Most of the men wept and wretched after entering the community. The biggest grief was, why we're so many people missing either right or left limbs? Crudely cut just below the elbows, man, woman, and child had this grotesque disfigurement. The national guard unit had discovered the community by accident quite literally. While in convoy to another area of the state, one of the vehicles at the tail end of the convoy struck a small boy as he was running carelessly away from the community sobbing and bleeding from an apparent beating.
Eleven-year-old Jack Mason was emaciated, confused, and in need of serious medical care. The guardsmen had stopped the vehicle after striking Jack, right in front of the main gate to the Shadow Pines community. Lying in front of the vehicle, muttering incoherently, about some lottery. The accident was relayed up the command and the convoy had stopped. Tending to the boy's dire medical needs, the guard was informed that the community had serious issues and any aid should be rendered. What they discovered, made combat soldiers weep in each other's arms.
America had experienced an economic Armageddon nearly 14 months prior. Not only America but the world. Everything stopped working the way it should. Grocery stores were empty, dollars we're useless, much of any law and order had ceased to exist in major population centers. The army, at least the soldiers who still remained, was tasked with aiding recovering sections of...