“I did, however, get more ammunition for our weapons, and batteries and a charger. You spoke about the cells failing. I picked up a bunch of two-way radios. I spent time this morning with Jacob and Otis learning how to plant listening devices. Tomorrow, on the way to the feed store, I’ll buy some for our place. I hope to pick up a couple of dogs on the way. Not puppies, but full grown watch dogs.”
The women in his life were stunned by his outburst. After a few moments, Kelly spoke.
“I’m sorry dad.”
“No, no need to be sorry. You are correct about the radio, and you are correct I haven’t fully grasped the seriousness of the catastrophe happening to our world. I’m a civilized, trusting sort of a guy, but that isn’t who I need to be now. Let’s put this behind us. Kelly, you asked did I listen to the radio. Was there a particular reason for the question?”
“Yes. Our government thinks they may have figured out the group behind the attacks. Do you remember four or five years ago, a new religious cult ‘God’s Head’, was in the news. ‘God’s Head’ is the group who actively push for Israel and Iran to go at it. They want to jump-start the apocalypse. The cult leader is in jail for murdering one of his daughters, but his believers still follow his directives.”
Max shook his head. “No, I don’t recall anything about it.”
“God’s Head was formed by an Australian billionaire named Reginald..., Reggie Hamiler. It’s not a Christian sect because he believes Jesus was just an ordinary man who tricked people, and that the New Testament is phony.
He doesn’t even preach from the bible because, according to him, man corrupted the word of God, basically put words in Jesus’ mouth that he didn’t utter. Reggie Hamiler speaks directly to a different God. He believes science and technology led humankind away from God.
“He says that the medical profession by healing people is circumventing nature. His message is a hodgepodge of other conflicting beliefs, a mix of conservative and liberal. He’s against all forms of entitlement, social security, food stamps, everything. He actually said if babies are born to parents that can’t feed them and they die, then it’s the parent’s fault for being fools.
“He’s against all forms of energy production other than manpower or beasts of burden. He preaches that pollution of our air and water are sins and that the amount of garbage we produce is symbolic of our fall into hedonism and money worship. He calls money, mankind’s strongest idol.”
“Have they apprehended him? Max asked.”
Kelly shook her head. “No. Dad, He’s already in jail, remember? His army of cult member’s number in the tens of thousands and they are organized like military.”
Dorrie took up the conversation. “God’s Head issued a threat on the internet this morning. It was all dressed up with fancy words, “Citizens of the world prepare for the downfall from your towers of illusion,” sort of stuff. His message is that what’s happened so far is to prepare us for worse yet to come. In Hamiler’s benevolence, he’s giving humans time to get right with God before he drops the hammer.”
Max couldn’t help himself. “Hamiler drops a hammer. Kind of catchy,” quickly adding,” Just kidding,” in response to a look from Kelly.
“I noticed the rhyme too,” Dorrie said.
“A little humor helps.” Max stood. “Where’s Bobby?”
“He’s in the barn,” Kelly said. “I used a hay bale to make a target for his bow. He’s pretty good with it. We should get him a real Bow and arrows.
“I bought him a .22 rifle. It fires a smaller bullet and shouldn’t be as loud as the other rifles, but yeah, we’ll try to find a real bow for him. Ya’ll ready to help me unload the truck.”
Dorrie chuckled as she stood. “A few weeks in the country and you think you’re a native. You didn’t even say, ya’ll, correctly.”
“Said it better than you,” Max declared.
“Did not.”
“Did too. Ya’ll. Ya’ll. Ha, ha.”
Shaking her head in disgust at their silly banter, Kelly followed her parents out the door. Suddenly she called out. “Hey, aren’t we all supposed to be armed?” Max and Dorrie returned inside to grab their weapons.
“I need a belt wide enough to hold the holster for my pistol.” Kelly said, again following them from the house, carrying her shotgun angled across her chest.
They spent the rest of the day with chores, mostly preparing for the delivery of the chickens and goats the next afternoon. Kelly was excited about the animals coming, especially the goats. She tried to talk her dad into taking her on the trip to pick up the feed so she could have a hand in picking the dogs. Max told her she would have to stay home to help her mother guard the farm.
After sending the young ones up to bed, Max and Dorrie turned on the screen to catch up with the disastrous, still unfolding situation. Mostly they wanted news about what was happening in Atlanta.
The situation wasn’t good. The downtown city proper was in ruins. Looting and vandalism was rampant. Numerous building and homes continued to burn out of control. The fire department and other first responders, the few who actually continued to report for duty were refusing to go into some areas because of sniper fire.
Gangs were roaming the streets, fighting turf wars and robbing anyone unfortunate enough to cross paths with them. People were killing each other for food and valuables. In most cases, the bodies lay where they fell.
The National Guard tried to establish a presence, but as with the first responders, sniper fire and in some instances, massive, organized assaults on their positions spurred the governor to call for their withdrawal.
Following the order to withdraw, the guard troops deployed to supplement the highway patrol roadblocks. Once word got out that the main duty of the roadblocks was to relieve people of their weapons, those who were attempting to escape the city, and had no intention of turning over their weapons, stormed the roadblocks, in most cases killing the troupers and guardsmen.
Disgusted with the violence, the mayor of Atlanta announced he was ordering all police units to remain at their precinct stations until further notice.
The news from the inner suburbs was almost as desperate. Because of criminals, individuals, or gangs, citizens were afraid to leave their homes. The police, overloaded with handling crimes in progress as they made their rounds, had ceased responding to calls about carjacking and home invasions. People were on their own.
On the national front, there had been no further incidents of terrorism since the second wave of attacks on refineries, and the boat bombings of the dams. There was a massive evacuation of residents downwind from the nuclear meltdown in South Carolina, which now involved all three of the reactors at that location.
As expected, the dam in New York State failed, but so far, due to heroic efforts, the Army Corps of Engineers delayed the meltdown of the downstream nuclear facility, giving more time for residents in the area to evacuate, but it was only a matter of time before they would lose control. The facility in Texas was already in meltdown. All of FEMA’s resources as well as a great proportion of other Federal aid were concentrated in these areas.
There were no means of compiling a death toll caused by the attacks, nor the subsequent deaths due to the chaotic conditions in the cities, but one federal official, speaking off the record, suggested it could be in the hundreds of thousands, even millions.
On the Global front, most first world, and some second tier countries as well, were faring no better than the US.
Dorrie turned the screen off, lit the lantern, and moved closer to Max on the couch.
“Well, I feel better, how about you? She asked, sarcastically.
“Oh yeah, I’ll have peaceful dreams tonight,” Max responded. “Why the lantern? The generator runs the lights too.
“I don’t like how bright they shine. They’re like an advertisement to the world that we’re here. We need to do something to block the windows. Maybe thick shutters on the inside we can open during the day. Do you
think we should start having guard shifts at night?”
Max agreed they should. “I do, starting tonight. I’ll take the first shift.”
“Kelly can take the second and I’ll take the last. No need for me to go back to sleep just to get up a few hours later to cook breakfast,” Dorrie said.
Max stood and stretched. “Yeah, but I’ve got to get up early to follow the O’Donnell brothers to the feed store. Wake me up at six.”
CHAPTER SIX
Wearing a thick jacket and bundled in a blanket, Max pulled his guard shift on the front porch, sitting in an old rocker, one he was sure Dorrie’s grandmother had put many miles on.
The night sky was cloudless and the stars shone brighter than he could remember seeing them. The absence of human-made light allowed the stars to shine fiercely.
He did notice some flickering of light through the trees to the west. He decided he was seeing headlights over on the main road their rural route connected to, about five miles from their driveway. What was odd was the number of vehicles on the road so long after sundown. Normally the highway had little or no traffic this late on a weekday.
Occasionally he would leave the porch and walk around the front yard simply to break the boredom. Later, it was to keep from nodding off. At one o’clock, he went upstairs to wake Kelly for her shift. She was confused at first because she didn’t know of the decision to begin guarding the property that night, but by the time she dressed and joined Max on the porch, she was wide-awake. She leaned her shotgun against the porch rail and stepped to the edge to gaze at the sky.
“It sure is beautiful.”
“Yes it is,” Max, agreed.
“Do you think trouble’s going to find us out here, this far from the city and main road?”
“It could happen,” Max, said. “This morning, on the way to Clarksville, I noticed a lot of traffic on the road, all of it headed north, away from Atlanta.”
“You think the exodus has already begun?”
“The way the cars and trucks were loaded, yeah, I think so. Hardly no one was riding alone either. Whole families packed in with all their belonging they were carrying with them.” He pointed toward the main road. “See the lights flickering through the trees. It’s coming from cars still traveling this late. I must have seen a hundred since I came out.”
Kelly watched the distantly moving headlights. “They’re not that far away. I wonder where they’re headed.”
“I honestly don’t know,” Max, said.
“They probably don’t know either. Dad, what if we didn’t have this farm and we still lived close to the city. What would we do? Where would we go after we ran out of food and it became too dangerous to stay where we were?”
Max thought about her question. “I guess we’d be one of those cars out there on the highway without a clue.”
“Why this way? Surely they know if they keep going north there’s a chance they’ll drive into radiation from the meltdown.”
“I imagine they are leaving the city in every direction. Maybe they figure most people won’t come this way for that very reason and that their chances of survival will be better.”
“I don’t know Dad. There sure are a lot of cars moving on the road.”
“You have to remember, metro-Atlanta has a population of over seven-million. Most of those on the road may be the first wave you talked about, the ones who have a place to go to.”
“Bug-out.”
“Right, bug-out. If that’s the case, then with the second wave, when the food is gone and people get desperate, the road may be bumper to bumper with people fleeing the city.”
“I can picture it Dad, cars breaking down, running out of gas, stranding people wherever it happens…, Even over there.” She pointed to the highway. “I’m really scared. I don’t think we’re ready.”
Max moved to put his arm around her shoulders. “I don’t think so either, honey, but we’re trying to get there.” he responded with the truth.
“I hope so Dad. The dogs and the listening things... devices, will help. I still feel like we’re a target because we have so much. Sometimes I feel like we should just go hide in the woods with a bunch of food until the worst is over.”
“It may come to that. We’ll play it by ear. Kelly, I’m ready to nod off, but I can grab a blanket and sleep here on the porch where you can wake me if someone comes.”
“I’d like that. Maybe after I get used to it, I won’t be so scared.”
Max leaned his rifle next to her shotgun and went upstairs to get some blankets. His mind was wrapped around Kelly’s statement. He didn’t think any of them were going to get used to it. It could only get worse.
Max awoke because Dorrie was nudging his side with the toe of her shoe. He sat, yawning, squinting his eyes, momentarily confused, then remembered he’d slept on the porch to keep Kelly company. The blankets fell from his upper body, causing him to shiver in the crisp morning air.
“Good morning. You were sleeping so well when I came down to take over from Kelly, that I didn’t have the heart to wake you. Besides, even though you were asleep, it didn’t feel like I was by myself. It was creepy quiet.”
Max rubbed sleep crumbles from the corners of his eyes and opened them. “Lord it’s bright. What time is it?”
“Six. If you need to rush, leave the blankets, we’ll take care of them.”
“Thanks. I need to do the three S’s and get dressed. The brothers want to be on the road by seven.”
“Kelly’s frying some spam. She’ll have a sandwich and coffee ready when you come down. Do you want a thermos to take with you?”
“That would be wonderful.”
***
Max, driving the box truck, followed the O’Donnell’s flat bed toward Toccoa Georgia, fifteen miles from their farms. As Max had noticed the day before, southbound vehicles on the two-lane highway was light. The northbound lane sported heavier traffic, overloaded cars, trucks, SUVs, and vans packed with personal belonging. There were more on the road than yesterday.
At the feed store was a sign on the door stating, ‘no feed available until next week’. The brothers ignored the sign. Max followed them into the small office. There was a window behind the desk offering a view into the warehouse portion of the building. Otis tapped on the glass to get the attention of the only person visible.
The owner, Bill Nix was short and thin. From the back, he could have been mistaken for a young teen. One look at his front though removed that illusion. Bill’s face was a living testament to the horror of war. Max learned that in Yemen, the transport Bill rode in, hit an incendiary device, and caught fire. His face, neck and the visible parts of his hands and arms scarred hideously. The skin looked as though it had melted and flowed like plastic. A cloth patch covered one eye.
Max also learned that Bill was one of the most pleasant, helpful persons he’d ever met.
“Bout time you boys showed up, I was fixing to take down my sign.” Bill shook hands with the O’Donnell brothers and with Max, giving him a quizzical look as he did.
“I’m Bill Nix. I don’t think we’ve met.”
“Max Henderson.”
“Max and his family moved into Maggie’s place. He’s married to Maggie’s granddaughter.” Jacob informed him.
“Pleased to meet you, Max. Always glad to welcome newcomers to the area. Glad Maggie’s place is occupied again, but I miss that old gal.”
“Looks like you’re going out of business,” Otis said, nodding toward the view inside the nearly empty warehouse.”
“Close to it. There was a real run on the place yesterday. Good thing you called in the order Monday.”
“I reckon everyone’s stocking up. Are you going to be resupplied?” Jacob asked.
“Got a commitment for a shipment of chicken feed, but I doubt I’ll see specialty items for a while, maybe never. Most of the truckers won’t even crank their trucks. Any diesel fuel left for sale is priced like gold.
“Hey, but I h
eld your order. Everything you wanted is ready to load. Chaffhaye and whole grain for the goats. Brood and layer feed for the chickens. Cracked corn, rabbit pellets, the whole lot. Anything that’s left, you’re welcome to purchase.”
“We appreciate it. I imagine you had to turn folks away,” Jacob said.
“More than a few. Some didn’t take it too well. Billy Ray showed up with his brothers near closing time yesterday. One of his brothers wandered out to the warehouse and saw the tags on your order. Billy Ray got to raising so much hell, I threatened to call the sheriff. He left, but not without vowing revenge on you, me, and to God, judging by how many goddamn’s came out of his foul mouth.
Bill Nix stood and said, “Drive your trucks around to the docks so the boys can load you? Show ‘em what goes on what truck and then come back in and chew the fat with me. I’ll put on a pot of coffee. I need to part you all from some cash while we’re at it.”
Jacob glanced at Max. “You may as well have him add two thousand pounds of dry dog food.”
Max nodded agreement and Jacob turned to speak to Nix. “Dog food?”
“Got plenty.”
It didn’t take long for Nix’s experienced help to load the trucks. True to their word, Max followed the brothers along a convoluted series of secondary roads and then an often-turning path through a labyrinth of gravel roads to a rough framed cabin at the foot of a high hill.
The baying and howling that greeted their arrival announced they had reached the man with the dogs. Max took one look at the dogs swarming outside the cab of his truck and decided to stay put. Otis spoke with a tall, gangly black man, then came over, and motioned for Max to roll down his window.
“Bacon’s going to rope two of the Chow-Lab mix and bring them over so you can see if you want ‘em. He advises you to stay in the truck. Some of his dogs are racist.”
Max glanced down at a vicious bulldog that was eyeballing him as if daring him to step out. “I can see that.”
Bacon brought two medium sized dogs for Max to view. The dogs seemed fine to him, but he didn’t know what qualities he should be looking for. They were jet-black, one with short hair, and the other with long. Both had the muzzle and body shape of Chows. “What do you think? He asked Otis.
DISASTER: Too Late to Prep Page 9
