A Haunt of Jackals

by G. R. Carter

  But he'd come this far. No sense in getting shot now. “Yeah, son. We can do that. I understand you're just doing your job,” he said calmly.

  The soldier nodded his thanks and sent someone lower on the food chain running back to collection of trucks about a hundred yards away.

  Morton stood in the field, waiting. He decided to make use of the time.

  “Where you guys out of?” he asked.

  The soldier had brought his rifle barrel down to point at the ground instead of Morton. He remained cautious. “Can't tell you that yet, sir.”

  Morton rolled his eyes and shrugged. Action in the group of trucks caught his attention. A tall man jumped out of the passenger's seat of one truck and started to jog in their direction. Morton couldn't help himself: “See, son? Someone's in a hurry to talk to me.”

  The soldier glanced back quickly, then back to check on Morton, then back to see who the jogging man was. Morton didn't have to wait to recognize his old friend.

  “Pete?” Morton yelled.

  The other man waved and pushed his way past the stunned soldiers. The two shook hands, then Captain Peter Lewis grabbed Morton and gave him a bear hug. “Red, I can't believe it! I thought you must be dead!”

  “Very nearly,” Morton told him. “Several times over.” He shook his head in disbelief. “I just can't tell you how happy I am the cavalry finally got here. I wasn't sure if you'd make it back.”

  Lewis fidgeted a little. “Yeah well, you can imagine what I thought when I looked at the prison.”

  “I got out of there overnight. I'm assuming it's still overrun? What's the plan for getting everything back under control?”

  Morton noticed Lewis refuse his eye contact. The Captain seemed uncomfortable, moving his hands from behind his back and folding this arms across his chest. Morton knew he was holding something back. “What is it, Pete?” he asked. “Come on, after last night you'll never be able to shock this old soul ever again.”

  “I'm afraid you might be wrong about that, Red. See, the thing is, we're not going to bother trying to save the prison.”

  Morton's heart sank as Lewis continued. “I only came back to get you and the rest of the guards. My orders were to bring you back to Jacksonville. We're setting up a base of operations out of the prison there. We need all the trained men we can get.” Lewis put his hands on Morton's shoulders. “Red, I want you to be my right hand there. My second-in-command.”

  Morton didn't look at his commanding officer. He couldn't just yet. “What about all these people?” he muttered. “I just spent the night trying to save them…Pete I promised there’d be help coming if they could hold out long enough. I told them we wouldn’t turn our backs on them.”

  “I know, it breaks my heart. It's my hometown too, remember? We're just spread too thin. We've got to consolidate the resources we have left. Once a secure zone has been established, the National Guard can start to work its way out, bring one area under control at a time,” Lewis said softly.

  “And this?” Morton asked as he pointed to the trucks behind them.

  “We're loading every ration bar we can to take back with us. We've got lots of people to feed. I think we're on our own for a while. No help from the Feds.”

  Morton didn't think it was possible to feel any lower than he had throughout the night. Now, here in the sunshine, a ray of hope became one of the cruelest disappointments. He started thinking about Watson, what he said right before he died in that cold dark room in the prison. Nothing made any sense. He started to connect dots between what he thought were unrelated coincidences; the attack, the prison break, the traitors in his own ranks…

  Lewis saw the despair in his friend's face. “Red, think about the men who survived. We can get them to safety. You performed a miracle getting them through the night. Let's get them loaded on these trucks and get out of here.”

  Gunfire from the other side of the building made both flinch. “See what I mean?” Lewis pleaded. “We won't be able to hold out here forever. Go get our men, by the time you get back we'll be done loading.”

  Morton didn't know what to say, so he did what he knew: he followed orders. He nodded to Lewis, who slapped him on the shoulder one more time. He started to jog back towards the school, lost in despair. He didn't need to stop this time, and before he knew it he was back to the side of the building.

  “Well?” Burton Tucker asked. Morton couldn't answer right away; the exertion had caught up to him.

  When he finally caught his breath: “They want us to evacuate with them to Jacksonville.”

  “Jacksonville?” Tucker asked. “They're going to abandon the town? Not even offering to take some with ‘em?”

  Morton shook his head, still panting with his arms above his head to try and get any extra air into his strained lungs. It was the first time he'd caught a good whiff of his body odor, ripened from nearly twenty-four hours of stress and exertion in the tactical suit.

  “Left behind to die,” Tucker said in disgust. “All those tax dollars for police and military, and just when you really need them, they save themselves.” He looked over Morton's shoulder to the warehouse beyond. “And to add insult, they're taking all the food with them.”

  Morton didn’t know what to say. He’d hoped for words of encouragement, to be able to rally everyone with reassurance. But Tucker was right, there was no excuse. Lewis and the soldiers wouldn’t be able to fit all the food into their trucks, there’d surely be some left afterwards, but the betrayal felt just as real.

  Morton waved over McCoy and the two guards who'd stayed with him. He'd already sent the rest out to help with civilians. “We've been ordered to accompany Captain Lewis,” he told them. “He’s headed back to Jacksonville to help establish a security zone.”

  He looked at Tucker and Sy Bradshaw, unable or unwilling to hide their disappointment. He recognized the look, likely the same he’d just displayed to Lewis. Morton was tired of letting people down. A vision of his son appeared once more. Morton knew the young soldier wasn’t present, but the feeling was perfectly real. There was no judgement on his son’s face, just firm resolve. Too late for Red to save his boy, or his mother, but he could help those here who needed him.

  His mind made up, he decided to let those who’d survived the night decide for themselves. “I intend to tell Captain Lewis I'm resigning my position effective immediately,” he said to his remaining Eels. “I'll be staying here to help the people of Brown County take back control of this area.”

  He nodded to Tucker and Bradshaw. He got the same in reply from them. He gave a father’s smile to the Eels. “Listen, you three are young men, you got a lot of life to live and I don't think you've got much in the way of ties to the area. The smart move is to go with Captain Lewis. Not only will I not hold it against you for going, I'd encourage you to go.”

  McCoy didn't say a word, he just stared at Morton. The other two looked at each other, then at Morton, then at the activity in the warehouse parking lot. “You sure, Sarge?” one of them asked.

  “Yeah, I'm sure. It's the smart play. Hard telling what's going to happen here. We've got thousands of prisoners running wild. You've done plenty to earn my respect after last night. If you got just one shred of doubt, get your asses out of here and on those trucks.”

  The two Eels looked at each other again, then at their Sarge. With a nod, they took off running across the field towards the soldiers.

  “McCoy?” Morton asked with an arched eyebrow.

  “Kind of like it here,” he answered. “Never could really stand Captain Lewis or the warden,” he said. “If it's all right, I'll stay with you.”

  Morton started to argue, but he was out of energy. Instead he watched the other two running across the field. When they got to the parking lot they stopped to talk to Lewis, then ran past to jump on board the trucks. Morton saw Lewis stand for a moment, looking in his direction. Then he waved the soldiers on the perimeter towards the trucks. Lewis was the last to leave as the t
rucks pulled out of the parking lot one by one.

  As the last truck disappeared, Morton knew his last chance to escape had disappeared also.

  Chapter 33

  Ridgeview Hunting Lodge

  Rural Brown County, Illinois

  Day Three of the Great Reset

  Kara Bradshaw stood over Darwin King's bed. His breathing was labored, his bronze skin looked pale and thin.

  “Is he going to make it?” she asked the tall man seated on the bed next to Darwin King. He was working his way through the vital signs. A tube was still connected to King’s arm where they'd done an emergency blood transfusion.

  Heath Bohrmann nodded. “Tough bird, Mr. King is,” he said in an accent that matched King's. “Be a while before he's back on his feet. But if infection stays clear, we'll have our man back soon enough.”

  She smiled and patted him on the shoulder. “Glad you showed up when you did.”

  “Glad you didn't shoot us when we got here,” he drawled, returning her smile.

  She left Darwin's side and walked to the window. From the second floor of the lodge, she could see the entire grounds on this side of the property. She watched her brother Sy moving a pull-behind RV into place with their loader tractor. The white metal box on wheels took its place next to a few others. He jumped off and helped another man put blocks underneath the hitch and wheels. After he unhooked it, he jumped back on the tractor and headed for his next chore, still messing with his ear that Bohrmann had stitched up.

  “Not sure we would have been a match for your crew. Even if there were only five of you.”

  The Aussie said nothing in reply. She was likely right, but he was glad he didn't have to find out. “Just glad we found Mr. King alive. Didn't figure much chance for that we when started our trip. Reckon we got you to thank for helpin' keep him that way.”

  “Even if he was shot when you got here?”

  “Yeah, even so. Especially since one of the others we were aimin' to find was the one doin' the shootin'.”

  Kara still watched out the window. There were people camped everywhere on the lodge property, nearly two hundred by her last count…and that count was now several hours old. Stragglers were still showing up.

  “I'm torn between wanting to find him and hoping I never see JR Casey again,” she said to the window.

  “Don't guess he'll be back. Bad enough stealin' one of your trucks at a time like this. Worse him shootin' someone like Mr. King. He don't forget his friends, sure don't forget his enemies.”

  Kara wasn't sure how she felt about that. In the hours leading up to King being shot, she'd seen a different side of the man. She wasn't all together comfortable with knowing that Darwin King.

  The man sitting beside him struck her the same way. Reasonable, highly intelligent, possessing a cold and hard inner core. Not attached to anyone or anything outside his inner circle.

  “You must have a lot of loyalty for Darwin if you guys walked all the way from the St. Louis airport to here.”

  Bohrmann smiled as he checked the bandages on King's gunshot wound. King stirred a little and Bohrmann stopped. He seemed satisfied he'd done all he could for now, got up and walked over to his medical kit. “We didn't walk the whole way. Borrowed a car now and then to speed the trip.”

  “So it's bad out there?”

  “Yeah, Kara, it's bad out there. Just as bad in your town, I reckon. Though I wouldn't want to be in St. Louis still, and no doubt.”

  “You'll have to tell me about it sometime,” she said absently.

  “I don't think so,” he replied. “Not sure I want to remember it at all.”

  Kara watched out the window as her brother brought another trailer out with his tractor. She knew Sy hadn't slept much in the twenty-four hours since they'd made it back from Mt. Sterling. “Sy wouldn't tell me what happened there either. I guess he's trying to protect me from it.”

  “Or maybe protect his own self,” Bohrmann said. “Not much for religion, but I do figure a person has a soul of some kind. Weeks like this one can put a black mark on some men's souls. You saw that with Casey, didn't you? Some men figure it's best to forget.”

  She smiled as she noticed her son Max sitting on his Uncle Sy's lap, working the controls of the tractor. If Sy would do anything for her, he'd do twice that and more for little Max. The sight made her hate JR Casey even more. “I guess a black mark is the only way to explain what Casey did. And to leave his son behind, just run like a coward…”

  “Best thing for that boy, from what you told me. He'll have men around here to look up to. Men doin’ what's right and proper.”

  “That's the same thing Darwin said,” Kara told him.

  Bohrmann walked over and joined her at the window. “So if you don't mind me askin', what's the plan?”

  Kara sighed. She'd wondered the same thing since the whole mess started. Now it was becoming clearer this wouldn't be just a simple power outage. Something really terrible had happened. Even if she found out what it was, it wouldn't change the fact she’d become responsible for the wellbeing of all these people. They were looking to her for the answers; she wasn't even sure what the questions were yet.

  “I'm glad you and Red Morton are here. I'm leaving security to you two.”

  “He's a good man. Glad I didn't kill him on accident at the prison that night.”

  Kara looked at Bohrmann to see if his words were a joke of some kind. From his expression, they weren't. She shook off a shiver. “Uh, yeah, me too,” she said.

  “We've already got a rotation for all the men, and any woman who volunteers, to stand sentry. We'll have eyes on every approach twenty-four hours a day.”

  “You really think we'll have trouble all this way out here?”

  “Without question,” he replied. “Like locusts. Seen it in Africa on a job we did there for Mr. King. Fifty miles away, like a dead zone all around. Human beings will travel for food, especially ones who don't know how to do anything but take from others.”

  The cold shiver came back with a vengeance. “Can we hold them off?” she asked hopefully.

  “Maybe,” came the truthful answer. “It'll cost us dearly. But hopefully we'll just have to do it once. Don't guess those prisoners are big on organization. Reckon if we're lucky, they'll kill each other off so's all we'll have to deal with is the survivors.”

  “I can't believe we're having to deal with this in America. The heartland, no less.”

  Bohrmann laughed at her. “One of the reasons I love you Yanks. You really believe the laws of history and nature don't apply to you. Even after all these years, still that optimism. Think you can overcome Fate itself.”

  “You don't?” she asked.

  Bohrmann shrugged. “Reckon I've seen too much in my life to think we're anything but a heartbeat away from darkness,” he said. “Hate to be a downer, but the way I figure, people are always going to revert back to their selfish ways. When their willing to do anything to survive, then nothing is off-limits to them.” He shook his head as memories he didn't want tried to force their way back into his mind. “Nothing off-limits at all,” he said quietly.

  Kara stared at Bohrmann. The man had gone someplace far away in his mind; likely a place of nightmares she wanted to avoid.

  She returned to her window. Trey Casey sat on a well block, alone and watching other kids play. She'd do her best to surround the boy with folks who cared for him. Everyone sheltering at the lodge would pull together. They'd figure out a way to survive this catastrophe. As long as it took, they'd stay together.

  She patted Bohrmann on the shoulder. “Come on. The patient isn’t going anywhere for a while. Let's find something to eat before all the good stuff is gobbled up.”

  He nodded and followed her down the hallway to the stairs overlooking the Great Room. The two-story open space echoed with activity. Folks caught glimpse of her, smiled, waved and went back to their assigned tasks. In the back of her mind, the thought occurred she'd given each one of these
people their assignments. Just like a thousand other times this week, no one really argued, they'd simply done what she asked to the best of their ability.

  Bohrmann and his crew—like Red Morton and his—looked to her for guidance about what to do next. Kara had always heard that some people stood up and stood out in a crisis. She never expected it to be her. But her she was, in the middle of an impossible task, working to save as many people as she could. Even hardened men like Bohrmann and Morton seemed to trust her decisions, to feel comfortable with her hand on the wheel.

  Inside, she smiled at that.

  Chapter 34

  Ridgeview Hunting Lodge

  Rural Brown County, Illinois

  Day Three of the Great Reset

  “I’m glad he’s got the back hoe,” McCoy yelled to Morton. Both men watched Sy Bradshaw work the hydraulic controls on his utility tractor, bringing a long metal arm backwards, slicing through turf and soil. “Hate to dig foxholes by hand with just a few of us.” He kicked at the dry dirt below his feet. “I wonder how much fuel he’s got left to keep it running?”

  Morton didn’t reply. He was busy studying a hand drawn map, trying to make sure he was pointing everyone in the right direction.

  The roar of a chainsaw chewing through a fallen tree branch overcame the steady rumble of the tractor engine. McCoy watched as two men placed pieces of oak in front of and around the freshly dug holes. One of Heath Bohrmann’s men – a Canadian named Hobson - inspected each firing position, jumping in and out, sighting his weapon, imagining how unfriendly groups might arrive. Morton oversaw the digging, Hobson oversaw making sure the holes were useful.

  Finally Morton looked up and pointed to a spot about thirty yards away. “Hobson wants these holes spread out, but close enough a guy can run from one to another.”

  McCoy stayed quiet, letting his CO think out loud. “Seems like a lot of holes to dig for not very many men,” Morton sighed.