The Peacekeepers. Books 1 - 3.

by Ricky Sides

  He said, “The butterfly bandages should keep the edges of the cut pulled together well enough for them to heal together nicely. We’ll reapply the New Skin daily for three days and change the butterfly bandages. After that, we’ll just stick with an outer bandage or a heavy long sleeved shirt to protect the skin for a few more days.” Then he covered the wound with the maxi pad and asked Lina to hold it in pace while he applied the outer wrapping.

  Jim went to the truck and got another medical bag. This one served as a mobile medicine cabinet. He searched through the contents and soon found what he was seeking. “Are you allergic to penicillin?” he asked Lina.

  “No I’m not,” she replied. But do you really think it’s necessary?”

  “I hope not, but there is no point in taking the risk. It’s not as if you can just go to the emergency room or the family doctor these days,” Jim replied with a sober expression. Since you’re not allergic, go ahead and take the medicine for a week. Be sure to drink plenty of fluids,” he said this last with a chuckle.

  Catching the humor, Lina responded, “Sure, Doc. Now if that’ll be all, I think I’ll go take that nap that you suggested earlier.”

  “I think that’s a great idea,” Jim replied. “I’ll go get your knife and get back to the repairs.”

  He gathered his medical gear, returned it to its appropriate bag, and stowed them both in the truck as Lina climbed in to take a nap. He retrieved her knife and cleaned off the rat blood as best he could. Then he took a candle, lit it, and moved the blade back and forth over the flame until he was certain that he had killed any possible pathogens that may have come from the rat’s corpse. An outside observer might have thought that he was going to ridiculous extremes, but Jim remembered the history of the Black Plague. He was very concerned about the possibility of infectious diseases being spread by rats in the aftermath of the disasters that had befallen the world.

  When Lina woke up, she found that Jim had completed the repairs to the truck and he was cooking dinner. He heard the truck door open and close and he asked, “How are you feeling?”

  “I feel pretty good, thank you. And thank you for taking care of me.”

  “Are you ready to eat now?” he asked, as he put the finishing touches on the simple meal of canned chicken, boiled potatoes, and macaroni and cheese.

  After they’d eaten, Jim and Lina sat and talked for a while. She wanted to know more about his brother and he told her all about him.

  After he finished he said, “You know, Lina, you never even told me your last name.”

  Leaning toward him, as if she were very interested in his response, she asked, “Is it important that you know my last name?”

  Jim considered this for a moment. It was a loaded question. His answer to that question could make some sort of decision for the girl. He could see it in her eyes.

  She leaned even closer to him and said with a husky voice, “Look, you’ve got your life and I’ve got mine. You and I will be parting company soon. We aren’t going to be getting married or anything of that nature.”

  Leaning back, she studied him with those piercing green eyes of hers and said, “I like you, but you don’t need to know my last name. Okay?”

  He felt a bit hurt by her attitude, but to his credit, he didn’t let it show. He shrugged and said, “Anyway you want it is all right with me.”

  She leaned back against a tree and relaxed then. Propping her feet up on a log she said, “I think I like you. You seem to be an all right guy, even if some of your medical approaches lean toward the weird.” She said this last as she pointed to the bandage on her arm. Smiling broadly then she said, “Let’s be friends.”

  “Sure, Lina, we can be friends,” he said in response. Looking at the afternoon sky he said, “I guess we should be leaving now.”

  “You completed the truck repairs?” Lina asked.

  He told her that he had completed the repairs, but that there hadn’t been any brass available in the house. He’d been forced to use what material he had available, which was the steel rods he’d used in the first place.

  Lina shook her head and said, “It won’t hold, Jim. As soon as you hit something again it’ll probably break.”

  “It’s the best I can do for now,” he replied.

  Lina looked at the sun now sitting very low on the horizon and asked, “How far do you think we’ll get this afternoon?”

  “Not far,” he admitted, “But maybe we’ll find an abandoned motel or house to use for the night.”

  They settled for an empty motel a few miles down the road. They slept in adjoining rooms. Jim cautioned Lina to keep her blinds closed so that the light from her candle wouldn’t attract unwanted attention. He even took the precaution of parking the truck behind the building so that any potential passing traffic wouldn’t see the truck.

  Chapter 23

  Pete squatted beside the woman’s body and touched the side of her face gently with the back of his hand. Her body was still warm. He stood up and looked for the details of the woman’s murder.

  It was evident that she’d been raped. Her pants had been pulled off and her hands were tied behind her back. Her face was bruised in several places and one of her eyes was swollen shut.

  He gently turned the woman’s body on her side and examined her wrists. They were tied with steel wire. Blood coated both wrists. She’d cut herself terribly trying to free her wrists from the restraining wire.

  He didn’t have to examine the woman’s head to see if the ears were missing. He could tell from the blood on the woman’s hair that they’d been taken.

  Pete carefully examined the evidence once more and then he moved out. He walked slowly and checked out all possible sniper locations as he went. As he walked, he added the details of the woman’s violation and murder to the other ten such horrifying scenes he had found as he had hunted for Reggie. Reggie was playing a game with Pete, and he was doing so at the expense of the innocent victims. He knew that Pete hated rapists with a passion, and he was raping and killing women in an effort to cause Pete to become so enraged he’d become careless in the hunt. It was his hope to goad Pete so much that he would make a fatal mistake.

  Pete was indeed angry. However, it was a cold and calculating anger that allowed good judgment to prevail. He knew that eventually he’d catch up to Reggie and when he did, he’d see to it that the man paid for his crimes. Oh yes, he would pay and pay dearly.

  Three hours later, Pete lay on top of a building that overlooked an alley Reggie had used on three separate occasions to wait for his victims. He knew that eventually Reggie would show up to use this alley again or just return to relive the past atrocities, as most psychopaths are apt to do.

  For three hours, Pete lay in wait scanning the alley and the surrounding area for any sign of Reggie. He saw other people moving about on the streets from time to time, but he never saw a sign of Reggie.

  He was thirsty, so he slowly reached back to his canteen without making any sudden movements that would draw attention. When his hand reached the canteen, he rolled onto his side so that he could more easily drink. The shot fired at Pete missed him by mere inches. It ricocheted off the roof and again missed him by inches.

  Pete went into a combat roll and came up with his rifle. A professional sniper himself, his mind had already calculated where the shot had to have originated. The moment that the stock of his rifle touched his shoulder, he fired at the suspect spot. He fired three more rounds in rapid succession and then the combat reflexes that had saved his life a dozen times over in Vietnam saved him again. He rolled to his left as another round slammed into the roof in the spot that he’d just vacated.

  Pete heard the sound of Reggie’s laughter then and Reggie yelled, “Hey, Pete, you can move pretty good for an old man.” Then he laughed again and yelled, “Haven’t you ever wondered where I got Sergeant Jackson?”

  Pete’s eyes narrowed in concentration. He realized that Reggie was playing psychological warfare with him in the
hopes of causing him to make a fatal error.

  “I got him right where you were laying when you reached for the canteen. If you hadn’t been thirsty, I’d have gotten you in the very same spot. Think about that. You’re no match for me. I’m younger and I’m smarter.” Laughing almost manically now, Reggie finished, “How much longer do you think your luck will hold out, old man?”

  During this tirade, Pete had been scanning the building where Reggie was hiding. Finally, he spotted him. He rolled again and came up in the firing position. He ignored the bullet that hit the roof inches from him and fired three rounds at Reggie in rapid succession. Reggie’s scream of pain told him that he had scored a hit.

  Pete waited a few seconds and when nothing else happened, he low crawled to the door that led into the building. He’d taken the precaution of wedging a brick between the door and threshold so that the door couldn’t close and force him to expose himself to open it. He opened the door and crawled inside. Once the door slammed shut behind his feet, he high crawled to the stairwell, jumped up, and descended the gloomy stairwell as rapidly as possible.

  Five minutes later, he was inside the room Reggie had used as a sniper position. There was blood all over the floor, but Reggie was gone.

  Pete tracked Reggie as far as he could that day, but he eventually lost the blood trail. He assumed Reggie had finally managed to stop the flow of blood from his wound.

  The blood trail had been sporadic at best. Often he’d been forced to backtrack and look in other directions for the tell tale blood drops. Now Pete didn’t have anything to go on. The bastard had made good his escape.

  “The son of a bitch is good,” Pete said to himself. “He almost got me.” He mentally kicked himself for underestimating Reggie. “It won’t happen again,” he thought to himself and then he resumed the fruitless search for the blood trail.

  Chapter 24

  The next morning after breakfast, Lina asked, “Why aren’t you in a hurry to get to Fort Polk?”

  Surprised by the question he said, “You sure do come out of left field with some of your questions.”

  “If I don’t ask questions, how else will I ever learn anything?” Then without waiting for a response, she said, “Besides, I’ve learned the easiest way to get the truth from people is to catch them off guard when you ask.”

  Jim replied to her question by asking her a question. “What makes you think that I’m not in a hurry to get to the Fort?”

  Lina frowned slightly and said, “There are a lot of things that make me think that you are in no particular hurry.”

  “You never seem to be in any rush. You took the time to help me. You took the time to outfit your truck with armor. You take time at abandoned stores and houses.”

  “Those are a few of the things that I have noticed so far. I’m sure there are more that I could point out if you really want me to do so.”

  Jim shook his head and said, “Let me explain a few things to you, and then I’m sure you’ll understand the situation.”

  “You see, I waited for almost two weeks before I left to look for my brother. That gave him more than enough time to get home. If he hadn’t come home by then, he’d know to stay put so I could find him. So you see there’s no need to rush to the Fort.”

  Lina nodded her head in response. “As for taking the time to armor the truck, an incident in Meridian, Mississippi, forced me to do that.”

  Lina’s curiosity was aroused and she made Jim tell her all about the misadventure in Meridian. When he’d finished telling her the story, he said, “So you see, if I hadn’t taken the time to armor the truck I might never have reached Fort Polk in it at all.”

  “Yes, I can see the reason for the work on the truck, but that still leaves the gathering of materials at stores and abandoned homes.”

  “All of the items that I’ve gathered are needed to ensure survival. That being the case, I’d not call it a waste of time at all. Right now, the food and other necessities of life are there for the taking. They don’t really belong to anyone. That won’t last long.”

  “What do you mean?” Lina asked.

  “Right now it is easy to scavenge enough food and medical supplies to keep you alive and reasonably healthy. Six months from now, all of those things just lying around will have been picked over. When that day comes, then the people who have stockpiled enough to see them through the transition will survive. Those who didn’t won’t, or if they do, it will be because they have access to fresh supplies. Otherwise they’ll die of starvation or disease.”

  Comprehension of the facts dawned on Lina’s face and Jim pushed forward with his points. “You’ve seen all of the dead unburied bodies that no one has gotten around to doing anything about. You’re a well educated woman. I can tell that from our conversations. Tell me, Lina, what happens when you have thousands of unburied bodies lying about in the dead of summer?”

  Lina sat bolt upright as the full implications of Jim’s words sank in. “Plague. Oh my god you’re talking about the plague!”

  He nodded his head and said, “Even with the full medical resources of the United States, millions of people will probably die from a plague that will result from this many unburied bodies. I can only make a rough guess at the figures but under the current circumstances I’d say by midwinter fully half of the population living today could be killed by the plague.”

  Stunned at the scope of that tragedy, Lina said, “Half of the survivors. Jim, that’s too many.”

  “I know, and there’s not a thing we can do about it.” He sighed and decided to tell the woman the whole truth. “By next summer the food reserves will hit the lowest point. That’s assuming no concentrated efforts on the part of the survivors change anything. It could potentially happen months sooner in some areas of the country where the survivors organize and gather all of the food supplies for organized distribution. This will happen unless the people make substantial efforts to do something about it.”

  “What can they do, Jim? This problem is too big for the average farmer to deal with. Even if they grow bumper crops how would they market them?”

  “They could get the farms going again and make a concerted effort to bury the dead. That would help keep the threat of plague at bay. As to marketing their crops, they would use the barter system at first. Eventually a currency system will be back in place.”

  “Yes I understand all that, but with the government gone who’s going to organize everyone to do these things?”

  “Nobody will.” Before she could protest, he added, “Think back to the history of the world. Use that as a control model. Now consider the huge governments that have risen to power in the world and what happened in the areas that they dominated when they collapsed.”

  When Lina pondered that, her eyes began to widen as comprehension of the scope of the problem fully hit her. “I see you understand now,” Jim said softly.

  Nodding her head she said, “The one common result, no matter where you look, is the death of huge numbers of the citizens. Some die from violence. Some die from disease, but almost always starvation and deprivation of the basic necessities of life account for a large percentage of the deaths.”

  “A culling of the people of the region occurs,” Jim said nodding his head. “The strongest, and or the most ruthless survive while the weakest and the meekest are slaughtered.”

  “That is a frightening prospect.”

  “Yes it is. Unfortunately, we don’t have the government to reestablish order and protect the weak and innocent from the Marauders. That leaves it up to us, the average citizens to fend for ourselves. Many people won’t have what it takes to defend themselves from the Marauders. Those people will die when they encounter them.”

  “I’ve heard you use that term a couple of times before. When you say Marauders what exactly do you mean?”

  “Men and women who will do anything to anyone to get what they want. That’s the simplest definition. Why they are willing to do so is irrelevant. It
doesn’t matter to the victim one bit why a man is willing to slit his throat to take his food. What matters is that the man is willing to do it.”

  “I suppose that’s right,” Lina observed as she thought about the attempt of the two men to force her off the road so that they could take her captive and rape her until they grew tired of her. She didn’t care why they’d been willing to do that to her. She was only glad that Jim had helped her out of that situation.

  “I see you understand,” Jim said softly.

  ***

  The next day Jim and Lina made it to within a few miles of Leesville. The wreckage that was strewn all over the road stopped them. Jim got out and inspected the debris that littered the highway and the land on either side of it. Lina came up beside him and said, “I smell dead fish.”

  Jim pointed at several dead fish, scattered among the debris. “The earthquakes must have caused Lake Vernon to spill over its banks. The fish you see must have been stranded here when the water drained off due to the contour of the land.”

  Jim returned to his truck and Lina followed him. “Well what do we do?” she asked.

  He got his chainsaw from the truck and said. “There’s only one thing I can do. Clear the road and move ahead.”

  “Can’t we just go off road to get around the debris? The land is level here and we’ve done it before though the detours were smaller.”