by Ricky Sides
The Peacekeepers. Books 1 - 3.
Title Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Book 2.
Preface
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Book 3
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
He’d just begun to walk away from the area of the crash when the earthquake that rocked that region that night began to rumble through the ground. By the light of the quarter moon, he watched in shocked awe as the surface of the earth undulated and rippled like the surface of the sea. He saw trees crashing to the ground not far from him, and twice he was thrown to the ground.
When the earth stopped shaking, Tim got back on his feet and stared about him at the damage. Like many soldiers who trained extensively for night operations, Tim had superb night vision. As he stood surveying the carnage wrought by the earthquake, he wished for the first time in his life that he didn’t have such excellent night vision.
Having grown up in the Tennessee Valley, Tim was accustomed to surveying storm damage from the many violent thunderstorms and tornadoes that plague that region of the United States. But the damage he surveyed that night dwarfed everything in his experience. Shaking his head in awe, he began the task of walking to the nearest city where he would, hopefully, find food, water, and transportation.
As he walked, he was expecting the bombs to fall at any minute. In fact, he wasn’t sure that it hadn’t been a bomb that had caused the earth to shake so violently during the earthquake. However, he didn’t much believe that it had been a bomb for two reasons. There had been no flash of light in the night sky and there had been no shockwave. He felt reasonably sure that if he could feel the shockwave through the earth he would have experienced the atmospheric shockwave as well. “Unless the bombs detonated below the surface,” he told himself.
Walking all night long, he never saw a soul. Dawn found him on the outskirts of a small community that had been evacuated due to some of the natural disasters that had occurred two weeks prior to his arrival. He acquired some food and water there. More importantly, he acquired a motorcycle. He also found another few boxes of nine-millimeter ammunition, which he gratefully added to his meager supply.
The Birth of the Peacekeepers.
By Ricky Sides
Copyright © 2007
ISBN-10: 1449532950
ISBN-13: 9781449532956
ASIN: B002JCSFSQ
Cover art by Todd Aune
Edited by Frankie Sutton
Chapter 1
Jim Wilison woke up to the bright morning air and he breathed deeply. He sat up and then got out of bed. After dressing quickly, he headed for his living room.
He stared at the screen of his television for a moment before turning the set on. A feeling of dread washed over him as he waited for the old set to warm up enough to show a picture.
He let out a sigh when the picture finally came on. The news was on again and he watched as the newscaster directed the viewer's attention to a screen that depicted scenes of a devastated landscape.
Jim listened attentively as the newscaster described the latest in a series of natural catastrophes that had devastated the world. Sadness gripped him as he sat down in his old gray chair and listened to the newscaster reporting on the latest death toll. Jim was not even looking at the picture; he just stared at the floor and listened. He had seen enough death and destruction to last a lifetime, and somehow he knew that the nightmare was not over yet.
The newscaster continued with his narration saying, “Last night, earthquakes and tornadoes ripped through the middle section of the country. One Government official has put the casualty estimate at two million dead and displaced from last night’s tragic onslaught of nature, but of course, it is far too soon to know for certain.”
Jim sat up with a start. He looked anguished for a moment as what the commentator had said sank into his mind. Speaking quietly he said, “Two million people! This has got to be the worst yet.” Then he remembered that three million had died in China just three days earlier. He also remembered that four days earlier two and a half million had died in Europe in a series of natural disasters that had devastated much of France, Belgium and Germany.
“When will this nightmare end?” wondered a tormented Jim.
For three weeks, the world had been devastated by an unprecedented amount of natural disasters. Those disasters included floods, earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanoes, and massive thunderstorms.
Jim shuddered when he recalled the massive thunderstorm that had swept through North Alabama and all of Tennessee. Thunderstorm was not the correct term for that storm. He knew that as well as any of the other survivors of the storm. There had been hurricane force winds and hail the size of baseballs. The hail had been the real killer of that storm. People had been beaten to death by the pelting hail as they were struggling against the wind to get into shelters. It had also killed livestock at the many farms that dotted the area.
Jim recalled how he had survived the storm. He had been one of the lucky ones because he had been below ground when the storm
swept through his area. He’d been digging in his tunnel complex when the storm hit, and hadn’t even known about the storm until he’d started to come out of the tunnel. Only then had he realized that something was wrong.
Jim walked into his kitchen and poured himself a glass of tea. As he walked back into the living room with his glass, he thought of the violent thunder that he had heard as he had climbed back up the shaft that led to the surface. It was only then that he had realized there was a storm in the area.
He hadn’t thought much about the thunder at the time. After all, it was the stormy season for the Northern Alabama area. With little concern, he had continued up the shaft and opened the hatch to the outside world.
Lost in the memories, he shuddered as he recalled the violence of the wind that had almost killed him.
As Jim opened the hatch that covered his tunnel, the gale force wind snatched the hatch from his hands, slamming the door wide open and dragging him a full two feet upward at the same time. Desperately, he had grabbed the top of the ladder with his hands as his feet scrambled for a firm foothold on the rungs below. Then his right foot found one of the rungs of the ladder as the wind abruptly died down. The wind had been holding Jim up half in and half out of the shaft. As soon as the wind died, he had dropped back down into the shaft. If he hadn’t managed to get his foot on that rung, he had no doubt he would have fallen to his death thirty feet below. As it was, he only slid a couple feet back down the shaft, then his left foot also found a purchase.
Jim smiled as he sipped at his tea. He could laugh at himself, now that he was safe. How comical he must have looked at that particular moment. Yet, the situation had been far from humorous when it had occurred. He’d scrambled from the shaft and stopped to look around. Looking to the north he had seen the line of hail approaching. It was like a solid wall of ice crashing down with an incredible force and destroying everything in its path.
When he had first spotted the rapidly advancing line of hail, it had been about five hundred yards away. He had immediately decided it would be best to retreat into his tunnel system. By the time, he was back in the shaft; the line of hail had been about two hundred yards away. He had just managed to secure the hatch when the first hailstone started hitting it.
From the sounds of the impacts, Jim could tell that the hatch would not be able to take much of that punishment before giving way to the fury of the storm. So, he had grabbed the outer edges of the metal ladder in a firm grip with his hands and then he had locked his feet around the outer edges as well.
He could still remember the fear he had felt as he slid down that ladder as fast as he could. In fact, his hands still bore the traces of the burns and lacerations that he had received that day, but somehow, he’d made it safely to the bottom of the shaft. He had scrambled into the side tunnel just as the hatch had given way to the enormous impacts of the hail.
For over an hour, he watched as the hail piled up in the shaft. By the time the storm had passed, the floor of the shaft had been covered in three feet of ice.
He smiled as he remembered the words of his old friend, Pete Damroyal, “Always build your tunnel above the level of the shaft. If you don't take that precaution, it can easily become flooded.”
Jim knew that if he had failed to follow those instructions then he would have been stuck inside his tunnel until the hail had melted. That is something he wouldn’t have liked at all, since the tunnel had not been stocked with emergency rations of food and water at that time. He had made sure to correct that shortly after the storm had passed.
He knew that he had been lucky that day. Very lucky. If he had been home, he might have been killed. He looked up at his ceiling and frowned at the patched hole directly above his chair. The hole was put there by larger than average hailstones that had punched through the ceiling and destroyed his other chair that had been sitting here. Had he been home, he knew that he would have been sitting here watching the weather bulletins during the storm. Yes, Jim Wilison knew he was a very lucky man.
The news commentator interrupted Jim’s thoughts. The man's eyes betrayed a growing fear as he said, “I've just been handed this note. The President has issued a declaration. It reads, 'Due to the unprecedented natural disasters afflicting our nation I am hereby declaring a nationwide state of emergency. As of 8:00 A.M. this morning, I am declaring Martial Law in the United States of America until further notice. All citizens are urged to stay inside your homes, until such time as you are contacted by military officials or are otherwise advised by the civilian government.' ”
The newscaster then picked up a second sheet of paper. He looked at the paper for a moment scanning the contents then said, “The reports from the National Civil Defense are in. As of yesterday afternoon fifty-five million Americans have died in the past month.”
No longer able to control the tears that flowed freely down his cheeks, the newscaster continued in an emotion-choked voice, “No state in the nation has been spared the awful tragedies that have been sweeping across the world. The best scientific minds in our nation have been unable to determine the cause of these...”
The television screen went black at that point. Looking around, Jim noted that all of the electrical appliances were now dead. He got up and walked to the front door of his home. Looking out the window, he saw people coming out of their homes and milling about in confusion on the street. He was just about to go outside and speak with a group of his neighbors to see what they thought was going on when his phone rang.
Turning away from the door, he walked to his phone and picked up the receiver. “Hello.” he said. On the other end, he heard the voice he had been afraid that he would never hear again. It was Pete Damroyal, his longtime friend and instructor in the art of survival.
Pete said, “Jim, it's started.”
Jim replied calmly, “I know, Pete.” Then after a brief pause he asked, “How you doing?”
Pete replied, “I'm doing OK. I've had a couple of close calls but so far I am staying alive.”
Jim said, “I am glad to hear it, I was worried about you. Are you coming back to Alabama soon?”
There was a silence over the line for several long moments, and Jim began to fear that the connection had been broken, but finally Pete replied, “If you really need me there I can come to Alabama now. But if not, then I want to wait a while before coming back.”
Jim tried not to sound disappointed when he replied, “I heard about the trouble in Chicago. Do you need any help?”
“What help I need, I can get here. I’m organizing some men here in the city now. They’re good men so I think we can handle the situation here,” Pete responded.
“Are the riots still going on in the city?” Jim asked with concern etched in his voice.
“Yea, but they are not as bad as they were at the worst point. The city is still a mess from the earthquakes that hit us, but the Mayor has started a pretty good system of crowd control for the moment,” Pete explained.
“That's good. I was afraid that you might have gotten caught out in the middle of one of the riots and wouldn't be able to get out of it in one piece,” Jim responded.
“I did get caught up in a couple of the riots but so far I’ve managed to keep myself together,” Pete replied.
Then the tone of Pete's voice grew serious when he said, “I hope you’ve gathered the equipment that I told you would need in the event of a break down of our government.”
“I have and most of it stored in my first tunnel system. You know the one I mean, don’t you?” Jim replied.
“The one I helped you start?” Pete asked.
“Yeah that's the one.”
“Have you started another sanctuary yet?” Pete asked.
“Started it but I'm afraid I haven't gotten very far with that one yet,” Jim replied.
“Well keep at it because you know that you shouldn’t store all of your supplies in one shelter. Supplies should be distributed among two or more shelters several miles apart j
ust in case a natural disaster or an enemy takes one. That way, you’ll have another shelter to fall back to,” Pete lectured.
“Oh, I remember all that,” Jim replied, and then he said, “I assume that you have yourself all set?”
“Yeah, I’ve three stashes in place and I’m working on a fourth now.”
“Have you gotten your bike yet?” asked Jim.
Chuckling, Pete answered, “I'm surprised you remembered about the bike.” Then he said, “Yep, I've got a bike now. It is a Honda five hundred, but I’m still looking for a GoldWing. I'm pretty sure I'll find one soon.”
Jim said, “I think I've found a GoldWing here. I'm going to check on it today.”
Pete's voice came over the line after a short pause. He said, “Be careful. Be very careful, Jim. I am going to be tied up here for at least a year. It might even be longer. I just don't know how long it's going to take to help get the people here organized.”
“Hey, don't you worry about me. You just cover your own ass, buddy.” Then Jim added, “You’ve taught me well so I can take care of myself now.”
“I know you can. If I had any doubt about that, I'd already be on my way back to Alabama,” Pete responded.
Jim swallowed the lump in his throat and said, “You don’t know how much I appreciate that.”
There was a momentary silence and then Pete said, “From here on out, you need to be ready to take shelter at any moment. I've got this hunch that things are about to get a whole lot worse.”
Jim replied, “Me too, I saw the news a few minutes before you called. The President's declaration seemed ominous to me.”
“We could be looking at a nuclear war before this is all over,” Pete said.
Surprised by the admission from his friend Jim replied, “Yeah, I think you might be right. I’ve been trying to get in touch with Tim, my brother, but so far I haven’t been able to contact him and that worries me.”
Pete tried to reassure his friend when he replied, “He’s probably out working to clear the rubble from some Senator's estate.”
“I hope you're right, but I can't help worrying about Tim. I've heard rumors that some military units have been attacked by angry civilians in some of the food riots.”