Home Coming (The Survivalist Book 10) by A. American (best business books of all time .TXT) 📗

a long time. Now, I know you’re a tough son of a bitch,” he paused and looked at me, “but promise me you won’t try to keep it bottled up. Talk to someone about it. You’re going to need to. If you try to hold it all in, it’ll eat you from the inside out.” Looking at me again, he added, “Take it from the voice of experience. You ever need to talk about it, just come find me. I’ll listen as long as you need to talk.”

Cecil and I couldn’t be more different. We were from different generations and there was a wide gap in our ages. He was a black man that grew up in Lake County Florida, not always a hospitable place for his race. But good people are good people and his offer moved me. I stepped closer to him and put my arm around his shoulder.

“That means a lot me, really. I know I’m still in shock over it and it’ll all come out soon enough. You and I will be talking in the future, I think.” I looked at him and added, “I’m fortunate to call you a friend.”

He smiled, as he was prone to do, and replied, “I know you’d do it for me. You’d do it for anyone that needed it. But sometimes you need a shoulder to lean on too. You’ve got more of them than you know. You’re highly thought of around here. People see you as a source of reliability, something they can count on. You’re not alone.”

“Neither are you. Hell, you’re a far more valuable asset to the community than I am.” I walked in silence for a moment before saying, “You know what really pisses me off? We just managed to get the power back into town. Things were looking up, and now this. I’m sure the breakers are all tripped at the plant. We’re going to have to disconnect the lines running south.”

“I’d wager Baker and her crew are at the plant doing just that right now.”

We arrived at the truck and climbed in. I drove Cecil out to the farm and he mounted the tractor; the trailer was already attached, and we headed back to town. I rolled along slowly behind the old machine. It gave me time to think, think about the night before and what we’d done. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized it was the right thing to do.

We were so spoiled in our previous lives. Anything you wanted was a mouse-click away. If you were injured, state of the art medical care would come to you! All it took was for someone to make a phone call, and then highly skilled personnel would arrive on the scene, stabilize your injury and load you into an ambulance. They would already be communicating with a hospital and when you arrived, a team of specialists would be waiting to treat you.

Contrast that to now, where there is no help coming. The few trained personnel we had were either killed or injured. Hospital? No such thing exists today. We had a military tent to treat our most severely wounded in, and even that was destroyed. The precious supply of drugs we had were gone. The few pieces of medical equipment that could help keep someone alive were also destroyed. There is no they. They are no longer coming to your aid. You are on your own now. And the people whose suffering we mercifully ended last night were in no condition to help themselves and there just aren’t enough people around to care for them. As horrible as it was, it was the best thing we could do.

Cecil drove the tractor into the park where people were waiting to get them loaded immediately. Many of them were in severe pain and some were unconscious. Missing limbs and blast wounds were common. I didn’t know how some of these people would survive their wounds. But they were deemed worth the effort and we would do our best.

As the trailer was being loaded, I had a couple of the walking wounded get into the truck. Once the trailer was loaded, we headed for the school. I was surprised when we pulled up to see Jess and Thad. They immediately started moving the wounded from the trailer into the gym where cots were set up for them.

I helped a man with a nasty wound to his right leg into the gym. Settling him onto a cot, I caught up with Thad. “Hey, buddy. When did you guys get here?”

“We came last night. When you guys didn’t come back, we figured it was a bad deal and you’d need help.”

“You were right about that. Thanks for coming out.”

“It’s what we’ve got to do.”

We moved the rest of the wounded into the gym and made them as comfortable as possible. We had no painkillers to offer them and those that were in pain and still conscious suffered terribly. We were short on bandages as well and many wounds were wrapped in whatever was at hand. I made a mental note to go out and try to find some usnea. It’s a yellowish lichen often called Old Man’s Beard. The Seminole Indians used it for bandages and it has very strong antimicrobial properties. It wasn’t much, but it would be something.

I was walking out of the gym when Jess stopped me. “You look like shit. You need to go home and get some sleep.”

“You looked in a mirror lately?” I asked.

When Jess was irritated, she’d cross her arms over her chest and cock her hip to the side. She adopted this pose now and replied, “You know what I mean, smartass. You need to go get some sleep.”

I nodded. “I’m tired for sure.”

“Then go home and sleep. There’s enough people here to take care of the wounded.”

I looked around and replied, “Let me find the old man and I’ll probably head back.”

She pointed to the door,