Haliday moved away and talked to Chuck, Brad and Rob. “You guys good with that I assume?”
Rob said, “Ya, how do we try them though.”
Chuck spoke up, “I’ll help with that.”
“That’s good,” Haliday said. “You’ll also need to set up some form of government rule to keep things civil.” The radio crackled. “They’re ready,” Haliday said.
Haliday started with the fighting positions. He would empty one and bring the people in. He emptied the second and then had Rob’s guys move into the first. Eventually all of the positions were manned by Rob’s group. He had the people come out of the admin building two at a time and bring the injured with them.
Everyone was outside now and disarmed. Haliday had them all bound and ready for transport. He’d be sending them to the county jail just down from the police department and would use locks and chains on the cells. They would be the community’s problem now. An hour later they were all in cells.
Haliday walked over to the building where they had kept the prisoners. They entered it and found almost a dozen people inside. They were all still alive, but some were badly beaten and they were hungry and thirsty. They tended to these people and moved them to safety. Haliday asked them who was captured in the woods with the motorcycle and a couple raised their hands. “You guys can leave when you want, we’ll get you to your boat when you’re ready.”
They went through each of the buildings and made sure each was empty and that they had all of the firearms and ammunition gathered up. This was all placed in the admin building. They made sure nothing that could be used as a weapon was left in the buildings at all, especially in the buildings used for housing.
Haliday rounded up all of his people and they stood around and talked for a bit. He told Rob to make sure the people in the jail got food and water and had blankets so they would be warm enough. “Get their work detail busy and get the bodies handled right away. Use the chain gang format.”
Rob looked at Roger, “Why the sheriff’s house?”
Roger told him that if the sheriff ever saw freedom again, he would need a reminder every day.
“Rob, keep this area under heavy security at all times, and move everything to a secure location as soon as you can.” Haliday looked around. What a hell of a couple weeks this had been. “Rob, good luck, we’ll be in touch.” They shook hands and parted ways. Haliday and Mark took the rest of the guys and they all headed home.
They arrived back at the house. They all passed on dinner and opted for showers and fresh clothes instead. Afterwards they settled for soup. They were sitting around in silence. Kayla had security set up for the night. It would be Rich, Bev, Karen, Sarah, Dawn, Diana, David and herself taking turns tonight. They let the guys sleep through the night.
Chapter 36
It had been three days since the last assault on the airport. Roger sat at the table drinking his coffee and eating his breakfast burrito. Both Max, the mutant dog and Romeo, the cat, were eyeing his plate. “I don’t think so, animals,” he said. Romeo had his own food and Max was given scraps and leftovers to eat. The byproduct of that, however, was mutant dog farts which Max seemed to enjoy sharing with Roger.
Blake was sitting next to him, and Alan was across the table with Kevin. Mark was sitting in a chair next to Lisa who was doing much better now. In a couple more days, she would be ok and as long as Haliday was certain no infection or issues would arise, he would let them head back with Mike and Linda to Mark’s parents’ farm. They all reflected on the past couple of weeks.
Kayla walked over and sat down as well. “Hey Dad,” she said, “how much more of this we gonna have to deal with?”
He looked at her, “I hope none, but we still don’t know what the hell is going on in this country. I’d really like to know what the hell the government is doing about this, and what the hell even happened. I think the immediate threat is over for now. I don’t suspect we’ll get a lot of activity during the winter. Not too sure many plow trucks are working these days, so it’ll be hard to get around.”
He continued on with his thoughts. “We’ll have to get a good grip on the inventory of everything we have. One thing in particular will be to hide as much of the food as possible now that people think we are loaded down with stocks of everything. That will be easy enough though. We’ll cover the doorways downstairs with the paneling covers to hide them again. We can move some to the other caches, and set up some more alarms out there.” This would all be done within the next week.
For the most part everyone was in rather good shape as far as health or injuries went. David was a little worse off. He would heal up ok, but the leg injury would definitely leave him with a limp and the cold winter days would remind him of the injury. The loss of the leg would have been much worse, so he was lucky. Both he and his son Bobby would have the battle scars to go along with their stories. Haliday teased Bobby saying it was Bobby’s lobotomy scar.
Diana was the one who would get mad at him. Her arm was sticking out in a makeshift brace so her collar bone would heal. She had about six weeks of being in the contraption, according to the doctor. Roger would walk up and try to hang some of his laundry on it to dry. Everyone but she thought it was funny. Once he taped a piece of jerky on it and she couldn’t reach it to take it off. Since she’s a vegan it drove her nuts.
Alan’s face had become infected, but the doctor got it cleaned out and he changed the antibiotics. The doctor had cut a little tissue away in the process, which was enough to leave a reminder every day when he shaved. Alan thought they would nickname him Scarface but they called him Gash instead. He insisted on Scarface once, but Roger pointed toward Alan’s pants and said in his best Al Pacino voice, “Is that, your little friend?” He emphasized ‘little’ and Alan never mentioned it again as they all had broken into laughter.
Alan’s wife Nancy would set Elizabeth, Bobby, Matthew and Teresa down and home school them a little bit each day. No one had any idea if or when school would ever be back in session. They could not afford to have the kids not learn the basics and whatever else they could teach them. They would all have chores to do in order to help out.
After a couple of days, Mike, Linda, Mark and Lisa were packed and ready to go. Roger made sure they had ammo and sent a couple of welfare buckets along with them even though Mark insisted they had brought some of their own and had enough at his dad’s, not to mention what Haliday previously left. Roger told them if they needed to that they could come back, bring his parents and they would co-op the house across the street or here at the cabin. Gas would be at a premium and traveling back and forth would be hard, even if it was only about 20 miles.
Karen, Rich, and Bev settled into routines playing solitaire, puzzle books, reading and doing their share around the cabin. They seemed the least affected by the change so far. They’d miss their Kindles and casino trips and online games, but that was something they hadn’t had all their lives and could do without. The kids were the ones who would be suffering technological withdrawals.
Dawn was overseeing the horses and their care. When Diana was healed, she would help too. They did a lot of reading all of the time as it was, so they would pop on the computer and read or play games. The vegan and vegetarian cooking they were used to would help the group out when meat became scarce, and would it extend their current stores.
Sarah took charge of cooking and kitchen duties. Everyone helped and took turns assisting her. Sarah had long been resigned to the fate of Erik, but didn’t mention it at all. Elizabeth was told he was still out helping people and she was content with that. Eventually they would plan on placing a marker by an empty grave to put him to rest in their hearts.