Eli rolled the man over on his back and exclaimed, “Damn, look at his face – what did that?”
Geram walked up behind the three men and offered, “Probably Sasha. She was in the house when we got there. Lord, she got him good.”
The man’s face was barely recognizable, but Eli leaned in close with his flashlight nonetheless. He studied the features for a moment before whispering, “It can’t be.”
“What? Who is it?” his brother replied.
“This is Sam Coleman, from across the creek. He has the orchard over on Smithtown Road. He must have known that church was tonight and thought we would all be away. He – he looks pretty bad. He’s lost a lot of blood. I’m not sure he’ll make it.”
“Good,” Jake replied, “Let him die.”
***
Sam Coleman died not long after they found him. The Richardson twins carried Sam out of the field and laid his body across the back of Eli’s horse. They carried him to the Thames’ front porch and left him with the other bodies. Mr. Richardson had already sent notice to the sheriff, and he had promised to be by in the next day or so. He was on the other side of the county investigating yet another home invasion that had gone awry.
Jake and Geram shook hands and exchanged farewells with the twins before leaving for Jake’s house. As they walked back home Jake finally broke the silence.
“I’m sorry about how I reacted back there. It was out of my character.”
“You don’t owe me an apology. I probably would’ve done much worse.”
“Maybe I don’t, but I still feel the need.”
“Look brother, I know this is new for you. You’re doing a lot better than I did my first time. I know the full weight of it hasn’t come to bear yet, but it will, and you’ll find some way to cope. The important thing is you’ve realized your mistakes. That man, Sam, he lost his direction. A year ago, if you would’ve told him he’d be dead in a field because he attacked one his neighbors, he probably would’ve swung at you.”
“I thought it’d be different here. I thought people would stand by each other.”
“I don’t know if anywhere is safe anymore.”
“We can’t stay, not anymore. This is going to hit everyone hard. Trust’ll be lost. We might as well be on our own.”
“You’re right.”
“Three days. For three days we’ll try and get some rest and gather as many supplies as we can. We’ll pay our respects, have a service. After that, we leave.”
“Where you want to go, Jake?”
“The only place I can think of that might be safe.”
Geram smiled weakly and nodded in agreement as he draped his arm around Jake’s neck.
Ch apter 9
Senator Ames
Decatur, Mississippi
The tiny café nestled in the middle of the quaint downtown district bustled with activity. Patrons crowded into the cramped booths and shoulder up to the counter. Others leaned against the walls and sipped their coffee while they made idle conversation with their friends and neighbors. This was no social gathering, however. The café was full for one reason. The restaurant’s generator was the most reliable in town. No one wanted to miss the broadcast.
The café’s menu had been reduced to only the most spartan of offerings. Stale coffee, fresh milk, yard eggs, smoked ham and biscuits were all that was available. Most of the patrons did not seem to care, though. The meal came with a sense of normalcy that they all dearly missed.
The quaint café was one of the few remaining businesses in town, as if Decatur had much to offer before. Its population had been less than fifteen hundred before the world imploded. There were probably less than a thousand residents remaining, though. The ones who chose to stay certainly did not fault those that left. Life had gotten much harder in Decatur, but the people who remained were strong willed, and looked out for each other. Fortunately, folks had managed to pull together. The town was probably more close-knit than ever before.
Decatur, Mississippi was named after Stephen Decatur, Jr., the youngest man to ever reach the rank of captain in the history of the U.S. Navy. Stephen Decatur fought in the Quasi-War, the Barbary Wars and the War of 1812. He received numerous awards and accolades. He was dubbed the Terror of the Foe. One of his feats during a battle near Tripoli was described as, “the most bold and daring act of the Age,” by Lord Horatio Nelson. Decatur the city had quickly learned that, if they were to survive, they would need to develop the attributes of their namesake.
The people of Decatur waited anxiously this morning, like many across the nation, to hear the words of another man that they hoped would be a terror to some very different foes. The nation had been beset by the foes of sovereign default, of disastrous foreign policies and endless wars, and the foes of incremental fascism.
The administration had utterly failed to guide the nation through gentle, economic landing. Instead, the country had experienced a violent crash. Although extremely popular before, the president’s approval ratings were now horribly and permanently dismal. People were suffering. They longed for a champion.
Senator Ames had been a relatively unknown politician from southern Ohio. He had served one term in the House prior to running for Senate. He had been largely ignored by the political and media establishment prior to his presidential bid because his strong, libertarian ideologies were not popular in the Washington circles. One might even argue that he was an anathema of sorts. But those same ideologies that had made him a Washington outsider now caused him to resonate with a public tired of government largesse and hungry for another way. He was young, handsome, articulate and dazzlingly charismatic. His powerful, rousing oratories seemed to energize crowds everywhere he spoke.
Senator Ames stepped onto the scene under the radar and completely blindsided the establishment. Voters flocked to his simple honesty, and he absolutely annihilated his competition. By mid-February, he had won all but one of the primaries. By the month’s end, all of the other hopefuls had withdrawn from the race and begrudgingly endorsed him. The political machine and its allies in the media scrambled to find any skeletons in his closet, but there seemed to be none. He was hailed as the last, honest man in politics. His path to the presidency was not inevitable, but it appeared that limited government advocates and freedom lovers finally had a fighting chance. That was of course, before the world changed.
First, Europe collapsed into the old hatreds and nationalists tendencies that had gripped it for centuries. It was hardly noticeable at first, but then it began to accelerate exponentially. Next, Japan defaulted on several major obligations and spiraled into hyperinflation.
With the world quickly disintegrating around it, Turkey left NATO and reclaimed the entirety of Cyprus as its own. It then invaded Bulgaria, Armenia, Syria and half of Iran. Iran’s remaining half had fallen into a bloody revolution that led to the slaughter of tens of thousands, and the rise of an even more ruthless regime than before. Israel was surrounded by complete and total chaos. They had nuclear weapons aimed in all directions, but particularly at Ankara. Russia began to engulf Georgia and the other eastern bloc states. The world had fallen into complete chaos.
Then the inevitable happened, the tentacles that had been strangling the rest of the world finally spread across the Atlantic. The troubled banking system in the states was already in total disarray, artificially subsisting on fiat created at will. When the sovereign defaults of Europe began, it was all too much and too fast for the Federal Reserve to counter. New bank failures were announced daily. The FDIC’s insurance fund was emptied overnight. People were unable to withdraw any amount of money. Bank holidays became more common than days that they were actually open for business.