Fortress Farm - The Pullback

  Chapter Eleven

  Shelby County

  One Month after the Great Reset

  Tan-colored dust billowed in a plume behind Sheriff Clark Olsen’s old truck as he barreled down the county line road that connected the county seat with the outer townships of his jurisdiction. A deputy’s panicked message alerted him to a burning farm belonging to Trace and Susan Watson, a family that had been living in the area since the county was founded. The expansive brick house came into view, with dark black smoke still wafting overhead.

  As Olsen skidded into the driveway, he could tell his worst fears were realized. He could clearly see one broken body laying half in and half out of the garage door. Jumping out of the truck, he ran around the back of the house, only to see that the front façade was all that remained of the structure. Misty-eyed, he turned to head for the machine shed in back. The door had been busted open and Olsen noticed that there were buckshot holes around the doorway. Someone managed to get a shot off at the intruders, which didn’t surprise the sheriff at all. This family had seen sons and daughters in service from the Civil War all the way to America’s most recent Middle East fiasco. This family would have fought till the end.

  Against all hope, the end was what he found. Clark stepped into the machine shed and confirmed his worst fear. A middle aged woman and man lay in the neatly finished area set up as the farmer’s personal office. Decorations from tractor companies mixed into pictures of adventures with family and friends over every square inch of wall. Thin paper photos holding memories of those dearest witnessed the end of a proud family.

  The man had been shot in the chest, and the woman in the back. Clark assumed that Trace caught a bullet as he charged up to whoever was breaking in. Apparently Susan had been shot in the back while comforting him in his final moments. Suddenly he remembered the two beautiful young Watson daughters living here…he’d spend the rest of the day in another fruitless search for them.

  Olsen walked out of the shed and looked around at the surrounding landscape. He tried to figure out where the bandits who did this came from. Suddenly he felt as though a thousand eyes were staring at him from behind the tall grass and weeds. In the short time since the modern world ground to a halt, brush began to encroach on the neatly manicured farm fields. Too much cover for anyone or anything wishing to sneak up on unsuspecting victims.

  This was the third farm in the last week that he’d been too late to help. Desperate searches for those missing children cost him valuable time trying to help the rest of the farms work together to build up their defenses. Time he would have gladly spent if he had found so much as a clue as to their whereabouts.

  What can we do? Olsen thought. How am I going to catch these guys popping up from the drainage ditches when I have just a handful of deputies to track them down?

  Tears turned to rage for Olsen now. This is how anarchy starts. And the sheriff of this little backwater county in the middle of flyover country wasn’t going to let it happen.