Free Calamity in America by Pete Thorsen Page A

to me before I dropped behind the barricade.  I heard Beth start shooting from her position and saw one armed man fall before I had my rifle aimed and I shot my first man too and watched him go down.
    The area around our driveway was completely bare and the mob had no cover of any kind.  I had moved the car that I did have blocking the driveway so they had nothing to hide behind.  They had to be berserk to try and rush us when we were behind the barricade and they were right out in the open like that.  But that is just what they did.  Beth and I between us shot several of them but they kept coming. 
    I laid down my rifle and lit the cigarette lighter I had to light the fuse.  When the very short fuse burned down and the cannon went off the effect was devastating.  I only looked for a brief second as I was busy trying to reload the thing.
    In my down time I had built a small carriage for the cannon barrel I had brought home just to use for scrap.  I fixed it up only because I figured I could sell the thing for a lawn decoration or something.  Then one of the people I had bought a cheap gun from had a miniature cannon and I had asked him a thousand questions about them.  Seems he had shot several different cannons in civil war re-enactments and was quite knowledgeable.  He even had quite a lot of the black powder and a little of the cannon fuse he would sell me.
    I had shot my cannon a few times to try it out and knew what to do now.  I had never expected it to work as well as it did now.  I thought just the very loud boom would scare off many of our attackers but many never had the chance to be scared.
    I had placed the large charge of black powder in the cannon after I inserted the short fuse.  Then I packed in a rag tightly against the powder charge.  Next were all the large steel ball bearings, large rusty nuts, and chunks of lead cut from wheel weights that I dared cram into the cannon.  Another rag packed down the barrel to finish the load that I had just shot into the horde attacking us.  When the cannon went off it rolled back farther than I expected but this load was much heavier than any previous load I had shot from it.
    As soon as I had the cannon loaded again I looked out to aim the thing at those intent on attacking us.  What I saw was rather sickening.  Many were now on the ground screaming in pain.  There were still many standing though it looked like they had mostly stopped because of the surprise and devastation all around them.  But this had to be finished and I lined the big barrel up towards the biggest group still standing and fired the second shot.
    This time I could see the effect of the shot.  Chucks of the earth around those I aimed at was torn up but many of the projectiles also hit those standing in random places on their bodies from their heads to their toes.  I watched as many of them shook from the effects of being hit from more than one of the odd shaped pieces of flying metal.
    Then it was relatively quiet.  I heard only the screams and wails from the wounded and the retching sounds coming from where Beth was positioned behind our breastworks.  I did see a few people running away and some of them looked to be in bad shape.
    I stood and looked over the field of slaughter.  I was about to reach down and pick up my rifle to do what needed to be done to put those in front of me out of their misery when Beth walked over to me as she was wiping her mouth.
    Tears were running down her face.  I held her only briefly and sent her up to the house.  She knew I think what I had to do next and knew she did not want to see it.  Beth walked back to the house willingly and I was left to my grisly task.
    I’m sure even in the house Beth could easily hear each shot from either my rifle or my pistol as I walked among those lying on or near our driveway and on each side of it.  I closed my mind and my ears to what I was doing and what I knew I had no choice but to do.
    The cannon I