Hell in the Homeland

by A J Newman

  The explosion rocked the entire town and rained pieces of the hotel down on a large section of Decatur. Team Two reacted quickly, stormed the Value Inn and quickly eliminated the guards who were either half asleep or in a drug-induced stupor. The women and children were told that they were free.

  Scott was caught by surprise and was blindsided by a thug who stabbed him from behind. The knife sliced through his backpack and only stopped when it struck the .223 magazines. The thug had Scott by the throat and tried to get the knife loose and finish him off. Scott did not know the asshole had a knife and thought the bastard was trying to choke him to death. He stomped the thug’s foot and then kicked his knee as he twisted around and got free. He was now facing the thug with a big assed knife coming at him. Scott had a Glock in his hand and shot the bastard in the chest twice and once in the head.

  Scott told the team, “That’s what happens when you bring a knife to a gun fight.”

  Scott was shaking as he scanned for other thugs. He knew that the pack of magazines had saved his life.

  Alice and Janet hid outside of the Inn to kill any of the scum that got out of the Inn alive and to watch for any surprise attacks. Alice only had to shoot two of the gang as they tried to escape. She was sad that she felt very little remorse for killing the scumbags, but knew it had to happen. Janet, on the other hand, found that she got a rush every time she shot one of the men. After being savagely raped a few weeks ago, she found herself enjoying killing these men. She shot five and watched them squirm around on the ground before shooting them again in an arm or leg. She took four shots to kill the last bastard.

  ***

  “What the fuck is going on out there? Snake, send some men out to shut those drunken bastards up!”

  Snake and four men rushed out the door and were met with a volley of bullets. Jerry panicked, ran out the door and tried to get to his truck to escape. He heard a shot, felt searing pain in his left calf and fell to the ground. He turned in time to see a woman with a big rifle pointed at him. He tried to shoot her, but she was faster and shot him in the shoulder. He pulled his machete with his other hand and swung it at her legs. She blocked it with the butt of her rifle and knocked it from his hands.

  “Go ahead and grab your knife; I’ll put a bullet in your brain.”

  Jerry said, “I’ve raped, tortured and killed much better looking women than you will ever be, you sorry bitch.”

  Alice aimed the rifle at his hand that was near the knife and shot his wrist. He screamed in pain and continued cursing her. She placed the muzzle on his balls and pulled the trigger. He screamed again and passed out. She put two bullets in his head and smiled, “You won’t hurt another woman.”

  ***

  John waited until the Executive Hotel blew up in a ball of fire and flames to start picking off the guards stationed around the town. The explosion at the hotel leveled it and all of the structures within a hundred feet all around it. No bikers jumped out of windows. Over two hundred hardened criminals died in that explosion and none was prepared to meet God at the pearly gates. John hoped that there were no innocent people in those buildings around the hotel. There were, but John would never know that detail. Beth hid in the shadows and silently shot each one of the gang members that crossed her path. She dispatched eight in about four minutes. Her only thought was that she really needed a suppressor to reduce the noise. Taking out the trash was becoming easier by the shot.

  Scott posted several guards while the rest of the team drove to the Value Inn parking lot. John held a brief meeting with his team and gave everyone a brief update and heartfelt thanks for a job well done.

  He ended with, “Bill do you think you had enough dynamite?”

  Everyone laughed. They had killed approximately three hundred gang members and only had four wounded and six injured by flying glass during the attack. They had achieved total surprise on a bunch of drunk and stoned bikers.

  Beth, Janet and Alice then went into the Value Inn and had to persuade the captive women to come out of the building. They were afraid the bikers would shoot them. They were traumatized and barely able to function. Beth asked if any of the women had any police or military experience. Five women came forward.

  Over the next three hours, several hundred of the town’s citizens gathered to find out what had happened. They were like sheep and appeared to be in a daze. John gathered the women who had been captives and the citizens who continued to filter back into town and addressed the crowd.

  He said, “Citizens of Decatur, you are now free of the gang that killed, raped and looted this city. A few may have escaped, but there are about three hundred dead scumbags and about fifty are lying around your town starting to rot. You need to clean up the mess before rats get to them and their disease spreads.”

  A woman tried to interrupt John, but Bill told her to shut up.

  She yelled, “I am the Mayor of this town and you killed them, you clean up the mess!”

  One of the women who had been a captive said, “Why weren’t you with us in the hotel? Were you hiding or helping the bikers? Our Mayor is an anti-gun liberal.”

  John started again with, “If the Mayor interrupts again, tie her up and gag her. You have to take charge of your town or have this happen again. Elect a real Mayor who will fight for a strong defense of this town, start your own army and protect yourselves or die. Don’t rely on others or the government to protect your town. We are leaving you enough weapons and ammo to fend off an army. You just need the backbone to fight those that try to take your liberty.”

  One of the crowd asked, “Can’t you stay and protect us? You have a duty to protect us.”

  John replied, “You are what is wrong with this town; you want someone else to do your dirty work. We're leaving and we genuinely want you to survive, but assholes like this jerk should be run out of town.”

  John waited for his words to sink in and added, “Does anyone have military or police training?”

  Five former women captives and three men came forward. They had a wealth of experience and several had fought in Vietnam and Iraq. John told them to report for duty at 7:00 a.m. sharp by the waterfront. John then asked volunteers to become the town’s police and army. He told them that he would get them trained to protect their families and town. About a hundred women and forty men came to John to be trained.

  The next morning John found that one of the men had been a Marine drill Sergeant and two of the ladies had been MPs so he left all of the biker’s guns and ammo, but did accept half of the silver that had been collected to cover his teams time and trouble taking the town back.

  As John, Beth and Gus walked away, three women came up to him and told him that they would like to join John’s group.

  The one that appeared to be the leader of the three spoke up and said, “John, we can earn our keep and fight when necessary. Karen was an MP, Jill was a supply Sergeant; both were Army. I am Meg and I was a Warrant Officer and helicopter pilot. All of us saw action in Iraq and have had to kill a few times.”

  John listened and replied, “Certainly y’all are welcome to join, but this will not be a cake walk.”

  Meg replied, “John, y’all saved our sorry asses and I want to make sure that we repay you and help others like we were.” They all shook hands and headed out.

  The convoy was back on the road early the next day.

  Chapter 5

  On the Road Again!

  North of Decatur

  June 8, 2020

  Highway 65 south was a sea of stalled cars, trucks and many people walking to only God knows where. Most of the people kept to themselves, but several groups tried to get the convoy to stop to no avail. It was hard driving past so many women and children who wanted food or a ride to anywhere besides where they were. They had been shot at a couple of times, but no one was hurt and only one window shot out.

  Beth pointed at the numerous tractor-trailers parked among the stalled vehicles and said, “I wonder where they were going a
nd what they are carrying?”

  John hit the brakes and came to a full stop behind the nearest trailer. He waved to the team to gather around him.

  John addressed the team, “As y’all know, the power grid is down; food and water are getting scarce and we are the law. Beth just pointed out that most of these trailers that we have been passing have food or supplies that we need. We are going to start checking them for food, weapons, supplies, and take as much as we can with us to the bunker. Does anyone have any objections or ideas?”

  Scott replied, “We need to commandeer a couple of trailers to pull behind the trucks so we can carry more supplies. We also need to tell Steve to do the same.”

  They all agreed, so Scott led a team to go find four trailers while John led the team to check trailers.

  Bill took a crowbar and removed the lock from the first trailer they found. The lock came off easily and the door was opened to deliver the smell of rotted meat. Lesson one was don’t open refrigerated trailers. John opened the next one and found that it was loaded with canned goods and grocery items. He felt like he had hit the mother lode. Several of the guys helped him go through the contents, Scott brought a trailer over and they loaded it full of canned meat and vegetables. John found six different flavors of Spam and was sure that God was smiling down on him. Jalapeno Spam was his favorite. As John watched the last case loaded on the trailer, he wondered why no one else was raiding the stalled trailers.

  They found one tractor-trailer with fresh vegetables that were edible, but only found car parts, plumbing supplies and several other trailers with rotted meat, but nothing useable. The sun was setting, so they decided to set up camp and go at it again in the morning. They only covered about five miles due to checking out the trailers. John surprised the cooks and started frying Spam by the pan full. Fried Spam, corn on the cob and fried potatoes were enjoyed by all that night.

  Scott took several of the men and two trucks to drive back to a town that they had just passed about three miles back. He hoped to find four abandoned trailers or at least trade for some trailers with food, ammo and some of the guns they had captured. They knew that they had to be very careful approaching the town because even good people could shoot first and ask questions later.

  They got about a quarter of a mile from the town and Scott took one of the guys with him to scout the town to determine if they were friendly and if there were any trailers that could be used. The closer to the town that they got the more they noticed that there was no one in sight. The town was the typical Alabama farm town that had many gas stations, churches, fast food restaurants and a Wal-Mart. Scott used binoculars to scan the town for a few minutes and saw several burned out cars and buildings. There was also evidence of a large battle that left pockmarks on buildings and thousands of shell casings scattered around the streets. In front of the courthouse was a black Humvee that was shot up and partially burned. There were no bodies or for that matter, any signs of people around anywhere.

  They entered the town and slowly crept down a side street while being careful to keep cover nearby. They finally spotted about twenty trailers in a Tractor Supply parking lot. Most were small, but several were sixteen feet long and a couple of goosenecks were enclosed thirty-foot horse trailers. Scott used a walkie-talkie to get the others to join them at the trailers.

  They arrived in about ten minutes and were hooking up the trailers when one of the guys went up to Scott and said, “Scott, I saw something move between those buildings on the right.”

  Scott replied, “I’ll slide away and sneak up behind the building and flush them out. You go over towards the front and be ready if they come that way.”

  Scott backed out of the group, circled around the building, and went into the back lot, which had a hedge that gave him cover. He stayed behind the hedge and covered about two hundred yards when he heard people talking. He listened to the conversation for about ten minutes and heard them trying to decide if they should make contact with these intruders. The argument revolved around do they hook up with a larger group or keep hiding from the DHS. Scott stood up and raised his hands to get their attention. They raised their guns towards him as he walked towards them.

  He said, “I’m Scott Harris and we only came here to get four trailers. If they belong to you, then we’ll pay for them.”

  There were three young women and two older men standing in front of him with guns aimed at his chest.

  Scott said, “If you lower the guns we can talk about y’all joining us and what happened in this town.”

  One of the men spoke up and said, “Lower your guns, he’s not here to hurt us.”

  He looked at Scott and said, “Where did you get the fancy military guns?”

  Scott replied, “We took them from some bad guys who were trying to hurt us. It looks like y’all have had a run in with the same bad guys. The DHS was supposed to be helpful to citizens, but it appears they have become an occupying power with an agenda that is not in our favor.”

  By this time, Scott’s backup had walked up to the group with his rifle aimed at the group. Scott waved for him to lower the gun. They all walked over to a picnic table and sat down to share stories.

  The leader was the pastor at the First Baptist Church and had been in the Army right out of high school. He told them that the DHS had come into town several times trying to talk them into moving into the relocation camp. The mayor and city council met with them and adamantly told the DHS leader that the two thousand citizens of Pineville are doing great and did not need help. They suggested that the DHS go find someone who needed help. They had plenty of food, water and all other necessary supplies and were mainly farmers so they were in great shape. They even had several mechanics that were getting many of the trucks and cars running by retrofitting them with engine parts from the 60s and 70s. The DHS leader told them that there were many bands of bad guys out there raiding towns like this and taking women and children as sex slaves. The mayor told him that he had over five hundred armed fighters that could handle themselves.

  All went well that week, but several families came into town reporting that raiders had hit them during the night, shot up their cattle and drove trucks all through their crops. Every day afterwards the violence escalated until there were farmers and town folk being killed or burned out.

  The raiders killed a family of five and hung their naked bodies from a tree at the edge of town. The woman and three girls had been raped and sodomized and had words carved into their chests. This scared the hell out of the women and whole families started to travel to the camp in Mobile. It didn’t take long until there were only a few hundred people were left around the town and nearby farms. That was when the DHS came back and tried to force the remaining people to go to the camp in Mobile.

  The Pastor said, “They came with four armored Humvees, five trucks and ten buses. They were ready for the people to drop their arms and load up like cattle. Well, the bastards were wrong.”

  He continued to say that many of the locals had gone home to get a few personal items and was ready to load up when the DHS told them no pets or guns could be taken to the camp. When the people balked, one of the DHS thugs butt stroked a man with his rifle. All hell broke loose! Two men tackled the thug and were shot. Suddenly everyone with a gun began shooting at the other side. The town folk had the upper end in just a few minutes, killed almost all of the DHS men and burned all of the buses and trucks before the DHS could get the Humvees into the action. The twin machine guns on each vehicle quickly put the fight to an end and the remaining town folk went into hiding.

  There were only ten DHS men left alive at the end of the battle and they only got out alive because they were in the armored Humvees. The Pastor then said something that scared the shit out of Scott.

  He said, “You know those bastards are overdue, they usually come back through every two to three days about this time and we haven’t seen them in five days. We usually pick off one or two and go hide until they leave.”


  Scott replied, “We need to get the hell out of here. What can we do to help you?”

  They told him that they needed some more powerful weapons.

  Scott gave them their M4 rifles and ammo, then told them, “Look, y’all have to stop ambushing them in your town. They will eventually carpet bomb your asses. Hit them on roads ten to twenty miles from here. Hit different locations. Our home base is only a short distance away and we need allies. We also need a pastor to marry my dad and soon-to-be mom. We will bring you better weapons and plenty of ammo and we will teach you better tactics.”

  The Pastor replied, “Thanks so much for the help and I will be glad to conduct the ceremony.”

  They shook hands and parted.

  ***

  Scott’s team drove up with the two horse trailers in tow and were warmly greeted by their friends. Scott quickly told the others that they had to go back and get the other flatbed trailers and then told them about the town’s experience with the DHS. John told Scott to take a couple of extra men and a load of rifles and ammo for the town. He also took Scott’s advice on watching for the DHS on their way to the town.

  They were only gone about two hours and came back with two trailers in tow and another piled on top of each trailer. Scott reported that the town was excited to get the guns and ammo and would be happy to work with them to defeat these DHS assholes.