Chasing the Dark: The Demon Inside

by A. P. Texan

“Nope, there is plenty to keep me busy around here. Thanks for the offer though.”

  With that, we went our separate ways, him heading to get the livestock and me to go find my wife and see what she was up to before I got started on the smokehouse.

  I stepped into the cabin and found her on her knees in the main room with a pry bar, hammer, nails and boards. During the clean-up, we had found several floorboards that were weak and decided it was probably best to change those out, before somebody fell through and broke a leg, or worse.

  “Hey Babe,” I say in greeting. “How’s it going in here?”

  “Oh, hey. What are you doing back?”

  I tell her the story about what we encountered and get the same response that Calvin gave. I then tell her about my conversation with Calvin about the smokehouse and latrines.

  “Those are great ideas babe, what are you going to work on first?”

  “Well, I think we will knock-out the smokehouse first. I’ve got Charles down looking at the pole barn now to see how much work it’s going to be to tear that down. I’ll see you later babe, I'm going to go help him out.” I gave her a kiss, set my rifle by the door and start walking over to the pole barn.

  “Alright man, what are we looking at?” I ask as I approach the pole barn.

  “Well, the good news is most of the nails are so rusted they will just break off. The bad news is the lumber isn’t in much better shape. The really good news is the tin is in really good shape to be a hundred years old.”

  “More like a hundred and twenty-five, but who's counting. So, what you’re saying is we got plenty of good tin, but we need better structure?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Let’s head up to the barn find some good gloves and get some tools. We can at least get all the metal off and bring it up to the barn then we can look around and see what we can find to use for framing.

  “Go get the trailer hooked up so we don’t have to carry the sheeting. I’ll go in and get a couple hammers and pry bars and meet you back by the truck.” He says as we approach the back of the building.

  0915 14 September 2021

  National Guard Armory, Decatur Texas

  Robert and Nick have none of the problems we did on our trip and they reach the Decatur armory in no time. Nick, of course, is wearing his Army issued, Scorpion camo pattern ACUs (What most would call multi-cam). Robert is wearing blue jeans work boots and a polo shirt. Doing his best to look the part of a FEMA representative.

  At first, the place looks like it may be deserted. It isn’t until they pull around back, that they see that it is in fact being manned.

  “Okay Bob, let me do the talking unless someone addresses you. Remember, I speak their language and believe it or not this Tan Beret pulls a lot of weight. I’m hoping they won’t ask for ID, but I have a plan for that if they do. I'm going to back this thing up right to the overhead door, like we are supposed to be here.”

  Nick pulls the HUMVEE into the parking lot and backs it up to the doors like they are supposed to be there. Three National Guard Soldiers step up to the truck M-16s held at the low ready. Nick takes a quick inventory and sees two Private First Classes and one Corporal. He opens the door and steps out of the vehicle and immediately assumes the persona of NCO.

  “Corporal, my name is Staff Sergeant Adams. I'm with the 3rd Ranger Battalion. We need to speak with your CO or 1SG immediately.”

  “Um, okay Sergeant, but they aren’t here and we haven’t seen them. We are here with Sergeant Smith; he is our supply guy.”

  “Okay,” Nick looks down at the nametape identifying the junior NCO. ”Adamowitz, then what are you doing here. Seems to me without a Senior NCO here, and without you having orders; looks to me like your stealing government property. You three aren’t stealing government property, are you?” Out of the corner of his eye he sees one of the two Privates trying to back away into the armory. “DONT MOVE PRIVATE! In fact, why don’t all three of you wannabe thieves, stand at parade rest while I’m addressing you. Shit bird one and two,” He points at the two Privates. “Stand over here where I can see you.” With that he gets up in the Corporals face and lowers his voice to a deep threatening tone. “Corporal Adamowitz, you better get your ass inside that armory and find me your NCOIC before I throw all three of you inside this HUMVEE and take you back to the JRB for stealing government property during a disaster declaration. My friend here, from FEMA will be the only witness I need, to see your ass in prison for a very, very long time. NOW GO!”

  Corporal Adamowitz turns and takes off for the inside of the armory at a full sprint. As he is turning to go into the supply room, he runs into a Sergeant who is coming out the door. They hit with a massive collision that sends them both falling back into the open door and landing in a mass of arms and legs.

  “DAMNIT, ALPHABET WHAT THE HELL!!!” A loud voice echoes from inside.

  Nick takes that as his cue and signals Bob to follow him. As he starts walking towards the interior of the armory. He glances around the cavernous room and sees the sign he is looking for. Above the main entrance is a large sign reading A CO. 564th Engineer Battalion Commanding Officer Captain Xenophon Johnson.

  “Sergeant Smith I presume! My name is Staff Sergeant Adams, I’m with the 3rd Ranger Battalion. This is Robert Sheffield from FEMA. I need to speak with Captain Johnson as soon as possible, when can I expect his arrival?”

  Sergeant Smith is trying to get himself up off the ground and get his bearings. Then reaches out his hand to shake hands with Nick, who doesn’t reciprocate the gesture. “Sergeant Smith, I asked you a question.”

  “Well, Sergeant he isn’t here. We don’t know where anyone is. When this went down, whatever this is. I came here to secure the armory and shortly after Corporal Adamowitz showed up with PFC Sims and PFC Burks. We have been here for two days, by ourselves. If you have instructions from higher command, I would be glad to comply but frankly we don’t have a clue what is going on.”

  “I was told to meet with Captain Johnson and to inform him that we are needing as many MREs and other supplies as you can spare. This is Bob with FEMA; he is assisting coordination of a refugee center at Carswell Joint Reserve Base. The 3rd Ranger Battalion was sent in to help secure the facility and facilitate coordination with all local units. Sergeant, the 564th is now under Title 10 orders and are to be considered deployed on active duty. You are to wait here until the rest of your unit can muster and then you will deploy with all available trucks and speed to the JRB where you will assist in the development and control of the refugee center. In the meantime, I will need an M1083 along with this list of supplies.” He hands a slip of paper over to the supply Sergeant.

  “Umm Sergeant, if I may ask. This is a lot of gear. If you are with the 3rd Battalion, and are deployed at JRB why you need our weapons and gear?” Smith asks.

  “That’s a good question Smith, and I’m glad you asked. We are also setting up a small outpost just outside of Paradise. A kind of a halfway point for refugees traveling to the center. These MREs and supplies will be going there. Unfortunately, the Battalion couldn’t spare the resources to set up the outpost, so we were sent here to acquire them from you.”

  “You will understand if I need some ID for the paperwork.” Smith says.

  “Yes of course, however I was medically retired last year and was just called up for this assignment because I was listed in the North Texas VA System. I do not have my new ID yet. As I’m sure you can understand, computer systems are at a premium right now and they don’t want to tie up the systems with printing new IDs. I do however have both my retiree ID card as well as my local PD credentials. Which I’m sure will be adequate.”

  “I don’t know. If this isn’t legit and my CO does show up my ass will be in a sling. How about you mister FEMA you got any ID?”

  Bob comes over to join the conversation. “I do not but what I do have is a set of orders from DHS, Department of Homeland Security, the parent department of FEMA.” He hands a slip
of paper and his driver’s license over to the Sergeant. “As you can see, it was written under the Authority of the Secretary of DHS George McAllister. It is addressed to me and assigns the Staff Sergeant as my liaison. Now, if you don’t mind, we would like to get our supplies and be on our way. We have some hungry refugees that we need to get these meals to.”

  “Oh, yes sir, we will get all this loaded up for you right of way. Sorry but I just needed to make sure it was legit.” He hands the papers and license back to Robert.

  “Oh, we understand completely, thank you for being so diligent. Adams shall we wait in the HUMVEE.”

  “Uh, yes sir.” Together they turn and walk back to their truck to await their supplies for the refugee outpost.

  “Where did you get those orders and when were you going to tell me about them?”

  “Kerri had an old typewriter at the house and Calvin still had copies of orders from his time in the Guard with Chase. I used the outline of those orders and typed up some. I figured if your plan didn’t work, then I could have mine as a backup. Looks like the combination of Plan A and B worked, so let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth.”

  Within an hour, they had both trucks loaded up and with Robert driving the HUMVEE and Nick driving the big cargo truck and they were headed back to the farm.

  1400 14 September 2021

  The Farm

  Back at the farm, Charles and I are finishing up pulling the tin off the pole barn and stacking it in the trailer attached to the old Ford. As we are pulling off the old metal, I understand what Charles was saying about the lumber used in the structure. It’s over a hundred years old and is definitely showing its age. Between the brutal heat of Texas summers, and the North Texas humidity, the wood is rotted in many areas making it virtually useless.

  “Any ideas on framework for this, now that we got the sheeting?” I ask.

  “Not really, you’re the redneck engineer, I’m just the hired muscle.” Charles replies.

  “I’ve got nothing. We need it to be eight feet or so in height at the apex and a minimum of six feet square. With those dimensions, we could get away with six uprights, four ten footers and two twelve footers. But we will need horizontal cross braces as well. I haven't seen anything like that here, anywhere.”

  “Why do we need the uprights so long?”

  “Well”, I respond “If we want it to have any kind of structural integrity and not go flying off in the first storm, we are going to have to bury them. I figure four feet in depth would be good. Leaving six and eight feet above ground.”

  “That makes sense, I wasn’t thinking about that; I was just thinking about setting it on the ground like one of those picnic canopies.”

  We walk back to the truck and I reach in my pack and grab my SRO canteen and shemagh. I take my t-shirt off and wet the shemagh with the water from the canteen and begin to wipe myself down. Both removing the sweat and grime as well as cooling my body down. In the post-apocalyptic world, hygiene is an issue, and you have to be cautious to stay as clean as possible. I also put on a clean shirt. I will use some water to rinse as much sweat and gunk out of the other and hang it out to dry.

  “I just thought of something else we are going to have to figure out. We are going to need to figure out a way to wash clothes, as well as bathing areas. We are going to have to start thinking about hygiene.”

  “Yeah, I agree. I’m starting to smell a little funky.” He replies.

  “Let’s see if we can get the smoke house figured out first, then we will tackle the other two issues.” I say as I get in the truck cab and start the engine.

  We stop the truck about halfway to the barn. I don’t want to put the smoke house to close to the barn and smoke out our living areas and laundry areas. We unhook the trailer from the old truck and drive the rest of the way up to the barn.

  “Looks like Calvin and Kerri are back” Charles says, as we park the old truck and see the Chevy coming up the drive cattle trailer in tow and a large cage in the bed.

  “That it does. Adding the bull and hogs is going to be a huge help. I was thinking we should also try to trap some wild hogs. If we can get the babies away from momma, we can raise them, and they will be domesticated. Then we just slaughter the older ones and smoke the meat. Don’t know about you but I could use some smoked bacon”

  “Will that work? I didn’t realize you could domesticate them like that.”

  “Well, I don’t know if they will be totally domesticated but they won’t be as wild as the adults are. Plus, the more food we have, the better off we’ll be.”

  As we climb out of the truck, Calvin pulls his rig up in front of the barn.

  “I’m going to go release this big boy in with the girls in the upper pasture.” He tells us through the open driver’s window. “How’s it coming along with the pig pen?”

  “Don’t know, we just got all the tin pulled off the pole barn and haven’t seen the women yet.” I answer “I assume everything went okay at Jimmy’s”

  “Yeah, but he and his family aren’t going to last long. They can’t conserve anything, and he was bitching about getting shot the whole damn time”

  “Well, maybe they will just give up and leave and we can get the rest of their livestock.”

  “Doubt it. They will probably slaughter and eat every head of the cattle they got in a matter of five or six months. The people are idiots.”

  Before I can say anything else, we hear a couple large diesel engines coming in from the street. I turn and run for the cabin to retrieve my battle rifle. As I do, Charles reaches into the truck for his AR, and Calvin steps out of the truck with an old lever action Marlin 30-30. He was never a big fan of the sporting rifles, always keeping it old school with his cowboy guns.

  They both take up positions behind the truck and I take cover behind the corner of the old cabin. We only need to wait a few minutes, when we see a large military cargo truck coming up the gravel towards us. Then, as it rounds the corner of the road, I see it is followed by our HUMVEE.

  I safety and sling my rifle and step out of cover. As I do, I see Calvin, Charles, Cynthia, and Sandy also coming out from cover.

  “Well, it looks like either Nick’s plan worked, or they were arrested and they’re coming for the rest of us.” I say; as we all meet up at the gate, where I unlatch it and open it up for the big truck.

  “Mi Amor, don’t even talk like that it’s not funny.”

  I give Sandy a kiss and wrap my arm around her shoulders as we stand there “Yeah, it was you just don’t want to admit it.”

  She just looks up at me and smiles.

  As the convoy of two gets closer we can see Nick is behind the wheel of the big transport and Bob is driving the HUMVEE.

  “No worries, looks like it worked, and we aren’t going to federal prison.” Kerri says as she walks up to join us.

  Nick pulls the big truck through the gate and heads up to the barn and Robert follows him through. Everyone else turns and starts walking back, as I close the gate and follow them.

  They park the trucks in our new motor pool area and climb out. “That went smooth as butter!” Nick says in greeting, as he climbs out of the big cargo truck with a big grin on his face.

  “Well, not completely, his plan started to fall apart when they asked for ID. But I handled that. Thank you, for the use of that old typewriter last night.”

  “No problem,” Kerri says “I’m just glad we still had it and the ink worked enough to get those orders typed out.”

  “What did you get?” I ask getting to the point.

  Nick starts going down the list,” Starting with the truck, then we have the 15kw diesel generator, thirty gallons of diesel in five-gallon jerry cans, two M240B light machine guns with 3000 rounds of belted 7.62mm each, two M4s with ACOGs and a case of 5.56, two PVS-14 monoculars with weapon and head mounts, two pallets of MREs, and some good military grade encrypted radios with headsets.”

  “Nice, good job guys.” Sandy replies.
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  “How did you fare at Shoreview? I’m surprised to see you back already?” Bob asks.

  Charles speaks up “We never made it. The town of Lake Worth is walled off and defended with crew-served machine guns. We saw at least one light and one heavy machine gun at the one barricade we ran into.”

  “Sounds like they have a good idea of what has happened and have circled the wagons to protect the town.” Nick replies.

  I join the conversation, "Exactly what we were thinking, someone in the town works at either JRB or Shoreview and got the small arms from them and set up the town’s defenses. All the surrounding residential areas were evacuated. Probably a smart move on their part.”

  “Let’s get this stuff unloaded and see what else we can do to get this place set up as a proper homestead.” Mom interjects into the conversation.

  Over the next few days, we get the farm set up to be a true homestead. We dig the septic just as Calvin and I envisioned it. We even built rudimentary toilets over the holes. We set up a system of steeping our leftover wood ash in five -gallon buckets of water so that we have a constant supply of lye to keep the septic clean, as well as make soap with. We finish the smoker using telephone poles that won’t be used anymore. We cut them into ten-foot pieces and put them three feet in the ground, leaving seven feet above ground. Then, we use some scrap lumber we find laying around to finish off the framing of the ten-by-ten building. To the frame we attach corrugated tin. On the outside of this, we build a simple stone fire box with a flute that funnels the smoke into the building itself.

  The pig pen and chicken coop we manage to get put up using wire fencing that was stored in the barn. Lastly, we put an enclosure around one of the deer feeders. We are going to use this in an attempt to capture a family of feral pigs. The plan is to capture the family, remove the piglet’s and place them in with our domestic pigs. Then slaughter the adults and smoke the meat. If this works, we should have a pretty good supply of pork.

  We are also starting the process of getting the garden plot ready for spring. The ground here is mostly just packed sand with little nutrient value. One of the jobs for the kids, is to drive around the farm with a UTV and trailer and pick up as much animal manure as they can find, then dump it in the area we plan to use as the garden. We are also dumping any scraps we have left over from our meals (except meat) in an attempt to increase the nutrient value of the soil. We combine all of this with leaves we get from the ground, in the wooded areas of the farm and turn the soil once a week using the tractor and an old plow.