Chapter 29 — The Battle of Farm Supply Outlet
A serial novel in the form of correspondence among a family while the world as we know it collapses around us. I recommend you start at the Introduction:
https://readmedium.com/climate-for-change-introduction-5331d5ab9313
But you can start anywhere you want.
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Chapter 29 — The Battle of Farm Supply Outlet
Email:
Dear Grandma,
I am writing this email to you on Grandpa’s phone. I want to record the events as they are happening. It is weird to be able to use cell phones again after so long without them.
I want you not to blame Grandpa. He left before dawn in a convoy with the township militia and Circle soldiers. Everyone had on red and white Wisconsin Badger hats to distinguish them as Wisconsin militia. Grandpa didn’t know that Daisy, Jeremy, Malik, and I joined them by jumping in the back of someone’s pick-up truck. We blended right in with our own Wisconsin colors that Malik had gotten for us. It was probably a bad decision, but I didn’t want us to miss riding into the city to see the end of the Stewart regime and to see our families.
When the convoy made it to border bridge, we found it abandoned. We crossed the bridge and we are now stopped on the other side deciding what to do next. I decided to find Grandpa, and he told me to email you so you don’t worry. Grandpa said that the fighting is likely over and that General Stewart’s soldiers had been surrendering for the last few days and have abandoned their posts. He wouldn’t have brought us, but since we are here and there are no guards at the border bridge, it is probably okay. We will be able to drive into the city and see Mom! I’ll email you as soon as we see her.
Love you Grandma,
Ben
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Dear Ben,
What!?!?!
Your Grandpa said what? That you would be “probably be okay?” Last I heard that is still a war zone!!! People are dying!! We did not send a snowmobile rescue team halfway across the country and into a heavily fortified prison camp for you to come all this way back and then get shot because you couldn’t wait for a battle to be all the way over.
Tell your grandfather to bring you back this instant. I mean it.
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Dear Grandma,
I’m sorry I did not get your email response until after we had already left the bridge area. Really sorry.
Now Grandpa says we are so far behind enemy lines that it would be foolish to try to go back. Don’t blame him. I know that he didn’t intend for this to happen.
After the bridge, we drove up the highway until we got almost to the old Farm Supply Outlet store. There were about a dozen overturned semi trucks blocking the highway and Circle soldiers got busy trying to move them by pushing them with their trucks. It was a big mess, and the soldiers told us to wait. There were many other truckloads of militia and Circle soldiers on the highway with us.
As we were waiting for the roadblock to be cleared, we heard a high-pitched whining sound. We all looked up to see an artillery shell coming in fast. The highway was a parking lot of vehicles, and we couldn’t drive away from the shelling because soon there were burning vehicles blocking our return. We were sitting ducks. Grandma, it was terrifying. Dozens of shells came in rapid succession. Grandpa thinks this was a trap. They abandoned the bridge to give us a false hope and then closed the pincers behind us.
We ran with Grandpa to a ditch by the side of the road. We watched the shells come in and destroy vehicles. We heard the screams of the wounded. Grandpa’s truck was blown to bits. RIP Blue Pickup. The Circle soldiers fanned out and started looking for the source of the shelling. Then the shelling stopped. I don’t know if the Stewart soldiers moved their artillery installations or if the Circle had neutralized them, but as soon as the shelling stopped, there was a sniper who opened fire on the convoy.
We were in a ditch, and we had felt protected from the shelling, which seemed to focus on the vehicles. The sniper fire was altogether different. We could not tell where it was coming from. Grandpa said we were totally exposed, and it was just a matter of time before the sniper got us if we didn’t move. We needed to make a move. I couldn’t move. I was so scared. Daisy said that I needed to find every ounce of courage I had in the bottom of my gut. I tried to stand up and discovered that I could. We ran in a zig-zag pattern toward a nearby piney woods. We all made it. I was so relieved. Grandpa thinks the sniper was targeting Circle soldiers instead of militia like us and that’s why we all made it.
Once we were in the woods, we were able to watch. What we thought was a sniper was actually a drone that would fire and then move quickly to a new spot. It would hang out above the treeline or just inches off of a building, be silent for a while, and then shoot and move. I didn’t know that a machine gun could be mounted on a drone like that. Once the Circle soldiers figured out that it was a drone, they must have sent out an electromagnetic pulse because at one point the drone just fell out of the sky and crashed into the highway pavement.
After about half an hour of quiet, the Circle soldiers waved us back onto the highway for a consultation. They said that the nearby artillery had been located and destroyed, and they had set up an electromagnetic barrier to block Stewart drones. We were safe for now. The Circle soldiers also said that Stewart forces had retaken the Stillwater Bridge and that we were likely surrounded. They told us that there were four other Circle convoys that were trapped on highways just like us. The Circle had overextended their forces, assuming that General Stewart’s forces had given up. Many of the Stewart soldiers have surrendered, but we have no way of knowing how many. Perhaps, the wave of surrenders was just a ploy on his part. This was our problem — a lack of clear information.
Grandpa was cool as ice during this whole fiasco. He was tracking us teens but also paying attention to the three trucks of militia from his township that came with us. After the drone sniper was brought down and it was quiet, Grandpa got his militia together, and they assessed the situation. There were two wounded with gunshots to legs and arms. One woman had some small shrapnel lodged in her back. We did what we could for the wounded. The Circle had medics along. Other than that, Grandpa’s township militia group was intact. The uniformed Circle soldiers were not so lucky. There were at least ten dead and many more wounded.
Grandpa asked his two militia group members who are Army vets for their advice. Both said that we were way too exposed out here. We should leave the highway and try to get some cover. We had three working pickup trucks, all with four wheel drive and one with a snowplow mounted on the front of it. Our trucks were all smaller and more agile than the Circle’s military troop transport trucks. It was decided that we could put the truck with the snowplow in front and we would go off road and around the highway barrier. If other militia or Circle soldiers wanted to follow us, they could. We ran our plan by the Circle leaders, and they okayed it.
Soon we were piled into the beds of the pickups with our rifles ready, slowly making our way off the highway and into the ditches. We all went behind the plow truck. I think it helped that it is winter because the ground underneath the snow is frozen and solid. Once we were around the barrier, all the light trucks followed. In all we have 13 trucks in our group.
Our first action was to drive into the old Farm Supply Outlet store parking lot. We used to go here all the time. It is on the way to your place, and Mom would stop here to get supplies that Grandpa requested. When the economy collapsed, the store closed. They put plywood up over the glass doorways and put chains with locks on the door handles. I assume there are usually guards posted, but not today. Our militia includes many farmers who carry tools in their trucks. We were through the chains and plywood and inside the store within minutes. I was amazed that the store was exactly as they had left it over a year ago. There were racks full of clothes and food. There were tools and animal feed and lots of sporting goods. We went right to the guns and ammo section, and everyone helped themselves to more of both. There was plenty of food on the shelves too, although it was mostly either junk food or bags of mixed salted nuts. We stuffed our faces anyway, except I can still only eat a little at a time.
That is when I realized that we were outside of the range of the electromagnetic drone barrier, and I remembered to send you this update. I have been writing this while Grandpa and the militia captains and Circle soldiers plot their next move. We have guards posted, but no enemy has come anywhere near the parking lot. We also have people watching the skies for drones, and each watcher has a crack-shot sniper with them. We haven’t seen any drones yet either. Grandpa is considering bedding us all down in this building for the night. There are camping supplies in the store, with sub-zero sleeping bags and sleeping pads. There are worse places we could spend the night.
All for now. Try not to worry. Wish us luck.
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Dear Ben,
Of course I am worried. Your Grandpa is not as cool as he is making himself out to be. I know him. He is not a military genius. He has never been under fire before today. I can tell you that much. He is good at talking, mostly. If he seems calm, it must be that he is operating on top of a background of sheer terror — like I am right now!
I have communicated with your mother, and she is trying to find out whatever she can about the status of General Stewart’s forces.
Stay Strong,
Grandma Eloise
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Next chapter:
https://readmedium.com/chapter-30-the-push-to-the-generals-mansion-70c6c9fafab4
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