“Why not?” he asked.
He stepped closer. My eyes didn’t leave his and he hesitated when I didn’t back up.
“First, Its mine, second I don’t know you.”
“Give it here!” he demanded.
He reached for my rifle, he should have reached for the hand gun instead because as he reached for the rifle on my shoulder I drew my pistol and whipping it up as fast as I could I hit him on the side of the temple with it and down he went. I stepped back expecting a charge from the others but they stood frozen in place, what is wrong with these guys I thought. The boy moaned when a woman’s voice broke the tension,
“JOHNNY! What on Earth are you doing??” Janey demanded from the doorway behind me.
I turned and went right up to her, she was holding herself up with both hands on the door jamb, her leg was in one of those nylon braces people wear when they have a knee injury.
“Janey!! I barked and went right to her, wrapping my arms around her. She
oophed
a little but I felt her patting my back, she was alive and as happy to see me as I was to see her.
“I’m glad to see you too.” She paused, “why did you hit David?” she asked.
I looked back and saw that some of the others were helping him to sit up.
“I didn’t shoot him.” I said defensively.
“I can see that.” she said.
I could tell that wasn’t what she wanted to know. I sighed deeply and said
“Dipstick here went for my rifle.” I said.
“Ahh, I see. Well, kids don’t carry weapons in this camp.” she said.
She turned and I helped her limp to a nearby bed.
“That’s stupid.” I said, “How can they defend themselves?” I asked.
Janey said “They don’t have enough to go around, hardly any ammo either. Didn’t Mr. Tucker tell you guys that?”
I uncomfortably said something along the lines of that he might have but we came to check on things ourselves. She asked who had come with me when I told her, she asked why didn’t Tucker come back and I said that I would explain later when the group of kids entered the room with us.
It turned out that hitting David was kind of a big deal, his father was on guard duty but had been sent for and there was no shortage of people who seemed intent to shove their big ol’ honkers in where they were not needed. They were yelling at Janey which I thought was pretty stupid so after a bit I decided that I had enough and I told them to knock it off. They looked at me like I was the one being stupid, but only for a moment because they immediately started to talk over me like I wasn’t there again. So I picked up my pack and rifle and started towards the stairs but I was suddenly brought up short by a man who grabbed onto my rifle sling and demanded that I turn it over to him. Well, that was what he was in the middle of saying when I spun around and pulling the hammer back on my M9, shoved it up towards his face so that it tilted his head back a bit when it came to rest under his chin.
“AS YOU WERE JOHNNY!” came a harsh female voice as Lt. Klein entered the room from the opposite stairwell. To be honest I didn’t really know what that meant but the man, who turned out to be David’s Dad, froze so I did too. I didn’t turn to face her; I kept my eyes on the big man who still hadn’t released my rifle. She didn’t reach for my pistol which was a good thing because my finger was on the trigger and the safety was off.
“Lower your weapon, Johnny” she commanded in a softer voice.
“Not until peckerwood here releases my rifle.” I answered.
I heard Rico snicker and he stepped closer untangling the man’s fingers from my weapon. I lowered my pistol but only to gut level. One of the new people asked what was going on, the man said he was confiscating weapons from “
this kid
”. I nearly shot him but I kept my cool and didn’t say anything. Everyone started to talk at once so the majority was ushered from the room. I listened how dangerous it was to let kids near weapons, how I had struck David unprovoked and how I clearly didn’t understand firearm safety. Klein waited for my response so I told her that they were dicks, how David had tried to take my weapon, how his father had done the same thing and what I did in each case. I then told them I knew Tucker’s rule of gun safety: Never point a gun at a person unless you are willing to kill them. I let that sink in a bit then sat down.
Dr. Carter and Lt. Klein spoke for a minute before they reprimanded everyone who was remotely involved: David, his Dad, me, Janey, the kids, the adults. Basically we had to agree to play nice, leave stuff alone that wasn’t ours and not kill each other. I kept glaring at David’s Dad just to impress upon him the fact that I would NOT be disarmed; ever. My death beam flickered over to Janey when she whispered that I sounded a lot like Tucker; that hurt my feelings but I was able to recover quickly enough.
That night we made a radio call back to the lodge prior to having a formal meeting with the leaders of their group. Lucy insisted on telling me about her adventures during the day but she assured me that not to worry I would get so see her soon. Tucker also asked to speak to me just as I was about to hand the mic over to the Lieutenant.
“John?” He said, “Look, I want you to keep an eye open if you can for potential fighters, people we can count on.”
I cringed at his use of the phrase “
we can count on
”, but to be honest I was curious as to why he didn’t ask the Lieutenant so I asked him.
“Because you know what it takes just as much as the L.T. Besides I trust you more than anyone else.”
Just for a moment I felt a little sorry for the son of a bitch, the only one he thought he could count on hated him. But I said that I would then I leaned out of our vehicle and called over to the Lieutenant so she could get her report in too. I walked inside and sat at the table where the meeting was to be held and waited. I got several strange looks but I ignored them. A few moments later Rico and the L.T. came in and sat next to me. Janey hobbled in and sat on the far side of Rico so she was between us and where their people were going to sit. Eventually Dr. Carter, Mr. Moore and two other people I didn’t know yet came in and sat down. The two new comers were introduces as Jeff Blaine and Diane West. Mr. Blaine was in his late seventies and was in charge of keeping track of their supplies and such. Ms. West was in her late thirties or early forties; she was thin and had a hard looking face with a pinched nose. As far as I could tell she was there because no one was brave enough to tell her not to be.
It didn’t take long for the nitty gritty to be set out for us. They had too many people and not enough weapons. They had some supplies but eventually would need more food. A fellow named Finch had rigged up a boiler in the back and they were distilling river water so that wasn’t an issue. We were thirteen and they were forty seven, a nice round sixty in all. The Post Office was actually a lot bigger than the lodge but not as comfortable, the Post Office was more defensible but not nearly as well hidden nor did it have the food production potential but it was closer to scrounging opportunities. Then Lt. Klein told them we had brought four M-4 carbines and six M-9 pistols. We brought about 500 rounds of 7.62 NATO for the M-4s and 400 rounds of 9mm for the pistols. They seemed quite happy about that and then she said we were
prepared to leave our radio behind assuming we could work up a power supply for it. As far as food went we really couldn’t supply much right now but perhaps we could assist in scrounging efforts. Both groups agreed that keeping a low profile and not drawing any attention from the Z2s was imperative.
After some discussion it was decided that we would be taking seven people from their group home with us. They said that they had several operating vehicles and between one of those and our Humvee transportation should not be an issue. Ms. West spoke for the first time and taking out a slip of paper she read off a list of seven volunteers who would be leaving with us in the morning. There was Candace Hardy and her two daughters, Gina and Jordan, a college student named Kelsey Longacre, Genevieve Boudreaux who was from New Orleans originally but had retired here several years before, Sarah King who had run a local diner and a man named Vernon Lowe, a retired mechanic. I looked over at Rico and he shrugged so I turned to look at Lt. Klein but she wouldn’t make eye contact and wasn’t saying a thing so I did.
“That’s bullshit.” I said.
“Johnny!” Janey interrupted but I wasn’t going to let this go.
“Look, these may be nice people and all but how are we going to feed and protect them? You gotta give us at least one fighter in the bunch.”
I said the anger in my voice barely disguised.
“That’s enough Johnny.” the lieutenant said.
But when I looked at Dr. Carter he knew I was right and he wouldn’t look at me either.
“The boy’s right, Lieutenant” Dr. Carter said, “but we just don’t have the personnel, we can barely provide for ourselves here.”
There was a moment of silence then Ms. West spoke up “I’ll go.”
The reaction was immediate,
“NO!” Mr. Moore said, “Diane, we need you too much!”
Ms. West didn’t take her eyes off of me.
“No, Walt, you don’t, you needed Clay and he is dead.”
There was a moment of silence then Dr. Carter raised both hands in mock surrender.
“Alright, fine, Diane will go too if that is okay with you.” he said but to my surprise he wasn’t looking at Lt. Klein he was looking at me.
I suddenly felt uncomfortable; I had grown used to these people treating me like a kid so this was a new deal for me. I looked around the table from Rico to Janey and the Lt. then finally back to make eye contact to Ms. West.
“Fine, you will be fine.” I said a little waver in my voice but everyone seemed to settle down after that. We were shown to a room for the night and we crashed.
Later that night, in the total darkness, I heard Janey speaking;
“Johnny? You awake?” I grunted affirmative and she said “That was amazing.”
“What was?” I asked. “How you got those people to listen to you. Can you imagine yourself doing something like that a month ago?” she said. I was silent for a moment, trying to remember a month ago, I failed, so I answered her honestly;
“No, no, I can’t.”
Day 22
Rico spent most of the night hooking up the radio to a bank of car batteries and to an antenna on the roof. Everyone coming with us spent the time packing and getting ready for relocation. The Doc had arranged for an old sun bleached Chevy Lumina (that might once have been maroon) to be the additional vehicle which made Klein’s eyebrows to go up in a manner that I personally found hilarious. I hated to admit it but I was looking forward to getting away from these peeps and back to the lodge. These guys always looked at me like I was a freak or some kind of 5 year old psychopath. To be honest I didn’t understand them either, it was like they hadn’t figured out that the world was shit and if you wanted to survive in it the old way of looking at things just wasn’t going to cut it.
By dawn we were ready to pull out so Klein radioed in our ETA to Tucker, he was weird on the radio, I mean weirder that usual, so much so that it made Klein look to me for an explanation. Unfortunately I didn’t have anything to offer so I just shrugged and looked at Rico who said “Don’t look at me; I never did get that guy.”
Ms
.
Boudreaux and Ms. King rode with us, Ms. West drove the Chevy with the other five volunteers; the Lieutenant talked quietly to the two older ladies. Ms. Boudreaux was almost seventy Ms. King was closing in on 60 pretty quick. Ms. King had run the Hilltop Café for years and she quickly offered her skills as chef and chief chef for the lodge. Klein was thrilled and soon after Ms. Boudreaux had been conscripted as her assistant. Well, I guess that was useful at least, I was skeptical that the others would be so eager to pitch in but only time would tell.
I knew I was being lazy but as we drove I let my attention wander and my mind filled with random thoughts. The train was rapid and hard to follow but went something like: Lucy to Elaine to bandanas to bananas to grocery stores to Mom to Dad to mysterious vanishings to big foot. I know it’s crazy but that’s what I thought about. I wondered why thinking about mom didn’t hurt so much and what she looked like when we took the exit and made the turn onto the service road towards the lodge. I wondered for a moment if I was losing my mind; I decided that most likely I was and I just didn’t give a damn.
Our mini-convoy pulled into the circle drive around 8 AM and came to a stop, as we exited I looked up and saw Deputy Weir on roof look out. He waived to me, his eyes hidden behind his stereotypical mirrored sun glasses, and I nodded back. A flash went through my mind, I liked him because he didn’t talk and right now that was enough. As we got everyone unloaded our people came out to meet the new people and to hug and cuddle with Janey. Only Weir and Tucker were missing, since Weir was on over-watch that left only Tucker as missing. Karen came over and stood next to me so I asked her about OMT, she said he was gone again.
“Again?” I asked.
Karen leaned in closer to me so no one else could hear;