Chapter 4

Coolie said that she would be more comfortable riding in the same van as Sue, so she joined that group for the rest of the trip. Coolie remembered Bill from her course work at Auburn, he was her favorite professor. Likewise, Bill had always been impressed by Coolie's work, so he was delighted that she would be joining him in the lab. Bill was already plotting how he could make her the prime chemist on the poison production job.

They were doing well on the trip until they had almost reached Phenix City. Jimmy had a plan to increase their armament by visiting all of the gun shops in the city. He hoped that at least one of the shops would have a stock of the clip-fed .22 rifles that he was looking for. With that in mind, he wanted to stop off to pick up a suitable vehicle to carry a large quantity of weapons. Secretly, Jimmy had always wanted a large RV (Recreation Vehicle), so this seemed like the time to acquire one. He knew that he could drive a large RV, since he had once driven a large truck for a furniture store.

They came to a large truck stop, and Jimmy figured that they would have a copy of the Yellow Pages where he could get a list of dealers and a city map of Phenix City. They stopped and everybody got out of both vans to take advantage of the rest rooms. They went inside the main building and were greeted with the shouts of three children. There was a boy of 12, a girl of 9, and another girl of 7. The children ran to them and grabbed hold of Jimmy, Sue, and Coolie and refused to let go.

Jimmy hugged the boy back for a minute or so, and then asked him to tell the adults what they were doing in the truck stop. The boy, Eddie Smith, said that their parents had sent them into the truck stop to hide when they were attacked by some Wasps. The whole family had just gotten out of their RV when the Wasps showed up. Their father had tried to fight off the Wasps with a baseball bat while their mother chased the children into the building. Both their parents were stung and carried off by the Wasps, and the children had been in the truck stop for over three weeks waiting to be rescued. Fortunately, the kitchen had a well stocked freezer, but the kids were getting tired of eating nothing by hamburgers three times a day, since that was all they knew how to cook.

Jimmy had noticed a large RV in the lot as they drove up, and he had thought to himself that it was just the type of vehicle that he wanted. Maybe they were saved a trip to the RV store.

Coolie took the time to fix the children a large omelet for lunch while the other adults went out to examine the RV. Yes, it was exactly what Jimmy had been looking for. He decided to adopt it on the spot. While they were about it, they looked around the lot and found two more RVs of the type he was interested in. He decided to swap over from the vans to the RVs on the spot. Two of the men in the other van claimed that they could drive the large vehicles, and Jimmy decided to take a chance on them.

They rearranged the stuff in the RVs and got their gear shifted, but, as they were working, four Wasps flew over and made an attack. Fortunately, everybody had remembered to keep the guns handy, so they quickly eliminated the Wasps before any of the group could be injured, though there was a scare or two. While they had the opportunity, they picked up four antigravity belts.

They redivided the crews to have Jimmy, Sue, Coolie, and the three children in one RV and three men in each of the other two RVs. They drove into Phenix City and visited four gun shops and six Wal Marts and K-marts. When they finished, they had 12 of the .22 caliber clip-fed autoloaders and 15 cases of hollow-point ammunition. Also, they had picked up 15 pistols in various styles and brands and 57 other .22 caliber autoloader rifles. They had found eight telescopic sights of the type they wanted, but it looked like the sights were going to be the hardest thing to find.

They decided to spend the night in a motel before crossing over the river into Georgia. The decision was made for them because they came upon a motel right after leaving their last K-Mart, and they were all very tired. Coolie and Sue fixed a less elaborate supper this night because the kitchen did not have as good a variety of food as that Holiday Inn, but nobody went hungry. They all turned in early and got up early to get back on the road.

They had to try two bridges before they found a path clear enough for the large RVs, but they entered Columbus with light hearts. They'd had such good luck in Phenix City with collecting weapons that they decided not to bother with Columbus for now. They might stop on their way back, depending on their luck at Fort Benning.

They followed the city map they had found at the truck stop and drove onto the Fort Benning complex with no difficulty. There were no soldiers at the gate, but they did not know the significance of that. Fort Benning is a big place, so they decided to split up and keep in touch with their radios. Jimmy reminded the other two groups that their job was to make contact with anyone they could, they were not to make policy decisions. However, if they were shot at, they should run like hell!

They spent two hours slowly riding up and down the many streets of the base before Hank Olson finally found somebody. It was a woman who was living in one of the married NCO houses. Hank was driving at about 5 MPH, so the woman had no trouble flagging them down. Her husband was a sergeant who had been sent out against the first wave of Wasps to land in Georgia, nearly four weeks ago, and she had not heard from him since then. She had two children, and, yes, she most certainly wanted to join the group at Auburn. Hank waited while she packed up stuff for her and her two kids, and she was ready to leave in 20 minutes. She did not know of any one else around; she and her children had hidden in the basement when the Wasps attacked.

It was another hour before anyone else was spotted. Sue spotted someone in uniform running between buildings. Jimmy tooted his horn and the person skidded to a halt and turned toward them. That's when they saw that it was a woman who ran at full speed toward the RV. Jimmy opened the door for her, and she jumped in. The first thing she said was, "Be careful, the Wasps are active around here."

Just as she said that, a Wasp crashed into the windshield on the passenger side of the RV. Sue was alert and had ducked, so that the stinger had missed her. Sue jerked out her pistol and shot the Wasp before it could get away. The creature jerked a couple of times and collapsed. At that point, the soldier asked, "What in the shit did you shoot that thing with? I've never heard of one dying so quick!"

Sue answered, "We have a special poison that kills them in a few seconds. It's loaded inside .22 hollow-point rounds. A chemist back at Auburn makes it."

The soldier said, "Dammit, I wish we'd had that a month ago. We might have had a chance if we had. By the way, my name is Capt. Ann August. I'm with Special Ops, or was up until two weeks ago."

Sue introduced the people in the RV and said that there were two other RVs from Auburn out hunting for people around Fort Benning. She then explained why they had come to Fort Benning.

Capt. August said, "I'm afraid that you won't find may people here. Nearly everybody was ordered out to fight the Wasps, some as late as two weeks ago. As far as I know, I'm the last officer here, and there are two female grunts who were left behind to help me. Everyone else is gone, along with all of the equipment. The only reason that we are here was that some idiot wanted to leave behind somebody to answer the fucking telephone in case the Pentagon called!"

Jimmy said, "Shit, then this was nearly a wasted trip. Are you and your two grunts willing to join us in Auburn?"

"We sure as hell are. We certainly are not accomplishing anything sitting on our asses here. Drive over there next to that building and I'll get my two people out here."