blow to the thug’s ribs as he swung wildly. She then raised a leg, whirled sideways and kicked the bastard in the groin.
The man attacking Callie pulled his knife and lunged at her missing his target as she jumped sideways drawing her own bayonet.
She faced him and said, “You are going to die today. I hope you said your prayers last night.”
He faked left, then right and got a deep slice across his face for his efforts. He lunged wildly again, Callie blocked his knife with her free hand and drove the bayonet through his lower rib cage and up into his heart. He fell to the ground. She turned to see Lynn facing the other asshole as he got up and tried to tackle her. She grabbed his head, fell sideways and broke his neck on the way to the ground.
Both were battered, and Callie found a cut on her arm that needed attention but was otherwise in good shape considering the fate of the bastards lying on the ground. The farmer’s wife poured the WoundSeal on Callie’s wound, and the bleeding stopped immediately. She bandaged the arm, thanked them for taking out the gang members and asked what they could do to help fight the gang.
“Just watch for any trying to escape down this road and shoot them.”
They hopped in the truck and drove on to their next assignment.
“Will they shoot the creeps?”
“I don’t think so. Those were good people, but I think they are waiting for someone to do their dirty work for them.”
The next task was to take out all four of the roadblocks without the gang becoming wise to the attack. After that, it was waiting on the ipecac and laxatives to work, which would start within a few minutes for the ipecac and hours for the laxatives after the food was delivered. Even criminals liked fresh garden greens, tomatoes, and fruit.
The four to five thugs manning each of the roadblocks would be attacked at 2:00 pm. Three of the roadblocks could be taken out with the suppressed .223s from over 200 yards; the fourth had to be taken out the hard way. Per schedule, Joan, Mike, and Ally each fired on their roadblock at 2:00. They were the best sharpshooters and were spread out to three of the roadblocks with another of the team protecting them. They started firing, and in under a minute all thirteen of the gang members were dead or dying. Many had their brains blown all over the road. Roger and I had the job of taking out the last roadblock. The plan was for me to sneak up close enough to shoot any of the assholes that Roger couldn’t kill from a hundred yards out. He had an AR15 with a nine power scope, and I had my 9mm carbine.
I figured Roger could kill two and maybe a third, which left me with two to dispatch to hell. I didn’t want to take any prisoners and hoped none would try to surrender. I crawled through the woods checking the time every 10 minutes to make sure I was in position behind a fallen log just twenty feet from the barricade when Roger fired.
I crawled into position with a few minutes to spare when I noticed that I could only see two men and a woman sitting in lawn chairs manning the roadblock. I looked around and didn’t see anyone else. This was very odd because our surveillance had always seen four to five people manning every roadblock. Several thoughts went through my mind and then I saw a man’s head explode, heard the crack of Roger’s rifle and another head explode before the next sound of the rifle. The third head ducked before I could fire, so I crawled under the log and crawled to the backside of the old car that was half of the roadblock. I saw the thug on the ground peering around the truck’s tire trying to get a bead on the shooter. All I could see is the thug's back and butt from my position, so I fired twice and placed two slugs into his backside. The body rolled over, and I saw it was a middle-aged woman with tattoos all over her face. This distracted me enough that I didn’t notice the person sneaking up on me from my right side. I turned to see a gun pointed at me, see the flash and hear the explosion as the asshole shot me in the chest twice. I started pulling the trigger as I fell and everything went black.
***
I heard people laughing and talking about the party that was starting in a few minutes. My head hurt, and my chest felt like it had been run over by a semi. I was dizzy and couldn’t open my eyes. I heard the following, “Everything went according to plan until Zack got ambushed by a couple of bikers that decided to go behind some bushes and make love, not war.”
Everyone laughed and then I heard, “The girl didn’t have a shirt or bra, and the guy didn’t have any pants on when they died. Losing your life over some tail. Go figure.”
I tried to get up, and my stirring brought on more talking.
“I think he’s trying to wake up from his nap.”
I felt a cool cloth on my forehead and heard, “Honey, are you okay?””
Then I heard, “Daddy, are you okay?”
“His damn head is too hard. The bullet bounced off it and killed one of the thugs.”
I opened my eyes and saw Joan’s eyes looking down on me. My head was in her lap, and everyone was looking at me.
“What happened? Where are we? Why aren’t we fighting the gang?”
Ally spoke up, “That was yesterday. We defeated them and have already freed their captives and taken the prisoners to the Sheriff.”
“We won?”
“Yes, we picked off the ones at the roadblocks and the enforcers first, and by then it was a matter of picking off the rest as they went to or came out of the outhouses. We actually were able to kill another twenty without firing a shot,” Lynn said as she drew her bayonet and made a slicing motion.
Mike took over the conversation, “Everyone, even you accomplished their assignments. Your methods were much more over the top, but effective none the less. I am very proud of this team. We eliminated the entire gang except for a few mean bitches that threw their guns down when they realized they were being mowed down like hay.”
“What happened to me? I feel like I was hit by a truck.”
Mike held up a bulletproof vest and stuck his fingers in two holes.
“Those holes match some pretty black and blue bruises on your chest, and you have a groove in your head. Lucky for you, your hair will probably cover that big ass scar. Old buddy, you are one lucky SOB.”
“Did Roger kill the ones that shot me?”
“Hell no, you did. You were in a gunfight at five feet and survived thanks to the body armor that Bert gave to us. Roger killed two from 150 yards. You shot one hiding under the truck right through her ass. Killed her dead. The other two were behind a car screwing in the weeds.”
“Mike, there are children present.”
