by Ricky Sides
He saw the train that had derailed and the twisted rails that had caused it. He could see the homes situated near the tracks. Homes that had been flattened by the railcars as surely as if they’d been a house of cards. Then he saw the bodies of the victims left where they’d died of their injuries during the accident.
He fought the nightmare and came partially awake but in his weary state, as soon as the source of irritation vanished, he drifted back into his deep slumber.
It wasn’t long before he was dreaming again. This time, he dreamed of the wrecked cars and trucks that he’d passed on the trip to Louisiana. He saw the horribly burned bodies of many victims. He saw the twisted metal and broken glass that littered the highway, and again Jim roused from the dream state long enough for the dreams to go away. This time he didn’t dream for a while.
As he slept, the sun went down and the stars came out. The crescent moon described a portion of its arc across the dark night sky. Then the dreams returned and this time they were worse.
With brutally vivid detail, he relived the worst scene he’d had the great sorrow to stumble across during his trip. He saw the small brick school, which had collapsed upon the children who were inside. On one of his many forced detours, he’d been traveling through a small community, well off the main roads, when he came across the tragedy. Until the end of his days, Jim would wish he’d taken another route to get to Mississippi. If he had went any other route he wouldn’t have seen the horrors that he’d seen at that school.
In his dream, Jim saw the rubble that he’d encountered that day. He also saw the mangled bodies of the children protruding from several places in the rubble.
Stopping his truck Jim got out and walked over to the rubble hoping against all reason to find some sign of a survivor. As he drew near, he smelled the unmistakable odors of decomposition. The smell made him gag and retch uncontrollably. He returned to his truck and retrieved a t-shirt, which he tied snugly about his mouth and nostrils to try to bring the odor down to a bearable level. He also concentrated on his breathing and forced himself to breath through his mouth in an all out effort to deal with the smells of death that permeated the area.
He hopelessly searched the rubble looking for some sign, any sign of a survivor. Finally, he was forced away from the area by the harsh reality that so much time had elapsed that even if there had been some initial survivors; the time to help them had long since elapsed.
Getting back inside the cab of his truck Jim drove away from the area with the realization that the earthquakes must have killed the children but there was a mystery surrounding all this. Where were the parents? Why had the parents not come to claim the bodies of the children, and why were the kids even in the school that late at night?
Soon he found the answer to at least some of the mysteries surrounding the children. The school was situated about a quarter mile from the main residential section of the small community. When he saw the homes, he understood then what must have happened. The homes were wooden structures of poor quality that had been shaken apart by the quakes. He guessed that the parents had sent their children to the school with the false impression that they would be safer in the more modern brick building.
As he passed the residential section, Jim saw a pack of dogs worrying something in the rubble of one of the homes and he realized that the dogs were probably eating the dead men and women of the community.
Suddenly Jim was wide-awake and rolling off the bed. He raised his head just enough to see over the bed and look outside at the parking lot. What he saw outside the window sent cold chills up his spine. For the first time in his life, Jim was frozen in fear. As he stared in horror out the window at the crowd of mangled children, he couldn’t breathe. Some were crying out in agony, as their broken bodies seemed to writhe in pain in the growing light of dawn. Some were just standing there staring at him with pleading eyes. Yet others were screaming his name repeatedly. Then all of the children grew quiet. A little girl stepped closer and scratched at his window.
In horror, Jim stared at the girl. He could see worms crawling out of her eyes and mouth and knew she was dead. Then he noticed for the first time that all of the children seemed to be dead.
Once more, the little girl scratched at the window to get Jim’s attention. Jim stared at her and fought to regain his breath. He was growing desperate for a fresh breath of air.
The girl looked Jim in the eyes and stretched her little arms out in a pleading gesture. As she opened her mouth to speak, worms fell out and stuck to the glass windowpane. “Why didn’t you help us, Mister? We’re scared. Help us please.” Tears of blood and maggots streamed down the girl’s face, and once more Jim saw her spread her little arms in that pleading gesture.
The crowd behind the girl started to press her, tighter and tighter, against the window. Then the window gave way to the press of young bodies, and the children were in the room with Jim.
Jim’s need to breathe was so strong now that he felt light headed, as if he were about to pass out. As if on cue, the children leapt at Jim crying out in anger because he wouldn’t answer their pleas for assistance.
Jim awoke with a start. His heart was beating so rapidly that his head was spinning. He was breathing hard as he jerked his head to look out the small bay window. He fully expected to see the children standing there pressed against his window, but to his relief the only thing he saw was his truck.
His hands were shaking as he got behind the wheel of his eighteen-wheeler. It was still an hour before dawn, but he was ready to leave this motel. He associated the dream with the motel and he never wanted to experience that dream again.
Hours later, and a hundred miles away from the motel, Jim would tell himself that the nightmares were brought on by a sense of guilt at his not having buried the children. Perhaps that conclusion was correct. He did feel guilty about that but he was just one man, and one man couldn’t possibly bury all of the dead that existed in America during those trying days.
An hour after leaving the motel Jim crossed the state line into Mississippi. His spirits lifted at once. He wanted to make Meridian before nightfall, if he could, so he drove as fast as possible under the circumstances.
As he drove westward, on Highway 20, Jim began to see more and more traffic until he got to within about eight miles of Meridian. At that point, the traffic thinned considerably because the other drivers seemed to want to avoid going into Meridian. Several of the vehicles turned north at Highway 39, while many others waited until they came to another intersection and turned south on Highway 45.
Jim was beginning to wonder if going into Meridian, when so many people seemed intent upon avoiding doing so was a mistake, but he decided to go ahead and enter the city.
Chapter 16
A few minutes after Jim entered Meridian, he knew it had been a mistake to enter the city. He only hoped he’d live long enough to leave the city. If he survived the visit, he promised himself he’d never again drive into a city that other drivers seemed to be attempting to avoid.
As he drove down the streets of the city, Jim was appalled at the cruelties he witnessed. It seemed to him that everywhere he looked he saw acts of violence being committed.
As he rounded one corner, he saw a group of ragged looking people standing in front of a grocery store. At first, Jim was confused about what was going on but as he slowly drove past the crowd, he got the picture. A group of armed men was holding the crowd at bay with an odd assortment of firearms. They seemed to be auctioning off the food from the grocery store.
A few blocks down the same street, he came across another group of people. This crowd was standing in front of a large butcher shop. Another group of heavily armed men was holding the crowd at bay, and apparently auctioning off the meat.
Shaking his head, Jim drove on down the street. Six blocks down, he drove past a department store being ransacked by about a hundred people. Even as he drove past the store, more people came to join in the looting. He saw the bodies o
f several men in the parking lot and assumed that they’d been attempting to auction off the goods in the store but, somehow, they’d lost control of the situation and died in the process. Evidently, some of the crowd had elected to just kill them rather than attempt to pay them.
Jim gunned his engine when some of the crowd spotted his truck and started running toward him. “It’s a supply truck!” he heard several people yell. He didn’t stick around to see if they would try to take his supplies. He knew very well that they would. As he put distance between himself and the looters, he saw them stop their pursuit of his truck and run back toward the store. Jim was sure that he was getting just a taste of what Robert, the truck driver, had experienced during his travels.
Within minutes, Jim saw more violence. He’d already seen a lot of vandalism, but most of that had been going on at the department stores and other facilities that served the public. Now, for the first time since entering the city, Jim saw the real Marauders that were plaguing the town.
Jim saw a group of twenty heavily armed men come walking down the middle of the street. Armed to the teeth, they were firing into the fronts of the houses as they strode boldly down the street.
Jim gritted his teeth in anger as he realized that he was about to have an encounter with twenty well-armed Marauders. Those were very bad odds and he knew it. As he sat with his engine idling, Jim remembered a discussion with Pete from years back in their relationship.
Pete and Jim had discussed the philosophical differences between Marauders and ordinary people desperate to keep their families alive. “Desperate people will turn on you and fight if they need to do so to protect or provide for their families. Marauders are different. Never forget that fact. Marauders will take advantage of a lack of law and order to commit unspeakable acts of cruelty, because they have a cruel streak in them. A Marauder will kill, main, or injure you, because it’s their nature to do so,” Pete had explained. He had then gone on to say, “If you learn nothing else from me, learn to know a Marauder when you see one. You’ll stay alive a lot longer in a survival situation if you learn to size up a Marauder and recognize him as such as rapidly as possible. Preferably, before he kills you.”
These memories flashed through his mind and he whispered, “Thanks Pete. I see what you mean.” as the group of Marauders turned their attention to his truck. They had spotted him and they all spread out so that they had the entire street blocked. The apparent leader of this group of Marauders stood in the center of the street. Jim picked him out with ease. He stood about six feet–five inches tall, and he looked like a mountain of a man. Jim sized him up and realized that he didn’t want to fight this man.
He knew he had only moments to decide what he was going to do as the Marauders continued their slow and deliberate advance toward his truck. Without bending over in his truck seat Jim removed his rifle from its bracket. He chambered a round and then laid the rifle on the seat next to him. Next, he drew the nine-millimeter pistol from the holster and tucked it beside his right thigh, wedging it between the seat and his leg, with the pistol grip within easy reach.
The leader of the group of Marauders shouted something that Jim couldn’t hear over the rumble of his engine, but he got the general idea when he saw the Marauders aiming their weapons at the cab of his truck.
He knew his options were limited. He couldn’t back the truck away from the danger while they were shooting at him. As he saw it, he had only one chance to get out of this alive.
Grimly he looked at the leader and stuck his head out the window shouting, “Are you interested in a trade deal?”
The Marauder leader was impressed with Jim for recognizing him as the leader, so he swaggered up to the truck confident that only an insane man would try anything with nineteen guns pointed at him. He stepped up on the outer step of the truck and looked Jim in the eye. “I might be. What are you trading?” he asked with a cruel smirk that told Jim the man was playing with him and planned to take whatever he wanted and most likely leave him a rotting corpse.
Looking the man directly in the eye Jim replied, “Your life for safe passage.”
The big Marauder laughed and said, “There are twenty of us and I see only you in the truck. Do you think you can get all of us before we get you?”
“Oh no. I’ll die for sure,” Jim said with a smile and then he added, “But one thing is certain though.”
“What’s that?” asked the Marauder who was beginning to lose his patience with what he now considered a very stupid man.
Jim’s look turned ice cold as he directed the Marauder’s attention downward. The Marauder’s eyes grew alarmed as he saw the rifle pointed in his direction. “You’ll die first,” Jim, answered the man’s question.
The Marauder roared in anger and tried to jump down off the truck as he was trying to bring his Uzi up to get a bead on Jim. Jim snapped the rifle up and fired a round instinctively without aiming. The bullet caught the Marauder in mid leap, propelling him to the ground with his arms out flung.
Jim gunned the engine and shot forward at the best speed he could get out of the truck. As he approached the Marauders, they opened fire in a hail of lead at the cab of the truck. Soon his windshield was a ruin but he drove on. With his right hand, he raised the AK-47 and fired methodically through his own ruined windshield into the group of Marauders. Pete had been right when he had once said that untrained men often closed ranks when the shooting started. It seemed to be an instinctive reaction.
As he drove toward the men, he heard the sound of bullets striking his truck. He tossed the now empty rifle down onto the passenger seat and grabbed the grip of the pistol. He had time to fire five rounds with the pistol, and then he went barreling through the Marauders. Many managed to scramble out of his way. Some of the others were wounded or just moved too slow to avoid the big rig, and they were run down by the truck.
Jim smiled as he shot two more Marauders while the cab of the truck shot past them. Jamming the pistol back beside his leg he changed gears and continued to pick up speed as he headed out of town.
Behind the big rig the ten survivors of the brief fight saw how many of their number had fallen in the attack and stared with hatred at the truck as it grew smaller and smaller until it disappeared. One of the men said, “At least we know who he is. It will be easy to spot that truck if he ever comes back through here. He had his name on the truck.”
One of the Marauders stepped forward and grabbed the front of the man’s shirt, then said, “You’re one dumb son of a bitch aren’t you? That man just wiped out half our group in ten seconds and you want to piss him off again?” He shoved the man away from him and said, “From now on I’m the new leader.” Fingering his knife suggestively, he asked, “Any objections?” His cold eyes sought the eyes of his fellow Marauders scanning each face for the slightest sign of mutiny. There were no objections.
The new leader of the Meridian Marauders said, “That’s good. I thought you’d all see it my way.” He turned to the man who’d spotted the name on the truck and asked, “What was the name on the side of the truck?”
The man stepped up to his boss and answered, “The name Jim Wilison was on the side of the trailer, Jake. Are we going to kill him after all?”
“No you dumb shit. I just wanted to know his name so we would be sure to avoid problems with him in the future.”
Chapter 17
Jim drove angrily out of Meridian. He was angry with himself for driving into the city. He should have known better. Now he had a broken windshield and probably some serious engine damage.
He drove for an hour before he found what he was looking for, which was one of the large parts houses that catered to truckers. The place was abandoned and there had been some looting of the shop. However, there wasn’t much of interest to the average Joe in the shop. Jim was far from average and so was his situation. In fifteen minutes, he had located many items he felt he might need to make repairs to the Peterbuilt. He also wanted to add some custom modificat
ions.
Jim thanked his lucky stars that nothing vital had been hit during the exchange of gunfire with the Marauders. He had been extremely lucky. The windshield was a problem. Finding a replacement seemed unlikely at best but he walked back into the rear of the shop where the owners had done some custom work on the big rigs.
Inside the huge bay of a workshop, he found many items that greatly improved his mood. He found an acetylene torch with a set of full tanks and two spare sets that were full. He also found some thick steel plating, which had probably been kept in the shop to repair trailer floors that had been damaged. He immediately set to work cutting the platting into manageable sizes that he’d be able to handle alone. He first took some simple measurements and then cut the plating to fit those measurements. When he was finished cutting the plating, he had used up all but one sheet of the steel and a complete set of the tanks for the torch. He let the plating cool as he went looking for other items he might wish to take along with him.
He loaded the torch cart and the four bottles of gas into the back of his truck. He also loaded several cases of oil and dozens of road flares. He also took several pairs of heavy work gloves and welding gloves as well as goggles and a full-face style shield.
In the lot was a truck that had apparently broken down. That truck had been vandalized, probably at the same time that the shop had been looted. It was apparent to Jim that the owner probably wasn’t returning for the truck, so he tapped the fuel tanks and grinned to himself. He pulled his truck beside the abandoned truck and helped himself to the fuel in the tanks. Frowning at the slow rate of transfer, he walked back into the shop and returned a bit later with a much more powerful pump, which sped the process considerably.
His fuel tanks topped off, Jim went back inside and began to load the steel plating. Once this was accomplished, he secured the load as best he could and climbed wearily into the cab of the truck once more. He tore the plastic wrapper from the safety glasses he’d gotten inside the shop and slipped them on his face. Now the wind wouldn’t be such an issue as he drove.