Apocalypse in the Homeland: The Adventures of John Harris (10 page)

“Jan, our team can train you how to take out the bad guys and keep your losses to a minimum. The key is to train everyone of you to shoot and be prepared to defend your homes.”

“I’ve never handled a gun and don’t think that I could kill anyone.”

“You’ll change your mind when a gang attacks and kills your family or friends. It’s a bad situation, but you have to fight or die these days. What makes the ISA so strong is that everybody works and everybody fights. We won’t tolerate any slackers. Everyone 12 and older is trained on several weapons and proper military tactics.”

“Beth, my brother lost his wife to the gang raids six months ago. Have you thought about taking a husband to help raise your baby? He has a 10 year old girl.”

“Jan, thanks so much for thinking about my security, but John will return. He always does. John is a very hard man to kill and he always gets the job done. I actually feel sorry for whoever took him.”

Beth wanted to tell Jan that John was the President of the ISA and had fought many battles and won them all, however she knew that would place John and the team in danger.

“Well, I tried to help. How about filling me in on the war between the USA and the ISA? We have heard a few rumors, but are so isolated and have no radios so we hear zero news."

***

Billy heard the scream and ran out into the living room where she almost ran over Janet.

“Who screamed?”

“Help me!”

The yell came from the bathroom. Billy pushed the door open and saw Beth lying on the floor with blood soaking her robe below her waist.

“Help me. I’ve lost the baby.”

Billy and Janet helped her into bed and tended to her the rest of the day. Beth was dazed and rambling about losing the baby and John.

They heard Beth say, “Jan is right. John is dead and I must move on and survive.”

Beth was never the same after that day. She was harder and blunt with people trying to help her. She had lost hope and was resigned to a life without the love of her life.

***

“Hey Jim, I didn’t expect you back until tomorrow. Did you find us a new home?”

John handed Jerry an MP15, Beretta and several boxes of ammo and said, “Thanks to Jeff and Tom’s knowledge of the town we actually went straight to a perfect building and found food and weapons along the way. The building is a bit large, but is perfect for our new home. It will allow us to move another 50 - 100 people into the group. We need to move as quickly as possible before someone discovers the food.”

Jeff was surprised that Jim gave him credit for helping find the new location and said, “Thanks. Tom and I knew where to look, but I must say I was impressed by Jim being able to break into the storage building when so many others had failed.”

“Thanks.”

John filled Jerry in with, “We found a dry goods warehouse that still has pallets full of beans, Spam and other non-refrigerated food. We found a building that must have been some rich guy’s storage building for his toys. There are antique cars, trucks and his gun collection. We found the mother lode. I am confident that we can get all of the old cars running in just a few days.”

“Great news, I’ll call a meeting and we'll see how fast we can bug out to the new location. It’s too bad we don’t have a couple of those trucks to help make the move faster.”

“I could take a couple of guys and some tools and get several of the pickups running in the morning. We just need to find a gas station and get some oil, anti-freeze and a few other odds and ends and I think we can deliver a fleet of trucks for the move. Jeff and Tom will you go with me?”

They both were eager to assist.

“I’ll be at Jeff’s house at 4:30 a.m."

“I’m going back to our new home in the morning to get some trucks running to help with our move. Do you want to come with us?"

“You’re not going without me. Who else is going with us?”

“Tom and Jeff volunteered, but I think we should take a real mechanic along with us just in case we find more than we can handle.”

“Billy Gray is a genius with cars. He lives with his mom and dad just two houses up on the left. I’ll fix supper while you get him to volunteer. Do you want Spam and beans, Spam and potatoes or Jalapeno Spam, beans and potatoes?"

“The Jalapeno sounds great. Put the toilet paper in the freezer. I’ll be right back.”

She laughed and went about preparing supper.

John woke with Kristen in his arms and said, “Ann, we need to get up and hit the road. No time for fooling around this morning.”

He felt a sharp pain in his ribs and Kristen said, “Who the hell is Ann? One of your girlfriends?”

John thought for a minute and replied, “I don’t know. I blurted the name out so it must have meant something to me from the past. Didn’t I say that I was married? Perhaps I was married to a woman named Ann.”

“I don’t know, but it really pissed me off being called another woman’s name just as I was about to make love to you this morning.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You sure are.”

Kristen had fell in love with John and was scared that he would leave her if his memory came back. She would do anything to keep him. She looked over and just couldn’t imagine life without him.

“Darling, it did hurt, but I’m not mad at you. I love you and want us to get married and have two or three kids.”

“I want the same thing. We need to keep an eye out for a preacher to make it official.”

They got dressed, ate leftover Spam and headed over to Jeff’s house to start their trek to their new home to get the trucks. The walk over to the warehouse area was uneventful and they didn’t see anyone out. It was still dark and John noticed that he didn’t see any lights or fires for as far as he could see. He thought that more than likely meant people were hiding and covered their windows.

They stopped at two gas stations, gathered 20 quarts of oil and found a toolbox that had all the tools they needed. John sent Jeff and Tom over to a shopping mall across Highway 90 and told them to bring back a couple of shopping carts to haul their automotive supplies. Billy saw a rack with new batteries and chose four that should work.

Kristen said, “What about gas?”

“There is a hose over there and some empty gas cans behind the counter. I’m going to syphon some gas out of the cars at that Honda dealership by the food warehouse.”

Billy cut a five foot piece of hose and checked to make sure that it didn’t have any obstructions. The other two came back pushing two carts and were wearing new clothes.

“Sorry Jim, we have been wearing those ragged jeans for months and couldn’t resist some new duds.”

“Not a problem, I think I’ll go shopping after we get moved. Both of us could use some new clothes.”

They loaded everything up and took turns pushing the carts to the Honda dealership. John broke into the showroom and chose a large sedan as his target. He stuck the hose into the tank and started sucking on the end of the hose. A few seconds later, he was rewarded with a mouth full of stale gasoline. He sputtered and spit, but remembered to stick the hose into the plastic gas can. Billy took over while John washed his mouth out with water from a water cooler. They filled the three five gallon cans and headed to the car storage building.

John broke in again and they started closely inspecting the trucks to determine which ones were the best bet on being able to get running. They picked out a '75 F100 short narrow bed truck for their first effort. It was highly customized and had a 460 with a five speed manual transmission. They checked it out and as expected, there was no water in the radiator. They filled the radiator with a mixture of antifreeze and water, checked the oil, brake fluid, transmission and rear end. All were found to be at operating level. Billy poured about three gallons of gas in the old Ford and told the others that they were good to go.

“The battery is flat. How do we start the engine?”

“That’s why we chose a straight shift for our first truck. We are going to push you, you will turn the key on and pop the clutch to get it started. I’ll put a small amount of gas in the carb to prime it and it should start. Of course, it might take several times to get the gas up from the tank to keep it running. They opened the nearest garage door and pushed the truck out into the cold morning. He took the air filter off the engine and poured about an ounce of gas down the carb. Kristen got in the truck, turned the key on, pushed the clutch in and the men began pushing the truck.

They got it going at a good rate and John yelled, “Pop the clutch!”

The engine coughed and sputtered, but did not start. John poured about two ounces in this time and they started pushing the truck again. This time the engine roared to life when Kristen popped the clutch and ran for a few seconds.

“Great, we just need to keep doing this until the engine runs long enough to pump gas up to the carb.”

They repeated the process twice more before the truck stayed running. Kristen pushed the gas pedal down hard once and the engine roared and backfired a couple of times.

“Jeff, watch for intruders because I think we just woke up the neighborhood. Tom, could you go get some more gas after we pour what gas we have into the trucks? Kristen, please drive the truck into the garage.”

“Boss, I never drove a straight shift before. I just know to keep the clutch in to keep the motor from dying.”

John shifted the truck into neutral, traded places with Kristen and drove back into the garage while the others stayed on guard duty.

“The good news is that we should be able to jump start the next trucks off the Ford and save our backs and legs.”

They each took a truck and checked all fluids and poured a couple of gallons of gas in each one. The F100 was still running and the amp gauge said the battery was fully charged.

Billy hooked the jumper cables to the 1950 Chevy and it started immediately. They went on to start a 1955 Chevy panel van and a 1949 F1 Ford. All were left idling to charge up the batteries. Tom returned and they poured equal amounts of gas in each truck.

John said, “We will have to start a team to gather gas from those abandoned vehicles until we can find a hand pump at a hardware store.”

Billy responded, “I have a better idea. I can go to an auto parts store and get an electric fuel pump and use it to pump gas much faster.”

“Billy, you are in charge of gas collection until you get someone trained.”

“Yes sir.”

“Well done team, let’s lock up and go home and get ready to pack. We need to drop off three of the trucks and bring back enough men to guard our new home and hopefully get more vehicles running.”

They drove on the service road for I-90 and were only on the road for a few minutes when several men jumped out from behind a car and waived for them to stop. John saw that they were armed and warned everyone to stay behind cover.

“What do you want?”

“We want two of your trucks and you to teach us how to make them run.”

“We’ll teach you how to make an old car run, but you’re not getting any of our trucks.”

A shot was fired from behind the closest stalled car with the bullet shattering the windshield on the lead truck. John shouldered his MP15 and quickly killed the four men standing in the open before the rest of his team got a shot off.

John ran over to the stalled car and shot two more gang members and shot at three more running off in the distance. He dropped two of the three and walked over to the one still alive.

“Where are you staying?”

The man laughed at John and said, “I’m not telling you anything. Our leader will eat you for breakfast and fuck all of your women.”

John poked his index finger into the wound in the guy’s leg and pushed hard. The man begged him to stop.

“Son of a bitch, stop. I’ll tell you what you want.”

“Where are you staying?”

“On the north side of town at the college.”

“How many armed men and what type of weapons?”

“About 25 and we have some rifles like yours, but mainly hunting rifles and shotguns.”

“Does the leader know about us?”

“No, we were out raiding a warehouse a few blocks away and heard the trucks fire up.”

John pulled his knife, cut the man’s throat and said, “Thanks.”

The others were shocked by this brutality.

John noticed and said, “He would kill our men and rape our women if he stayed alive. We take out the trash every time we get a chance.”

The drive back to the camp was brief and their friends were cheering as they drove the trucks up to Jerry’s house.

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Chapter 12