by Payne, T. L.
“No, not really. She did fine all the way here. She led the group and kept everyone moving, but as soon as we arrived, the reality of the situation hit her. She didn’t want to stop. She urged everyone to keep going and put more distance between us and the Chinese but the parents refused. They just couldn’t keep on carrying the heavy packs and their children.
“I’m glad they didn’t. We’ve sort of had a change in plans.”
Isabella’s eyes grew wide and she stepped back and crossed her arms. She looked down and then back toward Pete and the others. “What happened back there?”
“Kylie didn’t tell you?”
“She said a bad man grabbed her and that you knocked him down. We heard the gunshots, and Pete said to get moving.”
“It was a Chinese soldier. Our military was chasing three scouts. He got separated from the other two.”
“Are you all right?” She touched his blood-soaked sleeve.
“Just a graze,” he said. It was more of a gash, but he didn’t need to worry her about it.
“What about the other two Chinese fighters?”
“We ran across one of our soldiers. He was wounded. He filled us in. The rest of his team went after the other two. That was when the plan changed.” He took her hand and pulled her close then placed her hand on his chest and looked into her eyes. “We aren’t going to be able to outrun them.” She gasped and held her breath. “Our military is depleted and can’t hold out much longer. The Chinese are running up the border with Texas on their way to Shreveport. We might already be behind enemy lines right here at this barn.”
Tears pooled in her eyes and his heart broke at having to tell her the bad news. Looking up, he surveyed the group and found Savanah. She was bending over, rummaging through her pack. How would he possibly make her understand? She had four children to protect. All she wanted in the world was to get them to safety. She wasn’t easily going to accept that they’d need to stay put, make a stand, and use every opportunity to thwart the enemy’s plan to run up the middle of the country. No, she would never understand that. He wasn’t sure he did himself.
Isabella placed her head on his chest and squeezed him tight. “Are you sure? Really sure?”
“We’re going to go have a look for ourselves, but the soldier had no reason to lie.”
“We can’t fight an army! We don’t even have ammunition!” Her voice was pitchy. She was about to cry. He’d give anything to prevent that, but the reality was, they were in serious trouble.
“Pete has some ideas, and Jason plans to involve my cousins and the people at Sugar Hill. We need every able-bodied adult to resist this, or we could all end up in Chinese camps.”
“No!” Isabella said. She lifted her head and took a step back. “That can’t happen.”
“We are going to resist, Isabella. We won’t surrender. This is our country, and we have to fight to save it from them.”
“Will,” Jason called.
“I have to go. We’re going to take a trip over to Merryville and see what we can learn. Pete has a cousin over that direction. We hope to recruit him and his family into our scheme.”
“I don’t like this, Will. And Savanah is going to freak.”
“I’m going to let Jason tell her. I think she’ll take it better from him.”
“Coward,” Isabella said, a smile tugging at her lips.
Will bobbed his head. “Yes. Yes, I am.”
Fifteen
Will
Merryville, Beauregard Parish, Louisiana
They arrived at Pete’s cousin Josh’s house by midday. They’d barely had any rest since they’d left the homestead. Will hadn’t slept more than a couple of hours before Pete had tapped him on the shoulder and told him it was time to go. They’d packed very few provisions, wanting to travel light though Pete had produced energy bars and MREs, citing the importance of the mission and the need to move quickly. Will felt guilt taking them from the rest of the group. Every morsel of food was precious, and what he took for himself would mean a mother or child might not eat soon. Food was a constant worry for everyone. No matter how much time had passed, Will had not become accustomed to being constantly hungry.
Blank stares looked back at Pete as he filled Josh in on all they’d learned about the Chinese army’s movement north. Josh’s wife pushed herself away from the round oak table opposite their tiny kitchen and stood. She steadied herself for a second and then ran from the room down a short hall. Will heard her vomiting. That was exactly how he’d felt when he learned about it. It was a hard thing to grasp. Even though they’d known for a couple of months that this could happen, that it actually was happening didn’t seem real.
“You didn’t come all this way just to tell us this,” Josh said.
“We can’t run from them. It’s too late for that. I thought we’d have more time, that we’d hear that they had broken through down by the Intercoastal, and we’d have time to bug out, but that didn’t happen, and they are up here already and pushing north rapidly.”
“So? What’s your plan?”
“We have to fight. We have to make a stand and stop them if we can,” Pete said with conviction in his voice.
“How do you propose we do that, Pete?” Josh’s wife asked from the doorway.
“Just the way we trained, Lorraine.”
She scoffed. “That was play-acting, Pete. We were preparing to defend homes from a few marauders, not an army.”
“We aren’t going to take on a whole army. We’re going to disrupt them and pick them off one by one. Remember the divide-and-conquer strategy we trained on. Diversion and subversion.”
She shook her head. “That’s crazy talk. They have modern weapons of war. You aren’t going to sneak up on them. You’ll never get close enough to use that big ole tactical knife you carry. You’re fooling yourself if you think this plan of yours has a chance in hell of working.
“We only have to slow them down,” Jason said.
“Slow them down?” Josh asked.
“We need to slow them down so that we can slip past them and make it to Texarkana,” Jason replied.
“We’re not going to no camp,” Lorraine said with her hands on her hips. “We talked about this, Pete. You’re the one that said that the FEMA camps would be bad. We’d have to give up our guns and might even be separated.”
“Do you have ammo for your guns?” Will asked. A shot of hope coursed through him. If they had even a few boxes, it could help.
“Not much. We have some shotgun shells and rounds for the thirty-thirty for hunting small game,” Josh said.
Will’s hope faded. A shotgun would only be useful to them up close. It would make a good defensive weapon if they were cornered by the enemy, but they needed ammo for their rifles so they could pick off bad guys from a distance and race away. The goal was to figure out who their top-ranking soldiers were and take them out. And to take out any communications equipment they had. They also needed to get their hands on enemy weapons. Explosives were their main goal. They could do a lot of damage to the Chinese army’s movement if they had just a few explosives.
A knot formed in Will’s gut. The more they talked, the more his stomach churned. The plan did sound crazy. They’d all likely be killed, but someone had to try to stop them. Someone had to make a stand. Could they sit back and allow them to just roll through the country and not fight back? The answer was no for him. Each person would have to come to that conclusion on their own, but for him, he would not surrender his life and freedom to an enemy occupier. He was willing to do whatever it took to make sure his family didn’t have to either.
“Who is left around these parts?” Pete asked.
Josh glanced over at Lorraine. “Cain and his family left last week. Lorraine’s brother is still here. His wife’s family is about three miles north of here. Really…” He paused and turned back to Pete then took a deep breath and exhaled. Most folks around here are dead already. Those who weren’t killed in the initial days a
nd weeks after the lights went out have died of hunger—or suicide.” He swallowed hard and then continued. “Those damn Chinese won’t find many people to resist them. In my mind, that was their plan all along. They just waited for us to all die off so they could roll on in and take the land for themselves.”
Will agreed with him. Even those that had tried to flee had been cut down by the marauders and road warriors. He had no way of knowing how many residents had actually made it to Texarkana. They may get there and find a nearly empty camp.
“So, what are you going to do now?” Pete said. “You going to sit here and wait for them to round you up and put you all in camps—or kill you here?”
“Hell, no!” a young male voice shouted.
Will spun around in his chair. Behind him stood a teenage boy of maybe sixteen. His hair was stringy and greasy, and his clothes dirty but his dark eyes were fierce with intensity and conviction.
“We’re going to fight, right, Pop?” He moved around the table and took a stand behind his father. “We ain’t cowards, Uncle Pete. We ain’t going to let no foreigners steal our country.”
Will’s eyes dropped to Josh. He was expressionless. Will couldn’t tell what he was thinking but was sure that he was proud of his son. Tears welled in Josh’s eyes and he stood. “Right, son. We’re going to fight those MFers and push them back past the bayou and run their asses into the gulf.”
“Now you’re talking, cousin,” Pete said, moving around the table and smacking Josh on the back. He held out his hand to the boy, and they shook vigorously. “All right, now let’s round up the rest of the folks around here, and go make them pay for invading America.”
The kid picked up his red MAGA hat and placed it on his greasy head, wiped the sweat from his brow, and hitched up his baggy jeans. A smile spread from ear to ear. “I’m ready. I know my friends are too. We’ve been sick of sitting around and doing nothing.”
Will envied the youngsters who had gathered in Josh’s shop to talk strategy with Pete. He counted twelve. Seven boys and five girls. All between the ages of fourteen and twenty. They looked better fed than the adults. Four of the boys had Armorlite style rifles slung over their backs. Two of the girls wore pistols in holsters at the hips. They looked like sisters.
The adults that Josh and Pete had rounded up sat around the firepit in the backyard. Jason was working hard to convince them of the soundness of the plan. Will didn’t blame them for their apprehension; he had a teenage son and there was no way he’d want him taking up arms against an army. He knew it would come to that, eventually though; he couldn’t see a way to avoid it. Everyone would have to fight if they were to defeat the enemy.
“Roadblocks? Really? That’s the best you can come up with?” one of the men asked.
“We want to funnel them into an ambush,” Jason replied.
“Why wouldn’t they just use some of that heavy equipment they have to push the cars and tractors out of the way?”
“They likely haven’t had time to move equipment like that through the bayou. Our army blew up all the bridges across the Intercoastal before they were able to move much more than their troop carriers across.”
“How do you know that?”
“Our contacts down at Lake Charles. They sent word when the military blew the remaining bridges. We thought that would be the end of it, but they’d already sent some troops across,” Jason said.
Will hadn’t thought about the bridges in weeks. It would take time for the Chinese to move equipment north now, and what about their resupply? Would they have the same issue that the American Army was having with supplies reaching them? How long could they hold out?”
Will moved from the doorway of the shop toward the group gathered around the firepit. “We need to cause them to use up all their ammo and find a way to steal or destroy their food and water. They won’t have a way to resupply. They can’t just go out and get more. It’s not available for them to find. They will be as defenseless as we are. That would give our army time to resupply and get here to wipe them out.”
“That’s what I was planning for,” Pete said behind him.
Will turned. “I’m not thinking clearly. I missed the part about them not getting resupplied.”
“It’s okay, Will. We’re all running on empty. We need to fuel our bodies and stay hydrated. We have to be fit and ready for battle.”
Will knew he was right. He needed to eat as much as his body required and stop feeling such overwhelming guilt about it. It was as necessary as putting fuel in a car. Without it, it would not operate. His head felt fuzzy; even a few calories would help clear that up. He reached up with his left hand to wipe sweat from his eyes, and pain shot through his shoulder. The image of the Chinese soldier’s expression as his knife sliced Will’s arm flashed before him.
“So, we just need to cause them as much trouble as possible and wait for their supplies to run out,” Will said, lowering himself into the lawn chair next to Jason.
“It will be a little more complicated than that, but pretty much,” Jason said.
Scenes from the movie Red Dawn played in his mind as he prayed their story had a happier ending.
Sixteen
Savanah
Perkins, Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana
The thirty-foot by fifty-foot metal building near the barn was filled with tools, equipment, and worn-out furniture that looked to have been taken from someone’s elderly parents’ home, complete with the doilies left on top of one of the chests of drawers. If they were going to remain there for very long, they would need room to spread out.
The old, weathered wood barn wasn’t big enough for living in. Families were tucked away in every corner. Every stall was occupied by parents and their small children. The single men occupied the loft also acting as lookouts. Everyone was taking turns on watch. Tensions were running high, and nerves were frayed beyond anyone’s ability to cope. Jane had even snapped at Kylie who’d looked as if she’d been slapped. Savanah understood perfectly. Jane was pregnant, and between the morning sickness, the mood swings, and the overcrowded conditions, her patience had run out.
“What are you thinking?” Jane asked from the doorway of the metal shop building.
“I’m thinking we need to have everyone grab something and move it out so we can make room for people in here. Some of the furniture could stay. It would give you and the other mothers a place to rest comfortably. Maybe I could even get Keegan and Kylie down for regular naps.”
“That would be something,” Jane said forcing a smile.
“This is tough on everyone. The kids are pushing boundaries because they are stressed too.”
“I know but they’re fine. They're tough, like their mom. They’ll do fine.” Jane turned. “I’ll go round everyone up. We’ll have this space livable before the guys get back.”
Savanah sighed. “I keep hoping that they’ll come back with good news, and we can get back on the road to Texarkana.”
“I know; me too. I don’t want to have my baby in a barn. They’ll have doctors and maybe even drugs at the shelter.”
Savanah just nodded. She doubted seriously that they would have either—not with a war waging to their south. All available medical personnel and pain medications would be needed on the front lines. Mothers had delivered babies since time began without either, but Savanah understood Jane’s concerns.
It took the better part of the afternoon on their third day there to remove enough stuff from the shop building to begin making decent living quarters for the group. The single men remained in the loft of the barn, and any items from the group’s packs and bags that they didn’t need right away stayed behind in the barn.
Savanah spread out Keegan’s and Kylie’s sleeping pads and bags between hers and Kendra’s. Karson’s was placed to block them in so they couldn’t go wandering off in the night.
Everyone’s mood seemed to be improved with the extra room. Luca and another man hauled water in five-gallon buckets from a nearby
pond to flush the toilet which was a wonderful luxury after days of using the woods behind the barn.
“Mom, Jane found a large pot in that junk we hauled out of here. She’s wondering if it would be all right to start a fire and boil some rice for everyone,” Kendra said, poking her head through the large roll-up door.
Savanah chewed on her bottom lip as she replayed Pete’s instruction in her mind. No fire was at the top of the list. The smoke can be seen and smelled for long distances. It could alert people to their presence. “No. I’m sorry. No fire. The smoke will give us away.”
“Even a little one—just enough to boil water?” Kendra questioned.
“Even a little one. It just isn’t worth the risk. We can soak the rice.”
“It never gets soft that way.”
“Put it in the sun. It should warm the water some.”
It was a fairly warm day for December. They’d left the roller door and the walk-thru door open to allow a breeze to blow through the shop but Savanah was still sweating.
“Okay. I’ll tell her. She’s not going to be happy.”
“I know, but we have these rules to keep everyone safe.”
“I wish we didn’t have to stay here. Why can’t we just move at night when we can’t be seen?” Kendra asked.
“Because we can be seen by the Chinese military. They have night vision equipment. Besides, don’t you think they could hear us coming for miles?” Savanah looked to the children playing loudly in the corner.
“I guess you’re right.” Kendra slowly turned to go and then stopped. “Are we safe here, Mom?”
Savanah swallowed hard before answering her daughter. “As safe as we can be.”
Kendra sighed and exited the building without another word. She knew. She knew they weren’t any safer there than at their homestead. That was one of the reasons Savanah regretted letting Jason and Will talk her into this mess. They wouldn’t be safe until they reached Texarkana. That couldn’t happen soon enough for her.
