Chapter 8
Carl followed the smoke rising from the back of a hill just outside of Hagerstown. In the ten days since he had left the National Guard Armory he knew what that smoke meant and could tell that it was most likely from a mobile home. Burning mobile homes had a distinctive smoke, much different than the smoke from a wood-frame building.
He pulled behind the hill, out of sight of whatever was burning, and took a quick look at the fuel gauge. The 6.2 liter V-8 Diesel engine was a hog and he had to spend a lot of his time scouting for diesel fuel. In the ten days that it had taken him to travel one hundred miles, much of his time was spent looking for fuel and trying to avoid the few vehicles he met. When he did find a station that still had diesel left he had to pump it out of the tanks by hand; electricity was getting very scarce in the USA these days. The only time he saw lights at night was when someone was running a generator. Both times that he had witnessed someone running a generator; he had spotted some mob members creeping up to the house in the dark. He knew that they were intent on killing the owners of the house and taking over the house and its generator. Any fool running a generator was just hanging a sign out that said come get me.
Carl made his way to the top of the hill, crawling on his stomach for the last fifty yards. When he reached the top of the hill he saw that a mobile home, about two hundred feet from a farm house, was burning and two men were lying on the ground dead. There was a lot of shouting and an occasional scream coming from the farm house. There was a school bus in back of the farm house that Carl figured the mob had used to get to the farm house. A black man staggered out of the house and shot a couple of rounds into the air from a small pistol. The black man staggered back into the house and a couple of shots rang out and there was a lot more screaming, mixed with a lot of laughter.
Carl pulled out the sixty-power spotting scope that he had found in the sporting goods store that had been stripped of every gun and all of the ammunition. The mob was leaving things like the scopes, exercise equipment, tents and whatever they couldn't use to attack the homes that happened to be in their way. Guns and ammunition was what they were looking for.
After he focused the scope, Carl scanned the farm house. He stopped when he focused on a patio door that was apparently off of the living room of the farm house. He adjusted the focus again so that he could see into the room. Carl swung the scope so that he could watch the front of the house to focus on the movement that had caught his attention; a bearded white man came out of the house. The man was dragging the nude body of a woman in her forties out into the yard. The man was dragging the woman by her hair and the woman wasn't making any movements to stop the man. Carl looked at her trying to see any movement. The bearded man was drinking a beer and when he was finished with it he threw the can out toward the burning mobile home. The man then took a pistol out of his belt and emptied it into the woman's body. After the pistol was empty he threw the gun at the woman's face and walked back into the house.
Carl looked at the patio door again and had to adjust the focus again so that he could see into the room. His gaze fell on two men raping a young boy Carl guessed to be about twelve. The boy's arms hung down loosely and he wasn't making any moves as one of the men was raping him from behind and the other man was trying to make the boy blow him. After watching for a few seconds, Carl figured that the boy was dead but the lust-crazed men didn't realize it. He saw a young girl that looked to be about eight years old being raped by a man while another was pushing himself into her mouth. There was a lot of blood on her stomach and even more running down her legs. Her eyes looked straight up at the ceiling without blinking and Carl didn't know if she was alive or dead. He saw a movement over at the far wall over the room. As he looked through the scope he saw a young girl about sixteen being raped by one of the men. Three others were standing and watching him as if waiting their turn at the girl. He figured that the man, raping the young teen, was probably the leader of this group of animals. When Carl focused on the girl's face he saw that her eyes were glazed and she was watching what was happening to her as if it was happening to someone else. She was detached from what was happening to her. Carl knew that she had retreated into a special place in her mind where she felt that she could be safe. She would never let anyone into that special place to hurt her again. He knew that she would never be able to function as a human again; she had retreated into her special world and she would never come out of it again.
He took one last look to make sure where everyone was and slithered down the hill toward the Humvee. At the Humvee, he got an automatic weapon and made sure that it was loaded and that the safety was off and then pulled out an RPG and an extra shell. He made his way to the top of the hill again. He didn't make any attempt to hide himself because he knew that the animals in the house had not fulfilled their blood-lust yet and they wouldn't be looking for him.
Carl scanned the house one more time. He was trying to see if he could detect any movement in other rooms. He only detected movement in the one room. He laid the automatic weapon on one side of his body and the extra shell on the other. After looking at the farm house one last time, he put the RPG launcher on his shoulder and began to take aim. He checked his setting one last time and pulled the trigger. In a second the grenade went through the glass of the patio door and exploded in the room. The house seemed to raise and then settle and started burning. Carl picked up the automatic weapon and watched the farm house in case any of the men tried to escape the fire. When the house became fully engulfed in flame he relaxed and sat at the top of the hill and watched the house burn. He only felt a little remorse for the children but he knew that if they had lived through this that their life would be short. The roaming gangs would catch them again and this would happen a second time. He was sure that the young boy and the eight year old girl were dead before he shot the grenade into the house. He also knew that the older girl would never have been anything but a vegetable if she had been saved.
Within five minutes the house was fully engulfed in flames and he watched the house burn with the emotions of a marble statue. No one tried to leave the house. The sparks spiraled into the air and Carl watched as some of them burned out in mid-air and some of them fell to the ground still burning. The wind shifted ever so slightly and sparks began to fall on the barn which was about three hundred feet from the house. Carl didn't realize the barn was burning until he looked over at the barn and saw that the roof was on fire. He got up and picked up the weapons. He needed to get away from the blazé in case it attracted some other mobs.
A movement out of the corner of his eye caused him to stop and drop to the ground with his weapon ready to take out anything that came out of the barn. The door opened and a horse ran out of the barn and the horse was shortly followed by two others. Carl kept his weapon ready. He saw a head look out of the door and then pull back. He took aim on the part of the door that hid whoever was behind it. The wood door would never stop the military bullet. The head poked out again and this time the person looked for several seconds before she came out into the open. He saw that it was a woman about eighteen or nineteen. She had on jeans and a flannel shirt. Her long reddish blonde hair reflected the sunlight.
The woman walked toward the house, turned and watched as the house burned. She put her hands over her mouth and Carl could see that she was sobbing. He knew that she was wondering what had caused the house to explode and burn. He continued to watch the woman; trying to find out if she was with the gang that he had just administered justice to or if she was one of the family members. He saw her sink to the ground in tears as the realization hit her that there was no way of saving anyone that had been in the house. She watched the fire intently as if expecting someone to run out of the flames unhurt.
The roof of the house collapsed into the burning shell that had once been a farm house. The woman jumped to her feet and backed away from the flames that had flared up with the addition of the fuel that the roof provided. It dawned on her to look around to see if there was anyone else that could have caused all of this. Carl didn't move as the woman began to look around the area. When she didn't see anyone she began to run out of the yard. He fired three rounds into the ground just in front of her feet. The woman stopped suddenly with her arms out for balance as she tried to figure out where the shot came from. Carl rose up and began to walk toward the woman.
"Stay where you are and don't move a muscle. If you as much as blink I'll shoot you," he shouted to the woman.
When he neared the woman he saw the terror in her eyes. She was shaking so hard that she was having trouble standing. She scanned his face trying to figure out if he was one of the ones that were burning up in the house or if he was someone that would allow her to live.
He patted her down for weapons, "Who are you and what are you doing on this farm?"
In a shaking voice she answered, "I live here."
Just then she saw the body of the woman that one of the men had dragged out on the lawn and screamed and ran to the woman; ignoring the fact that Carl had his weapon trained on her. She knelt and gathered the dead woman in her arms and began to sob. Carl stood and watched her to let her have some time to grieve. He figured that the older woman was probably the younger woman's mother.
Carl walked over to her and put his hand on her shoulder, "Is there anyone else here. Anyone in the barn?"
The roof of the barn was blazing and it was only a matter of time before it fell to the ground. The floor of the upper level was holding the flames from spreading to the lower level but Carl knew that it was only a matter of seconds before the entire barn was burning.
"My father is in there. I was hiding in a stall when the men dragged him into the barn. He saw me and shook his head to tell me to stay hidden. They hung him and then they shot him in the face while he was kicking. Please can we bury my mother?"
Carl grabbed the dead woman under the arms and dragged her toward the barn. The door was still open and he dragged the dead woman into the barn; all the while being showered with burning embers. He dropped the woman and ran out of the barn. The young woman came and stood next to him as they watched the barn burn. Within a few minutes the roof started to sag and then fell to the interior of the barn. Carl dragged the young woman away from the barn to keep her from getting burned.
Carl turned to her, "We'd better get out of here. The smoke might bring others here. You have any place that you can go?"
The woman shook her head, "All our family is in Baltimore. We haven't been off of the farm in a month. What's it like out there?"
Carl took the woman's arm and began to lead her away from the barn, "It's about the same out there as it was here."
The woman pulled her arm away from him and pointed at the house, "Did you do that?"
Carl took her arm again, "Yes."
"What about..."
"They're dead. That's all you have to know."
The woman pulled away from him again, "Did they... ?"
Carl spun around and snapped his words at her, "They're dead, that's all you have to know."
He started walking up the hill toward the Humvee and soon heard the woman rushing to catch up to him. He stopped and turned.
"Are you just going to leave me here?" she asked with tears in her eyes, "If there are other gangs around here, I don't stand a chance."
His answer didn't show any trace of emotion, "I'd advise you to arm yourself and begin to defend yourself. It's time for the decent people that are left to turn back the scum that did this to your family. You can't go with me. I travel alone and I don't want to have to defend you. You'll get me killed. Some of the things that I might have to do, you won't want to see."
"I can shoot a gun; I've gone hunting all of my life," she almost screamed at him, "I can track, hunt, skin, cook, build my own shelter... damn you, let me go with you. You don't have to defend me; I can do that myself."
Carl looked into her eyes a long time before he answered, "Let's go. If you hold me back or cause me trouble I'm going to leave you wherever we are at the moment. You can travel with me but you're on you own. I don't feed you, defend you or go out of my way to keep you alive."
He turned, without waiting for an answer and started toward the
Humvee. The woman ran to his side and walked with him.