Chapter 15

Day 14 Thursday 26 April 2007 - Impact plus 10 days

The alarm going off at 11:00 PM was a very rude awakening but I was glad someone set it before we went to sleep, because I forgot to.

I lifted the cover off myself and turned over and sat up on the side of the bed, feeling every little move I made, and reached over and turned off the alarm.

I sat there for a minute taking stock of myself, I basically ached all over, but I figured once I started moving and had a handful of Aleve the pain would ease up a bit.

I was still thinking about what I needed to do first when Betsy wrapped her arms around me then putting her chin on my shoulder and kissed me on the cheek and said, "Good morning."

I reached up and held her hands against my chest and leaned my head into hers, "Good morning to you too."

"Did you sleep well?" she asked.

"I don't know. As soon as I shut my eyes, I passed out, so I'm still deciding," I said laughing.

"You goof," as she smacked me on my right shoulder and she felt me wince, "Shoulder hurt?" she asked

"Yeah, along with everything else, but it will get better when I start moving around. Speaking of which, we need to get moving," I said.

I stood up and headed for my clothes and sifted through them until I found the ones I wanted to wear for the day. Once the decision was made, I started getting dressed and getting all my other gear on.

While getting dressed I noticed all the girls moving around getting their clothes on and gathering their equipment. It didn't distract me much, but it is a nice view this early in the day and it made me smile.

Betsy caught me smiling, "What'cha smiling about?" she said playfully.

"Nothing, I'm just over here getting ready for the day," I said innocently.

"Uh huh, you're so full of shit," she said laughing.

"You know it," I said cracking up.

When we finally got ready to go we headed for the chow hall to get something to eat.

We stepped out of the garage out into the cool night air, with the wind blowing pretty good today.

As I walked to the chow hall, I looked up to see the stars when I noticed a dark sheet slowly spreading over the sky.

I stopped walking and continued looking up, "Well, there goes the stars," I said.

"What was that?" Betsy asked.

"Look, the stars are getting blocked out by the dust," I said pointing up.

"Is that from the impact?" Betsy asked sounding concerned.

"Yep, the heavy dust and debris have finally made it to our neck of the woods," I said.

"Is that going to make it darker during the day now?" Julia asked.

"Yes. It depends on how thick it gets but it could look like midnight at twelve in the afternoon," I said.

"This is what you were really worried about, wasn't it?" Caroline asked.

"Yeah, it is. Staying this dark for years will kill off plants, animals, people, even with all the stuff we have scavenged it will be hard even for us to survive," I said forlornly.

All the girls came closer to me and gave me a hug as I still looked up at the sky. I finally took a deep breath and hugged them all back.

"We are just going to have to work really hard so nothing happens to us," I said in a more upbeat manner.

We eventually broke the hug and continued to breakfast.

We got to the chow hall and grabbed a plate and headed through the buffet line, grabbed a drink and found a table to sit at to eat. On the way to the table I said hello to people I saw along the way.

We were almost done with breakfast when Lieutenant Burr came walking over and sat down at our table.

"Good morning Lieutenant, how are things?" I said.

He looked down at his watch, "Yep almost, not bad, we just have a couple of problems," he said.

"What are they?" I asked concerned.

"Tim's team found a fully loaded train, they have some equipment but they need more off-road forklifts and cranes and they need something to help them offload the grain from the grain haulers," he said.

"I will see what we can find on our next trip, probably try to find something like they used on Mythbusters all the time," I commented.

"We can get some farm tractors with those auger things to help move the grain, or several in a row to move it from the train to a trailer," Caroline said.

"That's a great idea," I said. "Anything else we can help with?"

He got a concerned look on his face took a breath then started, "One of my men said he saw a Predator yesterday."

"A drone?" I asked.

The lieutenant just nodded his head.

I sat back for a minute to think.

"What does that mean? A predator, a drone?" Julia asked.

"It means someone is watching us," Betsy said.

"It also means that they could really fuck us up if they really wanted to," I said.

"You're right about that," Lieutenant Burr said.

"Do we have anything to take them down?" I asked.

"Not before they hit us," the Lieutenant said.

"What do you think they have controlling them?" I asked.

"Shoot, there are a number of things, C130, AWAC, they could have a Hummer sitting a couple of mountains over controlling it," Lieutenant Burr speculated.

"So do you think it's the Government watching us?" I asked.

He shrugged his shoulders and shook his head, "There's no telling, but that would be the best option. The other one is some group using it to blackmail us for all our stuff."

"That would be very bad, but after what we just saw outside, we would be dead either way we decided to answer their threat," I said worried.

"Why? What did you see?" he asked.

"The dust from the impact has reached us and is blocking out the stars," I said.

"It was like a blanket being pulled across the night sky," Julia said.

"So we would either get blown up and killed or freeze to death and starve, neither are a good choice," lieutenant Burr said.

"No, they're not, we will just have to do our best and hope that neither come to pass," I said.

I looked down at my watch, a little past midnight. I turned and spoke to the girls, "Get everyone geared up and ready, let's try to get out of here by 12:30."

I got up and headed for the door, "Where are you off to?" Betsy called after me.

"The medical trailer," I said.

I walked to the medical trailer and tent complex and quietly opened the door and walked in. Doctor Breuer looked like he was putting stitches in a guy's hand.

"Can I help you?" a nurse asked.

"Yeah I'm looking for Sarah," I said.

"She is through that hallway, but she is asleep right now," she said.

"I will be quiet and won't stay long," I said.

She frowned and gestured with her head in the direction of the hallway.

I walked down the hall being as quiet as I could and into the tent that they added onto the trailer. I found Sarah in the first bed in the tent; her mother was asleep in a chair next to her bed.

Sarah had monitors, IV's and what looked like a couple of drainage type bags hooked up to her. She also had a cast on her right arm and a metal framework stabilizing her left arm.

I walked to the side of her bed and looked down at her and heard a whisper, "They have her pretty drugged up but she is doing better. They had her in surgery for hours yesterday putting her back together, I'm just happy you found her when you did," Linda said.

I reached down and brushed Sarah's hair very gently, "So am I. Tell her I came by to see her when she wakes up. I'm off for more stuff. I'll drop by again when I get back," I whispered.

I turned and headed for the exit when Linda came up to me and kissed me on my cheek, "Be careful out there," she said.

"Will do," I said and smiled and headed for the exit.

I waved at the doc and the nurse on the way out and headed for my truck.

I got to the truck and started doing my pre-trip inspection, when a kid comes up to me and hands me my radio back, "Thanks a lot," I said to him as I hooked the wires to it and placed it into its pouch.

I got done checking out the truck and was just standing by the driver's door when I saw a bunch of lights pointed at what looked like a helicopter's landing pad.

Mark came walking up about then. I pointed and asked, "What's that, a helicopter landing pad?"

Mark laughed, "I thought the same thing, but I asked Lieutenant Burr and he said it was the beginnings of a dome building."

"That will be cool. It's going to be a big one," I said.

"It sure will be, that pad is over 200 feet wide," Mark said.

"Oh well, it's time to get going," I then keyed my microphone, "Everyone ready? It's time to saddle up."

I heard a few grumbles, a few rude comments, and several affirmatives.

I just laughed and keyed my microphone, "Another fun day in the sun, first stop to pick up some flatbed trailers, then the company we got the crane from, I saw some off-road forklifts and a couple of more cranes there that we need to get. Then back to Wally world for more of their stuff. Same spacing as before, Cougar take the lead, let's head out."

I climbed up into the truck and started its engine and the rest of my group got in through the other door and got settled in for the ride to town. I pushed the buttons to release the brakes and waited for my turn to head out.

We headed down 220 to Monterey, didn't see anything going on in town. Kept going on 220 North to Franklin, then headed east on 33 over to Harrisonburg.

We pulled into a trucking company's yard in Harrisonburg and picked up several flatbed trailers and a couple of regular trailers so we could haul the heavy equipment back to the house.

We then headed for the heavy equipment company's yard to see if we can use any of their off-road forklifts.

We pulled into the yard at 3:30 AM, and set up a perimeter and got the keys to the equipment and sent Tony to see if we could get any of them running again.

We had no problem getting all the Gradalls running, they all had normally aspirated John Deer diesel engines in them. The only problem we had was, having to jump start a couple of them to get them running.

We had a harder time with the cranes; we couldn't find any of the off-road cranes that didn't have electronic controls. They did have some bigger cranes that we could get started so we decided to take them, with the reach of the boom and their lifting capacity; they should be able to do the job.

While Tony and some of the Army guys were working on the forklifts and the cranes, we backed an empty trailer up to their repair facility and started loading spare parts, tools, hydraulic fluid and other whatnots into the trailer.

We had to get one of the newly started forklifts to help us load some of the equipment we were loading, the barrels of hydraulic fluid were too heavy to effectively manhandle.

They also had a couple of on-site repair trucks; we checked them out and were able to get two of them started. The other four we stripped of parts and equipment.

By 6:30 AM we had all the vehicles up onto the flatbeds and strapped down and had drivers for the three large cranes and had them ready to go. The company also had diesel fuel tanks there for their equipment so we topped off all the trucks and cranes before we left the lot.

We headed out and reach 81 and turned south to get us to Wal-Mart.

We reached the Wal-Mart service center, set up a perimeter and started moving empty trailers to the loading docks while other people went inside and started moving pallets of product onto the trailers.

After moving all the trailers I needed to move, I headed inside to see if I could help any.

I was looking around the warehouse when Sergeant Dunstan walked up to me.

"You know one, or at the max two, more trips and this place is going to be stripped to the rafters," Sergeant Dunstan said.

"Yeah, that's what it looks like to me too, I guess we will have to find somewhere else to shop," I said smiling.

Sergeant Dunstan laughed then said,"Yep, we sure will, but I think your dad has the answer."

"What's that?" I asked.

"He says there is an inland port up in Front Royal that we could probably get a ton of stuff from."

"That sounds like a good idea, but it is awfully close to flat land up there. I hope the water didn't reach it," I said.

"The only thing we can do is go up there and see for ourselves. And it's a port, so most of the stuff will be in sea containers so they would be pretty well sealed from any moisture," Sergeant Dunstan replied.

I thought for a minute, "Very true, we should also go there with more than one salvage team, we should go up there in force and just clean it out in one shot," I suggested.

"That would be good. What is it, an hour and a half to two hours from here?" Sergeant Dunstan asked.

"Yeah, at least that, longer if we run into any trouble or if something blocks our way. And on the way up there we might be able to find more places to go shopping," I said.

"Sounds good to me," Sergeant Dunstan said as he started walking off, "Got to go check and see if everyone's still working."

I took the hint and started lending a hand at getting things packed up for the forklifts to take to the trailers.

It was 10:00 AM when I headed outside to get into the truck and start moving trailers into position for the trip home. I quickly looked down at my watch and saw it was 10:00 AM; it was very strange that it was that dark. I guess it was just another thing we were going to have to get used to.

All of the drivers quickly worked together and had all the trailers hooked up and ready to go by 11:15 AM. We then got everyone loaded up and we headed to Bridgewater and then to 250 and on to Monterey.

By 2:15 we were pulling into the house's driveway, we made it home without seeing very many people or running into any problems.

I had my trailers dropped off and dollies hooked back up by 2:45 PM; Lieutenant Burr really has the trailer moving teams humping when new trailers come in.

I was inspecting my truck when Lieutenant Burr came walking up to me, "I see you found some forklifts for Tim's team."

"Yep, took a little work but we got them running, we weren't able to get the cranes I wanted but I hope the one's we got will be able to do the job," I replied.

"They look like they should be able to."

"All we can do is hope. I want to say you're doing a great job moving all the trailers we bring in here. It used to take hours to get them moved, now it's done in no time," I said complimenting him.

I reached out and shook his hand and that's when we both heard a thumping sound just perceivable over all the diesel engine noise.

I went to the cab of the truck and pulled out my AA-12 and put the sling on and started looking around for the helicopter we both heard.

I reached down and keyed my microphone, "We might be getting visitors, hold your fire unless they fire first," I said loudly into the microphone several times.

Lieutenant Burr was saying the same thing into his microphone.

All the work stopped and people were running all over the place, a lot getting into the MRAPS, getting the guns up and ready.

Lieutenant Burr saw it first at the head of the valley, slowly heading our way. It took me a second but I recognized it as a Blackhawk helicopter.

We both watched it as it slowly came in our direction and came to a hover in front of our chow hall.

It hovered for a minute, then the doors on both sides of the craft opened and four rappelling ropes came out and four people started rappelling down the ropes.

Three of the people looked like it was old school to be rappelling out of a helicopter the fourth was having a little bit of a problem, but they all made it safely down to the ground.

As soon as the last person was down, the ropes dropped off the craft and it quickly gained altitude and headed back down the valley.

Both Lieutenant Burr and I had been moving towards the touchdown point even before they got to the ground, so when the helicopter took off we were only a few feet away from our new guests.

I finally got a good look at them there were three men and one female. They all wore military camouflage but the military insignia were all different, and the female's uniform was blank.

Two of the guys were Generals and the third was an Admiral and as soon as Lieutenant Burr saw this he came to attention and saluted with the three men returning his salute.

The one who I thought was Air Force stepped forward with a big smile and said, "Hi, we're from the government and we're here to help."

Everyone around us broke up laughing at that one, and along with laughing I brought up both hands and made the sign of a cross with two fingers trying to protect myself from them.

After everyone stopped laughing, I held out my hand to the Air Force General and said, "Hi, John Williams, nice to meet you."

"Anthony Brunger, nice to meet you too," he said then he introduced the others, "Admiral Stuart Channing, General Malcolm Ethelstan, and Susan Randulph from FEMA."

"Nice to meet you all, so what brings you to this neck of the woods?" I asked.

"Honestly we are here to help," General Brunger said sincerely.

"Ok, why don't y'all come into the mess hall and tell us all about it," I said leading the way into the mess hall.

Everyone who didn't have anything to do headed for the mess hall. When everyone was settled down and had something to drink, I told General Brunger he had the floor.

"For those of you that haven't heard, my name is General Anthony Brunger. I am in the United States Air Force and my job right now is the commanding general of several Red Horse Squadrons," he said as he started out.

Someone from the back shouted, "What's a Red Horse?"