The Free Republic of Texas 2015 (21 page)

The Sheriffs dept. had the foresight to lock down all the service stations and grocery stores when the trouble started, large generators were found to keep the freezers working , that food along with everything else in those stores was helping greatly in keeping the people fed and clothed.

The restaurants, school cafeterias became mess halls for most people’s meals.

Many people have trouble understanding that things have changed so much in the last months, but any who don’t like the rules here are free to leave, the only rule is they are not allowed to take children under the age of consent with them, the county leaders said if they wanted to go look for a better place fine, but they were not going to endanger children, 98 % of those who did leave were back at the road blocks within a day, three at the most with a new understanding of life, the ones who survived to come back that is.

But now after 6 months we are really ready to venture forth to see what’s left out there, with the ranch working so well and everybody knowing their job Jody and I decided we would take a small heavily armed convoy and head west.

We were both informed by the ladies that they were going along and that was it. Ellen got her crew lined out and had the Jonas brother’s armor up 2 ambulances and 2 SUVs for the medical unit plus a truck loaded down with medical supplies that we had plenty of plus plenty of herbs and pamphlets on what to use for what.

Our communication equipment was all set up by the geek squads that had formed within the county to handle the stuff that most of us know nothing about, and it was they themselves who came up with their name.

We had been monitoring the air waves and there was a lot of chatter as people got back on the air, information was being passed from all over and as bad as it was it wasn’t near as bad as it could have been, America like the rest of the world had changed over night but good folks were out there working hard to stay alive and the bad folks were working just as hard to take from the weak.

Our group would be made up of the people from the ranch security force, all trained by John and Bob and almost all of them had also worked as Special Deputies for the Sheriffs Dept. all were as close to combat trained as they could be without ever having been in the military.

We were heavy on fire power and all the trucks had been plated to at least stop the type of rounds that most people would have, anything bigger then 30-06 and we would have problems, the Jonas brothers had built weapons mounts for all the trucks so each had an M 60 mounted in it with 360 degree fire capability

We also had three heavy duty 2 ½ ton trucks more heavily armored with 3 60’s mounted along with gunners and loaders there would be one in front, in back and one in the middle they would be able to put out a great deal of heat on anybody stupid enough to take us on.

When we were at last ready to roll we had the lead big truck, followed by a one ton quad cab with a team of four shooters followed by the command truck with Jody, myself and Jade and Ellen who refused to ride in the armored ambulance. The rest of the convoy fitted in where they felt best.

At dawn 7 months from the day the end came we rolled out, the entire ranch turned out to see us off, several of the younger men from the clan had joined the security force as scouts who could move through the forest like shadows, they had moved out several hours ahead of the main convoy.

They could check out an area, if needed they would pull over and some would move into the forest on both sides of the road, shortly we would know who or what was waiting for us.

As a special “weapon” each vehicle had with it a man from the village who was the comm. man, so now all radio transmissions were in a language very few could understand, this brain storm we owed to my lovely wife who brought it up just days before we rolled. She said she read about the Navaho talkers of WW2 fame…go figger…

One of the things we had stocked up on was Camo BDU’s, and Jody being an old Marine grunt had a thing for the old Nam era Tiger Striped BDU’s, so here we were a large (by today’s standard) convoy of armored trucks filled with people armed with Russian weapons, dressed in Viet Nam Camos and using small brown men as talkers who looked like they belonged in a movie. I figured we were going to scare the hell out of anybody who met up with us.

The first few hours we made pretty good time as the roads weren’t blocked with cars that stopped when the EMP hit, as we got further out we saw more and more signs of fighting with shot up cars, some burned some not, some with remains in them, the wild hogs and other things had gotten to them where they could.

We decided that we would see more signs of life if we got away from the major highways and used the secondary road systems.

We also decided to avoid the bigger city’s and towns when possible, we knew we could learn more from the people living out in the country side then folks who hid out in the wreckage of the city’s.

We were 75 miles out when  we made our first contact, the scout car pulled over and radioed that they were checking out a spot that didn’t look right, with in 30 minutes we heard rifle fire coming from the front, every thing in us wanted to race forward but we didn’t, we would wait for the scouts to make contact, we could tell from the sounds of the fire fight that our guys were winning the fire power battle, soon the all clear came and we rolled ahead, what we found was a choke point made to look like an accident involving several cars, most people  would slow down, look it over, get out to see how to get thru it and “ BAM!” ambush, and it had worked from the looks of several shallow graves in the woods,  the scouts had flanked the ambushers and after seeing what they had in mind for us they simply cut them down, there was 5 man and 4 women laying dead where they fell, all  looked well fed and were all wearing many rings and watch’s, sure signs of murderers and robbers, well no more, we collected everything usable from their bodies and camp and clearing the road we moved on.

I half expected to hear some remarks from the medical staff about the shoot first ask questions later rule the scouts had used but after finding children’s stuff in the camp with no kids it was clear these people were all bad.

The day ended at a roadside park with a pitcher pump and good water so we set up camp , early dinner and with guards out we all hit the tents early, morning came after a quiet night, but as we were eating breakfast one of the guards radioed that some people were headed our way on foot, when they got close to the outer ring of guards they stopped and called out asking if they could come in to the camp, it was 2 men and a woman , all were dirty and ragged and half starved, after searching them and finding no weapons they were brought in to the edge of the camp and told to sit on the ground .

Jody told the cooks to bring food and coffee, the three looked like they had heard God speak, the woman started crying and one of the men put his arm around her and talked to her in a low voice causing her to sit up and calm down, as they were eating they told us they had been living on a small abandoned farm several miles down the road, there had been 4 couples with no kids, they were all people who were traveling when the EMP hit, stranded so far from anyplace they had drifted together and moved into the old farm house, they said it looked like whoever had lived there had either been away and couldn’t make it back or had simply run for it, using what they had to work with they had stayed alive for several months until  the day before when a group of vehicles had roared down the road and the men in them shooting at anybody they saw, these three were behind the house and near the woods working a small garden patch and had no choice but to hide in the woods, they said the shooting ended real quick and they heard the other 3 women screaming with a lot of loud laughter going on, with no weapons nor fighting skills they had no choice but to leave.

Jody asked few questions and asked if they were willing to show us where the farm was, they all said yes, Jody put one of the men with the scouts and sent them ahead, 5 minutes later we pulled out, moving slow and as quiet as possible we followed the scouts, after about 2 hours we got the call that they had the place under observation and it looked to be about 10 to 20 people all armed with  a mixed bunch of weapons, the only women in sight had been ID’d by the man with them as his friends.

After talking it over with the scouts it was decided that they could flank them and hit them from behind with some heavy fire power driving them right into our waiting arms, we were hopeful that the two women could escape in the confusion or at least hit the ground.

We moved slowly forward until we were met by one of the scouts who just seemed to appear from nowhere, he guided us into a good spot to park most of the vehicles out of sight, we moved two of the armored pickups forward and Jody placed them so they would have the best possible field of fire when the BG’s rolled into the trap.

Only eight of us were doing the ambush the rest of our force was guarding the convoy and providing rear guard security.

10 minutes after we were in place and after Jody had explained to us again that slow aimed fire was better then wildly spraying the area we heard the scouts open up, it sounded nothing like the movies, it was just a lot of popping sounds followed by the roaring of loud vehicles racing at us, the first few were allowed to pass and then were hit by the 60's which did sound like a movie, we had all fired them on the range but this was different because our adrenalin was pumping, also the sounds of cars and trucks crashing into trees and each other was very loud, then the second truck mounted 60 joined in, as the survivors came tumbling out they were cut down ,

Jody’s rules worked great, no more then 150 rounds were fired by our guys and none of the BG’s got off a shot, 5 of them tossed their weapons away and surrendered , we stayed in place while the BG’s laid down with their fingers laced behind their heads, two of our guys went forward, one armed with a shotgun the other with a pistol, the pistol man searched them while holding the gun to the BG’s head, after he was sure there was no more weapons he moved on, all had some form of a weapon on them from handguns to knives.

The scouts at the house called in all clear and that both the women had reacted great by falling flat at the first shot, all the BG’s that weren’t with us were dead, none had gotten away, the house and grounds had been searched  and the women were then allowed to help check out the grounds.

After we had searched the dead and their vehicles and again took everything of use we loaded the prisoners and rolled to the farm house. From the count we had of the dead and alive and what the women and the three who escaped told us we had got them all.

Before Jody called the rest of the unit to come forward he walked over to the five survivors and said do any of you scum bags have anything to say? All demanded a lawyer and then shut up, our crew all laughed at this causing the BG’s to look a bit white lipped.

Jody went to the two ladies who we had saved and asked what they wanted to do, one just cried, the other looked at Jody and said can I borrow your pistol? He asked her if she was sure, she said Oh yes I’m very sure because all of them raped us and one of them killed our friend while he was raping her.

Jody handed her his 1911 and asked her if she knew how to use it, she just smiled and walked over to the five who were sitting on the ground, she looked at them and said to the first one, do you remember me, he just said again I want a lawyer, she shot him in the head, then asked the next one who tried to crawl away, she shot him in the back of the head, she repeated it two more times then came to the last one and said I remember you  , you slimy bastard , I watched you rape my friend and while you did it you cut her throat .

He just sat there shaking, but she didn’t shoot him in the head…well that ain’t entirely right, she shot him in the little head, several times while he screamed and tried to get away while spraying blood all over the area...

She then walked to Jody and said nice gun, very nice trigger, did you do the work? Jody just looked at her then busted out laughing and said ya know I think your going to fit in real well with us if you want to leave here.

She said oh yea I want to leave, you guys are going to be doing a lot of house cleaning and I want to get in on that.

Deciding that he didn’t want to deal with anybody complaining about allowing the BG’s to be executed without a trial he had the bodies piled with the rest in the old house and had one of the empty trucks stop and load the bodies we had left behind, they were also added to the house, after the weapons and everything they BG’s had that could be of use was loaded up the house was lit off with several gallons of fuel from the collection of cars they had been driving when they raided the place.

We rolled away as it burned, after a bit Ellen asked Jody if there were any survivors among the BG’s, he looked over at her and smiled a gentle smile and said no honey none survived.

The people we had rescued from the farm were being treated in the ambulances as we moved out; all were given something to help them sleep while we rolled thru an empty countryside.

When we stopped for the night we pulled off the road into an abandoned home beside the road, the scouts gave it the all clear, the place was trashed and looked as if human pigs had been living in it , none of us would stay inside and we pitched out tents under the trees and settled down to sleep .

With the number of men we had nobody had to do more then two hours of guard duty, Jody and I pulled the last watch. The cook crew had their kitchen set up from dinner and turned out a really good breakfast of ham steaks and hotcakes slathered with butter and hot syrup, the people we had rescued couldn’t believe the food and the cooks really poured it to them, the real coffee was something they really couldn’t believe and real sugar and real cream. It was a real wake up for us who had lived thru the worst of it all on the ranch where life never changed for us; it did make us more aware of how blessed we were.