Finding just who is my family by D.A.Sanford - HTML preview

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We check the down trees at least once a day. Drive almost to the road then walk. Never single and never unarmed. There is some trash, so we must figure that it must be someone taking a back road and had to turn around. We still need to be vigilant.

An army vehicle would go over the downed trees.

There has been no noise in our area of fighting but it is apparent, listening to our short wave and ham radios that all sides invaded their nearest neighbor. The first thing that was done was to take out their enemy’s air power. They were good at that.

From what has been said, my helicopter may be the only aircraft left in this country.

Infrastructure such as roads, ports and electric grids were destroyed worldwide. They found that they were up smitch’s creek

They did find a major problem with that tactic, the invading troupes were stranded and are now having to live off the land. Savagely, after all even the civilians are the enemy. We need to fortify our home.

People that just want to live are having their homes food supplies forcibly taken and the most brutal actions taken against them. To the point of rape, torture and murder. It is not uncommon for a family to have a hide away from the house. That is for the young ones to escape to. Once they hide, there is a real chance that they will be orphans when they come out of the hide.

It’s the girls that come to us and tell us that they see a few children at our fence. We go to the fence and ask why they are here.

“Our father told us that if anything happened to them, we were to make our way here. He said to tell you that he delivered a lot of lumber here.”

We were shown a map that showed the direction from their hide to here. They had to hike at least twenty miles. More if they had to make detours. I have them ushered into the house but not before we searched them and their backpacks. All they had on them were some canned goods and bottled water. The oldest girl had a knife to protect her two younger brothers.

They told us that a fragment of an army is what hit their home town. There are more children out there. I can tell that Marie and Sharon are having their hearts ripped out with that news.

I now know that we are going to turn into a sanctuary for the children.

Now, seeing our concern, the girl tells us, “We three came forward to see what you would do. We had gathered to protect ourselves. There are over thirty more children waiting in the woods for us to yell for them to come in. They are hiding, ready to flee if you chased us out or killed us. Please let them in. I think we were followed.”

I look to Marie, Josh and Sharon. “What can we do? I can see by your faces that they need to come in. I need each of you to voice your opinion.”

Not saying a word, The two adult women, tell the girl that they are welcome and take her out to call them in. The girl calls out and a horde of ragged children come to the gate. Both Josh and I, however stand out with flack jackets and our assault rifles.

Those children seem in a hurry to get inside. When the last gets inside, I yell for everyone to get into the basement lockdown. Most are crying because they knew they were followed.

From out of the woods come a group of soldiers that are ready to overrun us but they did not know what Marie and I only knew. The fence is now electrified with lethal amperage. The first hit the fence and drop dead. We open fire and in a short time the remainder are dead. I got a grazing flesh wound.

The two of us go inside and we are looking for anyone injured because there were quite a few new holes in the walls of the home. Thankfully our two women had everyone go into the basement and locked it down.

I hit the intercom and have them stay there until we sweep the woods and clear the bodies. Four hours and all are back up out of lock down. They all are huddling together around those who appear to be their leaders. I talk to them in a very calm tone.

“You are all welcome to stay here. First, it appears that you have group leaders. For now, they will still be your leaders. We four adults will be in charge. Your group leaders will meet with us every morning and they will flow down the day’s tasks. But for now, is anyone of you hungry?”

They all raise their hands,

We shift into high gear and soon there is a group of children that are tearing into the plates set before them. We made sure that they had seconds.

I asked the leaders to come forward.

“There are four full bathrooms. The older girls will take the younger ones and give them a bath. Then you boys will do the same after they are done. We have a vast array of children’s clothes. All jeans and shirts.”

Bobby shows each where the new clothes are.

While they are bathing, I tell Josh, Sharon and Marie. “We need to keep an eye on these new ones. The oldest ones especially. Their leaders are in their early teens. We need to feel out where their intentions lay. For now, we take them at face value but those soldiers weren’t too far behind.”

Josh says that we need to check their trail. “It will not be hard to find. What I want to see is there any signs of someone leaving items along the way to guide the troupes here. We need to talk now as what to do if we find that they were leading the troupes here.”

Sharon says it best, “How are you going to tell which child did it? I hope you don’t find anything but it may be time to scout that town.”

Now’s the time to reveal something that even Marie does not know of. “I need to show you something.”

I lead them down to the second level of the cellar. Against the left wall, I take out a key I always carry and stick it into a hole. The shelf unit now slides open to reveal a large garage containing more ATV’s that I have modified. Two are gas powered but two are electric with solar panels. The four have been equipped with remote controlled machine guns. The driver can reload the feed as they drive because the feed is in the area of the passenger seat.

They are just looking at me then looking at those ATV’s and back to me.

“Well, I made this place to be a secure refuge. I knew that we may need to scout or attack. We need to two electric ones this time. The two gas powered ones are for attack. This stays locked at all times but there is a concealed ramp that spills outside the back of the propane tank.

Marie now shows that she has a revelation. “Is that why you have the helicopter parking area so large?”

“Yes. That shed moves out of the way. With all these children here, Marie, I’m going to have Josh and Sharon watch the children since they have the three of their own here. You and I will scout out the trail and that village.”

Josh reminds us that these would not have been moving like ninjas, they would be just moving in a mass, oblivious of stealth. “You need to look out for objects left.”

Now for serious matters. “Marie, once we get near the town, we will be seeing who is left in the town. Are there more soldiers but what happened to the parents. You must be prepared for the worst. Torture and mutilation. Any that are still alive but near death, I will put them down. We will have to be tough for those children but know this, they may already know. You must be ready to kill.”

We are on our way once we made sure that Josh and Sharon knew that they needed to have side arms on at all times. They were told to tell the children it was just in case there were still soldiers out there.

The trail was not hard to follow. Other than needing to dodge some trees, the path was wide enough to clearly follow. We did not see anything left behind. That is a relief. Anyone could and can follow the trail.

When we got close to the town, we left the ATV’s way off that trail and hid them with brush.

The carnage was evident. There are no longer organized armies, just gangs with one intent, inflict cruelty on the population. Food and fun, to them. Butchery to the victims. There were no survivors in the town. However we did find a few of the soldiers keeping guard of their spoils.

I knee capped them. They did not have their weapons with them. No need, the population was causing no problem, they were dead.

The two of us walked in and those spouted that we were in trouble. The patrol will come running.

“Do you mean those who followed the children? They are all dead. Tell me why did you do all this carnage?”

We need to subdue …”

Marie had heard enough and unloaded a clip into them. The bodies of the towns people had been dragged into the church. We found some that were not when we swept the town for anyone still alive. There were none. The houses where bodies were found, including the church, we set them on fire. Those few soldiers we killed were left where they fell.

They had loaded all the food onto a trailer. Getting the ATV’s, I towed the trailer back to our home. Now the thing that I dread. Even though we figure that they know, we still need to explain what we found in less detail to those children.