Authors: L. Douglas Hogan
Nathan Roeh had been out of the Marines for fourteen years. He was now thirty-eight years old and lived in what used to be Grand Tower, Illinois. He was the leader and founder of a group he titled “Southern Illinois Home Guard.” He had started the group years prior when the need for a resistance group became a growing concern. He had spent several years blogging on the Internet about the decline of American values and morals and the rise of progressive thinking. He knew that one day there would be a call to service and a time that he would once again have an opportunity to serve his oath to the country. Most laughed him off and others thought he was just a pessimist, but he knew the truth was fast approaching that the government would eventually make its move against liberty.
Nathan was a web designer before the Flip went down. He was working for an encrypted conservative blog site when the FCC shut them down; and not just the bloggers, but all Internet access was restricted to government communications. He now found himself, as most remaining Americans did, merely surviving.
He had set up a protocol with his group that covered many possible scenarios. In the case of a government takeover, or “martial law” as it was previously known, the group was to travel to Gorham, Illinois, where they could set up a low-profile resistance group, for starters. There were originally a group of twenty faithful members that attended regular meetings and kept in touch, using the United States Postal Service as their primary mode of communications. Some members of the group believed the government was listening to their phone calls and collecting text messages. So it was widely known that “snail mail” was the least of all the evils and thereby used. Unfortunately, when the Flip went down, only five showed up at the predetermined rally point. Nathan believed the small outcome was the result of the government shutdown that laid off all civilian mail carriers.
Among the five group members was Todd, a rugged thirty-two-year-old outdoorsman and country boy from Evansville, a town a few miles down the highway. He was never in the military but spent most of his waking hours wishing he had served, especially after the Flip. Todd liked to fight, deeply respected veterans, and followed their leadership sacrificially. When the Flip went down, he grabbed all thirteen hunting rifles, along with ammunition, and made a beeline to the rally point.
Ziggy, or “Zig,” as they called him, was from Murphysboro, also known as “Murphy” by the locals, and was less than a half hour from the rally. Zig owned a ranch and lake house in the country. He was fifty-three and as sharp as a tack. He took those cattle and horses, when the POTUS invoked EO10998, to a plot of land that belonged to a deceased friend. That plot of land, not too far from the Shawnee National Forest, was well hidden under the canopy of Jackson County’s woodland.
When the Flip came, Zig brought along his cache of pickled food supplies, farm equipment, a cache of fuel, guns and ammunition. All of which was concealed in the forest where no government drones had prying eyes. In the fall and winter months, the group used camo netting. Periodically, the group traveled to the herd and slaughtered a cow to carry the meat back to base camp. The team was careful to plot their patrol so that they returned at night, disguising their food supply under cover of darkness. This technique was an important practice because there were more than a fair share of both loyalists and bandits living in the southern Illinois region.
Nathan’s best friend, Denny, was a Navy Seabee Corpsman that served about the same time as Nathan. Denny had been stationed at Camp Pendleton, California, and was attached to an infantry battalion when he met Nathan. He was a die-hard Corpsman and was considered by some that served with him to be one of the Marines, even though he never officially earned the title. Denny was thirty-six and still in top shape. He and Nathan regularly held training meets with the group before the Flip. On those training days, they would learn first aid, room clearing, and simple tactical and guerilla operations. Denny took charge of the emergency medical training and Nathan handled the grunt work.
Denny was an RN at Chester Regional hospital before the Flip. Denny raided the hospital the day it closed its doors for the last time. Those medical supplies had proven invaluable many times since then. His integrity had always been very high, but he knew what was happening and that things were about to change forever. He reasoned that taking those supplies would insure the group’s ongoing safety and security.
Ash was a twenty-three-year-old taxidermist. He was learning his father’s business before things turned upside down. He was an avid hunter and enjoyed working with his hands. He was also a canine trainer before deciding to take on taxidermy with his father. Money never was that good and times were hard with the inflation. It wasn’t uncommon for people to have two or more full-time jobs, because the tax rate seemed to invalidate everybody’s work. Ash’s childhood was tough. The tax rate grew as he did, so he never really knew what “better times” were.
The SIHG had it good as it was, given the situation the world was in. They had a secret operation of sustainability on the mighty Mississippi River. Their group, together with their families and combined skill sets of those still surviving in Gorham, made for a semi-comfortable living, one worthy of the times. Their operation consisted of small garden areas, kept discreet and spread out for the purpose of concealment; breeding beef cattle and milk cows; chickens; fish; weapons and ammo; and two guard dogs, which Ash brought from his home near Prairie Du Rocher.
Everything at the base was carefully plotted and thorough. Nathan had given a respectable assignment to everybody in the op. Each assignment was according to his or her area of expertise. Of course, some things fell to a workload that needed to be shared. Laundry, for example, didn’t fall to a single person, but to whoever’s turn it was on the “extra-duties list,” which was posted in the duty shack.
For security, members of the community donated fence from their properties that could be used to build a safety perimeter around some of the town. For a lookout, members of the town took turns, in pairs, high in the water tower with an old-fashioned crank siren.
There were several vacated homes in the small secluded town. In one home, Denny’s sister, Heather, found an old washboard, and they laundered their clothes the old-fashioned way. The town had a way of clinging to the old ways and, for whatever reason, held tight to nostalgia.
When the public water supplies stopped flowing, most of Gorham’s population boarded the busses and headed to only God knows where. A few ran into the surrounding woodland and rocky crags of Fountain Bluff. As for the Southern Illinois Home Guard, it was a matter of staying alive and holding to the truths of the founding documents of the former United States of America, that all men are created equal. The group believed in free travel and free commerce. The fact that the government had taken everything from them did not deter them from the hope of America returning to simple truths of sovereign liberty for all.
It was autumn and the men were hard at work chopping wood for the upcoming winter, when it would be too cold to swing an axe for a prolonged period.
“Hey, Todd, did you ever secure that fence line around the southeast edge of the perimeter?” Zig yelled as he thrust one final swing of the axe into the log.
As Todd kept pounding away at his pile of lumber, he replied, “Yeah, I took an assortment of metal fencing down from Jefferson and Van Buren Streets. I tossed it alongside the train cars, no thanks to you.”
“When I said ‘secure,’ I meant ‘install,’ not ‘acquire.’”
“In that case, no, I didn’t. It’s still rolled up,” Todd said.
About that time, Nathan came riding up on a horse.
“I need one of you guys to come with me, ASAP.”
“What’s going on?” Zig requested.
“There’s a motor sound coming down the Mississippi and you both know it can’t be friendly.”
Zig and Todd looked at each other briefly as if trying to determine which one was going to ride shotgun with Nathan. They both wanted to go, but there was only one horse in eyeshot. They both ran towards Nathan, slightly startling the horse. Todd, being the youngest and strongest, made it to Nathan first and quickly jumped up.
“Try not to get fresh,” Nathan said as they rode off laughing.
Nathan and Todd raced their way to a vantage point along the Mississippi. They hitched the horse behind an old farm and continued on foot toward the river. They entered the tree line, nestled under the cover of natural foliage, and waited.
“What do you think it’s going to be?” Todd asked.
“I’m not sure yet, but whatever it is, there’s a lot of them,” Nathan said confidently.
As they sat patiently for just a few moments, the source of the sound came into view.
“You gotta be kiddin’ me,” Todd said.
Nathan was too shocked to say anything. Instead, he just sat and stared at the never-ending convoy of tugboats that were hauling what looked like hundreds of steel shipping containers. Each tugboat was white with two black letters neatly painted on the side: “UN.” Nathan and Todd both noticed that each of the shipping containers were labeled as well. They were also white in color with a single letter “V” neatly painted on the side.
“I hope that means something other than United Nations,” Nathan said as he continued to stare in awe.
Thinking with his belly, all Todd could say was “I wonder if those containers have food in them.”
“You’re always hungry, man.”
“I was a tyrannosaurus in my previous life. I’m still a meat-loving country boy.”
“Whatever, man. We need to get back to camp and report this. It may be actionable. If there’s food in those containers, or medical supplies, we could really start this year out right,” Nathan said.
“I don’t know, Nathan, it could be a risky move.”
“I’m not going to make a dictatorial move here!” Nathan exclaimed. “All I’m saying is, we need to strategize a possible plan of attack. If those are UN crates, they’re not welcome here. We can talk about it, come up with a plan, and vote on it.”
“Agreed,” Todd replied.
“Okay then, let’s get back to town and put our heads together. We need to beat those tugs back to base.”
Nathan and Todd came galloping back to base and called for an immediate roll call.
“What’s going on?” Ash asked, as he could tell Nathan’s and Todd’s voices were full of excitement.
“I’ll tell everybody as soon as we can make sure that each and every one of us is accounted for,” Nathan said. “We need to make sure nobody is on the river where they can be spotted.”
“Spotted by what?” Zig asked as he came walking towards the group.
“Look,” Nathan said. “We saw dozens of tugs heading north up the river. Each tug was labeled UN, and—”
“The United Nations is here?” Denny interrupted.
“They’re passing through, it looks like,” Todd said.
“Go on with your report,” Denny said. “I’m sorry for interrupting.”
“Look,” Nathan said. “It looks like they’re just passing through, but there’s no way to be sure.”
“No way to be sure?” Zig questioned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m not sure because it doesn’t make sense to me that the United Nations would be here with no military support.”
“All we saw was tugboats and they were tugging barges with hundreds of steel shipping containers,” Todd said.
Nathan picked up a stick and started to draw in the dirt as he replied, “That’s it, just shipping containers with the letter V painted on the side of them.” Nathan drew out a picture of the Mississippi and started to draw squares to represent the barges, but the faint sound of the tugboats had approached within earshot of the camp, which was impressive because the camp was just over two miles from the river. The number of barges and the absence of other man-made mechanical sounds made it easier to hear at farther distances.
“Well, I guess it’s too late to plot now, but we need to have an actionable plan for a strike when this happens again.”
The family members were gradually pouring into the area and catching up as they arrived. Each time, it frustrated Nathan to have to go over the details again, so he finally said, “Let’s sleep on what we know, and tomorrow morning, we’ll meet at the duty shack and by then I’ll have a plan.”
All agreed and everybody went about their business under strict advisory not to be near the river.
As Jess slowly cleared the rooms on her way to the unknown sound, she began to smell a pungent odor. She really wasn’t surprised to see a pack of coyotes feeding on a man’s arm that was protruding from the inside of the dead man’s jail cell. The coyotes spotted her with their keen eyesight and sense of smell. As if running in a frenzied panic, the coyotes slipped and fell as they ran about bumping into walls and running over one another in a mad dash to find a way out. Jess sidestepped the doorway, allowing the pack to run right by her and out of the building.
Jess knew that a pack of midwest coyotes never really posed a threat in normal situations, but she wasn’t willing to put a pack of cornered and hungry coyotes to the test. She was relieved that they were gone, but couldn’t help but feel bad for the men who died of starvation in the cells. It would appear that the county jail was abandoned in a hurry and the prisoners were left behind. Jess’s mind wandered as her imagination carried her into believing they were left behind on purpose. She couldn’t fathom any badge leaving men to die, let alone starve to death.
She continued her stroll into the jail cells and saw three prisoners in total; all of them dead and reeking from months of decay. Outside, she heard gunshots and sprinted out of the Sheriff’s Department and to the upper level of the courthouse, where she found an office window with ample light shining through. Jess was careful not to rush up to the window and be seen by anybody outside that was firing off weapons. Instead, she slowly approached the window, being cautious of who she could see outside. Gunshots were still ringing out on the streets in front of the courthouse.