Cities on Fire Read online

  “Maddie, I love you, and you just want me for a friend. Then you crawl into bed with me. You are driving me crazy.

  “Will the Coyotes scared me. I feel so safe in your arms, and you feel so good. I’m sorry I’m sending mixed messages. Please don’t stop being my friend.”

  “Maddie it gets hard being your friend. I don’t know if I should make love to you or shake your hand. I’ll always be your friend, but after tonight, please don’t get in bed with me again. It hurts too much that you don’t care about me the way I care about you.”

  She didn’t answer, and they fell asleep in each other’s arms and slept until there was a soft knock on the door. No one answered, and Jane walked into the trailer. She saw them curled up together in bed and shook Will’s shoulder.

  “Son, wake up it’s time to leave.”

  Will woke up; saw his Grandma looking down at him and Maddie. He started to talk, but Jane said, “Later and don’t worry, I won’t tell,” and patted him on the shoulder.”

  Will woke Maddie up and said, “Maddie we’re late. We need to dress and go!”

  She hugged him and went back to her room to dress.

  As they walked to the house, Will told Maddie, “Grandma caught us in bed this morning when she came over to see why we were running late. She told me that she wouldn’t tell on us. I’ll talk with her and explain that we didn’t do anything.”

  “Are you trying to protect my honor?”

  “Yes, but I also don’t want to lose the trust of my parents. They trusted us to sleep in the same trailer without hooking up.”

  “We only lay there.”

  “I know, and I know you aren’t interested in me, but will they believe me? Hell, I don’t believe me. You felt so good last night it took all my willpower not to try something.”

  “That’s because you care for me and are an honorable man.”

  “Then why am I so frustrated and pissed off? Maddie, I promise you that you won’t ever find a man who loves you more than I do or who will take care of you as good as I will.”

  Will pulled her close, kissed her, and walked into the kitchen.

  “Will,” she called, but he kept walking away.

  They rowed as quietly as possible and didn’t talk as they crossed the river. Their first goal was to check out the Bait and Tackle Store and the small adjoining gas station and market just across the river. They weren’t expecting much; however, the next shop, a clothing consignment shop, was two miles west. After that, there was a small strip mall about five miles from their boat landing.

  They brought two collapsible shopping carts with them that had large wheels that helped the carts roll easily across grass or on the road.

  They landed the two boats, hid them in the grass with two men guarding them, and then walked up the bank toward the road. The stores were only a tenth of a mile away so it only took a few minutes to get to a point where they could check out the stores and see if there were any dangers.

  Both stores were deserted and had been looted. The only useable items in the tackle store were lures, fishing line and lots of sinkers and bobbers. The market did have several racks of t-shirts, flip flops, and sunglasses. There also was an assortment of motor oil, antifreeze, and a host of auto related items.

  Jane went into the women’s restroom and came back with a bag full of tampons from the dispenser. She was smiling as though she’d found gold. Will broke the door down to the janitor’s closet and found a goldmine of toilet paper, hand towels, soap, and detergent. They loaded the carts and took their booty back to the boats, where they loaded the boats up to make the trip to the other side.

  “Carl, we’re going to walk the two miles to the consignment store, load up the carts, and be back here in three hours at the most. If we’re not back by then send out a search party,” Bob said.

  The walk to the consignment store was uneventful, and no one was out on the street. There was smoke coming from a couple of chimneys, and Will thought he caught a faint whiff of bacon frying as they arrived at the store.

  “Will help us make sure no one is in the store then you can stand guard at the front of the store and Bob can watch the back side.”

  Many of the racks had been turned over, but the store was full of clothing for men, women, and kids. There were also numerous racks full of shoes. There wasn’t anyone in the store so Will and Bob stood their posts while the ladies filled the carts.

  “Maddie come here. Look what I found,” cried Jane as she ran her hands through the piles of costume jewelry.

  “There are several fake diamond rings and gold wedding bands. I’m taking some back to the house for Bob’s and my wedding. We may never find real ones until the big die off as Bob calls it.”

  Maddie started looking at the jewelry and pocketed several nice looking rings for herself.

  “Dear, when is the wedding?”

  “What wedding? We are just friends. Will wants more, but I’m not ready for a boyfriend.”

  “Was that just a friend this morning? Wait, don’t get mad. You were sleeping with your legs intertwined and Will’s face on your boobs. That looked more like lovers than friends.”

  “I got scared and jumped into bed with him. He was asleep when I got in bed with him. I feel secure when I’m with Will. We really didn’t do anything. He wants me, but I just don’t know.”

  “Girl I know my Grandson, and he fell for you the first day. Were y’all careful last night?”

  “Jane, I swear we didn’t do anything other than lay together. He was asleep when I got under the covers with him. He didn’t try anything at all.”

  “The boy is in love with you, and you don’t care for him.”

  “I care for him, but not romantically. Jane, I want to be with him like a best friend, not a husband.”

  “Call me Mom. You need a Mom now, and I’m up to the task. My advice is to make up your mind very quickly. Will will soon move on and date one of those other pretty girls in our community and won’t have time for you. Shit, his new girlfriend won’t want him being around a beautiful woman like you.”

  The back door opened and they saw Bob walk in with his hands in the air, and three men wearing black Battle Dress Uniforms armed with M4s walked behind him.

  “Drop your guns or your husband dies first.”

  Bob said, “Please drop your guns there are many more of them outside.”

  Maddie and Jane lowered their weapons to the ground and raised their hands.

  “Call the other man in, or I’ll have a sniper pick him off.”

  Jane replied, “Hon go to the door and ask your husband to come on in.”

  Maddie went to the front door and called, “Will come on in; we need some help.”

  Will entered the room, and two men grabbed him from the side while the other kept their rifles trained on the others.

  Bob keyed the mic on the walkie-talkie in his pants and said, “Who are you and why are you bothering us?”

  “We are with FEMA, and you are looters. You’re lucky we didn’t shoot you.”

  “Hey, we’re just trying to survive. We were caught down here visiting relatives and didn’t have any clothes. This store is abandoned and had already been looted.”

  “So stealing is stealing get your asses moving you have a long ride ahead to the FEMA camp in Cherokee. Men in the truck on the right and women in the left one.”

  “Sarge they are married. They go on the bus.”

  “Damned Army is getting soft and won’t separate families.”

  They stepped up into the bus to see the bus was half-full of couples and a few children. There were two guards at the front of the bus, who took turns watching the detainees and talking with the driver.

  Bob walked to the back of the bus to get as far away from the guards as possible. As he passed one couple, he keyed the mic and asked, “Where are the FEMA people taking us?”

  “Some place in Alabama called Cherokee. There is a big FEMA camp there, and they take looters to t
he prison and honest people to the camp.”

  “With everyone mixed together how can they tell who is a looter and who isn’t?”

  “We were walking down the road, and they stopped us and told us we were looters.”

  “I thought as much,” Bob said as he took his hand off the walkie-talkie.”

  “Jack, someone captured our team across the river. I could hear Bob talking on the walkie-talkie with a couple of different people. The first was a soldier working for FEMA. He called our team looters. They are heading to a FEMA camp located in Cherokee Alabama.”

  “Greg, let’s call a council meeting.”

  The group took an hour to get to Greg’s house. The meeting began with Greg filling them in on everything he heard.

  Jo demanded that they take action, “We have to go get them and set them free. That’s half of our family.”

  Jack replied, “I’ll lead a team over to the other side to find out what happened and if there are any witnesses. Then we’ll decide if we are going to go after them.”

  “Bill and I will go with you across the river, and I’m telling you right now that we are going after them even if it’s just Bill and me.”

  “Calm down Jo.”

  “I am calm. You don’t want to fucking see me when I’m mad.”

  The bus had been on the road for an hour when Jane leaned over and whispered to Bob, “How did you hide the walkie-talkie? The bastards searched us.”

  “Just pure old luck. It was tucked in the front of my pants and fell down my pants when they searched me. He didn’t spend any time feeling my junk.”

  “The SOB felt mine for way too long.”

  “Point the bastard out, and I’ll kill him when I get a chance.”

  “I’ll take care of him in my own time and way.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me at all.”

  Will interrupted and asked, “Are we going to try to escape before we get to the camp?”

  “Son, I’m watching for a chance. We may have to wait until we stop. Overpowering three guards on this bus in motion with us being in the middle of a convoy doesn’t look too promising. These Blackman Mercenaries do the dirty work for the government. They will shoot and ask questions later.

  They didn’t get a chance to escape even though they stopped three times during the six-hour trip to the camp. When they made rest stops, the guards sent the men to one side of the bus and the women on the other.

  “Ladies, my men won’t be watching you do your business in the bushes; however, I will personally shoot any man whose wife doesn’t get back on the bus. Ladies if you want to run away be my guest. It will be a clean divorce.”

  No one ran away during the three stops. The guards handed out a bottle of water and an MRE to each captive at the second stop. The guard passing out the meals said, “We only get paid for the live ones that we get to the prison. We don’t want you to die of starvation or tell the Army that we mistreated you bunch of crooks.”

  The convoy wound its way through Lebanon, Nashville, Springhill, and Columbia Tennessee on its way to the Alabama state line. The cities were a maze of stalled and wrecked cars with hundreds of fires still burning almost a week after TSHTF. The convoy dodged cars as it made its way south, never getting over 30 MPH. The speed picked up a bit when they turned onto Highway 43 South at Columbia. The road only had a few cars per mile.

  Florence, Alabama was a smoking wreck. Bob waved for one of the guards and asked what happened to Florence.

  “When the power went out the guards at the local prison all left to go home. The warden didn’t want the prisoners to starve in their cells, so he started releasing the non-violent offenders. Some of them overpowered the warden and the few remaining guards and set all of the prisoners free. They tortured and killed the guards and warden and then took over Florence and went on a murder and rape spree. They killed thousands and set the city on fire in a drunken rage.

  We sent in two companies and killed every one of the drunken murderers. We lost 120 men in that fight. That’s why we can’t stand you criminals and looters.”

  The convoy rolled up to a large fence that had razor ribbon piled on both sides and stopped to be searched before entering. Each vehicle was cleared and sent to the staging area in front of several large tents. There were several dozen armed men and five machine gun emplacements around the captives as they unloaded from the bus.

  The leader of the Blackman troops called everyone to attention and said, “You are now leaving the custody of the Blackman Company and into the capable hands of the US Army who along with FEMA operate this detention facility. Men will advance toward the Sergeant and go into the door to his left and women will go into the door on his right.

  You will strip down and receive a delousing shower, new clothes, a pillow, a blanket, and a bunk assignment. You will then rejoin your spouse, go to your assigned bunk and await further instructions. It would behoove you to start lining up so that you enter the door with your spouse so we don’t have lost people. MOVE!”

  A large man with a clipboard dressed in Army fatigues and Staff Sergeant’s stripes took a count as the captives passed him. He was singing, “You’re in the Army now.”

  Will and Bob kept watching the women’s line and adjusted their position to match the girls so they wouldn’t be separated any longer than necessary. The line barely stopped long enough for them to strip off their clothes and shoes. They walked from the undressing room straight into a shower room where they were handed a pair of goggles and men were hosing them down with a foul smelling concoction as they continued to walk. The stuff was under high pressure, so the men cupped their hands over their privates as they were blasted by the liquid.

  Next, they walked into a regular shower room where the showers rinsed the smelly disinfectant from their bodies. They were given a towel and told to quickly dry off and move on to the clothing line where they were issued a pair of underwear, t-shirt, pants and flip-flops.

  They quickly dressed and moved to the next line where they received a pillow, two sheets, a blanket, and were given a plastic tag with a bunk number. Bob and Will walked out into the massive tent and saw the numbers on the ends of the bunk beds.

  “Well, we just wait for our women and get our bunks. Damn, these are the old regulation single bunk beds.”

  A guard heard him and replied, “Yes and I hope you like your old lady because you both have to share the one mattress. We believe in efficiency. Oh, and if you get frisky on the bottom bunk, you will make the people above you sea sick.”

  “Will, here I am,” shouted Maddie as she ran toward him with Jane right behind her.

  “That was one of the worst experiences of my life,” Jane told them as she hugged Bob, then added, “Those women were sadists. That spray stripped my skin off.”

  Bob couldn’t help but laugh as he said, “Did you two lose something?”

  Maddie turned red and said, “The bitches took our bras and didn’t have any to replace them with. They also gave us men’s briefs. No sexy underwear in this place.”

  Bob smiled and replied, “Sometimes less is more.”

  Bob took Jane’s arm and started down Row T to find bunk 17A. They walked for several yards and found the bunk. Will’s was a few feet away and was S17A. Bob said ladies this is our home for a while.

  Jane said, “Damn, one of us has to sleep on the top bunk. That’s no fun.”

  “Jane and Maddie, that’s not how it works. You sleep with your hubby on the bottom bunk. Another couple has the top bunk.”

  Jane replied, “Well, that’s not too bad. We…”

  It then dawned on her that her Grandson would be sleeping every night with Maddie. She thought how soon are you and Will planning on getting married?

  Will replied, “Grandma, it’s not like we could do anything with a couple four feet above us and you and Papaw three feet over there.”

  “I’ll overlook that stupid remark since you are an inexperienced young man. Son where there’s
a will there’s a way when it comes to young girls and boys with hormones raging,” said Jane.

  “I’ll bet that includes Grandparents also.”

  “Watch it, boy. Hey, shut up. People are heading this way.”

  The bottom bunks all around them filled up quickly, and then the top bunks began to fill up. A young couple walked up to Bob’s bunk, and the man said, “Crap, we have a top bunk. People could die from the fall. Anyone want a top bunk?”

  There was a round of hell no’s.”

  “Hey, this is my wife Doris, and I’m AJ Norman. How are y’all doing besides the obvious?”

  Will and Bob introduced themselves and their spouses to the young couple.

  Bob asked, “Where are you two from?”

  “We’re from Arkansas. We were on vacation and headed to Florida when the event happened. We made it back this way from Mobile and were picked up in Helana, Arkansas on the Mississippi River. We only had to make it 50 more miles, and we would have been home free. My dad has a big farm there, and I know we would have had plenty of food.”

  “Why did they capture you?”

  “They said we were looting because we were searching cars to find food.”

  “Pretty much the same here except we were at my home in Tennessee. Good ta’ meet ya’ anyway.”

  Then a voice came over the loudspeakers and said, “Row Z walk to the front of your row, turn right and go out the door to the mess hall. A soldier will help direct you this time. Now Row Y tag on to row Z. You get the picture follow the row in front of you until I stop the line when the mess hall is full. Next meal starts with Row Y.”

  They called row S, and Bob and Jane joined Will and Maddie in line. Twenty minutes later, they had their hot meal and seated at one of the rows of picnic tables in a large row of large tents with picnic tables.

  The meal consisted of a small bowl of oatmeal, corn, and something that looked and tasted like a slice of Spam. They also received a glass to fill with water.

  “Not half bad if you like mush and Spam,” said Bob.

  “I wonder what we will do for recreation and something to fight boredom.”