Family Survival

by A J Newman

  Chapter 14

  Day 75 – A Family Can Survive

  Jo woke up before the others and looked at Bill lying in her arms. She wondered what would happen next to her family. Jo thought surely losing her son and mother would be enough, and God wouldn’t ask this family to place another sacrifice on the altar of the apocalypse. Losing their home, jobs, and having to kill a dozen people to survive also took a toll on her family, but she knew they were growing stronger with each adversity.

  Not everything had been bad since the shit hit the fan. They had gained Maddie who has been a great addition to the family and would make an excellent wife for her son. Missy’s boyfriend Matt was a good find for Missy. He was her first serious boyfriend, and Jo just hoped they progressed a bit slower than Will and Maddie. The people in the community, for the most part, were friends for life and enriched their day-to-day experience. Finally, there was Maddie’s teacher Joan. It was too early to tell, but Jo hoped Bob and Joan would get together after he finished grieving over Jo’s dead mother.

  Jo couldn’t go back to sleep, so she walked over to Bob’s home and found Missy and Maddie sitting on the deck drinking coffee while watching the sun peek above the trees to the east. She poured her a cup just as Joan came out of her room stretching and yawning.

  “Hey, please pour me a cup too,” Joan said as she fetched a cup from the cabinet and joined Jo.

  Good morning. I hope you slept better than I did last night.”

  “Actually I slept very well once Bob, and I finally went to our rooms for the evening. He is quite the storyteller, and I just wish I’d met him under different circumstances. He talked mostly about your mom last night and how much he missed her.”

  “Give him time and don’t push him. Normally it would be a year or two before a man like Bob would be interested in a relationship, but these days things move along much faster.”

  “Oh, I won’t push him at all. If I were out in the cold, I'd have to be in a hurry to find food and shelter. Working for my keep being Bob’s maid isn’t too bad.”

  They joined the girls on the deck and heard Maddie say, “I have a few ideas on how we can electrify our little community. We found several large generators with all of that construction equipment and one could easily supply 120 volt AC to Bob’s house and our three trailers. Hell, with a couple of DC to AC converters we could power a dozen homes as long as they all didn’t try to run air conditioners.”

  Bob walked into the conversation with his coffee cup and said, “Maddie, that's an excellent idea, and we can have it in operation in a couple of days. Now, who drank the last cup?”

  Joan replied, “I’m sorry; I’ll go make a fresh pot.”

  “Sit down. I already started a new pot and stuck the biscuits in the oven. That reminds me that we need to find more propane before we run out and have to cook on wood stoves.”

  Bill popped his head out the door and said, “Where’s the food? Did I miss breakfast?”

  Will was right behind his father and had a cup of coffee in his hand as he left the kitchen and walked out to the deck. He walked over to Maddie, kissed her, and sat down beside her, before saying a word.

  “May I have your attention? It has come to me that we have been driven from our homes, attacked by criminals and politicians, and no one knows what normal is anymore. We need to take a break from fighting to survive and reflect on why we are trying to survive. We must also determine what our new normal is in this brave new world.”

  “Damn Will, you sound like a politician. Perhaps Maddie should bonk you on the head before you run for office.”

  “Yes, and I have a bonking hammer. Seriously we do need to begin having some type of normal day to day activities or the stress will kill us all.”

  Jo added, “We need to celebrate our old holidays and make them a day of rest. Memorial Day is next Monday. Let’s have a community picnic, games, and a pig or goat roast.”

  They decided to have a Memorial Day celebration in the Horseshoe to remember the Veterans and friends that sacrificed their lives for the USA and the Horseshoe. The celebration would be on the last Monday of the month, which was only six days away and they would have BBQ, games, and a fishing derby. Mrs. Green took charge of the food preparation with Joan, Jo, and a couple of the other women assisting.

  Missy and Matt took charge of the children’s games and planned everything from checkers to a three-legged race.

  Jack and Bob handled the fishing derby and decided there would be prizes for the largest fish and the most fish caught.

  Maddie and Will were to lead a competition for the best ideas that would improve life in their community with Bob, Jack, and Harold being the judges. The ideas would be evaluated the morning of Memorial Day with prizes for first through third place awarded before dinner that evening.

  Memorial Day morning started as usual with the Karr family gathered around Bob’s deck and coffee pot. Everyone was in a good but reflective mood and needed the break from soldiering or farming. Bob cracked his usual jokes and picked on Missy that morning since it was her turn in the rotation. The breakfast was prepared by Joan with Missy and Maddie assisting and was lighter than normal since they were to pig out the rest of the day.

  Missy, Will, and Maddie had guard duty until noon, so they quickly ate and drove out to their posts. Bill had to attend to a few patients that morning and left a few minutes after the rest with Jo tagging along. This left Joan and Bob sitting on the back porch enjoying their third cup of coffee.

  “Bob I’m so jealous of you because you have this beautiful family that is made up of such down to earth great people.”

  Bob replied in a joking manner, “Yeah, I had to beat some sense into several of them when they were younger, but I think they have become good people. You know my son was a damn liberal before he came down here when the shit hit the fan.”

  “Bob, did you know that I was also a liberal before coming down here and still hold many of my liberal values.”

  “Darn, I thought you were too perfect. Smart, beautiful, and appreciates my corny jokes. Now even I have to say that all liberals aren’t too bad, besides I have plenty of time to wear you down on some of that radical stuff.”

  “And I guess that means I have time to wear you down on some of that hard-headed conservative stuff. Perhaps we can meet in the middle one day.”

  “I need a little more time and patience from you, and we’ll meet in the middle as often as possible. Just don’t ever tell me you voted for Obama.”

  “I did, and I’m proud of it. I assume you voted for Trump.”

  “Yep, both terms. Hell yeah! Made America great again.”

  “So do you think there is hope for us in this crazy new world?”

  “Yep, but we’d better avoid politics for a while. Oh, by the way, what religion are you?”

  “I’m a backsliding Baptist as my father used to tell me.”

  “Well, we have something in common. I’m a Baptist who just got closer to the Lord when the bullets started flying. We can go to church together and let the church ladies talk about us living together.”

  “They already are.”

  The cooks delivered a delicious variety of meats, vegetables, and desserts for the get-together. Tony Fulkerson roasted a goat, Joan smoked several pork butts, and the other ladies delivered a mouth-watering assortment of fresh vegetables and deserts. There was an impromptu pie-baking contest, which was won by Jack’s daughter-in-law for a great chocolate meringue pie.

  Missy and Matt kept the kids entertained with the three- legged race, water balloon toss, slip and slide, and shooting BB guns at targets for prizes. They all won prizes and were plied with Kool-Aid and cookies.

  The adults played horseshoes and corn hole for pies and cakes with the overall champion team being excused from guard duty for three days.

  The winning idea for improving the community came from Jack’s twelve-year-old grandson. His idea was to cut a channel across the top of the Horseshoe
to allow the water to gush through the canal and turn a waterwheel that could turn a gristmill or turbine to make electricity. The elevation dropped over twenty feet from one side to the other of the Horseshoe on the north end.

  The boy was awarded a Marlin lever action .22 rifle and a hundred bullets along with two dozen Oatmeal raisin cookies.

  The judges and other leaders of the community were astounded that no one had thought of the idea before. Maddie challenged the leadership to conduct an ongoing program for the best ideas to improve life and make the prizes larger to spur on competition.

  Second place went to Missy for her idea to make human powered electrical generators from old car generators and bicycles. Third place went to Ned’s wife for a solar heating device to heat their homes utilizing old storm windows, empty cans, and black paint. There were numerous other ideas and about half would be used by the community. Maddie was charged with the responsibility to track the progress of each used idea and report to the leadership each week.

  The day was a huge success, and everyone was dog tired but looking forward to the next celebration on the Fourth of July. Most of the people went home after they helped clean up the area, but the Karr family stayed until everything was cleaned and the games and cooking utensils were stored.

  “Family, it’s time to go home,” Bob said and then Joan, and he got in his truck and headed to his house with the rest of the family in the back cracking jokes and telling stories.

  They all went to their rooms, took showers and filtered back to Bob’s deck for drinks and snacks stolen from the picnic. Bob and Joan were the first with drinks in their hands on the deck. They discussed how life was much calmer now and the family was all healthy and much less stressed. Bob told little stories about each of his family members living and deceased. He shed a couple of tears when he got to Jake and Jane.

  Joan patted him on the back and said, “I’m glad I got to meet Jane and Jake while they were happy and interacting with everyone. Jane was a splendid person, and her shoes will be hard to fill. The Wraith is a legend for hundreds of miles I’ll bet.”

  Bob looked at each one of his family and then asked everyone to pray with him, “Father in heaven, thank you for protecting those gathered here tonight. May they live long and prosperous lives while serving you and helping their fellow men. God, we’ve just sent some good people to join you in heaven, and I expect you to make them angels fighting evil in this world. Amen.”

  “Amen.”

  ✼

  Chapter 15

  Day 150 – FEMA – We’re Here to Help You.

  Jack asked Bob and Will to travel with him over to Lebanon and help represent the Horseshoe in a meeting with Ben and the rest of the community’s leaders. Bob was reluctant at first, but Will talked him into the trip.

  The sky was blue with only a few wisps of white clouds that morning. The rain stopped about midnight, and the air was so humid you could cut it with a knife. It was the first week of August, and it was already 84 degrees at 10:00 in the morning. Hot and humid in middle Tennessee was normal for the summer months, but this was too damned early to suit the people of the Horseshoe.

  “I miss air-conditioning, but I wouldn’t have found Maddie if the shit hadn’t hit the fan,” said Will as they bounced along in Bob’s pickup on their way to Lebanon.

  “I miss shopping and my iPhone,” replied Maddie.

  Bob thought for a minute and said, “I miss a lot of things we’ll never see in my lifetime, but I love seeing my family grow stronger together and work toward the same common goals.”

  “Papaw, what do you think this mysterious meeting is all about,” Will asked?

  “I don’t know, but it’s been very calm and peaceful for the last four weeks and that shit ain’t normal lately. My first guess is the shit is about to hit the fan somewhere close to us. My second is he is going to tell us we are dreaming and none of this happened.”

  Maddie thought for a few minutes and replied, “And Jake, Jane, and my mom would still be alive, but I wouldn’t be married to my husband. Damn, nothing in life is simple.”

  Things had been going along very well in Middle Tennessee since Lebanon was freed from the Senator and Walt. It alarmed everyone when Ben called for an emergency of the four groups to be held in Lebanon at City Hall. He only told the leaders that there was an imminent danger and they needed to meet to decide how to handle the situation.

  They arrived a bit early and visited with Jim Dickerson until the meeting was called in session.

  Ben got right to the point as usual, “Men, I have just learned that there are several rogue FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) groups in the southern part of the USA. These are filled with people who had worked in those groups and decided to seize power, take what they want, and form their own empires. The remnants of our military have been fighting them since the lights went out. One large group tried to force the Army to surrender Fort Gordon to them. That didn’t go well for the DHS troops. They were massacred before they could mount an attack.

  The problem is that the military is spread thin and is concentrated around the large cities or their bases. They have an enormous supply of weapons and ammo but hardly anyone to man the weapons. Most soldiers went home to their families and never returned to their units. Therefore, I guess what I’m trying to lead you to is that a joint FEMA and DHS task force is heading our way to take over the Nashville area.

  Bob asked, “So these groups want us to join them?”

  Ben laughed and replied, “Yes, but they want us to lay down our weapons and become serfs working in the fields. They base their ruling model on old English Kingdoms where the king and noblemen have all the wealth, and the peasants work themselves to death and barely have enough food to feed their families.”

  “That shit won’t fly down here. How big is the group heading our way?”

  “They are a small splinter group from Atlanta that the main group is using to expand their territory. There will be 250-300 troops protecting another 100 or so civilians. They know about our community, and that’s what gave them the idea to spread out much sooner than planned.”

  “So they think we will just roll over and let them make slaves of our families and us.”

  “Pretty much. They have Humvees with turret mounted machine guns, trucks, and a shit pot full of small arms they stole from the real DHS depot.”

  “How soon are they coming?”

  “My source says they will have recon units in the area in a week or so posing as displaced people looking for food or jobs. The next wave of recon will test our security and resolve with small attacks made to look like criminals were trying to steal from us.”

  Jack asked, “Can we get help from any of the military branches?”

  “Yes but not enough help. My friends in the Army are sending an infantry squad to help us prepare for the main attack. They arrive sometime next week. We’re on our own until then. I need your help in developing a plan to repel and defeat the bastards,” Ben answered.

  “What will they do if none of their scouts report back and simply disappear,” asked Will?

  “They will keep sending out more scouts until they flood us with scouts.”

  “Then that will cause them to delay the main offensive, won’t it,” replied Will.

  Ben said, “Yes, and it will give us the much needed time for the main Army force to arrive.”

  “Will, you hit the obvious button right on the damn head. Our plan is to get the communities watching for all strangers who look well fed and ask too many questions.” Replied Ben.

  Maddie asked, “Do we know their home base of operations for the central group or this splinter group?”

  “Yes, we do. What’s on your mind; that wasn’t an idle question.”

  “Well, I’ve been listening to y’all soldier boys discussing how to defend our communities and all that came to mind was an offense is the best defense. Let’s take the fight to their home base and families. Make them
defend what they have taken until we can wipe them off the face of the Earth.”

  “Now young lady, let us professionals worry about the details and plans,” replied Ben.

  Bob and Will jumped up, and Bob said, “Wait a fucking minute. I’d go into battle with this young woman over any of your soldiers. She has killed twice as many of our enemy than any three of your men. I think she is right about taking the fight to the rogue groups instead of sitting back and hoping the Army gets here before we are slaughtered.”

  “Maddie, I apologize for what I said. I’m old school Army and not used to teenagers being in on planning major operations. Now what I’m about to say is top secret and the reason I pushed back so hard on Maddie’s suggestion.

  The General in charge of our area has ordered a covert action that has several Special Forces teams starting a hit and run guerilla war with the rogue FEMA and DHS groups. They are recruiting locals to help keep the pressure on the groups by setting IEDs and long range sniping campaigns.”

  “That helps, but you must remember that we civilians make up over 95% of our little fighting force and belittling anyone of them could alienate the entire group,” replied Will.

  “Point taken and understood,” so are y’all okay with the SF taking care of the main groups?”

  Maddie replied, “Yes, that makes sense now that you explained the situation. I’m good.”

  They spent several more hours making assignments to the five communities. The Horseshoe was assigned the area from Dixon Springs down to the outskirts of Carthage along Highway 25. The Wraiths had cleared out all of the gangs and drug dealers in the small community below the racetrack, which made this new project much easier to set up.

  “Bob, I know you’ve had some bad blows lately, but I need you to take on the rogue government spies heading our way so I can concentrate on building up our community’s defenses.”