A Haunt of Jackals

by G. R. Carter

  Mt. Sterling, Illinois

  Day Two of the Great Reset

  One by one each inmate from the scratch list made their way to the holding area. Morton made sure to alternate the tribes. No two consecutive men—and they were all men—shared the same allegiance. Some were clearly nervous; seldom was being cut out of the main herd a good thing. Morton let a couple of the Eels spread the rumor that this was for their protection against a verified threat. The lie was a bit of a risk long-term, but more likely to keep their cooperation during the process.

  Against orders, Morton was there among the condemned in the holding area, making sure that each tribe was kept separate. He was fully armored in his own tactical suit. The lightweight material holding the plates together actually felt good against his skin. The electrical charge only flowed out when pressed firmly, but in his mind he could feel the current.

  He thought briefly about calling his Rapid Response Team to standby. Those dozen men were the only ones authorized to use the limited collection of military battle rifles, shotguns, and sidearms stashed in locked cabinets at the back of the armory room. Eventually he decided against it. They were already spread too thin to pull more men off the floor.

  Morton nodded as Andre Collins made his way in. He was the first of the Code 11 tribe to be put in their pen; that tribe would get three rooms because of their list size. That would give Collins the chance to get the prime spot in the corner, and would keep any of Dawley’s henchmen from making a run at him while the Eels were distracted. It was big risk to put any inmates together in a relatively small room.

  Collins was smart; he’d know there was exposure here. “Head on a swivel” was the mantra for a wanted man in lockup. Only the wary inmate lived out his days. Morton had no doubt Collins had figured out something was up.

  Full-body scanners drew too much electricity to use under generator power, so an Eel with their suit turned down to zero current had to do a manual pat-down. Jeers and catcalls made the inmates laugh as each one got the physical treatment in turn. Two fully-charged Eels stood within arm’s length during the process; they didn’t find it nearly as amusing.

  Each minute seemed an eternity to Morton. When the last of the tattooed White Sheets were locked up securely behind alloy bars, he let out a deep breath he didn't know he’d been holding in.

  “That was serious pucker time, wasn’t it, Sarge?” McCoy asked as he flipped the manual switch to lock down the holding rooms' electric latch.

  Morton nodded. He looked up at the digital clock on the wall. The time showed that the second group scheduled for dinner would be about halfway through their allotted meal time. He thought about going to the armory to take his Eel suit off, but decided against it. He wanted to get back up to the control room. The extra Syn allocations they were giving the inmates still gnawed at him. Changes to their body chemistry worried him almost as much as…well, almost as much as a prison-wide power outage.

  He walked back through the control room. His favorite target for jest was still hunched over his workstation, carefully monitoring the prison's cameras.

  “Come on, Porter. I warned you about watching that,” Morton said, loud enough for everyone to hear. “You're gonna rub it raw.”

  “Come on, Sarge. That’s gettin’ old,” Porter whined.

  “Not to us,” one of the other guards on duty yelled out, nearly laughing herself off her chair.

  Morton just smiled again and made his way through to the balcony. He was two stories up, yet the boots that were an integrated part of his tactical suit made him feel even taller. There were backup batteries in the soles of each, adding almost no weight but lifting him an additional two inches. It was enough to give someone vertigo with the spectacular views through the ceiling and the constant motion of inmates down below.

  He made quick eye contact with the Eel in command of the floor and got the okay sign. With that he relaxed a little, watching the line of inmates press their thumb to a button, then put their mouth on a tube and receive their nightly medication. Each dose was supposed to be formulated to their respective size and metabolism. Since Grapevine wasn't functioning, the kitchen staff dialed up the average dosage, times three. After each inmate the tube would retract and be sanitized by the dispensing machine, then come back out to offer the next inmate their dose. Kinda like Holy Communion used to be, he thought, reminded of the Christmas Mass he used to attend with his wife and son.

  “Hey, Sarge, we got a problem,” Porter called out.

  “Give ‘em a minute, they’ll be back for more. He’s not a machine, after all,” Morton replied, trying to deliver the joke without laughing.

  The room roared again but Porter was serious. “No, I mean it. Come here and take a look.”

  Porter was pointing to one of his screens. The view showed a grainy black-and-white view from outside the maintenance building where all the water, sewer and electrical main hubs were kept. Two—now three men were climbing out of an old jeep, creeping towards the generator's fuel tank Morton had put a load of diesel into earlier in the day.

  “What the…?” Morton tried to wrap his mind around what he was looking at. “How did they get inside the outer fence?”

  “When we’re on backup power the outer fence isn’t electrified,” Porter said.

  Morton had forgotten that. His specialty was inside the walls, not perimeter defense. His thoughts shot to the towers; it hadn’t been that long ago when guards up there had been replaced by cameras and sensors. “Let me guess, the tower defenses don’t work either.”

  Porter shook his head. “Same circuits.”

  Crap. He wondered why Lewis had forgotten to tell him that. Or maybe he did mention it and Morton hadn’t been listening? Perhaps Morton had just forgotten. Either way, he had a major emergency on his hands.

  Morton reached for the intercom. “Rapid Response Team, this is Sergeant Morton. I need full assembly.” He repeated the order three more times, then walked to the wall where a large switch had LOCKDOWN printed above it. Normally he’d do this through voice commands to Grapevine, but that wouldn’t do any good tonight. The simple technology of the emergency klaxon worked, and the switch illuminated. He pulled down and an ear-piercing sound flooded the room.

  He couldn’t see it happening, but every Eel in the facility would be in motion. Those suited up would be escorting inmates back to their cells, and those who weren’t would be double-timing to the armory to get fitted. This was the worst possible time: in the middle of a meal shift. That took ten Eels out of the lockdown process; they’d sit on those in the cafeteria right now and wait for the rest of the facility to be secured.

  Morton went back and watched the monitor again. Another truck had pulled up alongside the jeep, much larger and with a large round tank on the back. It wasn’t a fuel truck, more like one used by farmers to mix pesticides out in their fields. He watched two men drag a long hose from the truck to the generator’s tank.

  He did a quick count and came up with a best guess of five men trying to steal his fuel.

  How could they be so stupid? Don’t they know what would happen if the generator quit?

  The Rapid Response Team’s leader was in the room, already suited up and holding a battle rifle. Morton didn’t know much about the weapon; he’d fired it a few times when Jordan Inc. allocated them. All he knew was they were called AK-15s and they could put a hole the size of a grapefruit in a man.

  “Sitrep,” the team leader said harshly. Morton didn’t much care for Robin Wilson, but he seemed to know his business. His main job here at the prison was maintenance and upkeep on the weapons and tactical suits, one of the ways he could get suited up and to the room so quickly.

  “Approximately five hostiles at the physical plant.”

  Wilson looked surprised. “Outside?” he asked.

  Morton nodded. “Looks like they’re trying to steal fuel out of the generator storage tank.”

  Wilson still looked confused, trying to piece the scena
rio together. “Why break into a maximum-security prison to steal fuel?” he said to himself as much as Morton. “And how the hell did they get past the electric fence and the tower defenses?”

  Morton was short of patience to explain. “What say we interrogate them later? Right now, we need to stop them from taking our fuel. We’ve only got enough to keep the generator running through tomorrow. We need every drop.”

  That seemed to shake Wilson back to reality. He nodded and grabbed the next two men to make it into the control room. “We’re not waiting on the rest. We should be able to handle five unarmed locals.” He ran out of the room and took off down metal stairs.

  Morton called out after him. “Don’t be so sure they’re unarmed.”

  Wilson didn’t turn but he thumped his free fist to his chest. “That’s what the armor is for.” One more of his team was coming out of the armory just in time to tag along as they opened the heavy steel door and disappeared out into the night.

  Chapter 17

  Ridgeview Hunting Lodge

  Rural Brown County, Illinois

  Day Two of the Great Reset

  “We ain’t commies, Kara,” Burton Tucker said. The old man was wagging a gnarled finger at her. His hands were scarred from a lifetime of farm work, but still thick and able to make the point. “Each man needs to do for his. That’s what this country was founded on.”

  Kara tried her sweetest smile. “Tuck, nobody’s looking to take anything that’s yours. I’m just suggesting we can do better working together than apart. Even if we’re wrong about how long the electricity stays out, it’s still makes good sense to cooperate with one another for the time being.”

  “She’s right, Tuck,” Jeremiah Tomlinson said. Only Brown County lifers could call the area’s biggest landowner by his nickname. Jeremiah and Kara both easily met the standard. “Just like we been talkin’ since those folks from Old Main College came over and gave their talk.”

  Tucker waved off the suggestion. “You been talking cooperative for how long? You see anybody stepping up to help? No, they just sit around and wait for someone else to do all the hard work. Then maybe they’ll join. Be the same thing here. You and I—the Bradshaws too, I ‘spose—will put all the money and time in…then the rest of these mouth-breathers will be standing waiting to get a plateful.”

  “I’m tellin’ ya, Tuck, it’s different this time. Imagine what happens to those ‘mouth breathers,’” he stopped and air-quoted, “when’s there’s no food or heat? I think they’ll be comin’ to get your stuff…if you still got anything to get,” Jeremiah replied.

  “Let ‘em come,” Tucker snarled. “I got something for ‘em if they set foot on my land.”

  “All by yourself? You got what, two full-time hands total living on your place?”

  “And my son and his family,” Tucker protested.

  “Okay, fine. Say you got five or six people can handle a weapon at your farm. First off, you got over a thousand acres spread out around the county. How you gonna keep people off of there?” Jeremiah asked.

  Tucker said nothing. Jeremiah continued. “Even if you just take care of the home farm, you got several hundred acres, four houseplaces…that’s gonna spread you all real thin. People gotta sleep sometimes, even crotchety old coots like you.”

  Tucker still didn’t reply. His silence meant he understood the points. Stubbornness refused to acknowledge it.

  Kara softened her tone. “We’re not saying to move off the farm. We’re just suggesting that maybe we can take some of the town folks, volunteers that you would agree to, and move them out to your place. Think of them as free labor,” she assured him.

  “Ain’t nothing free about labor,” Tucker finally said. “We’ve got enough food put up for my hired hands and their families, but not much extra.”

  “We’re gonna gather everything we can from town and send that to you and any other farmers who are willing to take folks in,” Kara said.

  “Won’t be enough.”

  Kara placed her hand on Tucker’s shoulder. “A couple of our guests have a plan for that. You met one of them, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah, the Aussie. Seemed like a BS artist to me. Flashing his expensive credit card around…”

  “Come on, Tuck, he was just tryin’ to help the Bradshaws,” Jeremiah said. “I didn’t take no offense.”

  Tucker seemed unconvinced. “I’m just saying. You youngsters don’t remember the outsiders coming into our town years ago, buying up everything that was worth a penny, then leaving us the scraps. Stupid trade deals, environmental regulations, government controlling everything we did…mostly ‘for our own good,’ they said. Just telling ya: think it through when someone who ain’t from around here offers to help.”

  With that the old man turned and walked away, limping on a knee twice replaced.

  “That went well,” Kara sighed.

  “Actually, it went a lot better than I thought it could have. He’s gonna do it,” Jeremiah said.

  “Seriously?”

  “Oh yeah. He quit arguing and played the outsider card. That means we scored major points. He’ll do what we ask,” he said with a toothy smile through his bushy beard.

  The back door of the lodge closed, drawing their attention. Kara looked in time to see Erline Kaplan shake hands with Darwin and then with JR. The Kaplan family matriarch waved her hand to signal the rest of her family it was time to leave. Each man and woman dutifully threw their disposable plates and cups in the big open fire pit and followed without a word.

  Darwin and JR spoke quietly for a moment. Kara couldn’t make out the words, but there seemed to be some level of tension in their body language. Finally JR shook his head and walked back inside the lodge. Darwin stood for a moment, looked over at Kara and smiled. It wasn’t entirely convincing.

  “No worries, love. I think we’ve got ourselves some new friends,” he called out to her. With that, he followed JR back into the lodge.

  “Not sure how I feel about that,” Jeremiah said, loud enough for only Kara to hear. One of the lesser Kaplan cousins had been busted stealing anhydrous ammonia tanks from the fertilizer plant just a couple of years before. “Maybe Tuck was right about your friend.”

  “Right about who?” said a booming bass voice.

  “Well if it ain’t the long lost Sheriff Andy,” Jeremiah said with a smile as he and Kara turned to face the new arrival. Sheriff Andrew Isiah Gray—just Sheriff Andy to the locals—tried to forge a sinister look. He couldn’t hold the pose, and finally smiled back.

  Kara and Jeremiah both patted the man on the shoulder. Like most of the rest of the folks present, Gray was born local, went to school here, and had never moved away from Brown County. He had run for office unopposed—no one could remember how long ago that had been.

  “Glad to be back, believe me,” the sheriff said, the smile draining away from his face.

  Kara saw the concern. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  Sheriff Gray ran took off his wide brimmed hat and ran his fingers through hair thinning with every season. “I think we need to talk. Since this seems to be the new meeting spot for the county’s VIPs,” he chuckled as he waved at Tucker and the group he was holding court with. The old man just nodded and went back to his audience. “There’s circumstances going on I think are going to surprise you…”

  He gave a hometown politician smile and wave at another knot of farmers gathered around the fire pit. “And not in a good way.”

  Chapter 18

  Ridgeview Hunting Lodge

  Rural Brown County, Illinois

  Day Two of the Great Reset

  Sheriff Andy and the Bradshaws walked in silence. The only sound made was the trio's boots crunching ripening grass, already succumbing to the approaching autumn. The sun was bright but didn’t seem to give as much heat as light. The breeze rippled through leaves already becoming crisp with the surrender of their trees to dormancy.

  Kara’s stomach churned with what Andy had
told them. Two days ago she ran a simple little hunting lodge out in the middle of western Illinois. Nobody important really knew who she was, which was just fine with her. Now, 48 hours later, she felt like she was on the precipice of the End Times, in the middle of some grand conspiracy about to end life as she knew it.

  Her brother was just as confused, a mixture of incredulous and terrified. “You’re tellin’ me that Homeland Security had a file on the Caseys?” Sy asked.

  “And Darwin King, too. But they’ve got a file on everyone these days, you should know that,” Sheriff Gray replied.

  “Even us?” Kara questioned. “We’ve never done anything wrong.”

  Gray stopped walking. “Oh really? Do you still take gold or silver in payment? What about bartering for goods in town? Do you report that on your taxes?” Gray asked.

  Kara and Sy stood speechless. Finally Sy blurted, “You do it too!”

  Gray held up a hand in defense. “Guys, listen, I’m not trying to bust your chops. Heck yes I do the same thing. Far as I’m concerned, Homeland’s got no business telling us what to do. I’m just telling you that we may think we’re the good guys, but not everyone does.”

  Neither Bradshaw said anything. Both were stewing, frightened at the thought of the government keeping tabs on them and furious for not knowing it. “Why didn’t you say anything to us?” Sy asked.

  Gray shrugged, instinctively putting his hand on the big .45 he wore at his hip. “Because I didn’t want people thinking it was me spying on them. As long as I was in office I planned to make sure anyone local was protected.”

  Kara caught the distinction. “But you did keep an eye on those who weren’t local.”

  Gray nodded sheepishly. “I wasn’t spying, I promise you that. But the big money that came and went from the lodges—not just your lodge, but the other ones in the county—yeah, I was a little curious about who the fat cats were.”