Dear Diary, It’s Me, Jessica: Chapter 17 (Book 2)

By the Author of Dear Diary: It’s Me, Jessica

Find the previous chapter here.

Dear Diary,

It’s me, Jessica.

I awoke suddenly to the sound of rapid-fire gunshots.  It took me a moment to adjust to my surroundings in the dark and the momentary confusion of where I was before I recalled I was not home or at Four Corners.  

I was in the city.  

We had set up camp at the edge of the park next to where the city had its market.  I was sleeping on the grass in my sleeping bag.  Savannah was next to me, and Katie and her men were around us.  The horses were tied to a picket line several yards away.  The gunshots sounded different as they echoed through the various avenues and streets of concrete buildings, big and small.  The echoes made it hard to tell from what direction and how close the shots were.  I leapt up with my rifle already coming up, butt of the rifle in the pocket of my shoulder, muzzle at the “low ready.”  

“Form a circle,” Katie ordered her men, bringing up her own rifle as well.

“Savannah, get in the middle,” I told her.  Savannah had no rifle and no training to even use one.

I stepped up next to Katie as her men shifted to give me a place in the defensive circle.  Katie glanced at me and gave me a nod of acknowledgment.

Jamal’s militia had their own night watch, but they did not have the barriers and gates like Four Corners did.  Their night watch was more of a roaming patrol for internal security, aimed at preventing people from stealing from others during the night.  That was a problem we did not have in Four Corners.  For most vendors in Four Corners, their place in the market was also their homes, even if it was a shack or the remains of a vehicle.  And we had a better sense of trust and community than they did in the city.  Jamal told us that trust was strong in families and in small groups.  But not in their community as a whole. 

He said, “There is still some lingering distrust and bigotry between some races, religions, and ethnic backgrounds.  Even sports teams.  Whatever you do, don’t bring up the New England Patriots.  It might be the one thing that can unite this community together.  It is sad.”

Most of the families or small groups had taken small businesses on second floors, or entire floors of office buildings as their new homes, only coming out to trade at the market, get water, or empty waste buckets. 

The sky was clear and the moon was full, giving us a good amount of light to see, even casting shadows.  Some of the windows in the buildings that were not broken out reflected the moonlight onto the pavement.  

“I’ve got movement in some of the buildings,” one of Katie’s men said in a low voice.

“Could be they are looking out of curiosity,” I responded.  “I don’t see any weapons pointed our way.”

“Keep looking and keep calm,” Katie ordered.  

A few tense moments passed as the gunfire slowed.

“Katie?  Jessica?” a voice called from one side, somewhere in the shadows.  All the guns on that side came up, ready to fire.  

It was Jamal.

“Here,” Katie called back.

“We’re coming up!  Don’t fire!”

Jamal and two others emerged from a deep shadow cast by one of the larger buildings, running up, armed, all of them clearly sweating.  

“Join their circle,” Jamal ordered the other two and took to Katie’s side opposite mine.  Everyone shifted to make space for them.  I felt a little better with Jamal and his men adding to our numbers.

“What’s going on?” Katie demanded.

“One of the gangs attacked.”

“Why?”

“Don’t know.  They have never attacked at night.  There’s too much risk attacking the city, with so many places offering higher positions from which to fire.  I would never attempt it!”  

“Then either they are desperate or they think they have the advantage.”

“Right.  We need to get you to our HAM guy’s place.  The loading ramp and the utility room are large enough for the horses, and it would be more defensible than here in the open park.”

A few bursts of gunfire from our side did sound closer despite the echoes.  

“Right,” Katie said, “Let’s move.”

Entry two

Katie made the decision that it would be better for Savannah and a few of her men to lead two horses each, while she, the rest of her men, Jamal and his men, and I provided security to the rear, where the fighting seemed to be getting closer.  We re-saddled the horses, loaded up all our things quickly, and set out.  The sound of the horses’ hooves on the street made a lot of noise.  I thought the clattering seemed louder, nearly as loud as the gunfire.

We arrived at City HAM Guy’s apartment, and one of Katie’s men used the butt of his rifle to knock on the steel loading dock door.  One of the horses he was leading nickered at the sound.  

“Quiet, you,” he said to the horse.  

City HAM Guy must have been expecting us, as he opened the door immediately.

“Get in here quick,” he said as he opened the other door to let the horses in, side by side. 

With all the horses in, the rest of us followed, and City HAM Guy closed and secured the heavy steel doors.  

“I heard chatter on the gang’s radio nets late this evening,” he said as he put the cross bars and rebar rod in place.  “I got the sense that something was not right, and they were planning something.  I was going to come to you, Jamal, in the morning.  I never figured they would do a nighttime attack.  They never have.”

“Yeah.  I thought the same,” Jamal noted as the rest of us tied up the horses to various parts of the utility room.

“Yes,” City HAM Guy led us out of the utility room, down the hall, and stopped at the stairs, “From what I could make out of their transmissions, they knew they,” he nodded toward me, Savannah, and the rest, “Were here.  They want the moonshine, the horses for food, Savannah for medical, and her, Katie, and Jessica for pleasure.”

“That’s why they attacked tonight,” Jamal sighed, looking down at the floor.

“How would they know we were here?” Katie asked.

“Could be someone tipped them off.  You were here with what you had to trade.”  Jamal looked up at her,  “That kind of information would be valuable to the gang.  Information for clean water, food, alcohol, sex, you name it.  Could they know we are here now?” Jamal asked City HAM Guy.

“From what I heard on the radio nets before I came down to the loading dock doors, they did not know where you were.  Just that you left the park.  The night watch came around a corner and surprised them before they could get close to the market and the park, and that’s what started the firefight.  Lot of confusion on the radio nets from both them and us,” City HAM Guy said.  “So, what do we do now?”

Entry three

Jamal and his men knew the layout of the streets in front of City HAM Guy’s apartment complex.  Jamal put one of his men with one of Katie’s men in the corner apartments on the second floor with himself, Katie, and me in an apartment on the fourth floor to one side of where the entrance and the second and third floors had been destroyed by artillery fire.  One of Katie’s men had a high-power bolt rifle with a high-powered illuminated scope, and he was up on the roof.  The remaining two of Katie’s men took up a position on the second floor above the back of the apartment complex, above the loading dock doors overlooking the loading dock parking lot and an abandoned lot beyond.  

City HAM Guy was in his apartment monitoring the radio nets for any information.  He would send Savannah down to pass word if he heard anything about us on the fourth floor, then she would run down to the second floor to pass on the information to the rest.  He would pass the information to Katie’s man on the roof out of the window of his top-floor apartment.  

Out of the apartment window overlooking the main street leading to the apartment building, we could hear gunshots echoing somewhere in the city, but they were less frequent than they had been before.  

“Everyone is awake.  Some are returning fire,” Jamal said.  “That is slowing them down. They have to conserve ammunition.”

“Wouldn’t they retreat?” I asked.  

“I have been wondering that myself.  Thinking on it, the fights we have had with them recently, then the trades we do with them and what they have traded for, it only now dawned on me that they must be more desperate than I thought.  We have been doing a lot better since we have been trading with you and Four Corners.  But they have not.”

“Couldn’t they have made a deal with you to trade for things you traded for from Four Corners?”

“You don’t understand, Jessica.  Trade with them is very limited.  Trust is an issue even in our part of the city.  From what I understand, it is even worse with them.  Gangs within a gang.”

“Sounds savage,” Katie said.

“It is.  That is why they are so desperate and why they attacked.  If they are that desperate, they just might be that committed to the attack.  Do or die.”

“Then there is no talking to them.  Reasoning with them,” Katie stated.  

“I am afraid not.  Hungry people do unreasonable things.  If they have to feed not only themselves but their children.”

We heard running footsteps coming down the hall.  It was Savannah.

“They’re heading this way!  They know we’re here,” Savannah called out from the apartment doorway, in between winded breaths.  “I’ll warn the others!”  And she was gone.

“Check your ammunition count and set up for reloads,” I said automatically as Jack had drilled into me. I made sure my rifle was fully loaded and I had reloads at the ready.  Jamal and Katie did the same with their rifles and magazines.  

Entry four

From the busted-out apartment windows, Katie, Jamal, and I steadied our rifles on blankets on the window edges, looking for the gang.  

The first shot came from Katie’s man on the rooftop.  From our position, we could not tell if it was a hit or a miss.  We did not see anything moving.    

Then they charged.  Some of the gang provided covering fire from behind abandoned vehicles or around corners of buildings, while the rest ran towards the apartment building.  

I led the targets to compensate for their run and squeezed the trigger, racking the rifle action as fast as I took the shots.  I missed a few shots but made a few hits too.  Others fell from Katie, Jamal, and the other men’s shots.

As more and more of them fell, the few remaining stopped and retreated at a run.  Katie’s man on the roof took two more shots.

The smoke and gunfire echoes faded into the night.  While I was reloading, I counted at least eleven bodies on the ground.

A few minutes passed, then Katie asked with her rifle still shouldered, looking through the rifle scope down the street, “What do you think?”

After a moment, Jamal responded, “I think we broke them.  They will be more willing to trade, less likely to fight.  They will have to.  That does not make me happy.  We broke them.  By no fault of our own, but theirs.  I am sad we have gotten to this point.  Just plain stupid.”

“I was asking about the immediate situation,” Katie said and nodded over her rifle toward the street below.

“Oh.  Yeah.  Right.  I think we are good,” Jamal responded,  stood up, and slung his rifle over his shoulder.

Entry five

Jamal and his militia spent the next morning patrolling and securing their territory before we could leave the city.  They lost four men and half a dozen had been injured in the fighting.  Savannah attended to them the best she could.   The gang lost eighteen.  There were a few blood trails heading back in the direction of the gang’s territory.  

After we thanked Jamal and others, we mounted up and headed out of the city at a quick trot.  We all wanted to get the city as far behind us as we could.  We stopped at the halfway point to rest and water the horses, and have lunch for ourselves.  Feeling more secure, we resumed the rest of the trip back at a normal walk for the horses.  We arrived back at Four Corners just after noon.  As we crossed the bridge, I finally felt a sense of relief.  

At the aid station, Jack and Daniel were sitting outside in camp chairs.  Jack looked a world better.

“Good to see you,” Jack said.  “Was getting a little concerned.  Thought you would be back earlier, either yesterday evening or this morning.”

“We had a little trouble,” I said, dismounting my horse.  

“A little trouble,” Savannah said, astonished as she got out of the saddle.  “A gang attack is more than a little trouble.”  

Both Jack and Daniel looked surprised and waited for us to tell the story.  Once we were done, Jack merely nodded.  Daniel congratulated Savannah on her medical work, especially the dental part.  

Sean was in his shack talking with two others, writing in his journal of business deals.  I walked over when they finished, pulling the boots out of my backpack that he had asked me to trade for.  

“Aye, Jessica, thank you much.  I owe you one.”

“Stop singing songs about me, The Hero of Four Corners.”

“Aye, that is never going to happen,” he said with a grin and a wink.  “It is one of my best songs, and everyone loves it.  A real foot tapper.”

I rolled my eyes and headed back to get back on my horse and get home to Mom and Dad.  

Diary, despite the gang attack, it was interesting to see the city again.  Good to see Jamal.  Good to help those people who needed medical attention.  We got the salt, the boots for Sean, and the other things we traded for.

But there is no place like home.

About 1stMarineJarHead

1^stMarineJarHead is not only a former Marine, but also a former EMT-B, Wilderness EMT (courtesy of NOLS), and volunteer firefighter.

He currently resides in the great white (i.e. snowy) Northeast with his wife and dogs. He raises chickens, rabbits, goats, occasionally hogs, cows and sometimes ducks. He grows various veggies and has a weird fondness for rutabagas. He enjoys reading, writing, cooking from scratch, making charcuterie, target shooting, and is currently expanding his woodworking skills.

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