by Ricky Sides
Pete really didn’t think that the Marauders would go to the trouble of digging them out. As a rule, Marauders were a lazy bunch. That’s why most became Marauders. They didn’t want to have to work to survive when they could simply steal from the hard working survivors. However, some men became Marauders for another, much darker, reason. They did so because they enjoyed the raping and killing. He set the traps for those men.
Of course, it was possible that the Marauders would use slave labor to dig out the survivalists. Pete was aware of that and felt a terrible fear that this is what the Marauders would do the moment they learned that the collapsed tunnels contained traps. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but if it did, then the traps that he was laying out were the most effective defense. They would detonate no matter who tripped them. Manned traps that depended upon human operators to trigger them would force the defenders to decide on using the defense, or allowing the slave labor to expose them. In this way, the decision to defend the shelter or let slave labor unearth them was preset, and out of the hands of the men and women who depended on the sanctuary that they’d established.
Pete knew that if the hardcore Marauders who were in it for the violence tried to dig them out, the odds were they’d stop after a few traps detonated. After all, there were plenty of easy targets for them in the streets of Chicago.
Pete was standing beside Bill as a patrol filed past them. “That’s the last patrol we had out,” said Bill.
“You’re certain of that?”
“Yes. All members of the group are now present and accounted for,” the lieutenant responded not at all offended that Pete had questioned him. He knew Pete would blame himself if the tunnels were sealed and some of the people were left outside.
“Pete said, “Secure this tunnel then. I think I’ll go and get a little sleep.”
Bill followed Pete down the corridor toward his quarters. Pete stopped and asked, “Was there something that you wanted?”
“Yes, I was wondering what you want us to do with all of the money, gold, and silver you had us gather up,” Bill responded.
“I’m sorry, Bill. I thought I’d already told you. I meant to do so. Sergeant Murphy is digging a vault for us even as we speak in sector H.”
“Yes, but I meant…”
“I know what you’re going to ask,” said Pete. “You want to know what the hell we are going to do with the money, am I right?”
They had continued to walk down the corridor as they talked and now they had arrived outside Pete’s sleeping quarters. “Come in and I’ll explain.”
The two men entered the room. Like most of the rooms in the shelter, the walls were of brick and mortar construction. The room contained a small cot for sleeping, a folding chair, and a small bookcase, which was loaded with Pete’s favorite books. It also contained an army footlocker, and a small freestanding closet, which was backed against the wall. One of the carpenters of the group had built the closet. It had a padlock on the door. Pete kept his weapons stored inside it, though he usually carried a pistol and a knife on him anytime he was outside the room.
Pete sat down tiredly on the cot. He gestured for Bill to take a seat on the folding chair, and then he said, “Before we talk about the money I have a question for you. How is the generator holding up?”
“About as well as can be expected I suppose. We have to be careful about wasting electricity. You know the thing was about worn out when we bought it from the hospital.”
“Yes but we were lucky to get it. Without it, we’d have to burn lanterns in the base all the time,” Pete stated.
Pete yawned and said, “You wanted to know about the money. If you don’t mind I’ll tell you about that and then I’ll get some sleep.”
Bill wasn’t offended. He knew that it had been almost forty-eight hours since Pete had slept. He’d been working to mine the tunnels all that time.
Pete said, “I believe it will just be a matter of time before we’re forced to leave the shelter. The Marauders will get to be more and more aggressive in the months to come. When we leave, I want to go to Alabama. I know of some land there that would make an excellent base. We would use the money to buy the land and set up a permanent base.”
Bill was shocked. He asked, “Why do we have to leave Chicago? Things aren’t that bad here yet.”
“There are several reasons. The food is running out here. There will probably be a plague here within the next few months, and at this point I wouldn’t even rule out the possibility of a race war.”
Bill’s face registered shock at Pete’s last statement. He narrowed his eyes thoughtfully once the shock of Pete’s statement wore off and asked, “Pete, what do you know that you haven’t told us?”
“I was topside for almost a month. I saw things up there that convinced me a race war is coming within a few months. In fact, I’m almost positive that there’ll be one if there is no restoration of order. There is no doubt in my mind.”
“What did you see?” Bill pressed.
“I saw organized groups roving the streets recruiting soldiers among the population. Their recruitment was in some cases brutal. I saw evidence of atrocities that are being committed by these groups against their rivals.” Finally, sighing in frustration Pete told his friend, “You really don’t want me to describe some of what I saw, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.”
Looking down at the floor Pete sighed as he continued, “I’ll tell you this much. It’s a damned terrible thing to see a woman’s stomach slit open and her unborn infant lying on the street beside her corpse with its little head smashed open by boots. And you know the child had to be unborn because you can see the umbilical cord connecting it to its mother.” Looking directly into Bill’s eyes he said, “Could men capable of that sort of evil start a race war?” Pete lowered his voice, and when he spoke his voice was charged with emotion as he said, “I’d say they already have.”
“What race was the victim, Pete?” asked Bill.
Pete looked at Bill strangely for a moment and then responded, “Human. She was of the human race. I’d say that’s what matters, what’s important, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes of course,” Bill said.
“Sorry, Bill. I know that you’re no racist of that ilk. I guess the whole thing was a bit much for me. I never expected to see such horrors like that here in America. I saw that sort of carnage overseas during the war a few times. I thought I’d left all that behind me when I left Southeast Asia. Damn man. This is America, not Cambodia or Vietnam.”
Bill was sorry he’d pressed Pete on the matter. He decided to shelve the issue for now and asked, “Do you think the people will leave the city? Many have lived here their entire lives and won’t like the idea of leaving.”
I hope for their sake they leave. Those that don’t won’t be able to survive very long after the main group leaves.”
Bill got up and walked to the door. Just before he left, he turned to Pete and said, “You can count on me. I hope you know that.”
Pete smiled warmly and responded, “I was hoping you’d say that.”
***
Later that night the last exit was sealed. Inside the underground shelter, two hundred and sixty men, women, and children worked, slept, and dreamed of a better world.
Chapter 30
Jim was tired. It had been three days since he and Lina had parted, and he’d been driving twelve hours a day. Under normal circumstances, he would’ve already made it home. Under the present circumstances, he’d been lucky to get where he was in that short a period of time.
He looked at the map again. He was in a small town called Aliceville. He’d made it back to Alabama without any major problems with one exception. He’d been forced to use the same bridge that spanned the Mississippi river that he’d used on the trip down to Fort Polk. A careful study of the map had shown him that if he were determined to detour to another bridge it would cost him several days. He might have taken the detour despite the time delay b
ut he had no way of knowing that the other bridges were in any better shape than the one at Vicksburg. Therefore, in the end he’d opted to take the truck back across that awful bridge.
As Jim went across the bridge, he noticed that the sagging part was even worse than it had been the first time he crossed it a few weeks ago. He was relieved when he made it across the bridge without mishap and he promised himself he would never use that bridge again.
Now as he sat in the cab of the Peterbuilt, in a small Alabama town named Aliceville, he could laugh at the terror he’d felt when he’d driven the heavily loaded truck across that bridge. Every bump had caused him to think that a portion of the bridge would fall. He said to himself, “I must be getting old to get that worked up over a bridge,” then he pulled his truck back onto the street.
The air was somewhat cooler than normal for this time of year, so Jim was riding with his window down so he could enjoy the breeze. This small town hadn’t been deserted after the disasters like so many small towns had been, but there weren’t many people around. Because of that, he felt he could afford to relax and enjoy the scenery.
Jim was driving down a street in the city, thinking what a great day this seemed to be, when he heard the woman screaming. He slowed the truck and started scanning the houses along the street for the source of the screams.
At a small house on the corner, he saw a man beating on a door with a shop hammer. The woman’s screams were coming from inside the house.
As Jim watched and tried to decide what he should do, the man broke the door locking mechanism and rushed inside the house. Cursing the man for disrupting his peaceful day, Jim stopped the truck. He shut down the engine, got out, walked toward the house, and met the man as he was coming out of the door. He was dragging a screaming and kicking woman. Behind the two struggling figures, Jim saw a little boy. He was attempting to fight the man who was dragging the woman out of the house. The man reached down, grabbed the little boy, and then he threw him through the air. The boy sailed a good ten feet through the air and landed flat on his back. He just laid there, a pathetic crumpled form. The woman’s screams were different now, for now they had transformed into the angry screams of an enraged mother, who’d just seen her child being abused.
Jim had seen enough. At first he’d held back, figuring that he may have walked into a scene of a family dispute. He no longer cared if it was a family dispute. The moment the man had harmed the child, he’d guaranteed Jim’s interference. One of the things that could always guarantee swift action from Jim Wilison was the abuse of children. Jim’s philosophy regarding children was simple. If a kid needed punishing that was one thing. He’d seen his share of brats that needed a good spanking. However, no one abused children around him. That was a crime no man committed more than once in front of Jim.
He walked up and stood in front of the man. He blocked his passage away from the house with the woman, and slapped the back of the man’s head with his open palm to get his attention.
When the man turned to him and saw Jim barring his path, he released the woman. Standing up straight he said, “This is none of your business, buddy. You’d better leave now, while you can.”
The woman ran to her son and knelt down on the ground beside him. Her anxious fingers probed his body looking for signs of broken bones as she sobbed and pleaded with her child to wake up.
Jim looked straight into the Marauder’s eyes and replied, “It’s your move, buddy. Make it good. You won’t get another.”
The huge man leaped at Jim in an attempt to tackle him. He never even came close to accomplishing that. Jim easily sidestepped him and launched the Wing Chun front thrust kick to the man’s short ribs on his left side.
Jim had timed the kick perfectly and managed to break two of the man’s short ribs as a result.
The big man quickly charged Jim again. With the customary smile on his face, Jim timed the man’s charge. With precision timing, Jim executed a spinning back kick. This time his kick hit the ribs on the right side of the man’s body and another broken rib was the result.
The man fell backwards under the force of the impact. For a moment, he just lay there wheezing. Jim walked to within a few feet of the man. He was careful not to get so close that the man could grab him.
“You can leave now,” he told the man. “I won’t try to stop you.”
The man struggled to a sitting position. Flecks of blood were already beginning to ooze from his mouth. He snarled like an animal and moved his right hand swiftly behind his back.
Jim knew the man was going for a weapon and he closed in on him. When the man’s hand whipped from behind his back with a knife, Jim was able to grab his wrist and twist it.
The man attempted to twist his knife around so that he could cut Jim’s arm or hand. When he did that, Jim responded by twisting his wrist harder until the elbow joint was locked at full extension and Jim’s free hand smashed into it with a powerful open palm strike.
The man screamed in pain as something in the joint broke under the impact. Flecks of blood flew from his mouth as he screamed in agony.
Jim stepped away from the man and once more gave him the opportunity to leave when he said, “I think you should go now.”
The man struggled to his feet and glared at Jim. The hatred that the man felt for Jim was so tangible that it animated his face and eyes. He said, “I’m leaving,” but then he smiled wickedly and said, “I can always come back for the woman when you’re not here.”
Jim frowned at the man and said, “You’d probably do that too, wouldn’t you?”
The man’s course laughter was his only answer. He walked toward the tiny fence that surrounded the front yard. He fully planned to come back as soon as he knew Jim was no longer in the area. That would be easy enough to know, considering he drove a tractor-trailer rig.
Jim walked silently up to the man and tapped him on his shoulder. When the man irritably turned to face him, Jim snapped his hand up in an open palm strike. His hand pistoned forward and hammered into the man’s nose. The force of the blow shattered a bone in the man’s nose and sent a fragment into his brain. He was dead before he hit the ground.
Jim sighed and bent over to examine the man, but he already knew he was dead. Just as a baseball player can tell when the bat hits the ball if it’s a home run, Jim could tell the moment he struck the man that it was a lethal blow. He dragged the man’s body to the street and left it there.
Remembering the injured boy, Jim went to the cab of his truck and got his medical kit. He returned to the woman then and knelt beside her. She was still working to try to revive her son. Jim saw that the boy was breathing steadily but he was unconscious. He took a small ampule of smelling salts, cracked it, and then held it under the boy’s nose. In a few moments, the boy was sitting up looking around him in amazement.
After making sure that her son was not seriously injured, the woman turned to Jim and said, “Mister, I want to thank you for helping us. If you hadn’t come along when you did, I shudder to think of what might have happened to me and Evan.”
Jim shrugged and said, “I’m just glad I happened to be near when this all started. I was glad to help you, Lady.” He stood then and turned to leave.
He had only taken a few steps when the boy came running up to him to stop him. He tugged at Jim’s arm and said, “Hey, Mister, would you stay for dinner with us?”
Jim glanced back at the woman. Oddly, she was still kneeling on the ground and staring into space. He thought that she was in a mild state of shock. He thought for a moment and then looked down into the boy’s eager face. He sighed inwardly and thought of an old oriental proverb, “Once you save someone’s life, you’re responsible for that person’s life forever.”
He slowly reached out his hand and ruffled the boy’s brown hair. Kneeling beside him, Jim spoke softly when he asked, “What’s your name, son?”
The boy looked at Jim soberly and answered, “Evan Carteen, Sir.”
“How old a
re you, Evan?” asked Jim.
“I’m eight,” said the boy proudly.
“My goodness, you’re only eight years old?” Jim asked in mock surprise. “I would’ve thought that you were at least ten.”
The boy’s face lit up with pride and he said, “Everybody says I’m big for my age.”
Jim smiled at the boy and said, “I saw the way you lit into that man a few minutes ago.” The boy’s shoulders seemed to straighten up in pride at this and Jim continued. “It seems to me that you’re not only big for your age, and you’re also awfully brave for your age.”
The boy smiled shyly at Jim, and then he said, “He was hurting mama.”
Jim turned to face the woman then. He saw that she was still kneeling in the grass where he’d left her. He turned to the boy once more and said, “Evan, I want you to do me a favor.”
The boy’s eyes glittered with delight and he said, “Sure, Mister. What do you want me to do?”
Jim said, “Go to my truck. In the seat on the passenger side you’ll find a sack. Bring it to me please.”
The boy ran off to do what Jim had asked. Jim smiled as he saw the boy scamper up the step to the truck door. He almost knocked himself off the truck step when he opened the door. Regaining his balance, he disappeared inside the truck.
Moments later, he reemerged with the burlap bag that Jim had sent him to retrieve. He jumped down from the step and started running to the fence.
Jim took the bag when the boy offered it to him. He said, “Thanks, Evan, but you forgot to close the door.”
Evan looked back at the open door and darted off to close it.