Whiskey Black Book Set: The Complete Tyrant Series (Box Set 1) (61 page)

The wind shifted and Rory smelled burning hair. The odor was pungent enough to leave the steeple and descend the staircase. He exited the back door and saw a pile of human remains that were burnt to a crisp. They had been there for some time and the pile wasn’t releasing the pungent odor that he had smelled from the top of the steeple. This was a different smell, more like old decomposing flesh. Closer examination revealed that these people were probably Christians, likely captured, killed, and burned by jihadist Muslims.

Rory said a quick prayer for himself and started heading north until he had traveled about two miles and came to a thirteen-story building. It had the best vantage point of anything in the area, so he had determined to climb the emergency exit stairs until he reached the roof. From this vantage point, he was able to see the factories and the smokestacks with great detail. In addition, there were trains rolling in and out of the area. He had never seen so many trains in one place. From his position, he could not see people, but he saw larger moving and stationary objects. He saw a great number of shipping containers being brought in on barges to the same location where the trains were bringing in their shipments.

Putting two and two together, Rory was beginning to understand the enormity of what he was seeing. The trains and barges were acting almost in unison as they came into the port and dropped off what he believed to be people. The trains had been coming in from the south to converge at this location, while the barges appeared to be coming down the banks of Lake Michigan to drop off their shipments of shipping containers. Rory was not a geography major, but was fairly certain the Mississippi didn’t tie into Lake Michigan.
He reasoned that the only two plausible options were that internationals from the Great Lakes area were also shipping people south to this location or that the containers were empty and being shipped to the US from Canada.

Slave labor?
he thought.

The questions were more sophisticated now than before. He was looking for a FEMA camp and found a large manufacturing plant with manpower, electricity, and transport.

What’s going on here?

“Take it easy, mister, and you won’t get hurt,” a male voice said from behind him.

The voice startled Rory, causing him to spin around and grab for his rifle, which was still slung on his shoulder.

“I said
easy
mister,” he warned again.

Rory saw a black male, about six-foot-two-inches tall, grizzled looking and in his forties.

“I’m taking it easy. You just startled me is all,” Rory said with his hands rising slowly. “I don’t have anything worthwhile.”

“Why are you just assuming I’m going to take your stuff?” the man asked.

“That’s kind of been the nature of the times.”

“Why are you up here?”

“I was traveling from southern Illinois to Goose Island, and I thought I could get a vantage point from up here.”

“Why you want Goose Island?”

“I was traveling with a few companions and the plan was to free the people from the UN internment camps, but the plan went south, and now I’m alone.”

“Ain’t nobody getting into Goose Island. It’s a fortress.”

“We will.”

“Who’s
we
?”

“I’m sure they’ll be heading back, at some point. When they do, Goose Island will fall.”

The man studied Rory for a moment then lowered his rifle. “Are you hungry?”

“Actually, yeah, I’m pretty hungry. I’ve been saving what little I have.”

“My name is Markus. I have some friends downstairs. They said they spotted you from the ground level. I tracked you up here.”

Markus walked over by Rory.

Rory extended his hand and said, “My name is Rory.”

“Glad to meet you, Rory. I see you found the old steelworks,” Markus said, pointing to the smoke plumes.

“What’s going on over there?”

“You don’t want to know.”

“Please, enlighten me.”

“It’s a crematorium.”

Rory was clearly shocked by the answer. “A crematorium?”

“Yeah. We don’t have all the answers, but we believe some of the shipments are dead bodies and other shipments are, well, live cremations.”

“Live cremations, as in
burned alive
?”

“Exactly. After the Flip, we started seeing these trains from the south and barges from the Kankakee and Illinois Rivers converging to this location. We tracked them from the time they were captured until they reached the crematorium. They marched live Americans from those shipping containers and trains into those buildings that are nothing more than giant superheated ovens.”

“This doesn’t make any sense. What about the FEMA camps?”

“The camps are where they keep
the elect
.”

“The elect?”

“Yeah, the chosen ones. There’s a few they keep alive because they stand a better chance at being more productive or useful for what the UN calls
Relocation Protocol
.”

“I’ve heard of the protocol. So, the whole spill they are telling the people is that they are being relocated, but they are actually separating the better educated and productive members of society from the sick and needy, only to take them there?”

“That’s right. We think it’s deeper than that, but that’s what we know so far.”

“This is worse than I could have imagined.”

“Hey, look, you said you were hungry. This topic will make you lose your appetite. C’mon. Follow me.”

Markus started to walk away and looked back over his shoulder to see Rory talking to himself.

“Are you talking to yourself?”

“Oh, ha-ha, no, I’m saying a prayer.”

“Are you a religious man?”

“I was a pastor before the Flip. Now I’m doing what I can.”

“We could use a chaplain, if you’re approved by the board.”

“The board?”

“We have a community here. We keep a low profile and move from place to place to avoid being captured.”

“I see. I’d like to meet your community, but like I said before, I’m on a mission.”

“Well, when you finish your prayer, come down to the tenth floor. I’ll tell them you’re coming. We’ll be expecting you.”

“Thank you, Markus.”

Rory stayed on the roof, taking in all that he had learned from Markus. He felt like throwing up, but there was something in the way the world had changed that had changed him. He was starting to feel more calloused than he had ever felt, and that feeling of callousness wasn’t a soothing feeling for him. He felt that it made him feel distant from his humanity. The more he thought on it, the more he realized that it wasn’t making him less human, but it was making him more primal. It was the feeling of primality that made him uncomfortable. He was reconciling the primality with his Christianity by reciting Bible scriptures in his mind. He was very well versed in scripture and positive that his view of self-defense was completely scriptural.

Jesus had his disciples carrying swords,
he thought, and,
The correct rendering of THOU SHALT NOT KILL is THOU SHALT NOT MURDER.

A host of other relevant scriptures were combed through in his mind until he was able to justify the future, and necessary, killing of the genocidal madmen that were plaguing his country. He stood up straight and went down through the hatch of the roof and to the tenth floor.

The entire tenth floor had all the windows boarded up with wood or furniture. It was like walking through skid row with multiple residents at every door, filling the rooms and covering the floors with sleeping spaces.

From what he could tell, these people were packing light, in case they had to leave again.

Slowly walking down the hallway, the smell of human waste was sometimes overwhelming. He found himself covering his nose, but remembered he was a guest and did not wish to offend them. When he thought to do so, he would uncover his nose and try breathing through his mouth. This worked, for the most part, but sometimes he felt he could taste the odors.

Markus saw him walking down the hallway and waved to him, catching Rory’s attention. Rory turned towards him and followed him to the end of the hall.

Markus opened a door and stepped aside so Rory could walk in first.

Rory was nervous about walking into a strange room first, so he said, “No, you go first, I insist.”

“No problem, just trying to be cordial.”

Markus walked in first and Rory followed.

Rory walked into the room and saw a few nicely dressed individuals. Sitting at an elongated table were twelve men and women. They weren’t dressed like the people in the hallways, and the room didn’t have a bad odor.

“Rory, I would like you to meet our board.”

Rory took a quick glance around the table and saw that each one of them had a name plate in front of them. Reasoning to himself, he knew that these name plates weren’t manufactured for them after the Flip, so either these people were important before the Flip or the names weren’t real. He reserved his thoughts to himself and chose not to address the matter.

“Hello, I’m Rory. I’m so glad to meet you.”

Markus looked at the board and said, “This here is Rory; he’s a pastor.”

There was one person at the table that did the speaking after the introduction. His name plate was engraved as
Thomas Burgess.

“Pastor Rory, do you have a last name?”

“Yes, sir. It’s Price, Rory Price.”

“Pastor Price, we would like to know more about your work as a pastor.”

“Okay, let’s see, I was called to preach more than two decades ago and went to Bible College in Indiana. After obtaining my bachelor’s in Theology, I did some home missions work and eventually settled down and started pastoring in Murphysboro, Illinois.”

“Really? We see you have a rifle. What’s your view on killing?”

“Well, I was just thinking on that topic a few minutes ago, actually. I believe killing and murdering to be two separate acts. One is done in self-defense or in defense of something greater than yourself, where virtue is at the forefront as a guidepost for matters of right and wrong. I believe a person’s conscience is also a key point. If killing for the purpose of self-preservation offends your conscience, then you have a right to die with a clear conscience.”

“That’s an interesting point of view. So, to summarize, you believe
killing
, when done for self-preservation, is all right and not necessarily considered
murder
?”

“That’s correct, sir. Even Jesus let his disciples carry swords and, at one point, told them to go into town to buy some.”

“What about the scripture where that one disciple cut off the ear of a Roman soldier?”

“Jesus knew Peter had a sword. The sword wasn’t for hunting, it was for self-defense. Times were tough. When he cut off the ear of the Roman centurion, Jesus told him to put away the sword because he was interfering with the plan of the cross. He had already told Peter the design for New Testament salvation. He told him he was going to die and rise again on the third day. But Peter was zealous and sometimes his brawn overrode his brains.”

“I see. So if I asked you to kill for the sake of the greater good, you would do it?”

“I’m not inclined to do anything you say, sir. I’m not sure what this meeting is about, but I will kill where killing is necessary to insure the survival of myself, my family, and my country, so help me God!”

Thomas turned to the lady on his right and whispered in her ear. She then turned back to face Thomas and nodded her head yes at him.

Thomas looked at Markus and said, “Mr. Hopkins, would you see Pastor Price out of the room while we discuss things for just a moment?”

“Sure.”

Markus opened the door and he and Rory stepped out.

“What’s this about, Markus?”

“We have been looking for a pastor for some time. With the jihadists running about rural Chicago, we’ve been unable to find one. They’ve all been captured, killed, and burned. Some have had it even worse than that.”

“I’m on a mission already, Markus. I’m not sure I’m up to the task.”

“Let’s wait on the board and see what they have to say. You can make your decision then.”

Within minutes the door opened back up and Thomas Burgess invited them back into the room.

Thomas sat down and then looked back at Rory and said, “Pastor Price, we would be honored if you would stay here and be a part of our community. We could really use a spiritual advisor on our board.”

Rory was thinking fast for a proper answer to the offer at hand. He didn’t know these people and they could be the very best of humanity or, in a worst-case scenario, the worst of humanity. He had to think quickly in order to buy himself some time.

Rory looked at Thomas and said, “Sir, it’s an honor to be asked to do such a thing, but it’s customary that I pray about every decision I make.”

“I respect that reply. Take all the time you need and know that we are here to assist in the betterment of our society.”

“Thank you for seeing me. Have a good day, ladies and gentlemen.”

Markus escorted him out of the room and down to the main lobby area.

“Where are you taking me now?”

“I would like to show you around our little community.”

Rory followed Markus out of the building and to an area of town that was a couple blocks down the road. Looking up into the buildings, Rory could see armed guards standing in the rooms as they were looking out.

“What’s going on here?”

“This is how we survive, Rory. I’m taking you to my home. You can meet my family.”

Rory was receiving mixed vibes from the whole experience. Something seemed a little off-kilter, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

Markus led him into a three-story building, past a few armed guards, and into a room.

Standing in the middle of a dining room area was a woman.

“Honey, I’d like you to meet my new friend Rory.”

The compliment of being called a friend was heartwarming to him, but the awkwardness of walking into a strange room where a wife was caught off guard took precedence over the comment.

“Hello, ma’am, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”