by Ricky Sides
Pete thanked Tim and the ship returned to its original landing spot and settled gently to the ground. Pete dragged Reggie roughly to his feet and pushed him in the direction of the test area. When they could feel the heat from the cooling asphalt, he stopped and let the sight before them register in Reggie’s mind. “This is how you will die if you don’t cooperate with me,” Pete informed Reggie. The alternative is a quick and painless death.”
Turning the prisoner to face him, Pete said, “Choose.”
Reggie knew that Pete wasn’t bluffing. He could see eagerness in the man’s eyes. He was hoping that Reggie would refuse to cooperate. Turning to Jim he said, “You can’t let him do that. I know all about you and the honor system that you live by and you couldn’t permit that to happen.”
Jim appraised the prisoner with a sober expression on his face. He’d seen the ghastly mutilation of the dead peacekeepers and the pathetic remains of the dead child in the van. Shaking his head he said, “Ordinarily you’d be right, Reggie, but you’re a mad dog. The atrocities you have committed are so many and so heinous as to belie the fact that you’re even human. Not only will I permit this plan to be executed, but I’ll operate the controls myself, should Pete’s resolve falter.”
“That won’t happen,” Pete said simply. Reggie knew then that he had no choice but to do as he was told. After witnessing the demonstration of the alternative, he would choose the quick and painless death. He agreed, albeit reluctantly, to disarm the traps. It was risky as hell, but if he died in the attempt, it should be instantly.
Reggie confirmed Pete’s suspicion that at least one of the grouped three bodies was trapped when he disarmed the trap at the group first. He’d left the grenade pins beside the grenades, just in case he wanted to recover them later. Reggie inserted the pin in its slot. Laying the grenade on the ground, he picked up the first body, brought it to the area near Pete, and laid it down on the ground there. One of the strike team members recovered the grenade during this process and returned to his former position. Reggie made two trips bringing the other two bodies and laid them out on the ground beside the first.
The second trap was harder to disarm and took longer but Reggie successfully disarmed it and returned with the body. Again, one of the strike force members recovered the ordinance.
Reggie recovered the body that he had not trapped next and then he proceeded with the final trap. He was sorely tempted to try to use the grenade to escape. A brave man would have done so, but Reggie wasn’t a brave man, and he knew that it would be instant death to try that desperate tactic. There were so many weapons trained on him that he’d be riddled with bullets the moment that he tried something with the grenade. He knew death was coming for him but he wanted to live every moment he could before the peacekeepers executed him. He also felt that there was a possibility that something might happen to change things regarding his future if he waited. The odds of that happening were bad, but using the grenade was certain death. Therefore, he meekly set the grenade down on the ground and picked up the final body. He laid that body beside the rest on the ground.
His hands were tied behind his back again, and the slack in the rope binding his ankles was taken up. He was forced to kneel down on the ground; knees spread wide apart, while strike force team members loaded the bodies in body bags and carried them into the cargo bay. Another strike force member recovered Reggie’s trophies, which were carried aboard to be buried as well. The final grisly task was accomplished when young Jane Fondane’s body was recovered and taken aboard the ship.
Bill Young entered the ship and returned with a video camera. He would document what happened next so that the peacekeepers not present would be able to see the administration of justice, which had been so long delayed in Reggie’s case.
Jim stood before Reggie and addressed him formally, saying, “Reggie Hammond, you are charged with the rape and murder of Sergeant Jackson’s daughter. You are also charged with the murder of Sergeant Jackson and the mutilation of his body. You are charged with attempting to murder Pete Damroyal upon multiple occasions. You are charged with participating in an attack upon your former fellow survivalists in the city of Athens, Alabama, when you led a large group of Marauders to that city seeking to destroy the group as a whole. Many of the survivalists were killed and wounded as a result of that action. You are charged with the murder of a woman of the Women’s Elite Corps in Athens as she fought beside me on a roof. You are charged with the kidnapping, rape, torture, and murder of Jane Fondane, a child of approximately eight years of age who trusted you as an adult to help her when she’d lost her family. You are charged with the kidnapping, rape, and torture of Lisa Blackwater, a child of approximately eight years of age. We have the names of your victims for these crimes. You are further charged with the murder and rapes of numerous women in the city of Chicago Illinois prior to leaving that city last year. You are charged with the murder and mutilation of the bodies of the six peacekeepers you encountered here in the city of Jewel Mississippi. Those are only the crimes we’re aware of, but there are no doubt many others that we are not aware of at this time. Reggie Hammond, do you understand the charges against you?” Jim asked after stating the charges against the man.
“I understand,” Reggie admitted reluctantly.
“Reggie Hammond,” Jim began once more, “you were tried in absentia after the rape and murder of Sergeant Jackson’s daughter and you were convicted of that crime based in part upon the testimony of your two henchmen in that crime. You were sentenced to death following that conviction. In a moment, that sentence will be carried out. Do you wish to make a statement?” Jim asked.
“Do I get a last request?” Reggie asked.
“No,” Jim replied, unwilling to accommodate the man who would commit the crimes that this man was guilty of committing.
“Yeah, I have a statement to make. Yes, I did all those things you accused me of and more. A lot more. And yes, I did kill a great many peacekeepers, but I have one regret and that is that I didn’t have time for one last crack at Lisa.”
When Reggie said that Jim lost control of his temper for the first time during all of this and without thinking he took a step toward Reggie who was kneeling on the ground in front of him and kicked him hard in the groin lifting his body off the ground with the force of the impact. Agony contorted Reggie’s face and he gagged convulsively as Jim stepped back away from him. The expression on Jim’s face was hard as he said, “Execute the prisoner.”
Reggie’s eyes went wide in fear then and Pete pointed his pistol at the back of the man’s head and pulled the trigger. Reggie Hammond, long a thorn in the side of the survivalists from Illinois, and decent people wherever he went, fell to the ground dead. Jim checked the body for vital signs as a formality but it was apparent to him from the wound that the man would be dead. He formally pronounced him dead for the sake of the documentary of the execution and then the peacekeepers present moved away from the body.
The Peacekeeper rose into the air and moved to hover over the body. Bill Young radioed that he was ready and Tim activated the belly gun of the ship cremating the remains on the spot.
***
When they entered the ship, Jim went to see Maggie for a progress report on her two patients. Lacey opened the door at his knock and stepped out into the hall with him. She informed him that the man with the wounded shoulder would be fine in time but the prognosis for the girl was grim. She’d been brutally raped and Reggie had done considerable damage in the process. She asked if he had been executed and when Jim had confirmed that this was the case she had said, “Good. An animal like that should be removed from society.”
The next day the Peacekeeper returned to their base. Word was sent out that there would be a mass meeting in the command bunker as soon as everyone could be assembled. An hour after the arrival of the Peacekeeper, the tape of the execution of Reggie Hammond was played for the assembled peacekeepers. When Jim kicked the man after his statement regarding the child Lisa, there was a sp
ontaneous eruption of applause. The peacekeepers approved of his response. Maggie’s applause was especially exuberant as were Patricia and Lacey’s.
Later that afternoon, eight fresh graves were filled with the remains of Reggie’s victims. The eighth grave was a very small hole in which the grisly trophies were buried since there was no way to know which parts went with which victim in a timely fashion. Later, small white tombstones would be added with the names of the deceased. Until then a simple wooden sign marked the names of those interred there.
Chapter 14
The Peacekeeper hovered on the outskirts of Lake Valley, which seemed to be struggling to recover from the disasters of the previous year. They entered the city and found the people to be friendly, but wary of strangers. When they asked about the Blackwater family, they learned that the entire family had been murdered systematically over a period of a week, and that only the daughter named Lisa had survived. They had assumed the murderer had taken her since they had never found a body, despite the population of the town turning out to form search parties.
Jim let the people of the city know that they had found the girl being held captive by a man who had probably been the murderer, and they needed to know what to do with her. He was advised to seek out the mayor of the city who was in charge of such issues during this crisis.
Jim found the mayor sympathetic, but the man explained that she had no relatives in the city and that the city had no facilities for orphans. He asked them politely to take the problem elsewhere as they simply could not help the girl. Putting it bluntly, he explained that they were barely subsisting as it was and an orphan would not get the best of care in the city. Therefore, the peacekeepers had left the little city with the girl in their charge.
This presented a quandary of sorts for the crew. They had planned to drop the girl off with her family in the city and then proceed to a city in Louisiana from which rumors of unexplained deaths had begun to emerge. They decided to keep Lisa onboard and proceed to the city since lives would be at risk in a further delay. Detouring to Lake Valley had cost little time since it was possible to swing through that city on the way to the state of Louisiana.
They arrived on the outskirts of the city of Jonesboro, Louisiana, late that afternoon and decided to park for the night and enter the city the next day. It was simply too late in the day to make an appropriate reconnaissance of the town before sundown, and after sundown there would be little opportunity to learn anything regarding the conditions in the city.
Late that night, the proximity alarms went off throughout the ship causing most of the crew to scramble from their beds and hastily dress. Jim emerged into the hallway to find Pete shouting into the cargo bay for the sergeant to prepare his task force to exit on a mission should the need arise. Turning in the hallway, Jim made his way to the control cabin with Pete a step behind. When they reached the control room, they found Patricia had gotten there ahead of them and she was analyzing the data being fed to her by the computer. Looking up at the men, she said, “I don’t know what’s out there, but something definitely was. It gave a massive trace on the infrared sensor,” she explained and swiveled her small monitor around for the men to see.
The image was grainy, with the heat signature appearing brighter than its surrounding area. At first, the creature seemed to walk on four legs and then it seemed to walk on two. “Can you isolate the exterior shape of the animal and then compare it to a database of animals?” asked Jim.
“I think it was a bear, Jim,” Pete said.
“That seems most plausible to me too,” the captain agreed.
Patricia pulled up side-by-side images of a bear standing upright and the image in which the infrared camera had captured the creature in the upright position. “I think we have a match. It isn’t perfect but the infrared image is fuzzy and distorted.”
“Hmm could a bear damage the ship?” Jim asked.
“If it got inside, yes, it could, however, outside there isn’t much it could hurt,” Patricia explained adding that she seriously doubted a bear would be able to force open either of the two doors of the ship.
“Did this city have a zoo?” asked Jim.
“Not according to our database,” she replied after a moment, “and the black bear would be the most likely suspect for a natural encounter. A band of known black bear habitat does exist in this state however it runs north and south well to the east of this city.”
“Thank you for the detailed report, Lieutenant,” Jim said genuinely impressed with the information that she seemed so readily capable of delivering from the computer resources.
“I’ll assign an additional guard for the remainder of the night,” Sergeant Wilcox said.
“Under the circumstances that might be a good idea, Sergeant,” Jim stated.
“I’d sure sleep better,” Patricia said with a smile and she added, “Speaking of sleep, if that is all gentlemen, I’ll return to mine.”
The remainder of the night passed uneventfully.
***
The next morning the peacekeepers went into the city to see what they could learn regarding the mysterious deaths in the area. Jim knew that Jonesboro was a small town having a population of fewer than four thousand prior to the disasters that had struck the nation. That population was now diminished considerably, though the city itself was relatively untouched by the disasters. With the collapse of civilization in America had come the realization that without a paycheck to cover the necessities of life it was all but impossible to support a family. Even if by some miracle they could retain their paying jobs, there was little sold once the stores sold out their available stock of merchandise.
Those who could do so returned to the older lifestyles of their ancestors, becoming largely self-sufficient. However, many were simply unprepared to face that harsh reality. Many such people loaded up their families and all the gas that they could and left their homes in search of other cities. Cities where the essentials of life were sitting on the shelves of the grocery stores and jobs were ready to be had. Of course, the reality of the situation was that it was the same everywhere. Only California had briefly been able to reestablish a return to the former civilization and a government. However, that achievement couldn’t survive the influx of Americans, all seeking to regain the good life. The rioting and violence soon overwhelmed that government, just as it was getting its feet on the ground.
It had been the experience of the peacekeepers that the only system, currently working, was a sort of city state system. Here and there, some cities did manage to reestablish a city government sufficient to take care of certain needs such as water treatment and power generation. However, the days of fully stocked grocery store chains were gone. Now it was back to the farmer’s market type of affair.
Jonesboro was no exception to this new trend of population shifting. All American cities were faced with that problem and the highways across the United States were littered with the abandoned automobiles of the migrating population who had set out seeking a better life and found that there simply was none to be had. They drove until their vehicles broke down or they ran out of fuel and then they walked. Most of them died of exposure to the elements within a few days. Their corpses still lay decaying in the places where many had fallen.
Word of the mysterious deaths among the citizens of the small town of Jonesboro Louisiana had spread through the unlikely source of one of these new immigrants who’d fled the city due to the rash of unexplained deaths that seemed to be plaguing the community. The man had made it to Athens where he had stayed a few days to earn some fuel and supplies before moving on toward the east coast where he had some kin. It was this man and his wife who’d spoken of death stalking the small community of Jonesboro Louisiana. The man had believed the deaths to be the work of a serial killer taking advantage of the breakdown in society. This rumor had been passed on to the peacekeepers because they had a reputation in the Athens area for dealing with that sort of outlaw.
Jonesbor
o had managed the water problem, but the electrical solution was still beyond their means. As it was, they could barely generate the electricity needed to purify their water.
In the town, they sought out the local version of the farmer’s market. This mission, Jim wanted to give the members of the crew who seldom left the ship on missions an opportunity to do so. For that reason as they parked near the farmer’s market where locals were gathering for their day of trading, Maggie, Patricia, Tim, and Pete prepared to leave the ship to go see what they could learn of the mystery deaths. Maggie was taking along a bag loaded with some of the surplus medical supplies that the peacekeepers had accumulated to use as trade items.
Maggie led Lisa into the control cabin of the ship as she was preparing to leave. She asked Lacey if she would be able to look after the girl in her absence and Lacey readily agreed to do so. Currently the child had an inherent fear of adult males, which was perhaps understandable under the circumstances, though she seemed to get along well enough with Evan.
Even though Lisa was nervous around most men there were two she seemed to trust. Maggie was inadvertently responsible for the child’s acceptance of both Jim and Pete, especially Pete. When the girl had begun to heal physically, she had suffered terrible mental anguish because of Reggie’s habitual abuse. This mental suffering included terrible night terrors in which the girl dreamed that Reggie once more had her as his captive. When this happened, the child’s heartbeat and respiration would climb dangerously high and she would wake screaming in terror. Maggie was always there for her when that happened. She would hold the girl and try to convince her that Reggie could not possibly harm her now. Maggie decided that if something extreme wasn’t done, the girl could possibly have a heart attack during one of these episodes. She sat the girl down in front of a television and played the video of the execution of Reggie. When the girl had watched the video, she asked Maggie if it was real. When Maggie had confirmed that it was, Lisa had broken down and cried. But this time her crying wasn’t from hysterical terror. This time her crying was a final release from the terrifying nightmare possibility that one day Reggie might capture her again.