Chapter 27

Wednesday:

Roy woke us and we each went to the vehicle assigned. Joy took off first, and then we left with Roy driving Ken's pickup since he had more experience with night goggles. I went next and was followed by Bill and Jacob in the last truck.

As we entered the parking lot, I saw Joy sweep in and let off the women on the roof. Roy pulled up and stopped in front of the doors to Sam's and everybody jumped down and started to enter Sam's in skirmish formation. Meanwhile Bill and I were both backing into the loading dock, when Roy started to back in next to us.

So far our plan had worked to perfection, but we now had our first little hitch. It was very dark in the store and no star light either. In other words, we would have to wait awhile for daylight, so we could go to work.

Ken had a flashlight in his truck, so Bill and Jacob went looking for anything that would provide us with light. They must have been halfway across the store, when we heard a little squeal, and clatter of items falling from a shelf, then silence, dead silence. Everybody froze and Bill and Jacob had immediately doused their light.

A false dawn was showing outside but it didn't penetrate the store to be much help. A little later, Roy and I donned night goggles and started a systematic search of the store. When I found Bill and Jacob they had moved down two rows and had taken cover behind a pallet of rice. I handed Bill the last set of night goggles and he joined us in the search.

Five minutes later, we heard Bill cursing and headed his way. Then we heard a scream and more yelling. Once we entered the aisle, we found Bill fighting two women, and he was losing. Roy walked up behind one and grabbed a handful of hair and lifted her to her toes at arm's reach. This caused the other one to stop fighting too.

As Bill climbed off the floor, Jacob arrived and turned on the flashlight. We could see Bill's attackers were two young teenage girls. I would guess their age between 12 and 14 years old. Once we had light, things calmed down a bit, but we still maintained our hold on the girls. I called Mandy over and asked her to take the girls to the loading dock and tell them about the mining camp. I turned to the girls and said, "We will not force you to come with us but I would like you to please go with Mandy and hear what she has to say. If you decide you want to stay behind when we get ready to leave, you may stay behind. Do you understand?"

The one not being held by her hair, nodded her head yes. Then the other one muttered "Yes." Roy released his grip on her hair and she sprang to the side of her sister. I asked, "Do I have your promise you will behave and go with Mandy?"

"Will you give us guns when you leave?" asked the younger one.

"No, but if you come with us and learn to use them, Then you will be given weapons and expected to use them to protect the group."

"How many people do you have?" asked the older one.

"There are about 8 families right now and about ten other people but we seem to be growing fast. Please go with Mandy and listen to what she has to say."

They both agreed and we watched as Mandy led them back to the loading dock area. Then Roy said, "Let's get a move on. I think I found a generator and we have spare gas, maybe we can get the light on."

"Good idea, can you and Ken do that, while the rest of us look for forklifts and or pallet jacks?" I said.

It was light enough we could now see, although we could not see far. Finally, I felt we had reached the point, we could start working, but I was wrong again. We heard Mandy give a loud shout and the sound of things hitting the floor.

We took off running and two rows over; we were able to catch a full grown woman who was struggling to get free from Mandy. The girls were nowhere to be seen, but I suspected we had their mother. It took Jacob and Roy a moment to subdue her so Jacob placed his cuffs on her.

This did not shut her mouth, and curses were rolling out of it as well as threats. Mandy picked up a rag as she stood up and after shaking herself off, she walked up to the woman and grabbed the front of her shirt saying, "If you don't shut-up, I'm going to shove this rag down your fucking throat."

The woman shut-up and I asked what happened.

"I noticed one or the other of the girls kept glancing up and I saw her just as she started to jump on me and was able to duck her club. Then I just yelled and hung on."

Jacob asked, "What is your name?"

The woman refused to answer choosing to just stand there and glare at Jacob.

Jacob can be a hoot; he pulled out his wallet, displayed his badge, saying that she was charged with attempted murder and continued with read her rights to her. The look on the women's face went from anger, to shock, then to fear.

After Jacob had finished, he explained, "We caught you in the act. We are under martial law. The crime carries an automatic death sentence. What do you have to say for yourself?"

"I thought you were going to hurt my daughters!"

"Were they being coerced in any form or manner that you could see?"

"No, but..."

"There are no buts, I guess we will carry out the sentence right before we leave." said Jacob, then continued, "Roy, take the prisoner and handcuff her to the steering wheel in the truck, then lock the doors."

About five minutes after Roy left with the mother, we heard a voice ask, "If we turn ourselves in, will you still kill our mother?"

"No, we don't intend to kill your mother, but we didn't want to chase you all over the store. Why don't you come with me, I will let your mother out of the truck and we can talk." said Mandy.

I followed along to make sure nothing else went wrong. Roy had the mother standing between the two trucks talking to her. She seemed to have settled down considerably. When Roy saw us coming he removed the cuffs from the woman but she was still trapped between us. Five minutes later, we left Mandy to talk with the woman alone. Her name of Barbara Whitcome and her daughters names were Catherine (Cat) and Sandy.

A few minutes later, Ken managed to get the generator working and some lights on. We would have to switch locations as we worked in different areas because the generator was not producing enough power to light the whole building. Shortly, we were busy moving stuff to the trucks. I was stacking the pallets two deep by placing canned goods on the bottom.

Not a half hour later, Barbara was helping us finds the supplies we wanted. Her daughters were gathering their personal belongings, preparing to leave with us. Another hour found us fully loaded and we were starting to get into the truck when Joy called and said, "There are two groups of cars approaching Sam's. One group is coming from the east and another group is coming from the west."

"How many cars in each group?" asked Roy.

"Three cars in the western group; four cars in the group from the east." Was the reply

"Joy, stay back like you are. We will move back around the mall and maybe they will miss us. If not, that should give us enough time to take cover in a better location." I radioed.

"Roof Team, I want you all to move to the back of the roof nearest the mall. If we have to stand and fight, I hope to catch them in a cross fire. Don't fire or show yourselves until I give you the word."

We received a positive answer as we pulled around back of Sam's and headed for the back corner of the mall. We no sooner cleared the end of the mall, when Joy radioed the group from the east was entering the mall parking lot but still moving towards Sam's. Then she added the other group should be arriving any moment.

Not a minute later, we heard gunfire break out. Jacob wanted to look around the corner and I said forget it. Joy will let us know what is happening. About then, Joy called saying, "You will not believe what they are doing. It looks like an old cowboy and Indian scene. The three cars from the west have parked in a triangle and the others are driving around them shooting. From the looks of it, I would say that the ones in the three cars are holding their own and the others are taking a beating."

Then we heard an explosion and Joy said, "I take that back, one of the three cars just exploded and I think the other two will momentarily."

"Joy, are the other cars bunching up?" asked Roy

"Yes. The other two just exploded!"

Roy looked at me and I said, "Joy, take them out if you can."

Joy dropped down over the top of Sam's, as she opened fire. Later, Joy told us one of the cars immediately burst into flames, another drove straight into the burning hulks of the three cars from the west. The other two headed back east with Joy shooting at them. One car ran into the side of the Safeway building, when the driver lost control and the last car made a good escape.