Not Dead in the Heart of Dixie (82 page)

“Yes Ma'am General Hisa,” I thought.

I dipped a fresh cloth into the milk bucket and began squeezing drops into the little girl's mouth. She opened her mouth like a baby bird and I fed her like a momma bird would.

Suddenly, she lifted her head, clamped her teeth down on that cloth, and began sucking the milk out of it. Hisa wasn't looking, so I let that little girl suck every bit of milk out of that cloth. When
she couldn't get another drop, she laid her head on the table, sighed, and went to sleep.

A few seconds later Hisa yelled “This is a boy, Do the same thing!” I poured out a small bowl full of milk so I didn't contaminate the whole bucket. I dipped my cloth in the bowl and repeated the process for the little boy lying in the middle.

The third child was sitting up. She was trying to talk but very soft raspy sounds were coming from her mouth. She was looking at me and motioning for the milk bowl while Hisa ran her hands all over her, listened to her heart, looked in her ears, and examined every inch.

I didn't wait for Hisa's orders. I dipped another cloth into the small bowl and the girl reached out for it. I placed it in her hand and she pulled it to her mouth and began sucking.

That's when I noticed General Hisa staring daggers through me. She didn't say a word. She sat down on a stool at the kitchen counter and begin writing out orders in a notebook. By that time, the sun was up.

Hisa shoved the notebook into my hands and headed to the front porch to see what else Rick and Ian brought home.

The younger girl and boy were sleeping and clinging to one another. I believe they would have been crying if there were hydrated enough to make tears. I have no idea what age they are. In their condition, it's not possible to even take a guess.

The older girl was still sitting on the table. Her cloth had run dry and she was motioning for more. I put a finger up to tell her to hold on for a minute. I marched down the stairs, woke Carisa and Marisa, and told them to get every woman on the compound awake and in the kitchen as fast as they co
uld.

Both girls stopped at the kitchen doorway and stared at the little skeletons on the table. Neither of them said a word. Several seconds later
, Marisa went out the front door and Carisa went out the back.

A few minutes later Elaine, Nana, Rona, Emma, Marisa, Josie, Tessa, and Bree were in the kitchen with the notebook and the three little birds.

I had to lie down. A few minutes later, I came to my senses and was surprised to find myself sobbing and hugging my pillow.

I straightened myself up right away and got dressed. Then, I sat down to write.

I suppose I need to go back out there and see what's happening. I don't wanna go, but I must.

See ya later.

3:00 PM...

I don't know everyone's name yet. I only know that I've now seen in person what the Jews must have looked like after the Hitler Beast got a hold of them. Living skeletons look a lot worse in real life than pictures.

The folks at Wilky Place want them.

Hisa absolutely insists that Clinic Diane be taken to Wilky Place and parked up against one of the empty house trailers there. She wants to line up the doors and use the house trailer and Clinic Diane to watch over them and help them heal. She believes all of them, except two, will survive.

Well, it ain't gonna happen. There is no way on earth we'll allow Clinic Diane to leave the compound with all our medications and medical supplies
, and park in such a vulnerable place. There's no fence, for Pete's sake. What is she thinking?

I told her not to ask again and she screamed at all of us that they'll be staying in her and Soo's house because there's plenty of room. I screamed back that I thought that was a wonderful idea!

She stomped off, cursing under her breath in Japanese. I've heard those Japanese words a little too often. I think I'm beginning to understand some of them and if I'm right, Hisa better watch herself 'cause I'll start slinging them right back at her with a little southern fury mixed in.

Anyway, besides the three children there's an elderly couple, two men, and one woman. I plan to be on the supper crew that takes their meals to Hisa's house.

Hisa allowed them to have plain Farina for lunch. She said they can have plain Farina and Jell-O for supper. They can also have a half-cup of milk. She wants vitamins for adults and children from my coupon queen totes. We've all been taking daily vitamins, but I still have at least one full tote in the basement.

The women from Wilky Place are here to assist Hisa.

Serena Wilkerson already loves the children and plans to have them live with her and Brody. That sounds good to me. If she didn't take them, I would have.

I'd like to sit with a couple of the adults and find out their stories
, but Hisa said “not now, maybe tomorrow, we see” as she practically pushed me out the door.

Josie finally heard from Chris. The panicked voice she heard earlier wasn't him. He “coded” that he's traveling with the strike team. They're going after whomever killed and burned his two soldiers and Sniper. For Chris, it was personal. He's extremely dedicated to his men.

Anyway, He said he'd check back with Josie in two days. She seemed satisfied with that and finally left the radio building. Luke and Larson took her place on monitoring duty.

The “Sniper” incident occurred only 25 miles from here. Chris is 25 miles away and he won't come to visit? He must be deep in the scary part of something big.

Jesse and Jeremy finished filling the fence trailers with hay today. We need more hay, so I asked them to start filling the garage at the old Peterson place as well as the horse barn behind the Masterson house. They moaned and headed out for more. Jeremy says the pickin's are getting' slim. I hope they can find more, but I don't want them traveling near the area that where Chris and his team are working.

Mick and Dane found two more display lots with little wooden buildings about ten miles from here. They'll have to load up the bulldozer and take a couple of big rigs and flatbed's to get them. They can leave the bulldozer there until we get all the buildings. Mick says there's a total of 14 buildings and Dane says the total is 13. I guess we'll find out.

Ten miles is a long way. I've been stuck like glue to Mick since he came home. I don't know if I can handle it. Yep, I'm a wuss, but he's my man and I like 'em tall, sweet, and alive with the last name of “Kapper.”

This afternoon
, Pop told me to get ready for tomatoes from his early crop within three or four weeks. Yahoo! I can't wait. I'm truly a tomato addict. I canned and stored almost as many tomato products as jellies and jams.

Anyway, laundry is going on, and Deuce is teaching Amber and Michael to ride horses under the supervision of Marisa, of course.

I need to see healthy children laughing and playing so I'm headed to the meadow to watch the fun. See ya later.

9:45 PM...

Jesse and Jeremy found a small barn
with 30 square bales of hay today. They unloaded it into the old Peterson garage and said they'd look for more tomorrow.

I helped carry supper plates to the new folks this evening and met Tom Sulligent and his wife, Darlene. They're sitting up and talking. I asked if I could visit them tomorrow and get their stories. They said they'd be happy to see me. I stuck my to
ngue out at Hisa as I left. She playfully threatened to slice it off with a scalpel. I was glad to see she was in a better mood.

An hour later
, Hisa came to the house for clothing. She sent Valerie and Carisa to the basement to bring back anything they could find that would possible fit very thin adults and children. While they were searching, Hisa told me that Darlene Sulligent is dying from cervical cancer. There's no chemotherapy in the post-apocalyptic world, and there's no surgeon to try and remove the diseased parts.

Hisa has allowed her to smoke
some of the marijuana we brought home from the ckd's house. Darlene says it helps greatly with the pain, but makes her extremely hungry, so Hisa added half a cup of Farina as an evening snack and an extra serving of Jell-O for Darlene's breakfast meal in the morning.

She also told me that one of the men named Jose
’ has given up and refuses to eat or drink. His family was burned to death in their home while he was out looking for propane. He has no idea who set the fire, but his home was near the same area where Major Knellson's troops and Sniper were attacked and burned.

I was struck with immediate fear. Our fence is made of wood. Wha
t if there’s firebugs in the area? We need to keep the folks on watch, walking the perimeter every minute. We also need to find fire extinguishers and place them evenly all along the fence.

Luke and Larson received a radio call from “Staff Sergeant
Surn” before supper. He informed us that a Military crew consisting of 30 men will be here tomorrow to begin work on the chain-link fence surrounding the field. They expect to be here two or three days if all goes well. They'll bring their own cooks and mini-cafeteria to avoid using any of our supplies. There's already a few latrines the unit dug when they were here before.

Larson and Anna spent a lot of time whispering in a corner of the living room after supper. My “mommy sense” began tingling and I told Rona she better keep the motorhome door locked and guarded tonight. Something tells me they're planning to sneak out and spend time together in the dark. I did it when I was a teenager. Maybe that's what put the suspicion in my mind.

Most of the women from Wilky place went home tonight. They left Serena and Melody to assist Hisa overnight. Two women will replace them in the morning, and Tessa and Bree volunteered to take the afternoon shift. Clinic Diane is parked close to Hisa's house. Soo, Merry and Hisa are sleeping in the clinic so there's enough beds for the new folks.

A
group of eight HDI's appeared on the road right before sunset. Pop and Shawna put an end to them pretty fast. The bodies are loaded on the small flatbed trailer, ready to unload at the power lines tomorrow morning.

We're adding a few dehydrated banana chips to the breakfast trays for the new
folk’s tomorrow morning. If they keep it down, we'll add a few more to their lunch trays along with a half cup of pinto beans and a small amount of plain white rice.

Hisa hasn't ordered supper meals yet. I'm sure she'll take care of it before lunch
, so we have plenty of time to prepare.

Nana says we're having pinto beans, rice, and cornbread for lunch and supper tomorrow because it's easy to make and she plans to get started on
spring cleaning for every building in the compound. I'm not looking forward to it.

Mick has watch duty tonight, so I'm headed to bed alone. I'm definitely ready for some sleep.

Bye for now.

T
uesday, April 22

Lootin' crews are in town today. Rona radioed back that the HDI population was smaller becau
se of Rick and Ian's “outing”.

Rick
and Ian are on the rooftops, continuing their work. Rick says the HDI's seem to be drawn toward the rock quarry again. I hope that quarry gets filled to the brim so Chris can call in another round of cluster bombs.

Dane, Mick, Soo, Isaac, and Jason left to get little wooden buildings. Dane called dibs on the first two so he can add
rooms to his woodshop house.

Wilky Place is borrowing our crane truck and log truck to bri
ng home logs for their fence. We made a deal that we'd provide the fuel if we get one load of every three they bring home. We wanna use our lumber mill to build sturdy houses, or additions onto the little wooden buildings. Our first project will be the tunnels, guard towers, and catwalks.

We also want to use the magic log splittin' machine
to make sure we have plenty of firewood for winter on both compounds.

The men at Wilky Place plan to use trailers and a gate in front. We'll be loaning a lot of equipment
, but it'll be worth it to have another friendly compound and extra hands near Kapper Hill.

I'm completely ignorant about construction projects. I don't know if we can use re-use shingles from roofs of other buildings. Mayb
e we should plan on tin roofs.

I know we can use doors and windows as well as bathroom fixtures, and cabinets. That's about all I know. Can insulation be reused? What about sheet rock? At least we won't have to worry about el
ectrical outlets at this time.

Jeremy and Jesse are looking for hay. I hope they find some and
I hope they don't travel far.

None of our crews are allowed to head west until Chris figures out where the bad guys are and
captures or eliminates them.

I'm headed to Hisa's house to get Tom and Darlene's story. I'll take along a hand held radio. Josie's monitoring the radio and I told her that I wanna know where Mick is at all times
.

Uh oh, I hear truc
ks. It might be the fence crew.

See ya later.

2:20 PM...

The fence crew is here and they're almost finished setting up camp in the field. Staff Sergeant Surn is staying in the Peterson house. I guess he likes the floor there better than a tent. We've already removed all the beds from the house.

They plan to erect the fence around their camp. Every finished side adds a little protection to the camp
, and they plan to start across the back. I think there are more than 30 men and women there. The extra troops will probably be guards, or cooks, or “whatever” while the men work.

I was pleased to see that one of the soldiers is the young man who hooked up our washing machine. He came up the hill to find out if it's working for us. I told him it was my favorite post-apocalypse ga
dget ever and he just grinned. Lisa insisted she be allowed to escort him back down the hill. Hmmm.

The lootin crews brought home an assortment of things including an American bulldog
female and four pups. Rona found them in the janitor closet of a factory that makes bumpers for Mercedes Benz. I have no idea why she was in a bumper factory, but regardless, we have five more animals on the compound. Jason wants to train them to be guard dogs. They're definitely a mixed breed, maybe with German shepherd or something else long-haired. I have to admit, they're cute as buttons.

The kids went nuts over them. Kevin grabbed a couple of doghouses from TSC
and Momma Dog seems to like hers. She also likes Opie. Thank goodness his baby-makin' gear is out of business and the vet took care of Tig's when he was here.

Buttercup's little filly is doing fine. She's hilarious and likes to play. The kids named her “Pride,” I thought that was a fancy name but they like it so, Pride it
is.

I asked Ian and Rick how many HDI's they took out while they were in town and they looked dumbfounded. They forgot to count them. I made a fuss about it and they ended up counting the ammo they have less so they could figure out how many they fired. They both agreed on the number 88, so I wrote the
number in my HDI report book.

As I mentioned earlier, I visited
with the Sulligent's at Hisa's house this morning.

Tom and Darlene Sulligent are from Falkville, Alabama. They owned a small jewelry shop when
the HDI virus came to visit. They decided to close the business and hunker down in their house outside of town.

Darlene had been diagnosed with cervical cancer a couple of weeks before Christmas and she was preparing for surgery and chemotherapy to begin after Christmas. They had two daughters in college at a university in Kentucky and wanted to wait until after Christmas to tell them
the news.

Their daughters didn't come home for Christmas. In fact, they never saw or heard from them again. They assumed the worst had happened when news stations began reporting HDI outbreaks and overwhelming amo
unts of crime in Louisville, Kentucky.

There was approximately two
weeks’ worth of food in the house and they decided to begin rationing immediately. The food lasted three weeks and they had no water other than the water in the toilet tanks and any rainwater they could catch. They tried looting houses in the neighborhood, but they were threatened and shot at several times.

They decided to take their GMC truck and head for the hills. They had three cans of soup and a sleeve of saltine crackers to take with them. They filled
a two-liter bottle from the toilet tanks, loaded the truck, and headed out.

They came across several abandoned cars and discovered that many of them held bodies. Tom used a thick tree branch to bash in the head of an HDI in a government car with a license plate that read “recruiter.” They took a loaded pistol from the
recruiter’s body. There was no extra ammo in the vehicle.

They searched cars and truck cabs and found several half full water bottles, a few unopened soda cans, and a few snacks that must
have escaped previous looters.

They made it 25 more miles before the GMC ran out of fuel and they were forced to walk. Darlene was feeling terribly ill and Tom knew he had to find a safe place for her to rest. They came across a sign advertising a camp
ground and walked the dirt road about a quarter of a mile before they found a small, primitive office.

There were lots of decorations and furniture in the camp office, but there was no food or water. There was an outhouse
in the woods behind the office, but no bathroom facilities inside. There was a refrigerator, and Tom made the mistake of opening it. Everything inside was ruined.

Beside the office desk was a small display w
ith pamphlets on edible plants, dangerous snakes, insects, first aid, and camp rules and regulations. Tom took the pamphlet on edible plants and went out to forage while Darlene rested inside the campground office.

There were no campers or motorho
mes there.

He wandered around the campground
, trying to identify the plants pictured in the pamphlet but the images were simple pencil drawings and Tom feared eating the wrong thing. He threw the pamphlet in his backpack and headed back to the office building.

On the way, he noticed a large hand pump sticking out of the ground. He pumped the handle several times and almost jumped for joy when clear water poured out. He ran inside the office, pulled fake roses from a decorative vase, ran to the pump, and filled the vase. They had no food, but they had shelter and water. They stayed there two days before Da
rlene felt like walking again.

They were on a small country road with several areas that had picnic tables where anyone enjoying the view could pull off the road and eat their lunch in the midst of nature. Tom and Darlene searched every garbage can at every pi
cnic area. They found nothing.

They decided to turn around and head back to their home so they could starve to death in peace. Along the way, they found a squirrel and one ra
bbit that had been hit by cars.

It was winter and it was cold. They didn't have to fight
very many insects for their raw road kill. Darlene became ill several hours later and they took refuge in an abandoned Honda Accord station wagon. Tom found old french fries and several pieces of chewing gum stuffed in the seats. They ate everything.

T
hey were eight miles from home when Darlene collapsed and couldn't go any further. She begged Tom to leave her and go home, but he refused. He carried her into the woods and they slept, huddled together under the low hanging branches of a hickory tree. They stayed there three days. Tom dug for worms and grubs and anything edible he could find. It was just enough to keep them alive.

They began walking toward home again. Darlene had to stop often and rest
, but Tom was patient and gave her all the time she needed. They were within a mile of home when Tom noticed huge plumes of smoke coming from the direction of their subdivision.

Darlene was sitting on the grass at the edge of the road and Tom was staring at the smoke when military vehicles began heading toward them at
a high rate of speed. They heard automatic gunfire and Tom picked up Darlene and ran through the woods. He fell over a rock hidden under the leaves and both he and Darlene hit the ground. When he tried to stand, his ankle gave way and he removed his boot to examine it. He didn't think it was broken, but he couldn't walk on it or carry Darlene. They began to crawl.

They crawled for two days before emerging from the woods into a
clearing beside a paved road.

They noticed a house trailer a few yards back from the road and Tom crawled to check it out. The trailer was abandoned, old, and had
obvious leaks in the ceiling.

He went back for Darlene and they
took refuge inside the trailer. They found two small cans of green beans in the back of the cupboard. The expiration date was three years old, but they didn't care. Tom used his pocketknife to open the cans and they ate them over a period of two days. The beans tasted fine, and neither of them became ill.

They slept on moldy carpet and went outside to take care of nature. They were lying down to sleep on the third night when they heard coyote's in the distance. They crawled into a filthy bathroom and slept in the tub with the bathroom door closed. The following morning
, they left and headed west again. The fire from the direction of home was still burning and they'd heard several explosions through the night.

They traveled for three more days, drinking water from ditches, mud puddles, and dew from leaves they could pour into the vase. They chewed the leather straps from their backpacks until
there was almost nothing left.

Tom wasted two bullet
s trying to shoot a couple of squirrels from trees, but his eyesight is poor and he missed both times. He decided to save the remaining bullets for protection.

Finally, they gave up.

They chose a beautiful spot in the woods and laid down together, holding hands and waiting to die.

They fell asleep when night came
, and slept peacefully.

When Tom opened his eyes the next morning
, he saw a young woman and a small child standing over him. He raised up on his elbows and tried to talk to them. The woman's name was Kayla and the child was Vicki.