After The Pulse (Book 1): Homestead

by Hogan, L. Douglas

  “Don’t shush me.”

  Sam just looked at him, surprised that he had snapped back at her.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, realizing that the punishment didn’t fit the crime.

  “It’s okay.”

  They both turned their attention back to the television, where Adalyn Baker was now standing at the President’s podium. Spanning the breadth of the bottom of the screen were the words STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS.

  “People of the United States, last year we experienced an economic collapse, which was the result of the Republicans’ war on terror, a war which was drummed up by hypotheticals and scare tactics used by their right-wing conspirators. The country was still in a recession from the previous two decades of war. It was at this time I pulled the majority of our resources out of the Middle East conflicts and turned our budget towards more important issues, those being the welfare programs which are currently sustaining over ninety percent of you. Unfortunately, it was too little, too late. Now, as we look down the precipice of another collapse, the collapse of an antiquated form of democracy, we must embrace a new set of truths: that we, as a society, must take from each according to his abilities, and give to each according to his needs.

  “Several months ago, I signed an executive order authorizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to enforce a mandated identification system. This system has been in use for several years now with our military men and women. The Radio Frequency Identification system allows for quick, manageable, and sustainable means to make transactions in a fair and meaningful way that does not exclude the needy or favor the wealthy. With this program in place, every American will be equal and class warfare will become a thing of the past. As a part of this executive order, thousands of RFID stations have been set up in virtually every jurisdiction on the county level. In order for this program to work, America needs you to play your part. Every American will be required to report to their county authority to receive a subdermal implant, free of charge. The implant is tiny, the size of a rice grain, and will enable you to buy, sell, and trade. Together with our European allies, we are joining economies and laying the groundwork for a one-world currency, and ultimately, a one-world economy. In our nation’s history, never have we seen such a bright future. France, Italy, China, Japan, Germany, Russia, and Australia have already begun the implementation of this program, and have taken the lead in a forward direction.

  “Unfortunately, we are expecting to be met with resistance right here in the United States. No doubt, there will be extremists on the right that will call this tyranny or some other derogatory and antiquated term. However, you must keep in mind that these domestic disturbance instigators are in the minority and are of no relevance. This program will succeed because it is the will of the people, which brings me to my next point.

  “Due to the rise in numbers of domestic terrorists, otherwise known as militias, and the escalation of unfortunate events, which occur at their every appearance, I am reluctant but forced to invoke several existing executive orders. We have received word of several instances of insurrection against the current elected government. I feel that our national security is at risk and that these minority groups pose a substantial risk to vital resources. Therefore, I am invoking Executive Order 10997, which will provide the people with government-controlled resources, such as petroleum products, electricity, etc. To prevent our farmers from falling victim to these groups, I am invoking Executive Order 10998, to provide government oversight to all agricultural assets. In order to assure that these individuals do not interfere with the application of the RFID program, I am invoking Executive Orders 10999 and 13603, suspending all unauthorized transportation and providing government-supplied water. The government will be the sole distributor of all materials until I deem it safe to lift the government seizures. This will ensure unaltered and continued continuity of care to all citizens under my care.

  “It has been determined that right-wing dissenters are responsible for the explosions occurring at peaceful protest sites and political rallies. This is why I suspended the First Amendment. It was not in objection to dissenting views, but rather the fact that these militia groups are showing up with assault weapons, and this is usually followed up with fatal and catastrophic events. For some time now, legislation has been insufficient in the control of these individuals finding ways to arm themselves and taking up insurrection against their government. Therefore, I am indefinitely declaring a state of martial law for the purpose of securing our borders against the threat of these domestic terrorists. Until these executive orders are lifted, a mandated curfew will be in effect starting thirty minutes after sunset and lasting until thirty minutes prior to sunrise on a daily basis. Travel chits will be issued by your local law enforcement agency so that those authorized to travel may do so.

  “The United Nations have pledged their support and resources to aid us in these coming weeks. We have taken the lead in withdrawing our troops from the war in the Middle East. Our friends in Europe, Asia, and Africa will begin the withdrawal of their forces in the coming weeks. Russia will most likely continue on with their efforts in the Middle East conflicts, but the United States have played their part and are now tending to more pressing matters here at home.

  “Effective immediately, congressional powers are revoked indefinitely. The legislative and judicial branches will have no authority until the domestic threat has been abated. The patriot movement will be stopped. Our resolve to pursue national security has never been stronger. Thank you.”

  ORDER TYRANT

  BOOK ONE THE RISE

  PROLOGUE AND CHAPTER I

  PROLOGUE

  By the year 2025, the United States had run its economy into bankruptcy. For years, fiscally conservative Republicans and Democrats complained about the unsustainable deficits. The liberal news media had stopped covering issues regarding the US economy, choosing instead to cover the brutalities of war and police use of force. Censorship against US citizens was the norm and any kind of media coverage on the government was the exception. The Federal Communications Commission controlled the internet, congressional legislation forced local business to pay ever-increasing minimum wages, and the government was providing healthcare and other amenities at the expense of private and corporate infrastructure. Taxation was no longer meeting the requirements necessary to sustain the status quo.

  By 2030, local business could not afford to pay its employees. The US dollar was almost worthless and the government could no longer sustain public welfare. The internet was inaccessible, joblessness was above ninety percent, it was illegal to gather in public groups, and free speech was redefined.

  In 2031, the President of the United States, seeing she could no longer control the angry American mobs or provide for the starving masses, declared martial law, invoking Executive Orders 10998, 10999, and 13603, seizing all public modes of transportation, and declaring eminent domain over all farmland, oil fields and refineries, water supplies, and food-processing plants. No one was allowed to store food, hoard water, or own energy sources.

  Shortly thereafter, Executive Orders 10995 and 10997 went into effect, seizing all media, including radio, TV, telephones, satellite communications, newspapers, and lastly, electricity. In a matter of months, there was a complete revocation of constitutional law. It was no longer safe to travel, trade, or offer opinionated speech. America went black.

  CHAPTER I

  Southern Illinois, October 22, 2032

  Jessica’s morning started like any other morning. Southern Illinois in the fall is the place to be for anybody that loves stormy weather and the sound of thunder as lightning flashes through the sky. It wasn’t exactly her dream home, but it would do for the time being. Her shoddy, half-sunk, rusty barge stank of fish and dirty river water, but it was away from the ensuing chaos in the town up the hill. The Chester Police refused to work for free, and the Randolph County Sheriff’s Office didn’t agree with the unconstitutional control of the US citiz
enry. Essentially, all rural areas of the United States were left to their own devices, so long as it didn’t interfere with the president’s hold on executive power.

  Before the “Flip,” a term used to describe the day the first executive order was declared, Jess was a full-time correctional officer and a part-time police officer. She was only thirty-two, but had twelve years vested into the state as a correctional officer, and six years in law enforcement.

  When the Flip went down, southern Illinois was already in disarray and any person with a keen eye could see it coming. At first, Jess was most worried about all the Southern rednecks as food sources began to dwindle. Her first instinct was to be wary of them because she feared they would use those arms to secure food in unlawful ways. After the Flip, she saw these rednecks more frequently in the woods. That was how they secured their family’s food sources. As she thought on it, she came to understand that these people had been armed for years and were perfect law-abiding citizens.

  Early on, after the Flip, she had found herself having to readjust to new norms and force herself to rethink and retrain her mind. The old ways were gone and a new era required new thinking. For Jess, this meant watching the new behaviors of the people she had previously sworn an oath to protect through the upholding of the Constitution of the United States. She had sworn the oath on two separate occasions: first when she was hired on as a CO, and the second time when she was hired by the city of Chester to work as a cop.

  On this particular morning, Jess had an inkling to walk up the city steps, from the shore of the river to the Randolph County Courthouse, in an effort to acquire a copy of the US Constitution. To do so would mean leaving the cover and security of her camp and exposing herself to the hazards of the world above. Jess felt that she was up to the task, so she donned her service pistol, which was a Glock 22 chambered in .40 caliber, and secured it in the small of her back, where it was snugly fitted against her frame, concealed in a padded holster. She also had an AR-15 in .223 with a 5.56 chamber. Its sixteen-inch barrel provided for excellent tactical use when combined with its collapsible stock, but did not have much accuracy beyond three hundred yards. She had previously taken the scope off of it because it only bumped around the reticles and became more of a nuisance than anything. Besides, she was an accurate shot with her iron sights and felt perfectly capable without a scope.

  Jess slung the rifle across her back. She was wearing khaki-colored tactical BDU pants with cargo pockets and a bullet-resistant vest under a khaki-colored long-sleeved tactical shirt. On the sleeves and shoulders of her shirt, you could see the outline of where her police patches used to be. After the Flip, she knew what was next, so she tore them off. Jess wanted no association with the tyranny of the federal government. Whether it was true or not, she believed the people would make the police out to be the face of government. Jess was first and foremost an American. She wanted to move up that hill and secure a copy of her country’s founding document, so with a deep breath and a quiet sigh, she headed up the city steps towards the courthouse.

  Upon approaching the back side of the courthouse, where the Sheriff’s Department was attached, Jess could see that the Sheriff’s Department’s vehicles had broken windows and the body of the vehicles were spray-painted with various graffiti and vulgar threats about law and order. She noticed the sally port door was still in place, but the windows to the Sheriff’s Department were broken and the building itself was exposed to the elements. Jess removed her AR from where it was slung across her back and brought it to the ready as she carefully and cautiously approached the entrance to the apparently abandoned building. The inside appeared to be ransacked. There wasn’t any sign of life from what she could tell. It wasn’t but a moment of standing still and listening before Jess heard a noise coming from the jail area. It dawned on Jess that there might yet be prisoners, either loose or jailed, in the building.

  The jail gate was open and she took her time to listen a moment longer before maneuvering toward the sound. What she heard was eerie and sent chills down her spine. It was the sound of feeding carnivores, crunching bone, and tearing meat. Jess knew that bobcats had made a comeback in southern Illinois, but reasoned that what she was hearing wasn’t exclusive to bobcats. There were too many scuffling sounds to be a bobcat. Bobcats are solitary predators and this sound was more like a sound of pack animals. The sound was steady, so she moved slowly toward the dispatch office and turned left towards the jail, her weapon at the ready.

  ORDER NO LIGHT BEYOND

  Prologue

  Two Years Earlier

  “Lydia!” Mason cried out as he pushed through the debris of his upper-level apartment. “Lydia! Where are you?” Mason’s heart was pounding as he kicked chunks of wall that were blocking his path out of the way. He called her name over and over again, but there was no response. Just outside, at ground level, screams could be heard at random intervals, almost always followed immediately by the sound of a gunshot blast.

  The electricity that normally hummed through the walls and lit the nighttime sky was gone; the sounds of vehicles in the streets were no more. The only thing that lit the heavens was the moon, and it was rapidly disappearing in a gray-colored haze. Mason never wanted to raise his nine-year-old daughter in the Windy City. He knew crime rates were notoriously high, but figured violence was more prone to be located in the impoverished sections of the inner city, so he rented them a fancy, but affordable apartment away from the violence. He was the only male office associate in his office, which was a far cry from his training in the military and work as a mercenary in the war. He never allowed that to deter him because he took the job for his precious daughter, Lydia. Nothing else mattered to him.

  “Lydia? Are you here?” he yelled into the darkness. “Tamara?” he called out, hoping that maybe his babysitter was still in the apartment, but she didn’t answer either. Mason realized he was now searching the dark apartment in vain. He felt his way along the walls using nothing but memory and touch to steer him to the front door and into the main hallway. As he moved along, he heard a loud gunshot in the next apartment. After that, the scurry of what sounded like two or three men came bustling out the door. The voices were African-American males, and one of them said, “Hurry, grab the girl and let’s get outta here.”

  Mason knew the neighbor and all of his comings and goings. He was a friendly old widower that used to help keep an eye on the place in his absence, and he didn’t have a girl. None of those men belonged in that apartment, and Mason feared the worst. It was that very fear that gripped his heart. He was unarmed but didn’t hesitate to give another shout for his daughter and push his way through the darkness towards the neighbor’s door.

  “Lydia,” he shouted. He imagined the worst-case scenario and figured those men had just killed his neighbor and probably had his daughter in tow, provided the information at hand. When he had made his way back out into the darkened hallway, he heard two more shots coming from farther down the hallway. Mason called out for his daughter again, but there was no answer. After a brief moment, Mason began heading down the hallway, where he stopped to listen. It was there he heard Lydia’s voice for the last time. “Please don’t hurt me. Let me go.”

  Mason panicked and ran down the hallway, where he collided into men with flashlights. One of them pointed the light into Mason’s eyes.

  “Hey,” he shouted to the men, but he could not see them for the brightness of the light. Mason immediately grabbed the man’s hand that was carrying the flashlight and pulled him off balance. He followed up by raising his knee as high as he could and brought it down onto the stranger’s leg, at the joint, dislocating the man’s knee from the side.

  “Daddy, help,” Lydia cried out.

  The next thing Mason saw was bright flashes of light accompanied by the deafening sounds of three or four bullets being shot in his direction.

  “C’mon, Smoka,” one of the men said. “Let’s get outta here.” The man known as “Smoka” stopped shooti
ng, and one of the other men grabbed the man with a broken leg and helped him to his feet.

  The men continued towards the emergency exit, leaving Mason alone, gripping his abdomen as the men carried off his precious daughter. He had a burning sensation in his stomach, and he could feel the warmth of his own blood on his hand. He made his way to the exit, where he saw the flashlight go, and started his descent down the stairs. He could hear the men far ahead of him, pounding their way down the steps. The metallic handrails carried a ting sound for long distances, as did the distinctive squeaky sole on the bottom of one of the men’s shoes.

  Mason could feel his legs were getting weak as he moved along. He had an intense will to soldier on toward the exit of the building.

  Mason finally exited the building and fell to the ground.

  “Lydia,” he shouted over and over again.

  “Lydia,” he said in a softer tone. His strength was waning, and with it went the power to call for his daughter. Mason looked up at the moon and watched it as her glory faded into blackness. The gray haze covered the night sky. With his daughter gone, he surmised that his life was about to end. He considered the violence that covered the streets; wolves prowling the streets with flashlights and firearms killing innocent men and women for their belongings. There was little hope that he would reach Lydia alive.

  Mason lay down on his side and rested his head on his arm and waited for his sight to go dim. Across the street sat a blind homeless man he had seen a hundred times before. The streets were running wild with violent activity and chaos, but that old man was as calm as the morning sea. The cardboard sign he was holding read “Isaiah 26:19.” Mason always told himself he would look it up someday, but he never did.

  A moment later, Mason could hear a person run up on him and grab him by his arm. The watch that was on his wrist was a Walmart purchase, but the thief didn’t know what he was taking. Mason felt the person’s hand patting up and down his body. It made its way down to his side and reached into his back pocket to steal his wallet, but he didn’t even care. The person left, and the next thing Mason knew, he was being dragged down the sidewalk by his legs.