Story Edie (Complete)

Kathy in FL

Kathy in FL

Administrator
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Chapter 190​


I am not proud of what I did that night. Could the goal have been achieved in some other way? Possibly. But I was unable to come up with other options in time to provide relief from the danger the town and townspeople were in.

I’m not going to record exactly how Winn and I put together our little thermite IEDs but all you need is basic chemistry to do it. The first part is 25% aluminum to 75% iron oxide. Iron oxide is basically just rust. You take the resulting mixture and put it in an old soda or beer can. Next part is a bit tricky. You need to attach a strip of magnesium to the can and buddy you better make it long enough so that you can hunt a hole after you light it.

I placed several of these, one at each ammo supply pile, and a couple of the tail pipes of vehicles. I made sure they stretched all down their line. Then I found someplace I could stash the remainder of my gear because once I lit one of those things I needed to hoof it far, far away. I recon’d my path so I could run without killing myself in the process. I started at one end by blowing their biggest dump.

Hoe-my-gawd. I nearly didn’t make it out of the secondary blast radius. The initial explosion from the thermite was anticlimactic but was quickly followed by the ammunition and explosives in the pile going off. Uh yeah. Little loud quickly freaking everyone out. From what little I could hear and understand they thought they’d targeted by a drone. They were looking up trying to find the drone (or plane) which helped me to run to the opposite end of their line where the vehicles were kept and … yeah … more loud bangs.

Now I make it sound so basic, and for an IED it was. However, what you have to understand is IEDs are meant to cause maximum damage and casualties with the least amount of input. When the vehicles went boom it wasn’t nice but there were more injuries than fatalities, more distraction than true destruction. But the supply piles? When the boom went off it cleared a circular area of all life and beyond that was a tremendous amount of shrapnel that caused not just immediate fatalities but a significant number of disabling injuries. And the various explosions also caused anarchy and chaos.

I guess I had been running around for about an hour playing that game when I stopped to catch my breath and figure out which IED to light up next. I hadn’t had to light all of them myself because other explosions had set off some nearby that I had put there. I was a little singed from one of those accidental ignitions and my hearing was crap.

Suddenly I went down and immediately came around fighting. I nearly gutted the person that I thought was attacking me.

“Ow! She stabbed me!!”

“Idiot. You’re lucky she didn’t take your throat out.”

I didn’t know the first voice, but I knew the second. “Uncle Dakota?!”

“Shush. Yeah. Winn know you are out here playing?”

“Yeah. I have my hall pass here somewhere. What the heck are you wearing? And who is the moron?”

He snickered. You have not seen weird until you’ve seen a ghillie suit snickering.

“Private Haines, ma’am.”

I just shook my head. “Don’t do that again. Not all girls are as nice as me.”

“Uh … yes, ma’am. I mean no ma’am. I mean …”

“Shush before your tongue gets tied around your eye teeth and you can’t see what to say.” I turned to the other man. “So, what’s up Uncle Dakota?”

He snickered again and I realized he’d either gotten into some ‘shine or he was suffering from combat stress. “Uncle Dakota?”

It was hard won but he got himself under control. “Got any water Kiddo?”

I handed him one of the bottles of water that I had on me. Handed another one to the “Private Haines.” And took my last one to drink for myself. I could afford the pause because another ammo stack had gone up down the line. Another explosion must have set some embers into the air and then over just far enough to catch the magnesium strip.

I saw their hands shaking so took it for a bad sign. “Are you escaping or trying to enter?”

Private Haines said, “I was sent forward to find out why our drones weren’t responding to base. The … explosions … were unexpected.”

“They had a bunch of jammers up and running. I decided to disable them.”

“You? Had?”

Oh please, a parrot I didn’t need so I kept him on track rather than make an issue of his surprise. “Yes, had. If there are any on the other side of town, they may still be operational. Uncle Dakota?”

“We got caught out of town. Crossfire. I was the only one still ambulatory.”

Private Haines added, “They’ll receive treatment once they reach the rear.” To me he said, “He’s been beat to hell. And his son …”

“Monty?” I was waiting for the pain, but it wasn’t as bad as I expected.

“Er … yes ma’am. He’ll live but he was in a bad way until a medic could get to him and the others. I need to report in. Can I leave him with you?”

“Yes. Here, let me draw you a landmark map for the fastest way out without getting creamed by the enemy. And in your report tell them everyone up here is high on Battle Candy.”

It didn’t take long until Haines was drifting back into the darkness leaving me to decide whether to find a place to park Uncle Dakota and continue my business or try and get him to Winn.

About that second there was another massive explosion that would have taken us down if we hadn’t already been down and in a small gully. It was a close one and this time I was near it enough that I got the full-on effect of the red mist of nearly disintegrated bodies followed by a few “intact” bits and pieces coming down. There were only a few more IEDs so I decided to find a safe place to sit down and wait for whatever was going to happen next.
 
Kathy in FL

Kathy in FL

Administrator
_______________

Chapter 191​


I wish I could say things went to plan. I wish I could say I didn’t feel guilty. The plain Ol’ Edie can wish a lot of things, but that night I was Capt. Dunn and I didn’t feel much of anything. Not even when we ran into an enemy patrol.

I used as little ammo as required to put a period to every member of the patrol. Unfortunately they had been shooting back at the same time. My only injury was a ricochet that sent a few chips of pink Georgia granite to clash with my camo colors. Uncle Dakota took a more direct hit. I tied everything the best I could and then put him someplace undercover and covered up to maintain warmth, and hoped that shock wouldn’t take him before I could get back. The enemy was regrouping and closing the line. I couldn’t allow that to happen.

Taking more of the various kinds of party favors that Winn and I had, I started selectively reopening the line. They’d try and close it again and then I’d open it in a different location. The result was that their line kept getting thinner and thinner and had to keep pulling back tighter and tighter only with fewer resources to back up their reformed line.

I wasn’t the only one doing it. Private Haines did his job and the military took advantage of what I’d done for them. I went back to check on Uncle Dakota as I could and the last time I did it was to find him being carted off.

“You like to live dangerous,” I told the man who had grabbed me to prevent me from doing damage to the others with him.

Private Haines said, “No ma’am. Not really. I led the med team in. We had a patrol report some injuries … from a bear. We’ll take him with us.”

“Uncle Dakota or the bear?” I asked, not really thinking out that would sound.

He must have been wondering if I was experiencing my own fit of battle fatigue. “Er … ma’am?”

“I’m fine."

A little nervously he said, "Um … and here,” he said, handing me a large bottle of water. “Compliments of my sergeant. He says keep giving the line hell. Contact has been made with our people at the bridges on both sides of the town. They were about to pull back until you caused the distraction.” I snorted at the euphemism. Typical.

Before I could ask a question he added, “It is suggested that you avoid getting to close to the remaining line. With the jammers down, orders are out to strafe their line and then send in the infantry. However …”

Normal Edie wanted to roll her eyes, but Capt. Dunn just wanted him to get on with it.

“There might be something you can help with.”

“Is that a fact?”

“Yes ma’am. A … er … certain female told me if I was to run into you that it would be a fine thing for you to be on the lookout for any escaping leadership and that you didn’t need to use due care with their handling. They aren’t needed for … uh … prosecution. And ma’am … please don’t rat me out, the … um … female in question is … er … and looks like she would be out here herself if not for some damage she took recently.”

“The bear?”

“No ma’am," he said once again giving me a look to see if my marbles were rattling. "Not that recently. But the last day or three.”

“Fine. You delivered your message. Get out of here so I can get back to work without worrying about you."

He nodded and as Haines and the others faded back towards the rear, I made what was an accurate assumption that the “female” was The Woman. Her message wasn’t an order but was information of sorts that she thought I would be able to decode. They had enough on enough of the organizers of Draft Day to not only disable them but take them down as a movement or whatever you want to call them. As a group, they’d lost their protection or protectors. I was welcome to get rid of any escaping roaches as the light was shined on them. If I could get them before they scurried back into the dark and away from the kill zone, there would be none left to procreate and become another infestation.

What her message didn't tell me was whether the attack on Dunnville had anything to do with me personally. I couldn't do anything to change it if it did and it didn’t really matter at that point though I did worry about Winn and the kids because of the possibility.
 
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Kathy in FL

Kathy in FL

Administrator
_______________

Chapter 192​


I suppose at this point I could give out all the details of what I did and to whom. Or at least record them here for a future reveal or even for “posterity” or “historical accuracy”. But I’m not going to. Not even as Capt. Dunn have I ever needed or wanted that kind of recognition, or perhaps it is more honest to call it notoriety. As plain ol’ Edie I certainly don’t want to be known or remembered for what I did that night. But I won’t be sorry for it either. Ever. Refuse to be. It was war. And they were part of the evil that had been rotting the heart of my country. They were also the ones that directly threatened the lives of my family.

Clean up hadn’t been “clean” and I stopped to use some snow to remove as much of the evidence as I could before heading back up the mountain to Winn and the kids. I shouldn’t have bothered because I was about to get dirty all over again.

# # # # #

The smell of the battlefield followed me up the mountain for a ways. They were going to have to rebuild part of Dunnville again, assuming they could find the resources to do it with. This time the dead … the enemy dead … was going to be a problem as well. The dead gangbangers and cartel members had been put carted off by the county to be dealt with in a field located where the old migrant camp had been. That was full, or so I heard, so this time they might just feed the bodies to the energy incinerators. I didn’t care either way and it wasn’t my problem. I just knew that it would bother some people who, despite what they’d been through, still seemed to have the need to be “decent people.” For all I cared they could do it the Medieval way and plant the bodies in a large field and then plow them over to become fertilizer. It made sound gross, was gross if the textbooks described it correctly, but people should get some benefit from being victorious and that didn’t include having to treat the bodies of the fallen enemy with “decency.” There wasn’t anything decent about war and perhaps the reality of becoming “fertilizer” would make some types think before acting.

The smell lessened for which I was grateful but then I smelled it stronger in wafts coming from the wrong direction … ahead of me rather than behind. My Capt. Dunn persona had been melting away allowing me to be just plain ol’ Edie, but at that realization Ice Bitch slammed into me so hard and fast it was painful. So was how my heart was thudding in my chest. Something was wrong. Something was bad wrong.

I stayed to the tree lined path that marked the road as well as the understory of the forest and the overgrowth of the ditches. The weeds and trash always come back before the trees. It is like the Creator gives the animals some advantage when they first come out of their burrows and hidey-holes as winter turns to spring. Stuff to eat and stuff to hide in until the balance of late Spring and early Summer return. The weeds also help to dry out the mess that winter leaves behind.

Up in the mountains though Winter hadn’t quite turned loose though Spring was not far off, but it was further off than down in the Valley where town was. Down in the Valley mud wasn’t the problem it still was on the mountain. And in the mud I saw tracks … boot primarily but there were a set of heavy treaded tires as well. Well until I saw the jeep the tire treads belonged to where it had slid down into a ditch and turned on its side. The reason it was in a ditch is because the driver had lost control … from a previous injury or one that occurred right before or after the wreck I couldn’t tell from my vantage point.

I finally worked my way up and took a closer look. Nothing and no one else was in the jeep when I came abreast of it. No boobies to make it a trap either. No evidence beyond the likelihood that the driver had missed the sharp turn the road made before a washout and hadn’t been able to make the turn in time. Jeep was nose down and on the driver’s side on what would have been the left side of the road, assuming it could have still been called a road. It was little more than a goat track at that point with neither Winn nor I interested in using the tractor to grade it out to make it easier to travel no matter how our few visitors would complain about it. It also told me the Jeep more than likely had been traveling in the dark. It was mid-day, though overcast so no bright sun. Even though the vehicle was in the light, the hood over the engine was dead cold adding to the evidence the accident had happened hours before. I was listening for any out of place sound as I did my investigating.

It looked like they had tried to back out but only gotten stuck worse and then pitched over in the wet and muddy clay. With the driver still belted in, after further thought, I figured someone had gotten PO’d and put a bullet in the driver which explained why his head was the wrong shape and the dash covered in a bloody mess. Bullet came from the passenger rear. Voids in the mess that spread most of the front told me there had been others still in the jeep when the mess had been made.

I continued to listen but didn’t hear any battle sounds … no sounds at all. The forest denizens had hunted their holes back up despite this being prime foraging time. Had to be something significant still happening with the animals so hungry and desperate to fill their bellies. Only total fear and self-preservation would make the animals that quiet under those circumstances.

A few yards further and in addition to the smell of gunpowder and biologicals – stereotypical smells of the battlefield – I smelled smoke. It was acrid which told me it wasn’t just burning forest I smelled, but possibly a building with plastics and rubbers rather than just a clean fire.

I started picking my path even more carefully. Last thing I wanted to happen was to walk into a crossfire. Slowly I realized the fire or whatever it was came from beyond our homesite. I wanted to breathe a sigh of relief but couldn’t. And good thing too as I nearly walked into a booby.

I stopped just in time and didn’t trip it. I heard a strangled off groan from the underbrush, ducked, then crawled around to find something that froze my guts. Not in fear, but in ice cold fury.

“Who are you? What business are you here for?” I hissed with the point of my k-bar ready to take out his uninjured eye.

But he wasn’t going to talk. The strangled groan had been his last gasp and he expired. I nearly cursed.

I was doing my best to control my rage when I heard the nearly soundless short whistle that Winn uses to get my attention when we are hunting. It sounds like a Winter Wren.

I turned to a block of ice until I heard it again and then followed it. My heart nearly seized up.

He was just getting his breath back. “Kids are safe. Whoever they are by-passed the house. Except they left this one to cover their backs and he got … got nosey.”

I took his coat in both fists and pulled Winn into a sitting position and leaned him against a handy tree. “Look at me Edie. I’m okay. Little roughed up but that’s all. He tried to get back to the road to signal those he was waiting on. I … couldn’t let that happen.”

He said he could tell I was in a bad way when the only sound I made sounded like Tug when he’d tangled with something that had teeth and claws and had barely made it back home to be tended and bandaged.

“Babe … we’re all here. Home is still here for you to come back to.”

He knew the words to use and I came back some but, not all the way. Those bastards had just written a check they couldn’t cash.

Winn whispered, “Get me to the house. I’ll be fine. Mostly just fetched up against a stump. I’m bruised … not shot. The blood is his.”

He admitted later he hoped to never see the look in my eyes again. He said my eyes weren’t even the same color they normally are and that my face looked covered in ice.

I got him back to the cabin and inside. Amazingly the kids were sleeping and didn’t wake up. Winn whispered they’d been sleeping off and on ever since I left. I guess it was the Creator making sure they wouldn’t have the nightmares they could have by having them sleep through the worst of their anxiety. Tug was standing watch, and it took him a minute to stop being stiff legged with me. His ruff was standing up and his lip was in a snarl until I told him, “Watch. Guard.”

Once he heard my voice, different though it might have sounded, the dog put his alertness to use and followed me up the stairs after I left Winn resting and doctoring on himself. He admitted his ribs hurt but they’d hurt worse and so had the rest of him.

“I’m fine Babe, just took a tumble where he surprised me by charging. I’d been expecting him to shoot but for whatever reason he took another route. Just go … and do your thing. But when you are finished, come back soonest. You hear? You come back home. We’ll be here waiting. And before you go out, grab a block of that pemmican you made and a canteen. Your lips and face are chapped from the cold.”

That was my Winn. His spandex and cape may have been a little frayed but he was still fit for his duty as a protector. I let him boss me but knew I needed to get out of there before I didn’t want to go even worse than I already didn’t want to. At the stop of the stairs I looked at Tug and again ordered, “Watch. Guard.” And then I added the order to, “Protect.” I watched the dog turn into a wild thing I knew would tear the throat out of anyone that tried to breach the house and I smiled grimly in approval.
 
Kathy in FL

Kathy in FL

Administrator
_______________
Jeepcats27 said:
Sad times but they are making it! Thank you for the new chapter! I hope you are doing better and your family is alright!
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I had the colonoscopy on Monday early. Found a polyp and diverticulosis but nothing else. I'll know before my appointment on the 2nd whether the lab found anything wrong with the polyp. It wasn't big and nothing they found, as far as they have told me thus far, should be giving me the symptoms I am experiencing. That means it is back to the liver or gallbladder. If I don't have a treatment plan before I leave the office on the 2nd I will be looking for a new doctor.

I see the endo on the 1st. If I leave there without a new treatment plan I'll be looking for a new endo as well. Monjourno and Ozempic are out. Not just because of the immediate side effects I experienced (they basically brought my digestive system to a complete and full stop with resulting complications) but I'm not paying $1800+/month for meds that aren't helping.

I've had some great suggestions from people here that I am investigating for personal use. A couple of things seem to be helping but will take longer before I can say with absolute certainty that they will remain part of my personal treatment and lifestyle plan.

My dad ... isn't doing well. He starts treatment for the bladder cancer reoccurrence on the 30th. I appreciate continued prayers for him. I know part of it that he just wants it out of him, the same reaction I've read other cancer sufferers verbalize. His heart issues seem to have improved but his mental acumen is on the fritz more the last two weeks. When he went in for bloodwork he became very confused and didn't know where he was until the nurses called for my mom. From this point forward he won't be getting any medical procedures without my mother there to help stabilize him. It is in his charts.
 
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