Holding Their Own: A Story of Survival (25 page)

Bishop and Terri followed the s
ergeant down the road in the direction of the school bus. Right before they got to the tripwire, Bishop watched as Kevin opened a gate that had been well hidden by its own ghillie suit. Bishop had walked right past it just an hour ago. The opened gate revealed a driveway heading back into a wooded area.

As they turned in the lane, Bishop
could see a single story ranch-style home. The front yard was littered with clothing, overturned chairs, and dresser drawers. The home had also been on fire, as Bishop could see smoke stains above two of the broken windows, and some of the siding was warped away from the wall. An older man wearing a radio and ear bud walked around the corner carrying a shotgun, but did not raise the weapon. He motioned for them to pull the truck around to the back yard. Bishop had just noticed something very odd about the back yard, when the man reached up and pulled back a big tarp so they could pass. The tarp had been painted with a picture of a yard, but when it was pulled back, Bishop could see a large pickup truck and a boat on a trailer was behind it.
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain
, he thought.

Hiding in plain sight

They parked the truck where directed and got out. Bishop immediately started looking around and the sergeant walked up beside him. He reached out his hand and said, “Master Sergeant Nick Williams, 6
th
Special Forces Group, United States Army, well, if there still is an Army or a United States. Please call me Nick.”

Bishop shook his hand and said, “Please call me impressed. Nice camo job on the driveway.”

“Thanks, but I thought the house was our best work. Did it look like it had been on fire?”

“It didn’t burn?”

“No,” he said as they examined the structure a little closer, “I painted those smoke stains with spray paint, and the siding damage is an old Styrofoam cooler I cut up and painted to match. It really fooled you?”

“It sure as shit did.”

“I had been at Fort Hood for a few months on a training assignment. Kevin was staying with my dad in Houston, and we had decided to go on a fishing trip up at the lake. You know, three generations and all that shit. Anyway, Dad had been saving up for it for months. We left Houston before all of the shit started, but the trailer broke down on the way. We were waiting on a part to be brought over from Austin when all hell broke loose.”

“Who owns the house?”

“When we pulled off to wait, it became clear that the Shell station up the road was going to have trouble. We went looking for some place to stay, but with the brakes smoking on the trailer, we couldn’t go far. I saw a “For Sale – Foreclosure” sign in front of this place and thought it might be empty. There was still some junk inside, but no one had lived here for quite a while.”

Bishop and Nick walked around to the front yard. Bishop was staring at the school bus, curious, but not wanting to ask a stupid question. Nick noticed he was looking at it and waited a little bit before explaining, “The
Rovers, or at least that is what we call them. They use busses or trucks or anything that can carry a lot of people. They drive around the countryside and stop every so often. They’ll send out scouts looking for some place to loot or scavenge. If the scouts find anything interesting, the soldiers come in force. They swarm the place like ants.”

“It looks like you had some ants show up at your picnic.”

Nick laughed, but then his face turned sour, and his voice became bitter.

“They had driven right past here several times
, and the camo had worked. We saw a flatbed 18-wheeler, a tractor pulling a hay wagon, and a couple of other troop carriers, but they would just slow down, point and talk, and then go on past. It was the school bus that got us in trouble. We had our dog with us, Chief, and he never did like school busses for some reason. Chief started barking, and they heard him and stopped. Before I could stop him, he went running after the bus. He was a good dog.”

“Was?”

Nick’s voice went low and cold. “They shot him, right in front of Kevin. Kevin is 15 and should be chasing girls and playing basketball, not carrying a rifle and shooting people. Anyway, I had taken the powder out of some of my ammo and made a couple of small IED’s with some pipe I found in the garage. I threw one at the bus, but I missed. The driver panicked though and flipped it on its side before they all got out.”

As they walked closer to the bus, Bishop could see the roof was riddled with bullet holes.

Nick’s voice returned to normal, “It took us a week to bury all of them. I wanted to just leave them for the vultures, but the smell got really bad. We were lucky, none of them got away. Dad got three, and I don’t know how many Kevin killed. Ever since then, we’ve been trying to avoid the scouts. With the bus blocking the way, they don’t bring anything heavy down this road anymore, but we still run into the scouts now and then. That’s why I have the tripwires set up.”

“Who are they? How did they organize so quickly?”

“The reason we left the Shell station was because four carloads of gang bangers showed up. I saw one of their tattoos, and I think they were that M13 or whatever it’s called. Like sharks, they could smell fear in the water. They had guns, were not afraid to use them, and took over. After we left, I walked back there a few times to see if there were any news or if any food had showed up. The M13 guys were taking whatever they wanted from the stranded cars and all of the businesses. I got the feeling it was a ‘join us or die’ type of deal. I also got the impression they had no trouble recruiting from the hundreds of teenagers who were stranded with Mom and Dad. The last time I went, there were 11 bodies hanging from the overpass - so much for any resistance.”

Bishop took it all in and thought about it for a while. They continued to walk around the yard with Nick pointing out all of the
tripwires so Bishop didn’t set one off by mistake. As they went under the tarp and into the back yard, Bishop could see Terri and Kevin petting a cat and talking. He looked around a little bit for Grandpa, but couldn’t see him anywhere. Movement caught his eye, and he saw the man up on the roof of the house with a pair of binoculars.

Bishop said, “Well, it looks like you are about as secure here as you can be in this situation.”

“We are not going to be able to hold out much longer. Food and water are okay right now, but we are almost out of ammunition. I didn’t have that much to start with, and my pipe bombs didn’t help the situation. Kevin has four rounds left for the AR, and I only have a handful for bolt action. We are down to less than 10 shells for Dad’s shotgun.”

Bishop looked at Nick and smiled. “Well sir, let me show you something that might cheer you up a little.”

They walked around to the back of the truck, and Nick watched as Bishop moved some boxes around and pulled out a heavy plastic storage bin. Bishop pulled the top off, and the inside was completely full of shiny brass ammunition. Nick didn’t say a word, but just stared for a full minute. He started to reach for one and then pulled his hand back and looked at Bishop to see if it were okay. Bishop nodded and said, “It’s all homemade, but I never have any issue with it. Those are above military spec. They have proven to have plenty of stopping power.”

The military’s standard issue 5.56 mm ammunition had been criticized for years as being underpowered. Starting with the Vietnam War, where first used, reports of the enemy continuing to fight after being shot were common. In every conflict since, a movement has circulated in the Pentagon to provide the troops with a more potent cartridge. From his own
experience, Bishop knew the problem was not with the cartridge, but with the bullet being used with the cartridge. The United States subscribed to the Geneva Convention, which prohibited any type of bullet specially modified to damage flesh. This limitation resulted in US forces being given simple ball ammunition to fight with. Hollow points and various other types of bullets had proven far superior, but were against the convention’s rules.

Field commanders also wanted shorter and shorter barrels on their weapons. This was not only to lighten the load of the individual solider, but because Iraq
had been primarily urban house-to-house fighting. A shorter barrel on a rifle has numerous benefits in going around corners, fighting up stairwells and other common building features. The shorter the barrel, the slower the bullet exits, and thus less stopping power is delivered to the target. The 5.56, already questionable, became even less effective.

What really pissed Bishop off was all of the money the
US spent trying to replace the M16 and M4 rifles. They could have simply changed the bullet, at no additional cost, and solved the entire issue. Bishop did not know exactly how much had been wasted, both in dead American boys and research, but it was complete chicken shit any way you looked at it.

Bishop didn’t subscribe to the Geneva Convention and never intended to. He made his ammo just as mean and nasty as he possibly could.

“Could you possibly part with a bit? I don’t have much to trade, but I took one of the last deer around here a few days ago. I could trade some fresh hot venison stew,” Nick offered.

“Would 500 rounds hold you over?”

“Oh my God! Really? You can part with 500? Kevin! Come over here, son. Look at what the nice man you almost shot this morning has for us!”

Bishop smiled and then asked, “What caliber is your bolt action?”

“It’s a .308 Winchester.”

Bishop grinned and reached for another box.

Campfire Stew

As they sat around the fire eating some very tasty stew that was heavy on meat and short on vegetables, the conversation was on everything but today’s world. Jokes, army stories, family history, and tales of fantastic fishing filled the air. For a while, Bishop almost forgot he was living through a situation that resembled a Hollywood post-apocalyptic movie and not the great state of Texas in the year 2015.

As soon as everyone had finished eating, Nick stood up and looked at Terri. He bent slightly at the waist and swept his arm
toward the house, “I’ll show you to your master suite. Right this way madam.” He led them into the house and then a back bedroom. There was no furniture in the place, so Terri was surprised to see a mattress lying on the floor. She couldn’t remember how many days it had been since she had slept on anything soft. Nick pointed to the windows and the stacks of plastic bags. “Those are the bullet stops I made. We had a bunch of trash bags in the boat, and we filled them up with dirt. They should provide protection in case Kevin is cleaning his gun and has an accident, or the Rovers decide to shoot at us.”

Next was another pleasant surprise – the toilets worked. “There is an old well out back. Take that bucket
, and use it to fill the tank. It flushes just fine. It even comes fully equipped with a five year old Sports Illustrated for your reading pleasure.” Bishop walked over, rattled the knob on the throne, and looked at Terri. “Now honey, you push this little thing down, and the bad stuff goes away. You don’t have to dig a cat hole or use poison oak leaves to wipe with.”

Terri walked over and lifted the seat up and down, “Now honey, this is the seat, and you leave it down after…oh, hell, never mind. You couldn’t manage that even when you used one of these every day.”

Everyone laughed, and Nick said, “I have saved the best for last.” He led them out the sliding glass door onto a small patio. Hanging from the roof was a shower curtain on two pieces of pipe. “Lady and Gentleman, may I present to you one of the finest facilities known to the human race this side of the Pecos – A HOT WATER SHOWER! We brought a solar shower with us to use on the boat. It’s really a big plastic bag that you fill with water and let the sun heat. It gets very hot, so be careful.”

Bishop and Terri both looked at each other and simultaneously said, “Me
, first!”

Nick said, “It’s big enough for two,” winked, and walked off.

I-10 – September 13, 2015

Bishop woke up early and went outside without waking Terri. Kevin was on the roof
, doing his shift of guard duty. Bishop nodded at him and went over to the coals of the campfire. Nick said they ran a fire anytime at night because the smoke wasn’t visible, but not during the day. Bishop stirred the coals and determined there was enough heat to make some coffee. He heated water and stared at the fading stars losing way to the rising sun.

Nick walked up, happy to help Bishop dispose of the hot water for his coffee. “I have been thinking about how to get you safely on the other side of the interstate, and I just don’t see how it can be done. The overpass is blocked by two large trailers that you would have to zigzag
through slowly. There are two rings of sentries, and they have a very effective over watch guards on the building roofs. I have seen their weapons and from the looks of the scopes, they are probably some poor fellow’s deer rifles. I’m sure they paid him a fair price for them.”

Bishop was familiar with the term “over watch” from his days in Afghanistan. He knew it described sentries or guards who occupied an elevated pos
ition so they could watch over the area for which they had responsibility.  He continued to quiz Nick. “Where do you think they got all of their weapons?”

“Well, as people ran out of gas, or b
ecame stuck, the gangbangers drove down the grass median and took what they wanted at gunpoint. I watched them do it once. They had a couple of 4x4 trucks and would load several gunmen in the back. I imagine they would just repeat this same strategy a couple times a day to see what they could find. This
is
Texas, and people were leaving Houston because they were frightened, so they probably packed up all the guns and ammo they could carry.”

Both men took a few sips of coffee, and Nick continued.

“The first week or so, we would hear shots several times a day. I remember one afternoon, some old boy must have put up one hell of a fight. It sounded like Baghdad on a Saturday night. I could make out at least four different calibers of weapons being fired. That firefight must have lasted a full hour and used up hundreds and hundreds of rounds.”

Bishop smiled at the thought, “Being a highwayman in Texas is not a safe way to make a living.”

“I don’t know how many of the original gang members are still alive. The last few scouts we took out were younger men, 16 to 20 years old, and they carried a mix of weapons. We would have run out of ammo a week ago, but we ambushed a scout, and he had a Mini-14 with two full magazines.”

Gr
andpa joined them for a cup of joe, but didn’t say much. He was going to relieve Kevin in a bit and was trying to wake up. Nick continued.

“The leader of the gang w
as a big dude they all called the ‘Hefei’ which is Spanish for the ‘Boss.’ This guy is not stupid. When they first arrived, he enforced some very tight discipline. He even beat the living shit out of one of his guys when he tried to steal candy from the station. Three days later, they took whatever they wanted, but early on, the Hefei was gathering his Intel.”

“It sure seems like they organized quickly,” Bishop replied. “He must be a pretty good leader to have scoped out the lay of the land and acted that fast. I wonder if some of these kids could make a difference if they had gotten started right. What could a guy like that do in the Army or running a business?”

Bishop sucked down the last few drops of his coffee, and then stood to go wash his cup. He turned to Nick and asked, “What if the Hefei lost his crown? What if he weren’t available to lead? What would happen?”

Nick thought for a second.
“I don’t follow. You want to snipe him?”

“No, I’m thinking about kidnapping him, and the ransom is our free passage.”

“Bishop, he has some serious lieutenants, and they may be glad to be rid of him. They might be thinking it’s their turn to be the Hefei.”

“Maybe, but most
leaders like that have some sort of insurance. They know where the money is hidden, or have the contact for the drugs or whatever. If he has ambitious lieutenants, I’m sure he keeps something back for a safety net - something important to them.”

“How would we snatch him? We don’t even know his habits or movements.”

“I don’t know. I don’t think either of us have enough information. Let me show you something.”

Bishop went to the truck and came back with the big .308 rifle. When he saw it, Nick’s eyes were like a kid on Christmas morning.
Watching Nick fondle the rifle, Bishop joked, “I am afraid my rifle is going to file a sexual harassment lawsuit against you. I’m glad you don’t like Terri as much.”

Both of them laughed and Nick said, “I only have a 10x scope on my rifle. With this big monster you have here, we can see twice as far. I think I know what’s on your mind, and I bet I know just the place to do it.”

Terri joined them at the fire, but didn’t drink any coffee. She sat, rubbed her eyes, and looked around. She could tell from Bishop’s face that he was deep in thought, so she decided to let him be, opening a package of the oatmeal. After her offers to share were politely declined, she proceeded to heat more water and make breakfast.

Bishop finally came out of his trance and looked up at her, “I have some bad news
, baby.”

“What?”

“I’m not going to bathe for a while.”

“Well, at least I got you nice and clean last night.”

The Billboard

Nick and Bishop were moving quietly and quickly through the underbrush. Bishop had loaned Nick one of the night vision devices, allowing them to avoid entanglements and people. They were approaching the
outer rings of the campers, the people who had gotten stuck on I-10 and had nowhere else to go.

Nick had warned Bishop how heartbreaking it is to see fellow Americans living in conditions worse than most third world slums, but
he was still shocked at what he saw. People had constructed shelter out of just about anything they could find. Cardboard, car hoods, and even suitcases had all been used. It was well past midnight, yet there were still a few dirty children moving around. Bishop watched as the kids stalked a grasshopper. One of them pounced and came up with the prize, holding up a large kicking insect for all her playmates to see. The little girl immediately ran back to a woman with frazzled hair and presented her with the bug. The woman rubbed the girl’s head, took the insect, and threw it in a small pot that was sitting on the campfire. After stirring the pot with a stick, the woman moved back to her couch that looked like the front seat of a sedan.

Bishop and Nick moved easily around this group and headed closer to I-10. They tried to stay in the shadows, but there
was little cover in the area. Bishop was looking at several trees that were completely stripped bare of all limbs and bark. They looked like raw, white telephone poles. When Nick noticed him staring at them, he mouthed the word “Firewood,” and Bishop nodded.

They skirted several more groups of peo
ple and finally made it to the interstate. After listening for several minutes and scanning with the NVD, they scrambled up an embankment and took cover behind what used to be a guardrail. The wooden posts had been cut below the steel rail and above the ground for firewood. The rail, too heavy to use, was lying on the asphalt surface.

Bishop almost lost control of his stomach from the smell. The combination of burnt plastic, decomposing bodies
, and other odors he couldn’t identify was overwhelming. After ensuring he wasn’t going to ‘blow,” he refocused, looking east and then west. The scene before them was unbelievably apocalyptic. Despite Nick’s earlier warnings, Bishop couldn’t stop staring. He was having trouble comprehending the devastation on the roadway.

B
oth sides of the great highway were packed with cars, trucks and vehicles of every kind. A few were on their sides, some flipped over completely with their wheels pointing skywards. Several had burned and practically all of them had the hood, truck and doors open, a sure sign they had been scavenged. The few gaps that didn’t contain a vehicle were covered with broken glass and other debris. Directly in front of them was a semi-trailer from a furniture store with the delivery doors wide open. Piles of cloth, cushions and lampshades were strewn all around the trailer bed. Bishop imagined the wood from the furniture was now being used to cook grasshoppers. Any truck that even hinted of edible cargo had probably been looted first.

Nick tapped him on his shoulder and mouthed, “You okay?” Bishop nodded
, mentally snapping out of it. Nick looked again in both directions and then moved out with the grace of a big cat. Bishop put his hand on the ground to shove off and felt something odd. He looked down to see a partially decomposed human arm under his gloved hand. He wasted no time in following Nick.

They were about one mile east of the exit and had to stay in the traffic lanes for cover. They moved from wreck, to rusted hulk, to overturned van for several minutes. Bishop was on one knee behind a car
, waiting on Nick to scout their next move. He heard glass crunch and spun his head toward the noise. He didn’t need the night vision to see a rather large skinny dog with huge teeth. The animal seemed to think Bishop looked like a good meal. Bishop couldn’t shoot the dog as the noise would give away their position and attract unwanted attention. He had his knife, but doubted he could reach it in time. The dog didn’t growl or snarl, it just stared at Bishop with stone cold eyes. As Bishop started to stand upright, the animal sprang.

Bishop knew the animal would go for his throat. The average person has a survival reaction of throwing up an arm to block the leaping set of t
eeth coming at his windpipe. Bishop had the same reaction, but managed to use his rifle barrel instead. The dog’s powerful jaws gripped the barrel instead of Bishop, and they both fell to the ground. Bishop landed on his back with the dog trying to tear the barrel out of his grip. The animal viciously jerked its head left and then right trying to remove this hard obstacle out of its way and get to the softer meat it could sense behind it. After failing to pull the rifle out of Bishop’s hands, the dog let loose of the barrel and reared its head for a downward strike. Bishop’s hand struck out and landed a strong blow at the dog’s throat right below the jaw line. The animal paused, completely surprised, and Bishop struck again in the same place, only harder.

The animal twisted off Bishop and staggered back. It lowered its head and made a sound halfway between a cough and a gag. It looked over at Bishop and repeated the same sound. It staggered in a circle once and then fell to its side. Its last vision was of Bishop’s arm striking downward
, holding his knife.

Bishop just lay on the ground trying to catch his breath. He started to sit up once, but only ma
de it to an elbow. He heard a sound behind him, and somehow managed to spin around holding his knife out. Nick was standing about 10 feet away, leaning against a truck cab. He knelt down by Bishop and whispered, “You alright?” Bishop nodded and kept drinking in air. Nick handed him a bottle of water, and Bishop managed a couple of mouthfuls between gasps. Nick helped him to his feet and waited a few minutes until Bishop gave him the thumbs up sign. Nick leaned close to Bishop’s ear and whispered, “I have seen a lot of shit in my day, but that one takes the cake. Now is not the time, but later I’m going to have to know who the fuck you are.” Before Bishop could respond, Nick was gone.

They played leapfrog using the wrecks as cover for almost a half mile before Nick stopped and pointed toward the sky. Bishop tilted his head and could barely make out a pole that seemed to disappear into the stars.
Switching to night vision, he could make out the sign at the top, complete with a voluptuous woman advertising a steak house at this exit. Bishop leaned over to Nick and whispered, “We should go there sometime; they have an endless salad bar and prime rib on Tuesdays.”

They made their way to the base of the big pole and were relieved no one had camped there. Bishop tapped Nick on the shoulder and whispered, “See you tomorrow,” as he climbed up the ladder.

Bishop was not a big fan of heights. To be accurate, he had no problem with heights, or falling from them for that matter. It was the concept of
the landing
that bothered him. As he mounted the pole, he couldn’t help but take in the view. He could see small fires, blinking in the distance in all directions. When he reached the top, he encountered his first problem – the pole-ladder ended at a trapdoor that the climber would push up, proceeding to the narrow railing that surrounded the sign. The trapdoor was padlocked with a high quality, heavy-duty lock. Bishop did not have any tools with him and was not a burglar anyway. He looked around for a few minutes, trying to decide what to do. He could always retreat to the house and try to come up with another idea. The thought of having to do that made him mad. It was taking them forever to get out west, and he was sick and tired of the driving, killing, and living in constant fear.

Thinking about wasting yet another 24 hours affected his common sense. He looked from the ladder to the edge of the rail several times and kept thinking
,
I can make that
. He took off his pack and strapped it onto his chest. With one hand digging around inside, he fished out a roll of duct tape. He started to pull the tape, but the noise made him jump, and he almost dropped the roll.
Plan B
, he thought.