Chapter 14

Mike and Joann had done some scouting and had found the Ironton city jail. It was a fairly old facility and didn't have any of the modern electrical locks. They found the keys for the cells and found the cells could be used for their intended purpose. The toilets would be a problem, but since holding anyone in the cells would be short term they didn't think that would stop us from putting our three prisoners in there for the night.

Glen, Homer, and Mike escorted our prisoners to the jail and locked them in. I felt a little safer now, knowing they were out of the way.

Rob took off with the people who would need to outfit themselves at the village. He was back about two hours later and took off with the women. Another two-hour round trip and the men on the attack force were back.

"Okay guys," I said. "Before the women left, they sketched out the compound for us. There are three buildings. The women are in the middle building. It sets about twenty feet further back than the other two. The building on the left is the cookhouse and dining room. The building on the right is where the men sleep. There are four bedrooms in the building on the right all of them leading off of a living area. The center building has a living area too and three bunk rooms leading off of it. The women are usually kept in the left and center bunkrooms when they're not working around the compound. Does anyone have any questions about the layout?"

"Not about the layout, as such," Glen said. "What time of day are we going to pull in and where can we expect the women to be?"

"The women tell us that the men never get up before 8:00 AM. We're going to pull in around 7:00 AM. One of the guys will be in the third bunk room in the building where the women are. The other two will be in the building on the right. If we get real lucky, we can catch them all asleep and take them without a fight. Don't count on it though."

"So, how are we going to do this?"

"We'll pull the RV into the compound so that the door faces away from the buildings. We'll wait a couple of minutes to see if anyone comes out. If not, three of us will go into the building where the women are and the other seven will go into the other building. We'll try to take them before they're even awake."

"So what happens if they come outside when we pull in?"

"Then, the shit hits the fan. We'll start firing immediately then we'll try to get everyone outside the RV and under cover behind it. Hopefully, we can kill them or wound them before they can get back inside. If not, then we're in for a fight and there's more chance that some of the women will be hurt or killed."

"We brought along a few things that might help us out if they get back inside," Rob told us. "We have a grenade launcher and both concussion and fragmentation grenades. We also have tear gas grenades if we need them."

"Very good!" I said. "Does anyone have any experience with grenade launchers?"

"I do," Glen said. "I'll be responsible for it."

"Okay, guys. We all need to get to bed early. This is not going to be a cakewalk. I am very concerned that something bad is going to happen, so please be as careful as you can. We have a lot to lose here. I have two wives who are going to be in danger and some of the best friends I've ever had are going to be in danger as well. I don't want to lose any of you."

We were relaxing, after dinner, in our RV. Syl and Tina were cuddled up to me; Jim, Fred and Homer were there as well.

"Ed, I don't know if you were including me when you talked about the best friends you've ever had, but if it had been me saying it, I would have definitely included you. I don't know why, but we seemed to click from the start. I just wanted you to know that it's an honor to be going into this with you," Jim said.

"Ditto," Fred said.

"Jim, since IT happened, it doesn't seem to take long to form friendships, or to fall in love," I said as I squeezed my two wives. "I realized the first morning I met you that we were going to be friends. When you were teaching us to drive the big rigs, it hit me that you were going to be one of the best friends I'd ever had. Working with you has only strengthened that."

I looked over at Fred and said, "Fred, you loquacious bastard. If you'd shut up long enough for me to get a word in edgewise, I'd tell you the same thing. Both of you have proved yourselves time and again." Fred just smiled.

Next I looked at Homer. "I've only known you a couple of days, Homer, but I feel the same way about you. If something should happen to me I hope you'll try to get to know Jim and Fred better. They're both good people and I know they're going to like you just as well."

It was like the first night we were married. Tina, Syl and I shared the master bedroom, by ourselves.

Day 157 - October 25

Everyone was up by 4:00 AM and we were on the road by five. It took us about an hour and twenty minutes to get to Paintsville and another twenty minutes to find the compound. We had decided that Tina, Syl and I would go after the guy who was in the building with the women. The rest of our crew would attack the other building.

We pulled into the compound and everyone scrambled out. We stood near the side of the RV that was away from the buildings and waited to see if anyone realized we were there.

I don't know if he heard the RV pull in, or if he had gotten up to answer a call of nature, but the guy who was in with the women came stumbling out onto the porch, rubbing his eyes. He looked at the RV and did a double take, then started walking toward it. He had only taken a couple of steps when he sensed something wrong and dove back inside the building.

He slammed the door, and then we heard a weapon go off. The next thing I knew, Syl was screaming, holding her left leg. I pulled her over behind one of the rear wheels and ripped her pant leg open with a knife. She had been hit in the meaty part of the calf. She was bleeding pretty badly, but the bullet didn't seem to have hit the bone.

Tina ripped off the tee shirt she was wearing and wrapped it around Syl's leg a couple of times. She told Syl to hold it tight against the wound. "That fucker is going to pay for this," my youngest wife growled.

While we were taking care of Syl, the guy in the women's building kept up a steady fire. The two men in the other building started firing as well. I slid under the RV, keeping the rear wheels of the vehicle between me and the man who had hit Syl. When I got to a position where I could fire, I started firing short bursts at the window he was shooting from. Tina slid her M-16 around the back of the bus and started doing the same.

I was too busy to pay much attention to what was going on with the other building, but I think everyone in our group, except Syl was firing. Then I heard a whump followed closely by a loud explosion. I looked around and Homer, Jim and Fred were charging the building. Jim hit the door with his shoulder at a full run and fell on through the door. Fred and Homer were right behind him.

"Tina, stop firing for a minute," I shouted.

No answering shots were coming from the building where the women were, but we did hear a lot of screaming and cursing. Within a couple of minutes, the door opened slightly and someone waved a white shirt up and down. There was no firing from the other building either. Less than five minutes and it was all over.

"Stay where you are," I yelled at the flag waver.

"Sensemeier is dead," a woman's voice yelled back.

"Okay. Stay there where you're safe. We're taking care of the others right now."

Jim, Homer and Fred emerged from the other building. Jim and Homer each had a guy by the collar of his shirt, dragging him out. I knelt beside Syl and asked her if she was okay.

"I'll live," she said with a little smile. "This hurts like shit, Ed."

"We'll have you out of here in a couple of minutes, Love. Just hang in there."

"Ladies," I yelled at the building. "Please come out one at a time and step to the side of the door. You're safe now, but we have to make sure you're not being held hostage."

The women started exiting the building, one at a time, with their hands up. When they were all out, Tina and I carefully went over to the door of the building and I looked inside. What I saw almost made me vomit. Sensemeier was definitely dead. In fact, Sensemeier was very dead.

"Don't look in there, Sweetheart," I told Tina.

"Why not?"

"These women did a number on him."

"That's okay. I was going to do a number on him anyway. He's the cocksucker who shot Syl. Ladies, thanks for doing a good job on the motherfucker." Tina said.

"You ladies can put your hands down now," I told them. "What happened in there?"

We heard the helicopter coming in as one of the women said, "I'm Hillary Johnson. Sensemeier was raping Martha Occhuizzo when you guys pulled up. At first I guess he thought it was Blackstone coming back. When he saw it wasn't, he dived back inside and started shooting at you. Martha sneaked and opened the doors to the rooms we were in. None of us knew what to do, but then Martha whispered to us to get his gun. I guess we got a little carried away."

Tina laughed. "From what Bev tells us, you had every reason to get carried away."

"Are the girls who were with Blackstone okay?" Hillary asked.

"All of them except Judy. Judy tried to get away and they killed her."

I left Tina talking with them while I ran back to Syl. I sat down and put my arms around her and just held her until Chris and Sheila came running up. Chris gently pushed me out of the way and said, "We've got her now, Ed." Then she gently kissed Syl on the lips before she started cutting off the leg of Syl's pants.

I started to say something and Chris cut me off. "Get out of here, Ed. We'll take care of her."

I got. Jim and his crew had the two other men handcuffed, so I went over to where they were. "They can't answer any questions for a while, Ed," Glen told me. "I used a concussion grenade on them. Both of them have ruptured ear drums and can't even hear us."

"You guys did a great job," I told them. "The other guy is dead. The women got him."

"Oh, shit!" Jim said. "How's Syl?"

"She took one through the calf of her leg. It didn't look like it hit the bone and the exit wound isn't any bigger than the entrance wound. I think she'll be fine."

"Be careful with these bastards," I said. "Even with ruptured eardrums they could be dangerous."

"I'd love for them to try something," Glen said. "We wouldn't have to give them a trial then."

"Ed," Jim said. "From what everyone tells us, you took care of that bastard over by Evansville after the jury found him guilty. Here we have five defendants. I don't think it's fair to have you take care of all of them if they're found guilty."

"I agree," Glen said. "I'll do one of them if need be."

"Same here," Homer said.

"I'll take one," Fred said.

"Same here," Jim agreed.

"If I take one, that's one each. Can you guys handle this?"

"I don't think I'll have a problem with it," Homer said. "I've been hunting all of my life. These guys aren't men. They're animals."

Everyone seemed to agree with that. "We're leaving," Chris yelled, so I ran over and gave Syl a kiss before they took off. She smiled but didn't say anything. I could tell the smile was very difficult for her, but she wanted to reassure me.

"Are you taking any of the women with you?" I asked Chris.

"Yeah, Sheila has been checking them out. We're taking the four who are in the worst shape."

I gave Chris a kiss then patted her bottom as she smiled at me. She climbed inside beside Syl and I backed away so they could take off.

I went back over to talk with Tina and the other women. "Ed, these people are telling the same story as the ones we took from Blackstone's RV. Melanie survived, by the way. She is one of the women that went with Chris. She's still in pretty bad shape," Tina told me.

"I'm so sorry this had to happen to you ladies," I said. "There are a lot of good people left. It's a shame you guys had to fall in with the bad ones."

"Tina was just telling us about how you and her met," Hillary said. "Now that had to be something special."

"Did you tell her about how we met Syl?" I asked.

"I was just getting to that," Tina laughed and turned back to Hillary. "Ed and I had been putting out signs all day and had stopped for the night. We had eaten dinner and I had snuggled up on Ed's lap in a recliner, both of us nude. We didn't know there was anyone within a thousand miles of us. We had just started a serious kiss when there was a knock on the door."

"Oh shit!" Hillary said with a giggle.

"Oh shit is right," Tina laughed. "It scared the crap out of both of us. I grabbed a gun and ran into the bedroom to cover Ed. Ed put on a pair of shorts and opened the door and there was Syl. She didn't even have a gun on her."

"After Syl was in the RV," I continued Tina's story, "Tina came out, still nude. Syl asked if she was interrupting anything and if she should leave for a while. Tina said, 'No, that's okay. We get so little company lately.'"

All of the women cracked up. It was good to see them laugh. Hillary sobered quickly. "And now, Syl took a bullet trying to save us."

"She did," I said. "We were all aware what we were doing was dangerous. No one should have to live the way you ladies have been living. We were all happy to come after you no matter what the cost."

"But, Ed, I don't know if we were worth it. I feel so dirty now. I don't know how I'm going to face normal people."

"Hillary, get that out of your head. There's nothing dirty about any of you women. When we get you all back to camp, we'll get Evie to talk with you all. She's one of our wives and is a psychologist. She also survived, just barely, a situation much like yours. She and two other women were living with a guy who had started out great, but later had started beating them and raping them."

"She was a rape victim and you married her?" Hillary asked.

"Hillary, it's not your fault you were a victim and it wasn't Evie's fault either."

"What happened to the guy who was abusing her?"

"We gave him a trial and the jury found him guilty. Then I shot him."

"Is that what's going to happen to these guys?"

"If they're found guilty... Yes."

It took two more trips for the helicopter to get all of us back to the camp. Mike and Joann had brought in three new RVs so we had room for all of the women to sleep.

As soon as Tina and I were back in camp, we ran over to the mobile surgical unit. I didn't know if anything was still going on, so I knocked on the door. When Chris opened the door and saw who it was, she launched herself into my arms.

After we shared a brief kiss, she said, "Syl is okay. The wound was clean, and no bones or major vessels were hit. She's on antibiotics and I have her knocked out with morphine right now, but she should be waking up in an hour or so."

"Thank God!" I said. "Have you been able to look at any of the other women?"

"Yes. Melanie is a mess. She has several broken ribs. She has major bruising all over her body. She has some permanent hearing loss in her left ear, probably about a seventy percent loss. She is also missing a couple of teeth on the left side and there's not a thing I can do about it."

"Is she going to be okay?"

"Except for the missing teeth and the hearing loss, she should recover completely. The others are malnourished and show signs of both vaginal and anal rape. Some of them will need Evie's help, but all should survive."

"Sweety, I'm going to go talk to Evie and see if she can start seeing some of these women. Hopefully she can help some of them," I said.

Of course Evie was willing to see the women, but she had something to say to me first. "Ed, when Al Johansen was convicted of abusing Alice, Bonnie and me, you took care of the execution yourself. I don't want you to take care of all of these executions yourself."

"That's already taken care of, my love. There are five of us who will do one each. Jim brought up the same point."

"Good. Now about these women, I would imagine they are suffering from some self-esteem problems. Probably also some fear of men."