Alea Jacta Est: A Novel of the Fall of America (Future History of America Book 1) (24 page)

“Are you okay?” he said in a breathless
whisper, his hands going gently to either side of her terror-white face.  She
blinked, starting to shake.  Erik grabbed his young wife in an enormous bear
hug.  She clung to him then, feeling his arms encircle her in safety, closing
her eyes against the sight of the dead man.  She could still see her husband
striding forward with that sword flashing in the light like some sort of
avenging Angel, literally
tearing
through the man she thought was about
to…

After a few shuddering breaths, Brin
fought back the tears and whispered, “Y-y-yes…Oh
God
, Erik…that man…he
jumped over…came out of thin air from the wall—Susan!” Brin gasped.

Both of them crouched next to the
moaning form of Susan, curled up on the grass next to the parking lot.  Erik
immediately noticed she was alive. Brin moved to help her friend up.  Susan
blinked, a painful looking swelling already forming on her forehead.  Ted
suddenly appeared at her side, surprising Erik. 

“Susan!  Are you okay—here, let me…no, I
got you, that’s it,
easy
now…” the ex-Marine had holstered his sidearm
and was gently helping his wife sit up in the warm grass.  He quickly checked
her over for other wounds, but found none save the nasty bump on her head.  He
hugged Susan tightly, “Thank God…”

Erik looked around and blinked in the
sun.  Fifteen yards away a body lay in the parking lot, dressed in correctional
institution coveralls.  It was slumped over, face down in the gravel arms and
legs flailed about in all directions.  Erik turned his head back to Ted.  He
raised one eyebrow and jerked his head towards the second inmate.

“Every Marine a rifleman, Erik,” said
Ted with a wry grin over the top of Susan’s head, buried in his chest.  “…or
should I say
Erik the Red
?  That was some fancy sword-work there, man. 
Jesus
Christ
,” said Ted, glancing down at the still twitching corpse at Erik’s
feet.  The red splattered Japanese sword jutted out of the man’s neck at a
gruesome angle.  “That thing
is
sharp.”

A moan from the man Ted had shot
interrupted Erik’s reply.  Ted abruptly left Susan to Brin’s care and strolled
purposely towards the man he had taken down with a double-tap to the center of
his back. 

Erik looked at Brin, who nodded in
acknowledgement that she was fine.  He reached down and with a grimace and
slightly shaking hands, jerked free his
katana
with a sickening
squelch.  He stepped over the body and put out of his mind the screaming voice
that was yelling over and over again in shock that he had just
killed
a
man.  He bellowed back inside his mind that he had just dispatched an animal. 
Not a man.

As he jogged to catch up with Ted,
Erik’s inner voice roared,
He was about to attack Brin!
  The lament over
the dead man and his acts vanished in the silence after his last forceful
thought. 
There’ll be time to dwell on what happened later.  This son of a
bitch is still alive…

The wounded man rolled over with a
pathetic whine and lay in a pool of his own blood, squinting up at the sun,
approaching mid-morning.  “Aaaah…I knew we should have taken him earlier…” he
groaned to himself.

Ted stopped a few feet away, gun
conspicuously drawn and pointed at the ground.  He addressed the wounded
convict with a tone of voice reserved for his police duties and life in the
Corps.  It called for automatic and unquestioning obedience. 

“What were you doing here, asshole?” 
Ted’s voice was hard with anger and the promise further violence.

The man moved his head, a visibly
painful motion, and grinned with bloody teeth.  “
Fuck you
…you fuckin’
Pig
…”
he hissed, spitting blood.  “Yeah…I seen
you
at the jail, man…”

Erik joined the conversation, walking up
to and past Ted, the once gleaming
katana
now streaked and coated in a faint sheen of the other
convict’s bright red lifeblood. 

“The man asked you a question,” Erik
said, surprised at the steel in his own voice.  As if on impulse, he moved his
left arm forward, bringing the bloody point of his curved sword to the throat
of the convict.  “You’ll
answer
it.”  There was no doubt that silence
was
not
an option.

The convict swallowed in surprise and
feebly tried to move away with his crippled body.  “Holy
shit
, man!” he
said, gasping and choking on his own fear at the sight of the recently blooded
sword pointing towards his throat ready to impale him.  The man holding it,
about the same size as his former companion, looked mad enough to use it as he
threatened.  Some blood ran down the blade and began to wet the wounded man’s
throat.

“We…we seen this guy stealing food from
a…a restaurant and…” he coughed a bit, struggling to breathe.  The bullets had
punctured one of his lungs, letting it fill with blood.

“
And
?” asked Ted, kneeling down
beside the man and looking up at Erik, who pulled the
katana
back and
watched.

The wounded man, seeing the sword
removed, gained some courage and attempted to stall until Ted slowly and
deliberately put his pistol to the side of the swarthy man’s head. 

“You’re going to die one way or the
other.  I suggest you tell me what I want before you meet your Maker.  Maybe
it’ll go easier on you.”  Ted suggested.

“But…” the man protested weakly, trying
to eye the gun and Ted at the same time.

“But
nothing
…you attacked my
wife, you scum sucking bastard.  You helped kill my friends yesterday during
the prison break.  You
will
die—either by bleeding to death or when I
pull this trigger and spray your
fucking
brains across the parking
lot…Now
answer
me!” Ted growled just loud enough for the convict to
hear, pushing the barrel of his pistol painfully into the flesh on the side of
the convicts head.  Ted’s forehead shone with sweat to match that of the
wounded man, dying on the ground next to him.  Behind them, Erik only saw the
bleeding intruder stiffen in fear as Ted kneeled over him.

The writhing convict winced in fear.  Finally
the escapee gathered his dimming wits and spoke in a faint whisper. 
“L-l-look…we followed that guy…” he said, feebly pointing with a bloodied hand
over his shoulder towards Stan’s building.  “We seen ‘im…had food…we didn’t
have any…”

“So you were gonna take it from him, let
his family
starve
, huh?” said Ted, twisting the pistol barrel.  A
trickle of blood formed around the fresh scratch.    

The convict tried to nod and moan at the
same time, his voice fading fast.  “Can’t see, man…it’s co-co-cold…” he
coughed, wincing.  “We wanted his…woman…but found those…two…where…who…”

“Are there any more?  Any more
escapees? 
Answer me!”
screamed Ted, grabbing the man’s shirt collar
with one hand, jerking his body painfully up off the pavement, keeping the gun
on his forehead with his other hand.

“Yeah…we…got…who…” the man’s head lolled
back, his eyes fluttered.

Ted let his body drop to the ground with
a bloody splat.  He listened as the last breath leaked out in a gurgle from the
man he shot. 

“Is he…?” asked Erik, peering over Ted’s
shoulder. A quick check of his pulse revealed the convict was dead.

Ted stood up and holstered his pistol. 
Getting his emotions under control, he answered, “Yeah, he’s dead.”  Ted
noticed the pale look on Erik’s face.  The younger man was drained and starting
to get the shakes. 

“We got some things to take care of. 
And
you
gotta get inside.”

Erik looked at him suspiciously, feeling
like a leaf in the wind.  “Why?”

“Ever kill a man before?”

Erik went silent, looked down at his
still bloody sword.  With a morbid fascination, he turned the curved blade in
his hand back and forth, watching how the color of the bloody sheen changed in
the sunlight.  He idly wondered how many times in the past this same sword had
spilled blood and taken lives on the other side of the world.  “What stories
you could tell,” he whispered.

In all his survival preparation and
disaster planning, even with all that he had read on riots and post-disaster
chaos, he had never imagined himself in this situation. 
I killed that
man…no—not a man.  He was a beast…he was…someone’s son…or brother…he—

“I’m taking that as a no,” muttered
Ted.  He gripped Erik’s arm to steady the bigger man.

Erik looked up, his mind fighting
itself.  “No…”  Then with more force, “No,
no
!  Of
course
not. 
Look, Ted…I mean I’ve read about this…I read a lot about it…but I never…I
mean…you’re not going to arrest me or anything…are you?”

Ted moved his hand to Erik’s shoulder, a
calming gesture.  “It’s okay…I don’t think the law is in all that much effect
at the moment.  I’m not going to arrest you.  That was a clear cut case of
defense if ever I saw one.”

Erik relaxed a little.

“No, I don’t think the law is going to
help us.  Hell, I
am
the law…or
was
…I don’t know anymore.  I
think there’s a new law we’re going to quickly have to get used to—
natural
law.  ‘Survival of the fittest’ and all that kind of stuff.  I have a feeling
things are only going to get worse…besides, they broke out of jail yesterday,
killing…” Ted paused, flashing back to the bloody jail-break that effectively
shut down the Sheriff’s department, leaving the county’s citizens unprotected. 
“…killing good men,
cops
.  That there is the
best
case for
capital punishment, if you ask me.”

Ted looked down at the dead man at his
feet, then back across the parking lot at the other dead escapee.  “Well,
that’s
two
of ‘em.  The rest are still out there somewhere.”  He looked
at Erik again, who was watching his own hands start to shake. 

There was blood on both Erik’s hands
past the wrist.  Another human’s blood splattered in his arms and clothes. 
Erik began to reel slightly.

“The first time is always rough.  You’re
lucky you got Brin to help you through it.  A woman…well, I know it sounds
sexist, but they always seem to make it better,” Ted said.  He walked Erik back
towards Brin and Susan, where neighbors were starting to gather, wanting to
know what had happened. 

People gasped at the sight of the bodies—especially
the one that looked like it had been through a meat slicer at the local deli. 
One woman fainted dead away when she saw Erik holding the bloody
samurai
sword.

“Besides, the asshole deserved what he
got and you
know
it.  Never forget that.  Remember what you told Brin
last night…about what I went through at the prison break?  Just remember he
tried to attack Brin and…Susan,” said Ted in a low whisper as they grew near
the crowd.  “Thank you, Erik.  I mean that.”

Erik tried to remember, but his thoughts
were all muddled—he attempted to stand tall and take the gratitude like a man,
after all, he
had
helped protect not only his wife, but his friend’s
wife.  But despite his efforts, he could feel his insides beginning to quake. 
His knees began feeling weak as the adrenaline was flushed out of his system. 
All he could think about was getting to Brin. 

“I’m so tired…” he said, losing his own
thoughts as the growing mumbling of the crowd grew louder.

“Oh my God, did you kill that man,
Erik?” someone shouted.

“There’s another over there!”

“He’s still got the sword!”

“Oh, he must have
shot
that one…”

“Goodness gracious, I didn’t think
people
even
had swords anymore!”

“Jesus!  Erik, Ted, you alright?” asked
Alfonse, forcing his way through the crowd of nervous residents.  “I heard the
gunshots…what happened?”

“’Fer fuck’s sake, Erik!  You do that?”
asked Henry Grimes, looking like he hadn’t shaved in a week.  He whistled. 
“Who was he?”

Ted stepped in between the pressing
crowd and Erik.  He raised his arms in the standard police fashion, signaling
‘step back’.  “Okay, everyone, settle down.  I need you all to go home for a—“

“We
are
home, Ted!” a voice called out from the
back.  People were straining to peer around him at the dead convict, a pool of
congealing blood around the body.  “Yeah!” someone else said.

“Look, we’ve had a little trouble this
morning.  Two intruders—escaped from the County Jail, remember I told you about
it last night?  These two got in here and attacked my wife and Brin.”

More gasps, hands reaching out to
comfort the two women.  A few of the other women instinctively moved towards
Susan and Brin to offer support.  More than one man was shaking his head in
disbelief and anger.

“But it’s all over now.  No one was
seriously hurt besides the escapees.  Now…I need you all to just give us some
time to clear things up here and I promise, we’ll tell you all about it
tonight.”

“We having another meeting by the pool,
Ted?” asked Alfonse, loud enough for everyone to hear.