Eddie and Tia, both whom had received quick medical attention from Kayla following the battle, were ordered back to the hospital motorhome to make sure their wounds didn’t need more extensive treatment.
Tia had been shot in the left shoulder. The bullet had entered in the pocket of the clavicle and was a clean exit out above the shoulder blade. It was a through-and-through and no major veins or arteries had been hit so Kayla sewed up both holes after cleaning and cauterizing the small blood vessels.
Eddie had glass fragments removed from his face and neck. Kayla told him how lucky he was that he didn’t lose an eye. She used butterfly bandaids to close the wounds and sent him back to his motorhome. She told him he had three days off from any work.
Kellie allowed Jerry to close the graves by himself, but sat on the bank, far enough away to not be a bother, but close enough the let him know she was there for him. When he was finished, he stood over the two graves for a few moments. Kellie then joined him and walked him back to the garage to put the shovel away. She didn’t say anything and neither did he. She just held to his arm and offered him support.
The dead brigands were buried by the burned out farmhouse in a common grave. Cleve dug a hole with the back hoe and piled the dead inside and covered them with four feet of dirt.
There was no ceremony for the dead vigilantes. Jerry said their bodies would be fertilizer for the weeds that were growing around the house.
* * *
Only the cold got Amanda to get back in the truck and start it. It was still below freezing out and she had begun to shiver while holding Shep. She’d finally stopped crying over his needless death. She thought, as the truck warmed up, on what she should do. She wouldn’t leave Shep where he was. That wouldn’t be dignified and the young soldier deserved better.
When she was warm, she reached for what clothes they’d left in the truck. There were no jackets, but there were some blankets and their Army sleeping bags. She used Shep’s to wrap him up and she buried him in a pile of what looked like pea-gravel. She didn’t have a shovel, so she did the best she could.
There was a lot going through her head after she had him buried, but her priority was getting back on the road and as far away from here as possible.
She smelled diesel fuel and looked around her truck, seeing one of the 5-gallon cans had been punctured and was leaking. She’d been so caught up with Shep, she hadn’t even noticed until now. She unbuckled the can and using a marker that was in the front of the HUMVEE, wrote Shep’s name and hometown on the can. She sat it on top of the small burial mound and got back in the HUMVEE.
She had so much adrenalin coursing through her body she didn’t stop driving until she weaved through the stopped traffic at the border and entered the United States of America. She stopped and took a break and filled the HUMVEE with fuel before continuing on I-95. It was late afternoon and Amanda had spent the day driving fast and watching her rearview mirror. She was starting to get tired again, but she wasn’t going to let her guard down. She spent the night in Sandpoint, Idaho, parking her truck on the airport runway so she could see anyone around. Even so, she didn’t sleep as well.
When morning dawned, there was a light mist falling. It was cold, maybe the mid-30s, but it wasn’t snowing. It was a little less than two hours to Spokane and she wanted to get an early start.
* * *
That evening, there was a deep sadness around the picnic table that sat beside the parapet of Jerry’s shelter, but not defeat. “We’ve been reacting to everything. Something happens, we react,” Jerry told them. “This is the second time we’ve reacted to someone attacking our farm.
“The problem is good people die because we get comfortable and think the worst has passed. The worst then comes up and kicks us in the head.
“I think we need to start thinking like the worst has not passed. Starting tomorrow we’re going to set up some type of real defense and a real warning system. We don’t know who will be coming down the road next, so starting tomorrow we’re going to find some way of protecting ourselves better.”
Ideas were bandied about the rest of the evening and thoughts on the ideas were debated on the ability to implement, tools, maintenance and upkeep of whatever system they would decide on.
The meeting broke up after just a few hours because there was an unspoken consensus that everyone would be more comfortable discussing these plans more the following day.
As Jerry held Kellie that night, he felt her sobbing at the loss of Rusty and Boomer. He wished he knew what words would comfort her, but he had none. She used one hand to pet Molly who lay beside them and held Jerry’s with the other.
Jerry recalled something his mother had sung to him the night of his dad’s funeral. She had come into his room where the 17-year-old boy was crying alone, away from the guests who had come to the house. Jerry’s mom had held him and sung “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found, was blind, but now, I see.”
Jerry now sang it for Kellie in a soft tenor. It was the first time he’d ever sang for her. When he finished she had stopped crying.
Within minutes, they were both asleep.
* * *
It was a warm morning and breakfast was being served outside at the picnic tables. While everyone ate they began discussing what they could reasonably make happen. The terror of the previous day was still paramount to their discussions.
They discovered Cleve, Tia and Kayla to be the best tactical planners, while Buff and Tony would be the ones to make the electronics work. Eddie and Danny knew weapons and Randy and Jamal were assigned to procurement.
Jerry and Kellie handled the organization and resources. The other adults on the farm were tasked with food production and maintenance. The meeting was a catharsis for all of them. Jerry made every person feel like they were doing something to protect themselves from another attack like the one the previous day. The planning meeting seemed to give comfort to everyone.
They were still talking when Cindy came up and grabbed Randy by the arm. She needed another player for a soccer game with the kids and Randy was pulled away. He didn’t appear to be upset.
There was a lot to be done, but Jerry was more than willing to allow his son an extra half hour of play before the adults needed to get down to serious work. Randy had been more introverted and quiet since the betrayal by Cheryl and if the pretty young Cindy could bring him out of his shell, Jerry was all for it.
The first day was spent making plans, writing down supplies they would need and a thorough survey of the farm. Someone found some cans of yellow spray paint and Jerry and Cleve walked miles marking trees and rocks to indicate where bunkers or berms needed to be built.
Kayla and Tia used red paint to mark areas Tony felt were best for his purposes. Eddie and Danny, with help from Nick, Sade and Josh cleaned all the weapons and inventoried the ammunition for each weapon. Kellie and Randy inventoried the garage and barn supplies with help from three of the four newest members of the farm Tim, Karen and Natalie.
Katie and the deJesuses worked in the garden with the younger kids and Jamal.
Monica was on cook duty for the day and served sandwiches and fudge brownies for lunch and whipped up a fried chicken supper, with baked potatoes, okra and a salad. No one complained.
Everyone seemed pleased having a part to play and despite the previous day’s tragedy.
When the dishes were cleaned, leftovers stored and trash cleaned away, Kellie pulled out her tablet to update her lists. A lot was accomplished and she wanted to make sure the plan that had been decided that morning, was still on track.
There was a lot of discussion of supplies they didn’t have and were going to be needed sooner than later, and that meant scavenger parties were going to have to begin searching further from the shelter and farm.
Both Josh and Katie voiced skepticism of allowing the teams to venture too far from the shelter. Where it was now, 30 miles from what was le
ft of Birmingham and 40 miles from Anniston, it was a farm that few would stumble across. They said the brigands or vigilantes, who had attacked the farm, were few and untrained and there might not be another attack. A few of the other adults also speculated about frequency of the attacks being six months apart might indicate that there were few outlaws still “out there.”
Jerry disagreed with them, but he didn’t want to come out and tell them their opinions didn’t matter. Instead he was firm yet conciliatory. “You might be right and we won’t ever have a problem with them again. I hope we don’t.
“But I believe the worst is yet to come. We don’t have a support system for our farm; it’s all on us to defend ourselves and our friends. I think once we get a good early warning system in place, and a better way to defend ourselves if we are attacked, we’ll all feel safer at night.
“That’s why I’m adamant about this. I want everyone to feel safer at night so if we wake up in the middle of the night to some strange noise, we’ll be thinking it’s a mouse and not some armed outlaw ready to kill us in our sleep.”
It had been the first time Jerry had been so forthright with his view. He suspected a few of the people there could guess what his dreams had consisted of. The few who had been leaning toward a less extensive defensive system, even Josh and Katie, saw the point Jerry was trying to make. If they didn’t agree with Jerry, they kept it to themselves.
* * *
That night as he and Kellie lay in bed, Molly snoring softly in a basket someone had found, Jerry made sure Kellie understood his resolve. “This shelter was built because I was pissed at my ex and I was looking for a place to hide,” he told her. “Now we have 20 people here hiding.”
She ran her fingers through his hair, which had grown long. “And no one wants to hide forever,” she said. “People want to live and enjoy life and not be afraid.”
Jerry traced the scar on her forehead that she’d been self-conscious about for months. “Yes. And feel like they are safe in their home.” Kellie’d had nightmares for weeks after the attack by Cheryl and each time Jerry had been there to comfort her and make sure she felt safe.
It had taken months before she quit wholly blaming herself for not being more insistent about her feelings on Cheryl. Randy had been doing the same thing and had fights with both Eddie and Monica. Jerry had gotten the three together, away from everyone else and spoke with both of them. There had been enough blame to go around. All three of them made mistakes, all three had failed and all three had to live with the guilt. There was enough blame for everyone and he told them they had a choice of wallowing like fat hogs in mire, or learn from their mistakes. It wasn’t an overnight change in attitude, but there was progress toward what was as normal as this new world allowed him.
Kellie snuggled her head into his neck and felt his arm around her shoulder. “I feel safe with you.”
“Tomorrow morning, we start making everyone feel safer,” he whispered to her as they fell asleep.
Just as everyone had chipped in to re-build the shelter for Kellie, everyone put in 16 to 18 hours a day making the farm safe. The ones who didn’t think they needed to put so much time and effort into the system they were building, kept their opinions to themselves. If they disagreed with Jerry, they went to him and didn’t spread the poison that was gossip.
Randy took Juan and Cindy in one direction on the map and Jamal took the Padre and Nick the other looking for supplies on the lists given to them by Tony, Cleve, Buff and Tia. Not everything on the lists was available, but by the end of the week, there was a 12-foot chain linked fence around the entire living area, stretching from the driveway entrance, around the outbuildings, the motorhomes and the cleared-out area behind the shelter.
The fence had four gates for entry and egress. They had found enough of the fence so that now the cattle, chickens and four pigs had pens.
Josh butchered the dead farm animals the brigands had killed and built a smoker with the help of Nick and Tim, where he was preserving the meats. It kept the former butcher busy all week. He worked with his daughter, Marissa, teaching her everything about butchering and smoking.
Six bunkers were built, camouflaged and stocked with weapons. One thing the farm didn’t have a shortage of was high-powered hunting rifles and ammunition. Cleve had set the bunkers so they each had overlapping fields of fire and could cover 95% of the fenced in area.
Danny seldom got off the backhoe through the entire week and Tia, despite, or maybe because of her injury, operated the bulldozer. Between the two of them, they built berms on which the fence posts would be concreted into the ground.
Tia spent an entire day, even eating while on the dozer, clearing a clear field of fire 12 feet inside the fence and 20 feet beyond it. She knocked down trees, cleared brush and filled in low-lying areas. The little woman was on a mission to protect her four kids. Some of the time she was working, she would have John or Hannah, her original two, or Tara or Sara, her adopted kids, riding with her, learning how to drive the bulldozer.
John and the twins, all now 13 years old, were tasked as apprentices to the adults. There was no such thing as school anymore, so their educations were being taught by on-the-job-training and lessons of the real world. Tara was with Cleve, John with Buff and Sara with Kayla and Monica to give the farm an extra medical orderly.
Tony scavenged wiring and sensors and was able to put together what he called a “sensor web” that he and Buff installed as quickly as the poles were cemented into the ground and fencing attached.
Katie worked closely with Natalie on the garden, not only with what was growing now, but what they would plant later in the year and next year. Natalie wasn’t a smart woman, but she was diligent and trustworthy. She’d never graduated high school and all her life had been spent in the service industries, like cleaning houses or cleaning stores. Katie, who was the daughter of a wealthy nursery owner, was fond of Natalie. She took her under her wing and taught her about gardening and plants. Soon the two were almost inseparable and the bleak look on the dark woman’s face was replaced more often by a brilliant smile.
The others on the farm found ways to contribute as well, within the limits of their skills. Juan helped Jerry build a third windmill for power generation, Mrs. deJesus took care of baby Adam so Marissa, when she wasn’t with her dad, could take care of the animals with Jamal.
Hannah, who turned eight years old, learned about inventory tracking, spreadsheets and administration, coordinating several projects and keeping track of everything, from Kellie.
Wherever Kellie was, Hannah was there too, with her own computer tablet, hooked into the network of all the farm’s computers, taking notes. Kellie started calling the little girl “L-T,” short for lieutenant, and the nickname stuck.
Nine days after the attack by the brigands, the perimeter fence was completed and Tony turned on his sensor web. There was a LED light board over a map of the farm right over Kellie’s desk in the living room of the shelter. He turned on the switch and the lights blinked once and went out.
Everyone looked at the dark board, then at Tony. He smiled.
Everyone but he and Buff were expecting lights to flash. Tony picked three tennis balls and a racket he’d stashed beside Kellie’s desk and handed them to John. “Have at it, Johnny.” The boy knew what to do and he ran up the spiral stair case and out the hatch at the top. They watched him go because he had a smile that signaled this was something he’d been waiting to do. They’d not seen him all afternoon while he’d been practicing for his special mission.
They heard the boy holler “One!” and moment later a light lit up under the number three on Tony’s board and a buzzer sounded for a second. Tony pressed a button and the Number 3 camera showed on the monitor and a tennis ball near the fence.
“Two!” and a moment later a light came on under the number 7, the buzzer sounded and Tony pressed the button under camera Number 7. Everyone saw the second tennis ball.
“Three” and then
an “Oops, missed!” and everyone chuckled. “Three!” John said again, and the light came on and buzzer sounded for camera Number 12. Tony pressed the camera button which showed the third tennis ball.
Everyone was cheering and patting Buff and Tony on the back. “This is just one set-up for monitoring the fence. There’s another one just like it I set up in the storage shelter in my office. It’s the main one.”
John came back down the stairs with his tennis racket and everyone gave him a round of applause. The boy soaked up the praise and took a small bow before running over to where his mother was standing.
“There are also speakers for the microphones for the cameras that have them,” he told them. “They’re plugged in, but turned off now. Turn them on here,” he said, turning a knob on the control set.
He then pointed to a different dial. This is for the outside speaker system. It’s a public address system Randy found at a sports stadium. From here you can talk and everyone within a mile will be able to hear you. There are six stadium speakers spread around the perimeter and hidden pretty well. He spun the dial and pulled the microphone down. “Luke, I am your father,” he said and everyone heard the echo around the farm. Three lights started flashing and he pulled up the cameras. He’d frightened some birds into setting off the alarms.
Jerry liked the set-up a lot. He told Tony and Buff as much.
Hannah spoke up to let everyone know she and Kellie had already set up a schedule for monitoring the perimeter from the storage shelter.
“I,” she grinned sheepishly, turning on her tablet and bringing up the schedule. “I mean we came up with a schedule which we think will keep who is in the control room from getting bored. Everyone under 18, except Adam, works only the day shift for three hours. The day shift is from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. The adults will work the night shift in five hour blocks. That way no one has to watch the equipment every day and no one will become com…compl..compla.…” She’d forgotten the word Kellie taught her and was discreetly reminded by her mentor, “Complacent. No one becomes complacent.”
Hell happened (Book 2): Hell Revisited Page 11
