Chapter 20
Jason and the others in the militia took vehicles, weapons, and supplies for their trek into Alabama bayou country. Matt and two other sentries standing guard that night were nowhere to be found.
A helicopter followed them for a few minutes, but repeated gunfire from their assault rifles scared the pilot off. They didn't see any other law enforcement along the way.
It was the middle of the night when they reached the Ku Klux Klan compound. Three of Jason's comrades carried a battering ram they had confiscated from the police. Jason and the others had their automatic weapons drawn and ready.
When they reached the door, the three carrying the battering ram attempted to break it down. The bashing of the door was very loud and Jason assumed someone inside must have heard it. After the third try, the door caved inward a little, busting out the hinges.
“How dare you break down our door!” shouted an angry man with a ragged voice from within the compound. “You better explain yourselves!”
Jason stood just behind the battering ram with his assault rifle pointed forward.
With the fourth try, the door completely broke down and his comrades jumped to either side.
Jason entered.
Inside stood a gray haired man with dry, wrinkled skin and a corpulent hick in overalls. They were shouting threats with their guns drawn. Jason shot them both in the legs, crippling them. Then he approached them and kicked the guns out of their hands. He scanned the room for any potential dangers. Then he said, “It's clear.”
The others entered the compound.
Jason looked down at the two malefactors, who were groaning in pain. “Put them in handcuffs.”
“I'm a police officer,” said the dirty old man with a weak voice.
“I don't care,” replied Jason. “I've killed too many pigs already today.”
The dirty old man's eyes bulged. He was about to say something more. Then he and that fat hick yelped out in pain as they were turned over and handcuffed.
Jason proceeded forward toward the basement and the others followed, dragging their bloody captives behind them. “Once we've secured the passage into the underground, the surface level is off limits,” said Jason.
The basement was clear for the time being. The tables, chairs, and book cases were ideal for Jason's purposes.
Just as Jason got to the bottom of the stairs, the book case swung open and a young man crossed the threshold with an undecipherable number of companions behind him, all armed with guns.
Jason and his comrades sprayed the entrance with bullets, crippling the klansmen at the front of the pack and sending the others back into the passage. Stepping over the injured and the dead, Jason followed them into the passageway.
The klansmen were talking amongst each other somewhere nearby. Jason slowed his pace and cautiously proceeded down the steps.
“What the fuck is happening?” asked one.
“Fucking terrorists!” exclaimed another.
“We've gotta go tell the police!”
“But we're not allowed down that passage.”
Some of the klansmen came into view, pointing their guns at Jason. “Stop where you are boy!”
Jason fired his rifle at their legs. The klansmen closest to the staircase fell to the ground in a heap. The others fled.
“What's going on?” asked Vinh from behind.
“There's some more to handcuff down here,” replied Jason, stepping into the room and looking around.
“Is it clear?”
“It looks clear enough.” Jason spat on the painting of Robert E. Lee.
The others entered the room and handcuffed the injured klansmen. “We need to set up perimeters,” said Jason. “For now we're best off holding the passage in and these two doorways.”
“We'll be boxed in,” argued Todd.
“It's only until we have the sectors secured.”
“How do you propose doing that?”
“I'll rig the tunnel into police systems with explosives and clear out the systems of any stragglers.”
“Sounds dangerous.”
“It's only a matter of time before they regroup and try to overwhelm us. If we secure the only two entrances, we can completely shut them out using rigged explosives. Until then I need you to reign a Thermopylae here while I clear out the systems.”
The others gathered furniture from the library into the anteroom, where they converted it into barricades for the staircase and the doorways to either side.
Jason started off down the hallway to the right. The numbers on the cell doors reminded him of the many pictures he'd seen from these systems. The aura of the place was dark and forbidding. Every one of those doors implied countless victims, possibly dating all the way back to the Civil War.
Using his memory of the blue prints, Jason found a staircase and proceeded down to the level where the passageway into police systems was located. The systems had an eery silence to them and he expected to see an enemy at every corner. He passed by an open doorway to a room full of work benches and various instruments of torture. After making sure that the passage into police systems was nearby, Jason dragged furniture from the torture chamber into it to form a barricade. Once the barricade was large enough to completely block entrance, Jason rigged it with all the explosives he had.
Then he searched through the systems, looking through room after room. He found the master keys to the cells, but for now he just looked through the peep holes. The things he saw in the lower systems made his stomach churn. Many of those victims were better off dead, but he didn't have the heart to kill them. He told them that the systems had been conquered and then moved on.
Inside one of the cells, Jason saw a young Caucasian man in a strait jacket and diapers strapped into a chair. “I don't expect you to believe me,” said Jason, “but the systems have been liberated.”
“No, they haven't. The Ku Klux Klan is immortal.”
The voice brought forth a recollection. It was Anthony. The bully from the psychiatric hospital. “You think you're gonna prove yourself to them?”
“Yeah.”
Jason chuckled. He hadn't entered any of the cells thus far, but this one was too rich to pass up.
Anthony stared at him in disbelief. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“I told you. The systems have been conquered.”
“Yeah, right. Who gave you that gun?”
“God almighty.” Jason fired a shot at the ground between Anthony's legs.
Anthony screamed aloud in shock and said, “Please don't kill me.”
“No wonder you're wearing diapers.”
Anthony sobbed and pleaded for his life.
“Was your father a member of the Ku Klux Klan or did he disapprove?”
“I don't wanna die.”
The novelty had worn off. There would be plenty of time to mistreat bigots like this one later on. Jason left the cell and continued on his way.
After several hours, Jason finished searching. There didn't seem to be anymore klansmen left in the systems. Jason double checked the explosives he'd set up before returning to the anteroom. Nobody had tried to pass through the barricade.
Back at the anteroom, Jason said, “The systems look clear of klansmen.”
“Good,” replied Marvel. “I'm starving.”
“There's a cafeteria nearby. I'll take you there. Nobody should be using the elevators. It could be dangerous.”
“Do they still have control over these systems?” asked Todd.
“We can't be sure until we've examined them in depth,” said Marvel.
“Be a hell of a thing if they shut off the electricity.”
“It's got a backup system that will go into effect,” said Jason
They posted sentries with walkie-talkies in the anteroom and nearby the passageway into police systems. From now on they would all take turns performing guard duty.
As Jason helped to cram the injured klansmen into empty cells, he rec
ognized a face. It was the creepy looking young man with the goatee, who had passed by him on the street. The cloth bandage was now missing from his hand and his legs were bleeding.
“You need to fear doing this to us,” said the injured klansman. “You need to fear the police!”
Jason reached into the klansman's pockets.
“Faggot!” the klansman shouted.
Jason found a wallet and learned that the klansman's name was Clive Clebourne. He was obviously a subhuman sociopath like the rest of them.
“You need to fear the king of pain! I'm a servant of the police!”
It was going to be a pleasure to have him tortured.
In the cafeteria they ate prepackaged meals and turned on a television to watch the news. Jason's blood boiled when he saw the headline reporting the shootout that had occurred at the farm.
The female news anchor said, “Over a dozen police officers are dead or injured after a raid on a locally stationed militia group ended in a bloody confrontation. All the militia members are either dead or in custody. Most of them are in their teens and twenties.”
“What a travesty,” said the male newscaster.
“This is just the latest incident in a series of violent outbursts from groups of young people advocating anarchism.”
“What a terrible trend for our youths to be drawn to.”
“Yes, it is. With us today to talk about this trend is an expert on youth culture with a Phd in behavioral psychology.” Jason sneered as the female news caster turned toward the well-dressed charlatan. “What do you think is drawing so many of our young people of today toward such an antisocial fad like anarchism?”
“Well, it's difficult to pinpoint any one thing. Trends like this seem to go in cycles.”
“Surely there must be something that's leading them into these activities. The youth culture of today is a far cry from Elvis Presley's That's All Right Momma or The Beatles' I Wanna Hold Your Hand.”
“You've got a point there. Today's youths are exposed to so much more with the internet.”
“So you think overexposure to the internet may be causing the problem.”
“It's definitely part of the problem. So much misinformation and hatred is being put up on online.”
“I hate him saying that,” said Tracy.
Todd turned off the television and said, “I can't watch it anymore.”
Jason put aside the rest of his meal and said, “We need to feed the cell victims.”
“Why don't we just let them out to feed themselves?” asked Vinh.
“I don't think that's a good idea,” replied Jason. “We don't know which ones can be trusted. Many of them have been thoroughly brainwashed by the klansmen.”
They distributed food among the cell victims, who continued to express their disbelief about the systems having been liberated. Many claimed it was nothing more than a trick. It was depressing to see so many people feeling so hopeless.
Jason fell asleep that night listening to the pixies harassing him about the families of the police officers he'd killed. When he smiled they gave him a slight shock. It was the first shock he'd received in months.
The next day Jason and his comrades all agreed that the cell victims in the upper sectors needed to see the torture systems below. They took small groups of victims from the upper sectors into the torture systems to witness what had been going on. The victims from the lower sectors enjoyed explaining the process of disintegration after exploitation and it did have a profound effect on the victims, who hadn't been cast away to the lower sectors yet.