by R Kralik
As the horde began making its way along the fence line, HDI's began falling into the moat. As soon as he saw that many were climbing out, Dane sent several flaming arrows toward the moat and fire quickly came to life along the entire length.
The bulk of the horde lost some of its cohesion, and a good number of HDI's started heading off in every direction.
A motorcycle came up fast alongside the horde and couldn't avoid the moat. It tumbled end over end before finally coming to a stop. Neither Dane nor Mick saw the rider but they heard his screams. HDI's near that section of the moat stopped trying to climb out and focused themselves on devouring the motorcycle rider instead. The screams quickly faded.
HDI's in the moat began climbing on top of one another to get out. Many of them were in flames but the fire didn't quell their desire to find living flesh. Mick saw a flaming arm fall completely off a flaming HDI and land on a bamboo stake at its feet. He could hear popping, hissing, and crackling of flesh as it burned, and the smell was almost overwhelming. He said it was like a scene from a high-budget horror movie with smell-o-vision.
Small crowds formed along the five-foot strip of land between the moat and the fence. Many HDI's were temporarily detained because they had bamboo stakes sticking up through their feet. Several of them, basically, pulled their feet completely free of their ankles and left them on the stakes in order to get to the fence. The HDI's began pushing on the fence, trying to go through it instead of over it.
When a group of HDI's defeated a section of fence and started walking up the hill, Mick started shooting. Dane began shooting from his side of the property.
A group of HDI's climbed the front porch of Marisa's trailer and began pounding on the outside walls, windows, and door. Several climbed on top of others and made it onto the trailer roof.
Without warning, the trailer exploded. Pieces of the trailer along with HDI body parts flew through the air. The remaining parts of the trailer caught fire and were still burning when our group returned later that day.
The center front of the horde kept marching along like nothing was happening.
Dane said there were HDI's all over the Hobbs property and the big field beside it. He also saw HDI's walking into the creek and the Masterson's pond.
There were seven or eight motorcycles driving around, avoiding HDI's in the field. The riders were shooting any HDI that came too close for comfort.
Mick and Dane shot HDI's for quite a while before four motorcycles came weaving their way toward our property.
The bikes temporarily became bottlenecked at the driveway entrance. The riders had their weapons out and were randomly shooting at anything they saw moving on the hillside. By the grace of God, they didn't shoot the pool.
Dane used his last AR round to take out one of the riders coming through the bottleneck. He jumped down from the tree-stand to prepare for hand-to-hand combat.
He had his baseball bat and a large Ka-Bar knife. He also had his pistol on his hip, and it was fully loaded. He says he couldn't use the pistol from the tree-stand because he's no good with a pistol at a long distance. I'm thinkin' he just wanted to get his hands dirty.
Bullets were flying everywhere.
Three riders were circling and taunting him. They shot first into the air and then toward the dirt at his feet.
Dane could've pulled his pistol and taken out one or two of them before being shot himself, but he knew he couldn't take all three. He lunged toward one of the motorcycles and knocked the rider and bike to the ground. He landed on top and was trying to get the pistol out of the "s o b's hand" when one of the remaining riders drove his bike over Dane's leg.
Dane was more ticked off than hurt. He gave it a herculean try and yanked the pistol free, but caught his finger in the cuff of the "s o b's jacket" and bent it all the way back. He heard it snap.
He became totally infuriated,
He rolled over on his side and put a bullet into the face of one of the remaining riders. He turned back to the fallen rider, punched him in the nose until blood was spraying out, and then sent a bullet through his skull with his own pistol.
The last rider took off like a bat out of hell. Dane shot at him but missed. The motorcycle tires let out a squeal as the coward made the turn to leave our property and catch up with the main body of the horde.
Dane used the last of the bullets from the rider's gun on HDI's who'd been drawn by the sounds of the battle, and then he started smashing heads with the baseball bat. He'd lost the Ka-Bar knife somewhere between the tree-stand and the driveway.
The bat became slippery and he dropped it a couple of times, so he started bashing HDI heads together until brain matter was flying. He took out a lot of HDI's with his head-bashing technique.
A motorcycle came racing up behind the last of the HDI's. It wasn't traveling slow enough to avoid the moat, and the rider was devoured by hungry HDI's while his wheels spun in the air.
Mick was shooting HDI's when he was pushed from behind. He fell flat on his face. His leg landed on a bamboo stake and it went through his jeans and into his calf. The pain was unimaginable and he almost passed out.
He lay there, stunned and in pain, for several seconds before three gang members yanked him to his feet and began beating the living daylights out of him.
They tied him to a large pine tree and continued to pummel him. He knew his nose was broken because he could suddenly "see" one side of it better than the other.
They hit him in the face, ribs, chest, shoulders, and anywhere else they could land a fist. Blood was gushing down his face and onto his clothing.
One of them picked up a huge, knotty, pine branch and swung it like he was trying to hit a home run. Mick felt it hit the side of his head and heard the riders cheering as he lost consciousness. He doesn't know when he got shot in the hip.
Between head-bashings, Dane began to wonder where the remaining motorcycles from the field had gone. He hadn't seen them follow the horde, so he knew they were somewhere close. He heard shrieks of laughter from the tree-line half-way up the hill where Mick had been hiding.
The memory of Mick saving him from a hypothermic death came back to him and he decided he wasn't about to let Mick die. His blood ran cold and he began stalking the voices in the trees.
He headed back into the trees on the right side of the property, then high-tailed it to the top of the property and traveled behind the house and a short way down the left side. He could see a group of "punk s o b's" standing near a large pine. There was a body slumped over, tied to the tree. He knew it was Mick.
Suddenly, he felt a soft touch on the back of his neck. He turned and almost jumped ten feet in the air before he realized that a very large, animal nose was in front of his face. It was Buttercup and she'd come to help. She had burn marks on her legs but he couldn't recall seeing her anywhere near the moat or the fence line.
He had an idea.
He grabbed Buttercup by the mane and led her back to the top of the hill. He grabbed a rope from beside the laundry area and tied a makeshift halter around her head and neck.
Dane and Buttercup went back down the hill, outside the tree-line, until they were about thirty feet from Mick and the punk gang. Dane says he would swear on a stack of bibles that Buttercup was tip-toeing.
He climbed onto her bare back and touched her flanks with his heels, just a tiny bit. She started walking toward the gang.
As soon as Dane saw one of the gang members notice him and Buttercup, he jammed his heels into her flanks. She went at a full gallop into the group of punks and bowled them over like bowling pins at a championship tournament.
He jumped off her back and began shooting. The gang members were in a panic and were shooting in whatever direction their guns happened to point.
Dane still doesn't know exactly how many of them were there, but he knew that he left three of them dead on the hillside. One of the dead had his head bashed in by horse feet and the other two met up with bullets from Dane's pistol
.
He knows that at least two more made it out, going full speed down the hill on their bikes. They almost laid those bikes down several times on their way outa there. He let 'em go because he was more concerned with finding out whether Mick was alive or dead.
When he finally determined that Mick was alive, he untied him from the tree, cursing the entire time because he'd lost his knife and had nothing else to cut the rope.
Buttercup was standing back several feet and peeking out around a little maple sapling. He called her over and she willingly came. He loaded Mick across her back and headed for the S10. He saw the bullet hole in Buttercup's shoulder but there was nothing he could do and she didn't seem to be paying it a bit of attention.
He had to stop twice to bash HDI heads before he finally got Mick off Buttercup's back and into the S10. Buttercup watched him drive away. God, bless that horse!
He drove toward Pop's house until he saw Jason approaching. Jason turned around and they both headed to Pop and Nana's house where we were waiting.
You know the rest of the story.
1) We still don't know where or how Buttercup got her burns.
2) We have no idea who shot Mick in the hip.
3) I'm extremely grateful that Dane's on our side.
4) Elaine better do her absolute best to make Dane happy.
5) Dane could’ve used the hunting knife on Mick's belt to cut the ropes. Men!
I'm ready to climb in with Mick and close my eyes at a decent time tonight. I'll get up and get pain medicine if he needs it.
I hope I don't roll over onto his hip or leg, but he says he'll take his chances.
He has a clean gallon jug beside him, so I can sleep through yellow potty time. I can hardly keep my hands off him.
I'll write more tomorrow.
Bye for now.
Thursday, February 27
7:30 AM...
Mick says his leg is throbbing around the area of the puncture wound. He took a pain pill about thirty minutes ago.
The wound actually looks a little better this morning. There's no pus and just a small bit of drainage. The redness has faded a bit.
Dane will be here for breakfast this morning. I saw him at supper yesterday, and he said he's feeling much better. He's over his relapse from the hypothermia incident but his finger's still bothering him. It's still splinted and taped up, and Hisa warned him that it better stay that way until she says otherwise. He didn't argue.
Mick wants to sit at the table and talk with him while they eat, so I sent Jason down to the basement to bring up the metal walker. Hopefully, Mick can use it to take himself out to the table, and it won't hurt his hip too much to sit in a chair. His nose is still taped and it's funny to see him looking around the bandage when he's loopy from pain meds.
Jason shot two more HDI's near the fence this morning. The gunshots woke me. Marisa knocked at the door and told us what was happening so we wouldn't freak out.
Elaine's in the kitchen with Nana, making breakfast. I don't know what we're having but I hope there's plenty of it.
I'm gonna help Mick get dressed and head out to the kitchen. See ya later.
1:00 PM...
Jesse shot another HDI after lunch today. It was crawling in the moat and howling like a banshee.
All this HDI activity is making me crazy, especially since the front fence is mostly down. It's making Mick crazy too. He wants to sit in the Jeep at the bottom of the driveway and keep watch. There's no way he can do it and he darn well knows it.
The pain meds cause him to be loopy but he can't stand it without them. He says he hurts all over, but mostly at the site of the puncture wound. He says the pain in his hip doesn't even compare, and his nose is fine except for the annoying tape Hisa has all over it.
Soo, Marisa, Jason, and Jeremy are going to the chicken-killer-dog's house to bring home the sectional and chaise.
During the day, Mick can lay on the chaise lounge beside the fire. He said he can't stand it one minute longer in that bedroom. I know how he feels.
Dane told Jason to check for a propane tank behind that house, and if they find one, they should find out if the oven is gas.
We still haven't been inside the other homes or house trailers over there. Jason says he might check out one or two of them if he feels safe enough.
Dane and Mick discussed the fencing. Dane wants to build a vertical log fence along the front of the property. He shared his design ideas with all of us. Mick thinks it'll work, but it'll take a lot of time.
He agrees that the chain-link is not sturdy enough, so we are abandoning the chain-link in favor of a vertical log fence. We won't take down any of the chain-link until the log fence is in place.
Dane will be taking a couple of the guys and heading back to Lowe's to get all the concrete he can find.
He wants to use huge bolts through a horizontal half-log across the top, middle, and bottom of the fence. They'll have to drill holes completely through the logs to hold the bolts. He says we may be able to get the bolts from utility poles or abandoned machine shops. We can also use utility poles in place of logs. The problem will be getting them here.
Jason spoke up and said there was probably a dozen “splitting wedges” in the old Peterson shed we can use to split the logs lengthwise.
Mick suggested that we tie the vertical logs together with barbed wire as well. There's lots of barbed wire at TSC. Dane thought that idea was "wicked good."
They'll also go to the Lowe's forty miles from here. Dane wants concrete by the truckload.
He wants to dig the moat a little deeper and place the logs end first into it. He'll set them with concrete and then fill the moat with dirt and rocks from the mountainside. He wants to find a small backhoe.
I think finding the backhoe will be the easy part but getting it here is another story. They'll have to drive it here, and that will be slow goin'.
They discussed blocking the road. There's a little paved road on our street about eighty feet from our driveway. It goes up the mountainside about a mile before it takes a hard left turn, then goes almost a mile through a quaint little neighborhood across the middle of the mountain. Then, it turns hard to the left again and comes back down the mountainside. It ends about a mile from our driveway, on the same street it started from. Dane wants to destroy the paved road between the two mountain access roads.
We know the way to go around the roadblock, but strangers won't have a clue. It may add time to our trips, but it’ll be worth it to block traffic from town.
The fence and roadblock ideas will only come to fruition if we find lots of concrete, a backhoe, and enough diesel fuel. We're concentrating on the fence along the front of the property before we worry about the roadblock.
We must get the fence up before fall arrives because the northerners who haven't prepared will start heading south about that time.
I forgot to mention that I'm worried about the log fence catching fire. I'll ask Mick about it later.
10:00 PM...
Jason. Soo, Jeremy, and Marisa came home from the chicken-killer-dog's house with a big surprise.
None of us thoroughly searched the basement after disposing of the HDI bodies. The men were there only to eliminate and remove the bodies of the man and woman HDI, and make sure there were no more lurking in the dark corners.
Jason decided he would take a closer look while they were there. He took a solar lantern and headed downstairs.
He said he gagged as he walked through the body fluids and chunks of flesh left to rot when they eliminated the HDI's.
There’s quite a bit stored down there. He saw something that looked like a cabinet covered with an old quilt up against one of the walls and decided to investigate. He pulled the quilt off the tall object and found that it was a large gun safe. There was a shorter safe bolted to the floor right beside it. He sent a thank you up to Jesus that both of them had key locks because he had no idea how to break into anything with combination locks.
An hour later, they had a total of 36 keys, a large bag of marijuana, a small baggie of white powder, a baggie of something Jason called "rocks", and a gallon zip lock bag containing a lot of little plastic labeled baggies of assorted pills.
Jason threw the vehicle keys on the kitchen table with the drugs and left them there. He headed back to the basement with the ax and the remaining keys.
Within 20 minutes, the large safe was open.
Marisa said that Soo, Jason, and Jeremy just stood there staring before Jason reached inside and pulled out the first rifle like it was a newborn baby.
There were five rifles in that safe, and one of them is an AR-15 that’s been illegally converted to fully automatic. They also got a shotgun and three pistols. There was a large amount of ammo for each weapon.
Jason decided to move on to the shorter safe. Marisa said he was so excited that he could barely keep his hands from shaking while trying to find the key. It took only five minutes to get it open.
The inside of the shorter safe was packed full of ammo in the calibers related to each weapon from the large safe. Marisa says it was so packed that there wasn't room for another box. They loaded every gun and box of ammo into the truck and made Jeremy stand guard while they loaded the furniture.
Marisa grabbed the drugs from the table to give to Hisa for the inventory in Clinic Diane. Heck, I guess we can use them for trade if we need to.
When they got home, they called every man on the compound to the basement to unload and drool over weapons and ammo. Soo and Jason carried Mick down the stairs so he could join in the testosterone festival.
Pop says the haul is very good, and there's ammo to match almost all the weapons we currently have.
I think those who could dance were doing the Highland fling.
