(Everything) Join with your knowedge & imagination to tell the story. THE AWAKENING

[timbo]

Wish I had some rope. Wish I had some help. I'd string these four pukes up along the road and put a sign on them: Highwaymen. Old term but appropriate.
Waiting for DW to come pick me up and take me back to the M/cycle was when I found the bodies. Not really buried,just covered with a little dirt and brush in the ditch. A family,I'm sure. Man,woman and a young girl of 8 or so. All shot in the face with a shotgun at very close range.
Not that I needed it but it sure helped to know that these scags wouldnt be killing anyone else. I cover the family back up as good as I could and lean against the truck and wait. I am so tired! I know its the come down from the battle. Hah! Battle! An ambush. Sneaky and effective.
An Army of One. That's me.
I hear and then see the RV pulling around the curve slowly,DW being good and cautious. She knew my voice and the fact that I wouldnt say anything more to her than Okay. That was in case my radio had been taken and the pukes tried to trick her into coming closer.
Sure getting a lot of hugging in lately. We just held onto each other while the three stooges,circled us and jumped on our legs.
Three stooges was another love name we call our three dogs. Sometimes they all act like puppies.
I flopped in the lounge chair in the RV after taking off my Ghillie suit and boots. I had stuck them in an outside storage before coming in the RV. They had blood on them from dragging the bodies away and I didnt want the dogs to get to it. And I still wasnt going to cross DW about getting the RV filthy either.
We discussed it and decided we lost too much time to make the run through Bay City up ahead. Plus the last thing I wanted to do is climb on the m/cycle and ride through town.
We went back to the abandoned building and parked behind it as before. I went out front and dragged signs and other things into the driveway. Not like a road block but in a random way to discourage someone coming by and pulling in. I surveyed my handiwork one last time and went back to the RV. We ate cold food again. Being this close to the road I wanted to not make any more noise or create any smells to attract anyone. I got the RV close to the building and after we ate I climbed up the ladder on the back and then stepped over to the flat roof of the building.
From here, I could see the road in both directions for close to a half mile both ways. I brought the thermos of warm coffee with me and a large piece of plastic because it looked like rain...again.
Sure enough, I hadnt been there five minutes and the drizzle started. At least the wind had died down. Yesterday it was blowing at least 20 to 25 MPH and it seemed colder than the 55 degrees it had been.
As tired as I was, I knew I couldnt sleep so I told DW to take about a five hour nap. She is much better about disciplining herself to sleep than I am. I live on about five hours a sleep a day. Im sure I had a residue of adrenalin in me from the shoot out and knew I could stay awake for some time.
I was glad for the 18" lip around the edge of the building. It gave me a way to prop up the plastic like a make shift tent. I could sit in one place and see my surroundings. I poured some coffee and sat there and did some thinking.
The news wasnt good for us,the USA so far. We had been hit by multiple nations and other political entities,such as the terrorists that just wanted to destroy.
It still looked like the land that hadnt been nuked or the germs was free and ours. Free as in not the main roads or some of the cities.
The big cities looked like they were being targeted. Maybe to get our population down so they could be better managed.
As they had taken out our technical centers,like in California, and our financial centers, like a lot of the East coast they had still left a lot of the country. To re-populate? Still a lot of good arable land clean in the midwest.
Detroit hadnt been hit with nuclear. They had taken that whole area with a lot of troops. Lot of manufacturing plants there. And that seemed to be somewhat of a pattern all across the USA.
We were just East of the last of the bigger cities that start at Detroit and then are in the !-75 corridor going North to the Saginaw Bay. This is the bay at the south end of Lake Huron. From here North,the big ore carriers went up to the Soo Locks and over to Minnesota with their iron ore.
Very little population in Northern Michigan. Very few major roads either. It wouldn't take much to control this whole area to keep this in their hands.
Plus if the big thinkers were right, the mass exodus of population wouldnt head north. Now I'm talking the sheeple here. They would think warm and South. Plus most of them would figure out a way to freeze to death even if it was July! Definitely starve. Cant eat what is raised mainly in northern Michigan. Cedar swamps. Deer do quite well here but not people.
It seemed to me that the bio stuff was tapering down. They had hit several areas almost at once. To reduce the population and produce extreme fear would be my guesses.
Humming noise coming from the east. I strained to hear and I mean strained. I miss having a dog near me with their excellent hearing and night sight.
The noise got louder and then I could make out the tiny points of light coming down the road. A convoy! Maybe 20 or more loud vehicles driving slow. I hunkered down so just my face from nose up was showing over the edge. I pulled my AK-47 down low. I had one of my high capacity magazine in the rifle. I figure if something started, I didnt want to play magazine tag. But my first impulse was to sit very still. For either army coming down the road. I could just see me taking friendly fire from our troops! I would still be dead.
These were all trucks. Military type 4X4's. Heavy loud,slow moving dudes. I counted 25 of them with just a Humvee in front and one in back following. The last one had several long antennas coming out of the top. I figure that was either command or just the communications vehicle. Or both I guess.
I had seen my share of NG convoys in my life. They were constantly on I-75 heading up to or away from Camp Grayling in upper Michigan. Several states held manuvers there in the summers and that's what this looked like. They might have been from the Lapeer NG armory. Heading where? Maybe the Mackinaw bridge? Troops to reinforce the troops already there?
The bridge would be vital and make more sense to not destroy it. Made a good place to get both ways in the northern states. Or up to Canada and back down.
They roared along passing me and west bound towards Bay City.
They were also probably staying off the Interstate. That means the bad boys had to be around as well. Flyovers maybe? From the air it would be easy to spot movement on the Interstate.
They went off west and it got quiet again. Peeked at my watch and it told me I had only been up there 3 hours. Started to unwind some but knew I had to stay alert but without moving around. I got a small grin as I thought of my good friend who use to tell the rookie cops that if they got sleepy in class to reach up and pull a nostril hair out and that would wake them up!
OW! Dang that hurt! But it sure woke me right up.

[day late]

Well, that explains why we haven't found Tazs' CH. Another road block. He must have been coming up from 314-A and gotten held up by them. We could by-pass them, but we might miss them entirely. What do we do?

Just then the small cb on my belt gave a small squawk as someone keyed a hand set twice.

"DL, that you?"

"10-4, CH your 20?"

"East of them."

"Numbers?"

"Three, You?"

"Seven. How about them? "

"Four on my side. You?"

"Same. Give me two mikes, then take two or three. Let the rest come to me."

"10-4"

I signaled the others to come abreast of me, and to hold their fire untill I shot. Suddenly three shots rang out from the far side of the road block and two of the Cubans went down. The rest ran to the east side of the road block to take cover. Once there, they turned their attention to the west to return fire. With their backs to us, I rose and aimed at the man in the middle. From the corner of my eye I could see the others do the same. I fired. Almost at once the others fire as well. Createing a volley of fire that took down everyone of the invaders. We waited. The cb squawked again.

"DL, you O.K.?"

"Meet you at the road block CH. Be careful. Some of them may be playing 'possem."

"10-4"

[A.T.Hagan]

Saturday - 10 p.m.

We spent the day laying low at JimmyJohn's so it was that I was in the radio shack with Jimmy trying to learn more about his radios when the New Voice of America noon broadcast came on. Straight away they cut to a live and unannounced broadcast from the President. It seems the carrier group loss in the South China Sea, the bio attacks here in the U.S., and the loss of the Colorado river dams have caused him to have something of an epiphany. He sounded awful but there was a strange edge to his voice that made my neck hair stand up as he spoke about the "savage and barbarous behavior of the axis powers against non-combatant civilians in the U.S." but what really made our ears prick up was when he said, "Make no mistake about it. If our enemies will not observe even the most minimal rules of civilized warfare then America will do anything that it takes for us to win this war and survive as a nation. <i>Anything at all.</i>"

I suppose it wasn't so much what he said but the way he said that gave his words such import. I thought were already doing anything that it took?

An hour later we found out more exactly what he meant when the various governmental and news frequencies of Central and South America and the Caribbean fairly exploded with news.

It seems that the nuclear phoenix leapt to the sky courtesy of the U.S. Navy in four ports of the Cuban north coast and six Mexican ports on both her east and west coast. I'm sure I can speak for my fellow Floridians when I say, "It's about damn time!"

The effect this had on the Spanish speaking areas of the western hemisphere was electric. Within an hour of the detonations Bolivia, Uruguay, Paraguay, Belize and the island nations of the Caribbean but for Cuba declared themselves neutral while screaming at the tops of their lungs about radioactive fallout which couldn't possibly have had time to reach them yet. By dark Chile, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia remembered they were U.S. allies and announced that all enemy aliens and shipping found inside their borders and ports would be seized. Last I heard Argentina was wavering. The South American axis powers of Cuba, Mexico, Brazil, and Venezuela made no announcements, possibly because they were all looking for shelter.

I ran food and water to Jimmy all afternoon and evening while he translated the rapid fire and often hysterical Spanish of the broadcasts.

About dark the other shoe dropped when we picked up a relay broadcast from Japan screaming about the fallout they feared was heading their way from China. We got our own back with her and in the coming months and years perhaps many times more when the Navy used sublaunched cruise missiles to bust the major dams of her five largest river systems with cobalt shielded nuclear warheads. Between the flooding and the contamination that would remain dangerous for the next hundred thousand years in much of her most vital agricultural areas we have probably killed hundreds of millions of Chinese. The report was relayed from Japan via Peru and translated from Japanese into Spanish into English (via Jimmy) so it was choppy. It sounds as though we hit North Korea as well but there has been no word as of yet exactly what we hit.

I am both delighted and appalled. We've given Charley and Chin some real hard shots to their short ribs. We've also condemned hundreds of millions of people to slow deaths.

Mankind continues about his work of ever so efficiently blowing his collective brains out.

........Alan.

[Reader]

I have always thought one of the first places to be taken out would be the Port of Houston. But I was wrong. I guess they wanted to keep it clear as a point of entry once the troops initial arrival in containers made it through. Once it was secured, the ships kept arriving, unloading troops and equipment.

Last night, some of us-Greg, Maggie, Rich, and Cheryl-decided to venture out in Greg's boat. We figured if they got us, that would be it. It was worth the risk to see what we could find out and share with the rest of our group.

We stayed close to shore as we rounded the bend into the Ship Channel. Things were so busy I don't think anyone would have noticed us anyway. I've never seen that many ships in the Port before. Military trucks, jeeps, even helicopters were be offloaded. I don't know anything about war equipment, but I did know by the sheer amount of equipment, they were planning on being here a long, long time.

The ships were cargo and military. One-a big orange one-had Middle Eastern writing on the side. Saw a Russian ship and one with the European Union flag flying high.

I was able to talk to my friend from Israel a couple of days ago. Seems when Israel was hit, she took out Damascus. Completely leveled it. I guess Isaiah 17:1 was right on the money.

[day late]

I was right about one thing. Taz and co. needed the radio. I think Taz thought I had come a little unhinged when I told her that I had already killed 'Taz' twice.

"DL are you feeling alright?"

That was all she asked. But I knew by the look in her eyes she had doubts about me, so I explained.

"You remember how I called you?" She nodded her head. "Well, the first time I got an answer, the guy that claimed to be you agreed to meet me at a certain place. We got there two hours before they came. Do you know that those Cubans actually were nice enough to get out of their hummer and start looking for positions before they died? What else could we do? We gathered up their weapons, climbed into the hummer and made our way back home.

The second fellow to say he was you was more clever. He didn't come out and admit to anything. He kept insisting that I answer him. Telling me he was unsure I was me and had to be careful. So I answered his questions and pumped him full of so much disinformation that I think they are still trying to figure out what is true and what is bogus. Anyway, we picked a spot to meet and then when the time came I contacted "you" and told him that the spot was crawling with Cubans and to come to a second spot I had found. They drove straight into it. None got out.

The reason I believed CH when he called on the cb is because he identified himself as your husband. The name Taz doesn't do much for identifying sex."

After that we talked about the situation as a whole. It seemed that after the landings on the Atlantic coast were broken up the invadeing forces from Tampa came inland down I-75 as far as Wildwood, then split. One force went northward through the state while the other went south down the turnpike. They had blown through Orlando and continued south untill they linked up with forces coming up from Miami, near YeeHaw Junction. As it stood they had control of almost everything south of Orlando and west of the turnpike and I-75. We still controlled the area east of 75 and north of I-4 which runs from Tampa to Daytona. I don't know what kind of toys those guys at the cape have, but the Cubans don't seem to be in a hurry to tangle with them again.

For now I'm simply happy that Taz and the folks with her are in good shape and have no need for the meds. we had brought.

It wasn't untill we were listening to the radio that I got concerned. The reason the the fights with the Cubans had always been so one sided was because they were only probes. Now they were talking about crossing the Ocklawaha river in force, via S.R. 40. This is not good.

[ARUBI]

Alan,
Thanks, was able to get back on here and only took the time to read your post, which explained so much. We have power about twice a day, for more or less 2 hours at a time. We turn the TV on to MSNBC, but do not hear all that we would like too. We are scrambling to do so much during that time. Drawing water, running a load of wash, a quick shower and recharging batteries. Guess we still have it better than alot of others, still some what isolated. Have set up an out door cooking pit, but will start loosing the food in the freezer. So have started bringing it to a local nursing home in the town. The food has been sealed in food saver bags so I can only pray it will be safe for them.

It seems really quiet around here, found out 3 neighbors just thought there was a problem with power, knew nothing else! Our neighbor at the end of the Lane, Diane, I used to work with her when I was at Plant1 in the city, called her home, Gary answered, he said Diane wasn't coming home. Whatever the BIO was, she was directly involved because of being an LPN and EMT.........she died Friday, he had gotten the call, they had no explanation, he was told all 154 people that had been quarentined were dead and that a "Hospital" Tent city had been set up at the other plant. He said it was over crowded already. Mostly from people outside of city limits! They had no idea of what they were dealing with, could only try to make them comfortable, usually it was quick.

My BIL finally called us, he's in Colchester Bay, VT. he said they had 3 boats of strange people come come into the bay and after everything they had heard that was going on, the local residents met them and they were no longer bothering us! Gulp!!!

Guess the Green Mountain Boys are still alive and well in Vt.!

My DH and his family lived and grew up on ETHAN ALLEN HOMESTEAD on the Intervale in Burlington. Maybe some of the spirit is still in the area and will rise in VT.!!!!

I pray for all the rest of you, may God keep us strong, smart and safe.

Please God, keep TB online.

Arubi

[day late]

The sun was just starting to rise in the east as I sat there in my hole. Looked like it was going to be another hot day. But I'm waiting. Soon I hear them. A long line of enemy tanks coming down 40. Choppers flanking the lead vehicles swooped down in a straffing run on everything on the east side of the bridge. The fish camp was the first thing to go. It doesn't take long before every building within a hundred yards of the bridge to be turned into swiss cheese. They are learning. Still I'm waiting. Next, sappers move up and begin to remove the charges we spent half the night putting under the road way. It took them only fifteen minutes to remove what had taken us hours to put up. I'm still waiting. Finally the lead tank rolls over the bridge. stopping at its' base on the east side, he begins to fire on everything still standing. In minutes, there is nothing left but smoke and ruin. But I'm still waiting. Now the rest of the tanks start to move forward.

I key my handset twice. From under the bridge two of the men climb out of their "spiderholes" and move to the north side of the bridge. I was proud of those holes. You couldn't tell the trap doors from the concreat around them unless you tried to pick them up. That was all we needed. with the smoke obscureing the view of the following tanks, they had no idea what was about to happen until the two R.P.G.s' slammed into the back of the tank at the foot of the bridge. It went up like a roman candle. I still waited. I waited untill the second tank was rolling down the east side of the bridge and then I hit the detenator for the explosive shaped charges at the base of the support collums. The bridge folded like a deck of cards taking four of the iron monsters with it.

In a way I felt sorry for those sappers. I mean they had done their job. They found the explosives we had left for them to find. It just never occured to them that we would mine the same bridge twice. I'm sure they would have a lot of explaining to do.

Oh well, at least we had kept them on their side of the river, for now.

[Taz]

Ch and I could hear the bridge on 40 go with a horrendous explosion. That is a very high bridge having been built to go over the non existent Cross Florida Barge Canal of the 30s. CH and I are about 4 miles as the crow flies from the SR 40 bridge. The next bridge in our area is the Silver River bridge and since CH just got through rebuilding that bridge, he knows it well. Its a small bridge over a narrow but deep river that empties into the Ocklawaha river and it opens for small boat traffic. CH can't swim so is dangling on the end of a rope setting small explosives into the gears of the bridge so the gates cannot be closed. Here he comes so I guess he is finished. There has not been a car around since we arrived here an hour ago. VARROOOOOOOOOOMMMM! There it went and there we went hell bent for election down the back road. There is a dirt road that goes all the way back to our "neighborhood". Now we have to decide if we are going to take out the Moss Bluff dam and bridge. If we do that there will be no way that anyone from town (Ocala) can get out here without going about 15 miles north and then east to a huge steel and very high bridge. That bridge will be difficult to take out as its not an old cement bridge like the one on SR 40. We will be back in camp in another 30 minutes and hopefully DL and friends will be back by then too. They don't have as far to travel as the crow flies, but their route is far more devious. HOpe they don't get lost. So far we have seen no one tonight and I for one am glad. But as we travel the road at night one wonders who is watching and who's guns are sighted upon us. We did tie an old Confederate Flag on the truck antenna to identify us as neighbors. Am hungry and tired and dirty and if things stay quiet, we might stop by the house and look it over. I could sure use a swim to get some of the dirt off.
Later...the house is still fine, was still locked up. We quickly had a swim and then I checked the hen house and found the 4 hens that got left in the rush and scooped them off the roost and gathered their eggs into my pockets. We are "home" and have eaten and now in bed. CH started snoring before his head hit the pillow but I am still awake listening for the return of DL and friends. I am so grateful to him for bringing us the SW radio. Now we can communicate. I am hoping they will stay here but I suspect that they have become addicted to the adrenalin rush of gorilla warefare.
Taz

[Wise Owl]

Wow I can't believe the board is still here. I logged on after a live message came over the radio on Genesis. Thank God for those good people who keep that going. They have been still broadcasting all thru the invasion and have had to change stations numerous times to keep from being blocked.

The news is awful and not getting a lot better. We had to bug out from our place up here. We lived on the main road as do most Mainers. Easier to get out in wintertime. Before the invasion we had scouted out several back roads looking for bug out places. There is a lot of state land plus thousands of acres of land that belong to the tree farms.

We chose the closest back road. It has taken us 4 days to get all our stuff moved. No way todo it before hand because of bears and coyotes. They would have gotten into any food. We had lucked out and found a camper for the pickup a week or so before the missles started to fly.

Between the camper and the small trailer we confiscated from a camp in the woods we managed to get all our stuff moved.

We are now set up on the mountain near a small cave. We figure if the radiation gets up this far we can move to the cave. It faces the east so we should be ok.

We have our dog and the cat with us. Both are doing well considering.

Now for the news from the Maine front. The Russians have entered Maine from the coast north of Portland and from the Canadian border. The border was very open with only a few checkpoints on the major roads in and out of Canada. Plus the NG men were unarmed. Still fuming over that one.

We have lots of food and weapons and ammo having prepped for this for 3 yrs now. The truck and camper are under cover in the pines. No way can they be seen . From this height we can see all over the area. Set up our radios to relay messages to the local units of the state militia. We heard them calling on the shortwave so we tried to ahil them on the cb. What luck we found those solar battery chargers! We have lots of rechareable batteries and two chargers. No problem there.

To heat food we are using the coleman stove for now. Inside the cave it shields the heat signature (I hope) from the air.

We snuck down the mountain to a camp to see if there was anything we could use there. Would you believe they had a phone that worked and the electric was still on? Plus a laptop a,, set up to a satellite hookup. That's how i am posting this.

Not sure if I can get back down again so I will try to get as much info in as possible.

Looks like so far our little town is ok. The navy base up here managed to escape getting blasted. There were a lot of seals and marines up here training. They are patroling the area pretty well. So far they have been able to keep the Ruskies at bay up on the other side of Eustis. So for now we are ok.

We are not younguns anymore so we will stay put unless we need to defend. We figure from our vantage point we will do better as lookouts for the locals.

Oh no, Wolf just came running in. Said he spotted a Hines coming over the mountian. Gotta go. I will try to get back on soon.

God bless us all and keep us safe.

[Wise Owl]

Whew that was close.....

That Hines chopper came up over the mountain top just a screamin. found out why he was in such a hurry. He had two A1 Warthogs on his tail. heh heh. They got em too! Put him down right is the middle of the lake. Guess there will be some new fish habitat out there now.

Back to the war news. As far as we can tell from the shortwave(mostly locals) there was also a landing up near Bar harbor. I am still wondering why they didn't go for the Brunswick naval Station but it is intact. So is the airfield and the port there. somebody really goofed up there. Those guys are defending it from the Russians that landed to the north of them. I think they wanted to keep the airfield intact so they could use it to land their planes.

The stae militia was called up right after the bombs started to fall in kali. These are the best of the Mainers. True patriots and not afraid to get down and dirty. I think they have been traing a lot in these moutains. This can be a tough place to fight. The locals have blocked off most of the roads in and out of town now. There ae only a few roads up here and most have to go thru some sort of pass or cut in the mountains. The locals just blew up the road. down came those huge slabs of shale and whallah, no more road. he he.

We are still going to stay put where we are . We can see for some 30 miles up here in all directions. I feel a lot safer being able to see what is coming.

Wolf and I are taking turns standing watch. Wish we could have gotten that night vision but with being so high up we are ok so far.

Got to go now tho. Getting dark soon. need to find our way back up. We came down thru the woods. don't want to get lost climbing back up.

I will check in in a couple of days if things stay calm. Take care all.
Also hope we can keep this board up a little longer. Is so good to hear what is happening around the rest of the country.

[Onebyone]

From the north Georgia area. It has been a week now since the first strike. We are still here and trying to regroup.

Around the Atlanta area is in a major fire fight now. The Russians came in with conventional
bombs hitting the city and other targets like Fort McPherson and Robbins just south of
Atlanta. After hitting the area hard and heavy several days they started parachuting their
troops and even tanks into the area south of us around Atlanta to the east and south.

At first everyone was in shock even though we still have power so have been hearing some reports from around the country. The invasion forces have so far been confined to a small area they first hit though with their firepower we may not be able to keep them confined long. We don’t know for sure if they will stay in Atlanta area or venture out from there. Orders have been given that if
the Russians are going to make it to Atlanta that all businesses and owners of property are
to proceed with scorched earth policy burning everything to the ground and destroying all
equipment and fuel they are leaving. We can see much smoke in the distance now so we
are not sure but the burning may have begun.

The local elected officials are trying to work with the public to set up crisis centers and
blockade roads but larger cites south of here are having internal conflicts as the local
militas want to blow the bridges over the Chattahoochee and the Etowah rivers except for
one over each which have major hills on either side so can be guarded easily. The elected
officials don’t want to cut off the routes for those in the cites to escape. I think eventually
the public and militias will win as they are being more assertive and even the individual
police and firefighters are starting to side with the militas for safety sake.

We have organized in our small town and county trying to care for the refuges that have
come our way in the past few days. Estimates are that there are well over 50,000 in our
county alone, this is a vast overload on services since we only have about 18,000
population in our county. How to feed and house all these people who seem to have no
idea of what to do. Many escaped with only the clothes on their back and others have
small cases of clothing. Most do not have any food with them. They are sleep out in the
open air except for the ones who have found boxes or such to build a little structure.
Guess they thought they would just come up here to Micky D’s and eat.

All resturants have closed or been comandered by the officals to feed the masses. It seems
to be a losing battle here as food is quickly running low.

The local government has also confiscated local farm land that has laid fallow and assigned
groups to start plowing, raking and some places even digging with shovels to till the soil
to plant food. We have plenty of wells here so water is not a problem but getting the
water to the refugees soon may be as the gas in the underground tanks will only last a
short time as we are not getting any fuel deliveriesl first priority has been given to the
army. All civilian car or truck traffic has been halted each day except for Saturday when
anyone can drive, unless you have an official local permit to drive to cut down on the use
of fuel. This also gives the incentive for local people to volunteer to help with the official
business and supporting the army. You can get a permit to drive if you have a position in
health care or a officically deemed vital business like food production, delivery or machine
working.

We are not getting many deliveries of anything except for local things manufactured or
grown within the Alabama area. They blew the nuke plants on Tennesee River so that
area is hot and no one can get through. Fortunately for us the wind patterns kept the
fallout from it north of us.

They have started ramping up the local machine shops to make bombs and other arms.
We don’t have all the supplies we need so there has been a few convoys sent out with
guards to get the needed items.

We plan to make a stand at the Chattahoochee river and try to keep them south of that but
the fall back point is the Etowah river. The good old boys in Alabama have set up their
own road blocks and Milita groups have dramatically increased in size the last few days to
help in those areas.

Any one over the age of 13 is now legally allowed to carry a gun or other arms. All
healthy males from age 15 to 45 have been requested to report to their local city hall or
county seat to receive instruction on the part they must do to defend our country. There
is no payment offered to these men. They are asked to do it because it is their duty to
defend and protect their homes and families. Women are also allowed to volunteer but
most are opting to stay home with the children and defend the actual home.

We have many arms useful for hunting and these guys have known how to use them since
they were about 8 years old. They are ready to do what they need to do. We do not have
very many bleeding heart liberals around here so that makes it safer.

Those men who have fled their homes and are refuges here are also asked to defend and
protect now.

School of course is out so there are many grandmas coming out of the wood work as they
are called to help watch the children so some of the women can cook for the army and
work some of the offical farms. At this point we have several resturants where we cook
the food then it is driven out to the first level check points where it is redistributed to the
field army. It is not very much hot food but things like bread, sliced veggies or fruit and
occasionally cold meat of some kind. Breakfast is not always the traditional breakfast but
whatever is available. There is one delivery per day so the food does not stay real fresh in
the field as there is not enough ice and ice chests to do so. The first food serving cooked
of the day goes to the army then the refugees so I think the refugees will be the first to go
down hill. The local butcher with some local help slaughters cows, pigs and other animals
outside then brings them inside to the butcher area of the store. I don’t know how many a
day they are killing but there is not an unlimited supply in this area though we do have
millions of chickens in the county.

Markets are open but getting low. Cash is prefered but they will accept checks from local
owned banks, no credit cards are permitted. There is meat and local grown items but not
near the supply there was. There is occasionally milk from a local dairy but we have been
told they are running out of jugs so it will be made into cheese shortly so no milk at all.

We do have a glass factory and they are investigating making some milk jugs. Takes time
for these things to be worked out.

We think we can make a stand and make it. We just hope we can get some air support
from our military if we should need it. Ground forces we can supply but we only have
light aircraft which is no match for military invasion craft.

We are making a stand and working to become more selfsufficient. I don’t think the farms
will produce before we have some starvation but for those who make it through the crops
will help and help make it through the winter.

[Tweakette]

Diary Entry 1 - May 12

This is the first chance I've had to write a diary entry since TSHTF about a week ago. In the event that we don't make it through this maybe at least this diary will be preserved as a record of the horrific events that are destroying our country as I write.

I'm writing this by moonlight on the roof of my house - it's my turn to stand guard tonight, which around here means lying near the crest of the ranch house roof peering over the edge while armed with a radio linking us to the neighbors and as many guns as we have ammo for and know how to fire.
In my case that's a 12 gauge shotgun and a .22 rifle. Hopefully I won't have to use the shotgun - I'm afraid the kick will knock me off the roof. I wish I had gotten more comfortable with guns before I needed to use them.

My first inkling that something was wrong was the sound of aircraft flying low over the house in much larger numbers than I was used to. We are on the fringes of the flight path to and from the Burlington airport, where the Vt. Air National Guard is stationed. We usually get military planes and helicopters every few days or so, but usually singly or in pairs.

The low rumble shook me out of a sound sleep. It got louder and louder until I leaped out of bed and ran for the doorway, thinking that we were having another earthquake like we did about a month ago. Then I heard the high pitched overtone of what was clearly jet engines, and ran to the window in time to see the full squadron of the Vt. Air Guard F16s streaking roughly west-northwest.

"That was weird", I thought. "I wonder what's going on". I had never seen this many take off at once, even when they were being constantly scrambled after 9/11.

I put on a pot of coffee and fired up the laptop to check the Internet to see if there was any news. Opening the front page of TB2K, my entire world changed forever. Cities nuked. Bio weapons used. Florida and the Midwest invaded. My mouth hung open in shock for what seemed to be an eternity, then, as happened on 9/11, I began to shake.

"Get yourself together", I scolded myself."Shaking isn't going to help you if you have to shoot someone". Then a second shock hit as I thought about my family, all out of state. And my husband, who had to gone to work in Burlington.

Punching the power button on the computer, I lunged for the phone. The first person I dialed was my friend Kevin, a helicopter pilot for the Army Guard who I had worked with for a long time. If anyone knows what's going on he should, I thought.

"What?" was the curt answer on the other end of the phone.
"Kevin! This is Lisa! What's going on?"
"I can't talk for long, I'm on my way out.It's a full mobilization, reserves, trainees, everyone. This is a war. Hole up at home and keep your head down. We don't really know what's going on yet. There's rumors of foreign troops in Burlington, but I can't confirm and I don't know any details."

I heard screaming and crying in the background - his wife and kids had obviously gotten the news, too. "Kevin, good luck", I said. "I'll keep an eye on your family if I can. If it's Arabs, the bag of pork rinds I bought for you in case you were sent to Iraq are in my lower right-hand desk drawer, if you stop at the office on the way in"
I heard a short laugh on the other end and then the line went dead.

The land lines now seemed to be out, but my cell phone still had a dial tone. I tried calling my husband at work. No answer, not even a busy signal. Just one of those automated messages saying the number was no longer in service. That was not a good sign.

Then I called my sisters cell number in Ohio and told her to head out to Marty's farm in Indiana ASAP. While my sister has never been a pessimistic prepper like me, she did arrange for a bugout spot at a friends rural and secluded farm after 9/11 occurred. Thank God she did this - hopefully she and the boys are safe there now.

I couldn't get ahold of my parents in New York, but did catch my aunt and uncle on their way out of the house. They had been in touch with my folks, who were headed out to meet them at the Port Jefferson ferry. If they could get off Long Island, one of my parents friends was going to pick them up on the other side. The chance of them getting a car across the Sound was very slim. I told them to get as far away from any cities as they could, and to try to get closer to either me or to another relative's summer place in New Hampshire. The rest of the conversation was so emotional that I can't write about it without crying, so I won't try.

I had just hung up with my aunt and uncle when I heard a car slide to a gravelly stop in the driveway. It was my husband, who leaped out of the car with his hair standing on end and a wild look in his eyes. I burst into tears of relief and we clutched at each other in the driveway in sheer terror and gratitude that we were both still alive.

He had been headed up to the 3rd floor lunchroom to re-heat his coffee in the microwave when he heard some odd sounding "thumps" coming from downtown Burlington, which is about a mile down the hill from where he works. He headed for some top-floor windows to see what was going on, and what he saw confused, then terrified him.

Smoke covered the downtown area, and it looked like several of the larger buildings were on fire. Then came smaller popping noises which he immediately recognized as small-arms fire. Then came another large "thump" and he saw a bright arc rise from the waterfront and then sink toward the City Hall building, causing a large explosion when it hit.

"That's when I ran" he told me. "I didn't want to stick around for when the mortars started moving up the hill". He hastily scribbled a note saying "Burlington under attack, go home" and stuck it on the office door, then jumped in the car and peeled out.

He had surprisingly little trouble getting home. There was some traffic congestion just outside of Burlington as other people who had also figured out what the thumps were tried to evacuate, and the interstate was closed for 2 exits around Burlington with police cars parked on the ramp, blocking the entrances. He used the back roads until he could get on the highway, and once he did he was mostly home free.

I need to go - the neighbor just came in over the radio - thought he spotted 2 shapes skulking north on the sides of the road. It may be just deer or his eyesight (admittedly not too good) but I need to slide off the roof and go check it out.

Tweak

[Tweakette]

Diary Entry 2 - May 12, 2002

Well, that was good luck. What the neighbor saw was just two of the farmer's cows that had gotten out. He's never been one to make good fences, and since "the recent unpleasantness" the fencing has gotten even worse. No one really has time to check the animal perimeters because they are too busy guarding the human ones.

But I'm getting ahead of myself here. I should continue with where I left off on the last entry - it will make more sense that way.

After hubby got home and we managed to collect ourselves, we sat down with some leftovers from the fridge (the power was still on at this point but we decided we needed to eat the perishables first) to discuss what to do next.

The first thing we needed was information. We fired up the shortwave and all the other radios in the house on different channels. It made for confusing listening but we felt that we'd be less likely to miss something by doing that. Since we still had power we plugged them all in, to conserve battery power that we might need later.

While most of the radio stations were off the air, we did manage to glean a few more tidbits about what was going on in the area and in the rest of the country, mostly from ham operators and Canadian stations that had not been taken out. The F16s I saw were likely headed toward the Great Lakes area, where a large invasion had been mounted in an attempt to cut the country in two. The local Army Guard had been dispatched to fight the invasion in Burlington and seemed to be winning. It appears that the force that came in from the harbor was small and had underestimated the effect of armed and pissed-off Vermonters. Before the Guard got there men had been hiking and biking in from the suburbs armed to the teeth and were doing a decent job at picking off some of the invaders.

We were still puzzled by the police presence on the interstates - they were only preventing vehicles from getting on the highway, not getting off, and they didn't seem to be blocking access to the highway right at the Burlington exit. Were they trying to keep out the armed locals for their protection, or for some other reason? And were they police at all? Something about their position didn't make sense.

The second was protection. The only guns we had in the house were hubby's 30-06 deer rifle, my little .22, and the 12 gauge shotgun. There was plenty of ammo for those, but the other guns were up at my in-laws house as hubby usually hunted up there and didn't bother to transport them back and forth. We hoped those 3 would enough, as it looked like we weren't going anywhere for awhile.

Then we talked about the neighbors. While we weren't real close with any of them, we knew that most of them were pretty self-sufficient as they either are or had been farmers in the recent past. But there were several houses just down the road occupied by yuppie types that we were concerned would be more of a liability than an asset.

One thing that worried us was how to organize the neighborhood effectively without giving away too much information about our own prepped status. After all, we probably had at least 6 others headed for us (my parents, aunt and uncle, and some friends from Boston and Connecticut who I had told were welcome if things ever went to hell). If they all made it we'd be very short on food.
While we didn't want to be stingy we also didn't want to jeopardize our own survival or that of our loved ones.

As we were discussing what to do here the farmers 12-year old daughter knocked on our back door.
"My dad wants you to come over to talk about what's going on", she said. We looked at each other with a bit of relief. We could have the neighborhood meeting we desired, but it didn't have to be in our own house where some of our preps were in plain sight.

More on the meeting later, my shift is almost over and I really need some sleep.

Tweak

[helen]

Returning to tick infested hell...

The deputy had returned to take the young soldiers into custody. The feds wanted them, but they were too chicken to face the local vermin.

Ellie and the other ladies set up a howl of protest. The boys were still sick, and they were terrified of going outside.

"They're no threat to anybody," Ellie pleaded. "If this house burns down, they'll burn with it before they'd go outside into the ticks."

"Orders," grunted the deputy. He looked at the sorry lot of boys with pity. One was tatting lace with Ellie's sister in law. A few of the others were making Christmas ornaments out of construction paper and glitter.

Ellie saw what he was looking at and grew defensive. "They had to do something while they rest up. I taught second grade Sunday School for 52 years, and I know how to keep boys busy."

The deputy hated fighting with ladies. He was spared by a commotion outside the house. helen and the mule trotted right up to the front porch steps. Side by side they had trotted for half a mile, and helen was out of breath. The mule had broken a light sweat.

As she panted heavily, helen made her cousin the deputy understand that she had a way to communicate with the boys. She claimed an elderly snake in her hay barn had mentioned it. The deputy groaned. Normally helen was allowed to run loose, but her insanity seemed to be getting worse -- and at the worst possible time too.

"Watch!" helen cried, and she shoved her way past the deputy into Ellie's best parlor. She stopped in front of the first boy and elaborately made a hand sign.

The deputy recognized the hand sign. "What the hell! You take your mule and ..." he trailed off.

Slowly, the boy made the hand sign back. Then he smiled.

"Live ... long ... and ... prosper," he whispered.

"Live long and prosper," repeated helen. She held the hand sign out to the other boys.

"They grok Spock," helen said with satisfaction as the other boys signed back.

[ARUBI]

Sunday, May 12th, Mother's Day.

What a terrible day. We woke at 6:00 to an errie whining from little A-Rubi and Cassie, our little black doxie and the yorkie. Gypsy, our redbone doxie had passed away during the night. Dh trying to console me kept telling me that she was almost 15, very old and had a very long, good life. DH said he'd prepare a place for her out by Lady, our Border Collie, that we lost 7 yrs. ago.

Such a stunned feeling, with every thing falling apart in the world, why did this have to happen now? As I consoled the little ones and started coffee to perk on the coleman stove, a thought flashed, where was Cinnamon kitty? She was always up with everyone else!!! Searched and found her lifeless body, curled as if in sleep, on the chair by the Dovre stove. Screamed for DH........she's only 6yrs. old! Perfectly healthy, what is going on? Could some of whatever happened in the city come back with us? He consoled and comforted and said of course not, we've been home 5 days and we're fine! He said he'd make a place by Gypsy for her.

Grief, mind numbing, such an uneasy feeling.........must get out my health prep notebooks. Will do it when the tears stop.

Then call got thru from DH's sister in Williston, thank fully he talked to her. She never believed in prepping (she is retired and works in a major food store, part-time) always said the food is all around me if I want it. Never wanted much on hand because she'd eat it if it was there and she was still trying to stay petite! Well, it seems the store was cleaned out in 2hrs. of the first word of the invasion in Burlington Harbor! She said she was so busy at the register, she didn't realize what was going on and that the store was emptied, until the Manager came around and shut down the register isles. She had been using what little they had and what was offered by the other retirees in their neighborhood, because of intermittent power. DH told her to pack up whatever they could in the way of batteries, candles, medical, cleaning, etc. and to take the back roads, try to make it down here. Reminded her that if things got really bad we'd be heading to the Mts. with Old Silver (1946 Sparteen Camper) He told her if she could get hold of Bob(in Colchester) and Fred (in Milton) tell them the same. Together we'd all manage.

But.......will we be here to manage?

[timbo]

What a revoltin' development this is! My head is sideways and my arm is cocked up and I cant get it down! I had fallen asleep on the roof on sentry duty leaning my one arm on the ledge. I must have crashed and didnt move for about 5 hours. It was daylight and there was a light rain falling. I was totally covered with the plastic and so was snug and warm enough to sleep right through.
Standing up was a blessed event also. Nothing on my body wanted to get moving. I am as old as I feel right now and I am over a 150. Well,thats what my body says when I ask it to do something silly like move.
Finally I'm up and crawling down the RV ladder. Going inside,I find not only is DW crashed but so are the dogs. Sound asleep,all of them. That is unusual because all four of them are light sleepers.
The sniper episode of yesterday must have been a lot harder on them than I had thought. Sometimes the toughest part is to stay behind and let your imagination play little funny games.
On waking up everyone and stretchin and scratchin (all of em) I took the girls out for their potty break (not DW,she stayed in and did that). We were so fortunate that no one had pulled in and caught us all sleeping. I stood there of course,armed, and watched the dogs sniff this new territory. They were use to this type of life because they were all seasoned vacationers and use to strange locations. I was glad that I had trained them all to come to me when I made a small squeaky sound with my lips. I could call any of them with that and at least 100 yards away! If you didnt see me do it,you would think it was a sparrow chirping. I started doing it because it was easier than yelling your head off.
All 3 of them had been trained when they were pups to come to me that way.
Coming in I gave them their cut down version of a meal. I wasnt sure when we would be able to get more food for them, so they got less now. They normally were just laying around in the RV so I felt that they werent getting too hungry. And we had cut back as well. We usually were having a "two thing" meal. We tried to bulk up on some instant potatoes and cans of string beans and corn. Then if we really splurged,we had something like a chicken breast or split a bit of pork steak. We were running out of bread fast. We had a bread maker with us,but that was going to take a run on the genny for awhile and I didnt think it was worth that.
Sitting there after breakfast,and I was having my ration of maybe at most 3 cigs in a day,we talked about our plans to get through Bay City. This would be our first real contact with people and we know we couldnt avoid it. We talked about stopping and speaking to the local cops or NG or who ever was in charge. I knew the Michigan Militia was quite strong in the farm Thumb area of Michigan,but wasnt sure if it extended west over to Bay City.
We headed out,me on the m/cycle. I had the AK with me hanging on the strap around my neck and lying crossways on my legs. This m/cycle has a cross out where the tank usually it,like a Vesps scooter. I knew if I wasnt going too fast I could just swing one leg to the side and kinda run,roll off the road. Not something I practiced but sometimes it might be better than staying with the bike. Had to stay open to all options.
Went smooth to the city limits. A lot of people out and about at least around in their yards. Small groups seemed unusual. They would be standing around in a front yard or on someone's porch.
When I hit the city limit sign I stopped and let the RV catch up to me. From there we had planned on me driving just yards in front of the RV. Kinda like a very short parade. We stayed to about 20 mph. Didnt have to worry about slowing people down,most of them were going slow. That is the one's that were driving. Not a lot of traffic.
One of the major intersections,had a local cop at it. He wasnt doing traffic,just off to the side keeping an eye on things. He had a rifle out standing next to the cruiser. I pulled in with DW following to the parking lot. He of course eye balled us like we were driving UFO's. That was okay, I expected that. Forgot to say when we hit the city limits,I had put the AK in the RV and now had my .44 mag S&W in a shoulder holster under my jacket. If I zipped up, it didnt look like I was carrying. Now this is no small gun. It has an 8 and 3/8" barrel on it. But the Uncle Mike's rig I carried it in kept it under my arm pit and up against my body nicely. It even had a rig on the bottom of the holster to hook to my belt. Being as big as I am, it didnt show. I knew though that the cop knew I was carrying. I watched his eyes linger on the slight lump in my jacket. But zipped up like that, he also knew it would take a couple of moves to get it out. He was fairly relaxed with the whole thing. He was quite helpful after I "kinda" let it slip out that I was a retired cop. Things werent bad in town he told me. Lost two buildings to idiots that tried to cover up their looting. Could have left the buildings he told me, it wasnt like there was manpower to investigate that kind of thing. He was tired because the force was split and working 12 on and 12 off. The ones that had come in of course. Only about 70% of the force had shown up for work. Not bad really. Hate to think what the show up was for places like Detroit.
Some of the State radio and computer relays were still up and working and he told me,that the downstate,especially anywhere near Detroit was in a world of hurt. Too many people and not enough food. Had several food riots and a lot of people had died.
The invaders had come over and infiltrated Detroit proper for the several days before the SHTF. They had troops in place but with only small arms. Of course that was a heckofa lot more than the Detroit cops had. The invaders had control of most of Detroit,and that included all the interstates running through the place.
They stayed away from the residential areas. The local cops were stronger there and anyway,the people were killing each other off better than they could do. People were even being burned in their homes. Looting was rampant and the cops were shooting any looter they saw. Probably running out of ammo,the cop and I agreed. Lot of sheep in the downstate. Not so many now I was sure. The NG was way too busy with the bad boys to worry about looters. It was a mess.
The invaders were getting some armor in and that was helping them to head west and north from Detroit and that was what they were doing. I was sure and so was the cop that they would take the 1-75 corridor north and try to get hooked up with the Soo locks. A long way. But if they did that, it would create a line that could split Michigan in half and allow them to bring troops right into the midwest easily. The cop told me that copters and air cover was minimal for the invaders. I think that was because of they were more committed down in the southern states and less up here. The cop knew that Bay City would be a target eventually of the movement north. He told me most people here had not left the area. They were a close community and seem to take pride in their city.
I asked about topping off fuel and also water. Gas was out he told me but told me where the municipal garage was and I could get safe water there. Regularly we had just dumped the gray water from the RV alongside the road. The worse thing in this water was what had washed off of me so it was pretty safe. The 90 gallon tank was only down about 25 gallons but I didnt know when we could get more. The extra weight of the water hurt the gas mileage but sure made us a lot more independent. And a lot cleaner. He told me that the Wally world going out of town was allowing some stuff to be bought and I could try it for any foodstuff. Might be able to pick up some bread items because they had a pretty good bakery that was keeping them supplied.
He wrote up a very informal pass so I wouldnt get hassled for the water seeing how there was a reserve cop protecting the municipal garage and all its fuel there.
I thanked him and got him a cup of coffee out of the RV before we left. Guess he hadnt had much of that,he actually thanked me for it.
Got the water with no hassle and then to Wally world and lucked out with some bakery stuff. Wasnt the normal bread stuff but it was a lot better than we had....none. Got a few cans of veggies and some cheeses too. Oh yeah, and 40 lbs of cheap dog food too. They were going to be shutting down some of their fridges soon because they werent getting in anything so they didnt charge us all that much. I had kept a stash of cash for the last year or so. Plus I had just been saving change and had almost 400 bucks in quarters alone. No old silver but they were still taking any money. Right now.
Heading out of Bay City and heading west was uneventual. The cop had warned us that there was word that some of the county wasnt in safe hands like the city. I hinted to him that if anyone cared to check, that east of the city was a little safer now. He didnt ask for details and I didnt give him any.
The cop couldnt help on any info about our next place and that was the town of Auburn,about 18 miles west of Bay City.
I had picked up the AK again but kept the .44 also. If I felt any more secure, I would've had to suck my thumb. I had 4 speedloaders for the .44 and carried one extra mag for the AK as well. I probably could've stopped a good size army by myself. If my body would hold out that is.
I got my range out about a mile again and we cruised on towards Auburn where we would start heading north again. Hopefully ahead of the bad boys coming from Detroit. That was the army I was trying to avoid for my body's sake.

[Nikoli Krushev]

Surfside Beach, ten miles North of Freeport, Texas. Day six.

The gulls were feasting. A veritable smorgasborg of eyeballs, entrails, gooey organs of unknown origin, well aged and water softened flesh. Perhaps ten thousand bodies strewn up and down the beach as far as the eye could see. The sigh of the wind and muted rush of the waves served only to enhance the unearthly quiet of a place renowned for its rollicking noise.

MacIntire crossed himself, rose from his kneeling position and walked ten feet to the next corpse. Uncaping the bottle of Holy Water he sprinkled some on the body, then some on his fingers and knelt to trace a cross on the forehead of what had once been a beautiful young woman. The birds had already been at her eyes, and her face was locked in a death rictus of agony, teeth bared and lips pulled back in what looked like a snarl. Her swollen tounge protruded, black and covered with maggots. He said nothing. The power of speech had left him several hundred corpses ago. But he thought. And he raged in his thought. Rage at the communist, rage at the devil, rage at God. His Jesuit heart burned as only a Jesuit can. The best of all men, the worst of all men, it had been their lot since conception of the order. The creed.

The next body was a National guard soldier, probably sent to clear the beach. MacIntire had seen several others in his death march. He studied the young man intensely, as if seeking an answer to why. At length he pried the M-16 from his hands, removed his ammunition belt, and threw the bottle of Holy Water into the surf. A moment later his Bible followed. A legend had just been born.

[A.T.Hagan]

Sunday - 10:00 p.m.

It was inevitable. We all knew that we were going to take losses but that didn't make it any easier when it happened. This morning just before dawn we lost Speed Gator, Norm and John's youngest boy Jamie. They were jumped by a gunship up in Columbia county as they were trying to scout out the truck stop south of Lake City where we think the Cubans have been stopping to refuel. The bastard had to have been sitting on the ground with his rotors up to speed because he popped up over the tree line so fast that Norm was caught flat footed. He made a hell of an attempt to get away but he couldn't outrun the chopper and the guns just cut them apart. Becky's taking it hard, I think she was a bit sweet on Jamie.

The C.B. telegraph tells us that Charley lost another convoy Saturday night up to the I-75 & I-10 interchange north of Lake City. Captain Parker suspects the Army has some sort of spec ops behind the lines somewhere around here because it sure wasn't us and if there's another partisan group in the area we haven't been able to find out about it. I don't care if it's Martians, if they kill Cubans they're good by me!

These convoy hits must be starting to tell because Sunday noon the Cubans rounded up and hung twenty five people in the parking lot of the Oaks Mall in reprisal for the losses they suffered in the Gainesville area. They also dumped leaflets on both sides of the Interstate at every major road junction stating that for every troop they lost they'd hang two Americans and would increase the numbers if the attacks didn't stop. They have truly misread the American character because the only feeling they've managed to stir in every person we've met since the atrocity is one of rage. We had to stop a dozen of our younger troops from loading up in trucks and attacking the guard post at the mall right then and there. In due course we will attend to them and kill every last one of the bastards. No word as yet about the identity of the victims.

Miami fell Saturday night to a ground assault so the Cubans now control both ends of the Florida Turnpike and most of I-95 here in Florida since they hold Jacksonville as well. C.B. telegraphs reports he's not shipping much through Jacksonville anymore though. Could it be that Jax is too long a haul up the Florida coast if there's hunter-killer subs lurking? I expect we'll see more coming through Miami now since they can just haul it up the Turnpike to the I-75 interchange at Wildwood. Never did make much of an attempt to ship material via rail. Too much isolated track and not enough repair crews I suppose.

Jimmy says he's getting some sort of choppy signal coming from the Ocala National Forest like we're just on the edge of being out of range. Says the Cubans are trying to route through the Forest to take Volusia county from the rear which would give them most of the remaining lengths of I-95 they don't presently control. They've stalled getting across the Ocklawaha due to local resistance. If they can't get through the forest they'll either have to come north of Ocala or south of the forest through Lake county, most likely along S.R. 44 into Deland. I'm betting they'll go south of the forest since crossing north of Ocala would put them well into territory they've already taken and leave essentially all of Brevard and Volusia counties in the hands of the resistance. I-95 may be growing in importance to Charley's logistical plans, at least up to Jax anyways.

There's some really ugly reports of disease outbreaks on the West Coast and maybe in Texas. Reckon the Chinese are using bio-weapons. So far we've seen none here in the Southeast that I've heard. Don't know why that is. Perhaps he doesn't have enough vaccine for all the troops or maybe Charley doesn't have a lot of faith in its efficacy? Wouldn't surprise me if the Chinese simply neglected to tell their comrades in arms of all of their plans!

Mixed reports on the outbreak of fighting in Central America. Seems that the Honduras and Guatemala want to either side with the U.S. or declare themselves neutral (depends on the station one listens to) and are under intense pressure, maybe even outright attack by Mexico, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to prevent this. The Brazilian national station didn't make it's 8:00 or 9:00 p.m. broadcast so we're short on South American news from the Axis tonight.

We moved our base away from JimmyJohn's place. It was getting to be too well known. The present location we're keeping much more secret. Parker is planning ops for the guard post out to the mall and the truckstop in Columbia county. Getting a mite hungry around here too. We're getting volunteers but they're not bringing food with them so we'll have to attend to that shortly.

The little calendar in this journal book says today is Mother's Day. Sigh… I've forgotten to call Mom… again.

……….Alan.

[theoutlands]

We've decided we aren't going to try to make it into town for church today. Our congregation is on the other side of the river - some 30 miles away from home. The radio passes on a new problem - gasoline shortages. When the power went off yesterday morning, everyone rushed to the gas stations. Several in the area are completely out, even given that they are only taking cash or local checks There's no word on when we can expect more, either, since the military gets first priority on fuels.

We held a small community church service and invited all the neighbors we could get to easily. Almost everyone showed up, too. Donny opted to keep working on staying drunk instead. We had our family, Curtis's family, Donny's, Rodney's, the Bigelows, the Colemans, and the Rogers all for services. One family wasn't home - Coleman said he'd keep an eye on their place - and one family thanked us for our concern and headed on to their own congregation. There wasn't a whole lot of preaching - I did read several of David's Psalms of entry - but there was a lot of singing and praying. We even managed a communion service from canned juice and homemade unlevened bread Bec made at breakfast. Somehow, though, I doubt any of us had ever been to church where over half the men were wearing sidearms.

After services, the kids worked on getting to know each other and romped their way through several yards. The adults gathered up to talk about the situation, both close at hand and across the country. Those locusts make it difficult to concentrate on the conversations, but if I were out here by myself listening to them, I think I'd go mad. I'm sure God has a useful plan for them - I just wish I knew what it was!

I filled everyone in as best I could on the rumornews I was getting off the TB2K board. An invasion. That's so hard to imagine. I know some folks were reporting an invasion flotilla of commandeered barges having run up the Mississippi River during the last week, but that can't be right. Bec grew up on the river and knows a bit about barge traffic and said it would take three and a half days or more to get from New Orleans to Natchez, assuming the barges to be loaded and ready to go. There's no way they could have offloaded from cargo ships onto barges and made it all the way to Memphis so quickly - not if they had to fight their way through New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Natchez, and Vicksburg first.

No, for something like that, they had to either run their own "landing" craft up the Mississippi or had pre-positioned equipment in ports along the river and just manned them at the right time. Running the river would be risky for them, not just from the locals sniping at them along the way, but also the river is real low right now from drought. They'd need a highly-experienced local river pilot, shallow-draft vessels, or air-cushion vehicles.

I can only guess as to the types of armor our resistance guys are facing - from some of the reports, it *has* to be lighter scout tanks, maybe even the antiquated PT-76. Nothing too much bigger would fit inside a shipping container and some of the fighting reports indicate the armor has been successfully engaged with light anti-tank weapons. A T-80 just isn't gonna blow from a couple of RPG-7 hits to its butt. Heck, even our Dragon missiles would be iffy and they are *plenty* bigger than an RPG.

That's good for us! If the invaders are running lighter armor, it'll be a little easier for our guys to win a few. Our "streets" guys - Rodney, Donny, and Curtis - saw a train *loaded* with tanks heading east through town on Friday. Curtis rolled his eyes and handed me my little camera. I quickly downloaded the pics and found one of the train - M-60A3's. Some National Guard unit was moving hard and fast.

Everybody figures it's just a matter of days until things get real nasty here at home. No one can live in modern housing here in the "tropics" of Louisiana without air-conditioning. I make a note to ask on TB2K if anyone knows how to re-rig an AC fan to run on DC power. I have my 300-w inverter, but my big "tornado"fan won't run full-tilt through it. I figure if we don't have power for another 72 hours, there'll be riots all over both towns as people show up and demand their gubmint "Do Something." After a week, I figure there'll be some old scores get settled, too. The food supply in town can't hold out for long - no more than 2 or 3 days, I'd think. Of course, with panic-buying and *then* the loss of electricity... The city-folk will no doubt descend on the countryside like these blasted locusts that keep droning in the background.

Who can do what? Seems everyone says they can shoot. Big surprise. Coleman's dad was a State Trooper. Mr. Rogers is an older gent who has lived here since before most of the local houses existed, back when it was almost virgin woods. I know our "streets" guys hunt and fish regularly. I was Marine infantry. Guns are almost all hunting-type rifles - scoped bolt-actions. Not much in the way of military-pattern semiautos, though. Couple of the guys can weld and do stuff like that - small-engine repair and such. Several gardens are in or are going in. We're going to go up to Curtis's tomorrow and get his planted. Curtis is an EMT basic with ambulance experience, I'm first-aid/CPR certified through the National Safety Council, and Bec has finished all her coursework for her Certified Herbologist course. If we'd had two more weeks...well, if wishes was fishes, poor men would feast. I've got more stuff than an ambulance as far as medical supplies go - Curtis and another friend who is an LPN/Surgery Tech have both drooled over my collection, including "light" surgery instruments. So, our house is the de facto medical clinic. I warn everyone - again - about the use of bio-weapons and how we could be affected even here, especially those of us who have extensive contact with people.

I've made a bunch of hand-outs on the printer for everyone - colloidal silver, basic decontamination, nutritional needs...everything I can think of or find in my files that *might* be useful. I sure am glad I got the batteries and solar panels going - I can run the laptop on its battery while I use the printer and then let the laptop recharge once I'm done. Some of the folks are skeptical about the colloidal silver, but thankfully no one brings up "Rosemary" and her silver nose spray that turned her blue. Sometimes a lack of education is a good thing.

We have a medical center and an information center here at our place. Rodney has a lean-to shop and Mr. Rogers and Bigelow have impressive shops. Mr. Rogers and Coleman have tractors and several implements and Curtis has a large tiller for quickly working up gardens. Curtis has reloading equipment for some of the calibers in use.

Mr. Rogers volunteers to talk to the two families that live back behind us on the dirt road - he knew them when they were kids, so he expects they'll listen to him. Between the Rogers family and the family behind us, there is something like 500 acres or more in timber. Having the owners in agreement and support of the new "community" will be invaluable.

Everyone over 13 who can walk is going to have to take a turn at standing watch. I figure we'll need just one for now, with one inside our perimeter awake to sound an alarm. I explain our sentry needs to cover the approaches into Sandy Ridge and thankfully it can be done from one spot, where the dirt road meets the blacktop. From there, the sentry can see the fenced-off part of Sandy Ridge Road as well as the gravelled end for traffic. I recommend everyone stay armed as much as possible

No one expects to be going to work tomorrow...but we'll be working hard enough right here trying to get serious gardens in the ground.

I need to make a trip to Winnfield and check on our family there. Plus, we still have several things there we need to bring up here - like a wood heater, several 5-gallon buckets of foodstuffs, a radiation survey meter from dad's office trailer, and several other odds and ends. If I can ever get enough fuel and it is safe enough, I'll go.

We seem to have four orphans on our hands. We found a bundle of little kittens living in our subfloor insulation. They are mobile - highly active - and prone to falling down out of the insulation. We haven't seen their feral momma in days. So...looks like we gotta raise some cats, on top of it all. The other day, Bec found some powdered milk packets that ants had eaten into but then left alone. Bloody waste, I thought - it woulda made six gallons or so of milk. But now I guess it *won't* go to waste. We'll fix it for the kittens. They sure seemed to appreciate their first bowl of it.

The chickens have settled in after their trip and are actually laying eggs! We found one yesterday and four this morning. Bec figures we can expect something like six a day once they get settled in good. I sure hope so, since we are about out of cereal.

The youngest is heartbroken over not getting to watch her movies. She wandered about for half an hour today, repeating "Moo-vee, peas" over and over. I feel so bad for her, but with not enough juice to run the two machines, I can't do anything except tell her "Not today."

Our oldest has first watch tonight - she's on post until midnight. I'm her contact and I'll get Curtis up about 11:30 to relieve her. Ginny is supposed to be his contact, but I'll be leaving my radio on. Plus, with the windows all open and no noise from air conditioners and such, I'm sure any sort of action will wake me up.

We've got so much to do...

[day late]

When, OH When, will I learn to keep my big mouth shut. I could have avoided all of this if I'd have just said those three little words, 'I don't know. BUT NOOOO. Someone hands me a problem and I have to try to figure out an answer.

Thinking back over the past few days brought a mix of emotions back. We made it back from the bridge in time to have breakfast with Taz. Then we had to make our goodbyes, and start back to home. A quiet trip, that should have warned me. When we got back things had changed a little. Folks got together and organized the men into a milita, and elected an old timer called Mac to be our leader. A marine from WWII, who had frought the Japanese, he knew what needed to be done. And he had the respect of everyone within ten miles of the place. I highly approved of the choice.

It wasn't untill later that evening that the hammer fell, when he called me in to see him.

"That was one fine piece of work you did up on the bridge."

"Thanks Mac...err...I mean Sir."

"You've known me to long to call me anything else but Mac. Why change now? Listen son, I have something for you to do." Then it hit, as he explained it to me.

"MAC, You cann't DO this to me."

"Son I don't know anyone else that can do it."

"Special Ops. Mac you cann't be serious."

"Never more so Son. Look, who was it that got the idea to mine the bridge twice? You. Who showed up out here with enough food for his family for a year, when most people arrived with nothing? You. Who brought his own night vision, when most people haven't even seen it? You. Who brought in the medical supplies after convincing the Cubans that they didn't need them anymore, 'specially since they quit breathing? You. Son you think so far outside the box, that must be your mailing address. That's what we need right now."

"Now Mac that doesn't mean anything. I just got lucky."

"Lucky? I don't think so. It took time to put together that much stuff. You planned for the worst, and when it came, you were ready. You've heard about what is happening in Gainesville?"

"Yeah."

"Who was it that got your family out in time?"

"Well."

"Just what I said. Now listen, I've got a problem that I want your thoughts on. We need to link up with other groups that have formed, and more importantly, what seems to be American Military near Camp Blanding. But we need to do it fast. Seems the Cubans are starting to mass on the river for another try at us. How do you think we should do it?"

"It would have to be radio."

"I agree. But if you were their commander, would you believe a radio signal that came from nowhere asking for help?"
'no I wouldn't."

"So how do we do it?"

THAT is where I should have used those words. But NOOO. Open mouth slot A and insert foot, peg B.

"Well, if we send a signal from here the Cuban would triangleate and pound this place to rubble. The only way to do it safely would be to transmit from a moving vehicle, so they couldn't get a fix."

Mac smiled, "I never thought of that. THAT"S why you have the job, CAPTAIN."

Now here I am, bouncing along in this hummer trying to get a signal out. Just great. I just hope they get those things built before I get back. Here we go again.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Sir here'sthat new signal again." The sargent turned up the gain.

"American Forces, this is the Marion County Milita. DO NOT ANSWER, DO NOT ANSWER. This is to inform you that we are active. As proof we invite you to observe the party we are having tomorrow a.m. lo-cal 0-4, rear march. Zulu tango 10:00"

"What do you think Sir?"

"It's plain they want to meet with us. But what's that lo-cal 0-4 rear march?"

"Maybe he means reverse the numbers?"

"40? What could that mean? Someone blew that bridge two days ago?"

"Could there be something else happening there?"

"What?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe we should look?"

"Maybe."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------I turned off the radio. I hope they understood. Either way Those Cubans are in for a suprise.

"That's it. Lets go home."

The hummer turned and headed south.

[br0dyaga]

why is it that no matter how carefully I pack, or how many lists I make I always forget
something? guess it doesn't matter now.
<hr width=50%>
can't seem to get focused. can't seem to do anything for very long without going to look
out the windows. keep getting the shakes. don't know if it is radiation or just nerves.
<hr width=50%>
I wrote a letter to friends back before 9/11 giving them a map to the farm and warning
them that if in the months to come anyone, anywhere, used a nuclear weapon to immediately
get as far away from Seattle as fast as humanly possible. I told them to head east towards
the mountains. I told them. I told them.
<br>
When the news came that India and Pakistan had started a nuclear exchange I started packing
up the truck. But I didn't go. Didn't take my own advice. Couldn't go. Had to wait.
Maybe they would come. Couldn't go without them.
<br>
Where I used to live there were 4,000 and 5,000 foot high granite hills line of sight between me and Seattle. I chose that area deliberately because I have always been a worrier. A Doom's Day nut. When the MIRV's rained down on Puget Sound the lowland hills channeled most of the firestorm and the winds to the southeast and the hills around me blocked most of the gamma. But I had waited too long. Snoqualmie Pass was now blocked by US Military. Puget Sound, or what was left of it was under quarantine.
<br>
I headed south and then turned left at Palmer. Slipped through the wire on the left side of the Cedar River watershed. Took me a whole day to chug up to the old ghost town of Lester.
Road maintainence not being a priority in a watershed. Glad to have a chainsaw in the truck. Being a redneck finally paid off. From Lester to Stampede was backbreaking chain gang work. Landslides, washouts, the switchbacks on the old logging road were almost goat paths. Didn't count on the Army patrol up on top.
<br>
"Keep your hands on the wheel where I can see them!" the sargent barked.
<br>
"Who are you and what are you doing here?" he demanded.
<br>
Fortunately both I and my truck looked like some old sourdough from back in the bush.
<br>
"I'm the Queen of England!" I said, "Who the hell are you and what business is it of yours?"
<br>
"Ok, out of the truck!". he ordered
<br>
"Sure, sonny. Soon's I see your badge!" I snapped back, "You don't look like a Sheriff's Deputy to me."
<br>
"I'm Sargent Dunlap, US Army Reserve and this is a United States military facility. Now get out of the truck, now!"
<br>
"Last I heard this was a NOAH weather station, run mostly by UW students." I said, getting out of the truck.
<br>
"Yeah, well used to be it was.", he said, "Where did you come from?"
<br>
"I was down towards Lester, doing a little gold panning, camping."
<br>
"How long you been down there?"
<br>
"Oh, 'bout a week or so. Never did get any color."
<br>
"Then you don't know?"
<br>
"Know what?"
<br>
"About the war." he said.
<br>
"War?" I asked, "What war? Did we attack Iraq finally?"
<br>
"You really don't know do you?" he looked at me with puzzled eyes
<br>
"Know what?"
<br>
"They nuked Seattle." he said.
<br>
"I gotta get home." I choked out
<br>
"Where's home?" he asked
<br>
"Ellensburg." I lied
<br>
"Sarge, there's nothing in the truck except camping gear and tools. chainsaw, tarps, that sort of thing."
<br>
"Allright, you can go." he said, "And don't come back up here again."
<br>
I got down towards Whittier and stopped. Pulled out the maps and studied the logging roads down Cabin Creek. Figured I'ld stay off I-90 as long as possible. And then it hit me, that sargent probably radioed his base HQ about the contact. If so, and if there was a checkpoint at Easton which is where I would put one if I was them, then they will be looking for me to pass through there. If I don't they will be scouring the back roads looking for me. So I got on I-90 and headed east. Sure enough, the road was blocked at the Lake Easton campgrounds. But they more or less waved me through. So the sargent bought my story.
<br>
I pulled off at a Flying J truckstop to get news. People were saying that they heard on the news that it was Chinese missiles. Los Angeles, San Diego, Seattle. Coffee was $5 a cup. I decided to head out. Lot's of military at the Vantage bridge over the Columbia. Quick look at my driver's license and a couple of questions and a peek in the back of the truck and they waved me through. I let out a big sigh of relief. The river was the last major physical obstacle. Or so I thought.
<br>
I was just a bit more than 1/2 way across the bridge when I saw a bright flash of light out of the corner of my left eye. Brighter than the sun. I gunned the engine and tried not to think about looking at it. Didn't stop at the stop sign at the exit ramp, just kept going. Only slowed down enough to keep from tipping the truck over. Got almost out of the canyon and up near the top of the mesa when the wind hit. It slammed the truck over into the ditch and against the embankment. But I was lucky. Lodged in the ditch and with the truck in first gear, the truck stayed put when the wind died down.
<br>
I don't know that I will ever know the why's and wherefore's and the details. But it had to be Grand Coulee Dam. That's the only thing north of the bridge worth a missile. A hundred klicks north. No immediate radiation worries, but I needed to get to the farm ahead of the fallout. Flat tire. It came off of the rim when I got thrown into the ditch. Took a half day with the block and tackle to get the truck out of the ditch and pointed down hill. Compression started and limped up to the top of the mesa to find a level spot to change the tire.
<br>
I wanted to bypass Othello, but couldn't spare the fuel. Turned out there was nothing to worry about. The little I could see from the highway, the place was a ghost town. In fact I didn't see any vehicles for the next 80 miles. Normally I like to top off the tanks at Colfax. Decided this time to turn off and head north from Dusty and go up to Tekoa. Colfax is down in a gully and it made me nervous to think of how I could get trapped there. Got stopped by a police officer near Tekoa.
<br>
"Can I see some ID please?"
<br>
"Sure." I replied fishing from my wallet, "I don't think I was speeding."
<br>
"Where you from?"
<br>
"Seattle."
<br>
"What are you doing around here?"
<br>
"On my way to my cabin over by Plummer, Idaho."
<br>
Peering hard at me over the license card, "Taking the scenic route?" he questioned.
<br>
"Well, it made me nervous to take the road through Colfax." I answered, "Hate confined spaces."
<br>
At that he grinned slightly and relaxed a bit. "Good choice" he said, "There's been some trouble down that way. Where you plan to go from here?"
<br>
"Well, I figured I would go through town and cut over across by the grain mill."
<br>
"Sorry, we're not allowing any strangers through town."
<br>
"Well, can't say as I blame ya." I agreed, pulling out my map, "What d'you figure is the best route from here to get to highway 95? I can't go too far 'round the mullberry bush. Don't have a full tank left."
<br>
He studied the map with me and then spoke into his radio.
<br>
"Sarah, get Frank Herzen on the phone for me would'ja"
<br>
"You say you've got a cabin over near Plummer?" he asked
<br>
"Well, between Plummer and St. Maries." I lied, "You know after that hairpin under the railroad trestle? And then you go a few miles further and there is another hairpin going uphill before you get to St. Maries?"
<br>
"Yeah, I know the area some."
<br>
"Well, I have 5 acres back up that drainage I bought a year ago."
<br>
"Lt. Anderson?"
<br>
"Yeah, Sarah."
<br>
"I've got Mr. Herzen on the line."
<br>
"Ok, patch me through."
<br>
"Frank? This is George Anderson. Fine, how are you? Listen, I've got a guy here needs to get over to highway 95 and I'm going to pass him through. I want you to keep your eye out for him. Yeah, about 15 minutes. You keep a watch out for him. If you don't see him in say 20 minutes, you tell Sarah, ok?"
<br>
"Ok, you said you were going to take the cutoff over by the feed mill. Well, old man Herzen is going to be waiting to see you go by. You know the farm house on the south side?"
<br>
"You mean the one with the old hay equipment in the front yard, kinda for decoration?"
<br>
"Yeah, that's the one. Guess you do know this place. Ok, you honk your horn all the way past his place and don't stop. You stop or go anyplace else, or don't make the turn and I'll be talking with you again. Got it?"
<br>
"Yessir! And thanks."
<br>
"Good luck getting home."
<br>
"Good luck to us all."
<br>
"Amen"
<br>
Old man Herzen was out in his driveway with a shotgun cradled in his arms and a phone to his ear. I let off the horn long enough to wave as I went by.
<br>
Got over to 95 and turned south, away from Plummer. Got to the Sander's cutoff and pulled off to roll a smoke and settle my nerves. The homestretch. Up over the mountain and a bit more and I could rest. The hill folk up in the hollow on the way up to the summit were wary and watching. One of them came out towards the road with a rifle or shotgun, not sure which because I didn't slow down. Left him in a cloud of dust. Bad local etiquete driving that fast on the dirt roads, but I didn't want to take any chances. Good thing I had the chainsaw. Had to gnaw through a couple of logs up on top. They looked like they had come down on their own until I got to the other side and saw the pile of chips left by the mechanical beaver that felled them. I wanted to knock a couple more down to replace them and put the obstacle back, but was afraid that the noise of my saw was already a bad advertisement. So I got back underway.
<br>
Been at the farm now for 2 days. Got some logs dragged up across the end of the driveway today. Put some colored markers up on the fence posts at 100, 200, 300, & 400 meters from the house. Driveway is almost a quarter mile long and it's hard for me to guage distances with the naked eye. Need to get some yardage markers up out in the pasture as well.
<br>
It's so quiet. It's always quiet here, but this is a different kind of quiet. Before, the nearest manmade light was a mile away. Now there are none. Before, there would be maybe 2 or 3 cars per hour out on the road. Hasn't been one for 2 days now. I know that there are others still in the valley. I haven't seen them, but I'm sure that they are out there. But it's so still. It's nerve wracking. Can't get anything on the windup radio. Of course there's no electricity. Didn't figure there would be. Haven't lit the kerosene lamps yet. Don't want to wast fuel and don't want to shine like a beacon in all this darkness. Not till I have a better feel for what's going on.
<br>
I keep feeling like I'm going to fly apart in a thousand different directions.
<br>
<hr width=50%>
<br>
It started as a sob, a deep welling up sob that clawed its way up his throat. It turned into a primordial wail, an incoherent, ratcheting sound like a rusty air raid siren getting up to full volume. He collapsed on the floor and slept. Passed out really. He was safe. At least for the moment and his subconscious mind recognized that it could relax. When it did the knowledge that most of the people he loved were very probably now flying to meet him in the form of radioactive particles of fallout pierced his driving determination to get to the farm and drove him over the edge. He had lived alone for most of his adult life. He did not often visit with his friends. Too much to do he always said. For years he had spent most of his free time going from Seattle over to his farm, getting it ready for this day. Getting it ready to provide a safe haven for them all and himself if his pessimistic dreads ever came true. He told himself that he was building up a retirement place. He had plans for fruit trees and gardens and all sorts of things. But that was just window dressing to play down the fact that everyone knew he was preparing a bugout retreat. They just never took it seriously that way. They thought he was a fool, but a likable kook. Now they were bits of chaff on the wind. Now he was faced with an aloneness more profound and permanent than his heart could bear. And it escaped reflexively out of his throat in a soul searing burst of pain that tripped the automatic shutdown mechanisms of his mind and collapsed him into unconsciousness.
<br>
He woke up a long time later. He wasn't sure how much time had passed. His digital wrist watch no longer worked. He woke up exhausted and thirsty. And he had to pee. He stopped on his way outside to take a leak and remembered why he was there. He went and got his rifle and took it with him. Nothing was moving in the outside world. Not even the breeze.
He went back inside and began to start getting some coffee going. He rolled a cigarette and walked over to look out the window.
<br>
"Why is it", he thought to himself, "no matter how carefully I pack, or how many lists I make I always forget something? guess it doesn't matter now."
<hr width=50%>
" can't seem to get focused. can't seem to do anything for very long without going to look
out the windows. keep getting the shakes. don't know if it is radiation or just nerves. "
<br>
"I hope they made it."
<br>
"Please Father, . . . . please. Papa . . . please?"
<br>

[Just a thought]

Days 5 & 6, Saturday and Sunday


The radiation level was slowly decreasing. We stayed inside for both days and tried to gather whatever intel we could through the airwaves. It seems that the invaders had taken a step back to avoid being exposed. The Nat'l Guard had some NBC equipment and so did the militia. They kept up the sentry posts and patrols, but at reduced levels. Most without NBC equipment were taken in by the locals. Food was starting to get scarce. The supermarkets had been empty since day 2.

Most of the rural areas north of the Rim still had water and many had power. The infrastructure was just too spread out to be hit! Most of the passes had been reduced to a single lane or closed off all together. The militia blocked most of them and the NG did the rest. The fast movers continued to scream overhead. As long as the fuel and munitions held up, they were our edge to victory. They had come out of Williams Air Force Base. They made it out, but their families didn't!!!!! They were doing their best to even the score with an intensity that was awesome to behold!!!

With the single exception of the Air Force, it seemed each state was on their own. Arizona and New Mexico had a few intermingled units, but that was it!!! The N.M. Guard that was in Arizona was here because they couldn't get to the south of N.M. because of the fires!

We knew that both the east and west coasts had been hit hard. We had heard that the five largest dams in the USA had been hit. The enemy was trying to push its way north on the Mississippi. So much was happening and we were sure we weren't even getting the half of it.

We also knew that we had responded with nukes of our own!!! Lots of them!!! Some cobalt bombs as well!!! We hadn't heard anything about Europe or Australia. Maybe it was too bad to let the people know about just yet!

A couple of big ifs I was thinking about. If the nuclear winter doesn't kill our garden and if the chickens and goats survive, we'll at least be able to feed ourselves and help others. Otherwise, starvation is only one year away!!!!

Tomorrow is another day.

[Prairie Lady]

Thank God the Caveman made it back. John and his wife and baby were packed and ready to go. Putting the finishing touches on the packing and strapping down of everything we discussed which route we should take. We were going to have to go north about a hundred miles, and then east about 20 toward Colorado Springs to get Jan and the kids, pick up her rabbits and chickens, and then get out of there as quickly as we could to go to the valley.

After a great deal of discussion, we realized that we could not stay at Jan's. It was too close to 2 major targets. In fact, we marveled that they had not been targeted yet. Jan's husband Barry was going to pitch a fit about leaving because of his sense of responsibility toward the ranch, but there was NO way we were leaving the children there. If Jan wanted to stay with him, fine, but the kids were coming with us to safety. Ninety miles from ground zero with nothing to stop the wind was NOT the place to be at a time like this!

John and his family are going to head west to the valley and to our old homestead. We hoped and prayed that the survivalists there hadn't dropped the mountain cone onto the highway. It might be better to enter from the back of the valley where we could ease in fairly unnoticed. Nobody ever talked about defending that road so that is probably the best way to go. Even radio communication would be useless in that area with all the mountains blocking ordinary transmissions. Once the caveman and I get the kids, we will join them there.

We couldn't call Jan...even at best her lines never did work well. One good rain and the under gound cable quit working. It's the back roads we go and hope we don't run into anyone. Being in the middle of nowhere has it's advantages and disadvantages. You don't know what's going on in the world and that leaves you blind and deaf. On the otherhand, the world doesn't know you exist. This area of the world has no attraction to speak of, it's not even a good tourist trap. It's an ugly town, so nobody really ever stops there, they just pass on to where the accomodations are better, and the restaurants turn out real food instead of the canned food served here. One of those nowhere places. But, it is a crossroads and the main roads are likely to be watched, so we will take the back roads.

Before John and his family departs, we give them half the food, and we pray together. We ask God to make us invisable in the open, and to keep us in his care. We hug, kiss, cry and pray we endup back together.

Just as we start into the truck, we see Dellie, our neighbor running across the street toward our house. Dellie is a big mouth and a gossip, but she and her husband Bud have always been kind to us.

"I saw you packing and I wanted to say good-by before you left. Isn't it just awful what's happening? Where are you guys going to go?" asks Dellie. Ron and I share a glance and he speaks..something he rarely does.

"We are headed back east he says. Going to join Lady's mother. She's elderly and needs help so we are going to go to help her." "Well, good for you!" Dellie replies with satisfaction on her face as she googoo eyes what she can see in the back of the truck. "What are you going to do about your grand kids and family?" "They are going to join us at my mom's" lady lies.
"Well, good luck to you folks...I better let you go, Bud wants to mow today, and I need to go fix his lunch before he does!" BYE!

She gives a wave and runs off back to her house where she will promptly call her sister and tell her what we are doing. Her sister will tell her step daughter who will tell her neice...DGI's never change! Specially in our town!

As we pull out of the driveway Caveman says to me, "We can't let them know where the valley is. Nobody can know. " It seems we've come full circle. The place where our lives began is likely to be the place where it ends as well. "Load up Bubs! Get in the truck! Move over". Bubs moves over and stares at the ceiling hoping to catch a glimpse of a flash of light from sun on the mirror, or reflecting off a watch chrystal. Sitting tall and erect, Bubs has that look of smugness all over his face. He gets to ride in the car. He could care less about war. Life is normal to him!

[angelight]

Monday May 13
The weirdness of this hits-men standing watch on the perimeter of our little enclave of houses with the children playing ball and rollerblading close by. With no school and no pools to swim in-there is little for them to do. It also wears them out so that they sleep earlier at night since there is no TV and little light for them to play inside after the sun goes down.
We have kept the lights in the house at night to a minimum so as not to draw attention to the fact the we have a means to have light. A few people with candles- and have told them to save as much as possible for when it might be really needed.
Small problem cropping up. Neighbor down the street who has Diabetes and needs insulin. Fortunately had a new bottle, but trying to keep it cool with no refridge-finally put it in a water proof bag and sunk it in the pool-not cold, but cooler than nothing. Not sure how long it will last. When it is gone-I do not want to have to think of what will happen to Mary.
Food is becoming a problem. FInally got some of the men to look into fishing. Ocean within 20 min drive (a lot longer walking)They only caught a few small fish, but enough to give them some hope that this would give them some sort of food source for their family.
Also have handy for "the masses" a printout on squirrel catching, skinning and cooking. Wives looked at me kinda strange til I reminded them of the fact that their food was almost gone and there was no grocery store for them to pop over to to pick up take out.
Told them all it was something I had seen on the internet and thought was strange enough to print it out. We are also having trouble with trying to tell people what they could do to help themselves out and not give away what we have stored/learned.
We did give the buckets of rice and beans to the 3 familys that I had them for to try to extend their food and the look on my sis face when I gave her the one I had for her was priceless. I proceded to remind her that she had chosen to go on trips and have new cars in the driveway since she was sure that nothing more was going to happen so she did not have to put any food away. She was so sure that her dinner last night was going to be the stew I made. Oh, well.
The rain we had yesterday helped fill the large buckets that I had put under the drain spouts to collect water. Have been using it to "flush " the toilet. Have reminded the kids to only flush once a day-fortunately It works pouring a bucket of water down without using the flusher. That goodness for cesspools.
Still not sure what happened in NYC-have not been able to get any info-was hoping that someone on TB2K that was closer to the are would post it and I could find out on my quick looks that I do each night. Hope it all stays this quiet here, but the masses could become a problem soon. Heard shots closer to the main road yesterday and the men wanted to go and see what it was about, but reminded them that this would leave us and our houses unprotected and they finally saw the wisdom in not going, Must leave now and hope that I will still be able to get on the net tomorrow-

[A.T.Hagan]

Monday - 5:30 a.m.

It's been a portentous day but just at the moment I'm too tired to much give a damn. Naturally, this means that Parker wants me to haul ass forty some odd miles south in the hopes of finding a will o' the wisp or maybe just to stick my head in an ambush!

Left out last night just past 10:00 p.m to scout the Lake City truck stop. Charley is definitely refueling there. Going to be a tough nut to crack. The lot sits out in a middle of a large cow pasture and there's precious little cover of any sort for several hundred yards around. He's also bunkered in several APC's to use as hardened machine gun emplacements. We've got the place under continuous observation hoping to spot something that'll show us how to take it out. We don't want them to get too nervous and button up even more tightly so we've settled on a policy of no harassing attacks just yet.

About 3:00 a.m. I was studying personnel movement through my rifle scope when I felt cold metal touch the back of my neck and a voice with a soft Southern drawl said "Now what might you be doing here?" I'm rather proud that not only did I not wet my pants but I managed to keep my voice in its usual octave range! I replied, "I'm watching the goddamned Cubans! What does it look like I'm doing?!"

The voice came back, "Why don't you just take your hands off the rifle and roll over real easy like keeping your hands where I can see them and I'll have a look at you."

Not being in much of a position to argue I put my hands out in front of me and slowly rolled over. There was little more than starlight to see by but having lain there in the dark for hours I could make out a man in dark clothing, web gear, some sort of complicated goggles over his face, holding a suppressed carbine, looked like one of the M-16 variants. Had to be an American. In my usual blinding way of putting two and two together it suddenly came to me that I'd just found our mystery spec ops team, or rather, they had found me.

Curiosity over came me so I asked, "Who are you?"

"Sgt Don Peterson, U.S. Army."

"Are you the guys that hit the convoy at I-10 and 75?"

He said nothing for many heartbeats and came back, "Why do you want to know?"

"Because *we* didn't hit it and if there's another resistance group in Alachua and Columbia counties we haven't heard of it."

"Well then, I reckon that leads us to the question of who *you* are?" It came to me the carbine had never quite swung away from pointing at my midsection.

"I'm Alan Hagan, uhhh, Concerned Citizen!"

"Well then Citizen Hagan. How did you come to be in the convoy attacking business?"

"Because *you* weren't here doing it!"

A flash of white teeth in a grin. "Well, I guess you've got me there. Was that you guys that hit the one at the Santa Fe river bridge?"

"Yeah, that was us."

"You got lucky on that one Citizen Hagan. You very nearly lost that dune buggy when he waited too long to move. He should have cleared out and not waited to finish his belt."

"How do you know about that?"

He stuck his hand out and waggled it like a plane flying. "Uncle can see many things, even if he can't particularly do much about them just at the time." I wonder if he meant one of those unmanned recon drones? I'd have thought we'd have spotted anything larger.

"You guys reconning the truck stop too?"

"I think it would be best if I didn't answer that, just yet."

"OK, I understand. Look, you're the first military we've had contact since we lost our Guard unit. We've got the people and we know the lay of the land but we're mighty short on anything that can cope with even the outdated armor the Cubans are using to guard their convoys and we sure don't have anything to swat a gunship. Can y'all help us out with that?"

Peterson considered for a moment and said, "I didn't come here expecting to find you so I don't know what I can and can't tell you and I sure can't promise you anything before I talk to my superiors. You 'Concerned Citizens' can operate freely but us Army slobs are saddled with a chain of command. There's a pump house on the backside of this hill, can you meet me here same time tomorrow? I'll know then what I can and cannot do for you."

I shrugged, sounded like a plan to me. "OK," I said, "I'll see you then." He didn't say anything else, just turned and faded into the darkness. Damn, he was quiet!

I made my own way back over the hill where Andy was waiting for me and we headed back to base. Parker and I were going to have talk.

And talk we did when I gave him my news and he told me about the "Marion County Militia" radio call that's bouncing all over the C.B. telegraph. Parker spit tobacco juice onto the barn floor and said, "Didn't you say you knew someone down there to the Forest that you thought might be involved in resistance activities?"

"Well, I've never met her *directly* mind you but I know roughly where she's at down there and if there really are resistance activities going on there she'd likely know who was involved… I think."

"Then you're the man for the job. If we've interpreted that message correctly it's going to be s.r. 40 at 10:00 a.m. Leave right now, take…John… and Billy for your radios. Recon only. Make contact if you think it's safe and warranted."

"They just came right out and said to meet them on s.r. 40 at 10:00 a.m. did they? Damn sure sounds like a sucker trap to me Captain!"

"Son, it's only a trap if you aren't aware of it. You're not going to fight, just recon the area and see what you can see."

"Did they say *where* on s.r. 40? It runs clear through the Forest from one side to the other!"

"Probably going to be somewhere in the vicinity of the bridge or where ever the Cubans have advanced to. Said there was going to be a 'party' which I interpret to mean they'll be attacking the Cubans."

"Yeah buddy. No rest for the wicked. Only the good die young and all that crap. I can come in from the resistance side and they'll think I'm a spy or from the Cuban side and they'll *know* I'm a spy! OK cap, I'll go down and stick my head into a hornet's nest for you and see what I can find!"

John was waiting behind the wheel of the truck with Billy in the crew space behind with the radios. A sack of corn pone was on the seat. Lord, I'm getting tired of pone.

........Alan.

[Swampthing]

A flock of the "locusts" flew overhead yesterday. The sky was black with them. It sounded like a hurricane. My daughter caught one in a jar. I made her let it go.
They've been here for three days. The Word says five months. Five months! I'm amazed how the world still rejects the Lord-in spite of obvious supernatural signs.

Heard on the shortwave that Cincinatti had fallen to the enemy but they had been unsuccessful in crossing the river into Northern Kentucky so far.

We pray continously for our people fighting...

[br0dyaga]

<br>
I've got 3/4 ton of Yukon Gold and 1/4 ton of Irish Heirloom seed potatos and 50 pounds of seed garlic in bushel sized burlap sacks that need to be planted. And I need busy work. I need the distraction of hard labor. So I fire up the Italian Grape hoe and start chopping sod. The root system in the pasture goes down almost a foot, and last year I had the whole acreage fertilized. Good for hay, not so good for bronze age gardening. With that heavy hoe and this sod it is nearly like chopping wood. Wish I had a tractor. But then, I wouldn't want to waste the fuel. Wish I could weld. Those old Mother Earth News wood gas digester plans I have would give me a nearly eternal power source here surrounded as I am by hundreds of miles of national forest.
<br>
A car! Can't see it. I drop the hoe and run to house. That's the last time I will leave the binoculars behind. It's turning off the state highway and onto the county road that leads up here. Damn it. I need sandbags around the porch, I've got no cover. It stops at the end of my driveway. Someone's getting out.
<br>
Rolling thunder speaks before I even know that I have pulled the trigger. And I hear a voice.
<br>
"Nye strelyaesh! Nye strelyaesh!"
<br>
"Ah kto?" I shout
<br>
"Eto ya!" he replies
<br>
"Ya who?" I answer, not realizing how silly this sounds
<br>
"Peyotr" is the answer
<br>
"Petya?"
Just then the back door of the car opens and I swivel reflexively ready to fire again.
<br>
"Dyadya Yasha" calls out a little girls voice. It is a voice I know as well as my own mother's. It is my goddaughter.
<br>
I feel my knees buckled and I feel faint. And I am delerious with joy. "S'yuda" I shout, "come, come" waving my arms in welcome. I sling the rifle across my shoulder and run out to greet them.
<br>
Russian fishing is a "man" thing. Peter would often go out with his brother in law and father to the Potholes south of Moses Lake on a friday night and come home on sunday afternoon. The basic procedure involves fishing for carp and other white fish and drinking. lots of drinking. a few boiled eggs, cold boiled potatos, some bread, and more vodka. Women are not invited. Which Petya's wife had long resented. Turns out that Petya finally relented and took the whole family on the fishing trip. They were over by Royal City when the Grand Coulee Dam got hit. When they tried to go home to Tacoma, the US Army guarding the Columbia River bridge at Vantage spooked them and they decided to head for the farm. But they didn't have the map with them and couldn't remember exactly the route. Just the name of the nearest town. They ran into some sort of local militia near Washtucna and decided to get off the main road. Then they sort of dead reckoned eastwards around the back roads until they found a town with a name they recognized, and then wound their way up into Idaho. They got stopped by someone in a police car of some sort once, told him they were Hungarian immigrants. It seems that he wasn't altogether fooled by that but just at that moment got some kind of urgent call on his radio and he took off in a hurry. So they skedaddled too. They hadn't eaten much for a couple of days and they were exhausted. The kids were too wound up to sleep so we had them set up a picnic lunch on the grass while Petya and I hiked back up to the car to move my makeshift barricade and bring the car in. Nadia, Petya's wife didn't look any happier or relieved. And for that matter, Petya still had a grave look on his face.
<br>
"Petrush, talk to me. What's wrong?" I asked
<br>
"They sick." he replied
<br>
"Who's sick? What sick?"
<br>
"Nadia and Masha and Olya." he grimmaced
<br>
"Sick, how? What do you mean sick?"
<br>
"Volnavals'a"
<br>
"Throwing up?" I said
<br>
"Yes"
<br>
"How long?"
<br>
"2 days"
<br>
"And you?" I persisted
<br>
"I'm ok." he insisted, "it's them. not radiats'ya, vnutre."
<br>
Peter had been attached to a tank corp stationed in Hungary during his army stint back in the '80's. Like all Russian infantry troops he had trained extensively in NBC and especially nuclear battlefield simulations. He knew what to look for and expect from a radiation attack.
<br>
"What do you mean, internal?" I said
<br>
"When came wind, they like birds against car."
<br>
now I was worried, "bleeding? you know, when pee, like that?"
<br>
"no" he said, "not blood."
<br>
"swelling?" I said, making hand and face gestures to indicate what I meant.
<br>
"only some nogee, on legs only." he replied
<br>
"and now?" I asked
<br>
"Nadia better, Masha better." he replied
<br>
"Oleg?" I queried
<br>
"not better."
<br>
I ask nothing about Peter's mother and father. I know that they were back in Tacoma, as were Nadia's parents and brother, while Peter took his little family fishing. We ate in silence. The children were finally put down to sleep. Nadia rested in a chair near them. Peter came out with me to help dig the garden. He was in no shape to be working but I knew he needed something to do. And I didn't want to wake the children by rooting through the house showing Peter the armory and other things. That could wait. Better to be digging potatos than thinking.
<br>
My father was at his summer house up at Friday Harbor in the San Juans when the balloon went up. Just across the water from the Anacortes petroleum tank farm. He used to try to needle me by telling me how many Boeing and other aerospace and military retirees lived up on the islands. How it was a safe place, just in case, wink, wink. My brother was on a business trip to L.A. My mother was at her condo in Seattle. I don't know where Vanya and Lyuba and their children were. I had a cousin down in Medford, Oregon. I haven't heard any news from the outside world since this all started. I can see some of the locals stirring about down valley from time to time, but no one is out "visiting". Everybody is sticking close to their own homes from what I can see with the binoculars. We're hemmed in by 6 and 8,000 foot peaks on all sides so radio reception is spotty at best. We used to get AM out of Spokane. But the Baygen isn't giving out anything but static so far. It may be something to do with the sheetmetal roof on the house. I will have to try the radio outside later. Used to have a cousin in Ohio, and her brother out in Salt Lake. The rest of the family lived down by Olympia. I can't allow myself to think about that now. My world is now a shovel and a hoe and potatos. The fear that I must suppress has to do with another kind of planting if little Oleg doesn't get better soon. Nearest real town with doctors is an hour's drive by car. Or at least that's how it was before. We're just not equipped to handle any injuries more serious than broken bones or cuts.
<br>
The dawn breaks and I say a prayer of thanksgiving. As I have done every morning of my life since my heart attack several years ago. It seems almost indecent that the sun should come up and smile so warmly down on the world under these horrible and surreal circumstances. But I have much to be thankful for in spite of everything. Peter and I continue on digging up the garden area. It is more than work therapy. We have only a 120 day growing season here at this elevation. Less some years. Hard frost has killed gardens up here in July. I put by enough supplies to support all the people I expected that might show up. And at this moment that means that those of us who did get here have a few years worth of food. But it will run out at some point. More importantly we need fresh vitamins and we need to keep the seeds alive by growing them and saving them afresh. In the late afternoon when it gets hot I show Peter the rest of the supplies and weapons. We work out our first guard shift assignments and since he is a certified welder, I show him the blueprints for the wood gas generator. We will use some of the precious gasoline to run the portable generator and use the electricity to weld up our first producer gas plant. After that we should be able to produce power when we want it almost indefinitely. Or at least for a few years, until the corrosive effects of the homemade methane prematurely wear out the piston rings and valves. It will buy us some time.
<br>
I'm not sure how long it has been since I left Seattle. My sense of time is muddled. Not that it matters all that much. Not having any livestock or chickens or anything, I have no clock as it were. Nadia says it has been a week. feels like more. She is probably right I suppose. When the plants in the garden start coming up we will be able to measure time better. With no job to go to, no time clocks to punch, no banking to do, no telephone, we live by the sunrise and sunset. Get up when it is light and work. Go to sleep when it gets dark. For us the time might just as well be 1902 as well as 2002. The children sulk a little bit because they want to watch some of the video tapes I have. I wish they could. It would make it easier on the rest of us if they were distracted. But of course we can't waste fuel to run the generator for things like that. Luxuries like that will have to wait until we are more "prosperous".
<br>
<hr width=50%>

<br>
"I go okhota." said Peter
<br>
"We don't need the protein." I replied, pointing to the buckets of TVP, "We have enough for a long time yet. We don't need fresh meat. And I don't think it is a good idea to be shooting if we don't have to. I don't want to attrack that type of attention here."
<br>
"not meat. kozha for shoes" he replied
<br>
And then I realized, they were all wearing tennis shoes. They had gone off on a weekend fishing trip in the family car and had only the light shoes and summer clothes they were wearing. The didn't even have the family sized earthquake emergency bag I had bought from the Red Cross and given to them as a Christmas present years ago. I had extra boots, heavy coats, but they are much too big for anyone else but me. He was right we needed leather. The small elk herd that liked to sunbathe in the meadow above my north pasture was about to get smaller. I showed Peter the special tap and die set I had bought years ago, "grusheetyel" I said, to fit the rifles with silencers. He nodded in agreement and pointed to the empty burlap sacks that had held the seed potatos. A ghillie suit. It had been in my mind when I first bought the potatos and saw the sacks. Just hadn't thought about it recently. The outside world and all of its potential threats seemed far away and there had been too much else on my mind of late. We went back to work transfering the 5 gallon buckets of wheat, powdered milk, beans, etc. from the gutted out travel trailer I had been using for temporary storage and into the root cellar.
<br>
That evening over supper Peter asked about the creek down across the state highway. Any fish in it. Yes, I replied. Squaw fish. What the locals considered a swimming weed fish. Big white fish in some of the holes. Not "fishing" type of fish, normally folks would poison them out to keep the trout population healthy. But seeing as how we probably wouldn't be seeing any trout fishing tourists in the near future, those Squaw fish were starting to look like a nice resource. I wrapped a few turns of duct tape around an empty #10 coffee can and threw in a couple of xtra large plastic lawn and leaf trash bags, some strike anywhere matches, toilet paper, tea bags, some boullion cubes, a small first aid kit.
Peter rummaged through my fishing gear and started rigging up his trot lines. We agreed on recognition signals in case he came back after dark.
<br>
the next morning I was fumbling around in the kitchen in my usual groggy half awake state. "Where Petya?", Nadia asked. I was poking life into the embers at the bottom of the Mennonite built wood cookstove I had bought for the farm. Armageddon or no, I still need wake up juice first thing in the morning. It took me a minute for my head to clear and remembered fishing. "na ribalku" I answered. Nadia looked unhappy "no vodka" I spoke to her unstated concern. She looked at me and shook her head, "I not afraid that." , looking more worried than unhappy. I shot her a questioning glance as I poured my coffee, "what then?" I asked. "We russians" she said. I sighed, "nothing we can do. He is clever. He will stay hidden." She was not reassured. Nadia started mixing up some of the stored flour into bread dough. I went outside to have a smoke.
<br>
When Peter came home around dusk I laid out the maps of the local area on which I had marked the neighbor's houses. As I had expected, his fishing trip was also a cover for a recon mission. We marked the ones that seemed empty, made notes of which ones looked like they might have useful tools, scrap steel, other resources. Nadia chewed him out in the way of russian wives, relieved that he had come home alive and safe. Little Oleg seemed to be improving. Maybe we had a chance. Maybe we were going to come through this in one piece.
<br>

[theoutlands]

Thank you, Lord! Rain! We woke up at 4:30am to the glorious sounds of thunder and driving rain pounding on the trailer-house roof. It's been weeks since we had any rain, and the ground seemed desperate to drink it in. I drift back to sleep, wondering if the peas will grow two inches or three after this blessing...

Since it was raining, Bec decided to stay in bed and catch up on her sleep with me and the baby. When we got up at 8am, it was still raining, albeit much more gently than the early-morning cacophany that had awakened us. We gladly opened the windows and unplugged the air-conditioners, eager for the refreshing weather. The rain also most thankfully made those damned locusts shut up.

So far, Entergy's efforts at keeping power supplied to the water systems, telephone systems, and local hospitals by means of the prolonged blackouts seems to be working. We still have running water and I can call anyone within my local-dialing area. Long-distance calls still won't go through - too many people desperately trying to find family members. I'm sure there are problems from EMP fusing exchanges closer towards Shreveport and Leesville, too. If we had the fuel, I really would like to get to Winnfield and check on everyone there. I'm not sure where Dad was Sunday night - if he was in Winnfield, I'm sure he's organizing the family there. If he was in OKC with Mom... I still haven't heard anything about OKC and with the long-distance out, there's little hope of finding out. I can just pray and go on.

No one went to work today. With fuel getting rare and money becoming virtually worthless, there's really no point. Instead, everyone is working around their places, trying to improve their "survivability" in the current crisis. I called Mr. Harper and asked him about upcoming land payments. One of the boons to owner-financing swung into play - he agreed to hold off on any demand for payment until things firmed up for everybody. There isn't much he could do with the money, anyway.

Sage went nuts barking just after lunch today. The clouds were still thick, but the rain had stopped and something was moving around in the trees near him. I grabbed Brendan's BB gun and eased out toward his post-tree. I figured one of the neighborhood roamer-dogs had come around bothering him, so I was only carrying the BB-gun insead of something bigger. I didn't want them getting ahold of the kittens, but didn't want to kill a pet mutt. Sage was "on point" at something up in the trees on his side of the driveway, which meant I wouldn't see it until I was right on top of it.

Nothing was moving, but Sage was barking his head off and going flat on the ground, trying to reach something just past the end of his chain. I popped the safety off the BB-gun and eased it into a good, tight, Marine-approved ready position...ready to twitch the barrel up and put a non-lethal round into whatever it was. There I was, barefooted, when it occurred to me that it just might be a snake moving out of its flooded living space, looking for higher open ground to dry out.

Just as I got to where I could reliably investigate, Sage lunged hard enough to slide his chain around the tree a little and gain a few scant inches of slack. His "woof" dropped even lower into his "Kill it!" range and he scrabbled desperately at the intruder, his claws striking and sliding off the armored shell ... of a box turtle.

I could just imagine what words were going through his head, trying to alert me... "Daddy, get a BIG gun! This one's wearing ARMOR!!!" I laughed pretty hard at him for that...he absolutely hates turtles and I can't figure out why. I managed to save the turtle from his maniac efforts and wondered where I could relocate it. Sure, I thought about cooking up a pot of turtle soup, but we aren't that hungry - no yet. The girls were clustered at the top of the steps by the front door, eagerly awaiting my report. I held up the turtle for their inspection - it was easily as big as my two fists together, maybe a little more. I finally let the poor critter go on the other side of the driveway, away from the garden. Maybe he'll eat some of these locusts.

The driveway is full of their holes, big enough to stick my pinky finger into with no trouble. There had to be hundreds of holes. I could hear their wings rustling in the trees around me, so I stopped and waited, looking among the branches until I saw one land. I aimed the BB-gun at it - vain hope, but it made me feel better - and fired. Of course I missed. The next two shots missed, as well, but it's not like I was using a competition-grade sniper's pellet-gun. Their unnerving drone had started up again and I was eager to be quit of them, so I abandoned the shoot-out and went inside.

Oh - we had seen a good-sized grey-squirrel earlier in the day, before lunch while it was still drizzling. He was staying up off the ground - I guess he could smell the cats - and was trying to figure out how to get to the unoccupied bird-feeder and its "welfare stash" of seeds. Except for the two pairs of doves, the birds have given up on the feeder and I guess are eating the locusts. More power to them. The tree-rat must have felt me mentally painting my rifle sights on his head, because he looked around for a moment and made a dash back into the thicker treelimbs and out of my sight.

If we listen, we can hear lots of hand-tools being worked - axes and bush-blades clearing land for planting or cutting up firewood. Today's wonderfully cool temperatures have made outside work much more pleasant. I had to remove a sweet-gum tree knocked onto our clothesline by the wild winds of the morning storm. Then, as if in penance for uprooting a tree, we got Bec's brown-turkey fig tree planted. It has lived and produced figs in a 5-gallon bucket since 1999 and now it finally has a home of its own...

[br0dyaga]

<br>
"Brrrrrrrr" she said stamping her feet. Nadia is furious. We say 'whoah' to stop a horse, russians say 'brrrrrr'. "What?" I ask, genuinely puzzled. "He vodka making" she spits. Well, now I laid up a few bottles of old kaintuck snake bite remedy some years back. couple of cases. I'll grant you there's no snakes within a hundred miles of this place. still a fellow can't be too careful. I grin to myself at the thought. "is no laugh" she scolds me. So I say "look, we need horses, chickens, a cow. money is no good. who will take paper money? we need something to trade. we have to meet with the neighbors at some point. we need them to know that we are friends." she is still not pleased, and will not admit it just now, but she understands. America is at war. the only countries with nuclear missiles that could attack the US are Russia and China. And she and her children are Russian. Naturalized citizens now for almost a decade. but in the eyes of the world, in the eyes of americans who are under attack in their own homes and cities for the first time in nearly 200 years, Nadia and Peter and the children are Russian. a few jugs of russky paint remover would not be a bad thing at this point. but none of that passes muster with a russian wife. vodka is the devil. I head out to the barn to see a fair replica of an Ozark mountain still being born.
<br>
While in the barn I stripped out a length of copper wire from between some light sockets. Not much use right now as things stand. Lashed it up to the windup radio and begin to hear some scratchy voices. Got the idea to wind the free end around a rung of the barb wire fence that surrounds the farm and start turning the SW dial. Eureka! Got a hit in the 6 meter band. Don't know who it is or where they are, but it is a human voice. we are now getting news of the outside world. Our excitement rapidly fades as we hear how bad it is out "there". Peter and Nadia's faces go ashen grey hearing about the foreign troops on american soil.
<br>
"Well, that's that. You two start english language class tonight. right after supper." I say, "from now on, you guys will take turns reading out loud." And then I realize that very nearly all the books I have are technical tracts on mechanics, engineering, Do it Yourself type of stuff. "We'll start with the Bible." I say. Nadia objects, "but so old words."
And she is right, archaic language. Not modern conversation. But it's that or nothing. Besides we could use some spiritual comfort. "We have to start somewhere" I say, "We can start keeping a journal in normal english, I will write it and you will read it to me. We have to get rid of your accents." Peter nods his head in agreement, "khochish v lagerye umeriyesh? v tiyourmu? ah shto nasha deetye?" he challenges his wife angrily. 'you want to die in a labor camp. in prison? and what about the children?' She nods her head solemnly. "From now on" I say, "only english outside. russian for communication when we are sure no one else is around or for danger. ponyil?" They understand.
<br>
We listen some more, but it is gut wrenching. Everything, and everyone we knew is gone. The exceptional few who survived the first attack on the coast are now dying slowly and horribly from disease and starvation. Soldiers are shooting those who try to escape quarantine. They have no choice. The living envy the dead. We shut off the radio and stand silently, each of us lost in our own grief and thoughts.
<br>
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<br>
My chore today is patching the roof on the barn. I hate roofing. Forget it being dangerous, roofing is a job for those with a large collar and small hat band. you spend all your time on your knees scuttling about like a crab and lifting heavy stuff with your back muscles since you can't safely stand erect very much. it is exhausting and you are constantly distracted by having to think where your feet are at all times. but it has to be done.
<br>
sitting back for a moment's rest I am scanning the fields and timber that surround the farm, wiping the sweat from my eyes. There! Something moved. Over there, 50 meters from the driveway, over by the fenceline to the north pasture. There, it moved again! Crouching low and trying to stay hidden in the scrub that grew up along the fence. Damn, that brush goes to the top of the "must do" list right now. I whistle and signal to Peter. He hands me up the scoped rifle so I can see better. I call out, "Stop where you are. Do it NOW!" the figure freezes. "Stand up. Who are you? What do you want?" the figure slowly stands and raises his hands. I can see a rifle held over his head. "Jake, it's me, Randy." he says. I recognize the voice. We worked together for many years at MegaCorp, back in seattle. When I had my heart attack years ago, he and Donny were the only ones from the office who came to visit and check up on me. I never really expected to see him alive. "Who's with you?" I call out. "Just me and Bonnie." he replies. "Well hump on up here Marine!" I shout, "You hungry?" Randy signals to Bonnie to come out from the brush about 20 meters right of his position. They begin advancing towards the barn, rifle at port arms. Randy is as old as I am and he has to wear hearing aids. Bonnie is half his age. Oh, I know. But that's his business. You can take the boy out of Parris Island, you never but get it out of the man that's been there. I sure am awful glad to see him.
<br>
Nadia has some good hot soup and freshly baked bread ready. Randy and Bonnie tucked into it ravenously like they were filling a bottomless hole. It was hard for Randy to convince Bonnie to bug out, she didn't want to leave her father behind. So Randy made up a yarn about going on a camping trip. They were up by Chinook Pass when Puget Sound got bombed. The crossed over and kept going. Their car broke down somewhere northwest of Yakima and they had to hoof it from there. The came across a Mexican family broke down along the road south of Othello who were headed for Spokane and got a ride as far as Cheney. From there they just walked and kept out of sight. I feel alot better now. We now have 3 riflemen to stand watches. Peter and I can get a little more sleep now. Nadia will have some companionship. The children will have someone else to watch over them. And we are going to need a dozen cords of fire wood cut, split and stacked before summer ends. We are all now a little better off. for the first time in weeks I feel myself starting to relax.
<br>

[day late]

"Sir, may I have a moment?"

"What is it ?"

"I've been thinking about that message"

"What about it?"

"Well the sender said Zulu Tango. Is it possible he ment Zulu Time?"

"Hmmm, that means Grenwich. That would make the attack four hours earlier than expected. You may be right. Get me Major Sunstrom."

"Sunstrom here Sir." the major answered.

"Major, there has been a change in plan. You're time has been moved up by four hours. I want you at the observation point by zero-five-four-five. Do you understand?"

"0545, Yes Sir."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Are you guys sure you've got this aiming down?"

"Captain, thats the third time you've asked us that. We got it. What are you worried about?"

"Sorry. Just want to make sure everything is right. We're only going to get one shot at this."

What am I worried about? Nobody has used one of these things since they invented gunpowder, and he wants to know why I'm worried. Sheesh.

"Captain?"

"What? Oh Sorry Sir, What can I do for you?"

"At ease Son. Your men cann't see you getting skitish. That makes THEM nervious. Now, do you want to tell me exactly what We're doing here? This thing doesn't look like a wonder weapon."

"Well Mac it is like this..."

"Left eye to fire control, over."

"Excuse me Mac. GO left eye."

"It's 0-5-5-7"

"Roger, left eye, right eye, center eye, fire mission. You will adjust. Over."

"Left eye, we will adjust, over."

"Right eye, we will adjust, over."

"Center eye, ditto."

"Two minutes."

Putting down the walkie talkie I shout, "Gunners, stand by your engines. Two rounds, heavy. One minute. Sorry Mac, can we talk later? I'm going to be busy for awhile."

"At your disgression, Captain. Good luck."

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Major Sunstrom was proud of the fact the NOTHING shook him. No matter what happened, he kept himself together. But nothing in his years at West Point, nor in all of his years of service had prepared him for what he was looking at. The Cubans had built a pontoon bridge 3/4 the way across the river, and the milita was standing around just behind the tree line, seemingly doing nothing. True they had quickly built five devices of some kind down there, but he could not for the life of him figure out what they were up to.

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As they worked on the end of the latest segment of the bridge, one of the workes turned to his mate and said,

"I don't like it Juan. These Americanos are too quiet."

"What can they do Carlos, eh? If they shoot at us, our tanks will destroy them. No my friend, I think they have all run away."

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"Engines one, three, and five. FIRE."

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As they continued their work, Juan and Carlos suddenly heard an odd rushing wind noise. Together they looked up. They never had time to recognise the thing that hit them was a small car. It crashed into the end of the pontoon takeing it straight to the bottom of the river. The other workers heard the crashing noise and looked up to see one end of the last segment of bridge sticking up in the air. As they began to move to help their comrades, another small car fell from the sky, and neatly cut the next segment in two. They dropped their tools and ran for their lives.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This was too much. Major Sunstrom started to chuckle, and then too laugh. A trebuchet. These men had a battery of them and were raining large heavy objects down on the bridge as it was nearing completion. They were smashing the thing to bits with a weapon that hadn't been used in a thousand years. He thought back to his classes on medevial warfare. These things could throw heavy objects a long ways. He seemed to remember hearing they had tested one and it had thrown a V.W. almost 1/2 a mile.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Commander of the Cuban forces picked up the mike and shouted at his tank commander.

"Why are you not returning fire?"

"Sir, I have no target. What ever weapon they are useing leaves no heat signiture for our fire control systems to lock on too. With this fog I cann't even guess where it is coming from."

Cursing the Commander shouted again into the mike. Three choppers rose into the air and shot foreward, looking for the strange weapons. As they came across the river, choppers two and three were in the lead. But since they had no idea what they were looking for, passed over engine #3 without even seeing it. Once they had passed the gunner pulled the lanyard to fire the load of engine blocks and axles that had already been loaded. As they flew upwards over the tree line, they met chopper #1 coming the other way, and tore it to pieces. At the same time, an R.P.G. streaked up into the belly of chopper #3. It nearly broke in half and crashed down into the middle of S.R.40. Chopper #2 started to pivot to fire on the launch site when more than 50 small arms fired at once. The chopper staggered under the blow. It was followed at once by a second volley. It was too much. The bird burst into flame and joined the other smoking pile of rubble in the road.

With the bridge now nothing more than bits of floating trash on the water, three choppers destroyed, and STILL no idea what had done the damage, the Commander had no choice. He called off the attack, climbed into his car and headed back to his base. It MUST be those men at the Space Center. They must have brought up some new kind of weapon, he thought.

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Major Sunstrom was rolling on the ground with tears streaming down his face. NEVER had he even heard of such a thing as he had just witnessed. He got himself under control and made his way back to the helocopter that had brought him. Somehow he didn't think anyone was going to believe his report.

[theoutlands]

It was getting late - sometime after 6pm - but the sun was still up, so everyone in the little community was still outside working. It had rained that morning, hard in the dark hours, but more of a light soaking rain after the sun came up. It didn't quit until noon, so no one had been outside working and now everyone was trying to make up lost time. The war had been raging for a week, but other than losing their electricity for most of the day and having no hope of regular "just-in-time" inventory replacement of foods or fuels, they'd seen little in the way of hardships. They had to work hard and fast, though, to make sure they'd be able to feed themselves later.

The McNeills were finishing up their efforts to relocate their long-suffering fig tree when a blood-curdling scream sounded from towards the paved road. Michael snatched the FRS off his belt as he ran and keyed it up.

"Someone report! What happened?"

He got no reply, not that he'd expected one. Not everyone had one of the little radios to carry around. When he rounded the corner at the top of the hill, he saw Rodney's teenaged son Jamie on the ground, holding onto his leg as blood poured over his fingers. In less than a heartbeat, he understood what had happened and swung into action. He saw the handle of a brush-blade lying close beside him and mud all over the kid's boots. Jamie must have been clearing for more garden space and slippined in the mud, burying the wicked edge of the tool in the side of his leg.

He keyed up his radio again. "All hands, we have a medical emergency! Medical crew report to 174 now!" He let go of the radio and yelled to Rodney and Donny, who had come running, "Get him over here!"

Michael turned and sprinted for his house, passing his Rebecca, who was still trying to figure out what was going on. "We gotta get the table up! C'mon!"

They had two six-foot-long folding "church" tables, made of heavy plastic with metal legs that they used for picnics and such. They were about to turn one into an operating table.

He had already hefted the table and was setting it up when Rebecca caught up to him. "Inside - get the medical box and CS spray. Hurry!" He helped her up the stepless entrance into the back door and popped the legs out on the table. The two men carrying Jamie arrived just as he flipped the table onto its feet.

"Here, set him down on this." They all three worked to settle him onto the tabletop. Rebecca came back with a plastic squirt bottle in her teeth and a large metal ammo can in her hands. She handed them down to her husband and started to jump down herself. "Wait - duct tape and my blue-handled snips."

She nodded and spun around to get the requested items. Michael turned on the garden hose and began to hose the boy's leg, washing away the mud and crusting blood.

"Jamie, I'll tell you now, I got nothing for the pain and what we're gonna do is gonna hurt like hell. Rebecca, call Glenwood's ER and tell them I'm gonna need to talk to a doc."

He took the tin-shears and cut up Jamie's pants-leg from the cuff to above the wound. Blood was still oozing out, but it seemed to be moving slower. Or maybe I'm just moving faster, he thought.

In seconds, only the strip of denim caught immediately between Jamie's hand and leg remained. The gash ran almost along the length of his leg from just below his knee down to somewhere above his foot. "Okay, I gotta get your boot and sock off, kid. Y'all hang onto him, I know it's gonna hurt."

Judging from the scream, it hurt more than just a little. The top of his boot had caught the blade right above his shinbone, deflecting the stroke. Michael send up a brief prayer of thanks for that - the heavy blade would likely have chipped off part of the bone had it sliced into it. It was, after all, fairly close in design to several medieval polearms designed for warfare.

"They don't have the Doc there, Michael. They are running on emergency power and skeleton staff"

He sighed and prayed a little more. The blade had sliced deep into the meat of the kid's leg up close to his knee, with the cut becoming shallower as it ran down toward his bone. He ran water over the wound again and gently opened the cut, looking for the white gristle of ligaments.

"I think we've had our first bit of luck, folks. I don;t see anything like a nicked tendon or ligament. Best I can do is clean it out and wrap it up." He sprayed a heavy dose of colloidal silver into the wound. He looked up at his wife. "Bring the honey - we'll doctor him up like a horse." It got a wretched sort of laugh out of Jamie, as he'd hoped it would. In minutes, the wound had been poured full of honey and Rebecca was holding it closed. Michael rinsed the blood off his hands and dug out a couple of packages of large gauze pads. He ripped them open and laid them along the surface of the wound.

"Here's the least-fun part of the whole thing, Jamie. I gotta hold it all together with duct tape." He quickly spiraled it around the boy's leg, fastening the makeshift dressing in place.

"Okay, hopefully all those muscle parts will grow themselves back together in there. I'll keep an eye on it for infection and keep you sprayed down with this silver-spray. The tape should keep it held together so that nothing gets ripped apart just as it starts healing up. You don't get to do any heavy movement for several days - stay in bed and keep the weight off your leg. If you must be up, keep the leg elevated. Other than that - we pray."

Donny and Rodney gathered the kid up in their arms and made their way slowly towards Rodney's place. He put the lid back on his medical box and sat down heavily on it. That's when the shakes hit him. He wrapped his arms around himself and looked up at the window - three faces of his own kids looked back at him. He winked at them and drew a shakey breath through a lopsided smile.

"Betcha didn't know I could move that fast, did ya?"

[Just a thought]

Monday Day7

The radiation level was way down. I knew that I had to have a face to face and get more info. Somethings just can't be said over a radio. I'm going to St. Johns! It's only 47 miles each way.

I get the old beemer ready. Put the lever action Marlin in the boot attached to the left fork. I've got my 38 spec belly gun tucked away and my single action 45 Colt. I started out at 8:30am and promised to be back by dark.

The ride down the dirt road was slow like usual. Harold was out and I stopped and chatted for a minute. He was okay, but wished he knew more. Harold was a retired carpenter and had built a fine home around his fifth wheel. I told him I would stop by on the way back if there was any news. I hit sr191 and took off!!!! The feeling of the wind in my face was worth any chance that I was taking!!!! I ran it up to about 85mph and just enjoyed the sensation!!! I backed down to a more responsible 45 mph after a couple of minutes.

The bar at Witch Wells was burned out!!!! This did not sit well!!!
The bar was at the turnoff to sr60 going into New Mexico. It was the only building around. I continued on, but with a lot more caution!

As I approached St. Johns, I slowed to about 20 mph. I didn't see anyone around the outskirts of town. I went into town and stopped at the First Baptist church on the edge of town. I went to the pastor's house and knocked on the door. A faint voice asked who was it? I replied that I was a Christian seeking advice and information.

The window shade opened just a sliver and was quickly shut. A voice cried out "go away, I have nothing to steal!" I said "mister, I'm not here to steal anything, I just need to know what's going on!"

I told him to talk to me through the door if that made him feel better! I asked if there were any Nat'l Guard or police that I could talk to. He replied that they had all gone to the south end of town to work on the barricade. I thanked him and told him that I had left two silver dimes outside his door as payment for the information.

My bike is pretty loud so I stashed it in some bushes and set off on foot. Geeeessshhh! They weren't on the edge of town, but halfway to Lyman Lake!!!! It took me the better part of two hours to walk the 5 miles!

When I spotted the work crew, I went into a gully and continued toward them. I used my monocular to see just who was there. I saw about 20 NGs, 5 cops, and about 30 civilians (if there is such a thing anymore!). Two large earth movers were pushing dirt into berms on both sides of the road. It was the third such set being built. I went down the gully until I was about 50 yards from them and climbed out. No one seemed to notice as their attention was focused on the work and all directions south.

I cleared my throat and said "excuse me, could anyone here use a smoke", while holding out a pack of Marlboros! After the first shock of someone sneaking up on them, they gathered around buzzing like crazy about who I was, where did I come from etc. All the time I was handing out cigs as fast I as I could. Once the pandomonium sudsided, I asked who was in charge? You know what, GOD does indeed smile on the foolish and ignorant! Who steps forward but Aaron Masters, the NG Lt. I had spoken too several days ago!!!!

He told me they were preparing for the fight of there lives!!! The invaders had broken through in Graham County and were now being ingaged by the NG in Springerville about 35 miles south. The battle wasn't going well!!! It seems that when the enemy fell back during the higher radiation levels they moved most of their troops to the flanks!! I would assume that the area north of Wickenburg was also getting hit hard. The intell from our fast movers had gotten to our forces in Graham County to late!!! At least the people in Springerville had some warning (about 6 hours) and were able to evacuate the children and elderly. I asked if any reinforcement were on the way, and he replied NO!!!

His orders were to hold at all costs until relieved!!! If the enemy was to continue north on sr191, they would reach I-40 and could cut off Arizona from the rest of the nation!!!! I told Lt. Masters that I would try and get as many volunteers as possible to set up a defensive position somewhere between sr-60 and St. Johns. That was the best we could do on such short notice! I took off at a slow walk and gradually built up to a fast trot all the way back to St. Johns. No one was around, so I grabbed the bike and took off for home.

I got home about 5:30pm after stopping to talk to Harold. I was greeted with a rush of questions and hugs!!!! I spoke to some of the neighbors on our ground line and explained what was happening. I signed off until tomorrow. I needed to sleep real bad!!!!

[br0dyaga]

I don't have enough sheet plastic in rolls to cover all the plants in the garden at night. We are going to lose some of the potatos. But I would rather take that chance than lose the medicinal herbs. Those we must propagate and preserve. especially the seed. if the vacant houses down valley are still vacant after next winter we will go rob as many windows as we can and try to rig up more cold frames. but I want to make sure that they are truly vacant and not offend any of the neighbors. can't afford enemies so close to home. if we can swap for a cow, or at least a horse, next spring we can start sowing the hard red wheat and the hull-less oats and yellow dent corn I have in storage. I have a high wheel cultivator with a plow blade, but the root structure of the hay pasture is too thick for us to use it for breaking sod with only human power pulling it. one cow. that's all we need. just one cow and we can quadruple our production. and quadruple it again the following year. but first we have to get through this summer and next winter. there is so much still to be done. we are now too many for the single bathroom and simple septic system at this old farm. time for that time honored and detested tradition of the meditation room with the half moon door. and a banya! before winter we will build a traditional russian bath house or sauna. personally, I can do without being parboiled. but it is a good health practice. and without doctors we can't afford anyone getting sick. Little Oleg is well now, but he seems somehow weaker than a 9 year old boy ought to be. I have a feeling that he is never really going to be over it. He will live. But at a price.
<br>
We have a birthday today! Masha is 11 years old. We have no powdered sugar with which to make frosting. I've several large conical spools of heavy cotton string and the borax to soak them in so that they will burn longer as candle wicks. And I have cakes and cakes of wax. But nothing small enough to use for a mold for birthday candles. No matter. Nadia has made a traditional tort. Well, sort of. We don't have any way to make the crispy sugar wafer that is normally used so she substituted blinee, paper thin pancakes. And we have no walnuts, but we have lots of cinamon and nutmeg and a host of other spices, and we have buckets and buckets of honey. We have powdered lemonade mix, and we have vodka for toasting. We sing songs, out of tune. We laugh easily, forgetting for the moment all of our troubles. it is a good day.
<br>
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<br>
Peter turned up missing this morning again. I check the rifles and see that the scoped .308 is missing. I tell Randy about the elk herd north of us and show him the burlap sacking. About midmorning some neighbors show up at the gate at the end of the driveway.
<br>
"Hello the house."
<br>
Randy and I study them with binoculars and then we walk down towards the gate. I'm not much of a marksman so I approach the gate while Randy hangs back about 200 meters and casually saunters in the direction of a pile of old rotten fence posts stacked along the driveway.
<br>
"Mornin. What can I do for you folks?"
<br>
"We're the Mitchell's from down Bob Creek. Figured we'ld go up the drainage behind your place and poach us an elk."
<br>
"Well, you're welcome neighbor. But I would recommend you go up over that way where they were logging last year. One of ours is out hunting this morning and I don't know precisely where, but I know that he started out in that direction over there north of our pasture. I'ld hate for anyone to have a mishap."
<br>
"Much obliged. We'll stop by on our way out."
<br>
"I'ld appreciate that. We'll have some lemonade when you get back. Good hunting."
<br>
And with that they walked off up the adjoining drainage to the west. A couple hours later we heard a gunshot. It seemed to me it came from the northwest. But the way these hills echo I couldn't be sure. Then it was silent again. And we waited. The Mitchell's kept their word and stopped at the gate on their way home. They said they heard the shot but it wasn't them. The saw lots of tracks but never got close enough for a shot. Just before dusk Peter trudged back in. Empty handed. After his first shot the herd scattered and he never got a second chance. So I said, "enough of this Daniel Boone stuff. there's an old salt lick mineral block out in the barn left behind by the guy that used to lease grazing rights from me. we'll put it out by the creek up in the north pasture and set up a hide over along the west fenceline near that little grove of trees. besides, if you did get one I'm too old to walk halfway to spokane to drag it back." a few days later we had a nice fat elk cow hanging up in the barn.
<br>
"you know I was just thinking, " I said as we skinned out the elk, " this meat will draw the coyotes down here just as soon as they finish with the entrails we buried up in the pasture."
<br>
Peter looked concerned for a moment and said "so we shoot them"
<br>
"that's just what I was thinking. only coyotes are smart. shoot one and you won't get any others."
<br>
"so what we do?"
<br>
"well, what I had in mind was we take some of the aluminum screen material, roll it up around a pencil and duct tape the roll to the end of the rifles and make silencers, grusheetyelee, for the .22 rifles and wait up there in the bedroom windows. we can probably get 3 or 4 before they figure out what's going on." and we did too! got 5 fine pelts tacked to the barn wall now. Randy stationed himself around the front of the house and picked off one as it turned tail to run. we saw blood trail for another one, but it got away. probably died somewhere up the road. oh well. gonna make nice gloves and caps for winter.
<br>
Nadia and Peter and Bonnie are having a rough time of it. Especially Bonnie and Nadia. They breakdown crying sometimes all of a sudden. Peter just looks grim. Nothing anyone can do for it. So usually Randy or I will take the children out to the garden for a while to help us with the weeding or something. Randy and I feel it too, but both of us have seen death up close and personal. We cope with it differently. I'm not sure we are coping any better, but we've had more time to live with it I guess. Here in our valley the war is just something on the radio. Everything is happening far away from us. For which we give daily thanks to the Most High. Usually Peter and Randy and I will hook up the radio to the fence wire and listen to the news after dark when the signal is better. Sometimes after the children are down for the night the girls will come out. That's when I go for a walk. I usually take the first watch.
<br>

[Just a thought]

bttt so everyone can get caught up!

[A.T.Hagan]

Wednesday - dawn

Finding the resistance group operating out of the Ocala forest was a bust. According to the C.B. telegraph there was a battle - using trebuchets of all things- but we never got close to it. With so many easier lines of advance to get to Volusia and northern Brevard county I think the Cubans will bypass the forest shortly and just go around.

Charley didn't have any problems figuring out that radio message either and was laying for anyone who might be coming from outside. Had a close encounter with a Cuban APC but managed to outrun him and escape with a few bullet holes and minor glass cuts. Had a second encounter with a Cuban patrol in a pickup truck with a pillar mounted light machine gun in the bed. We spotted them first and bushwhacked them killing five. Recovered their personal weapons, the machine gun and five cans of ammo, an RPG launcher and six rockets, plus maps and documents in Spanish of possible intelligence value. Decided after second encounter to abort the Forest mission.

Spent much of day getting away from Marion county. Charley had gunships up which made for a tedious hide and seek process of making an escape. Ultimately ended up on the west side of the county so detoured to go home. Things are well, no Cubans other than occasional overflights, but they did shoot and kill a local teen caught in the act of burglarizing the barn. Everyone upset but felt it was necessary. They're not near neighbors and have a reputation for being trashy. Neighborhood has been organizing for internal policing and self-protection. Many of the military age males have left to join the fighting as word of the Gainesville atrocity has spread so it's naturally mostly the old men and the women but so far it sounds like they're making out OK. Food still holding out though we're going through it faster than planned. Urged Jo to be more frugal. Was nice to have something other than pone and tough beef though.

Garden doing well if a bit water stressed. Hasn't rained in over a month so this is a problem because the only water in the area is what we pump when the generator is fired up. Everything now has extra deep mulch and what watering they do is done by hand and only at night to give it the maximum chance to soak in. Jo worked out a deal with a neighbor who also has a generator that we'd pump one week and he'd pump the next week to save wear and tear on the gen-sets. Neither is built for long-term use. Uncle Jerry dug a latrine both to save water and to recover the wastes for fertilizer after reading my <I>Humanure Handbook</I>. The baby is doing well and Libby thinks she may be pregnant. Fortunately, we still have doctors in town so I'm not feeling too worried about having to deliver the baby - if I'm back by then. It was nice to be home, even if for only a little while. It was good to be reminded why I killed two men this morning. I can't help but wonder if they had children wondering when they would be coming home? Can't allow myself to keep thinking along those lines or I won't be able to carry out my mission.

Left just after dark to make our way back to base and report. Parker wasn't pleased that we aborted but didn't push the issue. Got a few hours shut eye before we left out to recon the truck stop some more. Sgt Peterson showed up at our agreed meeting place and said he had clearance to cooperate with us. I presume they're trying to make contact with all resistance groups but naturally he did not say who else they may have gotten to.

He didn't have anything in the way of material assistance to give but said that some was in the pipeline from north of the lines and might be able to pass along some captured weapons as soon as they could get them down here. He did give me a radio to take back to base along with a codebook. Said the radio was a spreadspectrum transceiver that they think Charley hasn't managed to listen in on (yet) but to never use it to broadcast unless it was in the code in the book away from our base and only then to request face to face contact.

He did have some news though: The Navy lost quite a bit of its assets but not all of them and some of the more distantly deployed surviving units were now within strike distance of the Southern U.S., the Caribbean, Central and South America so we could expect to see a slowing of overall material reaching the frontlines in the Mississippi Valley. However, this meant there would likely be an increase in what we were seeing coming overland through Florida and Mexico. The Army couldn't spare much to deploy this deep behind the lines to slow down this flow but would be channeling what they could to help us harass and possibly even destroy convoys. We might even be able to get a three man team with one or more unmanned recon drones to assist with intelligence gathering but he could not give an ETA for that.

It also seems the reason we had been missing the Brazilian news broadcasts was that the Navy popped several EMP bursts over Brazil which has severely crippled their telecomm abilities and damaged a lot of their industrial capacity. I'm sure this was probably all over the airwaves but after we'd left so it was news to me.

We hit the mall guard post last night. Killed twenty one Cubans, took three prisoner. Being trapped in that mall security job for two years finally paid off. It didn't occur to Charley to wonder where the storm drains emptied and the retention pond is across and down the side road a piece so does not have any apparent connection to the mall itself. There are drains that come right up into each service court. Sarah said the last branch was a tight crawl and was really nasty but they got through and took out their radios before the were fully aware of what was happening. Parker says we may have taken some materials of real intelligence value and wants to share them with our spec ops contact as soon as Jimmy translates them for our own purposes.

That victory didn't come cheap. We lost four of our own and had three seriously wounded, one of whom died in transit and one who may go today. One of the four killed in the fight was Jimmy's grandson Aaron. Jimmy looks really bad today and Parker has ordered Billy not to go on any more missions away from base. Didn't come out and say so but Billy is our next best radio operator. I am feeling the weight of those of my people that I have led to their deaths.

The abyss becomes ever darker, the light more distant.

.....Alan.

[ExCop]

Tonight is my first turn at gate duty & guard rounds. Most of our houses sport darkened windows so the night is extremely dark. We do our rounds on horseback and/or foot according to which area we are patrolling. I knew that the chances of seeing anyone, enemy or refugee was pretty slim but the chance still gave the night a knife edge.

When I reported for duty, we were read the op-orders for the shift by the shift commander. So far the refugees had been significantly slowed by the lack of motorized transportation, having only progressed as far as the outskirts of Worcester. He stated that power has been intermittent at houses on the outskirts – and that we would probably lose all power during the next day or two. News further east of Worcester is spotty at best and rumor at least so he wouldn’t pass any other information that wasn’t accurate on to us.

The watch routine went fairly event free by that I mean other than Jimmy’s carload coming through the gate it was pretty dead. I sent Jimmy on through the next gate with a note to get him passed the guards. It did me good to know that he made it and I made a mental note to tell Brooks that he came through.

After seeing Jimmy I took a moment to send up a prayer for all the TB2Kers and another for the local ones that I have yet to hear from. I hope they are all safe. I reached home just as dawn started to peek through the trees, I took a moment to write on the whiteboard what needed to be accomplished today and then dropped into a deep sleep.

[theoutlands]

I hate locusts. Sure, the cooler temps have kept them quiet later into the morning and shut them up earlier in the evening, but being outside when they are making that infernal wailing grates on my sanity. Everybody else says the same thing.

The past couple of days have been fairly uneventful. We got Curtis's garden planted - it took three adults and our teen daughter to do it, but we finished it before dark last night. Today, I've been "water-witching" using an old wire coathanger cut in two and bent into "L"s. We need a well. Water pressure is iffy now and Bec is worried it'll go altogether soon. So, I went out to hunt for a wellsite and to pick berries. I found a few - still too early for the real good harvest, but some of the wild huckleberries and trailing dewberries were ripe. It made a nice diversion for the kids to nibble on this afternoon.

We've been blessed with cooler weather this week. Makes the outside work much more bearable and has been downright cold at night and first thing in the mornings. I had a sweater on until 9 this morning!

We've been hearing a turkey hen somewhere to the north of us. I'm not sure if it is on this side of Arthur Griffin Road or not. I sure hope she's big and fat. While out hunting for berries today, I spooked a deer. I assume it is one of the three does we saw when we first moved out here. I made a note of her "lay-up" spot. She'll be getting a social call in a few weeks, from me and my SKS.

Traffic on our back-of-beyond paved road is almost non-existent. Air traffic, though, is pretty heavy. We'll see several types of craft a day, usually jets of different types. It can't be long before we see some sort of action here, but I doubt we'll be facing foreign troops. I expect marauders of the local sort long before Cubans or whoever. With the electricity and phone getting less reliable and no food deliveries in several days, folks from the city should start showing up any time now...

[Taz]

CH got a message today that he was going to be needed up on SR 40 by the bridge. No details, but DL said that he would be calling later around 4pm and letting us know where CH was to meet them. So all we can do is wait. I hate having CH go out like this, but somebody has to fight the bastards.
Day before yesterday some bikers came into the area. They were going real slow and we were able to sneak through the woods and get a good look at them. They were loaded down to the ground with stuff and each guy had on a back pack. There were 5 of them, all men. All Vietnam era with pony tails. Finally they settled down in an area off one of the trails. They got everything off the bikes and then hid the bikes real good and started setting up camp. Four of them put up a pretty good size military tent of camo and if you turned your head away and then looked back you missed it. Stuff is amazing. I noticed right off that all had side arms and rifles or shot guns. While 4 worked, one stood guard. I was pretty sure I recognized one of the guys as a local. I have seen him at the WinDixie store nearby. We came home and the 4 of us discussed the issue and decided they were definitly friend and not foe. They were also prepared well therefore shouldn't be a risk to us. Now we had to make a decision as to how to contact them without getting shot. We decided that Bonnie, who is far more womanly looking than I am, would just walk in part way and "hello camp". Well it worked and we all shared pot luck that night and so now they too are awaiting to here what DL has planned. So DL if you should read this, there will be CH and 5 more with boots, guns and brass knuckles coming too. I was right that all 5 are Vietman vets, so I am sure they will be a great asset. They all seem to know the forest pretty good too. I sure will feel better having them with CH. And while their camp is about qtr mile away, I have an idea that Bonnie and I are going to be running a soup kitchen here. Thats ok, I know they will contribute to the pot and that way they don't have to take time away from getting much needed rest. Waiting to see what DL has to say.
Taz

[Just a thought]

We got everyone together the next morning. Rolled a bunch of ideas around as to what we should do. Some wanted to just hunker down and hoped the war passed them by. Others were more gung ho and wanted to go to St. Johns to make our stand.

My idea was to set up an ambush just south of Witch Wells on sr191. I told them that without further reinforcements from the military, the best we could do is fight a delaying action until help arrived. If help arrived!!!!

I told them that we could set up an ambush and maybe even take out a tank and/or an APC. Romote detonate a single shot loaded with 18" pieces of 1/2'' rebar, aim for a broadside where the armor is weakest! Aim another at any troops debussing from trucks, but load it with nails! They said it was a good plan, but how would we built the single shots in time? My reply was that we only have to move two that are already built!!!!

Eight of us set out to get the single shots ready for the move. We would have to work all day and well into the night to get ready! I knew that there could be satellite survalence, so they had to be set up at night. No other way!!!

We finished our work a little after midnight. Camoed the rebar single shot right into a hill not 20 ft from the road. We set the other one up about 50 yd further south and angled about 30 degrees down the road. The detonation wires ran about 300 yards straight off the road to a battery box with two switches. When the time came, ol' Bill was the man on the switches. Very critical for the success of the mission!!! Six rifleman were spread out to either side of him. I was stationed back another 200 yd to the rear on a hill overlooking the whole thing. I had three firing positions set up to try and snipe their officers and cover our guys retreat. We went home and got what sleep we could. The next morning at 6:00 am we met at Harold's place. I took my little dirt bike and the rest went in a pickup truck. We were in position by 7:00am. I had stashed the dirt bike well back of the hill, and the truck was hidden to the right of me in a large clump of brush.

The waiting was nerve racking. It was about 40'F when we took up our positions, but by 9 o'clock everyone was shedding coats and jackets. It might hit 65-70 degrees by two.

I had been checking the highway for movement with my rifle scope. I saw some dust and kept looking. Sure enough, here they come. They were about 5-6 miles out and clipping along about 30 mph!!!! I didn't see any tanks!!!! I signaled our guys to get ready and then chambered a round and sighted in on the killing fields!!!!

More tomorrow!

[br0dyaga]

<br>
I guess the Mitchell's spread the word about us around some. we've seen a few more folks going by on the road on foot or horseback. only now they wave at us as they go. I don't think they know about Peter and Nadia yet. Oh, they know that they are here. But I don't think they know yet that they are russians. I think I'ld prefer it stay that way for now. psychologically, christmas would suit me better as a "coming out" time. we need every edge we can get. Nadia's english is getting much better. her accent is much softer. isn't that always the way, first the children, then the womenfolk. Peter is improving, but he will never lose his accent. my paternal grandfather was the same way. 60 years in america and he still sounded like he just got off the boat from norway when he died. Oh well. we all of us came here from somewhere else, some of us just got here a little earlier than the rest. but this is sure an unlucky time to be slavic in america. kinda like being 2nd or 3rd generation japanese-american once before during the last great war. I just hope we don't make that mistake again is all. we got enough to do fighting our real enemies without inventing extras and fighting amongst ourselves.
<br>
sure wish some of the montana Amish had moved down here from Rexford like they were considering a few years ago. this 19th century farm life takes a lot of practice and time to learn. we are doing ok for now. but I sure wish we had some local experts we could turn to for guidance. I'm so afraid that we will make some fatal mistake and not realize it until it is too late. this Idaho "Shenandoah" has us safely cradled for the moment. you have to climb over one or another of 3 different mountain passes to get here. they are all blocked for the moment with timber slash piles. but I worry that the war will find us eventually. Eternal Father watch over us according to Thy Will.
<br>
Gunshots down the valley. late in the 2nd watch we are all awakened by a volley of gunshots down the valley. we see some lighted windows in several houses, then in only one far off. and then flames. by dawn we are as tense and taut as violin strings. nothing is moving on the road. by noon we see people cautiously making their way towards the smoking ruins of the house. most of the locals in that part of the community gather over the next couple of hours. I decide to go down.
<br>
"robbery?" Randy walks out partway up the driveway to meet me.
<br>
"domestic dispute." I reply, "seems there may have been a love triangle of some sort. I don't know hardly any of the folks around here. don't know the local 'history' if you will. overheard some of the older women clucking their tongues and nodding as if they expected this."
<br>
Bonnie and Peter brought out soup and some elk venison and some bread for me and I continued as I ate.
<br>
"it wasn't exactly a 'Swedish Marriage', or at least it wasn't meant to be." I say to Peter, and turning to Randy, "not a menage trois. 2 couples moved their families in together for mutual security. but apparently there was a 'history' that was sort of managable before during normal times and then in those close quarters, well suspicions turned to jealosies, and finally broke out in a burst of violence. the nearest neighbors heard screaming and shouting and lots of banging around for about an hour before the gunshots. some of the kids managed to sneak out and run to the neighbor's just before the shooting started."
<br>
"you see! vodka!" stamped Nadia, shaking her finger at her husband.
<br>
"any chickens?" Peter asked, ignoring his wife.
<br>
"nope. I asked around. no cows either. animals are too valuable. nobody feels secure yet about the future. they aren't ready to think about trading. but I made it clear that we were not looking for something for nothing. I planted the seed. I think for now we should rig up some live traps and see if we can get a few rabbits. not many around here, but a few. we've got wood and nails enough to hammer together some cages. there's some chicken wire out in the barn. not a lot, but some."
<br>
"you told them about the vodka?" Peter continued
<br>
"no, I didn't. I'm not ready to give out too much information about us just yet."
<br>
Randy nodded knowingly and was followed in agreement by Peter.
<br>
"besides, I would imagine that they can smell it. don't you?" I went on, "I don't think we will need a very big advertising budget on that deal. I remember a burger joint one time that ducted its exhaust from the flame broiler in such a way that you could smell those beauties cooking 2 blocks away. the place was always packed. you know we really need to get going on a smoke house. I don't mean just an old refrigerator with a chimney, but a good big concrete block job. soon as I figure out where to get some concrete block that is."
<br>
"you know we can use the vodka with the medicinal herbs to make tinctures and ointments for trade." I said over my shoulder to Nadia. she just stood there with her arms akimbo glaring daggers at me.
<br>
which reminded me, I wanted to get the bio-diesel making rig set up. the glycerene byproduct would make a very good perfumed soft soap that would have a big appeal with the ladies. nice high markup, so to speak. plus the fact that our supply of kerosene for the lamps was not unlimited. we can hoe turnips but it's hard to grow kerosene. sooner or later you gotta go get more. soybean or peanuts would be a good source of basic oils, but they won't grow here. so it's gonna take a lot of beef tallow. maybe we could swap some .22 shells for it. never saw anyone who didn't have a use for more .22 ammo. gonna need a couple bags of caustic lye too.
<br>
I laid down to take a nap. my watch shift would soon come again and I was beat. we needed to go up and check the log barricades up at the passes. our valley sits at about 2,500 foot elevation and the passes range from 4 to 5,000 feet. but they are each about 8 to 10 miles away up dirt road switch backs. all except the one on the state highway. it will be at least a half day job inspecting each one even if there is no repair needed. and I really wanted to try to organize some of the neighbors to come along. more for trust building than anything else. this time it was a minor local disturbance. I didn't want to have to face anything worse. we were well off the beaten track. the state highway through the valley was a secondary road used almost exclusively by locals back in normal times. despite the alluring name given to it by the county chamber of commerce, it rarely saw much tourist traffic. our little town, or so it was called on a 5" x 7" road sign, had a population of 100 hardy souls in the 1900 census. now, a hundred years later, before everything turned chocolate twinkies, it boasted 105. not exactly a beehive of bustling activity. which was one of several good reasons I chose the place. even so, it was a paved all weather road going straight to the county seat. it made me nervous. but that could wait for tomorrow. better time to talk anyway, after the burials. not that there was much left to bury.
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