by Ryan King
They also agreed to the “raid” on Fort Campbell, as soon as the resources could be gathered and the weather improved. Butch Matthews would plan and lead the operation. Reggie felt very confident he would do whatever was necessary to ensure its success.
Everything had gone as well as Reggie hoped it would until the end. TVA Director John Downing sat silent throughout the heated deliberations; but as the meeting was concluding, he took the opportunity to speak as if awakening from slumber. Reggie initially took his attitude to be indifference or negativity, but he saw with dismay that the man was utterly exhausted.
John looked at them with hallow eyes and spoke almost in a monotone, "We've managed to stabilize the dam’s power output after operating at one-third capacity, and this should extend the lifespan of the dam turbines and generators. The electricity consumption is still beyond the means of the dam to provide given the one third operation. This will continue to result in numerous delays and blackouts. In order to provide consistent service and avoid power outages, 25 to 40 percent of the current electrical output will need to be cut."
Janet asked him in a snippy voice, “And just who do you propose should be cut? Everyone needs electricity!”
John answered without changing his tone or even looking at her, "Frankly, I don’t care. That is your job. Mine is to keep the dam alive and the electricity flowing as long as I can."
After more discussion, they came to the difficult decision to slowly cut off electricity to those areas outside of the JP, unless those outsiders agreed to provide compensation. Although most felt bad about this situation, they thought it only fair since JP Citizens paid taxes to keep the electricity running, and paid the workers, as well as those who protected it all.
Anderson recommended that they attempt to announce their intentions to give people outside their borders an opportunity to comply. All agreed that only General Sampson’s territory to the south had any hopes of really working with them. Everything else was small pockets of survivors surrounded by chaos and death.
John sat quietly through all the wrangling about the electricity, but as everyone appeared to depart spoke again, "My meager staff cannot control or patrol the Land Between the Lakes Park region. Bandits and other settlers have moved in over the months, setting up camps despite the borders around the park. The border is just too long and the park is empty, no one notices when people find their way inside the park. For all practical purposes, we have lost control of all TVA assets and lands except the dam and power plants, which are now my sole and entire focus."
"I appreciate your candor," said Reggie in the stunned silence. "Under the circumstances I think you made the right decisions and settled upon the correct priority. I understand we are also starting to have a refugee problem."
John nodded and smiled humorlessly, "That is putting it rather lightly. There are several settler camps that have sprung up on our eastern border, the largest of which is near the dam, along Interstate 24."
"Yeah, I've heard about those camps," grumbled Anderson, "they grow every day if the reports are accurate."
Butch Matthews cleared his throat, "Our Guard troops along the border have already established systems to screen individuals who are useful or rightful residents in order to allow entry."
“I’m afraid that isn’t going to be enough,” said John. “Rival power groups are establishing themselves in these camps and crime is increasing drastically. Lack of food, sanitation, and disease are only compounding the potential dangers.”
“Don’t you dare say it,” said Anderson, with comprehension suddenly coming upon him.
John ignored him while everyone else looked on without understanding. “We have no choice but to take over these camps across the river and lake. I know we’re stretched thin and these are not JP Citizens; but they will certainly be JP’s problem if we don’t work with them. We need to establish order there, that is, medical support, food, water, sanitation, electricity, tents, and information. We need to bring them in or encourage them to move on, but what we can’t allow to happen is a large, desperate mass of humanity to just sit on our border.”
"Can't we use them all for manual labor on farms or such?" asked Doctor Stevens.
Reggie shook his head, "Maybe eventually, but we're not set up or ready for all of them. Letting them in now would only be taking on more mouths to feed with nothing productive for them to do."
“I feel for them,” said Simm, “but they aren’t really our responsibility.”
“I don’t give a damn if they all die tonight. That would actually be the best thing all around,” said John. “I’ve watched day after day from the dam as these groups grow and the situation gets more and more terrible. We need to fill the vacuum there before someone else does it for us. If they decided to push through the border, or take over the dam, I’m not sure we could stop them.” John went silent again while everyone looked at him with varying degrees of concern.
By the end of the meeting, they decided to take control of the three main refugee camps along the eastern border. They would destroy the other smaller camps after moving the settlers to one of the main camps. Anderson wasn’t happy because he saw before the others that only the National Guard possessed the resources and discipline to perform such a mission. In the end, he didn’t fight the decision because he knew it needed to be done.
After all, Anderson realized bitterly, there is no acceptable excuse for failing to perform one’s duty.
Chapter 9 – Over the Edge
Bethany fought to breathe. The woman's weight bore down on her chest painfully. She knew the woman had struck her on the side of the head, but there was no pain yet, only numbness. More than the screwdriver on her neck, the waves of claustrophobia nearly made her panic. She fought to relax and push her fear down enough to think.
Unlike Nathan, Bethany did not believe the woman was crazy. Bethany saw the frantic yet dead look in her eyes, a look she had seen many times before. Her own eyes might even have looked that way for a time after losing their first baby. She understood the woman was in some sort of shock. Bethany peered at the other women huddled in a frightened mass and their story became as clear as glass. This understanding helped keep the fear at bay.
Bethany looked up into her captor’s face and saw evidence of abuse. There were thick bruises around her neck and along her face, as well as poorly healed cuts on her scalp. Her nose looked recently broken.
This one was a fighter and had not submitted herself easily. She probably even wanted to die, thought Bethany.
Bethany again held out her hand to Nathan while maintaining eye contact with the woman. She was obviously a victim, and Bethany was sure she could get through to the phantom smiling down at her ghoulishly.
“Please,” said Bethany breathlessly, “do you have any food? My boys and I are so hungry and haven’t eaten for days. Can’t we just share your fire for a while and maybe a little food. There’s no need to hurt us.”
The smile vanished from the woman’s face in an instant and she looked suddenly confused. She leaned up a little, easing the pressure on Bethany’s chest and neck.
For the first time, Bethany felt her head swelling and blood running through her hair where the desperate woman had struck her. The woman leaned back slowly and looked over her shoulder at the huddled women and children around one of the makeshift tents. She pulled the screwdriver away from Bethany’s neck and used it to point back toward the fire.
Conversationally she said, “There’s some beans and franks left, as well as some Spam. It’s actually pretty good. Tastes better than it sounds,” she said with a slight laugh. The woman turned back to Bethany and the crazy look was almost gone from her eyes. She seemed to suddenly comprehend where she was and what she was doing. The woman looked down at the screwdriver in her hand and Bethany’s bloody head and said almost too softly to hear, “Sorry about that.”
Those were the last words she ever spoke. Her head suddenly disappeared in an explosion of bloody m
ist and shotgun blast. Riveted as they were with the scene between Bethany and the crazy woman, no one noticed David creep up from the woods to about fifteen feet from them both. He waited until the woman pulled the screwdriver away from his mother’s throat before shooting her at close range.
Bethany was stunned and didn’t at first understand what had happened. The woman’s headless corpse still straddled her, unmoving. David, with his smoking shotgun, walked over and placed a foot on the dead woman’s shoulder shoving her rudely off his mother. He then reached down and grasped her arm pulling her up to her shaky feet.
“Mom, are you al-?” David began, but before he could fully get the question out of his mouth Bethany reared back and slapped him full in the face with a wild roundhouse swing. David’s head snapped back both with the force of the blow and the shock of receiving it. He quickly turned back with combined confusion and anger, but before he could get his bearings, Bethany followed up with a left punch full in David’s nose which sent him to his knees with blood pouring down his face.
Nathan raced over and pulled Bethany back, but she was straining, furious with anger. Nathan had never seen his patient and calm wife in such a state. Even while thrashing in Nathan’s arms to get at her son again she screamed at him, “What’s wrong with you? What happened to my son? All you care for is blood!”
Bethany began combing through her hair pulling off her own blood along with pieces of blood, brains, and skull from the dead woman and hurled them at David in wild swings. “Well then here you are!” she screamed. “Blood and more blood and more blood! Are you satisfied?”
Nathan finally succeeded in dragging her away and was on the verge of slapping Bethany if he couldn’t get her to calm down. Who knew what the other women were doing during all of this. Nathan only hoped Joshua was watching out for them. “Bethany, stop it! For God’s sake stop it!”
Bethany’s eyes suddenly focused on Nathan’s with fierce anger. “You’re happy he’s this way! You want him to be a killer! Well congratulations, look at what a wonderful son you’ve raised!” Nathan started to grab her more firmly to shake her, but she planted her palms roughly in his chest and pushed away, wheeling without another word to walk over to the group of frightened women.
Nathan turned back to David, but found him nowhere in sight. Joshua was suddenly in front of him. “He ran that way,” pointing back toward the highway.
“You stay with your mother,” Nathan said roughly and for the first time noticed the incessant barking of the dog. “And shut that damn dog up before it draws more attention,” he added as he took off at a run after David.
Nathan was afraid his son would just keep running and he knew the chances of finding him in the woods at night would be slim, but he soon saw David’s tall muscular form ahead in the dim light with his face against a tree. Nathan slowed to a walk and approached his son cautiously. David was breathing in great gasps of air, Nathan wasn’t sure that he wouldn’t take off again.
“Son,” Nathan began in a quiet voice, “she didn’t mean it. It’s stress and fatigue and months on the road. She didn’t mean it.”
“But she did mean it!” screamed David as he whirled on Nathan with anguish in his face. “Dad, I was in goddamn high school! I had a life! I was going to get a football scholarship and go to college! I didn’t ask for any of this shit!” David suddenly dropped his head and began to sob. “I was happy,” he said softly. “I didn’t know it, but I was happy, and I want it back the way it was.”
Nathan’s heart ached and he suddenly despised himself. Bethany was right, he had at least helped make David this way. David had always been the fierce fighter and competitor, but when the world ended, Nathan turned him into what he needed him to be...and he needed him to help protect them. He did it he thought out of the necessity to simply survive, but had he somehow forgotten that he was dealing with just a boy? His own son?
Nathan walked over and placed his arms around David. He couldn’t remember how long it had been since he had hugged him and wasn’t sure if David would accept this show of love, but David wildly grasped him, sinking to his knees and began crying all the more.
For the first time since N-Day, Nathan doubted what he was doing. Was survival worth this? Maybe it would have been better to have died months ago, true to themselves. Uncorrupted and unconquered.
Holding his crying and heartbroken son in his arms, Nathan looked up into the clear stars and asked for…well, for anything.
Chapter 10 – Decisions
Harold Buchanan rubbed his head and looked down again at the sheet of figures on his desk. He still could not force himself to use the Prison Warden’s large office, even though the old man ran off over two months ago and was unlikely to return. Harold felt moving out of his small office into the larger one was to accept the fact that none of this was temporary, but in his heart he knew better. He looked out the window at the rolling, wooded, snow covered hills of eastern Kentucky and with a sigh accepted that the world had gone straight to hell.
Jim Meeks lumbered into his office and collapsed on the couch across from Harold while pulling his baton out of its holster, laying it beside him. The couch groaned in protest as Jim’s gigantic frame settled into a comfortable position. Harold looked up and just shook his head.
Jim smiled grimly twirling the baton in his hands, “As bad as all that?”
“I’m not sure what to do, Jim." Harold admitted running his hand through thinning hair. "We’re losing guards and staff every day and the inmates know it. We have more attacks by the day and they’re getting as desperate as we are. Also, I don’t think the electricity or water is going to come back on. And even if the Governor had any instructions for little old Hancock State Penitentiary, how would he let us know?”
Jim nodded gravely, “Yeah, I talked to those National Guard boys watching the Food Lion in town, and they haven’t heard anything in over four months. They’re only stickin’ around because they’re local and get first dibs on food. All the others in the unit have taken off including their commander. Just a few left now and they've stopped accepting money, will only take fuel or ammo now.”
Harold felt the weight of what must be done. He'd said he didn't know what to do, but he did. Time was clearly against them. Under such circumstances somebody was going to make a mistake. In Harold’s experience mistakes in a prison led directly to death as sure as night followed day.
He was able to keep some of the guards and staff around by allowing them to move their families onto the prison grounds. This arrangement provided the families greater protection from the increased acts of robbery and violence outside the prison. It also meant those guards were less likely to run off, or not show for work. Also, Harold could work them longer hours, but that came with a cost he knew only so well. He had lost his left eye working a triple shift at a penitentiary in Kansas many years ago because he had not been alert to the ever-present danger of working near the most violent and dangerous men a society could produce.
Time was not their friend, and Harold felt each passing minute increase the load on his shoulders.
“Jim, we have to do something soon, before more guards run off or the inmates get organized to make a move. Also, we can't keep feeding them and us even with the Food Lion,” said Harold.
“What are you thinking?” asked Jim.
Harold hesitated. What he was contemplating certainly exceeded his authority as Chief of Prison Security, but he had already assumed the role as acting warden. He also knew that if things ever returned to normal, they would likely put him in prison for the rest of his life, but he felt certain they would never see “normal” again. With that thought, he made up his mind.
“Jim, have all the inmates locked down in their cells as soon as possible, even the trustees and anyone in the infirmary. After that, I want to meet with all the guards and staff and tell them my thoughts.”
“You sure you want everyone?” Jim asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Yes, all th
e way down to janitorial crew, but no family members. This is going to be official. Maybe the last official thing we do here.”
Jim started to say something and then thought better of it, lifting his giant frame off the couch. “All right boss, I’ll let you know when we have everyone in the cafeteria. You need anything else from me?”
Harold smiled, “No…thanks. I appreciate it.”
Jim slid the baton back into his belt and walked out closing the door on his troubled friend.
*******
An hour later, Harold looked out over a frighteningly small number of worried faces.
“Is this everyone?” he asked Jim incredulously.
“Yes. Walter Burton, Joe Kilzney, and their families took off right after I met with you. Wouldn’t stay for the meeting. Said they were done.”
“All right then,” said Harold trying not to let the distress show on his face. He looked around the room taking inventory of what he had. Will there be enough to pull this off? he thought.
“First of all, let me start by saying that I appreciate all of you staying on as long as you have, but we all know things are getting worse. We have to do something soon. I have come up with a course of action I feel is our only option given the circumstances. This decision is mine, and I accept full responsibility; but I’ll need your help in carrying it out.” Harold almost added that their cooperation was voluntary, but that would be stating the obvious. He had everyone's attention he saw. They're smart people, they know we have to do something.
"We need to close the prison and dispose of the inmates as soon as possible. I want to adhere at least to the semblance of law as much as we can. We also have a responsibility not to release violent criminals back out into society, even though that society is disintegrating." No response yet, just a room full of tired eyes looking at him expressionlessly. "But I think men can change given the right circumstances. I've always hoped so anyway, else why would we do this job?"
