The Fall of America:: Premonition of Death (Fall of America 1) Read online

  The Fall of America

  Book 1 - Premonition of Death

  W.R. Benton

  ISBN 978-1-939812-26-1

  Kindle Edition

  © Copyright 2013 W.R. Benton

  All Rights Reserved

  Ebook Production by Loose Cannon Enterprises

  The Fall of America

  Book 1 Premonition of Death

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the author and/or the publisher. This is the work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Author Photos © Copyright 2012, Melanie D. Calvert

  © Contents Copyright 2013 by W.R. Benton

  © Cover layout Copyright 2013 by www.dancingfoxpublishing.com

  Cover Photo by Oziris, www.sxc.hu

  Edited by: Bobbie La Cour

  Bullet Hole Brushes by: http://www.obsidiandawn.com/

  Logo fonts[Shortcut, Dirty Ego] by Eduardo Recife, misprintedtype.com

  Books by W.R. Benton

  The Fall of America, Book 1, Premonition of Death

  Nate Grisham, Black Mountain Man

  Red Runs the Plain

  Missouri in Flames, I Rode with Jesse James

  War Paint

  James McKay, U. S. Army Scout

  Alive and Alone

  Simple Survival, A Family Outdoors Guide

  Impending Disasters

  Dedication

  To Vickie Burrows, an intelligent, tough, and yet gentle woman.

  To Alisa McDonald Butler, hard working neighbor and wonderful woman!

  To Tatanka Ska, may the Great Creator bless and guide your warrior spirit.

  And, finally, to my friend and fellow veteran, Stanley Holewa, Hooaahh!

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  About the Author

  Other books by W.R. Benton

  CHAPTER 1

  The sound of my shotgun was loud in the small storage shed and an earsplitting scream pierced the night. I grimaced as I popped the breech open and immediately inserted two fresh shells. While I'd only seen one man, that didn't mean others weren't near, so I waited unmoving.

  I remained motionless, listening to everything but the dying man, because to move might mean my death. I heard nothing, but I remained in the darkness.

  Above the moaning and whimpering of the injured man, I heard a slight whispering sound, only I couldn't determine exactly where the sound was located. The noise reminded me of material rubbing against material, but I'd been wrong before and it had cost my first wife her life. Come on, move you sonofabitch!

  I waited with my senses on edge and my trigger finger ready to respond.

  Long minutes passed and then I heard the night sounds return outside the shed. The crickets were making noise and my dogs had finally stopped barking, so if anyone else had been around they were gone now. I knew it was safe to check the man I'd shot.

  Pulling a small flashlight from my pocket, I turned it on and moved the narrow beam of light toward my victim. The man lay on his back, his eyes open but unfocused, so I moved the light to the center of his chest. My shotgun blast had taken him in the center of the upper body and I found it strange he'd lived at all. The shot should have killed him instantly, or so I thought.

  A small caliber pistol, a .38 caliber snub-nose, was beside the body. I picked the pistol up, opened the cylinder and found four bullets. I snapped it shut and placed it in the waistband of my trousers.

  I'll drag him off in a bit. I need to get back to the house so Sandra doesn't worry, I thought as I turned and made my way out of the shed. I glanced at the sky overhead and noticed it was clear, with millions of stars sparkling radiantly, as I called Dolly, my biggest dog. Once she was at my side we moved toward the house. Dolly was a German shepherd that was trained for security work.

  After I entered the kitchen, Sandra asked, "Trouble? I heard gunfire."

  "I killed a man in the shed."

  "What was he looking for?"

  "Most likely anything of value. Right now generators, batteries, and gas are big trade items around here." I met her eyes and slowly shook my head over the senselessness of the killing.

  "Have something hot to drink and unwind a bit, because I know you're all worked up over shooting that man."

  I sat the at the table and watched my wife as she poured me a cup of coffee. Sandra wasn't a beautiful woman, but she was attractive, and we'd hit it off the first time we'd met, only I'd been married then. She was the athletic type, always walking, running, or going to the gym, only those days were finished as far as I was concerned. She stood a foot shorter than my 6 feet 6 inches and was usually around a hundred and twenty pounds, but she'd lost weight over the last few months. I had a good hundred pounds on her, except I'd lost a lot of weight as well. Just staying alive was an effort these days.

  She placed a coffee cup in front of me and said, "I think a drink will help you relax a little. It's a shame we have to defend our home like they did back in the 1800's."

  As I raised the cup my hands were trembling. I'd been like this after combat in Iraq, too. I'd spent three tours in Iraq and two in Afghanistan, all combat tours, and I'd returned home from the sandbox a hard man. I got out of the army as soon as my extension expired and attended college using the G.I. Bill, which paid me a little extra to live on while I attended classes full time. It was in college where I'd first met Sandra.

  "Are you okay?" Sandra asked as she moved to my side and pulled my head to her hip. She gently stroked my hair.

  "I'm no, I'm not okay at all. I just blew a man apart in my shed and he's dead. This isn't a war zone, but what was I suppose to do? I have to protect what is ours, or we'll lose everything we own and if we do that we die."

  "Honey, you did the right thing and we both know it. Since the police don't exist any longer, we have to enforce our own laws. Baby, you're not a mean or bad person that's what you're thinking, let it go. We have to survive."

  I placed my elbows on the table and lowered my head to my hands. I remembered two years ago as if it had happened yesterday.

  First the stock market crashed, followed by a large number of banks folding, but most American's didn't panic, because it'd happened before. Then the President had been impeached over some affair he'd had with a male cabinet member and his wife had made statements that suggested corruption and illegal activities within his administration. An investigation condemned the man. It had gone out of control from that point on. Jobs just weren't there, families were forced from their homes due to nonpayment of mortgages, and third and fourth generation farmers started losing their land. Food and gas prices had climbed steadily, to the point the average family had to d
ecide between food, gas, or heat. The country that was once thought of around the world as the land of luxury was suddenly a vagabond.

  At the beginning, large sums of money, trillions of dollars, were borrowed from China and Russia in an effort to stimulate the economy, except it didn't work. Our credit rating as a nation fell so low, we were unable to borrow money or even pay the interest on our loans. Without a demand for our goods, jobs weren't created and our products were grossly overpriced, or so most of the world thought. Shelves of American goods lay in foreign stores. I realized we were in serious trouble when all Spanish speaking American's started moving to Mexico. Other American's followed, illegally of course. With no demand for our products, the job market died. Then, the suicides started.

  Our elderly, unable to get proper medical treatment or even basic medications from pharmacies, began to kill themselves. Hospitals closed, doctors and nurses went home, and patients were left in their rooms waiting for family or death. The permanently disabled and mothers with large numbers of children were next, because public assistance stopped. Mental institutions and prisons emptied, because our police and counselors were no longer paid, which only added more chaos to the whole damned country. Of course, the murder rate doubled, then tripled and suicides skyrocketed, as folks were unable to find jobs or food. Then, the bean-counters lost their jobs and no one knew what the statistics were after that point.

  I'd run my own security business for years after college, only to lose it toward the end of our collapse as a nation. We'd bought a home years before in the country and then finally, one day, I no longer had a job to go to each morning. Without funds, fire departments, police departments, our military, and other public service agencies soon folded and then our society reverted back a thousand years, with killings being so normal no one even discussed them.

  My first wife, Mary, was killed one morning when I was in town trying to find food and gasoline. I'd returned to find her battered and raped body in the living room and it'd almost killed me as well. I'd buried her out back and from what I can remember, it was raining that day. My memory is unclear about long periods of my life after that, and for months to come I was confused and indecisive about many things. I often thought I'd lost my mind, but now I can see I blamed myself for her death. I'd made a serious mistake and it'd cost my wife her life, so now I never left the farm without Sandra at my side.

  I'd into Sandra over at a friend's house one afternoon while trading gasoline for bullets for my deer rifle. I remembered her from college, we talked a while that day and things just moved forward from then onward. A year later we were married by a Baptist preacher, that accepted half a hog as payment.

  "John!" I heard a voice.

  "Huh?"

  "Are you okay? You were moaning and rocking from side to side."

  I gave a dry chuckle and replied, "I'm fine, just tired is all, and killing that man didn't make my day any better."

  Sandra gave me a weak smile and replied, "Would you have preferred for him to kill you?"

  I gave a deep laugh and said, "You know I wouldn't! It's just that I saw so much killing in the war and now the whole country has gone insane. People are killing each other over a gallon of gas, a few heads of cabbage, or even a pig."

  "People are hungry, and not all of them had the sense to stock up on supplies like you did with Mary. Heck, we started storing things as soon as we were married, too, and things were already pretty bad then."

  I took a sip of my coffee, thought for a moment and then asked, "How would you feel if I asked Tom and his wife to move in with us?"

  "Well, it might be a good thing, but we're both pretty private people."

  "Baby," I said, and then pulling her closer to me I continued, "I worry that one night Dolly won't warn us or I'll not hear someone breaking in. I honestly need another set of eyes and ears to help us survive. Even with the dogs outside, there are ways to silence them. I've discussed it with Tom and he thinks it's a good idea, only he's not discussed it with Sue yet."

  "I've thought about that and it has me concerned as well. You seem to think you can stay awake all hours of the day and night forever, and you just can't do that. I don't see a problem with it, as long as they take the downstairs and we stay upstairs."

  I gave a low chuckle.

  "What?"

  I smiled and said, "For a moment I thought about calling him and telling him the news, but then I remembered the phones no longer work."

  We shared a brief laugh and then I said, "I've a man in the shed to drag away. Come and we'll saddle the horses."

  Sandra didn't argue, because she knew what had happened to my first wife. I picked up my shotgun and we moved toward the door with Dolly following.

  We quickly placed blankets and bridles on the horses and I made small talk with Sandra as we saddled. Dolly sat by the barn door and kept an eye outside.

  Once at the shed I went inside and tied a rope to the dead man's feet, unraveled the rope and then mounted. I looped the rope around my saddle horn a few times and then asked, "You ready?"

  "Of course, let's get this over with."

  "Keep my shotgun ready at all times and don't shoot unless you don't see any other option. I doubt we'll see anyone, but you can never tell." I handed her my shotgun and started my horse at a slow walk.

  We didn't see anyone and the trip to the spot I had in mind was uneventful. I was untying the man's legs when Sandra approached and shined the light of her flashlight on the dead man's face. I heard her gasp.

  "Do you know this man?" I asked.

  "I . . . I know him."

  "Well, who was he?" I suspected she either knew more but didn't want to tell me, or she was truly shocked.

  "I went to college with him, and his name was Larry Patton. His father owned the local beer brewery and was filthy rich. I dated him a few times off and on, but never really got to know him well. He had a holier than thou attitude I didn't like."

  "Well, let's hope he made his peace with the Lord before this visit. When rich people turn to stealing, you know things are turning rough, huh?" I said, and then scanned the surrounding countryside.

  "I think money is useless right now, and folks want food or things they can trade with so they can stay alive."

  "Well, in that case we're rich, because we've enough food to keep an army alive and for a long time. Do you want me to bury this guy?"

  Silence followed for a long time, but finally she replied, "No, we need to get back before the whole house is stolen."

  "You bet," I said as I thought, smart woman I've married because she learns quickly.

  *****

  As soon as we entered the barnyard, Dolly began her warning growl and I slipped from my saddle. I moved the safety switch on the shotgun to off and turned to Sandra. "You stay in the shadows while I check things out. Keep your shotgun ready," I said just above a whisper.

  I called Dolly in a low voice, pulled a leash from my pocket and attached it to her collar. I then moved forward, my senses on edge. I remembered I still had the pistol from the dead man in my waistband and a 44 magnum in a holster on my belt, so I knew I had a backup. In the darkness I saw nothing, but knew Dolly would alert me to anyone near. I'd been a dog handler early in my army days and Dolly was well trained. Abruptly my dog stopped moving and gave a low warning growl, but no matter how hard I tried, I could see nothing.

  Suddenly, someone or something moved in the darkness and I brought my gun up to my shoulder, and sighted down the barrel. I took a deep breath, held it in, and as I slowly let it out, I started squeezing the trigger.

  I heard a voice say, "Your dog doesn't like me much, does she, John?"

  My heart was beating hard, except it got louder when I realized I'd almost killed my best friend. I took another deep breath and blew it out hard before I said, "Tom, what in the hell are you doing here this time of the night. I almost killed your nasty ass."

  "What? You mean you didn't know it was me?"

  "How am I t
o know who it was in the dark? I killed a man earlier tonight and I thought you might be one of his friends returning." I spoke, pushed the safety on, and then added brusquely, "Don't ever do that again or we might not be so lucky. Good Lord, you're smarter than that!"

  "I . . . I had . . . no idea, honestly. I just thought Sue and I would come over and discuss the move, if you don't mind." I could hear fear in his voice and think the seriousness of the situation finally registered in his mind.

  Tom was a prior service member too and had been with the 82nd airborne at Fort Bragg, North Carolina for years. Of course, he'd done a few tours in the sandbox, and I had a hard time accepting he'd been so dumb tonight. He'd been trained as an army ranger and it irked me that while the whole world was turning to hell, he'd turn stupid. So, I said as much to him.

  "Look, I admit, what I did wasn't very smart, except I thought you knew I was here. Our bicycles are on your front porch and we agreed earlier today for me to bring Sue over as soon as the two of us discussed your idea."

  Let it go, I thought and slapped Tom on the back as I replied, "Look, I didn't shoot you, so let's learn from it. We didn't come by the front of the house; we were down the logging road behind the barn a bit dumping the body of the man I killed earlier tonight, so we never saw the bikes."

  "Is Sandra with you? We knocked, but no one answered."

  "She's always with me." I said and then turned to called out, "Sandra, come on in, it's only Tom and Sue!"

  "What about the horses?" She yelled back.

  "Tom and I'll put them up."

  As Tom and I walked toward the barn, Sandra approached and said, "Hi ya, Tom."

  "Hi, Sandra, you'll find Sue on the front porch waiting for you."

  In my barn, after we'd pulled the saddles and bridles from the horses, I asked, "Was Sue receptive to the idea of us living together?"

  Chuckling, Tom replied, "She wasn't crazy about the idea, but she's smart enough to realize we can't stay awake forever and guard our place. She didn't give me a yes or no, but she knows we can't continue to live as we once did. Times have changed and today a man's life is worth very little."