Sweetness in the Dark

by W. B. Martin

  The meeting went over the other major individuals that the Commission had identified. The final group of perpetrators was left to staffers to review as the meeting wound down. After the meeting ended, the President asked to meet privately with John. He motioned to Paul to join them.

  “John, great work. I can’t thank you enough for working through this. Bringing the ‘Wall Street’ criminals to justice is even more important than pursuing the thugs who destroyed our cites. These crimes are even worse in that they supposedly held our nations best interests,” the President said. “We expected better from them.”

  Paul jumped in, “But Mr. President, I’ll quote from one of my favorite authors. P. J. O’Rourke often takes a bit of a cynical view of life. He certainly did when he said, and I quote, ‘Blaming Wall Street for being greedy is like blaming prostitutes for getting paid’ Those words hit home and remind us of the duty of government.”

  “Yes, I agree. Don’t forget the connivance of the Federal bureaucracy. We have laid out the criminals in Washington D.C. who were charged to protect the nation. They failed miserably. They need to stand to accounts, too.” John offered.

  “We won’t forget them. They were supposed to protect the public, and through incompetence or collusion, they are twice as guilty.” The President was visibly angry at the mention of the Federal government’s involvement in the whole sordid deal.

  But Paul didn’t want the main point to be missed in the discussion. “But while we are punishing the guilty, never forget that it was government interference in the market place that caused many of the problems. We have to keep our system as free-market-oriented as possible. Yes, people will suffer losses but they will remember the pain and be more conservative with their money in the future.”

  “We’ll do our best limiting government, Paul,“ the President said, and then continued. “But we have another problem tied to this one. The United States issued many securities prior to the collapse. Notes and bonds valued in the trillions were sold to various investors. As a new nation, we do not have a legal obligation to repay those loans. But as a new nation, we do have a moral commitment to make an honest effort to repay legitimate claims.”

  The President asked John if he would continue on with his Commission to determine who the most legitimate creditors of the former U.S.A. were. While there was no money at present to take on such a challenge, at some time in the near future the President was hopeful that some redress would be possible.

  “Mr. President, I’m certainly at your service,” John said. “But with one caveat, if I may. Do I have permission to move the Commission to Boise? I’d like to go home evenings and see my new bride.”

  “I can appreciate your desire to work out of Boise. I’ll instruct my staff to write up a formal change in venue today,” the President said.

  “Might I make a similar request, Mr. President?” Paul retorted.

  The President jumped, “You do not have a new bride at home. Sorry, you’re tied to me for the duration.”

  The three Idahoans laughed. Each one missed their home state and longed to return to it. One would presently be there. The other two had work to do.

  Chapter 36

  Richmond, Virginia

  As the Idahoans enjoyed some downtime telling stories about life in the Gem State, they were interrupted by a knock at their door. John opened the door to find the President’s aide standing there with a note. John passed the note to the President.

  “Well, it appears this note is for you, John.”

  John took the note and read it. “May I be excused, Mr. President?”

  “Yes, of course. I need to meet with my Army commanders right now anyway.”

  John quickly left the room. The President motioned to Paul that he should follow his brother. Paul and John walked down to the room and knocked on the door. A Secret Service Agent opened the door.

  “We have to watch all unknown individuals in the vicinity of the President. I’ll stand outside the door.”

  John and Paul walked in. Seated in a chair was a man who might have about thirty, but from his looks, the man could have been sixty. His clothes were torn and his body was emaciated. He hadn’t shaved or had a hair cut in some time. From the smell, bathing hadn’t been part of this man’s life either.

  “May I help you? The President’s aide seemed to think you may have business with me?” John asked.

  “My name is Kevin Shepardson. My sister is Julie Shepardson,” the man offered.

  “Julie’s brother. You’re alive! How did you find me?” John asked.

  “When I was captured by a company of Idaho volunteers in Pennsylvania, I remembered her writing me about her professor at the University of Oregon. Luckily I knew your name. When I mentioned it to my captors, they informed me that you were in Richmond,” Kevin said.

  “She’ll be so excited that you’re alive. We assumed all her family was dead,” John said.

  “They are. I’m the only one who survived. I’ve been doing what I needed to do to survive in Pennsylvania.”

  “Have you been arrested by the troops for any criminal activity?” John asked.

  “No. Life in Pennsylvania has had no right and wrong for the last year. It was kill or be killed. Life was simple in a certain way. If the troops round up everyone who broke the law over the last year, there would be no one left,” Kevin said.

  Paul offered to scare up some food and clean clothes. The room had a shower, so John waited while Kevin cleaned up. A razor took Kevin’s extra hair away. Everything was bagged up in a plastic bag for burning. Soon a clean and hairless Kevin ate his first real meal in a year. He began to relate life behind the chaotic lines.

  When ‘the Pulse’ hit, like everywhere, life stopped for everyone. But unlike Paul and John’s experience in Idaho, civil society did not overcome adversity. In Maryland, Kevin soon found out that a huge tear in the social fabric let many undesirable things through.

  Within the first week, life in the suburbs of Washington D.C. had become untenable. Kevin’s parents had never returned home from their jobs in Washington. Both had worked in the Federal bureaucracy and were away on assignment when ‘the Pulse’ hit. Kevin had no idea where they had been.

  After four days the food that was in the house ran out. Kevin and a friend from next door teamed up to find more. The friend was also alone when his father failed to return from the city. His parents had divorced and his mother had moved to New York City.

  Luckily, the friend’s father had worked for the FBI. As such, the house had a number of guns that would normally have been illegal for common citizens under Maryland’s tough gun laws. At first, Kevin’s friend was reluctant to open his father’s safe, even though he knew the combination.

  The first gang raid into their neighborhood changed his mind. By the end of the first week without power, the noise from assaults grew closer and closer. The night before they left, a gang terrorized the next street over.

  “The screams were all we could bear. We both armed ourselves, sneaked into the backyard and looked over the back wall,” Kevin stopped. The thought of what they’d seen in the other houses was still too painful for Kevin to talk about.

  “It’s OK, Kevin. We’ve seen and heard similar tales,” Paul said.

  “Well, right then my friend and I knew we had to leave. The gangs were too big to fight off. We headed back to our houses and started packing. My dad loved gardening and had one of those large garden carts. We packed all the things we thought we’d need into it,” Kevin related.

  Kevin told of their decision to head to a farm in Pennsylvania, near Gettysburg. It belonged to the family of his college roommate and Kevin had spent a couple of summers working the farm. It took a week to hike there.

  “Before we left we went next door to a family that we both had known for years. We knocked on their door to tell them we were leaving and they should join us. The mother with two daughters had been hoping that her husband would make it home,” Kevin said. “A
fter the previous night, we finally convinced the mom to have her two daughters join us. We gave her directions to the farm, but she wouldn’t leave. She was determined to stay and wait for her husband.”

  “People have been forced into making terrible choices,” John said.

  “Well, the daughters were adamant that they would stay with the mom. We had to physically force them to leave with us. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.”

  Eventually the foursome made it to the Gettysburg farm. Kevin explained how they dealt with the hordes of people heading north since the Virginia authorities had cut off the escape south. The wave of humanity trying to find food and shelter had been overwhelming to him.

  Arriving at the farm, Kevin was nervous about what type of reception he and his companions would receive. Luckily he was greeted with open arms.

  “When they saw the fire power we had with us, any reluctance just evaporated. Their farm was in a small valley in the hills west of Gettysburg. There was only one small overgrown track into the farm. The owners had purposely let the access get overgrown. A locked metal gate at the road further limited access. We quickly cut down a number of trees to seal us into the valley,” Kevin said.

  The next few weeks started a routine that would carry them through the winter. Kevin’s friend had been in the Army and understood securing an area. He set up training in weapons and security for everyone. They organized random patrols to monitor the area around them.

  With the supply of .22 caliber ammunition that was typical of any farm, each had become tolerable marksmen. To conserve ammo on the larger caliber guns, limited training took place.

  The owners of the farm had been putting food away for years so they had adequate supplies, but they still ate conservatively since they didn’t know how long the chaos would last.

  Kevin enjoyed the roving patrols each day. Usually he and one of the sisters would circle around the hills and inspect the surrounding countryside through their binoculars. Oftentimes they would run into others moving through the woods trying to escape the continuing mayhem. Kevin would watch from a concealed place to make sure they weren’t a threat to the farm.

  On one of his trips, Kevin explained how he had found a small rock overhang that concealed a small cave. He slithered on his belly into the hidden spot and found it was big enough for several people. He started quietly stocking it with supplies, on the chance that the farm would become untenable.

  By spring, the patrols found almost no life out beyond the hills. The local populace was either dead or had moved to more secure climes.

  “Do you know how long it takes to starve to death?” Kevin asked.

  John and Paul shook their heads. Luckily they had lived in a state where they hadn’t had to find out first-hand the answer to Kevin’s question.

  “Forty days. That’s it. A little over a month without food and you’re dead as a doorknob.” Kevin answered his own question. “Some go a little faster, some slower, but by at least seventy days, everyone’s dead.”

  The farm dwellers had voted that to offer food to their neighbors would risk their lives. Kevin had seen from his forays into the surrounding areas how long their neighbors took to succumb. Others shunned patrol duty to avoid witnessing their neighbors’ deaths.

  But Kevin and his veteran friend took responsibility for the farm seriously and overcame their revulsion at all the deaths to make sure the people at the farm stayed alive. That was until late spring when the bad guys came.

  “We were on our usual patrol route and we hadn’t seen anyone in weeks. The entire area seemed dead. My friend and I were sitting against a tree overlooking the entrance to the valley when we heard the noise of a truck approaching,” Kevin said. “We just naturally dropped down onto the ground and pulled out the binoculars. The truck came slowly up the road stopping at each residence.”

  Kevin described how the truck moved methodically, checking each place. When it got to the driveway into the valley, it stopped. The two watched as one man got out and climbed over the metal gate, leaving the driver alone in the truck He proceeded up the driveway to the first fallen tree. They watched as the man listened and looked up the overgrown road.

  Kevin didn’t know if they should shoot them both right then. They were easily in range. The bodies and truck could be disposed of. Their companions might never learn of their fates.

  “The man outside signaled something and we saw the man in the truck lift a radio to his face. He began talking. It was too late. Whoever they were scouting for was now informed that something was worth a more careful look at our location. We crawled away and ran back to the farm to warn them.”

  The rest of the story was typical of what Paul had learned from others. The gang soon arrived, moved up the road and found the farm. Kevin’s compatriots had put up a vigorous defense in their stone house, but the opposing numbers were too strong.

  When the rocket-propelled grenade tore a huge hole in the front of the house and killed four of the defenders, Kevin grabbed one of the surviving sisters and headed out the back door. The two of them were the only survivors. They hid in their cave for the seven days that the gang took to loot the farm of anything edible. What remained, they took with them.

  Now reduced to what he had squirreled away in the cave, Kevin and the younger sister fought daily to stay alive. Luckily he had stored a stainless steel bolt action .22 rifle ahead of time. It allowed him to hunt small animals. With a Rocket stove to cook on, they survived on watery, wild game stew.

  As the summer wound on, the game became harder to find, but the potato crop in the field was close to harvest. The stew became thicker if not more starchy. It kept them alive, at least until the gang returned. The potato crop was quickly harvested and Kevin was left hiding out in the cave once again.

  “The gang finally moved on. But now the little valley was totally devoid of anything to eat. I decided it was time to move to somewhere that still had some game. That was a big mistake.” Kevin’s eyes watered up with emotion. He bent his head down to collect his thoughts before continuing.

  “It’s OK, Kevin. You don’t need to tell us. We understand,” John offered as he placed his hand on Kevin’s newly shaved head.

  “No, I need to tell it. We were crossing a high bridge on a railroad line heading west. We had been following the tracks for a week or two on the assumption Ohio might be better off than Pennsylvania. Neither of us had had anything to eat for I don’t know how long. We were barely able to walk. I was ahead when I turned to make sure the sister was still moving. She had disappeared,” Kevin said. His eyes now streaming with tears. “I looked over the edge and there she was. Dead on the riverbank. No sound. No scream. She just gave up and walked off the bridge. And the awful thing is, I didn’t even have the energy to go check on her. I just turned around and kept moving west.”

  That was where the Idaho volunteers had found him the next day. Lying under a highway overpass, where he had crawled to get out of the rain. Two days later, he was in Richmond.

  “I want to make it up to her, and her sister. And to my friends that died defending the farm. And my family, who are certainly dead somewhere. I don’t know how, but I need to find justice for them. And for those poor wretches I had to watch slowly starve.” The sternness in Kevin’s voice showed his determination.

  * * *

  A request came in through military command for a representative of the new government to meet with some citizens near Lake Placid, New York. The President asked Paul to fly up and see what the trouble was and suggested that Amanda might be helpful. The President didn’t offer much other information. Upon hearing of Kevin’s survival, the President said that he could travel with the group.

  Amanda wasn’t keen to take another flight when the President offered to loan them his plane for the excursion. But the violent weather of the day before had moved on, ushering in a beautiful blue sky. The ride to upper New York was like riding on glass.

  “Well, that w
as more like it,” Amanda exclaimed as she stepped off the plane. The Area Commander of the UAS forces was there to meet them. He gave a quick briefing as they headed into Lake Placid.

  “We ran into this group two days ago. At first we thought they were just another criminal gang. We’ve been sweeping them up regularly as we crossed the state. But they raised a white flag and asked for a meeting,” the commander offered. “Turns out they’re part of an organized militia that formed right after P-Day. They had realized that a lot of people would be heading their way and knew the area couldn’t feed them all.”

  “Smart people. With probably twenty million people within a week’s hike, they knew survival meant defending against all outsiders,” Paul said.

  “Exactly. They quickly organized and set up a formable defensive zone. They had enough old vehicles still running to set up a quick response company that could counter any threats that might overwhelm their lines. Then they realized that folks in northern Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine were doing the same thing.”

  “So they formed a new Algonquin Nation,” Kevin said. He referred to the confederacy of Indian tribes the first colonist ran into in northern New York. The Algonquin Nation was one of the strongest Native American tribes that the early settlers had to deal with.

  “Yes, sir. And like the Algonquins, they’re pissed off. Seems that they’re holding us personally responsibe for not showing up a year ago. I figured this was a political problem. I can blast them out, but it doesn’t seem right,” the commander said.

  “No, we aren’t going to blast any law-abiding citizens defending their homes, Commander,” Paul said.

  When they reached the agreed-upon meeting place, Paul, Amanda and Kevin joined the commander in greeting the three representatives of the local militia. All three were middle-aged men who kept their firearms handy. The spokesman of the militia opened the talks after introductions.