Not Dead in the Heart of Dixie (24 page)

Suddenly, we heard a loud thud on the roof of the Jeep. An upside-down
, gore covered face appeared at Soo's window. I couldn't tell if it was male or female. It was on the Jeep roof and its head was hanging over the side, looking straight at Soo. I imagined it holding on to the luggage rack with one hand while sticking its butt in the air.

I saw
its eyelids blink, then it slammed a bloody fist against the window and started howling and snarling. Mick yelled "It must a come outa one of the... or off the top... I'll try to sling it off... but I don't... with this trailer... I don't know!"

Mick looked as panicked as I'
ve ever seen him. He swerved and took a turn that made me think the Jeep was about to turn over on its side. The creature kept banging its fist on Soo's window, snarling, and howling. Soo said he almost crawled into the backseat with me.

Mick suddenly made a sharp right turn into a fast food parking lot. He sped around the building
and drove straight up the drive-through lane.

The trailer is homemade and
it isn't as tall as the Jeep. The awning over the drive-thru lane pushed the monster right off the top of the Jeep. Then, the monster was hanging off the tongue of the trailer. Its head was dragging the ground and pieces of it were hitting and sticking to the front of the trailer.

Mick drove 'til the monsters head looked like a ground-off stump. He stopped the Jeep in front of an empty building, went
around to the back, and kicked the remaining parts of the roof monster off the tongue of the trailer.

He ran behind one of those stupid little ornamental pear trees and ca
lled Ralph loud enough for Papaw in heaven to hear.

We couldn't stay there. We now had the attention of HDI's who were shuffling around the bus station about 50 yards f
rom us. I screamed at Mick to "Get back in the Jeep now! They're comin'!"

Mick ran back to the Jeep and jumped in. He wiped his mouth on his shirt sleeve (yuck) and put the Jeep in gear. I could hear, and feel, the trailer wheels roll over what was left of the roof monster.

We plowed through two HDI's who were on the roadway in front of us. The sound was sickening.

One of them flew off to the side and the other went underneath the Jeep. The wheels rolled over it, and the jostling caused me to almost hit my head on the ceiling.

We were headed down the street and Mick was driving fast. There was a public park up ahead, and past that was the high school. I told Mick, and he said he was "tryin' to think." He took a right turn past the park. There were no HDI's in the park. I couldn't believe it!

We came to a residential neighborhood.
By this time, Mick was driving slow and looking carefully at each house. Soo was writing down the address of any place we saw that had tall, chain-link fencing.

When Mick finally saw what he'd been looking for, he pulled into a driv
eway and around to the back of the house. Sitting there was a big above-ground pool full of icky green water.

Mick and Soo jumped out of the Jeep and Mick yelled at me to "keep a watch out." He and Soo pushed the
sides of the pool straight down, and the icky green water poured out of the pool and over their arms, legs and feet as it flooded past them. It only took five minutes to get all of the water out of the pool. Mick and Soo pulled, pushed, and rolled the pool around to the back of the trailer. It took another twenty minutes to get it loaded.

Both of them were soaked to the skin from the elbows down. Mick looked aro
und the neighborhood and said "We're goin' in some houses." I thought that was just dandy, not!

Of course, we began with the house we were standing behind. As we walked to the back door, I told them they had to make sure the houses were clear before I'd step foot in them. I wanted them to check every room, every closet, and under every bed. I was afraid I'd run into an HDI in a dark hallway or bathroom.

Mick was about to kick the door open when Soo said "wait." He reached out and turned the doorknob. The door was unlocked.

It was a nice house. It was
typical of what you'd expect to find in any middle class neighborhood, except for the three dead people in the living room.

I immediately knew that it
wasn’t long ago when these people took themselves out of this frightening new world. Their bodies were just beginning to smell.

The
woman was laying on her back and there were pink crocheted house slippers on her feet. Blood had come from her ears, nose, and mouth, and had run in streams down her face and neck. Her head looked like it was partially sunken into the rug and there was a puddle of blood around it. I realized that the back of her head was mostly gone and that's what made it look like it was sunken in the carpet. Her right arm was curled around a young boy.

The little boy couldn't have been more than three years old. He still had the cherubic face of a very young child. He had no wound
s that I could see and looked like he was sleeping.

The man was slumped over the arm of a recliner. His left hand
was resting on the seat cushion and there was a Springfield XDS 9 that had fallen out of his hand and down to the floor. He was missing most of the back of his head, and brain matter had sprayed across the back of the chair.

The end table held a 50 round box of 9 mm ammo with seven bullets missing. Beside the ammo was a medicine bottle, and the label said it was Desyrel. It had been prescribed for Tabitha Guddy, and it was empty. I'm assuming they used the Desyrel to send the cherub to heaven.

Mick took the ammo box and put it in his pocket. He also took the Springfield and we slowly headed off to check the other rooms. I felt like I was in a fog, like I wasn't really there, like it was all a bad dream.

We got a small amount of food from the cabinets
. It's all canned or boxed food and we're grateful for it. There's probably enough to last our group about three days. That's three days of food we didn't have before, right?

I found a 4-pack of toilet paper and an almost full roll beside by the toilet. I also found a roll of paper towels in the kitchen and several packs of AA batteries in one of the drawers. I took the dish liquid, laundry soap, cleaning supplies, and a box of lawn sized garbage bags. I took
every prescription and medication bottle or packet I could find, even if there were only one or two doses left.

Mick found two more boxes of 9mm ammo
, and we are grateful for that too. He also found two 20 lb propane tanks in the garage. One was hooked up to a propane grill and the other was sitting back in a corner. There were a few tools as well. Mick and Soo stuffed them in the back of the Jeep along with the food.

There was some ki
nd of mini-van in the garage. Mick grabbed one of our empty five-gallon cans and siphoned out almost five gallons of gasoline.

Soo and I headed to the next house and Mick went to get the Jeep and trailer. There was a huge pile of garbage on the porch near the front door. The garage door on the
side of the house was unlocked and we went in.

Mick was about to try the door
when we heard barking coming from inside, and it was BIG, MEAN, DANGEROUS barking, and it was more than one BIG, MEAN, DANGEROUS dog. I don't want to know what those dogs have been eating.

There was a toy lawnmower in the back corner. It makes sounds when you push it, and it looks like one of those bubble-blowing mowers. I took it for Caleb.

There was a riding lawnmower, a push mower, and miscellaneous types of sporting equipment. We left all those things except for a wooden baseball bat that Soo felt he needed. There was a GMC pickup truck and Mick got about four gallons of gas from the tank and poured it straight into the tank of the Jeep. That's four more gallons than what we had before, right?

We were all hungry, so we sat on the Jeep tailgate, ate our muffins, and drank our water. Soo ate an old granola bar from the
backpack while I smoked and Mick quietly looked around. We didn't talk.

The neighborhood was eerily quiet. There were no children laughing and playing, no TV sets with the volume too loud, no radio's blasting out heavy metal music,
and no teenagers sitting on car hoods and talking. It felt strange to be there, in the silence.

I stomped out my cigarette and we stuffed the backpacks into the rear of the Jeep. We headed for the small house on the other side of the Guddy house.

Mick backed the Jeep and trailer up to the front of the little house. It was a cedar sided cabin with a covered front porch that ran the length of the house. The lawn was manicured and the house sat back from the road a little farther than the Guddy house. I noticed that the side and back yard was fenced with those wooden fence sections like you find at Lowe's or Home Depot.

I asked them to recall that we had
almost been eaten by BIG, MEAN, DANGEROUS dogs at the other house, and told Mick to knock before kicking the door open, and he did.

We tried the doorknob and it was locked, so we walked to the wooden double gate that led into the back yard. We looked through the crack between doors. There was a '66 Mustang up on concrete blocks and painted with splotches of gray primer. There were a few toys, a sandbox, and an empty doghouse. I saw no movement, so I unlatched the gate and headed in.

The back porch was the same size as the front. There was a door leading into the house, but it was locked as well. There were curtains hanging in all the windows and we couldn't see inside.

Mick put
size thirteen pressure on the door and we went in. Everything was as neat as a pin. It looked like one of those display homes you can tour when you're lookin' to get a new house built.

The cabinets were wide open without a crumb left inside. The closets were mostly empty, with just a few summer clothes hanging on racks. The only thing out of place was a note on the dining room table. The note read "Alex, If this is you, we went to Grandpa's in the east. We love you, Sean and Amanda."

We looked around a little longer and left everything as it was, including the note. We went back to the Jeep and decided to head home. I told Mick to take the scenic route because I did not want to go back through town. We pulled away from that little neighborhood knowing we’d be back.

10:00 PM...

We had Diane's Memorial service after supper. We looked like a rag-tag team of beaten-up railroad hobo's standing there with candles as our only source of light. Pop said a few words, and we all said the Lord's Prayer together.

She gave her life to protect us. I hope she's in heaven with her mom and dad. I hope she's keeping an eye on us, and rootin' for us when times are tough.

We came back up the hill and sat in the living room for a while, remembering Diane,

I made goulash for supper. It was fast and easy and it filled the empty spots in our tummies, but not in our hearts.

I'm tired and on my way to bed. I'll write more tomorrow.

Bye for now.

Sunday, January 26

9:30 AM...

Breakfast is over and the kitchen is clean. The invalids had their morning meal and everyone
who needs it is medicated. I came in here to catch my breath and get a little distraction from all the noise out there. I'll need to start laundry in the next hour or so.

Mick helped Pop get up on the porch and into the house. We put him in the recliner so he can prop his knee and
stay warm by the fire. Nana says she'll make supper on the cook stove while she's taking care of him.

When I began storing food I wanted to get enough long term stuff to last for nine months to a year. I was saving for the three of us in this house, the three in Marisa's house, Nana and Pop, and my sister's family. I was almost at the four month level.

We don't have my sister and her family here, but we do have Hisa, Soo, Merry, Jeremy, Michael, and Caleb. Jeremy eats enough for two and Caleb only eats enough to count as a half a person.

When I did my last Super Walm
art run, I thought I was adding about a month to my preps. The restaurant haul added around two months. So, if we stay at fourteen people and we don't loot anymore, we'll have enough for about 6-8 months, but we'll be missing a lot of things and we'll be eating a lot of beans and rice. I'm hoping the garden will help with that.

I also want to plan for my sister's family in case they come back. We need meat, and lots of it. We need real eggs. If I see any sign of live chickens, I will tackle them to bring home.

We must loot and we must take on new people. We need a group large enough for safety's sake, but not so large that we can't feed everyone.

When the garden starts to produce it will help stretch our supplies, and our future will depend on how much we can preserve and save this spring, summer, and fall. We'll stop finding propane and gasoline at some point, probably sooner than we think, so we
must take that into consideration.

I have no idea what to expect. I'll have to get all my canning jars out of the attic, and any Nana has in her attic as well. If we take on more people, our six month safety zone will drop with each person unless they bring a big ol' load of food with 'em. If we get attacked and raided, and come out still alive, we'll be
in trouble in the food category and probably in the weapon and ammo categories as well.