Lights out in America's Dairyland: An EMP Adventure

by Victor Marbury

  I approached Elaine, who was sitting at her desk deep in contemplation, “Do you want to help interrogate Mary? Sometimes it is good to have a team member on thee things.”

  “I would love to help Ben, but I’m afraid that I would just cut her throat if I had the chance. I’m not very objective in this case.”

  Simone raised her hand, “I’ll help, I always love to be the bad cop!” She rubbed her hands together in anticipation.

  “Thanks Simone, but I’m not just going to be bad cop, I am going to be evil cop! Let me take care of this myself, maybe that will be more effective. We don’t have time to fiddle fuck around with this, we need any information she has quick.”

  Simone began to protest, but I interjected.

  “Let me work on her first, if I can’t break her inside of an hour, you can have her Simone. Let me try it my way first. I need two things, a piece of paper and a small cup of vinegar…….”

  I made my way to the interrogation room and was let in by Cook. Mary was handcuffed to the concrete bench by both of her wrists. She had a mean, defiant look on her face and sneered when I sat down across from her. I placed a piece of paper and the small cup of white vinegar out of her reach and stared at her for a moment, giving her a placid look. I decided to lay her situation out on the table for her so she understood what kind of trouble she was in. There were no more lawyers, no appeals, and the angry mob was ready and willing to tear her limb from limb if given the chance.

  “Mary, you are in some deep shit, you killed old Mrs. Waller for no reason. She fed and sheltered you, and you repay her by cutting her throat. That, young lady, has earned you a place in front of a firing squad.”

  I looked at Mary for any reaction, just as I suspected; she gave me a sick smile, eyes burning with righteous fury, “An old lady sacrificed for the cause is nothing! Delquan will save me before your executioners have a chance to kill me.” She snorted derisively and looked away, but the fear was plain in her eyes.

  I saw that small crack in her façade, so I decided to exploit it.

  “Mary, you came from a pretty sheltered existence, didn’t you? I would be willing to bet that you’ve never had to endure any degree of discomfort in your entire life; you’ve never been hungry, thirsty, or been subject to real pain, have you?”

  Mary’s eyes narrowed a bit, and her brow furrowed, wondering what I was up to. I knew at that moment that she began to understand what was going to happen to her. The wheels began to turn, and it dawned on her that I was going to torture her for information. As I spoke, I knew images of the rack, thumbscrews, and boiling oil danced through her head. For the first time, her face showed the fear that was only in her eyes moments ago.

  “You sick fuck, you’re going to torture me, aren’t you?” She couldn’t get the fear look off of her face.

  I moved in close to her and said in a menacing tone, “You’re right; I am going to torture you, but I won’t if you answer my questions truthfully. If you help me out, perhaps I can save your life.” I sat back in my chair, “First question, how many in your group?”

  She looked at the piece of paper and said, “What, do you want me to write down those answers? How about you stick that paper up your ass….” I could tell she was proud of herself at finding some backbone despite the situation she was in.

  In a flash, I grabbed one of her hands that was cuffed to the bench, singled out her thumb and dragged the paper across it at the correct angle, giving her a perfect, deep paper cut that began to bleed almost immediately. She yelped and tried to pull her hand away, but my grip and the handcuffs prevented her from doing so.

  She screamed, “You fucker, that hurt!”

  Before she could protest further, I dipped my index finger in the vinegar and ran it along the opening of the paper cut. Mary screamed like she got tasered, and began to cry and curse at me.

  I lifted the paper once again and said, “How many people in your group?” She ignored the question and wasted no time at struggling at her bonds, so I grabbed her other thumb and repeated the process, opening up a deeper cut.

  Her eyes widened and screamed, “Nonononononononono!” and looked at me with pleading eyes.

  I dipped my finger in the vinegar once again and began to move towards her newly lacerated thumb, my eyes hard as stone. I dragged my finger over the new wound, and Mary howled like an animal and attempted to pull away again making raw marks on her wrists from where the handcuffs dug in.

  I sat back and said, “I’m going to ask one more time, and then I’m going to cut something more sensitive……a lip perhaps, or maybe a nipple?” I chuckled darkly and picked up the paper again.

  That broke her. She began to cry and screamed, “Ok, ok, I’ll tell you everything just no more cutting ….please!”

  I stood up grabbed the paper and cup of vinegar and pushed them aside, “Give me a moment, and I’ll get you some band aids and water to clean this up.” I left the room and closed the door behind me.

  Elaine gave me a quizzical look as I walked out of the interrogation room, wondering what I did to Mary. I suspected Simone was convinced I turned into Mr. Hyde while I was speaking to Mary, glared at me, “What did you do to that poor girl you bastard!”

  I waited until we were out of earshot and turned to face Simone and said, “Poor girl? In case you just checked in, she killed a defenseless old woman in a particularly gruesome way, she deserves whatever we do to her. I gave Simone a hard look, “All I did was give her a couple of paper cuts and dump vinegar in them. It hurts like a motherfucker, but doesn’t do any lasting damage. To a person who hasn’t experienced any real pain, it is totally shocking. I broke her open like a coconut; she’ll tell us what we want to know now.”

  Simone looked at me like I was speaking Swahili and said “is that it? I thought you were ripping out her fingernails or something.”

  I looked at my friend, “Come on, we needed info fast, I knew she was weak, and administered a little pain to get what I needed. She is totally convinced that I will do much worse to her if she lies from this point forward. I need a couple of band aids and some water to clean her wounds, you listen outside and if her story radically deviates from Zeke’s we go back to the paper, but something tells me she is going to be straight with us.

  I looked over at Elaine, and the look of revulsion evaporated, replaced with a broad smile, and she said “Man, you’re a piece of work.”

  I re-entered the cell and patched Mary’s thumbs up, and gave her a glass of water with a straw. She drank greedily, and I began to question her at length about Delquan’s operation. She answered truthfully for the most part, but lied a couple of times regarding the weapons they possessed. I knew she overstated their weapon stocks in a bid to intimidate me, but when I picked up a fresh piece of paper and the cup of vinegar again, she reverted to telling me the truth, and answered the questions I posed.

  After about an hour,I was convinced that Mary had nothing left to give us about Delquan’s army, so it was time to end the interview.

  I decided to give her a bit of hope in case she decided to provide me with further nuggets of information, “Well Mary, I think you’ve been truthful with me, so I’ll put in a good word with the chief about your punishment. Maybe she’ll just banish you from the town instead of using you for target practice.”

  Mary said, “Thanks, but I don’t think mercy is on the agenda for me with the people of the town….Hopefully, Delquan crushes you and your precious friends. I’ll look forward to seeing you in front of that firing squad!”

  I ripped off one of my favorite comic book villains, Grand Moff Tarkin, “Charming to the last, my dear, charming to the last." I slammed the door to the interrogation room and made my way upstairs to report my findings in detail.

  I entered Elaine’s office and found her sitting behind her desk with a steaming cup of coffee in front of her. She took a sip, “Remind me not to get on your bad side lover, I would hate to be subjected to your paper trick.”

&n
bsp; I pulled up a chair beside her and put my arm across her shoulders, “Elaine, what I did was for the good of the community, and not because I enjoyed it. I read about this technique in a bookand thought it was pretty sick,but brutally effective on people who were unfamiliar with pain. It doesn’t permanently disfigure, and is pretty mild as physical persuasion goes, but by God it worked! We now have the advantage over Delquan, and if he decides to attack, he and his army are walking into a buzzsaw!”

  I took her hand and squeezed it, “Elaine, we’re in this for our lives, if we weren’t, I would never have stooped so low but it’s a hard world now and we have to be tough.” I released her hand and stood to go and see what Mitch was up to, leaving her at her desk to think about what I had to say.

  Chapter 13

  I wandered out of the Police station and ran into Grinker. There was a curious smile on his face.

  He shook my hand, “You’re a master interrogator, Cook told me what you did to that little bitch and how easily she broke. She gave the store away man; we have you to thank for saving the town.

  I put a hand on Grinker’s chest and said, “stop right there partner, I might have gotten the information we need, but Mitch is going to be the one to save the day!”

  “By the way, do you know where Mitch is?”

  “He’s over by Johnson’s Greenhouse, come on, I’ll take you there.”

  We made our way to the local greenhouse where Mitch was directing several people who were moving in concert to complete one of the many projects concerned with the defense of the town. Mitch noticed us as we approached and grinned broadly.

  “Just in time for one of my demonstrations, this way gentleman!”

  Mitch walked like he was an excited teenager about to attend his first prom and made his way to an area he called station 1. He picked up a simple clay flowerpot wrapped in fiberglass tape that looked liked it held about a gallon of material. The top of the flowerpot was covered in heavy roofing tar and the hole in the back had two wires sticking out of it. He walked to an open area flanked by mounds of dirt. He set the pot in a wooden bracket and took us to an earthen berm for protection. The wall had a small aperture we could look through. He hooked both of the wires to a detonator with a “T” handle and raised the “T” to its highest point, the handle making a ratcheting sound as it reached the top of its pull.

  “Observe, gentleman…and, by the way, cover your ears.”

  The pot opening faced plywood figures who looked like charging soldiers that stood at distances between 25 and 50 meters from the device in a wide arc.

  “Fire in the hole!”

  Mitch pressed the plunger down. A loud BOOM came from the pot and several of the plywood figures disintegrated into toothpicks from the blast.

  “Shazam! An improvised claymore mine!” I was amazed at the devastation, with a small amount of these weapons at our command, ranks of Delquan’s soldiers could be wiped out in an instant

  Mitch led us over to the next of his nasty surprises. Several people were working on sawing logs into pointed, spear-like staffs arranged along a central axis. The unusual thing about these objects was their size, they appeared to be about 30 feet long and about eight feet high. It looked like they would stop a car in its tracks without effort, but it didn’t look like they would be very formidable if attacked by a group on foot. To me, it looked like any reasonably fit individual could easily slip through the gaps in the logs.

  I pointed this out to Mitch, “Although these are impressive, and would stop a vehicle, it doesn’t look they would deter a person much Mitch.”

  “Ah, ye of little faith. I plan on stringing several strands of barbed wire within the trap to tangle up any adversary. While they are struggling through, we are picking them off with aplomb! These will be laid at all the main roads into town, by nightfall we’ll have them in place.

  We were led to the pesticide barn, where the next surprise awaited us.

  “How much do you know about industrial scale weed control?” He said in a teacher like tone.

  “Nothing, but it appears I am about to get a lesson.”

  “Quite so. Most weed control agents use common acetic acid as the active ingredient. However, it is much more powerful that the stuff you would find in your kitchen. This stuff will immediately burn eyes, noses and lungs, and if left on long enough, severely damage the skin. I rigged a couple of high-powered sprayers to deploy some of these agents, and selected a few guys to operate them. My “Chemical Brothers” might very well turn the tide if we find our backs against the wall!”

  Outside of the pesticide shack, several women were busy making Molotov cocktails under the watchful eye of Robert. They were using soda and beer bottles scrounged out of local recycle bins with a mixture of motor oil and gasoline.

  “Brutal, sticky and quite effective” emphasizing his statement with a dry chuckle.

  I saw Mitch in a new light; he was relishing his role as mad scientist and weapons designer, and it appeared to have gained some friends since he took on the duty of preparing defenses for the town to repel the coming attack of Delquan and his army.

  Mitch finished with his little tour, “So what do you think. Do you think our adversary has a chance?

  “What can I say Mitch, you’re a true master of disaster. Remember; be up at the Police station at six for the final planning meeting.”

  “I’ll be there with bells on my friend!” He then returned to his duties, disappearing around a corner with a laugh.

  Grink was excited about the tour that Mitch just gave us said, “Ben, I think we have a chance at pulling this off. Without you guys, we would have been crushed like an empty beer can!”

  “We’re happy to help Grink, I only hope that it’s enough.”

  We walked back to the police station where Simone and Elaine were waiting for us. We all walked back into the office and sat around a table to exchange information about what we have seen today, and set the agenda for the meeting later that evening. Elaine began the conversation.

  “We have a radio network set up, and have deployed scouts along the most likely routes of approach. I authorized them to be weapons free, they’ll engage targets of opportunity as the army approaches town. Hopefully, we’ll tag that piece of shit Delquan on the road and his army falls apart.”

  I smiled at my lover, “Good plan Elaine, it looks like the road defenses will be in place by nightfall. Now all we have to do is divide our fighting force adequately to cover the defenses.”

  As we got to the details of personnel and their placement, Simone said to me, “Looks like you don’t need me for this part of the meeting, can I take Sam and retrieve my bike from the deer hide? I can take a closer look at the farm and get us some fresh intel on what our opposition is up to."

  Elaine interjected, “That sounds good Simone. Sam is down the street working with the food storage crew, I’m sure he would rather go with you than stack canned goods. Take him out there with you, but don’t loiter too long. I want both of you to be back at the main gate by six so we can lock it down for the night.”

  “Yes Ma’am.” Simone gave Elaine a small salute and headed out of the office to find Sam. He was hard at work in McFearsons General store securing canned goods brought in from the outlying homes. He was sweating heavily in the August heat, but plugging along like he had a purpose. Simone tapped him on the shoulder, “Chief Krusk authorized you to guide me to my bike at the deer hide, you up to the challenge little man?

  He wiped his brow with a red bandana, “You know it ma’am, let me get my stuff and get my face painted up.”

  “I think we can dispense with that my friend. Let’s scoot out there real quick, and get my bike. We’ll also take a peek at out adversaries before trucking back to town.”

  Sam followed like a pleased puppy, as they headed towards the main gate. Simone told the guards at the newly installed barricade what they were doing and they were cleared to leave the safety of the town. The melted into the woods at
the base of the trailhead on what each of them thought was going to be a piece of cake assignment.

  Chapter 14

  Simone and Sam headed up the trail as quietly as possible and made their way towards the deer hide overlooking the McDonnell’s farm. The remained silent, not speaking in case Delquan had some scouts in the area. After about 45 minutes of hard marching, they came upon the deer hide and recovered Simone’s bicycle.

  “All right! Still in one piece with all my stuff attached!

  “I did the best I could do, I’m glad it worked out.

  “You’re ok in my book little man.” Simone shook Sam’s hand. “Let’s see what our friends at the farm are up to, shall we?”

  Simone settled into the hide and looked through the high powered binoculars at the McDonnell farm. As she scanned the farm, she saw a few camp followers doing the mundane, but necessary chores a farm required, and not the mighty army she was told about.

  Sam remained concealed in the brush. He heard some rustling behind him and noticed two black guys trying their best to sneak up on Simone.

  “Simone look out!”

  Both men jumped on Simone and attempted to take her to the ground. As she sidestepped a kick from one of the men she yelled, “Sam, get out of here and warn the town!”

  Mustafa’s guards were tough, but they wholly underestimated the black woman. The kid handily escaped on the bike back towards town and the woman was giving them a run for their money in the physical ability department. Ray-Ray, the larger of the two men balled up his fist and drove a knockout punch towards Simone’s face. Luckily, Simone saw it coming and slipped inside of Ray-Ray’s arm and drove a vicious knee into his testicles, crushing one and severely bruising the other. Ray-Ray dropped to the ground with a strangled scream, and Simone kicked the point of his chin as hard as she could. Ray-Ray’s neck shattered from the blow, and he fell dead.

  As Simone was finishing Ray-Ray, his partner Deandre saw his chance and kicked the back of Simone’s knee, causing her to fall to the ground. As she attempted to recover, he jumped on her back and administered a chokehold.