Chapter 12

I was asked to help but Bennie and his healing took precedence to me. I took him back to Preservation and our home in a wagon as soon as possible. The radio called me back the next day. Poppa wanted my help. The Triple-A people had to be handled and Bennie and I had been the star performers in that process. The fact that all the crops were in helped gave us time to handle things.

Poppa's mother offered to watch Bennie for me. I was reluctant but Bennie insisted that I go. He said that I could get those men to tell the truth faster than anyone else in Preservation. I made both promise that they would have Bennie on the radio at least once a day and no excuses or I would come back. I left but wasn't happy. As I said, my grandmother was watching Bennie and Ted volunteered to watch over our farm and Poppa's.

The fighting had ended. The Triple-A's were beaten decisively. The last two of the Six were killed in the assault. Their leadership gone and under our fierce attack, surrendering had become the norm for their men. No women were armed nor did they fight. Some were killed or wounded in our attack. We found out why. The men used most of these dead women as shields in the fighting.

We had seventy-three men and one hundred six women alive and prisoner. We did not save many of the wounded Triple-A men as our people and then the women had first priority for our medical efforts. Dr. Ollie said later that they would probably have saved two or three men except for Poppa's instructions. He also admitted that we would have lost at least one woman in the process.

Poppa and Michael were glad to see me. Momma offered to go back and watch Mike and Mary at my house where she could pay attention to Bennie. Momma Mathews would stay there during the day, also. I felt better.

Poppa suggested that we divide the men into three groups just like Bennie and I had begun at High Falls. That was agreeable. I started to go over the individuals here with Ben's help. Ben was a true father of my husband. He's as big and strong and has that same stern manner about him. He was intimidating to me when Bennie and I first were together until I realized that, underneath that crust, he was a softy. I told him that his job was to look intimidating and gruff and to follow my lead.

The men were all in one big group and I went over to the biggest, meanest looking one of the bunch. "He'll be first." I told the guards. They untied him and let him stand. I said, "You'll be first. You will follow me and go in that room. In there, you will give me truthful answers to every question I ask. Now, I know how you idiots operated. So, there is an option. If you can beat me in a hand-to-hand fight, we'll let you go." I paused for a moment. "Which will it be?"

He grinned and said, "Pretty girlie, you'll be easy. Now, you're faced with a real man."

"I doubt it. Come on, Wimp." I teased.

He charged me and over he went landing hard on his back. He groaned after his breath came back. He looked over at me. I said, "Which arm?"

"What do you mean, which arm?"

"This time I am going to break one of your arms. Which one?"

He looked at me for a moment and said, "Left."

"Okay, you can answer questions or I will break your left arm." I motioned to him. "Come on, Little Boy." He didn't like that and rose to his feet and charged me again. As he got close, he feinted trying to catch me off guard. I spun him around, grabbed his left arm, and twisted it behind his back hard and slammed him into a wall. I then administered a hard chop to his arm while like that and broke it. I had practiced using pieces of wood. Human parts were easy. He howled and slid down the wall into a sitting position. I said, "Had enough or do I break the other one?"

"You win," he wheezed. "I'll talk. No more."

I motioned to the two guards who helped him up. Dr. Ollie came up and said, "Another arm? At least they set easily..." A number of the other men heard that and paled. I believed I had made my point. The three of us went into the interrogation room and sat down.

I said, "While Dr. Ollie sets your arm, let's talk. If I think you're lying now, you'll be shot without further discussion. We do not jail people."

Ben was beside me grinning. He said, "I see you've met my daughter in-law with the usual results. By the way, she's absolutely serious about no jails and shooting you."

His eyes widened at that and then again when Dr. Ollie began to work on his arm. It was a simple fracture and Dr. Ollie had brought everything he needed for a cast. He finished his work and left while we down a list of questions.

"First, what's your name?"

"Arnie Green."

"Arnie, tell me your story. Be complete. Your life depends upon our opinion and your truthfulness. Don't leave anything out. Completeness and candor are your only hope." I said.

He looked at me a bit. Then he began, "Before everything happened, I was married with a small son and a pregnant wife. The virus took them from me. I had to bury them myself. I sat around our house for a week or so doing nothing. We lived in the Charlotte area. Slowly, I came to realize that there were no people anywhere in our neighborhood. The food in the house had run out so I went to the local grocery to get some more. Until I went in and saw that no one was there and so little had been disturbed, I didn't realize that few people survived. The bread was stale and the milk was going bad. I grabbed a steak, potato, and canned green beans and left for home. The television had nothing new on when I returned. No new news just repeats and some movies that I had seen earlier that week. I had listened to the car radio and just heard music but the station that I usually had on didn't have D.J.'s on live anyway.

"When I had to go in the next day for more food, I started to look around more. The store looked the same. Gradually, I started to truly realize that most people had died. I thought about how quiet it was in the store and outside. There were no cars and no voices. I took enough food this time to last a week. My wife planned most of the shopping though I usually went with her. I had a pretty good idea about what to get. When I returned home, I washed a load of clothes sorting through them as she had taught me. It was rough when I came to hers or my son's. I folded and put them away anyway.

"I went on mindlessly for a couple of months until I met up with other survivors by accident. I hadn't given meeting people any thought. I knew intellectually that there were other people still alive but I hadn't seen them nor looked. I needed to feel sorry for myself, I guess.

"Anyway, I was looking for more food at the store when I met this couple who were there doing the same thing. She was about my age while he was much older. I learned later that they were distant cousins and she had called everyone's number from her phone and that of her parents' phones. He was on one of those lists. She hadn't been married. She had been planning on getting her own place this spring. She didn't know why her parents died and she lived though she had almost died from the virus. I met a number of people later who had lost their family relations but survived though had been almost sick to death. I learned later that some people had a natural immunity to the virus and didn't get sick at all. Some almost died and others, like me, were just very sick.

"The three of us teamed up and found a house without memories and moved in. Both Bob and I had lost wives and children. Julie had lost her parents and a brother. After a couple of years, we added a couple and Bob died in an accident. He had become careless. He had been married over thirty years and the loss of his wife and kids was something he never really got over. Julie and I became an item more from lack of competition than from any great love.

"We continued for a few more years gradually meeting more people until there were about ten of us. We were living by scavenging still. There was less and less to find. Power was going away in different sections of Charlotte. We decided, as a group, to move to Lake Norman where we could fish for food and our two hunters could teach the rest of us to hunt. We also talked about farming though none of us knew anything about how to go about that. The best we had was a guy who had a small garden in his yard. We all knew that we had to become self-sufficient eventually. We weren't prepared for life then on a long-term basis.

"About a year ago, we heard from one of the other groups around Charlotte about a big group called the Triple-A's. We had noticed that we didn't see many people from the eastern groups coming into Charlotte in the last few months. Two of our members went into the city for supplies. They came back as captives of the Triple-A's with a proposal that we join them. The Triple-A group that came with them was about twenty strong and I realized that we were faced with the choice of join or be captives or dead. We elected to join the Triple-A's. We quickly found out that the customs were not good. Julie and the other women became part of the pool and everyone was required to be involved sexually with many women. Those wanting a monogamous relationship were executed painfully. I watched one and it wasn't pretty...

"Julie and I still see each other. I miss her presence from our years together. I was glad to surrender and whatever you do can't be worse than the Triple-A's I am not proud of this last year. I'm sorry for fighting you, Ma'am. I thought I would have to fight to stay alive. That's what I had become used to doing. I would like to see Julie once more."