We’d collected a slew of toys from the houses around town as well as the resale shop to help keep our youngsters entertained. It was wonderful to watch them play together and use their imaginations. It was also interesting to see how their play had changed over the months since the flu. Television shows, movies and video games were rarely discussed except for maybe an occasional passing reference to a show, term, or character that was once common knowledge among children. It was kind of weird realizing that Jason would likely grow up never understanding such references.
I think that while all of us seemed to be enjoying our situation in Olsten, the kids were adjusting the best. They would often play around the building or on the side of the street in the shade of the storefront, filling up toy trucks to haul rocks and dirt, or they’d build streets and race tracks in the gravel where which they could push toy vehicles. Jason loved filling little dump trucks full of stones and gravel at the bottom of the store’s front steps and pushing them a short distance to dump their loads and then reload them to repeat the process over and over again. He could literally spend hours there playing quietly by himself. Sometimes the boys would set up platoons of tiny army men up on the side of the porch or along the steps, often accompanied by toy tanks, trucks, and jeeps, and have battles in which pebbles were used as rockets, bombs and artillery. They’d sit a few feet away and bombard one another’s forces until one was declared the winner, and then they set up their troops and start all over. Sarah usually sat out these little wars, content to dress a doll and play with it nearby or pick flowers and dandelions.
But it seemed like the activity the kids most enjoyed playing was “store” inside our own general store’s first floor. They would set up a variety of items that were “for sale” on the store’s long oak countertop and inside the glass display cases. There they would pretend to sell all sorts of stuff. Dandelions, sticks, rocks (or “gems” as they called them), wood blocks, faux pieces of plastic food, books, other toys, and sometimes even pieces of real candy if we doled them out as special treats were all fair game when they were playing store. But what they liked best about the activity was that they got to use real money since we adults no longer had a use for it. The kids found using real cash “cool,” so we made a conscious effort to accumulate as much cash and coins as we could find from our searches of the homes and stores around town. The kids loved it when we would come home from searching an area and plunk down a bag of change or give them a wad of now worthless bills. Sometimes they’d divide their little group up so that one of them operated the store, one (usually Paul) ran the bank, and the other two acted as customers. I found it interesting to watch them interact and run their little businesses or negotiate a bartered deal of some sort for their purchases. The adults all agreed that transacting their commerce in negotiated trades would likely be the best training for a future in which there was no guarantee that a standard currency as we once knew and utilized the US dollar would ever be necessary again. But the kids loved using the cash so much that we allowed this sort of payment as well.
As things wound down most afternoons, we’d start getting dinner ready. Sometimes we’d cook a little Bessie on the grill out back. Since we were trying to conserve our supplies, we’d typically make tiny sliders, mostly just to get the taste of the meat, and then combine them with sides of things like dehydrated mashed potatoes, pasta, rice, and other filler food to extend the dish. Most evenings – much to Sharron’s delight – we’d end up going vegetarian or using tiny bits of Paul’s collected squirrel meat, marinated in a sauce of some sort, to work into a dish for flavor, substance, and some protein. Sharron usually ended up eating a similar meal to ours but with various nuts or beans mixed in rather than squirrel meat for her sources of protein. Sometimes, just one or two of us would cook; other times it would be more of a family affair depending upon the intricacy and size of the meal. The kids often preferred cereal as their dinner of choice, and most of them had become accustomed to having it in a powdered milk mixture. Paul still complained about the “funny taste” occasionally, but there wasn’t much choice about the matter.
After our dinners, as the sun would begin to set and the evening air started to cool, the parents regularly allowed themselves a beer, which was now more like half a beer as we tried to ration our supply in this area as well. We’d sit on the porch in our respective chairs and watch the kids as they entertained themselves out in the street playing ball, hide-and-seek, tag, or catching fireflies.
We’d spray the kids down with bug repellent to help keep the mosquitoes away. However, we soon realized during our evening sittings that the nighttime birds we had noticed swooping around us above the store weren’t birds at all – they were bats. And the bats of the town soon became our allies in the defense against mosquitoes as they consumed many of the pesky nuisances.
Some evenings, after a bit of sitting and watching the kids, we’d break off into groups, going for walks around town. Our “evening constitutionals” is what we called them. Sometimes just a few of us would go. Other times almost the whole group would head out. Sometimes we’d break off into several small groups. Other times we’d all walk together. There was never any pressure to go on these walks or expectations to be there at a particular time, but for many in our group, it became a kind of nice way to wind down after a long day. We’d talk about the day’s events and discuss what we were going to do tomorrow, what projects we had planned, or what we’d put on the back burner and wanted to get to at some point in the near future.
One such project involved working to clean up several of the houses so that each individual segment of our group could have their own, adding a bit more privacy to our lives and making Olsten back into a town – our little town.
Things were finally beginning to shape up as I had envisioned them. Our enclave appeared safely forgotten by the outside world.
My main concern was our water supply for the rest of the long, hot, Georgia summer.
Chapter 12
Work came first in the hours following the National Guard armory raid. It was nearly two in the morning before the repairs were done on the Stryker armored vehicles. Then they were then driven back to base and safely stashed out of sight in a large shed that Jake had his men quickly erect behind the pump station.
The machinegun that had been used against Jake and Ava’s SUV during the raid was mounted atop the pump station roof along with the Protector M151 Remote Weapon Station’s 7.62 mm M240 machinegun that had been stripped from the one Stryker that couldn’t be fixed.
Jake’s men had scavenged an array of supplies from the armory. Canister upon canister of ammo, assault rifles, tools, food, alcohol, cigarettes, silver coins, and more. Jake was like a kid in a candy store – or maybe more like a sexually depraved scumbag in a strip club – as he stood watching the parade of supplies offloaded from the trucks.
After all their loot was safely stashed with the rest of their hoard inside the pump station, and the Strykers were concealed under cover of the shed, Jake posted two of his newer recruits to man the machineguns atop the roof, and another at the main door, and then allowed the rest of his men to partake in a raging party that went on for the next 24 hours.
Ava didn’t partake.
She knew that the days immediately following the strike against the armory would be the period during which it was most likely one – or even all – of the Three Families might come after them in reprisal for the taken weaponry.
But as the hours ticked by, nothing happened. And as Jake and his men finally slipped into an exhausted slumber on the dawn of their second day of debauchery, Ava took a moment to breathe a light sigh of relief and enjoy a little peace and quiet.
Still, she knew that she couldn’t relax for long. Now that they had their new instruments of destruction, she understood that Jake would be itching to use them. Plus, she needed to replace their losses from the armory raid. They had lost several of their newer recruits and she wanted to ensure that they h
ad the manpower available should the Three Families just be biding their time in waiting to lay claim to the Strykers. It was actually an opportunity for which she’d been waiting, but she knew she had to tread carefully when it came to how she made her next move.
Therefore, before Jake’s partying began in earnest, she quickly pulled him aside and pleaded her case. She talked about the Three Families, how they might retaliate, and how their own organization should be ready for anything. And that since they’d lost a few guys, she explained, they should at least replace them, if not add a few more just to be on the safe side.
Jake didn’t really give a shit if she brought in more guys. He wanted to get drinking and didn’t want to be bothered with the recruiting process, which was exactly what Ava had hoped. He personally felt adding more fresh faces unimportant now that they had the Strykers to “take care of business” as he put it. But he told her that if she wanted to waste her time that she should go ahead.
And Ava did just that.
This was Ava’s chance to expand their organization in a different way – her way. First, she took a walk over to where “Brownie” and “Blondie” – as she now referred to the brown and blonde-haired men – lived. While she didn’t want the two young men who she’d been using to conduct her own personal assignments to reside at the pump station with the rest of the crew and where Jake could exert his direct influence over them, she at least wanted them on the payroll.
In the basement of their dilapidated home, she negotiated their contract with drugs. She would provide them with just enough to keep their steady habit going, but not so much that they would become the sort of degenerates that she found expendable in battle. She would also provide them with food and supplies. In return, they would be at her disposal for whatever she – or Jake – needed. They didn’t like the mention of the Jake part too much, but they were willing to agree to the terms if they could count on Ava to provide them with a steady stream of product.
A buddy of theirs was visiting when Ava arrived. He was older; Ava estimated probably somewhere in his late-30s, maybe early-40s. The guy had a bushy beard and had worked construction in his previous life. He was a prepper sort from northern Georgia which was what had enabled him to outlast the flu. He and his brother had traveled down to Atlanta after their supplies ran out. His brother had died about a month back and now “Bushy” as Ava nicknamed him, was on his own and doing some work for an area trader. He was looking to move in with Brownie and Blondie. Bushy liked to party too, but he wasn’t into the hard stuff. He was strictly a booze and weed man.
Ava saw this as a dual opportunity. In her brief visit, she decided not only to add Bushy to the company payroll, but to pick his brain regarding the trader for whom he’d been working. From what he told her, it sounded like this particular trader could provide a perfect future target for their crew. He was operating several gas stations, but he’d yet to fall under the umbrella of protection the Three Families – and the X Family in particular – offered.
Much of Bushy’s day, he explained, was spent scavenging gas, something he intensely disliked due to his constant run-ins with others working the same locations for a few measly ounces of fuel. Free gas was becoming harder and harder to come by as all the easily accessible vehicle and equipment tanks had largely been siphoned dry. With the low-hanging fruit now picked clean, people were often being threatened, beaten, shot, or worse over a quart or two of gas from a lawn mower or motorcycle, and Bushy said it just wasn’t worth the risk anymore.
The offer from Ava to ditch all that and join up with her crew where things were more comfortable and the raids typically only took place once or twice a week and resulted in far greater rewards, piqued his interest. Ava told him that he was free to live with Brownie and Blondie at the house, but he needed to be at her and Jake’s disposal whenever necessary.
She also mentioned that as an unspoken rule, the men all reported to her first and foremost, although this was never to be mentioned to Jake.
They all agreed to her terms.
And thus, Ava was pleased with the day’s work. She’d accomplished all she’d set out to do and then some. The addition of Bushy and the knowledge he brought with him about the trader for which he’d worked had been an unexpected bonus. And best of all, none of these men knew or had been influenced by Jake.
* * *
Ava told Jake about her new recruits – Brownie and Blondie at least, not Bushy. She didn’t want him to think she was hiding things from him. She also told him that the men weren’t coming to live at the pump station.
Jake didn’t like it at first. He said that it was bullshit that she was hiring people and then not bringing them around to pull their weight. But Ava understood her position with Jake, and she knew that she still controlled the power of sex over him and could occasionally put her foot down and make a fuss as long as it wasn’t over something really important to Jake or done in front of the other men.
Therefore, she bitched to him that it already stunk like shit in the pump station with all his men around. And with summer in “Hot-lanta” fast approaching, she didn’t want to add further to the “pig sty” the place had already become. She said this all in her bitchiest tone, and Jake knew well just how Ava could get. When she was in one of her “moods,” he did his best just to placate her and shut her the hell up. She usually got pissed off about stupid shit like cleaning the place up or where the guys were taking their pisses, so he didn’t mind making these occasional concessions. They were typically minor in nature, and as long as it kept Ava putting out, he was willing to go along with her little requests every once in a while. What did he care where these two fucks lived? As long as he could depend on them to carry a gun and shoot halfway straight when the time came, he was fine with it.
Jake had bigger shit to focus on – that shit being finding a place to use his Strykers where he could do some serious damage. He wanted to play with his new toys. Therefore, after giving Ava her way regarding her new recruits, he told her to develop a plan for executing this mission, which was exactly what Ava hoped he would do.
With several such targets already in mind, it didn’t take long for Ava to provide Jake with their first strike location. It was a tiny gas station several miles away that was not yet in control of the X Family. It was really just a fun run, and Ava knew it.
Jake plowed the two Strykers in and lit the place up with the .50 caliber machinegun, taking out five guards in the process. Then he refueled several support vehicles they’d brought along for the raid. They couldn’t refuel the Strykers since the gas station wasn’t carrying diesel fuel, an increasingly scarce and valuable commodity.
Once they were done, Jake used the Mk-19 automatic grenade launcher to blow the place to kingdom come.
Ava was disgusted by the waste of the remaining fuel at the gas station as well as the ammo they used to destroy it, but it was a huge morale booster among the men. It made Jake look like a big shot. And who could deny that boys didn’t love blowing shit up? An explosive firework display was not however, the way in which Ava had envisioned the Strykers being utilized, and she planned the next raid accordingly.
Ava had more grandiose visions in mind and therefore convinced Jake to go along with her next plan. It actually hadn’t taken much convincing. Jake was having a blast playing Captain Destructo, but at the same time, he was still tired of the small-time raids and bored with what he now termed, “the same old shit.”
What was quickly becoming difficult for Ava though, was finding targets that hadn’t already been laid claim to by the Three Families. Their reach was becoming increasingly all-encompassing around the Atlanta metro area, and both Jake and Ava felt the pressure of their presence in the dwindling assets that remained unclaimed.
But this aspect was only part of the problem for their burgeoning organization. The bigger issue was finding a place to keep all the supplies that they were acquiring. It had become a real pain in the ass to hoard and to store all the stuf
f they were accumulating on their raids and they were running out of room in and around the pump station. At the same time though, they didn’t yet have the manpower to store and secure supplies in off-sight locations. Not only this, but they were quickly realizing that they couldn’t feed their crew with guns and bullets. They had more than enough destructive firepower, but not enough food, booze and cigarettes, which were the lifeblood of their organization. Even though they were being successful in their raids and accumulating plenty of “stuff,” they were still living largely hand to mouth. They’d load up on food, cigarettes and booze, and within a week, it’d all be gone. Their organization had absolutely no willpower to restrain themselves and ration their supplies. The men drank and smoked incessantly and ate like ravenous dogs.
The solution to the dilemma of how to keep their operation supplied with a steady stream of such items of course fell to Ava. But it didn’t take her long to come up with a solution to their problem. While she pretended to ponder the issue for several days before bringing it to Jake, she knew exactly what she wanted to do the minute Jake made the request of her; she had just been waiting for him to bring it up. Things went so much smoother when Jake thought that he was the one calling the shots, not her.
Ava used the two interim days that Jake thought she was working to develop the plan to gather intelligence instead. She sent several teams of two men each out to learn which remaining area traders were still untouched by the Three Families. She had already compiled a short list, but she needed more to fulfill what Jake expected to be the next portion of their planned expansion.
At the end of the two days, Jake cornered her in the downstairs office of the pump station.
Ava was ready.
FORSAKEN: THE SYSTEMIC SERIES Page 10
