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Dear Diary,
It’s me, Jessica.
Daniel, Savannah, and several others had set up fires back and to the far side of the barrier. Over the fires, they had large pots of boiling water. They were sitting on logs with medical shears and knives, cutting a pile of bed sheets into strips for bandages. It must have been a lesson learned from the Battle of Four Corners. They would then boil to sterilize the bandages and let them cool in other clean pots.
Jack walked along the barrier, passing the word for everyone to check their reloads, to “make ready,” and not to waste ammunition on machine gun nests unless they had a good, clean shot. He gave words of reassurance, even making jokes to ease the tension in the air. Several began to joke back with him or to others around them.
Then, Rae started it in her rich, Southern voice,
“I admit, at first, I was afraid; I was petrified.”
It was the opening song line from that football movie we had line danced to, I Will Survive.
I joined in.
Surprisingly, so did Sean.
Then others across the barrier.
Savannah got up from her log and began to line dance.
Rae and I both hopped out behind our positions and synced with Savannah. So did Sean and a few others.
Jack facepalmed, but I could see his shoulders shaking with laughter.
It may not have been a battle hymn, but it was Four Corners.
The sharp bark of a short burst from the machine gun on the hill ended our song and dance routine as we jumped back into our positions.
The mobile machine gun nests were on the move. Under the weight of the heavy wood and the plate steel, the men pushing from the rear slowly advanced them toward the barrier. When they were about a hundred yards, the nests stopped, and the machine guns opened fire with a roar. There were two medium machine guns in each nest. Each gun fired alternative long bursts all along the barrier. Bullets slammed into the barrier, and the metal structure of the vehicles that made up the barrier ripped through the air just above our heads as we took cover.
We heard a long burst from our own machine gun, along with single shots from the marksmen. The men who pushed the mobile machine gun nests tried to run back to their lines, but a few of them got cut down; the rest stopped and ran back to take cover behind the nests.
Behind the cult’s wagon lines, a pole was raised with two flags on it. The upper one was red, and the lower one was white. The machine gun nests paused. All four guns pulled back into the nests.
In the sudden deafening silence, Sean asked, “What are they doing?”
“Swapping out barrels,” Jack responded. “Loading fresh belts.” Jack shouted to the barrier’s left and right, “Stand ready!”
The barrels of the machine guns reappeared. All four guns fired in longer bursts all along the barrier. No one could return a shot without a real chance of getting shot in the head. From their wagon line, a dozen or so men shot at our machine gun position at rapid fire, pinning them down.
Two groups of four riders from each side of their wagon line came around, under the cover of the machine guns, and rode right between them. Their horses easily jumped over our defensive trenches. Grappling hooks were tossed over the wooden panels Jack and the others had installed during the night. The hooks rode up on our side of the wood, once they topped the panels and the riders “set” them. A moment later, the panels were ripped down.
Those of us who saw what happened cried out in alarm.
“It’s okay,” Jack shouted. “They did the work for us!” He then turned, facing South, and shouted, “Send them! Send them!”
Others who took cover along the North Road, passed the word down the line.
The machine gun nests continued to fire as their riders returned to their lines. Once again, they paused to swap out barrels and reload fresh belts.
Jack nodded to no one, stepped out into the now empty space where the wooden panels stood a few moments ago, aimed a rifle with a grenade launcher underneath the barrel at one of the machine gun nests, and fired a grenade. While Jack had the most experience with a grenade launcher, it fell just short and impacted under the front of the mobile machine gun nest. The result was still devastating. The explosion flipped over the entire nest ten feet in the air, landing just behind where it was. The men taking cover behind the nest who were not killed in the explosion were crushed as it crashed down on top of them. The nest box collapsed under its own weight and the effects of gravity.
Jack noted the grenade’s impact and stepped back behind the barrier, adjusting to the grenade launcher sights and reloading all in one swift movement. He then stepped back into the open space as he shouldered the rifle. The barrels of the machine guns reappeared. Jack took the shot.
This time, the grenade struck the nest just below the gun slot, and the whole front end was destroyed. The force of the explosion launched the nest back several feet, killing some of the men taking cover behind it and maiming others.
Everyone on both sides was in shock as to what just happened. No one moved, no one said anything.
Then I felt it before I heard it. The ground was rumbling. What sounded like thunder in the distance grew closer. I turned to look. Mr. Miller, Mrs. Miller, Billy, Janet, and Justin were driving what had to be one hundred head of cattle up the North road toward the barrier at a run.
It was a stampede. As they approached the barrier, the cattle saw the opening where the wooden panels had been and funneled themselves through, past the defensive trenches and toward the cult’s wagon line. With no opening, the cattle stampede straight through. Some of the wagons were overturned. Others were tossed to one side only to be thrown again by other cattle. Some men on their line tried to shoot the cattle. They died first, either under an upturned wagon or under 1,200 pounds of hooves. Others turned and tried to flee, only to get run down. The two smaller tents were razed. One-half of the big tent came down. The horses that pulled the wagons, feeling, hearing, and seeing the oncoming stampede, all pulled on their picket lines at the same time, northward and ripped the anchors for the picket lines out. The horses ran away in a panic.
It was absolute chaos.
“Yeah,” Jack said aloud, watching from the open space in the barrier, rifle butt on his one hip, the sound of the stampede receding in the distance.
“That turned out better than I planned.”
Entry two
Jack passed the word for everyone to maintain their positions and keep watch. He called for a “damage” report. Despite the machine gun fire, no one on the barrier was hurt or killed. Aside from Jack, no one on the barrier even got a chance to return fire. The positions on the hillside were the only ones who did. Two of the marksmen on the hill took hits but were not serious. Jack simply said, “We got lucky.”
We could see some movement. A few undamaged wagons were attached to the rider’s horses and turned away from their line. After an hour, Jack turned to me, held out the binoculars, nodded toward the hillside, and said, “Check it out. Take your time. Make sure of what you see.”
“On it, Jack.”
I did not bother to low crawl this time but sprinted up to the hillside position. After about thirty minutes of watching through the binoculars, I returned to report.
“I did not see any movement. A number of bodies on the ground, likely more under the overturned wagons or in the tents. A few dead horses and cows.”
Jack nodded. After a moment, he called up three teams to recon the situation. One to each side of the road, one up the middle.
Jack lead the middle team, I was at his one side, my rifle at “the ready,” as was the rest of the team.
The remaining wagons were in various conditions of destruction. Some could be salvaged. Others were firewood. As I reported, there were some dead men under the wagons. There were many more between their line and the tents.
Jack stopped and stood over one body.
I only recognized him by his clothing. The head and body had been smashed so many times by the stampede, driving the body nearly flush with the ground.
It was their military tactician.
We found other bodies in similar condition. Those that were not absolutely crushed clearly had severe head wounds they died of or were twisted and mangled in impossible positions.
One of those bodies twisted and mangled into impossible positions was Sarah. I knelt down over her. I reached out to turn her over but stopped myself. I did not want to see what was left of her face. I pulled my hand back.
Diary, I did not feel happy, glad, or triumphant at that moment. We had won, with no losses. But kneeling over her body, I could only feel sad for her. For what she must have endured under the life in the cult. Being used as a spy. Only to die like this.
Entry three
After our sweep, we found only the dead. The cult’s survivors had taken what they could with the remaining wagons and left. Reverend Ishmael’s body was not among the dead. Thankfully, neither were the other two spies, Samuel and Abigail.
We took the horses and cows that died and would have our own celebration after we had a funeral pyre for their dead. By our count, thirty-four of the cult members died – mostly men but a few women too.
While many ate well, drank, sang, and danced, I sat down next to Billy with a plate of steak and roasted vegetables. I knew I was hungry but did not feel it.
Billy was kind enough to notice my mood. He told me of how Jack talked with his father, then staged the fake revelation in front of the spies, and he and his dad would actually go to the East to find one of the loose herds of cattle to bring them in for the stampede. Billy noted one, maybe two calvings, and those loose herds would become completely wild. They would be like the wild water buffalo of South Africa or the Bison of the American Great Plains.
I realized he was trying to change the subject and reached out with one hand to his and said, “Thank you.”
I then changed the subject myself and talked about how I enjoyed teaching reading to my students and marksmanship.
Diary, Billy, and I ate our dinner, talked, and laughed. We even danced later around the fires. In the quiet moments, I could not help but think of Sarah.
Entry four
Diary, it appears our house is now the central square of the neighborhood.
With Dad’s open invitation to use his outdoor oven and stove, people were constantly coming over to bake bread, cook a meal, or smoke meat. Dad built a large wooden table eight feet long by five feet wide. People would roll out their bread into loaves on either side of the table while chatting.
Mom thoroughly enjoyed having people over to talk to. Some would bring bags of tea for hot or cold drinks. Others would make a little extra of their breakfast or lunch to share.
HAM Guy would come by occasionally to give us the latest news he heard on the radio nets. Someone would always give him a plate of food or a loaf of bread in exchange.
Several groups were now declaring themselves as the new federal government, each with their own president. Each is promising to rebuild and restore America to its former self. A few announced their own separate nations entirely. There were a few coalitions and one New England confederacy. HAM Guy gave a snort at the irony of a New England “confederacy.” And one guy has pronounced himself as the King of New America.
The HAM guy in the city reported there is a flu going around. He says it does not seem too bad but people with young children and the elderly are keeping away from others as a precaution. The gang that Jack went to the city to trade for antibiotics has established their “turf” from other gangs. There is an occasional fight between gangs, but things are mostly peaceful. They cannot afford a prolonged war and they do have to trade with each other sometimes.
Our HAM Guy made a connection with a woman claiming to be from Ireland. According to her, the UK and the EU have collapsed into general chaos. Most of them still have power but there is a lot of fighting in the streets. Gangs with weapons have overpowered local governments and have taken over entire towns and cities in countries with strict gun control laws. There were un-verified accounts of ethnic cleansing of all kinds. She also said there was a war going on but no one seems to know who is fighting who or where. As far as she knows, Iceland and Greenland are the only countries completely unscathed. She heard reports that America was having its own civil war.
HAM Guy just shrugged his shoulders and said he would try to keep in touch with her.
There is rancher up north HAM Guy was talking to on the radio nets even before the power went out. He reported they already had snow. It is a good two or three weeks early for them. He was lucky he had a good summer and leftover hay from the previous year to keep his herds fed, but he thought he would have to either cull part of his herd or let them go wild. Culling the herd, there was no market to send them to. He, his family, all the ranch hands, and their families could not eat that much beef without it going bad. Wild seemed the better idea.
A guy down in Texas reported at first, after the power went out, the Mexican drug cartels came across the border en masse and tried to take over entire regions. Control corridors for their drug trade. Then the Texas National Guard showed up and would shoot anyone and everyone who could not prove they were Americans. With tanks, APCs, helicopters, and troop numbers, the drug cartels were quickly out-gunned and out-manned.
But HAM Guy said, “Here is the real kicker. With the power out and all our infrastructure down, the drug cartels no longer had access to their market. There is no means to sell to their buyers. Their buyers no longer had access to money. And it didn’t take long until money had no meaning. Everyone was fighting over things like food and fuel. They left. There was no profit in it. Then, they found themselves in the same situation as we were in Mexico. No power.
Suddenly, things got real local, real fast.”
The guy in Texas even said there were reports of green card holders crossing back into Mexico as they felt it was safer there than in America.
Diary, how messed up is that?
About 1stMarineJarHead
1stMarineJarHead is not only a former Marine, but also a former EMT-B, Wilderness EMT (courtesy of NOLS), and volunteer firefighter.
He currently resides in the great white (i.e. snowy) Northeast with his wife and dogs. He raises chickens, rabbits, goats, occasionally hogs, cows and sometimes ducks. He grows various veggies and has a weird fondness for rutabagas. He enjoys reading, writing, cooking from scratch, making charcuterie, target shooting, and is currently expanding his woodworking skills.
