Chapter 10

The loosely knit groups of surviving civilians and military deserters were allegedly the fearsome "Resistance" that seemed to be making the government troops nervous about pacifying the region.

Mike got an invite to a meeting at the snow-line shelter up at a much higher elevation. He and Wesley attended just to see what the current situation was really like outside the government controlled zone. He was surprised when he saw the main organizers were military types and law enforcement professionals who had offered their services to the non-conforming survivors.

There was an awful lot of griping and angry comments about the government units dishing out summary executions to the "outside the zone" survivors claiming that they were "infected" with some mystery virus or deserters who were subject to being shot on sight. Mike knew there was a lot of truth to the claims because he had seen it up close and personal back at the State Park area. There was little if no discussion about looters since the lazy bands of thieves and rapists were far too attached to the dwindling benefits of the urban areas to venture into the wilderness of the Sierra Nevada's.

He noticed that all of the females were as heavily armed as the men and approved of the attitude of "live free or die" that seemed to be the underlying root of the resistance code.

Both he and Wesley volunteered to help with the perimeter patrols to make sure no unwanted outsiders came into the free territory. It was a violation of his mentor Master Sergeant Noble's creed of never volunteering for anything no matter how reasonable, but Mike figured it was an unusual situation and probably one that the old enlisted man had never foreseen in the realm of possibility.

Two middle-aged mature women who introduced themselves as "Dolly" and "Polly" approached Mike and his son and asked if they might be willing to include them in the camp for the winter. They looked real capable to Mike and Wesley seemed off in another world, so he agreed and gave them the exact directions to their campsite. Two more pairs of hands would make the preparations for winter a whole lot easier. Maybe having two females more her own age would help cheer up Ginnie who seemed particularly upset over the whole moving to a safer place operation.

Dolly did most of the talking. Polly kept her mouth shut but kept her eyes open the entire time. She was giving the entire set-up a 360 scan non-stop. It was just like he used to do in tight situations in the good old days. He wondered if she was ex-military because she had that sort of look to her.

Dolly confided in a low voice away from the others that her friend Polly had been taken by Looters right after the Zero day debacle and was held by them for eight long days before she finally escaped. She whispered,

"She's got the scars all over her from what those bastards did. That's why I never let any looter escape if he falls into my sights. I figure the world's a safer place with one less Looter."

When Mike told Ginnie about the addition to their group, she seemed none too happy about it. He was perplexed because he figured the added hands to help make her job easier would have been welcome news and not a cause for distaste.

That very night Heather announced that she was carrying Wesley's baby and that they were going to get "hitched" at the resistance headquarters the following weekend if there were no unexpected setbacks like getting killed first. Wendy seemed a bit put out but Mike had absolutely no idea what the cause might be other than she got beaten to something by her stupid brother. Maria seemed to have a sort of whimsical look about her like she wanted to be popping out a Mike Junior in the spring and gave him a real funny look.

Rebecca was the silent one that night but she didn't miss a single beat of nuanced give and take in the language of love and lust. He was real glad she was the most level headed of the females and tended to say and do everything for the best interests of the little band.

With Dolly and Polly onboard, they now numbered ten and he considered the group to be solid threat to any like sized unit thrown up against them. The only real weak links were Ginnie and possibly Tom who tended to be very lackadaisical in his every response. Often, one of the others would grow tired of his hemming and hawing and just jumped in and got the mission finished without waiting for the slow and bumbling Tom to get it done. Mike just smiled and let the lad get away with it because it was in his nature not some reflection of a mean-spirited attitude.

After about a week of listening to Dolly's loud voice giving her opinion on almost any subject with an air of finality, Ginnie finally had too much and they got into a knockdown and drag out fight that entertained the entire group for the better part of an hour. After all was said and done, they kissed and made up and things quieted down considerably.

Mike was sound asleep dreaming sweet dreams of rebuilding an old Chevy when Rebecca's hand slipped over his mouth to keep him from crying out.

"Mike, come with me outside. We got us an emergency."

When he went out into the cold night air that sent a shiver up his spine with the truth of a fast-approaching harsh winter, Mike saw another figure crouching down on the pine needles. It was one of female weekend warriors who had been in Rebecca's original unit. She had broken bread with them a short while back and seemed a trifle bit attracted to Tom. Mike could not see what would possibly attract any female to the sometimes sullen lad.

"Sergeant Mike, I have been down in North Vegas to scout up some drinking supplies and I saw they were getting ready for a full-scale attack on the Mountain. There has to be thousands of fresh recruits from the heartland all primed for action to rid this region of the "scum". At first, I thought they meant the bastard Looters down on the strip, but they mean us, Sergeant Mike. They mean us!"

The young girl was almost crying at the last few words. Mike could see she was not scared but plain upset at being called "scum" from normal people she just considered being used by the government to clean up its own mess.