by Ryan King
Reggie looked at the microphone and portable transmitter mounted on a small wooden table in front of him. He definitely didn’t want to begin a live broadcast throughout the JP with angry crowds in the background drowning him out. For the first time, Reggie started to have doubts that his plan was a good idea.
He raised his hands again for calm against tumult of noise and heard a persistent voice above the rest.
“Everyone, just shut up,” the commanding voice said. “Let the man speak for God’s sake. Kim, tell your brothers to shut their fool mouths with that racket. Yancey, enough of that now, you’ve yelled enough for one day. Give it a rest, people.”
Reggie looked and saw the voice was coming from Ernest Givens, who stood out in the middle of the crowd. He kept yelling at people and calling them by name, which seemed to startle them into realizing what they were doing. Slowly, the noise died down to a slow, deep grumble.
“Thank you,” Reggie called out weakly over the crowd and smiled at Ernest in gratitude.
Ernest nodded back.
“What’s going on, Reggie?” asked a voice in the front in a pleading voice. Other voices started to join in.
He held his hands up. “I know there are lots of questions, but people are out there waiting by their radios for the answers just like you are. Let’s get this started, and I promise we’ll let you ask questions towards the end.”
Reggie saw hesitation and some resentment. “I need your help people. We’ll get through this together just like we have with everything else, but I need you to work with me. Can I count on you?”
There was a few nods and then a growing number of “Sure, Reggie,” and “No problem,” or “We’re with you.”
Nodding, Reggie pulled his prepared remarks from his sport coat pocket. He unfolded the paper and pressed it firmly flat on the table beside the microphone.
“You ready?” Trailer asked, reaching for the transmitter broadcast switch Simon had showed him.
“No.” Reggie smiled and nodded at the switch.
Trailer flipped it, and the light changed from red to green. He then plugged a thick cord into the front of the transmitter so whatever Reggie said would be amplified to a large set of speakers set up in the front yard.
“Hello, everyone,” Reggie began and coughed. “This is Reggie Phillips broadcasting from my home in Mayfield. This will not be the normal weekly broadcast.”
He paused and looked down at his notes. There were several key points, not a word-for-word speech. Reggie realized he didn’t know how to go on. Peering out over the crowd, he saw expectant frightened faces of mothers, fathers, and children. He imagined families all over the JP gathered around their radios having heard the rumors.
“Yesterday, we suffered a horrible attack from an aggressive force to our south centered at Huntsville, Alabama. Our military forces have successfully surrounded these enemy elements and are in the process of defeating them. If there were any question before, we now can be assured that Huntsville and its irresponsible leaders pose a direct and dire threat to the JP that must be eliminated.”
“But what happened to the electricity?” a voice called out. “Did they really blow up the dam?”
He lips tightened, and he nodded. “From what we can tell, they managed to launch a rocket from Huntsville that hit the dam, doing significant damage to its structure and shutting down the power turbines.”
“How long until its fixed?” someone else asked.
Reggie paused. They had all heard the rumors that the dam would never be fixed, that it couldn’t be fixed, not with the limited technology and resources they possessed now. In this case, rumor was fact. He wanted to lie to them to gain time, let the people adjust to the idea of no electricity, but he couldn’t do it.
“It is very likely,” said Reggie slowly, “that we will not be able to repair the dam.”
There was a hush over the crowd and stunned faces as their worst fears were confirmed.
“Nearly every technician and scientist in the JP who might have been able to fix things was killed in the attack. The dam itself can be repaired, but I’ve been informed that the machinery and electronics that run the turbines were damaged beyond repair.”
“Where are we supposed to get electricity from?” someone asked.
“Nowhere,” said Reggie more forcefully than he had intended. “Except for occasional uses of generators, our days of electricity are over.”
There was growing angry murmur in the crowd. Someone yelled out, “And how long for that with all the fuel going bad!”
Reggie pushed on. “In the rest of the world, there are plenty of people who have survived since N-Day without electricity. Hell, our descendants lived in the JP for hundreds of years without electricity and prospered. This is indeed a setback, but not the end. We will find a way to survive and move forward.”
People were staring back at him with stunned faces. He imagined they were thinking that they would never again be able to use that portable heater, or have electric lights on in the house, or use their telephones. Their world had just changed, and Reggie imagined the same stunned looks on the faces of people listening on their battery-powered radios around the JP.
“Now more than ever,” Reggie continued, “we need to come together as a community. Look around you.” Several people did. “These are your neighbors. People you can rely upon to help you in the days ahead, as you will help them. That is the strength of our community. That is why we will survive and go forward and make a place for our children and grandchildren to live and thrive. This is not the end, everyone.”
“It is for you,” yelled a thin young man who had pushed forward to stand only a few feet from Reggie’s microphone. “We know the truth. The problem is you and people like you. I listened. I know.” He then pulled a heavy revolver from inside of his long shirt, pointed it at Reggie, and pulled the trigger.
With a blast, Reggie fell backwards through his doorway, knocking Janice over, her crutch flying out behind her.
The thin man stepped up onto the porch with a tight grin on his face. He pointed the gun at Reggie again and smiled.
That smile was obliterated by a massive powerfully thrown fist slamming into the man’s mouth. Falling backwards off the porch, the man dropped the gun and used both hands to clutch at his ruined face. A heartbeat later, Trailer was on top of the man pounding him furiously in the face with powerful blows.
Screaming and panic gripped the crowd as it ran in all directions. People tripped and fell as others ran over them or pushed children out of the way. Tension and fear that had built up over the last few hours was released in a flood of panic as everyone ran aimlessly away.
“Somebody help him!” yelled Janice from the front of her house.
Ernest Givens hadn’t moved since the shot was fired. He stared at the massive black man pounding a clearly unconscious Spence in the face. Looking up, he saw an old woman with one leg lying under Reggie in their doorway. She was holding her hands over a bloody hole in the man’s chest.
Ernest felt himself move forward and put his hands over Janice’s. He saw that Reggie was struggling to breathe, and blood dribbled from his mouth. He heard a wheezing sound coming from the man’s chest.
“It’s a sucking chest wound,” Ernest said. “We have to form a seal so he can at least breathe.”
“What happened?” asked a small woman from the inside of the house.
Ernest looked up at her. “Get me something plastic. Anything that will form a seal.”
“Plastic?” she asked, staring at all the blood on the front porch.
“Now!” he hollered at her, and she ran back inside with a start.
Feeling around to the back of Reggie, his fingers probed a ragged hole in the man’s back and his heart sank.
“Will this work?” the girl asked, holding out a roll of plastic cooking wrap.
Ernest grabbed it from her hand without answering. He ripped Reggie’s shirt off to expose bare skin and then pe
aled some of the sticky plastic off the roll. Placing it over the hole in the man’s chest he wrapped it around to the hole in the back and then around again while Janice helped to lift him upwards. Ernest then stripped off his own shirt and tore it into two strips. One he packed around the front wound and the other on the back, and then he used the plastic wrap again to hold it all in place. That done, he leaned Reggie back down into Janice’s lap. A thick pool of blood covered the porch surface.
“Is he going to be okay?” asked the girl from the doorway.
Ernest looked up. “Blankets. Get me blankets.”
The girl darted back inside.
Reaching out, he felt the man’s neck. The pulse was weak, but still there and he appeared to be breathing more normally with the wounds closed.
A shadow fell over Ernest, and he looked up to see a towering black man with bloody fists. The man stared down at Reggie while taking ragged gasps of air. Ernest turned back to Spence and then quickly away. There was nothing left of the young man’s head except a thin smear of blood, bone, and brains on the grass.
Reggie’s eyes flickered open, and he looked at Ernest.
“Hang in there,” said Ernest. “Help is on…” He had started to say that help was on the way, but that wasn’t true. There was no way to fix the damage done to Reggie even if help were on the way.
The old man pointed a weak finger at Ernest. “Remember what I said.” He then dropped his hand and closed his eyes.
Reaching out, Ernest felt for the pulse again and found it weak.
“Do something,” Janice pleaded.
“He’s lost too much blood,” Trailer said emotionlessly above them. “Best say your goodbyes, ma’am.”
Janice bent her tear-stained face forward and began whispering in her husband’s ear while stroking his hair. She stayed that way for several minutes until she lifted her head and looked at them all. “He’s gone.”
“Here’s the blankets,” said Jessica, coming back. “Hope this is what you were looking for.”
Ernest stood and took a blanket from the girl’s hands and then draped it over Reggie and pulled it gently over his face. He then bent down and lifted Janice out from underneath her dead husband. She clung to him on her one leg a moment more than was necessary.
“Thank you,” she whispered, “for trying.”
Ernest felt all the air go out of his body and looked back at the remains of Spence lying there in the grass. The young man in the jail who had seemed to listen to what he said with an unnatural intensity.
Janice tottered forward to the microphone and pulled it downward to her level. “This is Janice Phillips speaking to anyone still out there listening. My husband, Reggie Phillips, has just been shot, but he’ll be okay.” Her voice was strong and firm. “I plead with you all in his name to remain calm and do what he would have urged you to do. Help each other and remember who you are.” She stepped away and knelt down beside her husband’s corpse.
Trailer reached down and turned off the transmitter and saw Simon standing on the grass nearby. He held a bundle of loose wire in his hands. “I heard the pop and thought the transmitter had blown.”
“Horace,” said Janice, and Trailer turned to her. “Please help me get him inside.”
Trailer moved forward and carefully lifted the man, trying not to disturb the blanket covering him.
“Carry him into our bedroom please,” she said.
Moving gingerly so as not to bump against any walls, Trailer made his way down the hallway with Janice now on her crutch following. He laid the corpse gently on the quilt covered bed and stepped back. Janice moved forward and sat down on the edge of the bed.
“I was always afraid it would end this way,” she said softly.
“I’m so sorry, ma’am,” answered Trailer.
She smiled and took his hand. “Thank you.” Turning back to Reggie, she said, “I need you to do something. Not for me, but for my husband’s legacy.”
“Yes, ma’am. Anything you want.”
“Everything he’s done, everything he’s sacrificed”—emotion caused her to pause—“will have been for nothing if things just fall apart.”
“What do you want me to do?”
She looked back at him. “Go find Nathan Taylor. As fast as you can. My lie about him being alive will buy you some time, but not much. Tell him what has happened. He’ll know what to do.” Janice then pulled herself up on the bed and curled up next to her dead husband. “Please leave me alone now.”
Trailer nodded and backed out of the room, closing the door behind him. Making his way down the hall, he found Simon and Jessica standing there waiting for him. There was no sign of the man who had tried to save Reggie’s life.
“What do we do now?” asked Jessica.
“Stay with her,” Trailer said. “Both of you. Watch over her and make sure she eats. Give her some time with him, but then he needs to be buried.”
“Where are you going?” Simon asked.
“South,” he answered. Trailer retrieved his cudgel from beside the front door and his pack from behind the couch in the den. He then walked out back and untied Wildcat. Leading the mule around to the front of the house, he saw what remained of the man who had shot Reggie.
He looked down at his blood-covered hands and then at the small pile of spilled blankets on the porch that Jessica had brought. Trailer walked over to the pile, unfolded a blanket, and laid it gently over the smear of Reggie’s blood on his front porch.
Trailer then led Wildcat to the south, making sure it stepped on the headless body in the front yard on the way.
Chapter 7 – The Execution
Joshua and his soldiers felt the strange tension as soon as they drove through the Huntsville outer defenses. The guards checked them out and let them inside with unusual somberness.
“What’s going on?” Conrad asked a woman with sergeant’s rank. She was supervising a group of civilians clearing away debris from a building damaged from artillery.
She shaded her eyes to look at them. “Just get here?”
Joshua nodded.
The woman hooked a thumb over her shoulder. “Keep going that way and you’ll find out. Outside headquarters from what I understand. For once, I’m glad I got this detail. I’d rather be anywhere than there.” She turned away from them and walked towards a man who was attempting to slack off.
“Lucky for us, that’s where we’re headed anyway,” said Conrad.
Joshua and his small convoy of men and women drove slowly through roads cluttered with broken concrete and abandoned vehicles. Several times they were forced to stop and ask for directions, their operating vehicles serving as credentials to their legitimacy.
Finally, they reached a road between two large buildings. A long flatbed trailer had been pushed across the road as a barricade, and several soldiers stood behind it with weapons nearby. A man in uniform walked towards them. “Roads closed. No vehicles in here today. Didn’t your commander tell you?”
“We just arrived,” Conrad said, looking over the man’s shoulder at the mass of soldiers in formation around a central open square. “What’s going on?”
The soldier shook his head. “You picked a good time to show up. Get to see those traitors get what they deserve. My buddy helped build the gallows so at the very least there’s to be a bit of hanging.”
“Hanging?” asked Joshua. “What for?”
“You really don’t know?” the man asked and saw their confused looks. “The McCraken Regiment mutinied. Tried to steal a barge and head home. Leave all the fighting and dying for the rest of us.” The man smiled. “Some mortars dropped near the barge and snipers showed them the error of their ways, and they gave up quick enough. They learned that General Carter doesn’t play.”
“We need to get in there and talk to my father,” said Joshua.
The man shook his head, looking at the rank on their shoulders. “Sorry, sirs, my orders are to let no one in after the formation call. You might be
able to see the show if you climb up to one of the high stories of a building around here.”
Conrad leaned forward. “Son, we’re not here to enjoy the show. We need to get to headquarters. Captain Taylor here needs to report to his father…General Nathan Taylor.”
The man’s eyes widened with understanding. “Oh…sorry, sir, I didn’t know. I guess I could let you through, but not your vehicles, and your soldiers need to stay here.”
“Not a problem,” said Joshua, getting down out of the truck. He turned to the vehicles behind him. “Find a place to bed down for the night and get some food. After that, send someone to headquarters to find us.” Joshua then turned to Conrad. “You’re with me. Let’s go.”
They walked past the barricade and around the back of formations of soldiers. Huge squares of men and women stood in combat gear with weapons at the ready, their commanders out front of each formation with their unit flag held by the assigned bearer. They all faced another block of soldiers, who were unarmed and hatless without any leader in front of them. These soldiers appeared downcast and many wore bandages.
They stood in formation, facing a wooden gallows erected at the south end of the large clearing.
“This doesn’t look good,” said Conrad.
“Over there,” said Joshua, pointing to a nearby building off the courtyard with guards posted outside. “That has to be headquarters.”
They walked around the back of the formation, and as they approached the headquarters entryway, a group of officers walked out, led by Nathan Taylor and Luke Carter. Nathan stopped in his tracks.
“Son, what are you doing here?”
Joshua saluted his father. “Sir, reporting that we have accomplished our mission and await new orders.”
Nathan returned the salute. “Your orders, I believe, were to hold the objective and guard it until further notice.”
“We’re still doing that, sir,” said Conrad. “The Creek tell us there’s nothing around that dam for miles. We left a detachment that should be plenty sufficient.”
“I see,” said Nathan, looking at Luke who shrugged. He turned back to his son. “I’m glad to see you are okay, but I wish you weren’t here to see this unpleasant business.”
