White Wasteland by Jeff Kirkham (best color ebook reader .txt) 📕

in the shoulder, and the whiskey bottle sloshed perilously. She swallowed the mouthful of booze. “Entropy. That’s what it’s called in physics. Organized stuff turns to shit. Chaos Theory.”

“Check out the big brain on Brad,” Wheaton admired her from across the fire circle.

“So what’s the big plan for the big day?” Evan returned to his earlier question. “I know you’ve got something cooked up in that devious brain of yours—in case Chad Wade’s sure thing goes sideways.” Evan rubbed his hands together. “Lay it on us General Rommel.”

Jeff sketched a map of Point of the Mountain pass with a stick in the dirt. He ran the group through each phase of his battle plan, exactly as he had imagined it on the overlook.

A week before, Jeff had ordered the Homestead metal fabrication team to build the claymores and he had sent a team to Fort Douglas to drag the Howitzers south. Zach and his tech team raided a hobby store in West Valley City and found sixty model rocket launcher systems. The mortar teams were preparing for the napalm assault, this time against humans and not just buildings.

When Jeff finished describing how he planned on turning the I-15 into a flaming slaughterhouse, the group sat in silence. The campfire popped and crackled. The orange light flickered across their faces. Evan took a hit of Jameson and the splash inside the bottle broke the quiet.

“Lord have mercy,” Wheaton spoke for everyone.

“They need to reconsider an invasion,” Jeff understated the gravity of the situation. “and the only way that’s going to happen is if we hurt them badly. Very badly,” Jeff explained. “The risks are too high for half measures.”

“Do you plan on working with those southern people in the future? Ever?” Tanya raised her voice. “After you massacre them, they’re going to hate you for a long, long time. That’s what happened in the Civil War after the north burned Atlanta to stubble.”

“Now look at who’s the little military historian,” Evan turned to Tanya and pinched her cheek. “It makes me hot when you talk military strategy, baby.”

Tanya brushed his hand away. “If you want to do anything with the southern people in the future, you may want to rethink your strategy,” she stood fast.

Evan looked at Jeff. In the firelight, Jeff didn’t look happy to be second-guessed on the eve of battle.

“Anything other than focused violence leads to dangerous outcomes in my experience. We gotta stop these guys dead-as-disco in this canyon.” Jeff stabbed his stick at the map in the dirt. “Otherwise, we’ll be digging them out of neighborhoods for months. We can’t turn Salt Lake into another Mosul. That is not a fight we can win.”

“Have we tried negotiating with them?” Tommy asked.

“President Thayer has tried. I’m hoping the fundamentalists give us another chance before they cross the county line. But I don’t want to knock on their door too soon. Right now, they’ve got no reason to listen to me. I’m just a guy with a half a dozen drunk friends. I need an army behind me. Then they might listen to reason.”

“We’re more than drunk friends,” Evan countered. “We’re hardened killing machines…who happen, also, to be drunk.” He wobbled up out of his camp chair and put Jeff in a playful headlock, spilling some of Jeff’s whiskey from his glass. Evan picked up the bottle of Jameson from the ground and added two fingers to his own.

Jeff drew on the ground with his stick while the other stared into the fire and nursed their drinks. The woman had disagreed with Jeff on an issue of strategy. She hadn’t been at the Homestead when half the community had argued with Jeff on questions of strategy. She hadn’t been there to bury men who died because the Homestead had wasted time debating military decisions that shouldn’t have been questioned. She’d been hiding in a pawn shop while the Homestead paid a steep price in human flesh.

Jeff rubbed his mangled ear—shot to pieces the day of the gangbanger attack—and Evan knew what he was thinking.

Sometimes, words failed to describe the truths that’d been written in blood.

Jeff changed the subject. “Does anyone know if Ross grew hot peppers this year?” He slurred the word “peppers.”

14

Shortwave Radio 7150kHz 4:00pm

“JT Taylor here, former Alcoholic of the Apocalypse, now, Wino of the Apocalypse.

That’s me: all Pinot Noire, all the time. I never thought I’d be that guy. But we all gotta make do. Times are tough. Austerity measures are in place. They grow Pinot here, so I drink Pinot.

I got a shout out from the resistance movement on the Island of Lana’i, Hawaii. A Drinkin’ Bro bailed from Maui in his kayak, his name Kea-la-ka-a which is Hawaiian for ‘going to get eaten by a shark someday.’ Kea-whatever radioed over the Pacific and bounced a signal down to Utah.

Seems the Chinese Navy is on perma-vacation in Maui, squatting on all the plum real estate, claiming to provide humanitarian aid. But the Hawaiians didn’t need humanitarian aid. They were doing okay until the Chinese arrived. No news yet on whether they’re heading our way—the ChiComs. I can’t think of a reason they wouldn’t.

I finally heard from Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan again, which is amazing since almost all of Europe has been overrun by the Caliphate and I thought Afghanistan would’ve rejoined the stone age by now.

How did Bagram not get wiped off the map by the radical Muslim hordes? The answer is ‘lots and lots of ammo.’ Half the war materiel in Afghanistan drew back to Bagram AFB and they have ten thousand mortar shells per every one survivor. Every night is a fireworks show.

Pakistan and India nuked each other, apparently. The servicemen at Bagram can see it on their dosimeters when the wind blows. Cover your ball sacks, brothers.

The survivors in Bagram are calling mayday, shouting for help. Radiation to the east, radiation to the west, all kinds of Islamic badness to the north…

In the immortal words of the