Alea Jacta Est: A Novel of the Fall of America (Future History of America Book 1) (55 page)

GOT ANY IDEA why Lentz
called this emergency meeting tonight?” asked Erik as he and Hoss warily
covered the trash detail team from the ramparts.  The three men and one woman
below them walked slowly around the corner of the complex walls and headed over
to the trash pit about two hundred yards away, dragging the days refuse with
them.  Erik peered through his binoculars, scanning the area across the field
where the dump had been formed up to the surrounded trees. 

On the
other side of the trees lay a community of suburbanite homes, mostly ransacked
and abandoned already.  To the west, more trees and homes, of lower price. 
They were still mostly occupied, the people there living more like cavemen than
before, but still there.  To the south, further still in line with the trash
detail team, the road met an intersection and disappeared into more trees,
pines and oaks.  The afternoon sun was partially blocked by a high white cloud,
giving some reprieve to the heat of the day.

“Nope. 
Probably has something to do about the fact that we’re running out of food,
though,” was the rumbling reply.  Hoss was scanning the trees surrounding the
trash detail team through the scope mounted on his .22 rifle, one of the five
liberated in their shopping spree a week ago.  “There ain’t nothin’ out there,
man.”

“I don’t
see anything either, but that doesn’t mean we get to relax.”

“Word has
it that more people are starting to think the National Guard has already gotten
things under control…ain’t been no more attacks on us, hardly even seen any of
them cars with the funny hand symbols on ‘em either.  Not since we went
shopping,” Hoss said..  “I mean, a few of those cars went past us earlier this
week.  No problem.” 

“Doing
reconnaissance,” Erik muttered.   They all had a strange, white symbol on the
hoods and doors, like something hand painted with finger-paint.  The defenders
of the complex had simply watched them drive by and waited for an attack that
night that never came.  Because the attack never came, more than a few people started
calling Erik, Chicken Little.  The divide between the Lentz and Larsson
factions in the complex were deepening.

Erik
grunted.   “I don’t like it.  I’ve got this feeling in my stomach that
something bad is coming…I just don’t know what, or when…” he said scanning the
trees to the south with his binoculars.  He shifted his shoulders to adjust the
.22 rifle slung there.   “Maybe it
is
about food…after all, with
Alfonse’s rain collection program and all the showers we’ve been having in the
afternoons, we’ve got plenty of water for a few days.”

“Yeah,
until it stops raining.  Rainy season ends in a couple three months.”

“Good
point.  But we’re still working on getting those containers that John spotted
at the hardware store three days ago.  They’re just so damn big!”

“Well, it
don’t help the motivation to have the National Guard stop by everyday offering
salvation or food and water.  Pretty soon we’ll have to take ‘em up on that.”

“God I hope
not…” Erik mumbled, his mind imagining the crowded hellhole the shelters must
be as his eyes continually looked for dangers.  The trash detail team gave a
wave, the signal that they were through and on their way back okay.  Erik
grinned and pulled up the large signal flag and pole kept on this wall.  He
raised it high and swung the wooden staff—an old broom handle, really—back and
forth.  The trash detail team continued walking home.  He could see them
talking and laughing as if there weren’t a care in the world.

“We’re
getting lazy.  They’re not hurrying like they did a few days ago.  What, do
they think there’s nothing out there anymore?” he asked.

Hoss swung
his rifle over the trash detail team and looked to the east.  He was about to
move on when he spotted movement.  “I got something on the east.”  His voice
was suddenly tense.

Erik swung
his binoculars over to the east quickly, his heat rate picking up.  He didn’t
see anything at first, then spotted the movement, coming around the corner of
the side road about a hundred yards to the southeast from their position.  It was
something low to the ground and moving fairly fast  through the trees.  A few
seconds past for the shape suddenly emerged on the road. 

It was a
man in a wheel chair pushing himself for all he was worth.  With the
binoculars, Erik could see the sweat glisten on the man’s forehead and strong
arms.  He took a glance over his shoulder and knuckled down, pushing himself
even faster.  He turned the corner heading towards the complex, lost his
balance, teetered for a split second then crashed to the pavement, spilling
some gear onto the road.  Erik and Hoss could hear his cry of pain carried on
the wind.

Hoss
laughed.  “
He’s
not much of a threat.”

Erik looked
back towards where the man on the wheel chair had come.  “No, but
they
might be.  Four people, coming up behind the crippled guy…see ‘em there through
that break in the trees?  ‘Bout fifty yards behind him.  They look like they’ve
been following him.  I see ‘em laughing.”

“Yep, look
like a bunch of punks to me.”

Erik pulled
out his emergency-use-only radio.  “Response Team to the Gate.  Response Team
to the Gate.  On the Double, this is not a drill!” he barked out. 

“Cover the
trash team,” Erik said, bolting for the gate ladder.  He didn’t wait for Hoss’s
affirmative reply but slid down the rough ladder and met his Response Team,
already running to meet at the gate.  Within a few seconds, all of the men—armed
and armored with hockey gear, swords, bows and arrows—assembled. 

“Let’s go—open
the gate!” he called.  Two men from a repair crew ran over and swung back the
heavily reinforced gate, allowing the Response Team to charge out like knights
sallying forth from the castle.

“Here we
go, guys…there’s the group of bandits,” Erik informed his troops as they ran
for the downed man with the wheelchair, struggling to get up and gather his
things a hundred yards down the road.  He used the popular term ‘bandits’ that
had come to denote anyone unknown that could be a threat.  “Down at the
intersection—they’re coming after the guy ahead of us.  Flank ‘im and let me do
the talking!”

The Team
grunted replies as they jogged toward the man with no legs.  They reached the
wheelchair just as the four bandits did.  Both groups stopped within ten feet
of the legless fellow, caught in no-man’s-land with a look of sheer terror on
his face.   He looked at Erik and the Response Team, standing at ease with
wicked looking swords and garishly painted body armor over their t-shirts and
shorts, jeans and fatigues.  He could not fail to notice the large pistol
strapped to Erik’s left thigh or the discipline the four men behind him seemed
to exude as they spread out, two on either side of him, in unison, eyes never
moving from the four street toughs. 

The
handicapped man turned to look then at the punks who had been chasing him.  All
smirks and airs of superiority were gone from their pimpled faces.  They had
thought to rough him up, have a little fun with him…maybe find out where he
lived and steal what he had.  The looks on their faces ranged from surprise to
fear to anger at the sight of Erik and his men.

Without
even glancing at the punks, Erik strode forward and knelt to help the stranger
back into his chair and pick up the pieces of electronic equipment—they looked
to Erik like hand held radios and some books—that had spilled onto the hot
black pavement.

“Here you
go, sir, let me help you with that.  You alright?” Erik asked, kneeling.

“Thank you,
son…” said the stranger, smiling in genuine relief.  He was out of breath from
the chase and  took a moment to calm himself before continuing.  “These kids
here were chasing me…I was…uh, going to go see the people in that apartment
complex there,” he said, examining the armor on Erik’s chest.  The logo said
Bauer
Hockey
right under a little American flag.

“Well,
that’s us,” Erik said with a smile.  Almost as an afterthought, he glanced up
at the punks, all of which held faces contorted with impotent anger.  “Oh,
y’all can leave now.”

“Fuck you
man!” spat one of the kids.  The others started teen-aged taunting that came
with their age group.

“Yeah, he’s
ours!  We saw ‘im first, asshole!”

“Nice
costumes!  Where’s the party, jackass?”

Erik’s men
unsheathed swords and notched arrows in compound hunting bows.  Erik glanced at
his men and lowered his hands, signaling them to stand down.  He turned and
looked at the punks again.  He smiled the smile of a man that knows a very
dirty secret.  Very deliberately, he stepped in front of the man in the
wheelchair, putting himself in front of the punks.

“This man
is now under the protection of the Colonial Gardens Freehold,” he said. 
Colonial
Garden Apartment Complex just sounds too…complex.  Freehold sounds cool…have to
see what the others think now.
  “There’s no need for trouble here, so like
I said, go on home now.”

“Like
I
said,”
the punks’ leader said, laughing and stepping forwad.  “Go fuck yerself
and
your Freehold.”  He poked a slim dirty finger onto Erik’s hockey armor to
emphasis his words.

“I gotcha
Freehold right here, mothafucka!” exclaimed the biggest of the four as he
grabbed his crotch with a dirt stained hand.

Erik
listened to the buzz of the insects in the trees to the left, just off the road
for a few seconds to calm himself.  It took everything he had to not grab the
little asshole’s hand and break the finger that poked his chest.  Behind him,
he knew that Hoss was watching the situation through his rifle scope.  Erik’s
radio crackled, the ear-bud in his ear speaking with Ted’s voice in a low
whisper.

“
Erik
,”
he said, panting.  “
I’m in position on the ramparts with Hoss.  We got two
of ‘em in the scope, buddy.  Just don’t go any closer and we can take ‘em from
here.  Ones on the right and left flanks.  Raise your arm then drop it if you
want us to fire.  You can call down the thunder when you’re ready
.”

Erik nodded
to let the riflemen know he understood.  Behind him, he heard the aim of the
two bowmen shift to cover the two punks closest to Erik, making sure all four
could go down in seconds.  The two men with swords unsheathed them slowly.  One
had a
katana,
 the other had Erik’s Viking sword.

“I’ll give you
kids one last chance to leave,” Erik said, his best poker face set.

“Or
what
,
shitface?” asked the leader.

“Someone
with that many pimples shouldn’t be calling anyone else names, kid,” Erik said
with a smile.

“They ain’t
so tough, let’s cut ‘em,” said the biggest punk, pulling out of his pants
pocket a large folding knife.  The others quickly followed suit with knives of
various sizes, from a ridiculous pocketknife held like a dagger to a sizeable
Bowie knife strapped to a shin.

Erik raised
his arm.  “Okay, don’t say I didn’t warn you.  Goodbye, assholes.”  He dropped
his arm.  Almost instantaneously, two arrows whizzed past his head, sending a
chill down his spine he hadn’t anticipated.  One arrow thudded into the big
punk’s chest and he reeled backwards onto the ground, writhing in pain.  The
other arrow hit its target square in the face, dropping the youth faster than
King Harold at the Battle of Hastings.

Before the
other two could react, one took a .22lr round to the forehead  and fell
backwards with a wet splat.  The last remaining punk took a round in the right
shoulder, screamed in pain and fell sideways off the road and into the drainage
ditch.

Erik let
his men take care of the cleanup.  He got behind the wheelchair-bound man and
began to push him towards the apartment walls.  He took off his helmet, popped
the earbud out and let the cord dangle from his chest. “Thanks for the backup,
Ted, Hoss.  You guys did great.  But Hoss…” he said into the radio.

“
Yeah?
”
was the reply.  Erik could see the silhouetted shapes on the wall ahead of him.

“You only
hit the kids shoulder.  Now we’ve got to let him go.  I’m having George make
him drag the bodies into the ditch then send him on his way with a warning.”

“
Damn
…
sorry
man, I’ll nail it next time
.”  Ted’s laughter rang in the background.

“I must
say, I’m rather shocked at how callous you treated the deaths of those young
men…” said the wheelchair bound man as Erik pushed him forward at a casual
pace.

“Yeah,
well, you get over it pretty quickly.  We’ve
had
to get over pretty
quickly.  Wouldn’t be here if we didn’t…” Erik said, looking down at the older
man.

They moved
on in silence, listening to the buzzing insects.  “My name’s Art Carillon, by
the way.”  Erik leaned over and shook his hand.

“Erik
Larsson.  Nice to meet ya.”

“So…ah,
you’re from the apartment complex then?  What did you call it?  The Freehold?”