by G. R. Carter
Colonel Walsh from Illinois University – better call it New America from now on – was the only ranking officer Stillman had been in contact with since the Reset. He expected Decatur to be the Western flank of his reconstructed New America. Stillman was to start building out towards Springfield while the University forces went east. Stillman needed to get a lot more troops and vehicles if he was going to pacify the area assigned to him for what Walsh had deemed “Reconstruction.” He hoped that the Army Reserve base in Springfield would send him help, though it sounded like they had their own problems with a raging gang problem. They were none too happy with him about shipping all those civilians their way shortly after the Reset. Maybe they’ll have time to cool off, or at least Colonel Walsh can talk them into cooperating, he thought unconvincingly. Time to worry about grand plans later. Right now he couldn’t even seem get this godforsaken town under control.
It didn’t help that the traitor Martin Fredericks embarrassed him by deserting and joining some group of rednecks down the highway in Shelby County. Imagine, a lifetime officer in the army ditching his command, and taking nine other valuable men with him! If it hadn’t been for those ridiculous armored farm trucks they surprised him with, Stillman could have ended the whole group. Instead, Fredericks and his group were gone after killing a couple of his best men severely damaging one of his only heavy weapon Humvees.
If I couldn’t get soldiers like that to follow my orders, how can I keep the rest of this bunch from melting away when on patrol? He knew the men looking at him masterminded rackets in the neighborhoods, keeping food and booze and women hidden from him. Between his enlisted men and Qualified Civilians “recruited” from the population, New America was expecting him to put at least one thousand effective troops in the field for Reconstruction. As of this morning, he had only been able to summon about five hundred.
Stillman needed to get momentum back on his side before he could go crush Shelby County. And a good battle was just the thing to get his men organized and firmly in line.
He knew the city got away from him early, with the police and fire departments siding with the city council trying to keep things under civilian control. Should have rounded them all up and smoked them like Walsh did with his townies, Stillman thought. That hadn’t occurred to him at the time. When things went crazy, he just wanted to get as many resources safely on base as quickly as possible to take care of his troops. Whatever happened to the city wasn’t his concern. Once he realized that entire blocks were burning down around him, it was too late to save much.
Stillman’s scouts and patrols couldn’t give him a solid count on how many civilians were left out in the city, but the best guess might be about 20,000 out of the 100,000 residents once living here. Those city bureaucrats put up a pretty good fight trying to hold their crap together at first, Stillman thought. The collapse gained momentum and there was no stopping it without some sort of miracle. Once realizing it was everyone for themselves, police and firefighters turned to their own survival, and then there was no saving the city.
The police chief, fire department commissioner and city council agreed to gather both departments’ officers and families into the reinforced concrete of the Macon County building downtown, providing a safe place to defend against the roving scavengers and gangs ravaging individual homes. Being spread out with no means of communications meant individuals would probably either die or drift away. So to keep some semblance of order and hopefully have a group to rebuild with once the power came back on, city leaders decided to pool all remaining resources into the one hundred and twenty-one police, fire and city works officials left on duty. The virtuous leaders invited themselves along, too.
While not exactly civic-minded or concerned about honoring an oath of duty, the move to consolidate trained men seemed like the smart move to Stillman. Those were men he’d really like to have under his command, and most would likely make decent soldiers. That was the rub when he contacted the chief of police weeks ago to discuss working together. The chief thought he should be in charge since they were discussing security of the city. No way was Stillman putting himself or his command under the jurisdiction of that old fool. The fat man was just a politically connected kiss-up who had managed to avoid doing anything that could be held against him during a twenty-five-year career. Stillman’s military career should have given him rank, respect and deference in command. There was nothing that qualified that sack of crap for leading meter maids, let alone what needed doing for Reconstruction to succeed.
The last dispatch from Colonel Walsh via their daily motorcycle courier outlined exactly how he expected Stillman to handle the holdouts at the County building. Included in the dispatch were instructions about what to do with any who continued to resist. Walsh enclosed the orders on official letterhead and signed his name, authorization code and seal. Any trepidation Stillman had about the task at hand didn’t matter; his only known superior officer issued him a very specific command. To counteract that command meant dereliction of duty. I’m just following orders, Walsh will take the fall if the lights come back on. Besides, we’re doing what’s necessary to restore order, so maybe we’ll still have an America to reconstruct after all this, Stillman assured himself.
The sound of a motorcycle buzzing through the vehicle yard gates brought Stillman back to the here and now. The young trooper on the commandeered dirt bike pulled right alongside Stillman, grinning ear to ear.
“It’s done, sir, they’re on the way right now. Some are probably already there.”
Stillman nodded. “Good, then we’ll get going ourselves. Gather the rest of the Recon Force. Make sure you stay about two hundred yards or so in front. I don’t want any ambushes,” he said to the head of his motorcycle scouts. The local bike dealer had been patriotic enough to donate his entire inventory of two and four wheel motorcycles. In exchange, he received an on-base job taking care of the bikes, a requisition order from the United States government, and some MREs for his family. The bikes were a little more dangerous for his troops to get around on, but they burned less of the precious fuel he needed for heavy vehicle operations like the one today. The huge underground storage tanks under his base might last only another six months without resupply. He had no idea what to do when that fuel ran out.
Exhaust smoke poured out into the air as Stillman gave the order to fire the engines. His assault force checked their weapons one last time. Veteran squad leaders mingled with new recruits and those who hadn’t seen any sort of conflict before, looking over equipment and urging the men into the back of the transport trucks. His Humvees would take the lead and the tail, using their .50 caliber heavy machine guns to cover the assault force as it moved toward downtown.
Man, I’d kill for just one real armored vehicle right now. Even an old Bradley would be perfect. That’s all I would need to end this quick, Stillman mumbled to himself.
Yesterday, he delivered his final ultimatum via a bullhorn outside of the County building being used as Police Headquarters. He wanted to make sure that all the rank-and-file troops and their families heard what he had to offer. Walsh and Stillman were sure that the offer would cause plenty of disagreement about the best course of action, and they both hoped that the 8 a.m. deadline would be met. The invitation was for both police and fire to join the Reconstruction efforts under New America’s command. Stillman imagined that the city council argued against merging, figuring that holding out was their best play for their own personal survival. Stillman hoped some impatient cops might initiate regime change for him, though.
The five-mile trip from the base to downtown Decatur would take about fifteen minutes without any breakdowns. The timing was important but not critical. By now, a large horde of what was left of the citizenry was gathering around the police headquarters, trying to break in. All of his men had been instructed to spread word throughout their rackets that the city was hoarding food and ammunition there, and there was only a small group protecting it. One enterprising sol
dier had even come up with the idea of spreading the rumor that the drug confiscation store-room was in the basement of the targeted building. Every junkie who hadn’t died off yet would be scrambling to get through the reinforced doors. Stillman was confident not a single starving zombie would breach the city’s defenses. But the cops were going to use up an awful lot of ammo in the process. Just in case, the most critical timing in this operation was making sure he got there while there was still something left to save if some did actually breach the building.
Stillman pulled into the hotel parking lot that served as their rally point a couple of blocks away from downtown. He could already see ragged creatures streaming towards the the headquarters building. Stepping out of his command Humvee, rapid-fire gunshots of different calibers echoed off the ghostly buildings all around him. Windows were smashed in every single store and office he could see. A few ragged townspeople, his men always referred to them as zombies, turned to look at the group of military vehicles assembled here. Stillman recognized the look; something triggered in the blank eyes. Flashing back to a time when the sight of men in uniform meant safety and survival had arrived. Then, just as quick as the look appeared, it fled. More recent experiences with the military overrode the nostalgic past. Sadly turning toward the rising smoke and the loud sounds of conflict, the zombie creatures didn’t seem to care that this might be their last journey.
Stillman correctly predicted that city people left to fend for themselves would completely collapse, but even he wasn’t prepared for the speed and violence of it all. He hadn’t spent much time overseas with the Army, always managing to get assignments that kept him here in the States. After the Pullback, he was assigned to the Memphis area. He watched from the Arkansas side of the river when that city burned in riots caused by police shooting an entire unarmed family. Apparently a grandmother got confused and disoriented at an illegal weapons checkpoint, hitting the accelerator instead of the brakes. By the time the van crashed into two police cars, the entire task force on site had emptied their weapons into the vehicle. All five people, include three children under the age of twelve, perished from multiple gunshot wounds. Instead of coming clean and admitting the checkpoints were a bad idea, police officials tried to blame the incident on the family. By the time the cascade of bad decisions concluded, huge swaths of Memphis lay in smoking ruins.
If people would burn down their own city in anger, what would they do in desperation? The thought that kept running through Stillman’s mind that night of the shooting and came back immediately when the Reset hit. On this most recent command order, he decided to hoard every piece of food and equipment he could get his hands on. There was chatter among the military community back then that the government wasn’t going to be able to make all of its bills in the near future. The way the servicemen and women were regarded in DC, everyone in uniform had a bad feeling about who might be first on the IOU list. Stillman made the decision years before the Reset happened that he would be taken care of first, and the rest could fend for themselves.
Knowing or predicting still didn’t prepare him for what people did after the world went dark. With no government-issued Wristbands working to purchase food in the now empty stores, the city began to collapse within days. City officials spread the rumor among the housing projects that the state capital was well stocked and all people had to do was get there. Stillman still remembered every beat-up old jalopy still in working condition streaming down the interstate toward Springfield. The capital had long ago been moved to Chicago, but America’s education system never really caught up, and most still thought that meant Springfield. Gas station pumps didn’t work, so Stillman shuddered to think what happened when that mass invasion of desperate people arrived. And the Springfield base still thinks I’m the one who came up the entire idea, Stillman lamented.
Stillman glanced over at the city vehicles still plugged in at the edge of the parking lot. Those mini electric cars were the pride and joy of the municipal workers, vaunted zero-emission feel-good machines computer controlled. Just like 90 % of all cars on the road at the time of the Reset, the four-wheel cracker boxes operated via Wi–Fi and GPS. Ever since darkness fell, however, any car with a computer built in sat quietly. No matter what was attempted, the electronics refused to allow the vehicle to be used. The only means of transportation were old vehicles like his on base, or simple machines like the motorbikes of his Recon Force. Or for most, transportation meant how far you could walk or ride a bicycle.
Stillman was brought back to the present by the long popping of a fully automatic AR–15. That would be the police department’s SWAT team deploying against the zombie horde. OK, time to go. He gave the signal to spool up the engines with a single fist pumping up and down. One of his .50 caliber machine gun-equipped Humvees led the ragged task force down the city streets, weaving in and out of stalled cars. Most people were at home the night the power went out, but enough had made it out to turn formerly mobile vehicles into roadblocks. Months later, the abandoned cars still remained, with doors and trunks sprung wide open on wheels with the tires removed for burning in fire pits.
Stillman could see the flame and smoke from the .50 caliber as his gunner took aim at someone or something. Another hundred yards and his driver swerved around the remains of a group of former American citizens equipped with a shotgun and sticks. He glanced with disgust: that kind of courage might have been put to use instead of wasted. Nothing could be done about that now. He’d just have to hope that there were still a few useful out there after today.
Approaching the seven-story concrete structure that served as a fortress for the holdout police, Stillman made out the shape of SWAT officers firing their weapons into the mass of civilians swarming over the sidewalks and streets. People trampled one another, whipped into a frenzy by the blood and shoving. The noise of the weapons and screaming were like the racket of the Valkyries come to claim fallen souls. The hellish scene came into clearer focus as a strong breeze whipped around the buildings and forced the haze of fires and weapons to push further towards the lake.
Stillman’s driver pointed to what the SWAT had not yet detected. A group of young men that looked better fed than the rest busied themselves raising an extension ladder up on a two-story annex sprouting from the side of the building. The men were dressed in a similar fashion, with what appeared to be blue handkerchiefs or t–shirts tied around their heads and waist. He tried to remember what the color meant. The reminder came from one of his men recently briefing him on a group that was establishing control out in the remaining pockets of survivors.
GangStars was the name, he remembered. Like a play on “all stars,” the trooper told him. The best of what was left of the organized crime still remaining in the city.
All the SWAT commander’s attention was focused toward the front door, where the desperate masses surged back and forth, looking for a window to smash or a door to open. Already he clearly saw GangStars almost at the top of the ladder, with military style weapons slung over their shoulders. The lead Humvee clearly didn’t see what was happening, and was caught up watching the desperate battle going on in front on him.
Stillman signaled his driver to stop, stepping out of the still-moving vehicle and grabbing his personal M–16 from the harness inside. He shouldered the weapon and began firing towards the GangStars’ ladder in three-round bursts. Another waste of smart, ruthless men. That got the attention of one of the SWAT members on the roof, who quickly pointed the threat out to his commander. The two of them both swung their weapons in that direction, cutting down the lead GangStar and making the rest head back down the ladder at full speed. All the GangStars still standing now began firing in his direction. They were inaccurate but plentiful enough to have a decent chance of hitting someone.
In the mission brief, Stillman had given specific directions to the Humvee heavy gunners to only engage immediate threats or targets that he specifically pointed out. He felt the stares of the gunners now, as they won
dered if they should cut the GangStars down. Instead, he directed them to open fire on the hundreds of civilians still trying to throw anything on hand through building windows, or even trying to climb up the trees that still stood alongside the building.
Feeling slightly nauseous at the carnage his guns were causing, he reminded himself that these people would probably be dead in a few weeks anyway; better their deaths serve the greater purpose of Reconstruction. Almost instantly, the crowds melted away, running through the streets to get away from the roar of the guns. Many more were probably hurt or killed in the stampede. Within minutes, all that was left were the thrashing windrows of the dead and dying.
He glance over at the side of the building, seeing that the GangStars disappeared in the chaos also. That was okay, he could get a message to them. He was just glad no more had been killed; they too would serve a purpose for New America soon.
Surprised by the sudden calm of the streets, he reached back into his Humvee, reaching for his bullhorn.
It was time to make that offer again.
*****
Stillman felt like he was dreaming, gazing down at the two bodies lying in front of him. His ears were ringing from the incredibly loud report of a still smoking weapon gripped in the hand of the man who killed both the chief of police and the mayor.
His mind regained its sharpness as he looked over at the SWAT team commander standing beside him, staring at what he had just done. A lifetime of following the chain of command came to a halt with the double homicide of two people he swore an oath to obey. Stillman wasn’t sure if it was the trauma of the still too-fresh street slaughter or the absurd rejection of New America’s latest offer that made the SWAT commander snap. Whatever reason, he needed to get the situation under control ASAP, before this guy completely lost it.