Not Dead in the Heart of Dixie (81 page)

We made it through with a dozen HDI kids all over the hood, roof, and goat trailer. It took two miles of brake slamming and high speed to get them off the vehicle. I buried my face in the back seat and wondered what in the world possessed me to think I could go into town without finding trouble.

We had to stop a few miles from town and use several pieces of clothing from the truck bed to clean the windows. Then, we headed home. Kevin and Rona joked about the HDI’s the entire way.

I couldn't think of a thing
to add, so I kept my mouth shut. I told them I needed some doctored tea and headed in here to cry in my pillow. I am sick and tired of all this crap.

I asked Carisa to bring me a bowl of cereal and cold milk for lunch. I ate half of it and now I'm going to lie on my bed and feel sorry for myself.

See ya later.

11:20 PM...

Okay, well, I got it together and headed out of the bedroom around 8:00. No one said a word. They watched me walk across the room and get a bottle of water from refrigerator. I took a couple of swallows before asking them “what the hell they were looking at.”

They eased off and went back to their conversations. Regardless, I will never forget those child HDI's. None
of them could have been over twelve years old and now they are real monsters. The thought is rubbing a blister on my brain.

I found out about that tomorrow's Isaac's birthday. He wants cornbread, turnip greens with bacon, a bottle of hot sauce, black-eyed peas, a sliced onion, and a tall glass of milk. He said he'd pass on the cake if he could get a pecan pie. The thought of that meal makes my mouth water. I know there's a pecan pie in the freezer and I need to remember to pull it out to thaw tomorrow morning.

Rick helped Mick and Dane decide on a spot to start building a tunnel. They asked Pop to come take a look so they could get his opinion. He said it'd make a fine spot.

So, what do we do now? Do we concentrate on the tunnels? Do we concentrate on the guard towers? Do we split up into teams and concentrate on both at the same time.

Do we continue sending out looting crews now that we know HDI's and fake military are back in town?

I guess I'll lie in bed and ponder those questions like I'm sure the entire adult population at Kapper Hill Compound is pondering them.
Bye for now.

Sunday
, April 20

I actually remembered to take the pecan pie out of the freezer. We still have one left inside. Isaac will get as much of the pie as he wants. He can award any remaining pieces to whomever he desires
, or he can take them to his little wooden building to squirrel away for later.

I asked Mick to
go to the basement and pick out a rifle and pistol to give Isaac as his own personal weapons. I can't think of anything else to give him.

Kevin's busy
, digging the entrance to the tunnel. He headed out right after breakfast. Since we have only one backhoe, the remaining men split off to do looting and tower work. I asked Mick to leave one of them with Kevin in case he gets far enough inside for the tunnel to collapse on him. Larson volunteered to stay.

Mick hopes that Kevin will get in deep enough so that they can begin
building the entrance support.

Dane and Pop both believe that we should use at least 4x4 posts as the main supports. I suggested that we simply use logs from the lumberyard. I got lots of high-fives and an "
Atta girl" from Pop.

Emma and Nana are harvesting in the garden and I'll head out
to start preserving food when they get back. Carisa has taken over the herb drying. She keeps up with it a lot better than I do and has all her little plastic containers in a row on the kitchen counter. If you touch them, she will skin you.

Laundry duty belongs to Shawna, Lisa, and Elaine. It's so much easier than it used to be thanks to the young sold
ier who rigged up the lawnmower contraption.

Ian and Rick are going out. I don't know what they're looking f
or, but they took the Silverado and several rifles.. Maybe they're going hunting. I hope so.

Josie stays with the radio every minute. She set up a thick pallet inside the radio building and we have to pass her food through the kitchen window. She's not bathing and is barely sleeping. Thankfully, she scarfs down every crumb of food we give her.
.

We haven't heard from Chris at all. I wanna know about Rebecca, enemy troops, and what the real
military plans to do.

I have no desire to go to town. Actually, I'm a little afraid of it. I think I'll go with Jason to loot a few houses in the neighborhood with the BIG, MEAN, DANGEROUS dogs. Marisa wants to go along, so I guess Amber an
d Michael will stay with Nana.

Wait a minute....

Okay, Deuce says that Josie is in the radio building, freaking out. See ya later.

2:00 PM...

I headed to the radio building to see if I could get control of Josie. She believes she was able to make out three words from the jumble coming over the radio. Those words are “Cure, HDI, and Tupelo.”

Oh My God, what if they've found a cure for HDI? W
hat if bad guys are in Tupelo? What if the cure is in Tupelo?

The radio's buzzing and it's hard to make out understandable words. Not only is there lots of voice traffic, but
there's also lots of clicking.

Josie
thinks she heard Chris' voice and he sounded panicked and scared. She wants to go after him, even though she has no idea where he is or what direction the transmission is coming from.

I grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her 'til she came back to her senses. Then, she started barking orders. I told her to shut up and go to her motorhome, get a little rest, and calm down. It's too bad that Hisa has no tranquilizers safe enough for pregnant women. I'd spik
e Josie's drink at every meal.

Everyone got the chance to chime in with their opinion. Jeremy's only response was that he hopes the bad guys (or good guys) kill the Deli
verance gang who captured him.

Ian and Rick are still out. I have no idea when to expect them home. They were secretive a
bout their plans and I hope they aren't doing anything stupid. They're well-trained, and I doubt they'd put themselves in real danger but I wish they'd come home soon. I need help controlling Josie.

I can't sit here any longer. I need to get out there and try to straighten things up. We'd all be dead if the enem
y decided to attack right now. See ya later.

9:40 PM...

Ian and Rick were home before supper. They spent hours on top of buildi
ngs in town, taking out HDI's.

I thought they'd wasted ammo and I was beyond mad. I started yelling, and when I paused during my rant
, they told me that Chris Knellson left an extra 1000 rounds of ammo on the condition they'd go to town and become HDI Snipers.

Ian said they were precise, careful, and accurate. Not only did they take out 215 HDI's
, but they also took out 11 fake military members. That made me feel a little better until I thought about the fact that they were able to
find
11 fake military members and 215 HDI's. Both groups remind me of mice or roaches. When you see one, you can guarantee yourself there are 10 more to take its place.

Ian and Rick's news has made
me more paranoid than happy.

We were scarfing down Isaac's birthday supper when shots rang out
from the rear of the property.

Mick, Dane, and Jason grabbed their weapons and headed out the door to join Jeremy and Soo, who were on watch and walking the rear fence perimeter. It was 30 minutes before Mick came back but it seemed like forever. He talked while he grabbed extra gear and ammo before heading back
out. Ian and Rick joined him.

While he was here, Mick told us that Soo heard noises behind the fence at the edge of the meadow. He motioned for Jeremy to stand still and listen. Jeremy heard noises as well and said it sounded like several people walking in the woods. There was no snarling or howling
, and both men feared the compound was about to come under attack.

The guard tower and catwalks are not finished and the
y couldn't see over the fence.

Soo whistled, and Herb, the gelding,
came straight to him. He stood on Herbs back and used a pair of night vision goggles to survey the area. He saw three figures running away from the compound and deeper into the woods. He saw a fourth figure heading toward the fence, and decided to shoot over its head to see its reaction.

Soo shot, and the figure dropped to the ground. It stayed there several seconds before jumping to
its feet and rushing toward the fence. Playtime was over and Soo took aim and fired. He saw the figure go down, get back up, and run away from the property. He shot again and the third bullet missed. The figure disappeared into the woods.

Mick, Dane, Jeremy, and Soo are on watc
h at the rear of the property. Kevin, Isaac, Rona, Jesse, and Shawna are walking the perimeter at the front and sides of the property and Pop is on the front porch with Lisa, standing watch.

Marisa, Emma,
and Pao are on the back porch.

Ian and Rick are somewhere outside the compound
, searching for our suppertime visitors. I'm sitting here waiting for news, thankful that we still haven't removed the plywood from the windows.

I'm nervous and scared. We haven't been attacked but w
e've definitely been spied on.

I wonder how long those people have been in the woods. I wanna know who they are and what
they want from us. I have visions of Ian and Rick dragging them onto the compound tied up with lots of rope. I hope my visions come true.

Bye for now.

Monday, April 21

What would you do with eight skeletons? I'm talkin' about the living kind. Not the HDI kind. Not the dead kind... the living kind.

What if three of them were the child kind? What if they begged you with their sunken eyes and were barely able to hold out their tiny hands for just one bite of... anything? Would you cut your meal portions is half to save their lives? Would you summon the best part of your humanity? I would.

Would you feed 'em a good meal, wish them luck, and tell 'em to be on their way? I WON'T.

Rick and Ian came home before dawn.

I heard them both come in the front door. They weren't making “Mick” sounds. I knew it wasn't Mick walking down the hallway. I knew the kids were sound asleep in the basement because I hadn't heard the basement door creak.

Rick opened the bedroom door without knocking and I almost shot him. If he hadn't quickly said “it's just me,” well, as John Wayne would say, he'd be pushin' up daisies right about now.

I reached over and turned on the solar lantern about the same time he dropped a hideous creature on my knees. At first, I thought it was some kind of animal. It was covered in dirt and looked like it was near deaths door. Then, it looked at me and reached out a tiny human hand. My heart dropped to my feet.

I picked it up, held it close to my chest, and started yelling orders at Rick as I climbed out of the bed and headed to the kitchen wearing an old football jersey and a pair of Mick's boxers. Modesty was the last thing on my mind

I grabbed a clean dish cloth, stuck it in a bowl of water by the sink, and washed the little creature's face.

By the time I got its face clean, Deuce was walking in the door with the morning milk. I told him to put it on the table and run to Hisa's house to wake her and tell her to get here fast. He stared at what I was holding, turned on his heel, and flew out the door. That's when Rick touched my arm and said “There's more.”

I didn't understand what he meant. Did he have more to tell me? I shuddered and prayed to God that Rick didn't mean there were more sick people. Unfortunately, he did.

I finally noticed Ian standing in the doorway and saw that he had another one in his arms. There was a third one with its rail thin arms wrapped around his neck and its toes hooked into the top of his belt for leverage. He said “there's more on the porch, but this is all the kids.” I thought I would either faint, or sprout wings and fly away right then and there.

“General Hisa” burst through the door wearing a Miami Dolphins t-shirt and “Eeyore” pajama pants. She had her trusty black bag and began shouting orders. The Southern Belle portion of my brain said “her clothes don't match
,” but I yanked myself back to reality a moment later. Damn Southern Belle brain! It needs to be slapped, hard.

She told Rick to clear off the table so Ian and I could lay the children on top. Rick told her there were five more on the front porch and, I swear, she started cussing in Japanese while her hands flew all over the child I'd been holding.
“This one's a girl” Hisa said. “Give her drops of milk with the cloth!”