The two men on the roof section were watching the approaching group closely. Jim was able to get a better count now it looked like…yeah…seventeen. He couldn’t determine exactly how many men and women in the gaggle. What a mix of transport he thought. There were at least three on bicycles of some sort and two people were pulling a large garden style cart. The main vehicle seemed to be a large lawn tractor pulling a decent size trailer which appeared to contain a fair amount of goods. Jim could see several types of weapons among the group. Several long guns to be sure but it was hard to judge accurately at this distance. The group was still some distance away but moving closer nonetheless.

As he observed the group the information was passed on to the others with radios by Bobby. The five radios were being listened to with keen interest. Bobby was still putting out information over the radio as his dad reported it. Two of the men on bikes were now about a hundred feet or so in front of the group. Jim could see their facial movements when one of the bike riders said something to the other as he pointed toward the farmhouse. A chill swept through Jim. Not that he had believed that they wouldn’t see the house but he wondered if the man was pointing at the house or at him? The world was suddenly a whole lot smaller than it had been.
The second man was nodding and suddenly both men starting pedaling very fast. The bikes were well built and responded to the increase of power input without delay. The distance between the riders and the house disappeared rapidly. The two were hollering back and forth obviously making a race out of who could get to the drive way first. Jim briefly lost sight of the riders when they passed behind a small stand of roadside trees but then regained sight of them. Bobby alerted the others as to what was happening.

Now tucked in the enclosure made of stacked log rounds, Daryl, speaking in a small voice, cautioned the others, “Ok, this will be their scouts. Everyone stay out of sight. Let’s see what they do. No radio traffic, just like we discussed.” Daryl was hunched down in the log enclosure and at that moment realized that unless he stuck his head up he wouldn’t be able to see out. Crap, that was stupid, why hadn’t they built in some gaps or something to see through? Stupid! He was pissed at himself now; how the hell did I miss that? So help me if we live through this I am going change that he promised no one and everyone. Up on the roof both Bobby and his dad were laying prone having moved back a little from the edge of the roof. Both of them were scared, they shared a look but said nothing. Josh was crouched down behind the enormous stack of split wood across the driveway from where Daryl was hiding. The women were at their posts in the house time crawled by as everyone waited.

The two men arrived at the driveway at about the same time but one of them immediately began berating his companion for being slow. The other one ignored the verbal jabs and began to look the house and grounds over. Behind them but closing quickly was the rest of their group. The older man got off his bike and dropped it over onto the road surface. His partner was still yammering away about how he had won the race. “Fine! You won, now shut the **** up!” and then ignored the younger man while he looked over the scene. The rest of their group was now only about five hundred feet or so away. ‘Let’s see…house, in good shape. Barn, maybe a garden so there might be more food here. I wonder if anyone’s around. Don’t see anyone….’

‘Hmmm, gate is closed and blocked from the inside. Have to deal with that to get the tractor inside.’ he thought. ‘This doesn’t seem right, place is too clean to be abandoned.’ His eyes continued to sweep the area, something wasn’t right… The younger bike rider wasn’t content with the other man’s submission and didn’t like being told to quiet down. He wanted to say something but the other man out weighed him by about twenty five pounds of muscle so now probably wasn’t the best time to bring it up. But soon, yeah…real soon. He climbed off the bike shooting the other man a sullen glance that he didn’t see.

The rest of the group coming up the road caught up with the cyclists a few minutes later. As they arrived the leader of the group hopped off the front of the captured trailer where he had been riding and walked over to the where the two scouts were waiting. “Frankie, watcha’ think?’ The bigger of the two shrugged and told his leader, Something was bugging the long time felon, place looked too well kept to be empty, maybe that was it. A couple of vehicles sitting around, yard is too clean…something isn’t right here. At this point he decided that he was being too paranoid and chose to ignore the obvious, a choice that would cost him and the others dearly. “Don’t know but worth a look, don’t like the feel of the place, ya’know?”

The man who had brought the group together over the past two weeks agreed. It was getting harder to find good loot, much of the finer quality items were already gone or damaged. He and the others had taken to the road after a run in with a larger, better armed group. That little run in had cost them three good group members and not a small amount of carefully gathered loot so they decided that the grass was maybe greener in some other pasture. It was better pickings at times but they had to keep moving in order to find more. The group was like a small swarm of locusts if they stayed in one place too long then they would starve. Most of the group gathered around their leader as they looked over the property as well. Looked good, should be something here worth taking.

The smelly, heavy set man waved his two scouts forward and told the others to wait. The bike riders walked quickly over to the reinforced wooden barrier and simply climbed over it. It was designed as decoration, not to stop vehicles, and certainly not people. The first one over, the young, mouthy one of moments earlier, had a double barrel 20 gauge shotgun and quickly pointed it at the house. At that distance it wouldn’t do it much good but he felt more macho pointing the weapon around. He was a two bit punk who had done some time in a County Jail for Grand Theft Auto as a teen and had hooked up with this group nearly right from the start.
His partner, Frankie, armed with a Marlin lever action rifle, followed suit as soon as his feet touched ground again. Several of the others on the road began to spread out slightly, a sure sign that they had done this before. They took turns scouting the properties that interested them and then made their plans depending upon what the scouts reported. It had worked for them so far, they had eaten on a fairly steady basis which said something for itself given the times and there had been a few bonuses as well.

The group had hit four places the day before yesterday and the one place further up the road this morning. Since they were heading away from the more populated areas most of the houses were empty. It was easy to pick them over good and then move on with less risk. Doing this time and again it was easy to get sloppy and they did. They had lost one member in the process two days before at the last house they visited. That household had paid a gruesome price for their defiance. The husband was hacked to death but only after having to watch his wife and two teen age daughters repeatedly raped and sodomized. The three women were killed before the group left the next morning but only after another a few more rounds of sexual abuse at the hands of all the men. The house had yielded a modest take, a little cash and jewelry and a few days worth of food was added to the stores already in the trailer. The best thing was a nice semi-automatic Benelli shotgun and some ammunition for it.

Daryl tucked down behind a wall of log rounds was listening intently when he heard the shoes of the two men crunch heavily in the gravel of the drive way. That told him that they were over the fence – must have hopped the gate. Have to do it now before they all get over, have to seize the initiative and hold it. If they let them gain the upper hand Daryl and his people might not be able to get it back. He gently turned the selector switch on his rifle from Safe to Fire. Daryl laid his finger along side the trigger well, not in it. Years of Marine Corps training kept him from doing that. Never put your finger on the trigger until you are ready to shoot. God, how many times had he heard that phrase? He slowly pushed the button on the side of the radio microphone to alert the others, in a low voice he told them, “Here we go.”

Taking his hand off the radio and putting it back on the rifle he then took in a deep breath and blowing half of it out he rose from behind the wood pointing the rifle at the two men now over the fence line. “Freeze!” The men were shocked to see someone suddenly appear and more importantly the muzzle of a rifle pointed straight at them – the opening in the end of the weapon barrel looked as big around as the top of a trash can from where they were. Those still on the road also heard the loud order and saw the man who gave it. Neither man moved; the muzzles of both their weapons still aimed at the house.

Bruce, the group leader, a greasy haired biker who had long ago been given the nickname Bushhog was startled and angry by the appearance of the man. ‘Goddamn it, will these stupid ****ing people never learn?’ He impatiently signaled to three of his men to move around to the right to try and improve the situation. The trio knew the drill despite only having been together with this group for six days. ‘Survival of the fittest’ was a brutal game and so far they had come out on top. Others in the roadway spread out further and began to edge toward the wooden fence that separated them from the house.

Lorraine, looking out through the partially opened curtains could see the men now over the fence but in her mind she could see the people in the city again. The frantic, unanswered screams for help, the feral crowds as they tried to find something they wanted and the palpable feel of panic in the air. She could remember the sound of her own screams as the windshield was hit by a chunk of concrete. The situation had made the attractive woman feel powerless, that she was less than a person nothing more than a thing to be taken and used up at will. The couple had seen some of the worst that the city had suffered through, shootings, mass lootings, fire and mindless mobs. It had been chance and some luck that they had not fallen victim.

One scene in particular had scared her over and over. Just a few blocks from their house a car ahead of them had been stopped by a mob. Josh and Lorraine were about a half block behind the small sedan when the mob got to it. It appeared that much of the crowd was made up of youths, many in their teens and almost all male. The Mitchell’s watched in horror as the couple in the car was dragged out and the man was repeatedly pummeled by numerous bodies in the crowd. He went down and was still getting hit, over and over with fists, bottles, rocks and feet blow after vicious blow landed. He tried to resist at first but there were too many of them. One hand was lifted in a feeble attempt to ward off some of the hits but it was no use. The arm fell limply to the ground as the beating continued. Others were ransacking the car tossing out the contents some of which were grabbed up by joyous hands.

The woman who appeared to be in her early twenties, was being held tight by several people as her clothes were torn from her body leaving her nude right there in the street. She was then lifted and carried, kicking and screaming into a nearby building with much of the crowd following while yelling and screaming in anticipation. Her fate it seemed was as certain as the man whose body was laying in the street where he had fallen. Josh had slammed the truck in reverse and got them the hell out of there. Lorraine was forever changed by that image…it could have been her. She had tried not to think about that poor girl but it didn’t work. Lorraine folded down into her seat as Josh drove, trying to make herself smaller somehow, to avoid being seen, being wanted, another prize for the mob.

Lorraine gripped the wooden pump handle of the shotgun tighter ’not this time,’ she told herself. She would show them, all of them. This time it would be different. She was tired of being afraid fear was a terrible state to live in and she wanted it to go away. She would make it go away.

Josh licked his lips to try and wet them. His job was to cover the south end of the property and to put the gate in a crossfire along with those firing from the house. The beauty of his placement was that there was no chance of hitting another one of their own given how they were positioned. Daryl had done a hell of a good job with that. Josh had heard the information relayed over the radio as the group had approached. Seventeen of them to seven of us, really five because of where Linda and Ellen were but it would have to do. He double checked that the collapsing stock of the rifle was fully extended to give him a sturdier shooting platform. He touched the spare magazines now in the back pockets of his jeans and glanced at the ones sitting in the small alcove they had created atop the woodpile. He had plenty of ammunition at hand, sweat was pouring out of his pores as the seconds dragged by.

When Daryl gave the intruders the order to freeze Josh peered over the top of the wood pile which was about waist high on him when he was standing. He lifted his head once to get a look at the situation and then quickly ducked down and shifted position in case someone saw him. He gripped the Colt carbine tightly. Safety, remember to flip the safety! During the weapons drills that Daryl had run all week long, Josh had forgotten to flip the safety off once and was ruled dead for that drill. It was embarrassing and he vowed not to repeat the mistake again.

He had moved a few feet over from where he had been and raised his head and shoulders above the level of the stacked wood to give him a steady rest. The black barrel of his rifle was now trained over the top of the firewood as well, the stock firmly pulled into his body. Josh saw the three men who were trying to work around the group. They were closer to him than the others. These three were now his responsibility ’Okay, don’t screw this up.’ he thought to himself.

Daryl had not failed to notice the movements of the others in the group but while not dismissing their actions entirely had to keep much of his attention on those two already across the fence. The muzzle of his rifle never wavered as he spoke to them all in as loud a voice as he could.

“Boys; that’s not the smartest thing you’ve done today. Back off and be on your way.”

Bushhog couldn’t believe it, this one peckerwood telling him what to do. Before he could answer the front door to the house swung open and a tall woman stepped out on the porch cradling a shotgun. Bruce assumed that this was the wife. Damn, she was a looker. Tight jeans hugged her shapely legs and what he assumed was a sweet looking ass. Her blouse was tucked into her jeans which caused the garment to pull against her generous breasts. Nice tits too, gonna be nice to have some fun with her.

Continued...