by AJ Newman
Gwen had a tear in her eye. It ran down her cheek. I asked, “Do you have a son or loved one in the service?”
“Yes, my son is in England, and my daughter is a nurse in Iceland. I don’t guess I’ll ever see them again.”
I placed my hand on her shoulder. “Ma’am, don’t be surprised if your son and daughter arrive one day on your doorstep. MMax and I were in England, we both were severely wounded and then flown to Iceland for emergency surgery. We then survived a plane crash the night the lights went out. If we can survive, your loved ones can also. Don’t give up on them. Remember, No Man Left Behind.”
She wiped the tears and said, “Thanks for the kind comments and giving me some hope. Let’s take care of your girlfriend. Here, put these in your pocket and give her two pills every six hours until you run out of pills. We need to find some Zithromax or erythromycin. I’m going to send you out to find some medicine for your girlfriend and to help pay for her treatment.”
I started to correct her again about the girlfriend comment but instead, helped her finish undressing Kat and making her comfortable. We placed several blankets over her, and Gwen quickly read up on how to treat a person who had aspirated a lot of water.
While Gwen warmed up some food for me, I couldn’t help but notice there weren’t any pictures of Gwen or her family on the walls or end tables. I pulled out the drawer next to me and saw a couple of picture frames. I turned them over, and there was a very distinguished couple staring back at me. They were an older gray-haired man and woman. The next picture had six men and women about the age their kids should have been. The third had all of them, plus their kids and grandchildren. Damn, this wasn’t Gwen’s home.
I took my soup and coffee out on the deck and dumped it over the side when she wasn’t looking. MMax chewed on a Milk-Bone dog biscuit after eating a chunk of dried rabbit meat I had tossed to him. Gwen told me about her husband, Greg, and both of her children. She then looked at her watch and said, “If you don’t want to get shot, we need to make sure my husband doesn’t get surprised when he sees you. You stay in here, and I’ll go out on the deck to greet him. I have more soup and coffee. You ate that like a starving dog.”
“No thanks, I’m full,” I said but wondered if it was poisoned. I knew I had to be ready for Greg when he walked in the door. I saw Gwen wave at someone as the sun began to shine through the windows. I snuck out the front door and ran around the home. I saw them talking at the top of the steps, so I cautiously climbed the steps from the garden below. Just as my head poked above the floor of the deck, I saw Greg had a shotgun and Gwen had retrieved hers.
I said, “Gwen, Greg, drop your weapons, or I’ll shoot.”
The man laid his shotgun on the nearest table, took Gwen’s, and placed it next to his. He then pushed Gwen away from the table and said, “We don’t mean you any harm and can explain the situation.”
“Greg, I looked through the pictures in the drawers, and you two don’t match anyone in the pictures. This isn’t your home.”
Gwen said, “I never said it was our home. You assumed it was our home when I caught you trying to break a window. We can explain.”
I replied, “Come on in the kitchen after I pat you down.”
They didn’t have any weapons, so I followed them into the kitchen. Gwen said, “Let me get my purse. I’d show you photos on my cell phone, but you know I can’t.”
I had seen a purse on the floor next to the couch. “Go get it but no tricks. I don’t want to hurt any innocent people, but I need to know who you’re before trust can be solid.”
Gwen retrieved the purse. I said, “Dump the contents on the table.”
A pile of woman’s stuff, a cell phone, and a woman’s wallet fell out. She slowly opened the wallet, and a plastic folder of pictures fell out across the table. She said, “You can see Greg and me with that beautiful couple and their three children. Now, compare them to the family picture in the end table.”
I compared the picture with Gwen and her husband to the one from the end table. “The young woman is your daughter, and the man is the grandson of the owner of this house.”
Gwen smiled, “Yes, and this is the second time you thought we were bad people.”
I asked, “This may be sensitive, but where are the rest of the people in this picture?”
Greg said, “Most live in this area and are okay. My daughter and kids are in the basement below this home. My wife sent them there until I arrive back from guard duty. See, she didn’t trust you either.”
I looked up and saw Kat in a mirror walking to me from behind. She walked up beside me and sat down in my lap with her arms around my neck. “Gwen, Jason is my hero. Just this week he saved a priest, two nuns, his sister, twelve women and children, and me, twice.”
Gwen winked at me. “You two have been through a lot together.”
“Yes, but he has an almost girlfriend down at his mom’s place who has probably forgotten about him. He’s a good man but kinda dense for such a great guy.”
I made the time out sign with my hands, lifted Kat up, and placed her on a chair. “Look, I know I’m better at fighting wars and killing people than relationships, but dense isn’t fair.”
Kat saw my pistol in my lap. “Has there been a problem?”
I responded, “I failed to mention that after being shot several times, blown up by a bomb, and surviving a plane crash that I’m not a very trusting person.”
Kat laughed and said, “No shit, Sherlock.”
Greg and Gwen laughed. Gwen said, “Kat, Greg, are you hungry?”
Both said yes, as I raised my hand. Gwen looked perplexed then said, “You dumped your soup over the rail because you thought I was trying to poison you.”
“What can I say? Kat told you I was dense.”
☆
Chapter 12
Northeast of Walter Hill, Tennessee.
Over five weeks had passed since Jason had left to find his sister. Zack and Jan wouldn’t admit it, but they were giving up hope their son would ever return. They were pleased to have Michelle safe and back home but thought it was a cruel joke that Jason had never come back after saving his sister.
The priest’s flock and Michelle had added sixteen more people to their nine already present. A week later, Zack brought a family back with him from a scavenging trip. They consisted of two brothers, one of whom had a wife and two teenaged boys. This grew the community to thirty people. Only Mark and one of the new teenage boys had to be goaded into working. All of the others were thankful for the security and safety of the compound.
Zack watched as his construction team laid the last log on the wall of their southern guard post. The four-guard posts were actually last resort defensive positions with sixteen-inch thick walls of logs. Even Father James helped with the heavy lifting. The two brothers, Ross and Rick, had worked in construction and became the leaders of most of the construction projects. They had achieved a considerable number of improvements and added ten more trailers, along with the required sanitation and water distribution infrastructure needed to support the new people.
Zack had worked on the tractor and had it humming. It had a bucket and a posthole digging attachment. Both significantly reduced the amount of labor around the growing community. Zack, Murph, Karen, and Maria raided an abandoned farm supply store and brought home a cornucopia of supplies they needed for farming, security, and construction. Murph and Maria had installed trip wires inside the several hundred yards of the fence around the compound to give early warning that intruders were close to their homes.
Zack and Jan sat in the twilight air, looking over their accomplishments. Zack was silent for a few minutes, as he smelled the honey suckle mixed with a new pungent odor. “Hon, we’ve been lucky so far. That whiff of foul odor is the smell of Hendersonville and Goodlettsville burning to the ground.”
“Oh, my! Are you sure?”
“Yes, Murph and I traveled into Goodlettsville the other day. Several people told me the
re was open warfare between the two gangs. The good people are either fleeing or hiding in the rubble. So far, most people are fleeing to the south. It’s only a matter of time before someone stumbles upon us.”
Jan said, “Zack, you haven’t mentioned Jason for several days. I didn’t hear his name in your prayers last night.”
“Hon, I still have hope he’ll return one day, but I’d be lying if I thought it was likely. Even Karen and the girls gave up on him. Murph moved into their trailer earlier this evening. Billie and Ross are getting thicker than thieves are. Our community has come together. It will thrive if we can fight off intruders for another six months.
***
“Well, did you find Sergeant Walker’s family?”
“No, sir. We’ve searched west and south without finding them. The scum from the surrounding cities is spreading out to the countryside. The idiots have learned that burning down their cities also burned any remaining food sources. They are now looking for farms and farmers to grow food for their people.”
“You bring up a good point. Our supplies won’t last forever, and I don’t intend to become a farmer. We need to find those farms and protect them from the bad guys. Sergeant Black, I want you to lead that effort.”
“Sir, can I add a couple of the Kentucky farm boys to my team? I don’t know nothing about farming.”
“Take who you need. I want to add existing farms to our new security area and expand their production as quickly as possible. Be on the lookout for some agriculture professionals to help give you guidance. I’m going to concentrate on finding a secure site for our base in this area.”
“Sir, what about Walker and his family?”
“We’ll eventually find them. I’m not in a hurry to make him watch his loved ones die.”
☆
Chapter 13
Southeast of Gallatin, Tennessee.
I was beat and fell asleep several times that morning as Kat and I got to know Gwen and Greg Johnson. Kat was still not back to full strength and needed several days to rest. I thanked the Johnsons for taking us in and promised I would go to the nearest pharmacies and stores to find more medicines, food, and ammunition.
I nodded off again, and Kat took me to our room and made me lay down for a nap. MMax lay on the bed beside me with his head pointed to the door and rested his head on my stomach as usual. MMax or I were always on guard against danger. I quickly fell asleep and slept through the evening until early morning, when I heard the door squeak a bit. MMax gave a low growl and then laid his head back down. I saw Gwen looking in at me. “So, she’s not your girlfriend. Someone had better tell her,” Gwen said as she chuckled and left.
I didn’t know when Kat had crawled into bed with me, but my arm was around her. We had all our clothes on so get your dirty mind out of the gutter. She was sound asleep, and I didn’t want to wake her, so I tried to sleep until daylight. That didn’t work, so I planned the search for supplies and then moved on to planning our trip home. MMax whimpered his, ‘Get up Jason, I got to pee,’ whimper. I pushed him off the bed and unwrapped myself from Kat. She woke just enough to say, “Thanks for holding me last night. I was scared and needed you.”
“Kat, thanks for holding me last night. I need a friend.”
She made a huffing sound, and I heard, “Geez Louise, what does a girl have to do?”
I swatted her on the butt and said, “Be patient. Remember I’m dense.”
After a full day of meeting Gwen and Greg’s relatives and friends, we ate a full meal and stayed up swapping ‘Where we were when the lights went out stories.’ One of Greg’s friends went before me and said, “I was going down the road at sixty miles per hour and ran off the road when the engine died. Imagine being the unlucky sucker who was in an airplane.”
Kat and Gwen laughed at what he’d said; this made him a bit perturbed. Greg waved his hand and said, “Jason, tell them where you were when the shit hit the fan.”
I stood up and spoke. “I had been wounded in Europe in an IED explosion and was on a medivac plane flying home to Nashville when the EMP bombs killed the plane’s engines and electronics. The plane crashed. The crew and most of my Army friends were killed in the crash. Our medical pods saved MMax and me.”
I sat down to complete silence. The man said, “You win for having the worst situation I can imagine.”
I said, “No. The people in the house where our plane hit and destroyed had the worst situation. They were burned alive. I just hope I’m wrong and the impact killed them.”
I swallowed the last sip from my fourth glass of homemade wine and excused myself. I started down the hall with MMax and Kat following. “Kat, you can stay up and enjoy the company.”
She replied, “I’m tired and tired of the conversation. I don’t want to think back to the early days. It scares me.”
We entered our room, and I placed some lawn chair cushions on the floor for MMax and me to sleep on. Kat peeled her clothes off and stood there. She said, “Come on and sleep in the bed with me. I feel safer cuddled up to you. Please.”
I guess I still had a thing for Karen so as much as my body said yes, I said, “Kat, that sounds inviting, but I can’t sleep with anyone in my bed due to PTSD. I might wake up and strangle you.”
Of course, I made that up, and she didn’t believe me because every time I woke up, Kat was glued to me. She must have had some horrible nightmares because she cried in her sleep, and one time, she beat on my back and said, “No. No. Stop.”
I held her close, and she went back to sleep. Several times, I picked her up and placed her in her bed, only to find her again on the floor with me in the morning. Most nights, MMax was the only one sleeping in the bed. I didn’t want her to get too close to me because I was too messed up for a woman to depend on me.
I wasn’t a mean or bad man to women. Just the opposite was true. I had great respect for women and fell for them too quickly. I was also afraid of commitment, so Maria and our ‘friends with benefits’ was the perfect situation for me.
MMax ran out and down the back steps to the river and found his way to our bags with our weapons and supplies. He brought them one at a time, back up the long stairs to the top of the deck. He smelled some evil men, but they were far away. He stayed on the deck for an hour, but the smell didn’t get stronger, so he scratched on the door, and Gwen opened it. MMax went inside and joined Jason.
***
Benders Ferry Road was pretty much deserted in the hours before the sun rose that morning. We had two old farm wagons pulled by one horse each. The air was crisp and clean close to the river. The closer we were to Mt. Juliet, foul odors wafted on the breeze. There were buildings smoldering and open sewage dumped by the roadside. The smell was stifling. MMax didn’t seem to mind the scent, but he was known to wallow in piles of cat crap from time to time. He always thought he was being punished when I washed him after he’d spent so much effort.
Kat had pitched a bitch of a fit when I told her she had to stay and rest. It had been over a week since we’d nearly drowned and she was raring to get back to normal. I promised her she could go on the next scrounging foray. She still bitched and moaned and groaned but did what I told her to do. She was a very hardheaded and stubborn young lady.
I took the point with MMax on guard for the usual dangers. Several dogs barked a ways off, and an occasional cat cried out in the dark, but it was otherwise quiet until we arrived at the outskirts of the city. MMax growled, and a small dog ran towards us from between two abandoned cars. I almost shot the Shih Tzu, but MMax blocked my aim by stepping between us to greet the dog. They suddenly turned toward the cars, and several Coyotes pounced from the darkness. MMax bit one dog, shook him, and pitched the body down the street. The Shih Tzu tackled one but only succeeded in backing that one down until MMax could dispatch it. I took my hatchet and cleared the remaining two away. Greg kicked another, and they high tailed it back into the woods.
I asked, “Is everyone okay?”
Greg
replied, “I’m okay. The others didn’t make contact. Is MMax okay?”
I took MMax behind the wagon and used my small flashlight to check him out. I couldn’t find any wounds. This made me conscious that neither MMax nor I were equipped as well as we normally were in battle. I needed to make him a vest out of canvas or leather that would protect him from bites and thorns.
Our goal was a strip mall on the north end of Mt. Juliet. There were several retail stores, a CVS Pharmacy, a Kroger, and a sporting goods store. We realized they had probably been ransacked by locals and drug addicts but hoped they’d overlooked a few things. I staged everyone behind the CVS and said, “Greg, take the lead at the Kroger. Paul will take over when we get to the CVS, since you know medicines the best, and I’ll take the animal shelter and the Animal Hospital next door.”
Paul was impatient and didn’t like taking orders. “Yeah, yeah, boss, man.”
Greg got in his face. “Sergeant Walker has experience at this. You don’t. Get with the program.”
Paul was an emergency room doctor who thought he was better than the rest of us and a bit lazy. He was Greg’s ex-son-in-law. He was a pompous ass, and Greg’s daughter had gotten tired of his condescending demeanor and skirt-chasing. She’d taken him to the cleaners, and he hated Greg because Greg had hired the high priced lawyer who stuck it to Paul. Paul replied, “Yes, Daddy dearest. Whatever.”
I said, “Paul, the medicines will be a mess. Don’t be afraid to scoop pills off the floor and look everywhere. Addicts will destroy the place to find narcotics. Everyone, remember we shouldn’t overlook abandoned, private homes, businesses, and factories after our initial targets. I want us back on the road by 9:00 am sharp. Stay together, MMax and I’ll be the lookouts for the first two, and Greg and John will watch our backs while we search the Animal Hospital. Let’s go.”
