by Jim Heskett
He took a deep breath. “I’m okay. I can drive.”
“Then let’s get out of here.”
Dave nodded and got back into his truck. As Isabelle went to collect the sniper rifle, she looked back at the corpse of the burned man, twisted in a heap in the parking lot. Whoever he was, or whatever he had done, it didn’t matter now.
She retrieved the sniper rifle, folded the kickstand, and readied the car keys so they could get back on the road to meet with some border-jumper named Logan to deliver the gas.
Ball Peen Gavel
(AFTER THE FALL)
Travis Rouse turned the ball-peen hammer in his hands. The shaft had been wrapped with electrical tape, but it still felt slippery. The head, chipped after so many hundreds of strikes, had seen better days.
The din of the theater rose as the guards left to bring in the first defendant.
Travis smacked the head of the hammer against his desk. “Order, god damn it.”
The room quieted. Travis peered over the edge of the stage at the crowd, more than a hundred strong today. Generally, his court brought no more than ten. Fifteen on a good day. But today, people were anticipating something different. They wanted a show; they wanted bread and circuses. They had all heard the rumor about who was going to be brought to trial this morning, and judging by the number of people crammed into the seats of the community theater, they were expecting blood.
Travis waved at the bailiff, who hustled up the steps onto the stage, then approached his desk.
“Yes, judge?”
“How many we got on the list today?”
The bailiff checked a piece of paper. “Just three. You want me to bring our special guest out first?”
Travis considered it. “No, let’s save that for last. Don’t want to shoot our wad too soon, know what I’m saying?”
The bailiff grinned. “Sure thing, Judge.” He turned to address the crowd. “All rise, court is now in session. Honorable Judge Travis Rouse presiding.”
Travis smiled at the crowd. He hadn’t seen this many people come together for months, maybe even years. “Be seated.”
Travis hadn’t always been a judge. Before the world changed, he’d been many things. A poet. A house painter. Almost an electrician, but the Massachusetts Board of Examiners hadn’t seen fit to license him. But in this new world, he was whatever he wanted to be.
“Bailiff, bring the first case before the court.”
The bailiff whispered into a walkie-talkie, and the back doors of the theater opened. Most of the crowd spun in their seats as three people walked through the door. A thin, dejected man with slumped shoulders, surrounded by two burly men in uniforms, grasping the skinny man and pushing him forward.
The uniforms were new. A nice touch.
“Aw, come on, what is this shit?” shouted someone from the crowd.
“Yeah, who is this guy?” said someone else.
Travis smacked the desk with the gavel. “Enough. Order, right now.”
The guards brought the man down the aisle then pushed him into a seat in the front row. One of the guards stood behind him while the other one passed a clipboard to the bailiff.
The bailiff brought the clipboard to Travis. “Looks like another bad barter to start off the day.”
Travis sighed as he flipped through the clipboard pages. “Alright, fine.” He looked at the dejected man, who was staring at the ground. “Do you know why you’re here?”
The defendant said nothing.
“Is the accuser here?” Travis said.
A woman six rows back stood. She was short, thin, her cheeks sunken and her hair jutting out at wild angles. “I am, your honor.”
Travis pointed to the front row, and the woman left her seat to sit closer.
“Explain your case, please.”
The woman twisted a chunk of her hair between two fingers. “I met him at the Dudley Square market last week. We agreed to trade four cans of corn for six AA batteries and a road flare. I gave him the corn, then he said he had to go out back to get the batteries. He never returned.”
Travis placed the butt of the hammer in his palm and spun it a few times, catching it as soon as it started to wobble. “And what do you have to say for yourself, defendant?”
The man finally looked up at the judge. He shrugged. “I didn’t have any batteries or a road flare. I was hungry.”
“Being hungry isn’t a crime, but stealing is,” Travis said. But as soon as the words left his mouth, he mused that, technically, stealing wasn’t a crime anymore. But such things were a matter of perspective. “If you didn’t have the batteries to trade, you shouldn’t have offered the batteries. Where is the corn now?”
The man heaved a sigh. “I ate it all.”
“Okay, then, what do you have of value that can compensate this woman’s loss?”
“I don’t have anything.”
The woman groaned.
Travis smacked the gavel on the desk. The woman hadn’t been particularly loud, but he liked to silence them from time to time. Because he could.
“So you stole something and can’t pay it back. This court determines you will have to lose two fingers. You can choose which ones.”
The man shot up out of his seat, and the guard forced him back down.
Travis eyed the woman. “Is that acceptable to you?”
She frowned and crossed her arms, but nodded. “Can I keep the fingers?”
“I don’t see why not,” Travis said.
The defendant wriggled against the guard’s grip. “This is bullshit.”
Travis pointed the hammer at the man’s head. “Shut your mouth right now, or you’ll lose a lot more than two fingers. We’re done here.”
The guard yanked the defendant out of his chair and dragged him up the aisle. His legs kicked out, connecting with a few chairs along the way. Everyone wanted justice when they had been wronged, but when they were the ones who received it, not so much.
“Bring in the next case on your way out,” Travis said to the guards.
A minute later, the doors still hadn’t opened. The crowd seemed to be growing restless, and when they did finally open, they weren’t happy with what they saw.
Boos, hisses, a couple of them got up to leave.
The guards escorted another man down the aisle. This one was not at all like the meek first defendant of the day. This one stood tall, chin up, no sign of remorse on his face.
This would be a fun one.
A man in the crowd stood up and threw what looked like a hunk of drywall toward the stage. “What the hell? That isn’t her either. I heard she was going to be tried today, was that a lie?”
Travis rapped the gavel. “Order. Patience, sir. All good things to those who wait.”
The unruly man sat back down, but he didn’t lose the scowl on his face.
The guard restrained the new defendant and handed the clipboard to the bailiff, who walked it to the judge. The bailiff leaned in close. “Judge, this one’s been a bit of a problem already. I’m going to go down there and help Bobby watch him, if that’s okay with you.”
Travis nodded as he took the clipboard and flipped through the pages. Theft, murder, and rape charges, all under the old United States legal system. Today, for assault. Travis hadn’t seen a real criminal before the court in weeks. He felt a little rusty when it came to actual judgment.
“Is the accuser here today?”
An elderly man in the back row stood up. “No, sir, that would be my granddaughter. She is not well and couldn’t make it.”
Travis caught the eye of the accused. “Okay, you first. Tell me your side.”
The man opened his mouth, then slipped a knife from his boot and drove it upward into the bailiff’s neck. A spout of blood opened up from the wound as he stumbled backward, hands flailing in the air.
The accused jumped from his seat and faced the two guards, knife in hand.
The crowd shrunk back into their seats.
Travis
snatched his gavel, leaped over the desk, dropped to the ground, and rushed at the accused. He crossed thirty feet in five seconds.
The knife-wielding man thrust it at one of the guards, who slipped and fell. The man raised the knife above his head and started to bring it down.
Travis threw his body into the accused, and they both toppled into the theater seats. The accused raised his hand again, but Travis smacked at the knife, sending it toppling.
Travis raised the ball-peen hammer, then smashed it into the man’s face. Again. And again, until he stopped moving. “Not in my court, you son of a bitch.”
The man gasped for air, his nose flattened and blood trickling out of his mouth. He slid down in the seat as his hands tried to stem the blood leaking from his head. In a few seconds, he stopped squirming.
Travis pointed the hammer at the elderly man in the back, who was still standing. “Sir, do you feel that justice has been done here today?”
The elderly man jerked his head up and down in something like a nod.
“Guard, get him out of here, please,” Travis said. As they dragged the body away, he walked to the bailiff, who was covered in blood from the neck down. He stooped and placed a hand on the man’s lifeless shoulder. Looked into his blank eyes, felt a tug of remorse. “I’m sorry about that. I should have listened to you.”
Travis climbed the steps back onto the stage and smashed the gavel on the desk. “We lost a good man, and for no good reason. This court does not tolerate outbursts. Let that be a lesson to anyone who tries again in the future.”
A few of them nodded, the rest held grave looks on their faces.
“Okay, you’ve all been waiting for it, let’s get to it. Bring her in.”
The crowd murmured, craned their necks to look at the door at the back of the theater. A few seconds later, it opened, and she came in. Standing tall, but walking with a limp, the two guards walked her down the aisle. She didn’t look as attractive as she had on TV, but Travis could definitely make out the giant rack beneath her bulky sweater.
Some people in the crowd cheered, some jeered, but every one of them rose to their feet. “You heartless murderer,” one shouted. “Fry the bitch,” another said.
Travis smacked the gavel a half dozen times to get them to quiet down as the guards sat the woman in the front-row chair.
“Well, Beth Fortner,” said Travis. “I was wondering if we were ever going to get the chance to see you in this courtroom.”
***
Since his bailiff was dead at the foot of the stage, Travis didn’t have a clipboard listing Beth’s crimes. But he didn’t need one. Senior advisor to Edward LaVey, second only to his chief of staff, Peter Anders.
She sat upright, head high, hands in her lap and knees together. A nasty bruise had blackened her right eye. A million possibilities about where she had gotten that, and Travis wasn’t going to investigate the guards too carefully to find out.
“Am I supposed to know who you are?” she said, staring Travis straight in the eye.
He laughed. “No, but you will. Since we couldn’t also get Edward LaVey, Peter Anders, George Grant, and Hector Castillo, you’ll have to do for now. Beth Fortner, you are charged with treason, sedition, and conspiracy to overthrow the United States government.”
“Cut that bitch’s head off!” said someone in the crowd.
Travis thumped his gavel against the desk a few times until the room quieted down.
“How do you plead, Ms. Fortner?”
She blinked. “You can’t charge me with any crime and I won’t admit to anything. This isn’t a real court of law.”
Travis raised his palms to address the crowd. “I think the people here would disagree with that. Bobby, how many people have we successfully tried in this court?”
One of the guards cleared his throat. “Almost five hundred, your honor.”
“Five hundred. Ms. Fortner, where is Senator LaVey?”
“Last I heard,” she said, “safe and sound in Europe. Given asylum by the French.”
Travis grunted. “You know we don’t believe that.”
“Doesn’t matter to me what you believe. I’m not even with them anymore. You can play out your amateur vengeance fantasy all you like, but I’m not going to participate in this farce.”
“Then the record will show that you chose not to enter a plea at this time. If you wish, you may speak in your defense.”
“I have nothing to say.” Her head was still high, but Travis saw fear in her eyes. This woman wasn’t as bulletproof as the image she portrayed.
“Noted. Usually in these situations, we have someone step forward as the accuser. But in this case, I think I’ll do the honors. Now, you probably didn’t know my brother, Lamar Rouse, did you, Ms. Fortner?”
She said nothing.
“I’m not sure why you would have known him. He was Secret Service for nearly fifteen years. Served three presidents. What you also didn’t know was that the evening when LaVey’s men—operating under your orders—stormed the residence at the White House, my big brother Lamar was tasked with guarding the president. Your men shot him in the chest and let him bleed out in a hallway. Did you know about that?”
She still said nothing, and this got Travis’s heart pumping. He could almost taste the adrenaline at the back of his throat. With an excited shudder, he stood and crossed to the front of the desk. “Is it true that you and Grant and Castillo coordinated the attack on the White House that ended with the death of the president of the United States of America?”
Before she could answer, a rock sailed across the room and smacked her on the side of the head. She fell forward, out of the seat. One of the guards yanked her by the shoulder and repositioned her in the chair. A line of blood trailed from her temple to her chin.
Travis didn’t bother to rap his gavel. He wanted her to feel the growing malice of the crowd. He wanted her to hurt. “Isn’t it also true that you launched missiles against your own country, and conspired with the followers of your Infinity group to destroy billions of barrels of crude oil?”
“I am a patriot,” she said, strained expression on her face.
Beth turned her head and nodded at a woman with curly black hair, who nodded back, jumped up, and ran out the back of the theater. Travis didn’t think much of it then, but later he would wonder if he should have made the guards detain the woman.
He dropped off the edge of the stage and approached. She kept her chin high as the cut on her head continued to bleed. She was scared, but damned if she didn’t work overtime to hide it.
He lifted the ball-peen hammer and held it in front of her face. “You’re going to have to answer the question.”
She pushed up her sleeves, revealing burn marks up and down her arms. “What does it matter? You’re going to kill me either way, and we don’t fear death or cling to false hope. I’m not going to give you the satisfaction of cowering to you.”
The fierce determination on her face made Travis respect her, even though he despised her with every bit of his being. Enough respect that he almost felt sorry for what he was about to do.
“Okay then,” he said. “Ms. Fortner, do you know where your daughter is?”
She opened her mouth, then caught herself. The look of surprise on her face told him everything he needed to know.
“She’s far, far away from here. She’s with friends.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Beth. Your daughter is much closer than you think. In Boston, actually, with us this morning.” He pointed to the back of the theater as the door opened, and there stood a pretty blond child with her hands bound, duct tape over her eyes and mouth.
Beth pivoted in her seat and looked at the girl. Her mouth dropped in horror. She shuddered and stumbled over her words for a few seconds.
“You monsters. You wouldn’t hurt a little girl. How do I know that’s even her?”
The back of the theater was far enough away that Beth might not be able to make out the girl
’s features, but he wasn’t about to let her get up and check. The guard behind her kept Beth firmly in place.
Travis dropped to one knee and forced Beth’s face back to him. “You thought your little girl was with friends in Missouri, right? And would those friends be Charles and Dana Stouffer?”
Beth gasped as the realization spread over her face. “Oh, Jesus, please don’t hurt her. I’ll do whatever you want. Please don’t hurt my baby.”
Travis tapped the hammer against his palm. “Now, you see, we have something we can talk about. I’m going to need you to answer the question I asked you before.”
“Everything we did, we did because we believed it was the right thing to do,” Beth said, her speech rapid and jittery. “We wanted to restart America and get it right this time. We wanted to pull down all the power structure and build again, put good people in charge, get rid of all the corrupt politicians, the unstoppable corporations, the dependence on fossil fuels. Anders and LaVey wouldn’t have gone far enough. I helped them take it to the next level.”
Travis raised the hammer above his head. “Answer the question, Beth. Did you kill the president?”
“Yes! Yes it was us. But you have to believe me—”
“Okay, thank you. Good night, now.”
“Blessed are the—”
Before she could continue, Travis swung the hammer down into Beth’s skull. He heard a crack, and a slight hiss as blood poured from the top of her head, through her hair, and down her face.
As she slumped back into the chair and her face went slack, Travis realized he didn’t feel any better. He had thought he would, when it was finally done. All the trouble they had gone through to find her, bring her back, all the work done to find out so much information about her daughter, and he didn’t feel even the slightest bit of relief.
He dropped the gavel on the floor next to her. Her face was a bloody mess.
The crowd erupted, many of them screaming for joy. Some booing.
He walked up the aisle toward the girl bound in duct tape, then knelt in front of her. She mumbled.