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loved would die if we failed.

We stopped at the top of the hill, about two hundred yards from mom's house, and had ourselves a gunfight. Jess dropped two of them very quickly, shooting one of them through the glass of his car door as he was getting out. Didn't even get a chance to fire back. I got one myself as he ran toward me, the idiot. Pat had gotten out of the truck as soon as we stopped, leveled his shotgun and started firing with a speed that seemed impossible in such a big guy.

Pat got two of them.

We managed to avoid getting hit only because we had the advantage of terrain, and the sun was at our backs, making it hard for them to look at us to aim. The last two of them almost had me, but since I was still in the bed of the truck, I dropped flat when I saw them rushing toward us, pulling Jess with me. Pat dropped back to hunker by the front of the truck, forcing the last two attackers to come around if they wanted to get him. I thought we were done for, honestly, because Jess and I were sitting ducks, flat on our backs. They could have easily walked up next to the truck and fired down on us, but for one small factor.

Little David.

When we stopped, I forgot all about him. He dove into the truck as Pat was getting out, and in the chaos, everyone forgot him. But he kept his wits sharp and was watching it all very closely, and when the two men tried to get close, he threw the truck in reverse, making them duck the sides. One of them smashed his face on the asphalt when his weapon got tangled up as he tried to roll, and Patrick took him in one shot.

The last one was a bit more spry and had actually started firing when a big, silver SUV came over the hill at forty or fifty miles an hour and crushed him.

I never knew my mom had it in her. She abhors violence, hates it with a passion. But from her house, she told me later, she saw what was happening, and wasn't about to let her son die.

Now that it's all over, many hours later, I am starting to really feel what happened. I killed someone. I ended all of his potential, all that he could have been, in a single instant. And even though I know it was necessary and completely justified, I still feel terrible about it. It's like a toothache that won't go away, always in the back of my mind, along with the fear and worry that our new world forces on us. I did a thing today that a few weeks ago I never dreamed of, and I wonder what other decisions we will be faced with in the months and years ahead.

I am trying not to think about it. My heart hurts enough right now, with guilt at being a killer, and relief that my people are alive and unharmed, and more guilt for part of me feeling good that I ended a threat to them.

It was looking to be such a beautiful day. Just goes to show that Jess is usually right about these things.
    Posted by Josh Guess at 7:04 AM
Follow ups
     
    Six more looters have come for us, in two groups.

They must be looking for their friends, which has disturbing implications. That so many survivors could become so pointlessly violent and savage is terrible, but that they would band together and be so organized frightens me to my core.

It wasn't pretty. I don't need to go into details, but this time was a lot more brutal. The fellas we killed yesterday attacked us without reason, the guys today sneaked up on us twice, two groups of three. We blocked off the other roads into the subdivision, so mom's road is the only access in by car. The first set must have come through the other side, because they came to our house on foot. I guess they haven't been through here lately, because they obviously didn't know we post guards. Jess was up on the roof in the little crow's nest we put up, and she stomped on the shingles when she saw them. She shot one of them in the face, and Little David and I got the other two. I had to go out through the escape hatch in the floor. David went out the front, and got his man, but he took a grazing shot to his thigh.

The second