“Yes. So there is no confusion during the transitional period I will require your… First Cavalry, as you’ve been calling it, to store their arms immediately. At least until we can sort out who belongs where, I mean.”
“Who belongs where?” Kenly raised an eyebrow. “Explain.”
“Well, not to put too fine a point on it, Mr. Kenly, but we’ve got a list of suspected deserters. We intend to… investigate and prosecute where necessary.” Colonel Sharp smiled. It was disingenuous and creepy, just like the agents who’d preceded him. After bestowing upon Mary a stack of paperwork neither she or Kenly had any intention of filling out, the Colonel and his entourage of armor clad henchmen in the lobby left. To her lack of surprise Jenny Kopland was following Colonel Sharp around like a bitch in heat. Mary made it clear to the man-boy from FEMA that his welcome in their office had been worn out the moment the colonel arrived. He didn’t seem to understand, and she ended up pushing him out of the office with more force than necessary. He spilled his stack of useless forms all over the hallway. She hoped it made him cry like the sissy he was.
“How long until they get back?”
“We don’t know. The Feds are jamming radio communications.” Kenly sighed. “I sent Allen’s little brother and a couple other kids with a hardcopy of orders. Before you object, they’ve all made Eagle Scout. They know how to survive, and right now kids are the only people these Goddamned Commies haven’t slapped a cattle tag on.”
“Does Allen know?”
“Yeah, it was Jimmy’s idea in the first place.” That settled that matter. The next was a secret meeting in Reynolds’ basement. His medical condition meant a Candy Striper had been assigned to care for him by the FEMA workers. This Candy Striper was a moron, as predicted, and Reynolds’ older daughter had slipped her some crushed sleeping pills in a stiff glass of whiskey. She was asleep in a closet with headphones on before nightfall when the others arrived. No one knew how long it would take for Lee and Ethan to return, they had to plan an organized resistance while that was still possible. Two of the survivors in town were descendants of the Navaho Wind Talkers and spoke the code fluently. It was in the history books, but the chances of the Feds figuring it out was slim, especially if they changed the words up. Lessons from the French Underground and even those recently learned from Iraqi and Iranian Insurgents were all being discussed. No one wanted to start suicide bombing, or setting IED’s along the roads, but nothing was off the tables.
Occupation of Sullivan: Week 1
The next days brought a number of problems with “Transitioning.” Because the vast majority of the FEMA and Red Cross workers weren’t trained in security, the thirty or so troops Colonel Sharp lorded over and micromanaged to death weren’t able to make any headway in shutting down the Cavalry, or the Sheriff’s Department. If they thought they could sling useless DoD forms around and have someone take it seriously they had never expected the whirling shitstorm of bureaucracy Mary Cally could throw back at them, or the tenacity in which she insisted upon lengthy, redundant “proper procedure” being followed. By the tenth day of the Federal occupation most of the aid workers were too frustrated to confront Mary, and no one could seem to schedule time to see the Mayor himself, not even the turncoat Jenny Kopland or the now infamous Colonel Sharp.
Perhaps Mary played the game a little too well, because it wasn’t long before Colonel Sharp got wise to what was happening. He called them out on it publically with a threat to declare Marshal Law, which, he claimed, was technically still in effect since the “Temporary Collapse of Government Services” two years before. Most of the townspeople walked away from the congregation standing around to hear him speak, as if the man in a ridiculous urban gray uniform that blended into nothing was just yelling at walls like the crazy bum in the subway. They all knew Passive Resistance doesn’t always meet with Passive Force, but the choice to disobey wasn’t truly a choice. It was an American tradition.
The day after Colonel Sharp’s failed speech there were sixty more troops, all having arrived on helicopters in the dark of night, and all just as heavily armed and unfriendly as the first group. The Federal workers seemed relieved backup had finally arrived because now they could feel safe in the streets of this lawless hillbilly town. People were having their firearms confiscated left and right and any building with a FEMA provided service or funding was papered with NO WEAPONS ALLOWED signs. Why? Because the theory was a Disarmed Populace was an Easily Controlled Populace. Any truly great despot knows Gun Control is key. Just ask Comrade Stalin or his neighbor to the West, Adolf Hitler. They would both have been fans of the works of Chairman Mao, Pol Pot, Kim Jong Il and even the efforts of America’s Last Regime.
Allen wasn’t the first to butt heads with Colonel Sharp’s men, but his incident was the most public thus far. Mary had been working overtime to keep him away from the new troops, men from an Army that seemed to have forgotten what professional courtesy was, and who seemed to be under the impression that the people served them, not the other way around. She hated to admit it, but Ethan was right about the “Broken TV” patch, in that it was going to be on most of their shoulders. Fucking Tools.
Keeping them separated from Allen proved impossible once Colonel Sharp showed up at the Sally Port of FOB Alamo with a search warrant, stamped in red ink and apparently signed by the President himself.
“Get off my road, Colonel.” Allen shouted from the middle of the Sally Port, “You’re blocking supply routes.”
Colonel Sharp wasn’t impressed, “Young man, you need to move before we remove you. We are here under the lawful orders of the President of the United States of America. You will move so we can conduct a search of this property, which I might remind you, is Government Owned Land.”
Allen rolled his eyes, “When are you going to learn, Colonel. We’re not letting some jackass who appeared in town a week ago rummage through our military installations. And stop walking around giving orders. Do you see us in your goofy looking, non-camouflagey uniforms? I’ll save you the trouble of answering: No. And just as a reminder, were you here to protect us when we needed you most? No. We don’t owe you bastards shit. You left us here, we own this land, and you’re not getting inside.”
Sharp had had enough. Allen was a quick draw, but Sharp was faster, but instead of a gun he drew a tazer on steroids, the prongs of which were in Allen’s left arm and right thigh before he could pull the trigger of his sidearm. The electricity burned through him like a wildfire. The acting Sheriff dropped to the wet blacktop as the raid sirens began to blare on post. The sentries opened fire, but none of the Soldiers were hit after having scrambled back into their vehicles to escape. Sharp left Allen on the ground, dazed and confused, the sounds of bullets pinging off armor fading in the distance.
Allen wasn’t able to call to town before Colonel Sharp ordered a military crackdown, on his way out Sharp cut the hard lines. All Deputies and Cavalrymen were relieved of duty in a coordinated, practiced maneuver during the men’s chow times. Soldiers standing near Cavalrymen or Deputies received a radio transmission and suddenly raised their weapons on their counterparts, shouting for guns, knives and batons to be put on the ground and for them to return to their barracks or homes. Two Cavalrymen and a Deputy were shot down in cold blood when they refused. A compulsory town meeting was called in the old Wal*Mart parking lot. There a seething mad Colonel Sharp laid down the parameters of Martial Law with no uncertain terms.
“Ladies and gentlemen, citizens of the United States.” He began, reading from a teleprompter, though this narcissistic prick had probably written the speech himself. “Today’s actions, and reinstitution of Martial Law, are a direct result of an attack on myself and my Personal Security Detail outside the gates of your illegal, paramilitary installation. I have relieved the town’s Deputy Sheriffs of duty pending retraining as Security Personnel, and have disbanded the cavalry unit, as there are no Infected Citizens left to protect against. They’ve all rotted. They’re all gon
e. You can all rest assured now that we are here to help.” There was a pause, and though hands were raised in the crowd no questions were answered. “According to the provisions of Marshal Law, the following rules will be in effect until such time as order can be restored.”
“No thanks to you!” Someone in the crowd shouted. Troops strategically placed throughout the masses swooped in and the man was gagged and dragged away. Those gathered grew restless and Sharp’s right-hand man suggested they leave. Sharp refused.
“The following provisions will be adhered to with the strictest of discipline!” Colonel Sharp continued. “A nightly curfew of twenty hundred hours until zero six hundred hours will be in effect one hour after this crowd is dismissed. All organized resistance will cease, the orders of the Military’s Officers and Noncommissioned Officers will be followed to the letter, the orders of Security Personnel will also be adhered to without hesitation. Punishment for nonviolent offenses will be time spent in the stockade. Punishment for violent offenses will be removal from this jurisdiction pending tribunal at a Military Installation to be determined… Rations will begin to be equally redistributed first thing in the morning by FEMA personnel. Orderly cooperation is mandatory. We will not have a repeat of Katrina or the Quarantine Riots, people. A full list of Martial Laws is posted on the storefront over there and individual copies are available. Remember folks, it’s gonna be a tough time, but we’re the Government and we’re here to help.” That night thirty four people ended up in the stockade for curfew violations. Another twelve were shot, five more were never heard from again. This continued almost nightly.
17
Finding herself unemployed, Mary had little to do but sit at the local park with Paula and watch the children as the Onezies, the Federal workers who all wore color coordinated mechanic’s one-pieces, rebuilt the town in the image of their Most Glorious Cheyenne Mountain Colony. It was terrifying to listen to them tell their reverent stories of surviving the Refugee Camps during the panic, and how the ‘Most Historic’ President and his sweeping policies of change and hope for a Socialist future had risen to the occasion and reinvented America for a safe, and secure future.
Or whatever.
Some people, mostly those in their teens and twenties, were going along with the transition from self-sufficiency back to government dependency without hesitation. Falling back into old habits by the dozen, this demographic was the easiest to dupe. Mary tried to remind herself that these were the ten percent of the population that did ninety percent of the whining in the first place. It gave a little too much credence to Ethan’s reasoning for disliking teenagers in the first place. It was almost as if anyone born after 1990 couldn’t accept the collapse of a society dependent on Twittering their life away on Facebook and hiding in their televisions and cell phones rather than saying hi to their neighbors. The lazy and useless were happy to be told what to do again, to not have to think for themselves like good little goose-steppers.
Everyone else was trying very hard to follow and increasingly complex set of counterintuitive regulations, Citizens were being arrested daily, often without prior cause or because a neighbor said something. It was becoming a witch hunt. There were lists floating around, of people wanted for ‘questioning,’ Ethan and Lee chief amongst them. Someone had found a list of guns sold at Wal*Mart and compared them to credit card receipts. If there was a match that person’s home could expect to be raided within hours. The new monetary system, imported along with a flood of hundreds of new Settlers from Cheyenne, was confusing and often unfair, giving little if anything in exchange for money earned during the Lawless Time. U.S. dollars were considered worthless, and any money baring the Sullivan stamp was deemed contraband and had to be handed over for an amount adjusted for inflation, assuming it wasn’t confiscated altogether. Keeping Sullivan branded money was punishable by ten days in the stockade for a first offence and mandatory attendance of political reeducation seminars. There were no second chances. God help you if you forgot to turn over even one S-Dollar.
Allen had been arrested for growing a Schedule One Narcotic, no surprise there, and so had all of his employees and girlfriends. No one had heard from any of them and none of the locals were allowed in the detention facility to visit. Ethan and Lee hadn’t been heard from at all and Sharp’s continued reign of terror only got worse. FOB Alamo had been taken over and subsequently abandoned by the Federal Army, which had failed to see any strategic importance to the hillside fortress. Instead they used it as a dump for broken equipment and posted only a handful of Security Guards so no one could go back. Not that it stopped those who were determined, and the vast majority of the Forward Operating Bases’ small arms went missing the night before they were scheduled for destruction. In response, Colonel Sharp had upped enforcement of the Suspension of Second Amendment Privileges, formerly a Civil Liberty and Constitutional Right. The Federal Colonists had long seemed to have abandoned the idea of being armed with anything more than a baseball bat, and were often confused that their wilderness neighbors would still be harboring such dangerous items. Sharp’s men conducted house to house raids to remove all illegal weapons. This meant every make and model, even if it was a rare antique. The crackdown included bladed weapons too, such as the Cavalry’s Khukuris. The Cavalrymen, already being watched and on every list imaginable, were able to hide their blades but not themselves. The walls built to keep Infected Citizens out were possibly too effective at keeping those who wished to escape in. Their castle had become their prison.
“Has anyone been able to contact the boys?”
“Not a word.”
Paula looked over at Mary, “Aren’t you scared something might have happened?”
“Nope. In fact, the longer we go without hearing from them the better off I think we are…” She took a sip of water from a canteen. “Because when my husband gets back, he’s going to kill all of them.” Mary scooped up Samuel and Serenity. “I won’t see our children grow up in a world where they are dependent on the teet and approval of any government that thinks we are the bad guys, that we need them for anything.”
“There’s going to be blood, Mary. People are going to die. Our people.” Paula reached for Serenity, petting the girl’s hair. Keith JR was asleep in the backpack satchel his mother wore.
“Keith didn’t die so we could hand everything we’ve worked for over to thugs in purple onezies.” Mary gritted her teeth. “I’m going to enjoy the look in Sharp’s eyes when Ethan cuts his face off.”
Jimmy, Allen’s little brother and the chubby kid who’d had a foul mouth at the bridge, was much taller and skinnier now. He and two other Scouts had ridden ATVs from town, scavenging fuel when they got low, all the way to Fort Leonard Wood to deliver the news of the Federal Government’s invasion. They brought with them the portable section of the satellite radio General Vierling had given the town the year before. They’d given up hope of reaching the Texans, but it could reach town as well. Lee made contact with Mayor Kenly and some of his officers that had escaped. They talked of beginning the resistance.
Lee’s first order was to cease resisting. Ethan had drawn up a battle plan that was the polar opposite of the war he’d fought in. Instead of offering armed resistance from the start, the men were to settle down and wait. Set charges, stash guns, and wait. Gather intelligence, find out who’s loyal, and wait some more. Behave as best they could, be cooperative, don’t resist. How long they’d have wait would depend on how quickly the last of the Bradley Fighting Vehicles could be brought back to life. Many were trashed, more were rusted beyond repair, and many more were cannibalized to put just five Bradley’s, three ASVs and two Abrams main battle tanks back in service. This was considered quite an achievement by the mechanics. Champagne found in the abandoned on-post housing christened the first battle ready Armored Personnel Carrier. Ethan had manned one of these in the Army, (the first time.) They were cramped, but powerful. He stenciled a coiled rattlesnake on the nose plate of the truck, DON’T TREA
D ON ME on the top and bottom angle.
Low on men, Jimmy and his friends were pressed into service. One Cavalryman had committed suicide a few days earlier after finding his mother among the frozen Zims. It was in another overrun staging area he had found when his squad was supposed to be on sleep rotation. Two more had been killed by booby-traps intended to kill an enemy the Army hadn’t understood at the time. Daisy-chained claymore mines were hidden behind armory doors and around the burned out hospital. Those poor boys had died painfully, the troops so spread out on work details neither could be reached in time to save them or even make them comfortable before the end.
Ethan and Lee had taken a truck to the far reaches of the TRADOC post to look for Ethan’s car when there was little work left they were qualified to do. Neither had taken many breaks, both slipping into their old habits of responsibility as leaders. It was as much to kill time as it was to distract them from their losses. When most of the work had been done for the day and the second Abrams roared back to life, Lee decided they needed some family time. They had little else to do as the final Abrams’ gun was being resurrected, but they didn’t find the car. The lot Ethan had been forced to leave it in, almost at gunpoint and certainly upon threat of incarceration, was still full of cars. Some were missing parts and up on blocks, some were burned others still crammed full of Zims and the skeletal remains of the people they’d devoured.
The light began to fade and a brilliant pink and orange Missouri sunset crossed the Ozark sky. Birds were singing in the twilight, the distant echo woodpeckers was so much more pleasant than gunfire. “Are you sure this is the right lot?” Lee asked, losing interest in the wild goose chase. He became more paranoid as the light faded. That was understandable, there was no evidence light effected a zombie’s ability to hunt.
World of Ashes Page 45