Alea Jacta Est: A Novel of the Fall of America (Future History of America Book 1) (49 page)

“Oh yeah,”
said Hoss with a laugh.

“Let’s get
the rest of that dehydrated food from the camping section and clean that out
really well.  If someone comes back, they may take it before we get the
chance.”

“You got
it,” replied Hoss.  The two scavengers grabbed their carts and went back into
the ravaged store.  They quickly loaded up the carts with the last of the
usable foodstuffs and camping gear then did one last pass through the
outdoorsman’s section.  The last of the fishing gear, mostly poles and tackle,
went into the carts along with all the fishing line they could carry.  Looters
evidently didn’t care much for hunting and fishing. 

After the
camping and fishing gear had been taken, Erik had a brainstorm.  “I just had an
idea…come on, follow me over to the sports gear.”

“What are
we doing over here?” asked Hoss, growing increasingly tense with every minute
they spent in the store.  “Feels like we’re grave robbing.” 

Erik hefted
a baseball bat, a solid wooden one.  “This is what some of the attackers were
using during the Battle.  Pretty effective too,” he said, gently rubbing his
still sore right shoulder.  “Come on, let’s grab ‘em all—if everyone can’t have
a gun or bow, they’ll have clubs!”

After the
fifteen or so wooden bats were loaded in the carts along with the dozen
aluminum ones, Erik got them to take what was left of the ice hockey pads and
baseball catcher’s gear.  Helmets and all.  The looters hadn’t done so thorough
a job of stealing this type of equipment as they had with the sports clothing
and shoes.  Either it wasn’t flashy enough or people just didn’t expect to play
baseball or hockey any time soon.

“Why are we
taking this gear?  You gonna start up a bush league or something?” asked Hoss
as he dropped an armload of expensive hockey upper torso and shoulder pad sets
into a cart.

Erik said
nothing but found an XL hockey torso set and put it on.  “Hit me.”

“What?”

“Hit me—hard
as you can.  With that bat.  Swing it at my chest.  Come on, trust me.”  Hoss
swung a bat into Erik’s chest with a grunt.  Erik crumpled and fell backwards
but got back up immediately, trying to catch his breath. 

“This shit
is body armor, Hoss.  The guys who play ice hockey would
kill
themselves
if they didn’t have stuff like this on when they crashed into each other at
thirty miles an hour.  This is pure gold!  It won’t stop a bullet…but for hand
to hand fighting, this stuff will be great.”

Hoss
grinned as Erik took off the reinforced pads.  “I’ll be damned…”

Erik
finished taking off his armor and tossed it in the cart.  “Come on, let’s get
the hell out of here before we get company.  The sooner we’re back at the
complex the better.”

“Amen,
brother!” replied Hoss.

Once they
were back at the vehicles, Hoss stopped them from leaving.  “I don’t wanna just
roar out of here.  I’ve got this feeling that we’re being watched, and I can’t
shake it.”

“Well, do
you think someone could stop us?  Let’s just floor it and race home.”

“Erik, I
ain’t got three tons of steel around my ass on the bike.  Someone with half a
turd of luck could shoot me dead on.  Now, think we can get to the roof?  I
wanna check out the lay of the land first.”

Erik pulled
out a pair of the newly liberated binoculars, shucking the packaging and
tossing it aside.  Littering laws were a thing of the past.  They found a roof
access ladder hanging off the side of the building near the fire door.  By
climbing on the SUV they could jump and reach the hanging ladder then pull
themselves up it to the roof, some thirty feet up.

Erik went
up first, then helped pull Hoss, huffing and puffing up over the lip of the
roof and onto the hot tarpaper and gravel surface.  They rested for a few seconds
and then cautiously worked their way across to the front of the huge building,
crawling on hands and knees to keep a low profile.

Halfway
across they saw the smoke.  Moving quicker, they got to the front and dropped
down to a completely prone position, peering over the edge of the roof towards
the east and the interstate.  There was a shopping center just across the
street.  There sat the Home Depot and Wal-Mart, a looted strip mall and a few
fast food joints.  Thick black smoke was billowing out of the Burger King in
the parking lot.

“Soups on,”
said Hoss dryly.

“See
anyone?” asked Erik, scanning the far off parking lot with his new binoculars.

“No…” Hoss
said, using his own pair, a camouflaged set.  “Wait…
there
, coming out of
Wally-World…see ‘em?”

Erik
shifted his gaze.  “Yep.  Looks like three, no, I count four now.  Dragging
bags of something behind ‘em.  Looters.”

“Like us.”

Erik looked
at him for a second.  “No, not like us.  They’re probably stealing tennis
shoes.  We’ve got shit for an army.  We’re here for survival against guys like
them.”  Hoss chuckled.  Erik looked again. 

“Look at
that…in front of the store.  They got four cars line up, backed up to the
front, trunks open.  Pieces of shit, though…all shot up.”  Erik scanned the
parking lot. 

“Uh oh,
there’s another car at the front of the parking lot.  I see two guys inside.  
Behind the pine tree…see?  There’s a gun sticking out the passenger window.”

“They got
religion,” muttered Hoss.

“They’re
organized too.”

Hoss
checked out the street back to the main drag.  “Good thing we waited…lookie
there.”

Erik
followed his gaze and spotted another car in the intersection.  There was a man
sitting on the roof of the car with a large rifle across his lap, drinking what
looked like a can of beer.  A driver sat at the wheel reading something.

“Scouts,”
said Hoss.

“Good thing
we came in the back way.  If we had parked out front, they would have had our
asses good.”

“Yup.  I
think we should wait and see what goes on…”  Squealing tires from Wal-Mart
announced they wouldn’t have to wait long.

“There they
go,” remarked Hoss, watching the four cars swerve out of the parking lot, form
a line on the road and head for the scout at the main intersection.  The scout
started up and after the gunman got inside led the four loot cars west towards
downtown Sarasota.  The car with the gunmen in the parking lot caught up and
formed the rearguard.  Erik could see the guns sweeping the sides of the road
as the little convey drove away.

“There’s
some serious dudes, right there,” he said.  “They’re not just a bunch of
gang-bangers.  They knew what they wanted, took just that and left.  Very
ordered.”

“Sounds
like what we should do.  Let’s get the hell out of here,” suggested Hoss. 

ERIK
STOOD ON the ‘Common’, the patch of ground in the center of Colonial Gardens
and watched his troops.  He smiled, thinking of how odd it was that he, a
civilian, considered these people in front of him his
troops
.  The
Battle had done wonders for the volunteer rate.  Despite the fact that the
families of the men who died treated him like the very Devil himself, about
half of the available men in the complex had joined up, willing to put their
lives on the line to defend the entire community.  Their cadre of
guards-in-training had tripled.

As Erik watched his select group of
swordsmen practice the moves he had just demonstrated with his
katana
,
he came to the conclusion that they needed a title.  There was really nothing
he or anyone else could award them, they were really just trying to survive. 
They didn’t have the luxury of medals or prizes. 
Perhaps a pair of
binoculars or a bow and some arrows?
He asked himself.  He and Hoss had
brought back a truckload of supplies.  And other raiders had been dispatched. 
There would be more loot coming in soon.

Idly, he plucked at the bandage still
wrapped tightly around his lower torso.  The wounds from the Battle were
healing nicely, but they itched now, a handful of days into the healing
process. 

He had started with three men wielding
his swords during the Battle.  One, a man named Roger Pansk had been killed. 
Erik had cleaned the Viking sword Roger had used so effectively and replaced it
in his collection, then later loaned it to Hoss.  The two other men who had
borrowed his ninja swords—a shorter, straight version of his
katana
—had
both survived the fight. 

During the memorial ceremony the day
following the Battle, Erik had made a great show of recognizing those who had
willingly put their lives on the line for the protection of the complex.  As a
result, he bestowed on the two swordsmen his swords as gifts, one warrior to
another.  The two men were beaming from ear to ear for about 36 hours after
that.  They were warriors, not merely a financial advisor and a college student
anymore.  The swords they wore on their backs proclaimed them to be veterans. 
They had seen the elephant and survived to tell the tale.

The stories had already started, Erik
remembered with a frown.  People—mostly Hoss, Erik figured—had started talking
almost as soon as the ceremony for the dead was over.  People looked at him
differently now.  Especially after his idea to raid the sports store had panned
out so well and swelled the stock of their armory. 

Hoss had told the story of how Erik had
waded into the front line of the attacking street toughs, his sword flashing
like lightening and cutting down thugs left and right, fighting his way towards
the bikers who were smashing their way through the rear of the attackers.  The
big biker took especial delight in telling the story to the children of the
complex, much to their parents delight, as he usually toned down the violence
and made it sound more like St. George and the Dragon, then the dirty, violent,
half-crazed street brawl Erik remembered.  Besides, it kept the youngsters
entertained—something very hard to do now that TV was a thing of the past.

Erik cleared his head and focused again
on his fledgling fighters.  His sword collection contained twelve serviceable
weapons.  He actually had sixteen swords, but four were too poorly made as
replicas to be used in actual combat.  Erik watched the ten men—including his
two veterans—move roughly as a group, stepping forward and swinging down with
their quickly made wooden practice-swords.  They didn’t have enough skill or
confidence yet to use live steel.  The last thing anyone needed was one of the
recruits cutting off an arm or hand of another before they even saw their first
fighting. 

He watched the different men and their
abilities, trying to figure out who would use which of his swords.  He had a
list in his head and every time they practiced, he reconsidered which man
should get what sword.  Some would have replica Roman swords, some the longer,
slightly more curved samurai swords, and the rest would wield his Medieval
European one-handed swords of one design or another.  Erik’s two massive
Scottish claymores were not to be given to anyone.  He had to find someone
large enough and skilled enough to use the two-handed brutes without killing
himself or his comrades, first. 

Step, swing, recover.  Step,
counter-swing, recover.  Step, stab, backpedal, slash, turn, swing, recover. 
The drill continued for over an hour, until each and every man was sweaty and
muscles were fatigued as the heavy wooden swords swished through the air.  They
had been made from the scrap lumber at the construction site the day after the
battle.  Erik and Ted did the cutting and sawing—again using left behind tools—of
the models, then the recruits made their own swords.  Each one was to learn to
respect his sword from the start.  Erik was as relentless in his sword training
as Ted was with his physical conditioning and all around training of the
guards.  He walked up and down the lines, smacking shoulders and tapping heads
with his own wooden training sword whenever someone’s stance was off.  If it
hurt in practice, it would kill in battle.

As the men rested in the shade of one of
the larger buildings, Erik examined some plywood sheets abandoned by the construction
workers a week and a half before.  His two veterans joined him, catching their
breath.  They were the only ones who figured they had a right to be close to
Erik.  The Duke.  The rest of the squad still felt like awkward students.  They
hung back and watched.

“Whatcha lookin’ at, sir?” asked Alan
Jakes, the college student turned sword fighter.

“Dammit, don’t call me ‘sir’,” said Erik
over his shoulder in a grizzled voice that belonged to a much older man.  “I’m
only two years older than you, Alan.”

“Sorry, Duke,” grinned the college man.

Erik sighed and ignored the title. 
“Alright people, bring it in!” he called out.

After gathering the students around him,
he showed them a few more moves with his
katana
. 

He pushed the swordsmen-in-training harder
than the regular guards who were being trained by Ted on how to use the surplus
shotguns and pistols he had brought back the week before from the Sheriff’s
department.  They had added the odd assortment of handguns and shotguns the
gang-bangers had left behind after the Battle to the Sheriff’s department stash
and the “liberated” handful of .22s from the sports store, effectively doubling
the Colonial Gardens arsenal. 

Hoss’s bikers, increasingly known as the
Cavalry, knew how to use their guns, and so they helped out the new guards as
they could.  It was a rough and tumble training process, designed to train as
many people as well as possible, as fast as possible. 

The Battle had scared everyone.  They
had decided to lock up all the loot from the Sports Giant raiding trips in the
‘Keep’.  It was on the second floor of the most central apartment building. 
Spare keys were found in the office, so Lentz, Bernie, and Erik all had keys to
access the storage rooms. 

Erik dismissed his men after they all performed
the ritual bow and cool-down stretch that Erik had learned back in his college
karate class and later reinforced from his in-laws.  The rest of the students
jealously watched Peter and Alan head home carrying their gleaming ninja swords
which they had brought to the training session.  They carried their real swords
with them everywhere.  The others carried their practice swords with them
everywhere.  It was a status symbol now.  The people of the complex could spot
on sight someone who had pledged to put his life on the line by being a
swordsman.  They would be the front line.  The Guards were there for defense. 
The swordsmen were there for
offense
.

Erik saw this and commented, “Soon, when
you graduate from this little school we’ve set up, you’ll have your
own
swords.”  Faces lit up.  The group dispersed, walking proudly home or to other
duties, wooden swords hanging from belts or across backs.  A wooden sword
wouldn’t deter an attacker, after all it was just a glorified stick.  But
someone trained in how to use that stick could bring a man down pretty quick,
nonetheless.  One couldn’t cut an arm or a leg off with a stick, but you could
bring an attacker to his knees by breaking an ankle or a wrist.  Erik figured a
well placed shot to the head might render an attacker unconscious, stick or not.

Erik’s smile vanished as he turned
towards his apartment.  He saw a woman watching him from across the lake.  It
was one of the new widows, still grieving after the Battle.  Erik couldn’t
quite see her face at that distance but he could tell from her stare that she
was not happy.  Her husband, one of the men who had volunteered to help defend
the complex, had been slain in the fighting.  She, like the other women and
their families, blamed Erik solely for the deaths of the four guards who fell. 
They were solidly under Lentz’s influence now.

Archie Townsend’s wife—widow—and her two
girls left yesterday
,
Erik remembered.  Ellen couldn’t cope with losing her husband of ten years, so
she packed up her kids and some of their things and drove to the ‘safe zone’
set up by the National Guard at the local high school.  Her departure had been
the first in nearly a week. 

After the initial exodus of residents
following the terrorist attacks and the riots, those who were left behind
hunkered down and waited.  Erik figured there would be a few more to leave
after the Battle and its implications sunk in and he had been right.  He
figured by the end of the week a few more people, mostly the ones who thought
everything would return to normal soon, would leave for the ‘safe zones’.

He watched the woman out of the corner
of his eyes as he made his way around the pond towards his own building.  When
he came within speaking distance, she turned and ran.  That was the downside to
the Battle, he had quickly realized.  If the people around him didn’t suddenly
idolize him for being some kind of hero—thanks to Hoss—they thought of him as
some kind of cruel warmonger and looked on him in fear or suspicion.  In the
worst cases, the widows looked at him with hate filled, bloodshot eyes.

Erik had made personal visits to the
women who had lost husbands during the Battle the day after, but found that
Lentz had beat him to the punch.  After Lentz’s talks, they had no desire to be
with Erik.  He wondered if it was because Lentz was purposely trying to sour
their sentiments towards him or whether it was just too bitter a topic for them
to bring up again so soon.  Either way, Erik was alternately praised or shunned
by different people in the community. 

He was starting to notice that the
people who supported him during his term in office, as he thought of it, were
more likely to call him Duke.  Those who supported Lentz—the peace-freaks, as
Ted called them—generally tolerated Erik, but that was all.  More and more
people were noticing that the complex was quickly dividing into two factions:
those who followed (or worshipped) Erik and those who followed Lenz.  The
Bikers, solidly in Erik’s camp, made the numbers nearly equal.  Among just
residents, however, Lentz had an advantage in numbers.

“Erik!” Alfonse’s shrill voice called
out behind him as he reached his building.  Erik turned to see Alfonse running
along the concrete path from the leasing office and pool deck, a sheet of paper
in his hand.

“What is it?” asked Erik, hand already
on his sword.

“I just got a news flash from Beth
Winsmore—she’s got radio duty this afternoon.”

Erik grinned.  “I’m glad to see the
system is starting to work.  What’s up?” he asked, hand coming off the sword
hilt.

“The President signed an Executive Order
this morning granting Homeland Security a blank check.  They can do whatever
they want to get the country back in order.  It’s scary shit man—the British
guy on the short-wave…he said they suspended the Constitution!”  Alfonse paused
for a deep breath, his dark skin shiny with sweat.  “It’s martial law, man! 
Can they do that?”

“Does it matter?  Who’s going to sue?”
Erik asked sadly, trying to realize the implications of what Alfonse just
reported.  “Jesus…martial law.  Things are going downhill fast, man.”  Erik and
Alfonse shared a worried look.  “The meeting tonight is going to be pretty
interesting, I think,” said Erik.  He couldn’t wait to see what kind of a spin
Lentz put on
this
.

“National Guard coming in!” someone called
out from the other side of the leasing office, near the gate.  People in
hearing distance put down tools and stopped whatever work they were doing to
rush to the gate.  National Guard trucks carried supplies and more importantly,
news.  News of the outside world.

Erik raised
his eyebrows at Alfonse and jogged over to the gate.  The small crowd parted as
he approached and the way was cleared for him to go up the ladder.  He went up
and found himself on top of the new wooden platform riding the back side of the
Colonial Gardens gate.  He peered out over the edge, watching the National
Guard truck roll to a stop. 

The driver
got out and walked over to the gate while a few soldiers climbed down from the
back of the canvas topped vehicle.  Erik took notice that the soldiers all
carried loaded M-4 carbines.  They were constantly scanning different
directions, looking for immediate threats.  It was another early afternoon
without power and the sun was beating down again.  In the distance, the first
clouds of the afternoon thunderstorm were forming.  The sweltering heat
promised a mighty storm.  Other than the incessant buzz of insects in the humid
air, the only sound was the crunch of the soldier's boots on the crushed shell
driveway.