Chapter 26

Our Christmas Eve party would always be one to remember. Almost nothing was working out right today according to plan, and even the first round of turkeys baked in the ovens in our kitchen and the canteen, and also the ones on the grills didn't quite seem to cook to our desired perfection. I think they were all still a bit too icy and their insides hadn't thawed enough while in the ice chests. We cooked them anyway, but to get the breasts almost sort-of done we had to invariably overcook the dark meat ... my favorite part of the bird. The hams had similar issues and weren't really done down by the bone until late. No one wants to eat semi-raw ham!

The Ranger Heights Bandit gang had struck again the previous night, targeting more branch drug stone chains, but at our second pillaging location we ran into competition. The interior store had already been largely looted clean but the heavy pharmacy locks had kept out the amateurs. We waved some guns around and the junior league plunders all gave up some operating space as we cracked open the secured area with our titanium crowbars and quickly cleaned out the prescription meds.

Looters were already at our next destination, and the one after that, but we had a final drug store intact and unviolated left to us on the north side of the river on MOPAC. We took the extra time to strip the place nearly to the walls, as we figured that we wouldn't be finding many more virgin opportunities in the future. We did stop on an impulse and loot out a small coin collectors shop on the way home. I half expected to find the owner sleeping there with a gun in hand, but the place was empty for pillaging, and topping off the dragon's horde money pit! I guessed that the owner had lived further across town and hadn't made it on foot her to secure his shop. We had trouble with a trio of large safes that were probably loaded with the expensive stuff, so we just rolled them intact into the truck, so Ray could drill them out later. We did find what we were after, mint sacks of junk silver bullion, pre-1964 dimes, quarters, halfs and dollars. The currency of the past ... and soon the future.

Despite this one singular haul, it was meager pickings, and likely to be even worse when we went out later, after the turkey feast. Nelson was hearing occasional CB radio and walkie-talkie frequency radio reports now that civil unrest and looting was starting. This was just the spark, and tomorrow things would be far worse still. Finding an unlooted store after tomorrow was going to be a miracle!

The early word out on the street was that Austin Electric wouldn't, couldn't have their generators up for a minimum of six month, as the parts they needed were made only in China. I expected this was the case with utilities everywhere now. Everything came from China, and those factories and container ships weren't going to be plying the seas for years, if not decades ... if ever again!

One shortwave radio message from India was reporting colossal fires and deaths all over Asia. Scattered rumors even of steaming and boiling seas near Japan, Singapore and Australia. Nothing confirmed of course, but this suggested that a MCE bubble, a tenth of just one percent of the huge coronal ejection haven given our fragile blue marble a swiping blow as it passed. Amy had thought, remembering Lucy's fragmentary visions that most, if not all of Asia would burn in flame, and apparently it had. Sorry, Austin Electric ... those generator factories in China were now burning, along with 95% plus of it's population.

Lumpy was having issue with the lights here too. They'd finished setting up the windmill for the Secret Garden but power was fluctuating up and down and he hadn't located the problem yet. It could just be a loose connection somewhere or some electrical component had been improperly shielded and was now knocked out of whack.

So, for our village Christmas Eve party we burned firewood in a couple of big 55 gallon steel drums and everyone tried to pretend that they all weren't now trapped in some Dickensian nightmare, living like refugees on the street. It was cold enough that everyone was freezing despite wearing coats and blankets wrapped around themselves and there were rumors of snow flurries, but I didn't personally see any. The entire eastern rim might be nothing but charcoal now, but it was freezing here! The clouds had been dark all day without hardly a glimpse of the sun, and with at least two continents burning, the smoke from the fires were going to be blanketing the earth for awhile.

Here the menu was over/under cooked meat, frozen corn on the cob that had been reheated but quickly turned cold outside on the buffet line, umpteen loaves of store-bought sandwich bread, and dinner rolls that were unspeakably disappointing. The store bought pies and cakes, anything that I could find left at Kroger's bakery, were somewhat better, but not memorable. Maria Ross, our designated tribal chef had never actually had professional culinary training, but she had been acclaimed by everyone in the village as its resident 'foodie'. She cooked just fine actually, considering she was getting used to the professional grade stoves and equipment, but her baking skills were suspect. Finding a professional baker hadn't been on our personnel priority list. Now it was.

We tried to up the voltage of fake cheerfulness for the holiday festivities with a bout of carol singing but no one was really in the mood. It was as Kathy put it, like being abandoned on the Island of Misfit Toys, ala the Rudolph cartoon, once again for another Christmas. Santa clearly had other things to do this year than pay us a cheerful visit.

Garry and I were about to call it an evening and migrate back inside our house where it was slightly warmer, at least upstairs anyway, when a runner arrived from the east barricade of the village bearing a message for us both.

"There's a pair of refugees that just arrived with a message for you Kurt. They say it's from your ex-wife. They've run into trouble down by the apartment complexes near I-35. The county road there is barricaded shut and the residents are robbing everyone that passes. They say that Kelly's being held captive there still, but they got away to let us know."

Crap! How the fuck did Kelly even know where I lived these days? While the divorce might have been relatively civilized, she'd rather pissed me off when she'd moved in with her new boyfriend, a coworker I'd always been suspicious of, even before the ink on the decree was dry. We'd talked on the phone once or twice since but I'd never given her my address or invited her to my original housewarming party. I guess you can find out almost anything via Google, or at least until Friday night you could! There had been a few local news stories about me over the last six months, first about my war with the HOA, the criminal actions of the old mayor, and recently my rather public exhibitions about getting the village fully disaster prepared. At least they were quiet about our randy sex habits.

The refugees, a pair of women, one younger and the other older but obviously unrelated were a bit of a sight. Both displayed visible bruises and each was quite underdressed for a mile and half walk in near freezing conditions, so we had to get them inside in front of our roaring fireplace to get them thawed enough to fully tell their story. And it was a doozy!

"We met Kelly on her bike traveling south down I-35 just before the river bridge, heading to meet you here." The younger black woman by the name of Diana Hunter stated. She was about our age but perhaps just on the friendlier side of thirty. She was short and wiry but looked scrappy and had extremely intense eyes. Clearly she didn't normally take any shit from anyone.

"She had no food at home and said didn't have any cash in her purse to get any, so she decided to wait out this temporary emergency at your house. She said that according to the local fish wrap newspaper, that you were some kind of survivalist kook, that you'd have plenty of food and provisions to spare, and probably even electricity too.

"I'd met Diana a bit earlier and had given her a ride in my car," Liz added, "with my husband Donald. We picked up Kelly and put her bike into the trunk and told her we'd give her a ride here. It just not safe out on the streets! Don and I had been looking for a place to buy gasoline but nothing was open anywhere. Our Buick wouldn't run, but Don had this old 1967 Mustang in the garage he used to tinker with on weekends and it started right up, but he only kept a few gallons of gas in it. We wanted to drive out of the city to our daughter's house. Her new husband lives in Kerrville, but we got stopped along the way." The older woman in her mid-late forties added. Her name was Liz Simpson and she was holding pretty nicely for a dame that had had a gun put to her head and watched her husband of twenty-five years be murdered on the street right before her eyes.

Diana had to tell the rest of the story, about the barricade on the country road by numerous angry young black men with guns. Donald had tried to protect his wife and the other two younger women and had been shot. It had been pure murder, without regret or hesitation. The thugs wanted their drivable vehicle ... and the women for raping later! Liz wasn't sure why they'd kept her alive, but she did look pretty good for an older broad, nice looking and slender. I wasn't going to tell her, but she fit the definition of 'fuckable'.

The three women were hustled off at gunpoint by a pair of angry young black men and placed under guard upstairs in one of the section eight apartment units. Diana, despite being a 'sista' didn't earn any respect or slack. She was strictly fuckmeat now too and was told repeated to keep her fuckhole shut. Diana had never been good at taking orders, despite being in the Army for eight years. She ended up fighting the two guards and licked one pretty handily but the remaining dude pretty much kicked her ass bloody. One at a time, she admitted, she could have handled them both, but not together. Now Diana had a rather bruised face all over with swollen eyes and lip, three loose teeth and a pair of ribs that were at least bruised and possibly cracked.

Under watch in one of the apartments, the collection of snared women slowly started to increase, the closer it became to sunset and new prey fell into their net. There was a small window in the bathroom but only Diana and Liz were slender enough to squeeze through it. Then there was about a ten foot drop down to a tin car port that ran down the length of the apartment complex and another similar drop down to the pavement, and possible escape. It was decided that after dark, those two women would escape out that narrow window and try to find help. Kelly had given directions that her ex lived in Ranger Heights Village, a mile or so up the county road into the hills, and that he'd be certain to come rescue the ones left behind, including her, since he was quote 'some sort of gun nut'. Unquite.

That was Kelly, always exaggerating! I owned one lone gun, the .45 and Kelly pestered me nonstop until I kept it stored away permanently at my old antique shop. In her fluffy-bunny world, owning one gun made you a 'gun nut'. Preparing survival food stocks obviously also made me a 'survivalist kook' as well. That was Kelly to a 'T', always making mountains out of tiny ant mounds! I wonder now how I managed to stay married to her for nearly eight years!

Diana now noticed the stripper pole and stage and began to giggle.

"Kelly did say that you were a bit of a perv!" The young slender black woman laughed. "She told me that your nickname for her was 'Frigid Freihof'." Well that sort of tread on another nerve. For someone needing help desperately, Kelly sure knew how to dig the hooks in!

"It still is. Kelly and I divorced about a year ago because she preferred sex, if it was necessary at all, in the dark and strictly motionless missionary position. Her maiden name was Freihof and back at college, to get a husband she was more than willing to do 'disgusting' things like fuck more than once a month, until after we'd gotten married and her knees nearly immediately locked themselves back together."

"But you got over it, I see."

"Quite so. Things have never been better, thank you very much! I don't want Kelly here at all, but I guess we can't leave her where she currently is, so I'll gather up a few folks and we'll go pay them an impolite visit ... but after that she's on her own!"

"Since you're the crazed gun nut, have you got something laying around that I could use?" She asked in extreme seriousness. "Since the world has quite gone to shit, I guess no one will mind if one little mound of crap gets stomped all over and I'd rather see that the job gets done right!"

"Sure, but no shooting first. If they want to shoot at us, well, we can go all open season over them. There are a bunch of gangs in that particular complex and this just looks like the first of a lot of trouble to follow. These guys are just the early birds and overachievers, so let's stamp them out pretty quick before they get too organized, or worse unify the gangs into a horde of organized marauders."

I was in a bad enough mood now that I almost opened my mouth and said something rude and unforgivable like 'Kelly could probably use a good raping', etc, or something like that, but I had just enough sense to know that no woman finds that sort of black humor amusing, regardless of the circumstance, so I kept my mouth shut and went digging downstairs to collect a few guns.

Garry was going to wrangle away a few police officers, perhaps about four, to assist, but we couldn't leave the village largely undefended, even by our small token force. Lumpy and Ella were pretty useless with guns and hadn't had nearly enough range time to be trusted with loaded weapons in a public firefight, so I snagged them a pair of shotguns and assigned them backup security duty at the east gate, just in case trouble came following after Diana and Liz.

Kathy, being the best shot of our family took her beloved FN-FAL assault rifle and all of the extra loaded clips of 7.62 NATO that she could cram into backpack and tucked her faithful Glock 26 into her jeans. I made another note to self, that for the immediate future we needed to keep some weapons ready and loaded upstairs, along with extra ammo in a backpack, to be ready for the next violent crisis. There would be others and next time we might not be able to afford to delay!

I gave Diana one of the AKs but she scowled at it until I went back downstairs to scrape up a more suitable AR-15. One glance at her handling the weapon convinced me that her military experience had not been conversational bullshit, and when she locked eyes upon my aged but still mighty M-14, it was with undisguised lust.

"No, you can't borrow it." I laughed. It's just about the only rifle that I shoot straight with! But you can hold it for me, I need to run down to the garage and grab one of the M2's. Our machinist was building a mounting bracket that would fit into the bed of our International Scout, earlier today. It's one of only a few trucks that we've got armored up to take into a gun fight and feel happy about the likely outcome."

"Have you ever fired a fifty-caliber machine gun?" She asked with interest.

"Nope, but I been shown how to load and work it."

"Good, then you can feed the ammo belts ... and I'll work the Ma Duce!"

She was serious ... and knew exactly what the fuck she was doing with that heavy military hardware.

We were under-manned but not under-gunned, and Diana was certain that we'd have both strategic and tactical surprise. I didn't quite understand the difference, but she assured me that these were both good things to separately have.

We only had enough shooters for three vehicles which was fine because we only had three vehicles that were armored up enough yet for this sort of fun and games. At the front was my Silverado, because other than 'One-Eyed Willie' it had the only reinforced front and a mostly armored radiator. The windscreen was bulletproof too, in theory, but I wasn't crazy about getting her all shot up. Still she was the truck to use if we needed to crash right through a barricade. One of Garry's officers would drive while my friend rode shotgun, literally, with a Remington 870 Express alternating 00-buck and solid deer slugs, and with plenty of reloads at hand.

Next and right in back would be the Scout, with the camper roof off so that we could mount and swing the big fifty-cal. Another of Garry's cops was going to drive and Kathy was riding shotgun here with her FAL. Diana and I would be riding on the back. Ray had done a good job with the mount and also had welded on a half-moon sized bit of scrap iron plate around it that was heavy enough to protect most of the otherwise fully exposed gunner. This semi-circular shielding was enough cover Diana nearly up to her arms in a frontal or side attack but I tossed her a set of small sized Dragon Skin brand ballistic armor to wear as well. The stuff is rated to stop bullets, either 9mm or 7.62 NATO but the impact just might crack another rib or two while saving her life. We had enough sets, twelve, to go around and some more typical police grade Kevlar vest still down in storage as well, but no helmets. I put that on a mental list for my next discussion with Colonel Blimp.

Last in line was one of the village police vans. We'd finished armoring this one inside with phone books but ran out of them before we could finish the other one. We were going to have to trade for more to finish the job, but this gave us enough passenger space for our remaining four shooters, two more of our village police plus two friends from the gun club and watch, and now residents of the village. They were the core of the militia I eventually wanted to establish ... when we could find the time and more manpower!

The convoy took it slow and ran without any lights at all for most of the trip down the hills towards I-35. I'd found the box of Israeli night vision goggles and everyone was wearing a pair. The moon was even less of a thin crescent tonight and thick low and high hanging grey clouds significantly reduced the starlight to nil, but we had enough to run the mission reasonably safely. That was another issue ... we'd never practiced this sort of thing before, not counting the late night string of robberies of the drug store chain. We'd need to run more practice exercises, and covering a variety of possible different missions. Offensive and defensive. We just couldn't keep making this all up as we went along! Another new page for the Post-SHTF manual!

We crept slowly to our destination and staying back without lights in the darkness we could pretty easily see the gang thugs without them catching a glimpse of us.

"Really shitty light discipline!" Diana muttered, further commenting that if these clowns had been bad guys in Iraq or Afghanistan that Uncle Sam's boys and girls would have cleaned their clocks. The thugs were also apparently more than half loaded as well, with nearly everyone trying to stay warm by drinking near their street fires.

"Do you see Liz's Mustang anywhere over to the right? I'd think it would be near the apartment where they're keeping the other women, security and all that. Also is there any point in negotiating much, or should we just drive up and let them turn themselves into targets?" I enquired of Diana.

"I think I see the car, and yeah it's about right underneath the carpark about where I jumped down. Then we ran behind those dumpsters further to the right of the parking lot and then over the fence, until it was safe to start really hauling ass. And no, I wouldn't even try to talk with them. In fact I'd rather sit right here with your M-14 and pick them all off one by one. Gladly, eagerly and cheerfully!"

"Not this time toots. Let's stick with the first plan, have the Silverado turn on its lights and pretend that it's alone and vulnerable. We follow behind and you mow down anything that starts to look hostile... after they make the first move. I know, you'd say that they have already made that first move when they murdered Liz's husband, but I'm not wired quite that way ... but I'm very understanding about revenge!"

"Ok, we'll do it your way ... this time! Let's get the party going with some rock and roll!"

I didn't quite get the 'this time' bit, but we were all about ready to get the action started. The waiting before battle is the worst, that's when your nerves get all jello'ed out and you start to worry. When the bullets start flying, that's when you brain actually relaxes and you worry about doing your job, not what the bad guy might be planning to do to you!

As Diana predicted once the Silverado's headlights came on and they rolled somewhat slowly into view, things started to get interesting fast. The half drunk bandits had very poor night vision from standing around for hours by their big street fires and I'm not sure what they thought they actually saw in my forty-year old beat up pickup truck as it approached from the gloom. Or else, being overly lubricated for their assigned task, they just started shooting wildly, though not particularly accurately.

Diana Hunter, named appropriately for the Greek Goddess of the Hunt, didn't require a second invitation, and she started to utilize St. Moses Browning's greatest invention for its proper purpose ... turn low life shit into fish chum. With one sweep of the barrel she accurately nailed all six of the thugs with a single pass, with hardly a single errant shot. A feat that I never could have managed, even with hundreds of hours of range practice.

"Ah, you have done this before!" I chirped, and I scanned the gloomy green light enhanced horizon for incoming trouble. The roaches weren't boiling out of their hides just yet, but Diana was ready and had the gently smoking barrel ready to hose down anymore emerging from the apartments up ahead to our right.

The Silverado crashed through the barrier easily and also the second flimsier obstructions behind them, then we had a scant block to go to reach the right side apartment complex where the captives had been taken earlier. We pulled into the parking lot and Diana gave a short covering burst above our heads to scatter a group of five or six gang members doing something at the back end of the parking lot. We didn't care what they were up to, but wanted them well out of our way ... and hopefully running like frightened rabbits until dawn.

About this time, reinforcements were starting to arrive, coming out from the central walk area between this particular unit and its neighbor. These guys were all armed but mostly with revolvers and pistols, probably of pretty crappy brand, manufacture and maintenance. Diana didn't care if they were brandishing water pistols, and set down a solid line of fire that butchered everyone dead in its path. The smart gunsels turned and ran and the lucky ones made it to cover before Diana's precisely aimed .50 cal rounds mostly blew their body cavities apart. Garry and Kathy were both outside now on either side of our parked caravan, providing initial covering fire so that the van could unload its cargo of shooters as well. After one last long burst of gunfire, where Diana laid down a smooth straight line of fire that shot through every single window on the first floor of the apartment complex, everyone signaled that they were ready to go. She probably didn't hit anyone, but it was perfect for getting everyone's head down ... and likely to stay. She wanted to hose down the top third floor as well, but I worried that a stray round or ricochet could go into the bedroom on the second, where the other women were.

No, it was now time to do this the old fashioned way. Run up the stairs and kick down the door and shoot everything that wasn't naked and female! Diana reluctantly let the M2's smoking barrel cook down and she grabbed up her AR-15 to lead the way on the assault. Well, she was the only one who knew which apartment we needed to raid for the rescue!

Our destination unit was the third one down on the right on the second floor, and we let Garry perform the actual break-in. He gave the door a mighty steel toed kick and tried to keep his body shielded to the brickwork on the side of the doorway. That way he missed the two barrels of buckshot that immediately blasted through the center of the area where the door had just been. I had taken the left guard position and now had my .45 auto pointed downrange and Diana had also hit the concrete flat in front and then rolled into position in front of the door, and between the three of us shooting in unison, the lone gunman trying to reload his two barrel shotgun was shot at least a dozen times and disappeared blown backwards into the open doorway of the rear bedroom in a vaporous cloud of blood and shredded internal organs.

The two assclowns in the back (I could never call a rapist a gentleman), were naked and still unarmed, and caught by surprise in full sexual congress with my ex. One at the head of the bed with his cock still in her mouth and the other at the foot, screwing her from behind. We dared them to make a dive for their handguns sitting on the far bedside nightstand. The one by the headboard, whose cock had just emerged from Kelly's beaten and bleeding mouth, thought about it ... and I only thought about finishing my eight pound squeeze on the gun trigger for about a thousandth of a second. I gave him three rounds, each dead center in his chest, and he slumped back dead onto the bed falling onto Kelly, slowly and without a sound leaving a trail of bright blood running down the bedroom wall.

"Extremely nice grouping! Now can I shoot the other guy?" Diana enquired.

"Sure ... but take your time doing it. Put the first ones into his knees and then shoot off his cock and balls, separately. Then you can hurry up and finish him ... unless you'd like to take him back home for slower and more intimate playtime later?"

"You talked me into it!" She exclaimed and then fired two quick rounds, one each into his kneecaps. "Now he can't run!" She grinned.

I gathered up my mostly unresponsive ex-wife into my arms, and when she started to fuss and cry out with alarm I slapped her naked ass and informed all of my friends that my pig of an ex had put on at least twenty pounds since the divorce. It was petty, but I really enjoyed that! On the other hand, while taking a last look around I couldn't find any of the other women that were supposed to be imprisoned there with her. So I asked our wounded gunsel politely, as in I shot him once more right in the foot and then held my smoking gun up against his bare testicles, ready and very willing to blow them off, one by one.

"The other white cunts? We did them already. Gave then what they really wanted, which was real thick blacksnake and then we popped them and dumped, so they never have to feel tiny cracker cocks again, after being with a real man! Did them a favor, we did! We saved your bitchy cunt for last, because we wanted to fuck her properly for the first time in her life, with all of our friends, and then we'd be doing her slow, when we got bored with her ass!"

"Real men usually have balls, unlike you." It was careful shooting, but I did blow off each testicle with two separate shoots." The screaming was almost worth it.

Garry dragged off our prisoner, back to the waiting van for further interrogation later, and after placing Kelly into the passenger seat of the Scout, Diana, Kathy and I took a short and very determined trip to look for the remaining captured women. We found them all too quickly by following a long trail of smeared blood where bodies had been dragged, and followed easily to the nearest dumpster. Violated, and then murdered, exactly as the thug had boasted. Just meat to be used and dumped like trash, without the slightest bit of human compassion.

No ... our friend was going to die rather slowly and by inches! I only wished that his friends would get it so easily too!

Katherine, as ever, was the most practical and sensible woman of my acquaintance. She also believed in being prepared. She and Diana formed an unbreakable bond that evening as they collectively unleashed the darker parts of their souls over the next full half hour while the three of us took out the rest of the trash.

For starters, Diana covered the retreat of our other two vehicles, but she, Kathy and I stayed for awhile to do some final housecleaning. We found the car key for the 1967 Mustang still in the ignition and I had young Gabe drive it back to the village for us. He'd was plenty pissed too but I didn't want him around to see what would next occur. Despite being a former gang member himself, our young friend was too good at heart to benefit by watching our revenge.

In our slight defense, I will state that we did not shoot the women or the children, at least knowingly, but we did shoot at a lot of shadows in the gloomy darkness that not even the night vision goggles could properly illuminate. Diana started off our concert of fine gun music by shooting up every car she could find, until the gas tanks all ignited, setting the apartment on fire. Then she gave the apartment windows a thorough hosing from top to bottom and front to back, with the four wheeled drive Scout driving over the grass in-between units as if it was pavement. Sometimes people would make the mistake of shooting back at us, and when facing a gunner of Diana's skill that was suicide.