Chapter 5

As we sat around the breakfast table, we made some plans. It was decided that we needed better intel about what was happening in the local area. At the same time, Mary and the other cooks reminded me that they wanted as much canning supplies as we could get. Ted’s father-in-law, Dr. Lowle, added that he wanted to fill in some of the gaps in my medical stockpile. So we decided that we needed to take a field trip. The next step was to choose up sides. We needed to decide who would go and who would stay. After a good deal of argument, I decided that I needed to make a command decision.

“Gunny, you stay, you’re the best qualified to be in charge of defending this place if it’s needed, so you stay, and you’re in charge. Ted, I want you in an over watch position. We’ll drop you off at the Methodist church on the hill; from its bell tower you’ll have a good view of all of Main Street. With that long range rifle you’re always boasting about, you’ll be in a good position to cover our entry and exit from downtown. The scout crew will be made up of a security element consisting of me, Samantha, and Frank and Tammy Gordon. We are all local, so we know the area well, and I know that Sam, Frank, and Tammy shoot as well as I do.”

“Better,” interjected Samantha. “When we went on shooting dates in high school, I kicked your butt.”

“Sam, that was before the corps refined my skills,” I responded with a chuckle. “Now, in addition to the shooters, Dr. Lowle has to go, he knows what medical supplies we need, and Mary will go to pick up the canning supplies needed.”

“I’m also a dammed good shot,” Mary added.

“She is at that,” her husband said.

“So it’s decided. We’ll take two pickups, stay together, check out the area, pick up what we need, and get our asses back here. Now, as to weapons, I want each of us to carry our AR15s and a .22 target pistol. The rifles are just in case weapons, if we have to use them we will be in a world of trouble. The .22s are quiet, and a head shot with them will do the job without attracting a lot of attention. With that in mind, follow me to the workshop, I took a page out of the Middle Ages and made a few maces, just the thing for cracking skulls with less noise than even the .22s.” I then led them to my workshop.

As they all looked around, Ted exclaimed, “Damn! Adam, you have one hell of an operation here. It must have cost you a fortune.”

“It did,” I replied, “but what’s the use of being a rich, paranoid, gun nut, wacko, if you can’t use your money to assuage your paranoia.”

After handing out the maces, we went to the cave storehouse and I got everyone fitted with biker leathers. I chuckled to myself as I though that, in the leathers, with our maces, and packing our weapons, we looked like a bunch of extras in a B movie about outlaw biker chicks. As everyone already had their own issued and sighted in rifles and .22 autos, we were ready to saddle up and move out.