Tom shook his head at the still-silent older woman who stared down at him.
“I don’t understand.”
The woman’s eyes suddenly closed as her face tightened. This was accompanied by the ominous roar of an approaching fighter jet passing overhead. The light of the midday sun was soon overtaken by a great shadowy darkness as the ground beneath Tom Dolan’s feet shook with enough force he nearly lost his balance.
The intensity of the quake increased exponentially until the ground itself began to crack open, threatening to swallow Tom Dolan whole like some titanic, perpetually hungry beast. He cried out as he fell to the earth and then scrambled backwards to avoid falling into a great chasm from which a terrible darkness emanated. The fissure groaned as it crept with incredible speed down into the valley below, sucking grass, trees, rock and dirt into its gaping maw. No matter how quickly Tom frantically pushed himself backwards, the opening in the earth followed him, spreading itself wider and wider until he could feel the ground giving way directly beneath him.
Tom Dolan screamed as he began to fall into the terrible void below. He looked upward to see the sky above him fading into nothingness, replaced by the dirt and stone-encased crypt that would be his final, inescapable destination. The earth began to fill his mouth and then his lungs, pushing out the oxygen as he desperately gasped for breath.
The chasm began to close, making it impossible for Tom to move any portion of his body. He was held immobile until finally even his eyes were forced shut.
He knew death was soon to follow and wasn’t surprised to find himself grateful for the ending of his own suffering that the ongoing pain of life could never grant him.
Tom awoke with a loud gasp, his hands reaching for his mouth to remove dirt that wasn’t there. His shirt was drenched in sweat, leaving him cold and shivering as he sat underneath the gently swaying branches of a great poplar tree on the outskirts of the Mark Twain National Forest in Missouri. The journey by foot from the Shawnee Forest in Illinois had taken just over a week, slowed slightly by his determination to avoid any of the major roadways and urban areas.
Suddenly Tom’s stomach let him know he was about to be sick. He rolled over onto all fours and felt his body tighten as it found itself overtaken by a series of painful, grunt-inducing dry heaves. Droplets of sweat crept down his forehead and into his eyes as his stomach continued to empty itself even though Tom had not eaten or drank anything for nearly two days.
Finally the waves of nausea subsided and he was able to roll over onto his back and close his eyes while he wondered how many hours it would be until sunrise and grateful the frightening images of his most recent dream were quickly receding into the background of his consciousness.
Tom’s body ached from within and he knew the pain did not come from the long days of walking but rather from sickness. Two days earlier he had unwisely decided to collect and then cook up a batch of Verpa mushrooms, lesser cousins to the much more popular, and safer, Morel mushroom. Tom had picked Verpas as a boy with his grandfather and enjoyed them in small amounts mixed in with scrambled eggs and cheese.
His most recent experience with them had left him increasingly weak and dehydrated with no food left in his backpack and a realization that if he didn’t overcome his illness and find a way to find something to eat, his current uncomfortable situation might quickly devolve into something far more serious.
Keep moving. Sweat it out and keep moving…
One positive to the sickness that threatened to immobilize Tom was that it momentarily took his mind off the loss of his wife and kids. Since escaping the cabin destroyed by the government military helicopter he had found himself alternating between bouts of rage and despair, wanting to both scream and wail against those who had murdered his family.
The pain in his stomach pushed aside that reminder of what had happened so recently, replaced by the need to simply try and remain alive. He wasn’t certain of where he should go specifically but in recent days found himself being pulled west. He knew the Mark Twain National Forest was well over a million acres of heavily treed and well-watered forests that would provide him ample cover to hide but with his family now gone, hiding no longer appealed to the former Marion, Illinois police chief. He sensed within himself a higher purpose for which he would not discover if he simply existed to survive rather than to find reason for having done so.
There was also the matter of revenge, a yearning to fight back against those responsible for what was done to his family and the country as a whole.
Tom stood up and grimaced as his stomach was gripped by another series of painful cramps. The pain quickly lessened to a dull, aching tremor and he was able to straighten himself to his full height as he looked to the east and saw the first initial signs of sunrise peaking out from the distant horizon.
Follow the light if you wish to escape the night and if you think yourself lost, look to the sky.
It was the words of his most recent dream, the confident, low voice of the radio program playing from inside the unknown woman’s cabin.
Tom Dolan decided then to simply look to the sky and follow the path of the sun as it stretched westward toward an unknown destination. He knew Route 72 was no more than a half day’s walk from his current position. From there he would follow the rural road north, bypassing much of the Mark Twain National Forest until he came to Route 32 which would take him west toward Salem, Missouri, a smallish city of just over four thousand. It would be an especially long journey by foot but given he had no alternative at the moment, by foot would be how he would travel until other means became available.
The sound of a bird of prey pierced the silence of the sky’s early morning gloom, its shrieking cry seeming to be an impatient call for Tom to hurry up and get moving again. He looked up and after several seconds was able to locate the source of the sound. It was a single red-tailed hawk that circled gracefully nearly a hundred yards above him.
Tom was struck by a strong sense of déjà-vu as he realized the hawk appeared to be the very same bird from the dream he had just awoken from. His eyes scanned the ground around him as he fought back the panic that originated from his subconscious, a panic that fully expected the earth to suddenly open up and swallow him whole.
The ground remained firm. Tom shook his head, angry at himself for allowing a mere dream to turn him into a frightened child. By the time his eyes returned to the slowly illuminated sky above, the hawk was gone, replaced by especially long, yellow-pink fingers of emerging sunlight that appeared to be pointing him west.
Tom Dolan would follow the light.
--------------------
EPISODE TWENTY-ONE:
Protocol X Protocol Initial Review
Subject Area: Clintfield, Virginia: Population 921
Dr. Fenwick Sage could hardly contain his satisfaction as he watched the video footage of the complete destruction of the once-idyllic Virginia town of Clintfield.
Clintfield provided Project X the perfect test case. It was just a short military chopper ride from Washington D.C., its population of just over nine-hundred included nearly a hundred minority residents, and it was relatively secluded within a heavily-forested valley with just one primary road into and out of the town.
Over the course of three days EPA operatives working under the doctor’s direct supervision distributed nearly three hundred assault rifles and thousands of rounds of ammunition to both white and black families within Clintfield. Then the natural well water supply was poisoned and ordered to be shut off and the only food market burned down in such a way local authorities believed it to be the act of black teenagers.
Twenty-four hours after the supermarket burned, the town’s only law enforcement officer, a black man by the name of Saul Jackson, was shot dead in the back while walking from his patrol car to the front porch of his humble, single-story home just three blocks from the city hall building that also served as the town’s library.
No-one knew the identity of the shoote
r, though the black residents suspected the murderer to be white. Forty-eight hours after the killing of Saul Jackson, several homes owned by white families were shot up with guns and ammunition provided to the perpetrators by Dr. Sage’s EPA officers.
By the following evening, the town was quite literally a war zone. Nineteen citizens were shot dead in the streets. Twelve more were burned alive in their homes. Sage made certain video footage of the atrocities were then broadcast via the government-controlled media system to the largest urban areas in the country by then completely controlled by the federal government’s Martial Law authority.
The message to those millions living inside the militarized cities was both simple and effective – only the government can keep you safe.
The Clintfield atrocities were shown to be proof of the emerging cancer of the Race Wars that were spreading throughout the United States. While some semblance of safety had returned to the cities courtesy of military rule, outside those protected areas the country was overrun by violence that threatened everyone.
And when dealing with cancer, one must eradicate it.
Nine minutes past sunset, Clintfield was destroyed by a single Massive Ordinance Air Blast, more commonly known as a MOAB, an eleven-ton detonation device with a one-mile blast radius. Nearly every building was reduced to mere fragments and every human life little more than bits of torn and burnt flesh.
Dr. Fenwick Sage regarded it to be among the most beautiful things he had ever seen. Protocol X was off to a brilliant beginning.
“You appear pleased, Doctor.”
Sage looked away from the massive monitor that hung from the ceiling inside a conference room of the Pentagon’s primary Military Operations Center. He sat across from Admiral Walter Briggs. Briggs had just recently been named Chair of the Joint Chiefs following the presumed death of General Thompson after the staged terrorist attack upon the Camp David compound.
“I am, Admiral. I have to qualify my satisfaction with one note of concern, though.”
Dr. Sage noted how Admiral Briggs appeared rejuvenated by his recent ascension to the highest rank of the U.S. military. The seventy-year old naval officer’s eyes shone with the light of re-discovered youth, the direct result of his lifelong desire for ever-increasing power.
“And what might that be, Doctor?”
The doctor folded his small, thin-fingered hands in front of him as they rested atop the immaculately polished conference room desk.
“We need more of those bombs – a lot more.”
The admiral gave the doctor a long, narrow-eyed stare and then shook his head.
“That’s not so easy. The MOAB program was put on hold over ten years ago. The one used in the video there was the last one we have.”
Dr. Sage felt his mouth tighten as he tried to control the rage welling up from within him.
“I was told I could have whatever I needed for Protocol X, Admiral. YOU promised me that when it was decided you would be the one to succeed General Thompson.”
Admiral Briggs cleared his throat as he considered the very real possibility the doctor was quickly becoming a far too high maintenance liability.
“Yes, within reason, Dr. Sage. Some parts of the country are just now returning to some semblance of normalcy. The stock exchange is running again, we have naval vessels monitoring both coastlines because of the Russian and Chinese threats, power is back on in almost a third of our largest cities, we’ve managed to restore order to much of the southern border…my plate is rather full at the moment.”
The doctor glared at the admiral and then smirked.
“You sit here dressed in your formal little soldier-boy suit with all those shiny medals and forget who put you there! Protocol X is the primary reason for all of this! I thought you understood that, Admiral Briggs. If things are doing so well now, perhaps I should inform the President and Congress it is time to end the current state of Martial Law. If so, I am more than happy to make that recommendation as soon as I leave this meeting.”
The admiral knew Sage made no idle threat. For reasons few if any could fully understand, the odd little doctor had the ear of the President and several leading members of Congress. Once Martial Law was ended, so too would the near-limitless powers Admiral Briggs so enjoyed. He was in no hurry to return to a state of normalcy that limited his authority to the purview of the military only.
The admiral knew he must strike a bargain with the doctor.
“I can’t give you more bombing campaigns, Dr. Sage. We’re still trying to contain what was done up at Camp David. Some are asking questions. If I allocate funding for more MOAB’s there’ll be too many eyes looking into the potential reasons why. That wouldn’t be good for either one of us – not longer term.”
When Sage tried to interject, Admiral Briggs cut him off.
“What I CAN provide you is the freedom to continue utilizing Protocol X on a smaller scale. Give the factions weapons, cut off food and water supplies and keep the poor bastards killing themselves. That makes my job all the easier and in the end, still gets you to where you want to be with the program, right?”
The doctor didn’t bother to attempt to hide his disappointment or his belief the Joint Chiefs Chairman had no idea what the true purpose of Protocol X was and always had been.
“And where is it you think I want the program to be, Admiral Briggs?”
The admiral shrugged as he tried very hard to appear indifferent even as he grew increasingly agitated that Sage seemed to think himself the military officer’s equal.
“I’ve read your file, Dr. Sage. I also know about, and have continued to allow, your little private EPA army that you’ve developed in recent years. As for Protocol X, it’s a matter of resource allocation, right? It’s become too prohibitive for us to try and maintain infrastructure over vast areas of the country where a limited number of people are living. I understand that type of thinking and despite what you might think, I support finding solutions. That’s why I’m prepared to offer you almost carte blanch supervision of a more limited Protocol X deployment.”
The doctor looked back at the admiral like a parent would a hapless child.
“Though not entirely incorrect, that is a rather simplified version of Protocol X, Admiral Briggs. Beyond resource allocation it is also a matter of absolute control over the general population. There are too many who feel entitled to far too much independence from government authority. Protocol X was created in part to cull the herd of such rampant and dangerous individualism. I feel quite comfortable saying that is in fact the primary purpose of the protocol itself – the elimination of undesirables who only serve to weaken the collective good.”
Admiral Briggs sensed the hint of condescension in the doctor’s response and chose to ignore it, thinking himself worthy of far more important and pressing battles.
“I would remind you of where you sit, Dr. Sage. This is the Pentagon, a place that answers to me – not you. I have given you a choice regarding how you might proceed with your Protocol X plans. You can either abide by the limits of that authority as outlined or be re-assigned to a desk job in the bowels of the most remote EPA office I can find.”
Dr. Sage sat up as high in his chair as his diminutive frame would allow and then shrugged.
“What you offer isn’t a choice, Admiral, but a directive. I would have thought you capable of knowing the difference.”
As soon as he spoke the words, Sage feared his own insolence might have pushed the Joint Chiefs Chairman too far. The admiral’s eyes flashed a direct warning he was in no mood to hear any more challenges to either his authority or intellect.
“Apologies, Admiral, I should be more respectful of the considerable responsibility that is upon your shoulders. I will proceed with the more limited version of Protocol X as you request…but ask for just one small resource to help me do so.”
Admiral Briggs abruptly stood up from his chair as a signal he deemed the meeting concluded but then found himself curious to kn
ow what else the EPA official wanted from him.
“What is it, Doctor?”
Sage spoke just two words.
“The Beast.”
The general’s tone indicated his confusion.
“What?”
Sage remained seated.
“His name is Stanley Erickson, aged thirty-nine. He’s currently being held in solitary confinement at the federal ADX high-security facility in Colorado. He was sentenced three years ago to life in prison after killing two black prison guards in a South Carolina state prison where he had been sent after orchestrating a two-state murder spree shortly after his thirtieth birthday which included the fire-bombing of a Muslim childcare center just outside Charleston.”
The admiral’s attention was once again refocused fully upon the doctor.
American Survivalist: RACE WARS OMNIBUS: Seasons 1-5 Of An American Survivalist Series... Page 26
