Apocalypse in the Homeland: The Adventures of John Harris (9 page)

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Chapter 11

John woke up with Kristen’s head on his chest and his arms around her. They were both naked and he remembered the fantastic night before. He thought that he must be the luckiest man in the world.

He said to himself, “Gus would be jealous,” but couldn’t remember who Gus was.

He started thinking about the day ahead and how much training this group needed and was surprised that they had survived so far. He could tell that they were great people, but he had a nagging concern that they were holding something back from him.

Kristen slowly woke up, started kissing his chest and climbed on top of him.

“Are you trying to kill me?”

“With love.”

“Put that on my grave marker!”

Breakfast was pancakes and dried apples. It was not a great meal, but was very filling on this warm day at the end of winter.

“Damn Jim, it’s all the way up to 35 degrees this morning. Some of this crappy snow might melt. I am praying that winter is over.”

“Darling, I just want to be with you and I don’t care what the weather does.”

“You always were a sweet talker.”

“Hey, do I know a guy by the name of Gus?”

“How do I know who you knew before we met?”

“You never open up about your past. We did have a guy named Gus awhile back, but I’m not sure you met him before he left to go out on his own.”

“Okay, time to round up the team for training this morning.”

John had surveyed the area around the group’s cluster of houses and immediately declared it defenseless. The subdivision was on the southwest end of Billings, just off Duck Creek Road. It used to be a nice subdivision, but it was just a group of houses with no field of fire, no walls and nothing high enough to surveil the surrounding area. John knew they had to find a more defensible location when they started attacking the local gangs and dictators.

“Jerry, we need to find a better location that can be defended. We also need to scrounge around and find some more food to last until the gardens can be harvested. Oh, by the way, why don’t we think about heading further south where there is a longer growing season?”

“Whoa, one thing at a time, where do you think that we should move?”

“I need to scout the area first, but we need to be away from the main part of town and have a building set apart from the others so we can see anyone approaching. We also need a lookout in a high enough position that we can see trouble before it sees us. We need a place where we can actually shoot our guns for practice.”

“You take Kristen, Jeff and Tom and go find a new home. What can I do to find food?”

“Start breaking into semi-trailers, railcars and warehouses to find canned and dry goods. Keep an eye out for gun shops and sporting goods stores. We need all of the weapons and ammo that we can find. Darn, I almost forgot. We need seeds to plant.”

“Damn, this will keep us busy. I am glad you are here. We spent too much time thinking that the government would help us.”

John went back to their house and found Kristen warming up some Spam from last night’s meal. He kissed her and sat at the table wondering why they hadn’t already done what he just suggested. He knew he couldn’t remember anything, but he knew he was no wallflower and spoke his mind. Why are they just beginning to listen? Just one more thing that made him feel uneasy about his friends.

“I want you, Tom and Jeff to join me in looking for a new home for the group. We need a place of operations we can defend against attack. A small fort if you will. Do you know where we should start looking?”

“As I told you, I am new to the area, but Tom and Jeff have lived here all of their lives, I would start with them. We do have some of those Chamber of Commerce maps that also list businesses and other buildings that might have guns or food.”

“Great, I like the way you think. I will inform Tom and Jeff; we will be leaving before sun up in the morning.”

“John, I need to tell you something. I thought your memory would come back, but you need to know that Jeff wanted me for himself before you showed up. He thinks he still has a chance with me. I don’t think he would harm you, but don’t turn your back on him away from the others.”

John walked over to her and held her tight while replying, “You are mine and I am yours forever. Don’t worry about Jeff. I’ll try to handle him gently, but will do what it takes to keep him from bothering either of us. Is there anything else that I need to know?”

“A million things, but nothing important for now.”

They were out of bed before 4:00 a.m. and it was the first time that Kristen hadn’t woke him up by making love to him.

“What’s wrong? Don’t want me anymore?”

“I am not an early riser. I like sleeping in and waking up with you in my arms. I hate having my eyes open at the ass crack of dawn. I will be bitchy until I get my third cup of coffee down.”

“We don’t have any coffee.”

“Not your lucky day.”

John shut up and ate his breakfast bars that were smashed up into a powdered milk solution that tasted just good enough that he could swallow it without gagging. Damn, he missed his normal breakfast of two eggs over easy, two sausage patties and toast with butter and blackberry jelly.

Shit, he thought, “I am remembering useless stuff, but it’s better than nothing.”

They met the others at Jeff’s house and after John checked their gear, he gave them instructions on how to quietly sneak through the town while covering each other.

“I know how to walk through my own town.”

“Jeff, do what I just told you or go back to your home. I don’t want you to get the rest of us shot while you attract attention. We will go building to building covering each other or not at all.”

“Okay.”

John let Jeff lead them to a warehouse area northeast of their homes. Jeff obeyed his instructions, but was seething on the inside.

Tom fell back behind Jeff and said, “John, watch your back around Jeff. If he wasn’t Jerry’s brother we would have run him off.”

“Thanks.”

They traveled about three miles when they saw the warehouse buildings and a couple of stores ahead just off Highway 90. They had seen a couple of people scavenging around some cars about a block north of the highway, but nothing close and those people did not notice them. They arrived at the first building and it was a furniture warehouse and was too close to the road. They looked in several more and found fertilizer and farm equipment. The next building was a John Deere sales and service building. John saw several older tractors in the used lot and told the others that he could get them running. None of these buildings was suitable for a new home.

The next building that they checked had been a food dry goods warehouse where most of the stock had been taken.

John pointed up towards the ceiling and said, “Looks like they left a lot of pallets on the top level of the racks. We need to check those out.”

Tom climbed one of the racks and John climbed to the top of another and exclaimed, “Damn, there’s Spam, beans, corn, dog food and a bunch of other canned goods. We need to come back and get this stuff.”

He filled his pockets with Spam and beans and even pitched a couple of cans down to Kristen.

Jeff looked at John carrying the canned goods and said, “We won’t need them. The government will come and help us any day.”

John snapped at him, “The US government is now our enemy. The president is the one who orchestrated the attack on our country. The DHS is rounding up people, putting them in concentration camps and forcing them to perform slave labor. They shoot you if you don’t go quietly to the camps.”

“How do you know this and why should we trust you?”

“I just know it to be true. I’m sorry I lost my memory, but I know that the ISA and the PSA are our only friends. I see why you doubt me, but I know I am right.”

The last building was several hundred feet from the road and 200 yards from any other building or cover for attackers. They cautiously walked over to the building and found all of the doors locked with none smashed in as with the others. The sign on the building said 'Johnson’s Automotive Restoration'. They tried to open the door with a crowbar to no avail. John went to the closest window, looked in and saw bars on the inside of the windows.

“Look at the scars and scrapes on the windows and doors. We aren’t the first to try to break into this place.”

John replied, “But we are going to get in where the others failed.”

Jeff shook his head and said, “How, Mr. Smart Guy?”

“Exactly; because we are smarter than the others.”

John walked back towards the last building and came back with an oxy-acetylene rig. He wheeled it up to the door and started twisting knobs and making sparks with the striker. Suddenly he had a smoky flame, which he quickly fine-tuned down to a bright blue flame. .

He took the torch to the door and sparks and molten metal started flying as he said, “Fire in the hole. This door won’t last long.”

He quickly cut a half circle around the door knob and the door opened.

“Now you won’t doubt my skills at breaking and entering. Let’s find out what kind of treasure this guy was protecting.”

They walked into the building and had to pull some drapes back from the windows to see around the shop. The sight stunned them. There were over 50 cars, trucks and boats in the building. This was a rich guy's toy warehouse. There were old 1920s cars and late model Porches.

John looked at a 1949 F1 that had a large V8 and said, “I can get most of the older cars and trucks running. No more riding around in those bumpy assed ATVs for me.”

Kristen gave John a kiss and thanked him for being able to break in when others had failed. Jeff just glared at them and pretended to be interested in a Corvette. They took a few minutes to look over the vehicles and then walked over to the north end of the building, which had several rooms and what looked like an office. The office was decorated like a library in a mansion only there were numerous mounted animal heads on all of the walls.

“Damn, a hunter. I hope his guns are here.”

The rooms had combination type locks on the doors. John went outside and brought the torch in to make light work out of these barriers.

John cut through the first door and yelled, “Bingo, we have an arsenal. This guy has more guns than Fort Knox.”

There were guns lined up on the walls and on floor racks. There were hundreds of long guns. At the far end of the room the wall was covered in handguns mounted to the wall on display.

John pointed to a door said, “Ammo,” and opened the door to find shelves stacked high with the ammo for all of the guns in the room. He also saw military weapons in this room. S&W MP15s, Berettas, a Barrett .50cal sniper rifle, an Uzi and several foreign weapons that John recognized.

“We have hit the mother lode. Now we can defend ourselves against any scum sucking gang. This will make a great base for our operations. I will weld the outside door back together and we'll head home to give the others the good news.”

John gave Kristen, Tom and Jeff an MP15 and a Beretta each while taking an MP15 and a Colt 1911 for himself. He showed them how to load them and then gave them a brief lesson on how to properly use them.

“Everyone grab an extra MP15 and handgun and as much ammo as you can carry back to the camp.”

Jeff balked and said, “They can come and get their own. I’m not carrying guns back to them when we are moving here ASAP. Besides, can’t we just drive one of these cars back to camp?”

John contained his anger and replied, “These cars have been stored and only a few of the new ones were ready to drive until the EMP blasts fried their electronics. We have to walk this time and what happens if someone else stumbles on our new home and takes all of the guns and ammo before we get back? Now please help us take some back to camp.”

Jeff knew he had screwed up and shouldered the extra guns and ammo.

***

The sheriff’s wife took Beth to her house after the town council meeting for coffee and so Beth could catch her up on what had happened in the rest of the world. She filled her in on the nuclear attack and how the ISA was formed and she told Beth about the town’s last year and a half since the lights went out.

“Everything was chaotic and many people panicked. Joel tried to keep the peace, but most of his deputies quit to watch out for their own families. We didn’t have a gang problem before the lights went out so it was just six months ago when they started raiding the outlying farms and the houses at the edge of town. Joel and several of the men fought them off several times and drove them off, however we lost ten men over the past few months. We were at a loss as to what to do when you showed up in town.