by J. B. Craig
Doc showed up, and quietly helped several guys who didn’t have the right grip, sight picture, etc., but never picked up a weapon himself. Greg caught up with Doc at the end of the day and asked if he could have the honor of sharing one of his few remaining cigars with Doc on the back deck at sunset. Doc accepted the invitation, and Kim came with him bearing a potatoes au gratin made with some Velveeta and the last of their root vegetables, or at least those not confiscated by Ethyl for planting in the gardens.
While Kim and Jennifer hung out in the house, watching Annie and Sabrina play in the front-yard sandbox, Doc and Greg went to the back deck to visit. Greg brought out 2 Padron cigars, and a mostly-empty bottle of good Bourbon. About that time, Nellie came around the house, and looked at the men sitting in lounge chairs. She said, “Is this a boy’s club, or can a fellow veteran sit down and have a cigar, too?”
Greg and Doc both looked at her in surprise, to look at her beautiful smile. “Yeah, grunts, I’m one of you. 4 years overseas, 2nd Armored division, but I was a Rear Echelon Poge. That doesn’t mean I didn’t see my share of the shit in Afghanistan. They tried to blow me up plenty of times.”
Doc stood up. “Then take this seat! Greg, you got another smoke?”
“Well, it’s my last one, but for a fellow brother... um, sister in green, I guess we should make a party of it.”
The 3 veterans sat on the deck, watching the sun go down. Greg and Nellie talked about the units they served with, while all three smoked nice cigars. Finally, both Greg and Nellie looked at Doc, and said, “Your turn.”
Doc was always a quiet man, but among fellow Army veterans, he found his voice. “I was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan twice. I got blown up once in each country. This is from my second Iraq deployment.” He pointed to his neck and shoulder, where the stitches could clearly be seen going under his t-shirt. “After that, they kicked me out. I never shot at another man, and don’t plan to, but I’m here for you guys. I didn’t forget any of my training. I just don’t talk much. Do you have any bourbon, Greg.”
“As a matter of fact, Doc, I have about 3 doubles left of some of my favorite. There’s no time like the present.” Greg went in, and when he returned, Nellie had her arm around Doc’s neck, and was whispering something into his ear. There were tears flowing down both of their faces.” Greg stood in front of them both, handed them each a healthy double of bourbon, and stood at attention.
“Brother and sister, God bless the USA. Join me in a toast to all the bravest that we could, and could not save, and those that, most certainly, will need saving. We all know that they’re the real heroes. Thank you for your service, and let’s do everything we can to save more than we lose in the months to follow. Not many here know what is coming, but I’m glad to have you on my side.”
Nellie gave both men a hug, and Doc just nodded his head. When Jennifer and Kim came out the back deck, all 3 of the former soldiers had tears in their eyes, and were puffing on the cigars, and sipping the whiskey that was packaged with a wax stopper.
“Well, y’all are just a barrel of fun, aren’t ya?” She smiled, without laughing, and Kim walked behind Doc and Greg, putting a hand on each of their shoulders.
“Chow time, Rocks!” Move your ass! She smiled, as she escorted them all into the house, to sit down for a nice meal at the dining room table. Nobody asked about the conversation at the dock, but Greg knew that bonds were formed, and that he could trust these two with his life, and the lives of those he loved.
May – A Late Planting
Late April, and most of May was occupied with gardening, and guarding. Greg did get the family tiller fired up and had the section of the circle that Ethyl pointed out tilled out and ready for planting in a few days. The farmers in the community griped that the planting was late, and Ethyl looked at them in her special way, which shut them up. Ethyl selected another empty plot that would typically be up-wind, or West, and a smaller, heirloom garden was planted. After consulting with the local farmers, who did this for a living, they agreed that cross-pollination with the hybrid seeds couldn’t help the efficacy of the heirloom strands, which were descendants of durable plants whose seeds could be stored over winter, and planted the next year. Hybrid seeds had a very low reliability for future years, but did make bigger, and more pleasant fruit and vegetables to the eye, but not necessarily the palate.
Ethyl mentioned that the farmer’s winter wheat fields just outside the community would provide flour, provided they could work out a trading system. The farmers, to a man and woman, agreed that having a team to help defend their families was a fair trade for all of their produce, as long as everyone ate. Grinding it would be a challenge, but she and her team would figure that out when the time came. Usually, the farmers would just have the fields harvested, and driven away on trucks, in exchange for cash.
Inside the large glass windows on the front of the community center, Ethyl rigged up a set of growing tables so that the community could get some fresh sprouts, supplementing their bland food with some necessary vitamins. She made a point of saving and drying the seeds from most of the foods that she served. She would dry the seeds, and see what grew into edible sprouts, or could be planted. This was met with moderate success, resulting in various types of sprouts that were edible and nutritious very early in the growing season. Vitamins would hopefully not be a problem for the community.
One of Greg’s favorite things to do was to take Annie to the gardens and have her “help” him with weeding the rows of plants. She was taught to not touch certain types of green coming from the ground, and occasionally did get some weeds, but it usually ended up with the two of them making mud pies, and little castles in the mud. They had a very vivid fantasy world, with little princesses, and ogres. Greg was pretty good as a mimic, so he would make all kinds of voices, and Annie giggled a lot. He was really falling in love with this little, good-natured girl. Whenever Esteban was not on duty, he would come over and do really good TV impressions, like Shrek, Scooby Doo and SpongeBob, among many others. While he didn’t speak much, when he did, he was on-point and hilarious. It was hard not to love the big guy.
Greg did the exact same thing in his garden at home 15-20 years ago when his daughter Maria was Annie’s age. His son Jared didn’t like the make-believe in the garden, but would run through the woods creating his own fake “Army fights.” When he was old enough to participate in his dad’s paintball fights with Army buddies, Jared was in heaven. He took to stalking and hiding in ambush like a champ. He knew that his dad was a soldier, even though Greg didn’t often talk about his time in the service. One day, if Jared joined the military like he had been threatening to do, Greg MIGHT tell his son about his own time in, and the dangers of it. He secretly hoped his son would find a woman, or career. The only stipulation that he had for his son and military service was that he got his degree first. While he couldn’t require it (as much as he could with a “man” over 18), he told his son that he could decide to enlist as an E4 or be an officer, but the degree was a deal breaker. Because Greg tried to let his kids make their own mistakes after giving some “mild guidance”, both of the twins rarely heard “deal breaker”, so knew when something was important. Greg’s “deal breaker” speech was much like when their mom used their full names, so the kids usually paid attention. Since his son seemed to enjoy Georgia Tech, they didn’t bump heads over this “requirement” too often. He also had at least one girlfriend there at school, and maybe he’d miss the whole Military thing, despite his threat of ROTC enrollment, which Greg suspected was just his way of messing with Dad.
These adventures in the garden with Annie were occasionally bittersweet, as it reminded Greg that his kids were out there somewhere, in the highly-populated Washington-Baltimore-Philadelphia corridor, and Atlanta. He had to count on both of their common sense and physical strength to keep themselves alive. Maria was always into sports, from soccer to fencing to ice hockey, so her strength and endurance wouldn’t be a limiting factor to
her survival. He was even more confident of his son’s ability to live, as he had picked up some of his Dad’s prepper traits, including building a Bug-out Bag of his own, mostly with Dad’s cast offs. These cast-offs were perfectly fine, but giving them to Jared was an excuse for Greg to buy higher-quality toys for his own bag.
Jennifer
Jennifer woke up early, after doing her night shift in the Osprey Nest. She looked in Annie’s Bunk, to find an empty bed, with Annie missing. This wasn’t the first time Greg had let her sleep, while taking Annie, so Jennifer stretched out, got a glass of water. She quietly padded across the street to her house and went up to the balcony. She took a seat, quietly, in the shade while she watched Greg play with Annie in the community Garden.
Because her house was in the center of the circle, she had a commanding view of the community garden. It had 4 of Ethyl’s crew in there, weeding and watering, but she only had eyes for Greg and Annie. They were playing make-believe along a row of corn that was about knee high. Greg was pretending to defend each corn stalk, while Annie pretended to be invading the “castle”.
“Oh, no you don’t you scoundrel! I will protect this corn with my life.” Greg said in a deep voice.
“No, my corn!” squeaked Annie, who wound up a pretend catapult, and threw soil at the castle.
“AAAAhhhhh, Incoming!!! We know they won’t hurt the corn, so hide behind it!” Greg finger-walked his defender behind the corn stalk, and then said, in his best French accent, “I Fart in your general direction. You stink of elderberries!”
Annie laughed out loud, probably at the fart reference, and not so much the Monty Python quote. “YOU stink of elkerberries!”
“Oh, do you want a piece of me? You can’t handle a piece of me!” Greg pointed at the tot.
“I WANT A PIECE OF ME!” she wailed, then moved towards Greg.
Greg laughed, and fell back into a puddle of mud. Annie took the opportunity to launch herself at him, and they both got muddy, as a tickle-fight took place. Even the over-worked kitchen crew took a moment to laugh. A few threw mud pies at the wrestlers. Jennifer smiled to herself, and her feelings for Greg grew by quite a bit as she watched what he must have been like as a Dad.
“He’ll more than do, in a bind.” She said to herself out loud, then had to take some time to process that she may have just said a little more of a good-bye to Mike.
After an afternoon of “weeding”, Greg brought Annie home, to a mom who pretended to be shocked at the amount of dirt Annie had packed into every crevasse. “Greg, you know that we can’t just drop her in a tub, right?”
“Yeah. I figured I’d put on her swimmies, float around the harbor, and then you could rinse her off with some rain water.”
“YAY, Swimmies!” Annie had voted.
“But what about the Sea Nettles?” Asked a concerned Jennifer.
“Well, they better stay clear, or Annie might dress them up!” Greg laughed at Jennifer’s frown. “Seriously, hot momma, I’ll keep them clear, and she’s going to get stung at some point. It’s not like they’re Portuguese Men-o-war. Worst case, she cries, and you rescue her.”
Jennifer spent the next 15 minutes or so watching Greg wade around the pier, with Annie in swimmies. He made a big deal about defending from the invading swarm of Sea Nettles. He even picked up a few and threw them at the dock where Jennifer was sitting, smiling with a big hat on, and even bigger smile. He was careful not to hit her, nor did he make a big deal about the stings on his hand from his bravado.
When they were done, because Annie’s lips were blue, and she was shivering but smiling, Greg handed up Annie to Jennifer, and then swam a few laps of the harbor. This feat of cardio was not lost on either Jennifer or Greg. She watched him swim, and realized that he had probably lost 40 or 50 lbs since the day they met. The meals at the community center were healthy, but no more calories than needed for survival. The bigger citizens were losing weight, and the smaller ones were putting on muscle. Jennifer took Annie to the bath tub, and rinsed her off with a gallon or so of lukewarm rain water, and used some Johnsons baby shampoo to clean her hair, and the rest of her.
“Mommy, Greg is funny! I like him.”
“I like him too, snuggle-bug. I think we’ll keep him.” Jennifer said, unable to keep herself from walking to the glass, and watching his muscles as he swam laps of Rock Harbor.
When Greg swam back to the stairs on the dock, she met him with a rare treat – a cool-ish beer that she had tied to a string, soaking in the harbor, in the shade. She also had a gallon of cool-ish rain water, which she handed to him, to rinse off with.
“Don’t bring that stinky harbor water into the house, Greg. You did good today. Rinse off and we can go to dinner at the community center.”
Training
Training the following week was a string of banner days for the team. The Rock Army had gathered up enough bullets that Greg felt they could spare 3 rounds each, to practice shooting, and to zero in any weapons that weren’t dialed in. With bullets being so precious, each shot was a long, slow practice round of shooting, with the other members of the army cheering, or jeering, and sights being dialed in to the point that every member of the defense force felt they could at least hit a paper plate at 50 yards with a rifle, and 25 yards with a pistol.
Greg was pleased at the accuracy of his Army. Unsurprisingly, he was once again one of the worst shots in his group. The problem was that he had too many bad habits, from years of shooting as a child in Upstate NY. He qualified well enough with weapons in the army, but only ever shot expert with the M-16 rifle. Pistol qualification for him always ended up with the lowest ranking, Marksman.
Greg and Angel debated the wisdom of having everyone on a 12-hour shift of either day or night. Greg’s experience in the Army was to have a consistent shift, so that the internal timer could get used to the circadian rhythm of a new “normal” work day. Angel pushed for rotating shifts, so that people could work the night-shift, but not always. Timing shift changes at the 2 meals served in the center was a no-brainer. The men agreed with most of the citizens being on weekly 12-hour shifts, with staggered days to do half-shifts and swap out the day and night crew. The exception was that Greg insisted on being on night shift at the peninsula, just as Angel agreed that day shift at the gate was his right. Both men knew that they were each working more like 16 to 20 hours on any given day, with sleep being a luxury that neither overused.
After more discussion with the larger group, they ended up with a protocol where every week, half of the defenders would have one day where they worked 6 hours, then took a break for 12, and then took up the second half of the opposite shift. In this way, people would rotate who they worked with, and also build a sense of comradery with the whole unit, not just “their shift.” This meant that every person had 2 weeks of day, and 2 weeks of night, but the timing of the shift changes meant that they would all get to know each other.
May was a tough month, in that a few of the elders who had specific medical needs started to die off. A few killed themselves before succumbing to the symptoms of not having heart, diabetes, or liver medicine. Others found living without air conditioning too hard, and had various ailments, so they shot or hung themselves. Usually, they’d leave a note for the community, on where their good stuff was. Often, sadly, they’d have dug their own grave ahead of time. Sadly, Greg knew when something like this was coming, as the elders would stop showing up for meals a day or 2 in advance, most likely so they could save the food for the survivors. Everyone who did this was given the respect of a burial in the growing community cemetery, across the street from the community center in an empty lot.
Esteban and Manuel often went “outside the wire” salvaging for things and talking to the neighbors out there. Much of the larger peninsula between the Nomini and the mainland was farm land. They came back one day with some interesting news.
“Jefe, the good news is that there are about 4 more farming families in the 3 miles around us. The
better news is that there are about 10 farmsteads. We found a few with dead farmers in them. They killed themselves. Before they do that, they planted crops. We will be OK on food, if we can harvest their crops of corn, winter wheat, and soybeans. The farmers out there say they can’t harvest what they have without the tractors, and nobody to sell the food to. Some even rented combines when the crop was ready. Now it’s going to be hand-picking, but I told them we have the people. I also tell them that we have defenses and houses here if it gets too bad. We have friends most of the way to Montross, and about halfway to Warsaw, with plenty of food for everyone over the winter.
“Your friend Gunny says hello. Her store is now empty, but some of the families go there to trade, and we can trade there too. She say 1 bushel of crabs for 10 bullets or 10 eggs. I traded the last 20 bullets for that .32 auto we found for 20 eggs. Then I throw in the pistol and she gave me a live pollo! I give the eggs to Ethyl for dinner, and Este is keeping the chicken as a pet, since he found the .32.
