Liberty or Tyranny (5 page)

While Capinos took a sip of water, Secretary of Defense Hackleman took the opportunity to speak. “This violent anger against the military and government in general is a result of the lack of food, water, electricity, and police protection. The thing is, there’s little we can do we haven’t already been doing.”

Capinos looked across the table. “There is one thing we can give them: Law and order. But we’ll have to stop coddling them and strike fear into anyone who even thinks of stepping out of line.”

General Strovenov couldn’t contain himself. “Mr. President, I wouldn’t say the American people have been coddled. I consider it my duty to inform you of the danger of a revolt in the military itself, if orders are given to fire indiscriminately on civilians. We are not at war with our own people. Not yet, anyway.”

Capinos fumed inside, but held his temper. He needed General Strovenov’s help if he had any chance to implement his plans, and he didn’t have time to look for a qualified replacement. “That’s not what I was suggesting. We have a violent, criminal element to deal with. Those are the ones I was suggesting we get tough on.” Regaining his full composure, he went on. “The American people deserve to feel safe in their own homes, and we’re going to see to it they are. Before we can get power, water, and medical services restored, much less an economy, we must restore law and order, so people will be safe.”

General Strovenov stared straight ahead. “Yes sir, I agree.”

President Capinos turned to the Director of Homeland Security. “Director Montobon, do you have anything to add?”

She swallowed. “Yes, Mr. President.” She seemed close to tears. “I think it’s too late.”

Capinos flinched. “What’s too late?”

“All of it. Everything. It’s been more than a year since the plague, and millions more have died from starvation and other diseases since the initial pandemic killed most of the human population. Then there was the violence that continues to this day. Most of the developed world is just as bad off or worse. The third world that had been depending on the U.S. and a few other more prosperous countries to feed their starving hordes has suffered even higher mortality rates.”

“Are you saying the human race is in danger of dying out?” Capinos frowned. “I don’t believe that. We still have a population of at least fifteen million, and that’s just the U.S.”

“No.” She shook her head. “I’m not saying that at all. What I
am
saying is we don’t have a country anymore. Someday maybe, but not at this time.” She ignored the strange stares she was getting from around the table. “And we won’t have a country for many years to come. Just getting the power grid back up for a few cities will take years. Getting municipal water systems going in even a small number of major cities will take even longer, as we need power to do that.” She looked around the table. “The American people are on their own. What food stores there were is running out. They’ll either learn to feed themselves, or they will starve. They’ll either learn to defend themselves, or succumb to the lawless element. We can do very little for them from here in Washington. In fact, we in the upper echelons of government are not completely safe from hunger or the violence that’s just outside the gates.” Several around the table cleared their throats and looked down, obviously thinking she had lost it. She continued, despite the discomfort and disagreement with what she was saying. “Don’t delude yourselves into thinking that months or a year from now, we won’t all be as susceptible to starvation and violence as we were to the plague. The plague didn’t care if you were high and mighty or low and weak, sickening and killing almost everyone. The dangers and many hells our people are going through now are no different. Those dangers and many hells aren’t just outside the gate and roaming the streets, they are with us, right here in this room. We just can’t see the truth before our eyes. Things are not going to get better, not for a long time.”

Capinos snorted. “Stop that! We don’t need your defeatist BS.”

General Strovenov spoke up, not so much for her defense, but to try once more to instill a little reality in the president’s mind. “Mr. President, I know you have grand plans, but–”

Capinos interrupted him. “I don’t like your tone, General. You are treading close to insubordination. I expect respect from my inferiors!”

“You misunderstood, sir. I meant no disrespect. I only wanted to warn–”

“Warn?” Capinos jabbed his finger at him. “You don’t warn, you answer questions when I ask them. You advise, but you never warn the President of the United States! Is that clear?”

“Yes sir. Again, you misunderstood–”

“My ‘grand plans’?
” Capinos glared at everyone at the table. “This meeting is over. I suggest all of you work on serving the people and getting this country back on its feet. That’s what we’re here for, and never forget it.”

No one wasted any time getting out of the room.

Capinos spoke to his secretary. “Send in General Clark.”

As General Strovenov walked down the hall, he nodded to General Frank Clark, Chief, National Guard Bureau. “Watch yourself. He’s in one of his moods.”

Clark’s eyes revealed respect. “Thanks for the heads-up.” Just as they passed, he whispered, “We need to talk.”

Strovenov whispered, “Yes, we do.” The two kept walking.

Just before sundown, on the same day they buried Chesty, Nate and Deni stood before a pastor and said their vows. The afternoon had grown colder, but the rain had stopped hours before, and the wind died to less than three miles per hour. The clear western sky lit up in bright red, just above the setting sun. It was a simple ceremony that lasted only a few minutes. A small crowd gathered to witness the event. There was no celebration afterward. People just offered their congratulations and went on their way, leaving the two newlyweds with Brian, Kendell, and a few friends.

Donovan opened a bottle of bourbon he had been hoarding. “This calls for at least one drink.”

Atticus wet his lips and thrust a WWII surplus canteen cup out. “Hit me on the heavy side. I have a feeling our two lovebirds aren’t going to be hanging around much longer, and I need something to help me not think about what it’s going to be like without them around.”

“I second that thought.” Tyrone held an empty coffee cup out. “I miss them already.”

Donovan poured drinks for everyone but Brian and Kendell. He poured a short drink for himself and held it up. “To good friends.”

“Always a rarity, but never more so than now,” Tyrone added.

Deni took a drink. “Winter soldiers and apocalypse friends, the only kind worth dying for.”

Mel emptied his canteen cup before saying anything. “I have an announcement. Col. Donovan called me to the base today, and I had a little chat with my CO over the radio. It seems I’ll be leaving for my old unit tomorrow, just after daylight. They’re sending a chopper to get me.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Nate said. “The fact I expected you to be called away a long time ago doesn’t relieve my regrets one bit. We’ll miss you.”

“Yes,” Deni said. “I hope we see you again soon.”

Everyone there seconded that thought.

Brian had been staying back from the adults with Kendell. He moved closer to Mel. “Do you think they’ll let you out of the Guard soon, so you can move back to your retreat?”

Mel’s answer didn’t please Brian. “I doubt it. They need every soldier they have. I don’t have to tell you how bad it is out there.”

Disappointment shadowed Brian’s face. “They can’t keep you forever.”

Mel smiled. “Ah, no, but they’re not letting me go anytime soon.”

Brian remained silent for a second, before saying, “Well, be careful and come back as soon as you can.”

“I plan to. I plan to do just that.”

A soldier rushed from a Humvee parked in the lot, not fifty yards from the church, stopping in front of Donovan. “Colonel, there’s shooting at the courthouse, and the building has been firebombed.”

Nate rushed to the pickup and his weapons, Deni not far behind. He slipped into his load-bearing harness and froze when he saw the look on Deni’s face. “Just this last thing before we go. This is bound to have something to do with Chesty’s murder.”

She reached behind the cab to grab her rifle and helmet. There was no time to put on all of her armor. “It’s a good thing I’m not wearing a silly wedding dress.”

Nate stood there looking at her.

“Well, let’s go,” she said. “You didn’t think I was going to stay here and pout while you had all the fun, did you?”

They jumped in the front. Not far behind, Mel jumped in the back behind the cab.

He slapped the roof. “Good to go.”

Nate yelled out his window at Brian and Kendell. “You two arm yourselves and get in the church. Stay there until we get back. Keep your eyes open and your brains working.”

The two boys grabbed their rifles from the truck, along with extra ammunition.

Donovan and his soldiers were already tearing down the street. Nate hit the gas and struggled to catch up. Tyrone and Atticus followed in the sheriff’s cruiser.

Deni held on and yelled above the roar of the engine. “This could be a trap. Firebombing the sheriff’s office might be bait to lure us in. We shouldn’t barge in like this.”

Nate held the wheel with both hands and smoked the tires, as he slid around a corner. “I agree, but the Army may have the scene stabilized already for all we know. I doubt Donovan will blunder into an ambush, but we’ll stay back a little when we get close.”

Deni kept her M4 pointed up and chambered a round. “Anywhere between here and the courthouse could be an ambush site.”

They hit Main Street and turned left. The windshield shattered. Nate stomped it and made a beeline for an alleyway between two three-story buildings. One had been rented for a bridal store before the plague, the other a musical instrument shop.

Mel held on for life until the truck halted, and then jumped down, taking cover at the corner of a building. He fired rapid rounds at a second-story window. “I saw the bastard. He’s across the street, two stories up, third window on the right.”

Nate and Deni bailed. Staying low, they ran to the front of the truck, then made their way to Mel’s side of the alleyway and eased up to the corner of the building.

Deni bit her lower lip and strained to catch a target, scanning the building Mel warned them about and the street itself. “They let the Humvee go by.”

Tyrone and Atticus had veered to the left, ending up on the far side of a fast food restaurant. They quickly vacated the cruiser and took up positions, looking for attackers and ready to back up the others.

“Yeah,” Mel agreed. “What’s that about?”

As he spoke, Donovan’s Humvee reversed for over a hundred yards and stopped sideways in the road three blocks down. The machine gunner on top charged the weapon and waited for orders.

Donovan and four soldiers piled out, rifles in hand, and took up positions, while Donovan spoke on the radio, calling in help.

Nate scanned the building across the street with binoculars and tried to see into the dark rooms. After taking a quick look, he jerked his head back behind cover. A bullet sent shards of concrete flying off the corner of the building, prompting a quick response from the machine gunner and several others. The rattle of automatic fire echoed down the street. As the echo faded, silence was drowned out by ringing in Nate’s ears.

~~~

Brian glanced around the church, sighed in boredom, and sat in one of the empty pews. He reached down and ran his hand over the smooth varnished pinewood, wondering if he should call Deni Mother, since she was married to his father.

Kendell walked from window to window, looking out. The windows were stained glass and difficult to see through. “We need to be alert, Brian. There ain’t no time for prayin’.”

Brian almost rolled his eyes. “I’m not. I’m keeping an eye on the back door while you watch the front. I have my rifle in
my hand. I wish I had more ammo with me, though.”

“Best to see ‘em comin’ before they get to the door.” Kendell moved to another window and checked the front parking lot. “Most likely, there won’t be no trouble, but you never can tell. It seems like trouble is like one of them mythical monsters that sprouts two more heads every time you cut one off.”

Brian scratched the back of his neck. “I doubt there’s any danger, but like I said, I’m ready if there is. Dad, Deni, and the others are the one’s I’m worried about.” He saw the door knob move and instantly had his rifle shouldered and the safety off, aiming loosely at the doorway. “We have company,” he whispered.

Kendell didn’t hear him. He was watching two armed men in hoodies creep up to the front of the church.

Brian kept his attention on the back door. He watched as the door swung open and a man in his mid-twenties rushed in with a rifle shouldered. Brian fired just as the man saw him and swung the barrel to aim. As the man fell, Brian’s rifle spoke again, the three quick shots reverberating in the confines of the church, temporarily rendering both boys deaf. The dead man lay in an expanding puddle of blood, his rifle next to him. Brian held his rifle on him and watched the door at the same time.

Kendell checked on Brian and to see what he was shooting at. As he turned back to the window, his face took shards of glass, and something hot slammed into his shoulder, turning him to his left and nearly knocking him off his feet.

Brian heard the impact of a bullet hitting flesh and knew Kendell had been hit. He fired at the open back door several times to hold anyone outside off and ran for Kendell. Bullets came through the front double doors. Brian and Kendell both fired back blindly, further splintering the wood.

Kendell saw something through a clear section of a stained glass window. His eyes grew wide. “Run!” He turned and tackled Brian, shoving him over the back of a row of pews. Brian hit his head on the floor and saw stars for a second. He heard window glass shattering. Struggling to free himself from between two pews where he was wedged, he looked over and saw a wall of flame boil up around Kendell. Roaring filled his ears. A wave of searing heat burned bare skin instantly. Kendell emerged from the inferno as a human ball of flaming fire, screaming and running for the front door, away from Brian.

In shock over the sight he was witnessing, Brian froze for a full two seconds. Recovering, he jumped up screaming. He circled around the spreading, gasoline-fueled fire near the broken window and charged the double doors Kendell had just disappeared through. They would expect it. It was a dangerous thing to do, but he didn’t care.

Outside, Kendell managed to get a shot off with his bolt-action rifle before collapsing in the parking lot, hitting a thin young man in a hoodie in the stomach just as he reared back to throw another Molotov cocktail of gasoline. He doubled over and collapsed, the bottle and its flaming wick, ripped from an old T-shirt, clattered on the asphalt, but didn’t break.

Brian fired two more shots into him and frantically scanned the lot with enraged eyes. “Come on, you bastards!” He swung his rifle, searching for someone to take his rage out on. Finding no one, he looked over at Kendell’s charred body and fell to his knees, crying. “You bastards!”

The fire behind him snapped and crackled, growing in size and fury, consuming the church. A column of pitch-black smoke rose into the sky, along with red-glowing embers. Pushing grief and horror aside, he tried to stand, but his legs lacked strength, so he crawled to Kendell, dragging his rifle with him, tears running down his face. He frantically snatched a canteen from his belt and poured it over Kendell’s head. It was only half full, but the water steamed on contact. He dropped the empty canteen and set his rifle down. The smell of burnt flesh made him want to retch. His whole body racked, as he held his shaking open hands up in anguish, not knowing what to do.

He had been through many fights and had experienced the terror and horror and felt his stomach knot up so tight he couldn’t breathe and the pain so strong it felt as if he had already been shot, but he had also experienced the relief when it was over and everyone he cared about was alive and unharmed. Knowing that he and those he cared for were still alive and it could possibly be weeks or months before the next fight lifted his spirit and untied the knot in his stomach almost instantly. The fact he had killed human beings didn’t even bother him much anymore. He could even sleep without having too many nightmares, and he had hope that someday they would go away completely. The first time he saw his father kill – it was the day he was shot in the leg – the boy he used to be couldn’t believe his eyes. He had no idea his father was so ruthless, the world so cruel. That was a lifetime ago, when he was more than a year younger. Sometime between then and this day, he had stopped resisting it and had relinquished himself to the violent new world and had become a killer. He had read that a man was never more alive than when being hunted by or when hunting another man. He found that to be insane. It was after the fight and everyone he cared about was safe that he felt most alive. The best of all breathing. The best feeling in the world. So strong and deep, it even overpowered the horror of it all for a while. This time, there would be no relief, not even for a little while. This time, there was just the horror, the pain, and the loss of a good friend. This time, the nightmares would never go away.

He didn’t hear the gunshots in the street or the yelling men and women. A crowd came up and formed a semicircle around the boy and the charred body. The church continued to burn.

A middle-aged man put his hand on Brian’s shoulders. “People heard the shots and came running. Others saw the smoke and knew the church was on fire.” He knelt down beside Brian. “I’m sorry, son, he’s gone.”

Brian kept his eyes on Kendell and grieved in shocked silence.

A man in his early thirties rushed up. Catching his breath, he said, “We killed one of ‘em. Two others we caught alive.”

Hate overcoming grief, Brian grabbed his rifle and pushed up off the asphalt. He straightened and stood. His short stature notwithstanding, he looked the man in the eye and asked, “Where are they?”

The man pointed.

Brian rushed through the crowd. The look on his face seemed to generate an invisible force that pushed them aside and created a lane for him to pass through. He found them on the sidewalk, being shoved along at rifle point by four angry men. Their hands were tied behind their backs. They appeared to be in their early twenties. Before the crowd closed the lane Brian had just passed through, the prisoners were able to see across the parking lot, where Kendell lay. One looked over at Kendell’s smoking body and gave a feral sneer.