The Shelter: Book 1, The Beginning (45 page)

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Todd approaches the party with a frown on his face. “Dad, we lost the drone. We think either it crashed or it was captured.”

“How the hell could they have captured it? I thought they couldn’t see it.”

“Guess they knew about it and waited till the winds blew enough to have pushed the drone low enough for them to grab it.”

“Todd, can they discover anything about us from it?”

“John said, no, the memory stick in the camera was clean. They can assume we sent it, but couldn’t prove it.”

“Todd, can they reverse the programming to send it to look at us?”

“I don’t think so, we couldn’t. But none of us have the programming skills, one of them might.”

“Shit. Everyone listen up.”

Everyone stops drinking and talking, “I think the group across the road grabbed our drone to spy on us. That means they’ll be planning on paying us a visit.”

Everyone starts to move towards their weapons. We didn’t know that every move we made was being watched by the very group we had been spying on.

Robert watches saying, “They’re well drilled, that young man who’s waving his arms around must be their drone controller, he most likely told them he lost control of the drone. The man he spoke to was one of their leaders. He told them what happened. Notice how they didn’t panic, they quickly dropped what they were holding and doing as they moved to their weapons while pulling vests and helmets on. Everyone knows what to do and where to go. The only way we’re going to break into this farm is by surprise. None of these people looks hungry. They’re sitting around eating steak and drinking beer. BEER did you hear me, they have cold beer. They have generators. This is where we spend the winter. This farm is large enough for all of us, there must be enough food here to feed us for months.”

The others nod. Drew reaches into his backpack, he pulls out half of a candy bar handing it to Scotty. “Commander, you earned yourself the last of our emergency candy. You did more than great.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Robert watches Scott leave the farmhouse saying, “Don’t lose that young man. When he collects the drone, assign protection to him. He’s going to be our eyes from now on. We’ll have him use the drone to scout in front of us. We won’t need to risk our scouts.”

Jack replied, “We can use the drone to make sure we’re not being followed too.”

“Great idea. Let’s get to work planning our takeover of that farm.”

Chapter 24

President Putin reviews the intelligence images showing the Chinese and American fleets steaming towards each other. He smiles thinking to himself
when they engage each other maybe the perfect time for us to land in New York City offering food and medical support. The Americans will welcome us with open arms, once we’re in, we’ll never leave. The American’s focus will be on the battle in the Pacific, they won’t have anything positioned to stop us. I’ll give the orders to Sergey so he’ll be ready to execute the plan, very soon we’re going to rule Europe and America. I’ll allow the yellow bastards to have Asia while we incorporate America’s technology into our military making us the strongest force in the world.

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Robert and his advisors study the images sent back by the drone. Robert points out the path that looks like the best for attacking the farm. “We split the people into three groups, a small group of volunteers will attack up their driveway, I don’t expect more than 10% of them to make it. While they hold the farm’s focus, two other groups will lay wood over the barbed wire on the sides coming in behind their trench. They won’t expect a three prong attack. In case they have an alarm system, the flanking attacks can’t kick off until the front one has started. I asked Scotty to make smoke bombs for our frontal attack group. Hopefully, the smoke will mask their approach, giving them some time and a small chance of making it.”

Drew studies the plans, “I agree with your plan, I worry about the frontal attack, even with smoke, I don’t expect to see any of those people tomorrow night. Isn’t there some other way?”

“I’ve reviewed the images, I can’t find another way. If we don’t send some people up their driveway, they will grow suspicious and keep a sharper eye on their flanks. If they catch us out in the open, they’ll cut us down before we reach them. We need the distraction of the frontal attack, which is what they’re expecting. We should give them what they’re expecting so they don’t look on their flanks.”

“Robert, I agree with you that it’s the best plan, I just wish there was another way.”

“Me too, but I haven’t been able to find it.”

“When do we kick off the attack?”

“In two days, we harass them with the drone to keep them off balance, on the morning of the third day we’ll attack an hour before sunrise.”

“Let’s do it.”

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Big Dutch walked around his campsite, his gang now numbers 532 people, all are heavily armed. They have two school buses and a 32 foot Ryder truck filled with supplies and slaves following the bikes. Dutch studies the map on his lap, deciding to spend two nights in their current location resting and partying before they move into the northern suburbs of Nashville. He nods to himself thinking he’s going to grab a slave for some relaxation for the night.

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Our own drone which was captured by the group across the street buzzed us day and night for two days, every time it came close John sounded our alarm. I’m worried that this is all part of a master plan to make sure we don’t get any rest. I think it's all part of their plan to keep us off balance pending an attack against us. I ask John, “Buddy if you were commanding the other side what would you do?”

“Jay, I’d do what they’re doing, I’d keep us confused and unbalanced, I’d screw with us until we’re tired and confused. When we’re worn out always responding to the alarm, I’d attack.”

“That’s what’s worrying me, I think they’re going to attack us very soon. I’m sure the drone showed them our trench and other defenses.”

John nods, saying, “Jay, I agree which is why if I were them, I’d attack three fronts, one up the driveway where we expect it. And two on our flanks where our defenses are the weakest. I thought about digging additional pits on our flanks. The problem is our flanks are so large if we dig everywhere we won’t have any crops left. We don’t have any idea where they’ll be coming at us from. Without knowing their avenue of attack, we don’t know where to build defenses. You had a good idea when you dug the fighting trench around the houses so we can fire in 360 degrees around the houses.”

“Thanks, you’re saying we’re going to have to wait and see what happens.”

“Unfortunately, you’re right.”

“When do you think they’ll attack?”

“If it were me, I’d attack at dawn tomorrow or the day after. They’re ready to go, you can’t keep an attack group wound too tight for any length of time.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought too. I’ll pass the word to everyone to go to bed early tonight, we’ll get up at 4:00 AM to man the trench by 4:30. Since the trench circles our homes, I’m going to spread out our people so we have some ready for action on our flanks.”

“I agree.”

I spread the word about the revised plan. Everyone agrees that the attack will come very soon. We hit the sack early so we’re all up and manning our fighting positions by 4:30 AM. The attack started at 5:00 AM with smoke bombs being lobbed over our barbed wire fence.

“Everyone, be ready, they will most likely be coming in behind the smoke.”

The wind pushes the smoke in our direction when it covers us, we start coughing, our eyes tear up. They made a form of tear gas. We didn’t bring our gas masks with us. We start trying to rinse our eyes with water and putting wet towels on our noses to block the gas. As we’re trying to recover from the tear gas, we hear the yelling from our front. Hundreds of people are screaming, they’re coming in our direction. The attackers have laid sheets of plywood over the barbed wire allowing the invaders access to our property. The first attack wave begins running up our driveway and front yard when they run into our mine field and punji pits. The mines blow apart the first fifty attackers, the pits stop another thirty, the screaming of the wounded is horrible, they cry, they beg, they scream in horrible pain. The second wave enters our property right behind the first wave, they’re able to reach further than the first wave which is down to only ten unharmed people out of the one hundred fifty that started. The second wave reaches the next line of our mines which cuts them down to only five people who with the ten from the first wave turn around to return to the farm across the street. We think we’re winning when shots ring out from our flanks, my iPad pings with a message from John, “LARGE ATTACK COMING FORM BOTH FLANKS!” Before I can respond, a third wave starts running towards us from the front while over five hundred are attacking us from our left and right-hand flanks.

I text “John, get the kids in the shelter! This doesn’t look good.”

“Roger.”

“Everyone lay down fire on our flanks, there’s five hundred coming in from both sides.”

Before I finish, hundreds of shots are striking all around us. We’re firing in three directions trying to slow down the attack to buy us time.

We don’t know that there are another five hundred across the street waiting for the word to go and Big Dutch’s gang is only five miles away from us. The attack on us is working, their numbers are allowing them to soak up our mines and still advance. Each wave gets closer to us than the previous and once the mines explode, there isn’t any more to stop the following waves of people. It’s like the human wave attacks the Chinese used in the Korean War. The attackers surprise us by throwing Molotov Cocktails at us. The initial flaming cocktails burn the grass and camouflage sheets covering the punji pits, some of the fires set off our makeshift mines allowing the attackers get closer to us. The people assigned to protecting our flanks are firing on full auto, they’re burning through ammo at a crazy rate. Magazines are burned through, empties dropped while new ones are inserted and the firing continues. The piles of bodies around us are increasing as we burn through ammo.

We’ve beaten off four attacks when there’s a pause in the fighting. I’m guessing the other side is regrouping. We have only one minefield left between our trench and the road, one minefield and the trench filled with straw and gasoline. All of our rifle barrels are smoking, a couple have changed color from the extreme heat generated by firing so many rounds in so short a time. The bottom of our trench is filled with spent brass and empty magazines. We start to collect the magazines so we can refill them. I’m worried about the barrels of our rifles, we’ve each burned through over five hundred rounds in a very short time.
We don’t have enough extra barrels to put new ones on each lower. It’s something I should have stocked but didn’t. That was a dumbass move on my part.

Flo and Jill are walking through the trench handing out bottles of water, which we really need. We’re starting to relax when we hear hundreds of motorcycles and gunfire, AR, AK, and shotguns. I text John, “Do you see anything? We hear motorcycles.”

“Can’t see the road, our cameras must have been shot out.”

“K.”

Damn it, we lost our eyes on the road, we don’t have any idea how many or who’s fighting with whom. We’re shocked when we see motorcycles driving up our driveway. They must have ridden over the sheets of plywood laid over the barbed wire. I yell, “FIRE.”

We open up firing full auto, we’re moving our rifles left and right, trying to spread as much lead down range as possible. We’re cutting down the riders, but there are more behind them, four of us are throwing hand grenades towards the bikers. Some of the bikers are advancing while firing at us. We were taken by surprise when two missiles strike the bullet traps built in front of our firing trench. The RPGs blow the packed soil all over us and blow holes in our wall. We toss grenades towards the bikers when we start receiving heavy fire from our flanks. I think I understand what happened. While the group across the road was attacking us, a large biker gang heard the firing. They came to investigate and they must have cut a deal with mob’s leaders. We’re under attack by both groups, the bikers have heavy weapons and their bikes give them mobility which is starting to take its toll on us. We’ve taken eleven casualties, none of them are life-threatening, thank God for our armored vests and helmets. We’ve got people hit on their arms and sides, we’ve got some who stood when they shouldn’t have, catching a round in the legs or lower back. We have less than 30 uninjured against a thousand or more. My iPad pings with a text, “Got another drone up, hundreds of bikers, heavy weapons, get out before too late.”