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  Bob frantically retrieved his first aid supplies, several Coleman, and electric lanterns and placed several blankets and a pillow on his kitchen table. He placed a large pan of water on his Coleman stove and lit the burner. He was as ready as possible with only a few minutes warning.

  Bob waited on his front porch, and in a few minutes, Greg arrived on his ATV followed by a tractor pulling a wagon. He recognized Jane and his Grandkids but noticed another girl about Will’s age get out of the wagon.

  “Greg, help me carry Missy into the house. Kids sorry I can’t hug you until we take care of Missy.”

  They carried her into the kitchen and laid her on the table. Jane cut her t-shirt away to expose the wound and then swabbed the area with alcohol.

  Some alcohol got into the wound and Missy came to and screamed, “Damn that hurts. What happened?”

  Jane replied, “Dear one of those men shot you in the shoulder. Don’t worry. It will hurt like Hell, but you will be okay and back to normal in a few weeks. Here take these two pain pills so we can examine the wound.”

  The Hydrocodone worked quickly, and Missy was very drowsy. Greg and Bob held Missy down while Jane probed for the bullet with a pair of forceps. She found the bullet and dropped it onto the table.

  “That’s a .22 caliber bullet. Kinda light for attacking someone,” Bob stated.

  Jane used her elbow to point at the Ruger in her waistband. Bob pulled it out and said, “Damn, this is what certain people use to kill people up close and personal like a hitman.”

  “A woman tried to shoot Will with it, and we assumed the safety was on. It actually jammed, and that saved Will from the same fate.”

  She took the pistol back and said, “It’s mine now.”

  Bob replied, “Are you sure you want that gun?”

  “Bob, I’m sure. I like .22s,” Jane said as she squirted some antibiotic on Missy’s wound. She kept pressure on the wound and then wrapped the wound with a bandage that kept pressure on the wound.

  “Okay. You saw that the bullet was only about an inch deep. The gun had subsonic rounds in it. It’s probably been reworked to allow the gun to cycle those low recoil low-velocity bullets. I think you killed some pretty bad people back there.”

  Will said, “The woman said the three men were cops.”

  “I call bullshit on that. The soccer mom then tried to use a silenced .22 to kill my family. Double bullshit. If we didn’t have more important things to do, I’d go back and kill both of those women,” replied Jane.

  They placed Missy in bed and took turns watching her and her wounded shoulder the rest of the night.

  “Grandma, I’ve never seen you this mad,” said Will.

  “Son, those people tried to kill my Grandkids. That pissed me off. I’m sorry for making an ass of myself.”

  “No Grandma, you kept us alive. I’ve never seen you this mad. I saw you miss a three-foot eagle putt and you just shrugged it off.”

  “I’ll be back to normal now that my kids are safe.”

  “Greg, this is Jane who is my son’s mother in law. These three are Missy, Jake, and Will my Grandkids.”

  Jane spoke up and said, “This is Maddie O’Berg, and she is from Lebanon. She saved us from robbers, and we kinda adopted her along the way.”

  “Maddie are you related to Senator O’Berg from Lebanon?”

  “He might be a distant relative. No, it was just mom and me at home and Mom died in the bus wreck.”

  Bob hugged his Grandkids and asked, “Have you heard anything from your Mom or Dad?”

  Will answered, “No sir. We headed down here right after hanging the phone up with you and had some trouble along the way. Papaw, you wouldn’t believe how Grandma kept us safe and kept us marching to get here.”

  “Your Grandma is a lot like your Mom. They are both tough and amazing ladies. Nothing they do would surprise me.”

  Jane made a sign to Bob by placing her finger over her lips.

  They all talked on the front porch for several hours with Jake fast asleep with his head on Jane’s lap. Bob’s house had three bedrooms, and his gooseneck travel trailer was a bunkhouse style that slept eight.

  “Jane you can sleep in the first bedroom on the right going down the hall. Bill and Jo get the one on the right at the end of the hall and mine is the one on the other side. Maddie, you get the bed over the gooseneck in my trailer; Will, you get the bed on the other end of the trailer, and Jake gets the kitchen table that makes into a bed. Missy gets the couch. This will have to do until we sort things out.”

  Jane added, “Let’s all get a good night’s sleep and in the morning we will figure out our long-term plans.”

  “There are plenty of towels, wash clothes, and soap in the trailer, but we don’t have hot water. I’d take a who…. Well, a… Just wipe yourselves down tonight, and I’ll heat some water up in the morning for a proper hot bath.”

  The kids headed to the trailer and Jane looked in on Missy before returning to the porch.

  Bob handed Jane a tumbler with three fingers of whiskey and said, “Ya’ done good. I can’t thank you enough for getting the kids down here. A toast to our other kids. May they find the way down less troublesome than their kids did?”

  They touched glasses and drank the drink to the bottom of the glass. Bob poured three fingers in both glasses and took a sip.

  Jane looked at her glass and said, “Why Bob are you trying to get me drunk and take advantage of me?”

  “Jane, no man could ever take advantage of you. I was hoping you’d take advantage of me.”

  “Bob, I like you, but I don’t want to start anything until I know Jo and Bill are safe. I am worried to death about them. I’m thinking about heading north to find them.”

  “If they don’t arrive in two days, I’ll go with you. If you change your mind, my door will always be open.”

  Jane sat on the porch for a while longer and thought about her future. Sure, she’d thought about hooking up with Bob a year or so after her husband died, but she wasn’t sure she wanted a full-time man in her life right now. She thought back to the attacks on the kids and her and the many people that had been raped, killed, or robbed and her blood boiled.

  She also wondered if that traitor O’Berg had been stuck in D.C. or was at his home in Lebanon when the shit hit the fan. Her mind moved to Maddie and wondered why she hated her dad, the Senator so much. Maddie was born during the investigation, and Jane still had a copy of O’Berg’s file. She was certain that he was a Russian mole in the US Senate. She hated the bastard.

  Jane sat on the edge of the bed making mental notes about what she wanted to accomplish during the next five days. She fell asleep adding to the list.

  ✼

  Chapter 7

  Day Two – Walt’s Plan

  Walt had always planned to head out to Western Kentucky to live if the shit hit the fan. His ex-wife and kids lived below Owensboro in a small community called Pleasant Ridge. Walt’s third crime in two days was stealing an old pickup from an automotive museum in Louisville. He walked into an auto parts store and made the manager give him a hand pump and hose so he could steal gas from stalled cars.

  He shot a clerk and two looters in a Walmart parking lot to take their grocery carts full of food. He then went back to the gun shop where he and Jo had killed the robbers and found it empty. He drove on to a pawnshop that had two guards out front defending the store. Since he was in uniform, the guards allowed him to get too close. That was a deadly mistake for them. Walt shot them, took an AK47 from one of the dead guards, and used it to rob the pawnshop.

  He now had enough food, weapons, ammo, and water to head west. He decided to take the northern route across lower Indiana to avoid people as much as possible. Highway 64 had heavy traffic around Louisville but very few cities close to the road itself. The drive was very frustrating because people kept trying to stop him to get a ride. He crossed the median several times to whip around them but finally just ran over the next two gro
ups. He decided this was a mistake when one woman bounced into the windshield and cracked the passenger side glass.

  He continued on east weaving between stalled cars and people begging for a ride or needing help. He began laughing at them and even shot a few unlucky ones. He was passing by Ferdinand when several policemen tried to stop him to confiscate his truck. He slowed down and honked for them to get out of the way. When they didn’t, he stuck the AK out the window, shot all three of them, and then calmly drove on.

  Walt had become a sociopath and had no feeling at all about killing the men and women along the way. His world had ended when the shit hit the fan and Jo left him for her wuss of a husband.

  He was on a mission to make his ex-wife and kids love him again and live with them the rest of his life. He cut off onto the highway and was on the final leg to his family. There were only a few stalled cars and trucks along this divided highway once he got away from Louisville, so he made good time to the Highway 231 Exit. He headed south to Owensboro and drove across the bridge to Owensboro. He had to stop several times to push stalled cars out of his way and to stop people from trying to force him to give them rides.

  There were cars and trucks stalled all the way through Owensboro. Again, several people tried to get him to stop, and several were shot for their effort. He was on a mission and didn’t have time for idiots stranded on the highway or their injured families. It took two hours to get to the south side of Owensboro, and he still had to go 12 miles to get to his old home. He saw the sign up ahead for Highway 764 and made the left turn at 50 MPH whizzing past several people waving for help.

  He drove on about four miles and made a left turn on Cotton Lane. His house was the one at the end of the lane on the left. His family had owned the land for over 200 years. They had sold off over a thousand acres, but he had about six hundred when the bitch filed for divorce. She got the house and a hundred acres in the settlement. He kept the remaining acreage for hunting since it was about 50 percent farmland and 50 percent dense woods. He rented the farmland out to a local farmer and used that money to pay the taxes on the land.

  He saw the house on the left, and there wasn’t anyone outside. He parked in the driveway and got out of the car while watching for people. The nearest house was over 500 yards back around a bend in the road so there shouldn’t be anyone around. He was looking in the window with his pistol drawn when he heard a vehicle approaching from behind him. It was a man driving a John Deere Gator, and he had a rifle across his lap.

  Walt recognized his neighbor Tom Wathen just as he was ready to shoot this intruder.

  “Walt, is that you?”

  “Tom, it’s me, Walt Long. How’s it hanging old buddy?”

  “Not so well since the lights went out. I see you have a police uniform on. Where are you living now?”

  “Louisville until today. I’m moving back home today.”

  “Buddy, your ex-wife sold this place a month ago and moved to New York with the kids. I thought you knew.”

  It was all Walt could do to remain calm. He liked Tom and would not kill him today.

  “Why did she move?”

  “She married that airline pilot she was dating, and he was based out of JFK. Walt, she was pregnant and due in July according to my wife.”

  “Who bought the place?”

  “West KY Coal. They planned to strip mine the area along with 2,000 additional acres.”

  “Then they won’t mind if I stay in my old home until I figure out what to do with myself.”

  “Hell, Walt, I don’t think the power is ever going to come back on. The Ruskies done nuked our asses.”

  “Thanks, I need some time alone to work things out in my mind.”

  Walt broke a window in the side door and entered the house. It still had all of their furniture. He walked up to the fireplace, cried for a few minutes, and then began punching holes in the walls with his fist until his fist was a bloody mess.

  He slept for a while until he woke up in a sweat yelling, “Jo. I must get to Jo.”

  ✼

  Chapter 8

  Day Three – The Horseshoe

  Bob woke early, as usual, that morning and found Jane in the kitchen making coffee wearing one of his t-shirts and a pair of his old gym shorts. He stopped and stared for a minute, and then walked in and said, “Good morning Jane.”

  “I saw you sneaking up on me. Bob, I can’t thank you enough for allowing me to join your family down here. I don’t know what I’d have done otherwise.”

  “Jane, first it’s our family, and second you are one of the strongest ladies I know. You and Jo are cut from the same cloth.”

  “So you’re saying that I’m not very ladylike?”

  “Whoa, that’s not it. I mean that you are a beautiful lady who can handle any situation and survive.”

  “Much better. Now, what can this tough old bird do to help our family and community?”

  “Jane you are younger than I am and in better shape.”

  “I noticed you were checking out my shape before you entered the room.”

  “See, nothing gets past you. Now down to business. I know that you were in law enforcement before you were married but got out of it when you married. I don’t know much else about your skill sets besides golf and tennis.”

  “Well for starters, I’m a licensed fixed wing pilot, scuba diver, and excellent marksman with pistol, rifle, or bow. I can also type and do book keeping but hate the tedious stuff. Oh and I’m a nurse.”

  “Let’s get you with Jack Fulkerson. He is our head of security, and he can figure out how you can assist him with security and training. We have a bunch of people who know how to hunt but nothing about the fine art of killing or pulling guard duty for that matter. Oh, you’ll have to double up as a nurse until Bill arrives.”

  “Great, I was afraid you’d put me mowing the grass or washing dishes.”

  “We will all pitch in and do those chores.”

  “Bob, what do you think about Will, Missy, and Maddie joining the security force? All have what it takes to help protect our community. I’d like to start training anyone over 15 to start serving and every child above ten how to handle firearms.”

  Bob replied, “I like it. We might end up in a fight to the death one day and need every gun we can get.”

  “Bob, let me get some jeans on, and I’ll go with you. Perhaps I can be of some help.”

  “I have to eat a biscuit and drink a cup of coffee, so don’t rush.”

  Bob and Jane met with Harold and Greg at Greg’s house before their teams left out to scrounge for supplies and food.

  “I want to give you some advice and one order. The advice is to get as many canned goods and medical supplies as possible on this trip. We may only make a couple of these trips before it gets too hot out there to openly travel on the roads. You will draw a lot of attention, and someone may try to take your vehicles. Now the order. Don’t get yourselves killed. Cut and run if you have to get back safely. Don’t get in gunfights.”

  Harrold Hunter had lived in the Horseshoe all of his life except for spending four years in Lexington, Kentucky to go to The University of Kentucky. His fellow Volunteers still gave him shit about that 25 years later. He was 48, divorced with two grown kids and one grandkid. His ex-wife and their kids lived in Dixon Springs, but his two sons and their families moved back home with him a couple of days ago. He invited his ex, but she wouldn’t move back home. He had owned the store for a few years.

  He volunteered to lead one of the scavenging teams and had his two sons and Ned Kelly on his team. They left Greg’s home driving Harold’s son’s 1973 F100 Ford long bed pickup towing a large horse trailer.

  Harold’s goal was to go across the Hartsville Bridge and drop down to Highway 40 and look for stalled semi’s loaded with food or other necessary supplies. The sun was just coming up, so there wasn’t anyone out on the roads, so the trip to Hartsville was uneventful. Driving through Hartville was a different matter. Seve
ral people ran out of their houses and tried to flag them down but were too late to catch the old truck. When they slowed to make the turn south onto Highway 141, two policemen waved at them to stop. Harold slowed and then stopped without getting out of the truck.

  “Where are you headed and how did you get the truck running?”

  Harold replied, “We’re heading down to Lebanon to get my sister and her kids to stay with me until the lights come back on.”

  “What about the truck?”

  “Any old truck that doesn’t have electronic ignition should run. There should be plenty around here.”

  “What if we need your truck?”

  “We need the truck for Dixon Springs, but we’d be glad to send a mechanic over to help get some of yours running.”

  “What if someone tries to take the truck away from you,” one of the cops said with a nasty grin.

  “Boys,” Harold said as he raised his pistol and his sons raised their rifles.

  “I guess they will die trying to steal our truck. If you don’t have anything else, we’ll go on our way.”

  “Y'all have a safe trip.”

  Greg’s team consisted of Tony Fulkerson, Wilma, and her husband George Downs; they drove George’s old GMC Suburban and pulled a large cargo trailer. They headed to Highway 25 first then some of the other state highways later to find stalled semis that contained anything useable. Greg decided to head east because he had already emptied three trailers heading to Hartsville and thought they had a better chance toward Carthage.

  They only drove a short distance until they saw a semi that had plowed into three cars just before the turn to the racetrack. The driver’s body had gone through the windshield, and everyone in the cars was dead. The truck had a sign that said Association of Independent Grocers on the door.