Chapter 9

Day 8 Friday 20 April Impact plus 4 days

I woke up this morning and opened my eyes to a wonderful sight; I was looking right into the eyes of Betsy. She noticed I was awake and had this cute little smile on her face.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing, I just was watching you sleep," Betsy said.

"Why were you doing that?"

"I don't know, I just woke up a little while ago and got to thinking and while doing that I was watching you sleep."

"What were you thinking about?"

"Just my life in general, how messed up it has been at times, all the wrong men I have been with, the drugs, the alcohol, just not liking myself."

"It has not been all bad has it, there had to have been some bright spots in your life."

"Yes, there have been a few, but lying here this morning I realized that you were a very bright spot for me."

"I am glad to hear that. You have always been special to me."

"Yes, I know, but I was always off in my own little world and never paid much attention to you."

"Hey that's not all your fault; I knew that my weight got in the way of a relationship with any woman, let alone you."

"But your weight shouldn't have mattered, you've always been good to me and have always been there for me whenever I needed you," Betsy said as she started to cry.

"I did all those things and was always there for you because I fell in love with you the first time I saw you," I said while hugging her tighter.

"I know you told me that once and I just blew you off and if you hadn't called me last week I would be dead now," Betsy said as she broke down crying.

I held her until she stopped crying and we just stayed there for a while just holding each other.

"The one thing I always wanted for you in this life is for you to be happy, whether it was with me or someone else, of course I always wanted you with me. Even with all the years that we have been apart and not in each others lives I've always thought about you and cared what happened to you," I said.

"I guess fate wanted you to be in my life, which is why we ran into each other at Wal-Mart that day," Betsy said.

"I guess they did at that. I always wondered why people you love and care about seem to always be in your life, and if you get out of touch they always find a way to get in touch with you again."

"Yeah, it is strange how that happens sometimes."

"You're doing better now though,"

"With you in my life, how can I go wrong?"

"I don't know, but it has happened before," I said, smiling at her.

"Yeah well, that was before I got my head out of my butt and got my act together."

"Which I am very glad you did. I just wish I had done the same a lot sooner."

"Well, we all have to run our own course through life; yours just took a while longer."

"That and getting side swiped by an asteroid," I laughed.

"That is one way to get the sense knocked into you."

"Yes, that is definitely one way to do it. I just wouldn't recommend it for most people."

Betsy looked thoughtful for a minute. "Thank you for saving my life," she said quietly.

"You are very welcome," I said and kissed her soundly.

"Come on, we have to get up and get busy."

"But I want to stay here and get busy," Betsy said while smiling at me.

"Maybe later," I said and winked at her.

We got dressed and headed upstairs for breakfast. I had to make sure I did some laundry today or I would have nothing clean to wear tomorrow.

Lisa was already there, with some of the other ladies, working on breakfast.

"Good morning Lisa, ladies," I said and kissed her on the cheek.

"How are you doing John?" Lisa said.

'Tired, worn out, and could use a vacation."

'You had a two year vacation before all this started, you need to work now."

"Yeah, you're right, I did. We'll just let you get to work so our breakfast won't be late," I said laughing.

"Just for that I am going to make you starve," Lisa shot back.

"You can't do that! I'll waste away into nothingness," I mockingly pleaded with her.

Lisa got this "You must be joking look" on her face and busted out laughing. "Boy, you could go without food for a month and you'd still be fine."

"Ah uh! I would starve to death by then," I tried to say with a straight face, but it didn't work and everyone in the kitchen broke out laughing.

Lisa pulled herself together. "Get out of here so we can get back to work!" she yelled.

"All right if I have to. But it's under protest," I added.

"I'll 'protest you' in a minute!" as she headed towards me with a spatula.

I ran from the room as fast as I could and headed for the living room. When I got there, one of the first people I laid eyes on was Tim, and when I saw him I busted out laughing all over again.

Once I got my breathing back under control, I asked Tim, "do you think you could have found anything bigger?" and busted up again.

"What? You mean those little go-carts on the front lawn," he said with a shit eating grin.

"Yes I mean those little go-carts out there," I shot back while slowly getting my act together.

"Well, Jim said he wanted tanks and they were the closest things to tanks that I could find," he said with a smile.

"Yeah, I think they're close enough for government work. Now all we have to do is figure out how to fire them, and more importantly, how to hit what we are aiming at," I said.

"Don't tanks have some type of automated targeting?" Tony asked.

"Yeah they do. But the targeting system needs GPS satellites to work, and I'm not really sure if they are still operational. Even if they are still up and running, I don't know about the Paladins, whether they were affected by the EMP or not," I theorized.

"They're fully operational. We checked yesterday when we got them. They were stored in a large metal hanger. With the hanger, and some EMP hardening the Government does to all its equipment, they came out fine," Chris said.

"That's great! Now all we have to do is see if we can get a signal from the GPS satellites. If we don't, we'll just have to break out the slide rules and the math books," I said.

"Slide rules and math books?" KC asked.

"That's how you calculate where the shell will land when you fire it," I told her.

"How will they do that?" She asked again.

"It's a mix of geometry and physics. You fire a 100 pound weight at said velocity and said angle, then calculate gravity into the mix and you have approximately where the shell will land. Simple," I stated.

"It can't be that simple," Cathy added.

"Well, that's the basics, but there are many variables that can affect the shell, which is why the computer was so important," I said.

"What's the range of those things anyway?" Mike asked.

"Around 18 miles ... We could easily take out Monterey from here. We could also hit Bluegrass but it's probably at the edge of its range," I guesstimated.

"What damage would it do?" KC asked.

"It would do considerable damage to whatever it hit. It's essentially a 100 pound high explosive bomb, whatever it hits will not be happy," I said.

"So if it can only hit things far away, what good is it here then?" Cathy asked.

"I didn't say that was the only thing it can do. It can also direct fire shells at a target. It even has laser and GPS guided shells for increased accuracy," I explicitly stated.

"But do we really need the Paladins here?" Jim asked.

"Well, to answer that, I will bring up the old saying. 'You never know when you might need one.' Will we ever use it? Who knows? But I would rather have it and not use it than to need it and not have it," I stated.

"That is true; it also works on the old adage about 'Keeping the honest people honest.' Most normal people, when they have to stare down a tank, will go the other way. It's going to be the people who don't care about the tank that we have to worry about," Tim threw in.

"Basically, with the Paladins sitting on the lawn, nothing is going to come up the driveway that we don't want. The only other way into the valley is to walk, or spend a lot of time and effort in building another road, but we would hear them coming for weeks before they even got close," Chris said putting things in perspective.

"Since you are done talking about our new toys, y'all come on to breakfast before it gets cold," Lisa ordered.

Everyone agreed with her and started filing through the kitchen for breakfast. After eating our fill we resumed the morning meeting.

"I know one thing we need, and that is a doctor. Me and Anita are trained nurses, but we really need a doctor if we are going to get through all this," Tim said.

"That's true; we also need more medical supplies and equipment to go along with a doctor," I said.

"Well there are three medical facilities in the area, we can hit those and get the stuff we need, and we can probably get a doctor there also," Tony said.

"And there are some medical supply companies in Harrisonburg that we can go to and pick up more supplies," I said.

"I think we should check with a couple of the doctors that work at the clinic in Monterey, and see if they want to join us before we try to get one from somewhere else," Tony said.

"That sounds pretty good, but I don't think any of the doctors that work in the clinic are surgeons and we could really use one of them too," I said.

"That is true. Why don't you check on the clinic on your way to Harrisonburg today and my team will work on the hospital in Hot Springs and Covington, and see what other things we can get into while we are at it," Tim said.

"Sounds like a plan to me. Lisa, how are the ideas for livestock coming along?" I asked.

"It's going well, I think we've finally come up with a plan that will work," Lisa started.

"We are thinking we could get another Quonset hut and have them in there. We would have to get the animals and plenty of hay and grain for them to live on until the weather gets better and we can have them start grazing again," Lisa said as she started her list.

"That shouldn't be too much of a problem to get done. We just have to know when we want to get the animals here," I said.

"Mike - how long do you think it will be before you can have the large building up?" Tony said.

"We are ready to pour the concrete today. We can start to get the buildings up tomorrow, so the first building should be ready for the animals by Sunday," Mike said.

"Mike, I was thinking that we should put radiant heating into the slabs. One it will help the slabs cure faster, and two it will help in heating the buildings when they are up," I said.

"We can do that without too many problems, I think I saw the piping we need in the trailer from the plumbing store," Mike shot back.

"That's great to hear, but we'll see if we can pick more up while we are out today. Ok, back to the subject at hand. How many cows do we need and what breed?" I asked.

"10 cows and 2 bulls, and we are thinking of Highlands," Traci said.

"That should be doable," Tony said.

"You mean those furry buggers with the horns?" I asked.

"Those are the ones. They can thrive on feed that normal cows would lose weight on, and with all the fur, they won't mind the cold," Lisa said.

"How's the meat and the milk from them?" Anita asked.

"The meat is some of the best you can get; it's just not very marketable because the Highlands don't put on weight like some of the other cows do. The milk is also very rich, but again they don't produce the amounts some of the other cows do," Tracy chimed in with the answers.

"Sounds good. What about the chickens," I said.

"Probably start with 50 to 60 plus, 6 to 10 roosters. With that many chickens we can continue to hatch new birds, plus have enough fresh eggs for breakfast and other cooking. Then, when we build up enough extra chickens, we can have a cookout," Traci said laughing.

"Fried chicken, my favorite," Jim laughingly added.

"What breeds are you looking at?" asked Mike.

"We're going to stay away from the commercial chicken houses and try to locate some non-genetically modified breeds," Lisa started.

"We're still trying to think who has chicken coops in the area and what types of birds they might have," Tracy continued.

"Jim, don't the Attwood's have chickens at their house?" I asked

"Yeah, they do. I don't know what kind they are though," Jim replied.

"Well, we still have a little time to get that figured out. What other animals are we thinking about?" I questioned.

"Pigs for their meat, goats for milk and meat, and alpacas for meat and fur. We're also thinking of some donkeys, and for horses we are thinking of Percheron's. They are small enough to ride and big enough to use as draft animals," Lisa said going through her list.

I smiled and asked, "What about sheep?"

She shot me a look and stated, "I don't want any of those snot nosed mangy beasts here. As far as I am concerned they can all freeze to death."

I laughed, "I know you can't stand them but we really should get some for meat and the wool."

"Fine! But I'm not going to be the one to cook the beasts; someone else will have to do that!" she bantered.

We all laughed at that one.

"Well, that's settled. On our trip into town today we will try to pick up feed for the animals, along with another building for us to use. And whatever else we can get find along the way," I said.

We then took some time making sure people knew their job assignments.

"Great meeting, are there any more questions before we get started today?" I asked.

When no one said anything, I said "Have a great day, and stay on your toes, I want everyone to make it home, safe and sound."

Everyone agreed to that one as we slowly made our way out of the house to start a new day of work.

I grabbed my gear and Betsy and I were headed for the truck when Tim walked up and stopped me.

"Come with me son, we have a present for you," Tim said.

"What is it?" I asked.

"You'll see in a minute," Tim said.

We headed over to one of the RV's that they had been staying in and went inside. I was the last one through the door and when I got inside Tim, Betsy, Anita, Travis, Chris, and Rhonda were all standing there looking at me.

I smiled and asked, "What's going on?"

"We have a present for you," Tim said.

"And that would be?"

"Here, open it and find out," Tim said, handing me a big box.

I smile and opened the box, inside was the largest set of body armor that I had ever seen.

"Where did you manage to get this?" I asked.

"We made it from five sets of normal body armor," Tim said.

"I am touched. I really appreciate it very much. I was hoping maybe to do the same thing when things quieted down here."

"Well by the time that happens, you may not need it anymore," Anita said.

"It's always better to be prepared for the worst and hope for the best," Chris said.

"Thanks again. By the way, how did you get my size?" I asked.

"You remember the vest you had made for those walking workouts, we took the measurements from there," Anita said.

I tried the vest on and it fit fairly well. It had lots of adjustments on it, so it took a few minutes to get it fitting right.

"This is great. I want to thank all of you again from the bottom of my heart," I said and went around and gave them all a hug for all their hard work.