by A J Newman
I woke up at dawn, as usual, for the new me. Surprisingly, I felt very rested for having had the midnight to 2:00 am duty in the crow’s nest. Ally and I had made it a practice of keeping each other company when we pulled guard duty. I know it didn’t make sense, but we hated to be apart. When Mike found out, he gave me a rash of shit and called me whipped. I reminded him that he and Sally walked around hand in hand all of the time. Mike’s reply was that perhaps we had finally achieved happiness. I think he’s right.
I lay in our new bed with Ally’s head resting on my left arm and watched her sleep for half an hour before she woke up. Her eyes opened and she smiled at me.
“Good morning sunshine.”
She looked at me for a minute and said, “I love you Zack Johnson. How long have you been looking at me? Is my breath bad?”
“For a while and no.”
“Can we just stay in bed all day? I could sleep another couple of hours.”
“We could, but I want to meet with our team and then take some of the team over to Sailsberg.”
I gave her the short version of my plan and she liked my thoughts and made a couple of suggestions.
“Road trip, I’m in. Do I have time for a shower?”
“That depends. Do I still have the job of back scrubber?”
“Of course. Are you any good at your new job?”
“You tell me after I’m done.”
I received an A+ for back scrubbing.
Our shower took a little longer than Ally planned, but we joined the others for breakfast and I told them what I planned for the extra deputies and their families that had steamed into our community. I wanted their permission to enact my plan for our newly arrived people from the city.
“So we build a pole barn hospital here at the farm and we help spread out the deputies and their families from here to Sailsberg to live. These people will be a big help to those cities. Why do you need us to help with a decision?”
“Because we would still be adding about ten more mouths to feed right here in our group and having a hospital will result in every sick person within a hundred miles flocking here for treatment.”
“Oh crap.”
“Yes, we have winter coming and what food we have after harvest is all we will have until late next spring. I personally think we will find a way to feed everyone, but have to draw the line on any more. I’m also against building a hospital. Oh we’ll set up a room to treat our sick and injured, but no hospital.”
“It would be nice to help other people without hurting ourselves.”
“We can always help with labor and trading with other communities, but we have to always do the right thing for our community when it comes to life and death issues.”
Everyone agreed and took on the task to talk with the deputies about our plan. I asked Chuck to round up the ones here at the farm and to round up the remaining ones for a meeting that evening. I explained the situation and only a couple of the officers balked at moving further from Owensville.
“Look, I’d love to have all of you stay with us here, but we don’t have enough food for everyone to make it through the winter. I know Sailsberg can use a couple of Deputies and their families and I’m sure other communities would be glad to have some of you. We are spreading five of your families around Daviess County and two in Sailsberg. That only leaves three families that will be further away.”
One of the deputies replied, “I, for one, don’t want to move permanently away from this area. Is there a chance we could move back after the crops are expanded?"
“Yes, we have this year to get through and then it will get much better at farming and expand the land farmed. There is enough extra farmland we can eventually grow enough to feed many more people. The wildcard is can we protect what we have against invaders wanting our food? That’s why I feel it is important to keep all of you fighting crime and protecting our community.”
After the meeting Ally, Lynn, Roger and I headed out to drive along the railroad looking for communities that would be glad to get their very own policeman and his family. We took the Humvee for added protection and headed east following the railroad on Highway 52. The first community we came across was a ghost town. On a good day, the unincorporated town of Gillsville only had a caution light, a gas station and 120 people. We moved on to St. Charles and immediately saw people in the fields and around their houses. We drove into the town and an armed group of men met us.
“What do you want?
“We live over towards Owensville and are looking for communities along the rail to trade with. We have the train that went through here the other day.”
“How did you get the train running?”
“It never stopped running because it didn’t have any electronics. Old technology wasn’t affected by the EMP blasts. We’d like to share some of our technology with you. We have lights, running water and several refrigerators back in operation.”
They were interrupted when a Catholic priest walked between them and said, “Put the guns down and welcome our guests. Now you need to get out of that war machine and join us for lunch, I insist.”
The people shouldered their rifles and we dismounted the Humvee and introduced ourselves. We were treated to a lunch consisting of fried catfish, hush puppies and a salad.
“No kidding! You’re the Zack Johnson who walked from Oregon to Owensville after the lights went out?”
“I’m Zack Johnson and I actually drove a tractor most of the way.”
“Are you two the beautiful young women he saved along the way?”
“No, we joined the community before he arrived from Oregon and if you keep this up his head will be too big to get back in the Humvee.”
“Tell us about the train and your ideas about trading between the communities.”
I told them about working with Sailsberg to get the train running and the attack on the city. I filled them in on the situation in Owensville.
“Of course most communities won’t be able to trade food for services or goods until next year, we still want to set up the trade routes and stops for the train.”
“You said you had refrigerators running.”
“Yes and we will have more once we get some of the larger generators in operation.”
“If you put some refrigerators or freezers on that train and help us get power to run refrigerators here we can start trading fish for what you have to trade. We have fish coming out our ears. We are sick of fish and want something else to eat.”
“We can make that happen. How do you have that much fish?”
“As you know we are on the banks of the Ohio and have always had a strong commercial fishing history. We have several catfish farms around the town. When the lights went out, we started farming like everyone else, but we have a lot of people that hate to farm, but love to catch or raise fish.”
“We haven’t had much fish since the lights went out. We’ll have to start fishing also, but need your fish. We’ll trade grain and power plants for fish until we figure out what else we can trade.”
“Deal.”
“Before we negotiate a fair trade, do ya’ll have a sheriff or police here?”
“No, but we need several. The county sheriff disappeared when the lights went out.”
“You would have to house and feed the cop and his or her family because they wouldn’t be able to farm or fish full time. Any problems with a female cop?”
“That would be expected. If they like fish, bring them on. If they can do the job, we’ll be fine with anyone.”
We spent the next hour negotiating how much fish would be worth a steam powered generator and how many books per fish. We left a little after 2:00 pm and headed to the next community along the way. We had twenty pounds of smoked fish to take home with us.
Ally said, “I never thought those books would come in handy. Now we can trade them for food. Perhaps we can trade the DVDs and CDs also.”
“People probably have tons of those around their
houses.”
“Yes, but they will get tired of watching the same ones over and over. We can be the Movies R US of post-apocalyptic America.”
“So we only have a couple of more deputies to find homes for and our trip will be a success.”
The trip was far more successful that we imagined. While the next two communities wanted to trade, they had no need for more police and little to trade that we needed. They would benefit from our help in survival training and how to get old trucks running. That story changed when we went on past Sailsberg and the people of Clover Field greeted us. It was another city on the river and was the home to several meat packing plants. There were four large warehouses full to the brim with canned chicken, beef and pork. One was filled with every variety of Spam and I love Spam. They were tired of a meat diet and were ecstatic to trade for generators, fish and grain. They were late planting their crops and hadn’t had all of the fresh vegetables that we took for granted. They also needed several cops. Our first trade mission was a complete success. We spent the night at a house next to the Mayor’s home. The people had been in Florida on vacation and never returned. We had a good night’s sleep and left the next morning.
We were riding along in silence when Ally broke the ice, “Lynn, how long have you and Roger been together? He seems like a nice guy.”
“We have been seeing each other for a little over two months and plan to get married soon. Are you and Zack getting married?”
“We haven’t discussed it yet. We’re letting our kids get used to the idea first. We really just started dating a few weeks ago, so we’re not in a hurry.”
“Well, I’m pregnant, so we will get married soon.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thanks, it will be my first.”
We headed on back to Sailsberg to check in with Billy the curator/engineer and start trade discussions. The people were much more outgoing and friendlier than before. Getting that gang taken care of had enabled them to have enough food and the kidnappings had stopped. The captives from the gang fit into the community and were already contributing. Life was good in Sailsberg.
“We want to thank you and your guys for freeing us from that gang. We didn’t show our gratitude last time because we were still fearful of retaliation after being under their thumbs for so long. Once we recruit a few more police, we will be much stronger and able to resist outside threats.”
“I just happen to know where you can find some experienced deputies.”
We had a great lunch and trade meeting before heading home.
“I think you committed to sending out more deputies than we have available.”
“I know; I’ll talk with Bert and work something out. I just couldn’t say no when people are in need.”
Our little community has had several weeks of plain old boring existence and I liked it. No one shot, no one robbed and everyone has a full belly. Life was getting a little boring after the action packed several months after the lights went out. We all agreed that boring was okay.
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Chapter 12
Disease and Spies
Owensville, Kentucky
It only took a few weeks for Bert, his deputies and their families to settle into our community and the ones we trade with between Owensville and Clover Field. There were still over twenty vacant homes within 10 miles of my farm and our plan was to help relatives and close friends of our community to move from the city and occupy them. Bert chose an older two story farm house that had a nice barn and a 60x40 pole barn. We helped him convert the pole barn into the headquarters for his operation and even installed a jail with two cells made of welded rebar with a concrete floor. We made sure the deputies' spouses or significant others obtained jobs and assignments for guard duty. Bert had fourteen men and eight women deputies left in our community. All, but three had served in the military or previous police departments before joining him.
Ally and I rode horseback over to Bert’s place to take him a ham and some fresh vegetables. I also wanted to see the jail after Mike bragged on his welding job.
“Hello, we rode over to see the new jail and give you a housewarming gift.”
“Good to see you.”
“Ally, the wife is in the kitchen trying to get everything organized. Go right in to the kitchen.”
Ally went in and visited with Bert’s wife and daughter while we went over to the new Sheriff’s headquarters and jail. I must admit I was impressed with the quality of the work.
“This looks very professional. How did you get this kind of quality?”
“We had professional construction people renovate the pole barn and add the offices and cells. Jacob provided the generator to power the tools and several local lumberyards provided the materials. The lights went out, but we still have many very talented people just waiting for power to ply their trades.”
“I’m very impressed.”
“I want to bring you up to speed on Owensville. The city continues to fight the illness, but it’s been a losing battle. Over half the people fled southeast towards Madison and Perkinsville with a large number of them dying on the road. The population of Owensville is down to less than 2,000 and shrinking daily. The good news is that they have closed down all of the contaminated wells and forced the people to either boil their water or take boiled water from the city.”
“I’m sorry to hear about such devastation and misery. Is there anything that we can realistically do to help them?”
“I would like to say yes, however, the Mayor took one of the small generators that we gave them to power her house while the large one powers city hall. Several of the other small ones ended up in Anderson powering Todd’s home and their city hall. There appears to be no concern at all for using the generators to assist the city. Zack, I have to add that I think that Bonner and Todd have formed some kind of alliance and may be a major threat to us.”
“Do you know something new or just the same Bonner and Prescott wanting to rule our world?”
“She told me that she was glad my deputies and I had moved out of town and told me not to come back. I learned that Prescott’s security guards have taken over policing the city and are ruling with an iron fist.”
“I hear you, but what has changed that makes you worried?”
“She slipped up and said a couple of things that suggest she has spies in our community. She also said that she wants to seize the train to use it for all communities and not just benefit ours.”
“The train is servicing eight communities and several large farms between here and Sailsberg. We are extending the route to Clover Field this week and keep moving towards Louisville afterwards. She knows damn well that we can’t go into Owensville until she gets the dysentery outbreak under control, nor do we want food or supplies that might be contaminated. We could increase our trade of food for fuel if she’ll take fish in trade.”
“What do you want to do to catch the spies?”
“We don’t want to catch them. Let’s feed them some good juicy information and let them catch themselves. I think Grant and Mary are the spies in my group and I’d bet that the Greens are the spies out in the community.”
“So we’ll bait the trap.”
“Yes and we should protect our most valuable assets because when the spies are revealed they might leave and take things with them. I think I know where you are heading. I’ll get Mike and Jacob on board and we’ll handle our end.”
“I’ll double the security on my armory at the back of my headquarters. Tell Mike I need some more welding done.”
***
We finished increasing security and then developed a plan to flush out the spies while also springing a trap to catch anyone who takes the bait. The bait was an old rail car filled with cattle at our depot waiting on the train to arrive and take it to Sailsberg for trading. I allowed Mary to overhear me talking with Ally about us rounding up twenty head of cattle the next morning early and trucking them to the d
epot to be loaded up on a railcar. Bert had one of his deputies let Mr. Green hear about a truck shipment leaving a warehouse several miles away from the depot that was heading to Clover Field with medical supplies and ammunition by truck.
We knew that Owensville hadn’t had any meat for over a month and the information put out on the ammunition was that there were 10,000 rounds each of 9mm and .556. This would be impossible to resist for Todd or Prescott’s people. I took command of the operation at the Depot and Bert had the operation at the warehouse. There were only two cows in the truck heading to the depot and no ammunition at the warehouse. We took over a week to set up our positions and only brought our most trusted people into the loop during the planning phase. Bert loaned me four deputies in addition to Chuck and Frank to bolster our team for the upcoming conflict. We manned the traps before midnight and watched the enemy slide into their positions to attack their intended targets.
***
I stationed Joan, Ally and Lynn on top of the water tower and had the best field of view. They all had ARs with NVG scopes and tasked with making sure no one escaped. Besides, I didn’t want them to be shot and the water tank was the safest place to be if you had to be in this battle. The rest of the men and women were placed so they would have the enemy in a horseshoe that yielded a killing field of overlapping fire. Most were behind stacks of railroad ties that were delivered earlier in the week. The rest were in fox holes we dug after dark each day and hid from the view of the depot workers. This should be a turkey shoot as my uncle used to say.
We had twenty men and six women fighters. I had spread the NVGs out, so each smaller group had a spotter. We expected ten to twenty in the attacking force. We had the element of surprise and I had given Mike and Roger some hand grenades to use in an emergency. If we were about to be overrun, the enemy would get a big surprise.
