Killers By Trade Publishing

Ned K’s War Journal

Chapter 1 “Reminisce”

 Halloween  

I’m sitting in the loft of an old barn somewhere near Tyler Texas. I am travelling east toward Shreveport, Louisiana and I’m really not sure what to expect there. After the Battle of Waco, Karl and I decided to split up and try to find out more information that we could bring back to the tribe. I chose to head east. My best friend used to live in Atlanta, Georgia so I knew the route somewhat. It did me little good because I abandoned the route after I failed to get around the city of Dallas. Dallas is nothing but wreckage. And them. There had been an airburst over Fort Worth and my rad meter started going berserk before I was even out of Waxahachie. I tried negotiating several freeways, but they were nearly all demolished or packed full of destroyed cars and zombies.

 I’m pretty sure a few caught a whiff of my motorcycle or heard it. Even the modified mufflers we had designed still put out enough noise to attract them if they are within line of sight or down wind. Thank God for my dirt bike. It sips fuel and I can scrounge it easily enough. It’s scary as hell driving around with two full gas cans strapped to my gear, but it beats the alternative. It gets me across the countryside and I can weave between the abandoned cars on the road. I found a zombie stuck in a car on I-35. It smashed out the windshield to get after me. When it was halfway out, I lopped off its head with my Kukuri. The damn things are all over the freeways, so I like to use back roads which are usually better. Sometimes you will run up on a cluster, like I did a couple days ago. That’s why I don’t have my bike right now and I’m sitting in a damned barn eating beef jerky and wishing I had more water than I do.

I ran up on a cluster at a truck stop and they mobbed me before I could get the gas in the tank. I had made a DUMBASS mistake. I filled up the reserve cans before topping off the damn tank. I’d broken into the big fuel container and began to hand draw the gas from the tanks, which is kind of slow because those things are deep and the pump I have is manual. Sure enough, before I could even strap on the gas cans or use one to fill my tank, an undead came lumbering around the corner, followed by his whole family. All in all there were about 30 of them. I had just enough gas left in the scooter to get on and haul it about half a mile before I had to ditch it and hide it in the woods. As soon as I get myself together, and I’m sure none of them followed me here, I’m getting out of this barn and getting my bike back.

I’m a geek out of water (almost literally). I hate sitting here in a barn like a jackass, but at least I got some sleep last night. I decided to hang out and wait. Those things move slowly so if you get ahead of them, they may be sniffing you out, but it takes time for them to shuffle up to you. I have a pretty good view from up here and I set some traps so I’ll hear them coming. If there’s just a few, I can pick them off with my scoped/silenced AR-15. If they look like they are going to mob up, I’m just going to plot a course and run like hell.

Even though I have climbed to the hay loft and pulled up the ladder, if they mob around me I’m stuck. If Karl and the guys were here, we could lay out 60 or 70 with ease and leave ’em stacked up like cordwood but now I’m alone. So alone. And I really feel it, too.

I guess before I start crying and fogging up my glasses, I’d better let you know who the hell I am and what has been going on for the past few years.

You can call me Ned K. and 4 years ago I was 19 and going to Community College, hoping to ace some advanced classes and transfer to Texas A&M to be an engineer. I’m a nerd, geek, whatever you want to call me, but I like things like math, typing code and solving puzzles. I also listen to jazz, Hard Bop, not that lame ass Kenny G stuff. This guy Karl got me listening to some punk and heavy metal, but it’s not Coltrane or Miles. If you’d asked me then about zombies, I would have blown you off as a loser. Only losers and fantasy role-playing dorks believe in that shit right?

 I stand a good 5’9” in boots. At the time, I was kinda pudgy. Well. I was fat, but now I’m as thin as a wire thanks to my new diet of whatever I can grow, scavenge or shoot. That’s another thing. If you had told me I would be hunting my food, I would have laughed in your face! Man, I didn’t eat food that moved! If it wasn’t about some Taco Hell or McNasty’s, forget it. What kind of Neanderthal hunts when people kill cows for us and send them to the store? Now I can kill and field dress just about anything so fast, Ted Nugent would turn green with envy. Rat, Cat, Dog, Deer, whatever. If it’s loose, it’s food. I also eat grasshoppers, worms, grubs and plants. My Bible is the U.S. Army FM 21-76 Survival Manual. It even has color pictures so I know not to wipe my ass with poison ivy! Back in Waco the tribe grew food, but more on that later.

 There was a cluster of us that began to congregate at the Student Center before class. There was Karl, this tall, lanky punk rock guy who used to be in the Army. He was 23, older than most of us. Looking at him, you never would have guessed he was ex-military. He never talked about it and didn’t walk around like he had a stick up his ass like most guys who just got out of the Army. His hair was usually in a Mohawk in blue or red and he had some rough looking tattoos all over his arms. He was skinny and wore black jeans and combat boots and shirts that represented whatever band he was into at the time. His breakfast was usually just coffee, black. Actually, as aggressive as punk rock music can be, Karl was one of the most even tempered, laid back guys around.

His girlfriend, Lynn, was nothing like him at all. She was an 18 year old, smoking hot blonde girl who had a twin named Leigh. This invited a lot of comments from people but neither of them seemed to pay it any mind. She dressed like the popular girls at my old high school and in such a setting would not be caught sitting at a table with poor nerdy old Ned. Karl changed all of that. Despite looking like a monster from Hell, Karl had this ability to talk to just about anyone and make them listen. I guess it worked on the twins, especially Lynn. Lynn was about as laid back as a startled cat and Leigh was worse. I saw Lynn get into it with this black girl at the food line and the Campus Police got called in after the two went at it. Leigh found out and they called Waco PD.

There was Wes, who was a stoner and who I predicted would flunk out by the middle of his first semester, as he rarely went to class and was usually peaking from some drug or another. He wore long stringy brown hair, torn up blue jeans and heavy metal t-shirts. He was funny as hell, though, quick with jokes and smartass remarks about people. It made some people want to kick his ass, but after they got used to him, it was hard not to be his friend.

There were others, mostly misfits or guys who just stopped by to hear the silly dialogues that Wes and Karl would get into. That’s how I got hooked in. Plus I got to sit at the table with the freaks and two hot girls for once in my life instead of my old nerdy friends from the physics lab or my fucking professors. Every now and then one of my old high school “friends” would see me and come over. I just played it off, like “Hey man, why don’t you sit down and dine with us?” sometimes they would. Other times, they’d scurry away. I didn’t care. I’d be in the fucking lab on time just like they would, but right now I was pretending to be cool.

And that’s the ironic bit. Karl and Wes actually treated me like I WAS cool and the twins never even thought twice about taking a seat next to the fat nerdy kid? I knew something had to really be wrong in the stars or whatever because this shit just didn’t happen to me.

We were all fine being students. We met for breakfast in the “Stupid Center” as Wes put it. We did our classes (or not, as in Wes’ Case). Then we all headed our separate ways and went home.

For me, that meant my mom’s basement, where I had my little science lab and desk and computer and a lot of other stuff that would never get me laid, but might make me an engineer one day. Mom still made me sandwiches and I still ate them. I think she secretly wondered why I never went out on dates, but was also secretly relieved not to have to deal with that. I did take a girl to the prom in high school and mom nearly had a breakdown. Aaah. My first and last date!

All it took was World War Three, nukes, and zombies to get me a girlfriend. Tina. Then the same war took her away. Sometimes it sucks to be a nerd.

World War 3 started on my best day ever! I had totally smoked a chemistry exam. I had pointed out an error my physics professor made that helped him get closer to solving an unsolvable problem in physics. And that day in the Stupid Center, Karl had asked if I’d go to a punk rock show with him. I know that sounds gay, but it was kind of like the moment in Happy Days when the Fonz saves Ritchie Cunningham’s ass. I just felt like the page had turned for old Ned. I had never, I repeat never listened to punk rock. I had never been to a concert and I had never had a “gang” to hang out with. Now it seems I had one. Karl’s best friend Dave had a band Panzer Wolken and he was talking about how crazy they were on stage. Wes stated he was going to the show and Karl, I’m sure half joking, said “What about you, Ned, you goin’? It’s at the new place near Indian Spring Park, you know, The Basement?”

 As it happened, I had nothing I needed to study for and definitely not a date. Just halfway joking back, I said, “What the Hell, Karl? I’ll go. How much to get in?”

  Instead of looking shocked, Karl looked pleased. “Opening band is at 7 pm and it’s $5 to get in.”

 That’s when Wes grabbed me and put me in a bear hug. “I love you, man!!!” how gay.

 “Get the fuck off me Wes!” I got an arm loose and cracked him in the jaw.

 “Ow!” Wes yelled, “You fucking little dork, don’t break my jaw! I need it for THA LADIES.”

 “Then go hug a lady, you gay ass hippie!” I yelled back. Everyone in the Stupid Center was staring, but by the time I got “gay ass hippie” out, we were all laughing like idiots.

At exactly 6:45, I was at the show.

  Part 2: The Show

I didn’t know how to be “punk” or “metal” or whatever and I sure as hell wasn’t shaving my head. I didn’t even own a black t-shirt. I just put on some jeans, my converse tennis shoes and wore my old fucked up t-shirt that I used to mow the lawn.  My mom asked where I was going and I told her I had late work to do at the lab. I knew if she knew that I was going to a concert where people were drinking, smoking and doing god knows what else we’d fight and ultimately I would win but there would be bad feelings. I got in my pickup and headed into Cameron Park, where there was a road that led either to school or down to Indian Spring Park where the new club was. I knew where it was. Any time a club opened up in Waco that played music, everyone knew where it was because the music scene was that small. As I was told Panzer Wolken, which I looked up and has no real meaning, but literally translates to armored clouds played mostly in Austin and Killeen and had little to do with Waco. The opening bands were Morgatrium and United Stakes, which were local. They were warming up as I showed up in my old Geo Prism, which I referred jokingly as my Pre-Jism, which no one ever understood, except Wes, who wouldn’t shut up about it after that.

The club was called “The Basement” for a reason. It really WAS in a basement, or at least in concrete. Waco had a riverwalk that stood for years unused and in disrepair until a rich guy bought some votes on the city council and opened a restaurant with a bar near Baylor University and the Texas Ranger Museum (much to Baylor’s chagrin). The top of the building was a restaurant but you went through a solid steel vault door and down some stairs and there was “The Basement” which had the bar and stage and an emergency exit to the river walk, which was also a steel door. It was often open during shows unless the AC was running, which luckily for us, it was that day so the door was closed.

The first band was awful. Their music sounded like noise and their singers sounded like two cats fucking. Their drummer included a trashcan as part of his kit but there was little difference between the sound of the trash can and his other hardware. They played for only 30 minutes, luckily because I was ready to go outside.

Then Morgatrium warmed up. They were a little better. Their drummer and bassist were both good. Their singer still sucked and their guitars were always just a couple of cents out of tune which to a jazz listener like me was just enough to annoy. It was during the last of their set that Karl and Dave showed up.

Dave was not quite Karl’s height. Karl stood maybe 6’2” and Dave was a little shorter. Dave was obviously part Indian, but maybe only a quarter. He had the hair and the complexion, but not all of the facial features. His hair was long. I expected it to be shaved like Karl’s. Dave also wore an old Army field jacket and rolled up jeans and spray painted combat boots. The jacket was decorated with actual nails from a hardware store. The boots had golf spikes screwed into the capped toes.

“Hey Dave”. Karl walked over to me as soon as we met eyes. “This is Ned. Ned: Dave. Dave’s been my best friend since we were like 12. He’s singing and playing bass for Panzer.

“cool, “I shot back.  “I hope they are better than these clowns. The first two bands really suck!”

Both of them roared with laughter.

“you poor bastard!” Dave yelled over the music. “Never come to a fucking Waco show while the openers are playing. Every band from here sucks! There was one cool blackmetal band here once but they moved! We just book ‘em to fill time, pay ‘em in beer and roll on. We’ll be on in a few, you’ll see!”

 “Yeah,” added Karl. “They have this ‘suck stock’ music festival every year and the only people who go are people in other bands. There are probably more people here from Austin than Waco. All the punk bands here are fucking Christians, too, would you believe that?”

 “unfortunately, yes.” I said dryly.

 When Panzer took the stage I did notice an immediate change in the audience. They crowded the stage. T-shirt tables went up and people started buying T-shirts and CDs. They roared into their set without as much as an introduction to the audience. A lot of local acts will talk about a bunch of crap before they play, as if taking 20 minutes to set up and tune their gear wasn’t wasting enough time. Panzer had their gear waiting and tuned and came out, picked it up and went to work. Dave, their vocal and bassist, announced a song called “Red Dust” and they tore into it like a dog into a fresh piece of meat. The crowd immediately began to react, pushing and shoving and then flailing arms and crashing into each other like hockey players doing a full body check against the glass at the Stanley Cup. I got knocked around so I stepped out of the “pit” and watched from the back. The band played like it was their last song every song and never stopped to break. They would finish a song, you would hear the name of the next song announced and following a count from the drummer or Dave the new song would begin. Honestly I could hardly tell what they sang about since they screamed so much, but I looked like the audience had memorized every word. It must feel good to play your song and see your fans sing it back. I wish I could play an instrument sometimes. I learned to play the Ar-15 pretty well though (ha ha), it’s more useful than a guitar out here anyway.

I decided I liked Dave, Karl and Panzer Wolken. I even went over to the table and forked over $20 for a T-shirt and a CD. I remember wishing they had a computer on site to download to my media player. What a fucking nerd. It was my first and only heavy metal T-shirt. I decided to wear it to the lab one day and fuck with my nerd friends. Ii wish I had seen that day come but it never did.

We never heard the nuke that hit Fort Worth or Austin, or the one that landed in the ocean near Houston. We were in a concrete basement with the thunder of Panzer Wolken drowning out everything around. I’m sure the ground shook, but it was already shaking inside the Basement that night.

The one they airburst over Fort Hood was a different story. We were 60 miles from there and after doing some research about nukes and the earthquake we felt, the bomb was probable about 10 megatons, which was a lot bigger than the one that hit Austin. Ft. Hood is the Army’s biggest base so it is no surprise they would get the biggest boomer. 

We felt the ground shake violently. People, including Dave and the band fell down. Dave got up and tried to start playing again, but the power went out. Jorge, the drummer was still playing but after a few bars, even he stopped. The emergency lighting came on and there was an eerie green glow to everything. Some people had glow sticks and that just made it weirder.

 There was definitely some confusion among the people, but it got quiet for a second and we started hearing this POP POP POP POP! Outside. With each pop, the ground tremored a little and it sounded like rain began to pour on the building. A bouncer from the club went over to the emergency door and was about to open it when Karl went wild!

He grabbed that bouncer (who was about 250 lbs and had a head shaped like a fire hydrant) and yanked him back so hard that he fell on his ass. The bouncer tried to get up and Karl who probably weighed 60 lbs less than the bouncer hit him right between the eyes with a crowbar.

Where Karl picked up that damn thing, I will never know but he laid the bouncer out.

“DON’T ANY OF YOU TOUCH THAT FUCKING DOOR!” The voice sounded more like a drill sergeant than the cool, laid back Karl we all knew. The people, all 250 or so shut up. Before they could talk again, The Army Karl did. “YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT THAT WAS BUT I DO, IF YOU OPEN THOSE DOORS YOU ARE ALL DEAD! IF YOU WANT TO FUCK ME OFF THEN GO AHEAD AND GO UPSTAIRS AND GET WHAT YOU GOT COMING, BUT ANYONE APPROACHES THIS DOOR I WILL FUCK YOU UP!”

No one did. They just stood there looking stupid for a second. Then someone asked, “Well, what DO we do then? Sit here?”

Karl looked at him like he was the dumbest motherfucker on the planet. “Well, Einstein, we ARE in a bar so why don’t you get yourself a beer and act like you are in a bar?”

“Fuck yeah, dumbass!” It was Wes. He made it, too. “And pass me a fucking joint, somebody. If there was a time to bake it is Now!”

“Drum Solo!” yelled Dave.

“Fuck you.” Said Jorge. “I’m smoking a joint with that guy.”

“You don’t fucking smoke pot!” Dave shot back. “You are the only Mexican I ever met who wouldn’t spark up.”

“that changed about three seconds ago.” Announced Jorge , pointing to Wes. “Pass it, frybaby!”

The bartender was an older gentleman. Heavy set and had a wicked looking white comb-over hairdo. His name was Gerard and that day, he became the coolest guy in the room.

“Listen up!” he shouted. “Karl is right. We all need to sit tight for awhile. You want draft beer, it’s no charge until we run out. Well drinks and bottle beer are $2 and premium shit is regular price. Nobody go out either door until we figure out the next step. We (meaning him and the hot girls he always hired to serve booze) will keep you comfy until then.”

Thinking about it more clearly, it was probably the fact that no one from upstairs had come down after the quake to report on the restaurant that clued Gerard in to the problem.

I walked over to Karl, who was still all steely-eyed and menacing by the exit with his crowbar.

“What is it?” I whispered.

“Well,” he replied. “It isn’t nerve gas because we aren’t doing the Hamster Dance right now, but it could either be a blister agent, like mustard gas but in liquid form or it could have been what is left of Waco falling on our roof, which means we’ve been nuked by a small kiloton device. We called ‘em Tac-Nukes. If it was a terror attack, it could have been a dirty bomb too.”

“how do you know this stuff?”

“Army, guy.” Karl smiled a little, “remember? You know how North Korea, China and Iran just signed articles with Russia and quit the U.N.?”

“Yeah”

“this could be IT. The big one! Or not. But this had a ‘Just Not Right’ feel to it.”

Well. Karl was right after all. I WAS the big one and just how big we would never know.

Part 3: Bring Out the Funk

 The best we can figure out is that there were not one but several attacks of different types. The first was the nuclear exchange. Since there are no foreign soldiers marching around here, we must have attacked pre-emptively and then anyone who had anything aimed anywhere launched shortly after.

Then there were the funk bombs. Karl was right about the chemical warfare. It was pretty easy to guess who used the nukes. Iran, Syria, Russia, Pakistan, India and China all had them that I knew about. The funk bombs are another story. I am still trying to figure out what they are and where they came from. I think they were fired from orbit, because the coverage was so efficient. From unexploded bits we found and pieces of debris, we discovered that they were a kind of canister shot contained in several warheads. Each ball in the canister was the size of a marble and I think they were designed to burst at certain atmospheric pressure, right under the cloud cover. The Warheads, I think were laser guided and we never found any serious propulsion system pieces, so that’s why I think they were fired from space. They were clearly pointed at certain cities and towns and I think their purpose was population control. The marbles burst and let out a gas that foamed up like insulation foam as soon as it hit the air. While it was still “wet” it blanketed everything beneath with the gooey foam that we started calling “funk”. If it touched your skin, you were through. It melted you on the spot. In a violent, extremely painful minute of your life you were reduced to a brown puddle on the ground. That puddle was biodegradable and in a day, you would be part of the dirt where you were standing, or washed away with the rain.

The foam stayed active for a good 48 hours, which we learned after a couple of people tried to leave the club. It was an ugly sight. After about 16 hours, the beer had run dry, as well as the liquor and water service to the club had stopped. Some people decided to leave and Karl had been replaced on door guard by the bouncers. Gerard agreed to let people out who wanted to go and opened the door.

It was about 1pm and the light poured in when the door was opened. Out on the cement riverwalk there were green blobs and brown puddles. An attractive red-haired girl walked out with the 20 or so who wanted to leave. She slipped in a puddle and fell ass first into the funk.

Her deliquescence was so horrifying that I would almost rather kill myself than describe it to you. As soon as it got through to her skin, it ate her and the alluviating brown began to replace what was once an attractive girl. This caused a panic and people began to scream and run in every direction, causing more accidents and boiling human flesh. That stuff was bad. It never stopped until it ran out of tissue to dissolve. Karl and the bouncer named Paul (the one he had beaned with the crowbar) looked at each other, then ran, and together, shut the door again. Paul hugged Karl and started to cry. Karl obviously didn’t like it but put up no resistance. He knew why the 250lb Paul was crying.

There were now fewer than 200 people in the bar.  People ran right down the riverwalk into the stuff. They pushed each other into it. Some even jumped in the river, but guess what? Yep. You’re right. Funk floats and soon they did too, as an oil slick. I can only hope they drowned before being rendered into grease. Probably not. Originally, we thought the funk had something to do with the zombies, but that was not the case.

Over the rest of the day, we waited, occasionally opening the door to check and watched as the funk dissolved into gel and then into liquid. By the next morning, it resembled algae on the concrete. Karl found a stick and went out and poked at it. It broke off in a crust. Karl took out a pocket knife and cut off a lock of his hair. He threw the hair onto the scum and nothing happened. It just sat there and then blew away with a gust of wind. Karl went back to the bar and got a glass of bottled water. He threw the glass into a big pile of the algae and it broke. The stuff didn’t reconstitute, it just absorbed the water like dirt would and became moist. He tried the hair test again and nothing happened. We all came to the conclusion that the stuff was designed for single use.

The funk bombs, in my scientific opinion, were designed to work like a neutron bomb. They cleaned out the town so the occupying army could take over and wash away the would-be resistance with a water hose. Once we got water service back, that’s exactly what WE did. But where was the occupying army?

 We noticed quickly that all cell phones were toast and no radio was coming in from anywhere. The internet was down as well as the power grid. Later we did some tests and found that we could get some AM Radio bands to operate but not for more than 50 miles or so. We even tried HAM radio and nothing that used the airwaves would work. That was the third attack. I still haven’t been able to get to a place where I could use anything more than a walkie-talkie or CB for any reliable distance. Someone did something that screwed up the atmosphere. It could be the nukes although I think long term, that would have been over by now. The radioactive decay was actually a lot faster than we expected in the hot areas. So long term EMP effects should have already diminished. Maybe so many nukes getting dropped at once permanently altered the environment. I doubt this, too because the winters and weather in general really never changed like people expected it to. Somehow I suspect there are some satellites still up there watching us all and waiting while they jam our signals, following some final command of an official who is now long dead.

Part 4: The Battle of Waco

 The Fourth War culminated in what I called “the Battle of Waco”. It embodied all of humanity doing its best to shit all over itself. The entire city almost burned to the ground in the process and at the end of it all a town of 100,000 people had been reduced to fewer than 200 (or so we believed), all huddled in a former warehouse, surrounded by our pathetic creations designed to help us all cheat death for another day, month or winter. How Karl and is posse became de facto leader of that rabble is still a long story of both human potential and stupid luck.

 We had started to spread out a little after the funk attack and check out what had happened to the rest of the world. Inside the basement was a barely controlled chaos. There was weeping and screaming, threats of violence and drunks swaggering about, having drank themselves sober on all the beer left in the bar. Karl and the bouncer he had cold-cocked with the crowbar had become friends. His name was Paul and apparently, he was ex-military, too. He credited Karl with saving his life and the two, along with the third bouncer, Manuel, who was a 6’4” Mexican who talked more like a “Bubba” from East Texas than a Mexican did their best to keep the crowds in check. Lyn had made it to the club, but not her sister and she was worried. Dave and Panzer Wolken also helped organize people and do their best to keep things under control.

 The restaurant upstairs was a total loss. The earthquake had shattered the windows and let the funk come raining in. The scene was horrifying, just the reek of what was left of those touched by the funk and the crusted remains. The only good news was that the stuff had worked so efficiently, that there were no bodies to clean up.

 There was still one big problem, which was no water. The city water was turned off and let’s just says drinking out of the Brazos River would have been a poor choice.

 “All right!” Karl announced. “I need to get some guys together. I need a team to check out what’s going on in the city and one to try and find a reliable water source. I need volunteers, but I need people who will come back. If you want to just leave and try to go it alone, now is the time. After this, we are all a team here.”

“You’re the leader, I guess?” It was Frank, the drummer from United Stakes. “Fuck that.”

“Fine.” Karl stared directly at him. “Then you may leave. Gerard?”

“Karl’s right.” Gerard leaned across the bar. “This is my bar and I just appointed Karl as head of security. “Anyone who doesn’t want to cooperate with him can leave right now. We don’t yet know if this is a war, a terrorist attack or some kind of accident, but whatever it is, we can’t afford any loose cannons on deck. If you want to be a rebel, that’s fine, just do it at someone else’s bar.”

 A pretty punk rock girl whose hair was dyed blue and her eye makeup streaked from crying spoke up. “I just want to go home and get my mom and brother.” She wiped her eyes. “Can I get them and come back?” There were several nods from others who were wondering how their family had fared in the attack. I saw Wes blow smoke through his nose and wag his head. I knew exactly what hat gesture was. It was compassion, but it was an emotion weighed down by the knowledge that he knew what they would find if they went home.

 “Look,” Lynn stepped in. “I promise you, we will go to each and every one of your homes and help you find your families, in fact, I’ll be in charge of that mission. Any problem there, Stormin’ Norman?” she shot a look at Karl, her green eyes set like lasers.

 “No ma’am.” Karl smirked. I liked seeing that. It was the Karl from school, being cool again. “Take charge, Captain!” He stood up straight and gave a military salute.

 “Good.” Lynn continued. “But first, we need to know what is in between your families’ houses and this bar. That’s where Karl comes in. I believe he asked for volunteers?”

The crowd muttered and murmured for a second. Wes stood up, followed by Jorge.

“I’ll go.” Wes said.

“You straight enough?” Karl squinted his eyes at Wes. Can’t have you draggin ass on us.”

“Man, my buzz is fucking shot.” Said Wes.

“Same here,” said Jorge. “They don’t make enough chronic to float my ass away from this fuckin nightmare.”

“Wes, Jorge, Dave and let’s see…Ned.” Karl pointed out; you guys head out toward the H.E.B. store on 12^th and Speight Avenue and see what’s going on in the city. Try to stay out of sight and get any information you can. Get any water you can find and haul it back by any means necessary. Don’t let anyone know about this place. From above it looks like the place is destroyed and it may pay off for us as long as no one knows we are here.”

“What exactly are you afraid of?” I asked. He was really sounding paranoid.

“Look.” Karl said, “People panic and do fucked up shit. That brings us to group number two. Who here has any weapons?”

“I got Rodney”, Paul the bouncer pulled a large, ugly wooden club from behind the bar. It looked like something a cave man would use. Manuel and a couple of guys had knives.

“Hey Dave!”  Kenny the lead guitarist from Panzer Wolken spoke up. “What about the ‘desperado?’”

“Right!” Dave grinned. He opened a guitar case and pulled out chrome, double barreled shotgun and a bandolier of shells. “Totally forgot! We keep this while we’re on the road for defense.”

“Damn!” said Karl. “I have a .45 pistol but I need to get to my car and it is parked all the fuckin way over by the Ranger museum. Assuming it is still there and hasn’t been looted. Paul and Manuel you hold down the fort here and protect these people. I’m taking Kenny and Brian (Morgatrium’s singer) and we are going up toward Austin Avenue. I have a contingency plan.

As we exited the club, there was nothing around but desolation. There were no cars running and everything was quiet. Cars were even stopped on I-35, which would have normally been full of activity. Most of the cars had windows broken out or doors were open and there were crusts of brown goo nearby. There wasn’t even a bird singing and all the grass was dead. I expected throngs of people when we left the riverwalk and started across the campus of Baylor University. Everything around was dead. Puddles on the ground testified to the wrath of the funk bombs. Just as Karl had ordered, we stayed out of sight anyway. Dave had the shotgun slung under his jacket and we all kept our heads down.

As we neared the corner of 5^th street and Dutton, we saw a guy and a girl trying to start a vehicle. The vehicle was an old 1960s model Ford truck. The hood was up and the girl, a short, petite little thing with shoulder length black hair was in the driver seat and the guy, a tall, lanky red neck with red hair, Wranglers and a “wife beater” undershirt on was under the hood.

“Hi there!” shouted Dave. “Car trouble?”

I looked at Dave all crazy. We were not supposed to talk to anyone. The redneck guy jerked up so fast his head hit the hood of the truck. He whirled around quickly, brandishing a shiny revolver.

“Back off!” he yelled. “I’ll turn your head into a canoe!”

“We don’t want to fight!” I yelled back.

“Then turn around!” yelled the redneck.

“Wait!” The girl jumped out of the truck and ran toward us.

“shit.” The redneck grimaced, but he lowered the revolver. The girl had gotten between him and us.

Dave uncovered the shotgun and as the girl came near, she froze. Dave pulled her toward him.

“OK, cowboy.” Dave hollered while pulling the girl close. “Drop the pistol or I’ll turn your head into a donut.”

The cowboy dropped the pistol. Wes and Jorge started laughing at the donut remark.

Dave immediately released the girl and lowered the shotgun. “Hey cowboy!  We don’t want to fight. We’re just looking for water. You and the girl can go in peace if you want, but we were hoping that truck would start and you could get us across campus. If you help us get water, we can get you both to a safer place.

The cowboy was chagrined and still irritated at the girl but nodded his head. “Well, since we’re all buddies now, maybe you can help me. Not a fuckin car with a computer in it will work. I’m thinkin’ this here truck will work, though. It’s old, so everything is mechanical and I think the hard wiring is still good. I think the battery is dead.”

“Dude!” Wes chimed in. “What if all the batteries are just drained, but maybe a little charge is left?”

“Daisy chain?” the redneck grinned.

We spent the next 30 minutes smashing our way into cars and taking the batteries and then wiring them all in parallel to the truck. Sure enough, the combined juice was enough for a jump start and the ford small block V-8 rumbled to life.

“Now.” Said the cowboy, whose real name was Alfred, “Let’s go to the sto’ and get us a co-beer!”

As it turns out, Ashley (the cute brunette) and Alfred met by chance. Both had been in the Baylor dorms. Alfred, who was at a men’s dorm for a party was in the bathroom when it hit and Ashley, who lived in the dorm nearby was doing laundry in a room with no windows.

Ashley didn’t talk much and seemed to be in the shell-shocked state that prevailed over most of the people back at the basement. She must have seen some hellish sights, trapped in the dorms while people panicked. Alfred was visibly shaken but doing his best to “cowboy up” and make the best of it all.

“Everyone in my dorm was dead except a couple of guys, but they wouldn’t come out of their room, even after we lost water.” Said Alfred. “It was weird but after that stuff dried up, I went to every building trying to find people. I couldn’t stand it, being alone in such an unnatural state. I found her (indicating Ashley) hiding in a laundry room. She didn’t want to come out, but I finally convinced her. She ain’t much for conversation, though and she’s good at almost getting’ a man shot, too.”

The H.E.B. at 12^th and Speight was messed up but there were 20 or 30 people pillaging when we arrived. Most of them were blacks from the surrounding neighborhoods, probably just wanting the same thing we did. There was a problem, though. They could easily overwhelm us if we tried to interfere.

“I got this.” Said Alfred. He stomped the gas and drove the truck right over the curb and through the glass window of the store where the automatic doors were. He fired his pistol out the window once we came to a stop inside. Dave seemed to catch on. He dove from the truck and let loose a blast with the shotgun.

“GET THA FUCK OUT!” Yelled Dave, brandishing the shotgun. The people complied. Every person in the building dropped what they had and made a break for the opposite entrance. No one even tried to resist. They knew they were looting and weren’t supposed to be there. We just gave them a reason to listen to their conscience. Now it was our turn to loot. Hopefully a bigger fish wouldn’t show up to the pond.

None did and in about 15 minutes, we had a truckload of water, canned and dried food and all the beer that was left in the store. We grabbed enough produce and cold cuts to feed everyone in the club for a good feast when we got back.

Our good fortune was interrupted by a rifle shot. The crowd had dispersed but then ran home and armed themselves. Several had bricks, bats and knives and a couple were armed with guns. One guy was pointing a rifle toward the store and another was running our way, brandishing a pistol, a crowd following behind him. We had really stirred it up.

“Time to leave!” shouted Jorge and we all piled into the truck, except Dave who laid down in the back, nestling himself between several cases of beer and readying the shotgun.

“Go out the other exit!” I screamed at Alfred, who had taken the wheel. I held Alfred’s pistol and was jammed between Jorge, Wes, and the passenger side door.

Poor Ashley was on the floor boards practically under foot.

“Shit, man.” Said Jorge. “I thought you had to be Mexican to get this many people in a truck to go grocery shopping. As the crowed stormed the entrance we crashed before, we plowed over displays and crashed out the other. Dave cut loose with the shotgun and they all hit the ground. The rifle guy was about to draw a bead on us when Alfred veered hard through the parking lot and charged straight for him. The guy never saw it coming. He was so busy trying to shoot, he forgot to dodge. He took the full force of the pickup and sprawled to the ground.

“Yeeeehaaah!” Alfred jumped from the still moving truck, hit the ground running, scooped up the guy’s rifle and jumped right back into the driver seat! He then floored it and we were gone, beer cans and pieces of fruit, bouncing along behind us.

We thought we had it made as we tore down Speight Avenue, but we were wrong. An old Chevy Caprice suddenly pulled off of 8^th street, right onto our tail. Inside were five black men in white bandannas with hoods over their heads and sunglasses. One of them leaned out the window. He had an AK-47 assault rifle. All of our asses puckered at once. The guy with the AK started shooting without even aiming. Stuff started popping all on my side of the truck. He was hitting walls, nearby trash cans and thank God everything else but me. I just ducked. There was no way I was going to get this guy with Alfred’s six gun. Dave popped up from between the beer cases in the bed of the truck and fired both barrels of the shotgun. The guy with the AK must have been hit because he rocked back and then slumped back into the car. Another man climbed out of the driver side window. He held what looked like a MAC-10 or MAC-11.

I lost sight of our pursuers for a moment when Alfred suddenly jerked the truck to the right. I hit my head on the dash, Jorge hit his head on my head and all of us hit Ashley with our boots and shoes at once. I heard a “Fuck!” from under the dash. Then I heard the crash. I had been looking back at the gangsters in the Chevy but Alfred had been watching the road. The guys in the Caprice couldn’t see the giant hole cut into the blacktop by city workers that we were approaching, but Alfred could. He veered at the last minute and the Caprice full of heavily armed thugs hit that hole at 40 miles per hour. When I finally got my bearings, I looked and their car was nose-down in the hole and on fire. The man with the MAC-10 was crushed between steel and asphalt. Alfred hit the brakes.

“Gimme that gun, boy!”  Alfred put out his hand. I just handed him the weapon, no questions. “C’mon Dave! Cowboy Up!”

“Yee-fuckin-haw” Dave jumped the tailgate, shotgun in hand. They rushed the car, with me, Jorge and Wes in pursuit. I don’t know what I ran for. I wasn’t much of a fighter, then. I had all the street smarts of a Lemming. It was of no consequence, though, all five passengers were either dead or wounded so badly they were unconscious. The hood was on fire and we scrambled to get their weapons and any ammo they had. We got the AK and the MAC-10, a couple of hi-point 9mm pistols, a bat and a little bit of ammunition.

As we were leaving, I heard someone cry for help. The thug in the middle of the back seat was still alive and trying to get loose.

“Help!” he cried. “Lord, don’t let me burn up in here! Please help!”

Alfred and Dave looked at each other and then looked at me.

“It wouldn’t be right to let him burn.” I said.

“Fuck that nigger.” Alfred spat. “Five seconds ago he was trying to kill us.”

Alfred was a fucking redneck asshole but he was right about the killing part. Those guys would have left us, or hell, just burned us for fun. I’ve seen videos of people in West Africa being burned with tires around their body. Not too hard to imagine that here too.

Dave scowled, walked over, put the shotgun through the window and fired. The crying man went silent.

That’s when I knew we were in a war. We had enemies now. We had started to become “Us” and we now had a “them” to fight against. The drive back to the basement was somber and silent.

The only joy came when the remnants left in the club saw all the food, water and beer. I could smile a little then. That black man in the burning car still haunts my dreams sometimes. Could he have joined us? Or would he simply end up reporting us back to his homeys and try to wipe us out?

When we got back to the club we had made sure no one was following us. Karl had made it back, too. His ’66 Plymouth Sport Fury was parked outside in all its primer-grey glory. We parked Alfred’s truck next to it, but at a weird angle so it would look as if the cars were stopped there at random. Karl was sitting at the bar sipping a Newcastle and the people were chatting idly. The crying had stopped and even Frank had stuck around. Lynn was in the middle of a group of girls talking. Knowing her she was running the conversation. The blue-haired punk girl, Leah was not crying and had wiped off her smudged makeup. All down the bar there were weapons and boxes of ammunition. Paul and Manuel were both armed with AK-47s now.

“Who’s the new recruits?” asked Karl.

“Alfred and Ashley” I said. We found them trying to start and old truck inside Baylor.

“We brought food.” Said Wes.

“And Cerveza!” said Jorge.

Lynn dispatched the women, who were more than glad to help load in the food.

“We hit a snag on the way.” Dave announced. “We were raiding an H.E.B. and got bushwhacked. We ran off a bunch of looters but they armed up and came back. Then we had some O-Dogs after us in a Caprice. We fucked them up, thanks to some smooth driving by our cowboy friend here and got their weapons. I wish we could have got the car but we were outgunned big-time. You were right. We are in an arms race with the scum and the cavalry ain’t coming. There are neighborhoods of desperate people ready to do anything to survive.”

I remember wondering how many survivalist whackos were holing up outside of town, waiting to roll in with armored vehicles.

“We did great!” said Kenny.

“We hit New York Pawn down the street.” Said Karl. “Totally dead. All we did was break in from the back and take what we wanted. We have a generator, a couple of bulletproof vests and lots of guns. I just stuck to the military stuff. I got 4 AKs, 4 AR-15s in different configurations, a Mini-14 with a detachable scope, a pile of Glocks in 9mm and .45 and a couple more 1911 pistols. I even grabbed some sweet custom grips for mine. I left the revolvers and all the .40 cals and other stuff. They had crates of 9mm, .45, .223 and 7.62x39 but not enough of the other stuff and we had limited space. I really wanted that generator.”

“Any .357?” asked Alfred. “I’m kind of attached to this old Security Six.”

“Sorry, man.” Said Karl. “Looks like you’ll have to settle for an automatic until we hit another place.”

“Gimme that Kimber, then.” Said Alfred. “Them plastic Glocks ain’t for me. I’m surprised to kept that Springfield and didn’t swap for the Kimber, yourself.”

“I’m attached to ‘er.” Shrugged Karl. “She was my first.”

“I hear ya, bub.”

We had a barbecue on the riverwalk once everyone got settled down. We had beans and steak with onions, jalapeños and potato salad with a big juicy brisket roasting in an ersatz barbecue pit. There were 50 or so happy, well-fed people that night and we were hungry. I never realized how hungry until I smelled that barbecue. We all worked in shifts guarding the facility while the festivities took place. I thought I heard some small arms fire, but it was far away.

Once everyone was happy and full of beer and barbecue, we all sat around the Basement and Karl took the stage.

“Just as Lynn promised, some of you are going out to find your folks tomorrow.”

There was a cheer from several people. “But…and this is a big butt. You will be under an armed escort. Ned and his team got attacked by armed gangs on their trip. What we are in is worse than a war. It’s called anarchy. Everyone is grabbing for everything they can get and the guy with the smartest army runs the show. Let’s be smart. I got people too, and Lynn has a twin sister that is out there somewhere but we can’t let our emotions put us in danger. We have the Basement, for now, but not forever. At some point, we will need a plan B and a plan C and maybe by then the Army will show up and bring this mess to a halt. I’m afraid the Army may be too busy for a shithole like Waco for now.”

“That ain’t no shit.” Said Frank. Karl glared at him.

Karl resumed. “Lynn will take one girl at a time, maybe two if you’re from the same part of town in my car. Alfred will drive. OK, Alfred?”

“I’m your huckleberry.” Said Alfred.

“Dave, you get to ride shotgun. You seem to be pretty handy with that old double barrel, but you may want to swap for one of those AKs or that nice Remington 870 I borrowed from the pawn shop. I, Ned, Wes and Jorge will take Alfred’s truck and we are going to try to accomplish several things. One, we need to get the water back on, two, we need a better home base, a more defensible location to hole up and three, we will continue to get supplies, like vehicles.”

“What do you want the rest of us to do?” One former concertgoer stood up.

“You have to protect this place. Your job is more important than all the others. We will build bunkers in the restaurant and out on the riverwalk where you can post guard. Anyone who knows how to use a weapon will post guard and rotate in shifts. Everyone else will stay busy organizing supplies so that if we have to leave in a hurry, we can. If things get ugly we’re going to want a better option than just jumping into the river and swimming.”

That part of his speech gave me the idea to get a boat, just in case we did need to swim.

Karl was the man in those days. It was almost like he had prepared his whole life to run that show. Who would think a gaggle of nerds, headbangers, shitkickers, and punks would make a well-regulated militia, but we did. We even had a uniform, so to speak. Karl later grabbed a bunch of urban camouflage clothes. He told us we didn’t have to wear it but it really wasn’t a bad idea. I usually just wore the pants and my Panzer Wolken t-shirt. Most of us had something similar going on.

Lynn’s missions to find family members turned out to be disastrous, not in terms of being attacked which did happen a few times, but in terms of psychological destruction. They would load up, drive out and visit a home to find corpses, brown puddles, or houses and bodies scorched by fires. The fires were breaking out all over because of gas left on, unsafe storage of flammables and fires left burning for other reasons, like arson People were burning houses and buildings for reasons we didn’t know.  The fires were really starting to worry us too.  The water wasn’t on and we had no way to fight the fires. All we could do was let them burn out. After 10 missions, Lynn announced that she couldn’t escort anyone else personally. No one challenged her. Two of the people from the club had opted to stay in their old houses rather than come back. I don’t know what happened to them. One girl took a Glock and went outside the club and shot herself in the head. Leah had gone to find her mother and brother found them both shot to death. Both had been raped in some fashion, or so it appeared. Apparently some sick fucks had survived and were running rampant.

When I heard, again, my thoughts went to Africa and stories of rape gangs and rebel armies abducting and brainwashing children to make them into soldiers. No one I had gone to school with was ready for that to come to our shores. The sick fucks out there were praying for it to happen. I heard people like that referred to as “violence geeks”. Personally, on behalf of geeks everywhere I find that term insulting. I think Sick Fuck is much better. Just like Alfred’s racial predilections came out when we were attacked by those “O-Dawgs”. My hate and ugliness comes out in the face of violence like that. I once had the chance to deal with one of them. I might write about it later. Maybe not. I’m not proud of what I did.

Leah took the helm from Lynn, who never went to her own home to look for her twin. I think she knew. Twins are funny like that. Leigh was not gone completely, though. I’ll tell that story later. Leah, who had seen probably the worst of any of us, led the last few missions to find family.

Soon there wasn’t time for that. All of our focus was on fighting for our lives. We had scored some pretty good spots. There was a former Sears’s repair shop on 18^th and Waco drive that had held several businesses and directly across the street there was a home/storefront combo on a lot with an abandoned nursing home. We grabbed up all of it, boarded it up, fenced it in and turned it into a series of fortresses. We deliberately razed other nearby buildings and used the salvageable lumber to build makeshift towers on top so that we could see for blocks around. We still had the basement and we had a stone house in Cameron Park where we could walk to a cliff and look out over the entire Bosque River. We had walkie-talkies and were managing to pick up a few stragglers here and there. We had taken the National Guard Armory over on Lake Air Blvd. that yielded a pile of M-16 rifles with full-auto capability and a couple of machine guns. Karl taught Paul and Manuel to use the machineguns and we got a couple of M-203 grenade launchers and several fragmentation grenades.

The problem is we weren’t the only ones. We had the forethought to pick up scanners and started to monitor traffic. Matt and I both were used to scanners and liked to spy on the police and listen to peoples’ dirty phone calls before the war. Now we had a new job to do.

As it turned out, Matt and I both had a knack for spying. We had made a trip into Robinson and raided a shop called the Gizmo Guru where they had a lot of spy gear, stun guns and paintball supplies. That’s also where we picked up “Elvis”, who was the owner of the shop. His real name wasn’t Elvis, but he looked like the latter day pictures of Elvis with the sideburns and all. I think he may have been a white supremist, but I never managed to confirm that. We had a good stock of scanners. Learning this, Karl made is the de-facto intelligence officers and sent us out on spying missions. It was dangerous as Hell but it meant we didn’t have to spend all damn day in the sun, swinging a hammer or pouring concrete or worse yet, doing corpse duty and pulling dead bodies out of houses and burying them in mass graves we constructed in the park. Yecch! We, with the help of Elvis, fixed up equipment and took it to the streets. We had bugs and cameras in several key places and once we found some old TVs that would still work, we could see parts of Highway 84, highway 6 and I-35. That is what cued us in to the fact that there were other groups forming and branching out. The worst of them were the O-Dawgs, the same bunch we got into the firefight with when we raided that grocery store.

The O-Dawgs were a constant problem. They were well organized and anytime we tried to operate in South or East Waco, we met with armed resistance. Their tactic was to subdue and recruit all of the neighborhoods they crossed. Any white people they found, they killed. The black people were either forced to serve the gang or killed as well. They did have a Mexican contingent in South Waco, but there was some infighting there and I’ve never been sure if that worked out. We caught a couple of black families on the run and welcomed them into our group. Usually, though, by the time the O-Dawgs were done, most black people we met were so terrified of anyone they saw, they just ran and hid. Unlike the O-Dawgs, we let the people who survived in our area do their own thing. If they came to us for help, though, we gave them the ultimatum. They could work for us or go back home and go it alone. I always thought that was a fair deal, but occasionally a small group would try to force themselves on us. That didn’t work out for them too well. We would meet “survivalist” types or people “on a mission from God”, but by that time our group dynamic was so strong, they either were turned away or had to bite their tongues and assimilate.

The O-Dawgs had none of that. If they took your neighborhood, you soldiered for them or they shot you in the head, or worse? Remember my rant about Africa? Well we saw some black smoke from time to time coming from the O-Dawg camp.

The O-Dawgs were not stupid men. They were highly organized and had begun to amass the same types of equipment we had. Their center was Baylor University and East Waco, across the Brazos River. They used the Washington Street Bridge and I-35, which was a big problem for us. The Basement was right in the middle of all that shit so travelling there was proving exceedingly difficult. If the basement hadn’t been completely covered by the rubble of the restaurant, we never could have accessed it. It went from being our home base, to my and Matt’s scouting point where we would listen to scanners and watch the O-Dawgs. There was also the Alico Building, where we climbed to the top and used a telescope to watch the city.

It was through our spying that we learned of the true depth of the horror. There were people coming in from the north. They were refugees from Dallas, Hillsboro, Waxahachie and all the little towns north of us on I-35. The O-Dawgs had that area locked down. They had ambushes set up all along 35 and the service road where they would plant bombs, shoot and kidnap people. I’m not sure what they did with the people they kidnapped, but I have a good imagination.

They were also tagging out areas, spreading out past 35 and were drawing in closer to Waco Drive. They started posting sentries and attacking people who came through. The sentry would radio when they saw someone come through and a “gunship”, an armored car full of armed men would come peeling around the corner and take them out. They marked the areas with graffiti and the graffiti’d areas were getting closer and closer.

The skirmishes were becoming more common. We knew they were afraid of us. They must have been shocked by the flaming car they found after our first run-in. Of course, even in a shitty, torn up world rumors travel fast. If someone were to see one of our teams rake some enemies with full auto gunfire, it would get back to the people who needed to know. They had to be gathering Intel just like we were. We finally, lost a couple of guys, Brian and another guy whose name I don’t remember. They got ambushed down by 18^th and Franklin. They were trying to get a truck from a nearby auto parts store, when they were ambushed but a gunship. They had an AK-47 and so did our team, so it was a murderous fight. Frank, who it turned out, was good at stealing cars made it back with one of our vans and a ford Ranger pickup driven by Brian, who despite being hit several times, drove the truck back. The other guy was left at the scene and I was dispatched later with Karl to recover his body. It had been taken, presumably by the enemy. We decided that was too close for comfort. It was time to take down the O-Dawgs, or at least drive them back into East Waco. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be too late. All I knew is that it was going to be all-out war.

After the skirmish, we knew they would be expecting retaliation, so we waited. We had chewed them up badly as well, but having driven us back, we were confident they wouldn’t attack. This is not to say the planning didn’t start.

Karl, I, Dave, Matt, Wes, Lynn and Paul all go together in one of the empty rooms around a collapsible table. This was the War Room, so to speak. We all considered each other the core of the group, which, since the start of the war had expanded around us. We recounted that there were probably 50 in the group who could reliably operate a weapon of some type. The M-16 and AK are actually very easy to train. The AK, very much so. We started people off with paintball guns to get them used to the idea of shooting at moving targets. Anyone over 13 was allowed to play paintball. We decided 17 was the cutoff age for real weapons, though. We usually gave them an AK or SKS first, because you could train someone to shoot it, break it down, clean it and put it all back together in one day. Those who showed skill we would give a 16 and take the time to train them on shooting and field stripping. M-16s are the mother of pain in the ass to clean and keep functioning. That was probably a reason Karl kept his Mini-14, instead of taking advantage of the M-16A1s or A2s we found.

There were another 50 people or so who were there, but not as reliable or able-bodied. Women, a few children and young teens and a few old geezers who had the horse sense not to play in the funk when it dropped. Not to diminish the geezers. Some of those old bastards could shoot and knew a thing or two about war. They compared the O’s to the “Gooks” or the “Charlie’s” of the old days. Naturally, we gave any who were able some weapons.

 It was one of the geezers, in fact, a guy named Hopkins, who gave Karl the idea for our attack. Hopkins was a Marine in Viet Nam and though he moved like a turtle now in his old age, he hadn’t lost his wit and I’d still be afraid of him if he had a rifle pointed at me because I knew that geezer would drop me and use my body as a sand bag. He wanted an M-14, but he settled for an M-16A2 and a .45. Not a Glock, mind you, he wanted a 1911GI just like Karl’s. He got one.

We knew fighting in Waco was going to be ugly. There are so many packed in little side streets and alleys, you could chase people around for months and never find them all. We decided to use this to our advantage. We knew the O’s could cross the river via Waco Drive, Herring Ave. The Washington Ave. Bridge (which they more or less controlled anyway), I-35, and LaSalle Ave. Karl had us get some of the big diesel trucks and bulldozers and start barricading the ends of the bridges with piles of defunct cars, house wreckage and other debris. The O’s were on the other side watching us work, but they didn’t shoot. They did yell some insults from time to time and when we moved to the Washington Ave Bridge, they began to gather so we beat a hasty retreat. They held areas on both sides of that bridge now, but that didn’t matter to us. We couldn’t barricade I-35 so we left it alone.

At the same time, Matt and Alfred were taking working cars and towing non working cars to barricade Waco Drive, starting at 25^th street and all the side streets facing Waco Drive, blocking the road so that no vehicle could get through, only someone on foot. All those cars we had painted red, that wouldn’t move. We did the same thing all the way out to 13^th street in the other direction. This would make it much harder for gunships to get through. We also blocked 4^th and 5^th streets past Bosque Blvd since that was a major escape route to our safe house in Cameron Park.

We already had huge debris walls that surrounded our complex on 19^th, 17^th and Fort Ave. extending all the way across Waco Drive. That made it so anyone arriving at our location had to use 18^th street to get in and we had running school buses with steel over the windows that we used as mobile gates. All of the windows were covered in wood and sheet metal, but had gun ports notched into them. Since we knew of an existing threat from the beginning we were ready to be attacked at any time. We had also pumped all of the gas out of the nearby gas station and the entire diesel, too and stashed it in an undisclosed location. It was all in 55 gallon barrels in the basement of a church over on Sanger Avenue, and we always had one guard there with an emergency radio.

The attack was pure genius. I will tell it as it happened from my point of view and then try to explain what all happened. On a Saturday night, Matt, Manuel and I got our orders. We were to take one of the machineguns, a SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon), our own rifles and pistols and a ton of C-4 plastic explosive and sticks of dynamite and get it into our boat. It was a bad ass, little ski boat that we used to trek the river sometimes, but we had painted it black and rigged up a quiet motor so we could travel back and forth from The Basement and a wooded area near Cameron Park undetected. We also had some tear gas grenades we had liberated from the police station and some military HC (Heavy Cloud) smoke grenades. The little boat was loaded down, but we managed to putt along to each bridge from Herring avenue, north of us to the big suspension bridge by Indian Spring Park and rig every one with enough Dynamite, TNT or C-4 to blow it up. It ended up taking several trips up and down and we ended up having to go ashore at Indian Spring and haul 55gallon barrels of ammonium nitrate explosive up a hill to rig the Suspension bridge. That was scary. Literally 100 feet away from us were O Patrols sitting in a gunship. One loud noise would have ruined everything. They also had taken the Hilton so we had no way of knowing if we were under surveillance from above.

We finally made it to the Basement at about 4 in the morning and loaded in, stashing the boat under some rubble and camo netting like we always did. We hit the sack, listening to the scanner and taking turns at guard. None of us really slept, though. Absolute Radio discipline was always in effect in our camp and only core members usually carried them. Not so with the O’s they chattered like Parrots over there. That’s how we got the name “Metal Militia” or “Double M’s”. Matt and I heard two O’s on the squawker one night talking about us, debating a run for one of our fuel bumps.

“Shit, let’s do it,” one tried to convince.

“Fuck that!” said the other. “Them crazy crackers stay up there.”

“Let’s just strong arm it.” The other was still in. “fuck their white asses up and take it and leave.”

“Hell, no, nigga. Them white folks ain’t right. They like a fuckin military wit’ they heavy metal shirts and they cammies.”

“Fuckin’ Metal Militia”

They both laughed. I knew which dump they were trying for and radioed a coded message to Karl. We were ready that night but the attack never came. The name “Metal Militia” stuck and we often used it. I heard us referred to as “Double M” and they even had a name for Karl. “Fonzie”. Though he looked nothing like that and still wore his blue Mohawk, it wasn’t the first time I heard the Fonz reference and he hated it. It was probably because of the leather jacket he wore sometimes. The O’s had a pretty deep respect for Karl in spite of wanting to kill him.

We just waited and listened to chatter until late afternoon. It was mid-October, but in Texas it is still warm and every Sunday night, the O’s would rally and cook barbecue in Bear Park. Attendance was mandatory for any member and they had a whole cadre of lesser members, women and young people, mostly who were charged with serving food and drink. It was there that we learned of their nebulous alliance with a lesser Mexican gang from the South side, though the Mexicans generally stayed on their turf and did their own thing. They had enough soldiers to protect their area just like we did, so we basically let them have the South, which was all of the Beverly Hills area and on to Highway six. We listened to each others’ radio, but there was always the silent agreement that we’d leave each other alone. We kept our eyes out, but neither of us had crossed any boundaries yet. We really didn’t want to fuck with the Mexicans, just because of their sheer numbers. Like Jorge said, “you mess with one bean, you fight the whole burrito.” I think they knew we had Mexican and black members, so they knew (except for a few like Alfred) that we weren’t white supremist rednecks who wanted to kill them just because they were Mexican. The Mexicans kept pretty good radio discipline, too so our Intel on their numbers wasn’t reliable.

We could hear the party starting. People were already getting drunk and high. A couple of guys started freestyle rapping into their walkies and were told to shut up by a commander. I could smell the barbecue from the Basement and it was making me hungry. I feel sick about it now, because later I found out they had exhausted most of their stores of food and some of those ambushed refugees occasionally ended up on the barbecue pit. I know it to be true because I saw it with my own eyes. When we liberated the Baylor Library, an adjacent building had been turned into an ersatz butcher shop. Not all the meat in there was animal. Whether all of the people knew they were becoming cannibals, I don’t know. I think that the leadership of the O’s was crumbling under its own weight. From some of the black deserters we picked up, we got the impression that people in the O-Dawg hierarchy were squabbling and the other people, who were virtually serfs, were getting caught in the middle and occasionally executed for things that had nothing to do with them. The O-Dawg commander was a guy called C-Rock and he had a council of governors who dropped orders down to shot-callers, who in turn hustled the people around. We estimated their total number at 350-400, almost 4 times ours. As far as combatants, I guesstimated the number to be more like 100-150, still more than 3 times what we had. If this attack had failed we would have been through. After the last encounter at 18^th and Franklin, We knew it was a matter of time before an all-out assault occurred. I think the only reason it hadn’t before was infighting and fear of the Mexicans who could attack if they were weakened.

As the sun’s edge touched the western sky, I heard the roar of engines. In a desolate city, a sound like that just echoes. The rumble got louder and louder and we all woke up, grabbed our weapons and hunkered down. The roar got louder and we started hearing gunfire echo off I-35, very close to us. Suddenly there were panicked black voices on the scanner.

“Double M!! Double M!!” several voices were yelling. “They on 5^th street! They shootin’’!”

More gunfire began to erupt as O forces started zeroing in to attack our guys who were roaring down 5^th street, merely a couple blocks and one cemetery away from us. The roar went southwest of us and we heard the grenades and a SAW start cutting loose. There were also bursts from AK-47s and other small arms.  There was a huge explosion and a fiery mushroom cloud. I could hear screaming in the air. The roaring engine was heading back our way. We all picked up our weapons and ran past the campground behind the Ranger museum and into the cemetery. As we left, I heard screams in the scanner and one voice.

“They comin’ down 18^th! AAH Fuck! I’m hit!”

I had an AK-47, a frag grenade and a couple of the military HC gas grenades. I only had 3 mags of ammo. All of it had already started to feel heavy as soon as I put it on. I’d lost some weight in the past month or so, but I still wasn’t in peak shape. Manuel was a big dude and he carried the SAW with all the belts of ammunition. Matt had a tricked out M-16 with a bull barrel and a laser-enhanced sight. He had a frag grenade and a tear gas grenade too.

We hit the cemetery wall in time to see a big bread truck with gun parts and a cow catcher welded to the front come wobbling around the corner of Dutton onto University Parks Drive, the road adjacent to the cemetery. From the light of the western setting sun, I could make out Alfred in the driver seat. They were being pursued by at least three gunships and a mob on foot that must have been a hundred people. I almost shit my pants. Instead I recited Shakespeare’s King Henry V. I used to have this goofy history teacher that would recite it before tests. This was one Hell of a test!

“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;

Manuel and Matt looked at me like I was nuts.

“Or close the wall up with our English dead.”

The truck was covered every inch in bullet holes.

“In peace there's nothing so becomes a man, as modest stillness and humility.”

The truck pulled past us and I could see a man called Cliff firing a SAW, holding the trigger down as blood poured over his face. There were sand bags all inside the back of the truck and one other man was firing from a prone position with an unrelenting blast of 5.56mm from an M-16A1.

“But when the blast of war blows in our ears,”

The man, who I also recognized as a 17 year-old named Nate kneeled as the truck came to a screeching halt and used the M-203 grenade launcher under his M-16. The grenade nailed the first gunship through the windshield and it went up like a fireball. It veered to the side and the one behind it crashed into it, sending one of its occupants flying out the window into the street.
          “Then imitate the action of the tiger”

We all cut loose at once. Manuel started tearing into the approaching crowd with the SAW. I opened up with the AK and Matt started bursting full-auto fire from his M-16.

Dave, Nate and Alfred piled from the truck. Cliff tried but was ripped apart by bullets. Dave and Nate dove back in and retrieved the SAW and a few other items. They threw it over the Cemetery wall as Matt, Manuel and I covered them. All at once, my AK ran dry and so did Manuel’s SAW.

“Grenade!!” I yelled, pulled the pin and threw my frag grenade. We all ducked as Alfred, Dave and Nate dove over the wall. That’s when we lost Nate. He looked over the wall as the grenade went off and a piece of shrapnel tore the right side of his head off. Nate slumped to the ground already dead. Manuel was quick to get another belt in the SAW as Matt threw his frag. There was another hideous boom and again the ground shook. Manuel jumped back into position as dirt and debris fell all around us.

“FUCK!” he yelled and opened up with the SAW again. The other four of us popped above the wall to the sight of a huge mob, still a hundred people charging on foot. It was as if the grenades and first volley didn’t even make a dent. They ran right into Manuel’s burst and several toppled. They still fired back. They still kept coming. Some of them were only armed with machetes but they were here for war.

“RUN!” Dave Yelled.

I pulled the pin on an HC grenade and dropped it, running like mad through the cemetery. Even though I was half deaf from the gunfire and explosions, my ears could detect the din of the angry mob at our heels. As we crossed the cemetery into the campground, I dropped the other HC. The anger of the mob was buried in a blanket of white smoke. We saw the Basement ahead and the bunker we had built around the door. Matt stopped and threw the CS gas grenade into the fog. We sprinted and all five of us dove behind the bunker.

Dave and Manuel immediately set up the SAWs while Matt and I started to ready the boat for launch. Alfred loaded another high explosive grenade into his M-203. As I ran past our radio I thought I heard a voice say.

“They’re behind us!”

Then the radio became a garble as several people tried to key up on the same frequency. I heard the SAWs and grenades start go rip as Matt and I shoved the ski boat into the water. As the angry crowd came coughing and stumbling through the tear gas, Manuel and Dave were cutting them down like wheat, alternating bursts on the SAWs so they could re-load and Alfred occasionally covering with blasts from his M-16/M-203 combo. Matt and I were starting to take fire from across the river and returned with our weapons as we sat in the boat with the twin Evinrude motors idling. The SAWs stopped and a moment later all three of our companions came running out onto the river walk screaming “GOGOGOGOGO!”

Go we did. Alfred took the helm and cut a sharp U-turn in the water and the twin 200hp Evinrude outboards roared like lions sending us careening across the water at breakneck speed.

“Hit it!” Dave yelled at me.

I pulled out my radio detonator and clicked. The chain was started. First the basement blew up. A gasoline bomb inside turned the place into a fiery Hell. Our pursuers were still trying to give chase when it went up and there were people on fire everywhere. It looked like a horrifying dance as dozens of burning bodies rose and fell, some diving for the river to save themselves.

We passed under I-35 and then the railroad bridges. Several O’s on top of the trestles were shooting at us as we went under. I clicked a button and blew both bridges out from under them. Concrete, steel and screaming people and even a vehicle fell into the water below in a thundering billow of smoke and flame. I knew we would catch it from the suspension bridge too. I clicked again and the Ammonium nitrate blew all of our potential opposition right off the bridge. Cables gave and it crashed into the water only seconds after we passed under. Dave gave me a nasty look. Manuel and Matt both had their heads down. I don’t think either of them uncovered their eyes until we stopped the boat. Alfred just gritted his teeth and piloted the boat as fast as it would go up the Brazos. Taylor Street, Washington Avenue, Waco drive, Herring Avenue, every bridge that crossed the Brazos went up in a plume of smoke and then crashed uselessly into the water. We circled around and grounded the boat where University Parks Drive met Bosque beside the river. An old car waited for us there

It was then that I became aware of the fires all over town. It seemed from down below that the whole town was on fire above us.  We drove with just our weapons down Bosque in a desolate area of town. We hoped to make it back to the compound and find it still in one piece and everyone alive. Now that we were quiet, we could hear heavy fighting in all directions. Especially to the South and Southwest. As always, Alfred manned the wheel like an expert, driving through resistance areas and around obstacles.

Every now and then we would hear more explosives going off and see plumes from a gasoline bomb.

After what felt like forever we saw the bus that formed the back gate of the compound. A watchman identified us and the bus pulled back and let us through. We looked from the roof of the compound and saw the fighting all around. We had people in every standing structure, firing on the O-Dawgs that had made it past Franklin Ave. There were fires and burning cars and buildings that were stopping the gunships. They were in panic and were abandoning the gunships and running on foot. Every now and then a house or building would blow up. I knew that part of the plan. If they chased you into your building, you ran out the back, blew the place up and then ran into another building.

I heard the roar of engines again and up 18^th street came two of our trucks, armored bread trucks like the one Alfred and company were driving. They were full of holes and riding on rims, sparks flying behind them. Also behind them was a literal convoy of gunships, followed by a throng of people. There had to have only been a couple hundred, but it seemed like thousands, all grimacing black faces. All wore a part of the O-Dawg uniform, some toting guns, others with spears, machetes and even large kitchen knives.

I ran to the ammo room and grabbed everything I could carry. I passed Lynn who was screaming into her walkie-talkie. “GO! NOW! THIS IS IT!” As I made it back to the roof, I could see now that there were twenty of us up there. Across the street there were twenty more and on other roofs lining 18^th street there were pods of 5 or 6 people, each armed with a machinegun, assault rifle or even shotguns with long barrels.

I knew who was in the trucks, too. Karl piloted one and Wes the other. Just as Alfred’s team had done, they were driving at breakneck speed, Karl smashed through barricades, his men shooting at anything that attacked from the front or sides and Wes’ people kept the massive crowd to the rear far enough back that they couldn’t do any damage. As both of our trucks passed Waco Drive, Karl broke right and Wes Broke Left. They and several others spilled out of the trucks and ran behind barricaded cars parked all over the street.

As soon as they were clear, everyone on top of the buildings began to open fire on the mob. People dropped flaming gasoline cans on top of the gunships and bullets flew from everywhere, tearing into the crowd like a dog into a rag toy. The seeming thousands were cut down in waves as they were funneled right into the line of fire, being blasted from three directions with bullets and explosives. Many of them recognized the ambush and started to retreat, clashing into the others who were still trying to charge ahead. They began to trample and clamor over one another in a confused attempt to either attack or flee. We all just kept shooting. Fires spread and corpses piled up, cars started to explode and finally the decision was unanimous. The entire throng began to trample each other in an attempt to retreat. We all regrouped in the part of 18^th street that was fenced in by buses between the old house and the Warehouse building we had converted into a sort of home base and Hotel. As the crowd retreated, our people collected their weapons and abandoned the rooftops.

There were only about 50 people left in fighting shape. Some of our guys had died, too and some were wounded. Ammo and weapons were scattered.

“We can’t let them regroup.” Karl was war torn. His clothes ripped and bloody and cuts from shattered glass on his face. His bulletproof vest had two noticeable pock marks. Anyone who can, I need you to get in the trucks and chase. We are going to drive them across the I-35 Bridge and then Ned’s going to blow it up.” Forty of us piled into the trucks and started limping them after the retreating crowd. They had scattered, but Karl was prepared. He hit a button on an old tape recorder. A recorded message began to play at 150 decibels.

“ATTENTION O-DAWGS! GO TO THE I-35 BRIDGES AND GO ACROSS! IF YOU CROSS THE BRIDGE YOU WILL NOT BE HARMED! IF YOU RESIST, YOU WILL DIE! OUR FORCES ARE FOLLOWING AND WE ARE PREPARED TO SHOOT!” The message was followed by three siren-like blasts and then started again.

I was sitting in Karl’s truck. It had been an ice cream truck and still had a clown head on top of it, although Karl had given the clown an evil grin with some black paint. All the shooting had died out and all we could hear was the messages from the trucks reverberating off buildings. Ahead, we could see the fleeing mass as we drove them across Waco like cattle. They were dropping weapons and running. They had no idea that they still had us outnumbered.

Karl and Hopkins had planned the classic ambush! My team wired the bridges, Lynn’s team rigged the red cars with explosives and Alfred, Karl and Wes’ teams had stirred them up by driving right into their turf and declaring war. They knew they had superior numbers so they chased us back. That’s when my guys had blown up the bridges and Lynn’s team used the burning cars piled in alleys and people in houses to herd them all toward 18^th street. When Karl and Wes ran out of juice, they led their pursuers up 18^th as well and it put 90% of our enemies in a spot where they could be bombed and shot at from 3 sides. We defeated an enemy that we know now, outnumbered us by five to one.

As we herded the walking wounded to I-35, we started to again meet with resistance. All of the enemies, who couldn’t cross because we dynamited the bridges, had made it to 35 and their gunships were beginning to appear and we had to stop because we were taking fire. That’s when Karl’s radio keyed up.

“Hey Ese.” Said a confident voice on the other end. Karl and I looked at each other like What the Hell. “Come in Fonzie, this is Juan Silva.”

Karl picked up his radio. “What’s up, Captain?”

“Joo don’t worry,” said Silva calmly. We knew he was the leader of the South Siders. “We handle these jotos from here. We got a bill to collect from these fuckers. You won’t see them again, you got my word and the word of all my people.”

“I’m not complaining, Silva.” Said Karl, “But why help us out?”

“Joo give us our space and respect. These O-Dawgs don’t respect anyone. They was supposed to chare their supplies in exchange for protection, but the pendejos just steal from us. Besides, my stupid sister thinks you’re cute”

“Have at ‘em then,” said Karl. “I gotta warn you, though. As soon as they cross the bridge, get your peeps offa there.”

“What for?” asked Silva.

“AAaaaay” Said Karl, impersonating the Fonz character from Happy Days. “Just trust the Fonz, OK?”

“Si Fonzie” said Silva. “Joo better get back now.”

“Si señor.” Karl hit the brakes and turned off his radio, “so that’s where that Fonz shit came from. I’ll be a son of a bitch!”

That’s when the Mexicans cut loose and nobody was prepared for that shit.