Apocalypse in the Homeland: The Adventures of John Harris Read Free

junction just before 5:30 a.m. and again, John had them stop and survey the airport and the area around it.
    “I don’t see any activity at the airport or any of the hangers.”
    “Hey, look towards town. I see some barely visible red dots.”
    “Those are cigarettes. See that one dancing towards the other two. Everyone of their guards is smoking in the dark. A good way to get killed. There, see the glow get brighter! The SOB is taking a puff. Aim a foot or so below the glow and you hit them every time.”
    “Now, John, they might be the good guys.”
    “I doubt it. Let’s check out the hangers and see if there are any functioning planes.”
    They snuck into the first hanger and saw two planes, both of which had their engines torn down to be serviced. There were several burned out planes between the hangers and several shot up cars. The next hanger had several old crop dusting planes. Three were the old Stearman biplanes with crop spraying equipment. Someone planned to restore the planes and sell them.
    Just as they thought the place was empty, there was a clatter on the other side of one of the planes. John motioned for Joe to sneak around to the left while Imelda and he advanced from the right side. Something skittered across the floor and out a side door.
    “I don’t know what it was, but it was short and moved fast.”
    “Could have been a dog or a raccoon.”
    “Look around; I think we disturbed someone’s hiding place.”
    “Hey, look in the cockpit of the first plane. Someone has been living in here.”
    The interior of the plane had several blankets and a treasure of can goods, candy bars, potato chip bags and canned drinks.
    “Hey, my favorite candy bar,” said Imelda as she tore the wrapper off one of the treats."
    “Damn, that’s so good.”
    “Keep your eyes out for trouble. Whoever was here may come back with friends.”
    “I think it might be a kid; there are a bunch of comic books and some small size clothes.”
    “A kid with a gun can kill you just as quickly as an adult. Stay focused.”
    John went back to examining the airplanes and found that two had perfect engines, but structural issues and another had a blown engine, but was otherwise sound.
    “We need to replace this engine with one of those. These planes have large tanks to spray pesticide. I could reroute the lines and make them into spare gas tanks. Two of us could easily make it to Dallas. This is a major find. We need to clear this town of the thugs and get after fixing this plane."
     
    ***
     
    “Beth, are you okay? This is the second morning that you have been throwing up,” said Billy as she watched from the porch.
    “No, I’m fine. I think that cabbage soup is disagreeing with me this morning.”
    Beth was upset that she and John hadn’t been careful during the first few weeks living without proper supplies. She was pregnant out in the sticks without any possibility of medical assistance. She hoped for a boy this time.
     
    ***
     
    There were over 20 small hangers and 9 large ones along with the terminal to search. This took the rest of the day since they had to assume there was danger behind every door. The airport was deserted and except for the person living in the plane, they found no evidence of anyone else. They set up their base in the hanger with the three crop dusting planes. They chained the doors and set out to see what they could see from the airport tower before nightfall.
    The tower wasn’t much of a tower, but it was tall enough to see over most of the buildings in town. They spotted over a hundred people going about their daily chores. The streets were plowed even though most traveled by horseback. The thugs were easy to identify since they had guns trained on the others every minute of the day. Most of the men on horseback were guards. There were numerous wagons heading north of the town and later coming back filled with coal. This explained the black smoke rolling out of most of the chimneys in