Expatriates: A Novel of the Coming Global Collapse

18 QUISLINGS

In the second year of the Crunch, word came that a provisional government (ProvGov) had been formed at Fort Knox, Kentucky. It was led by Maynard Hutchings, a man who had no government experience other than being a member of the local County Board of Supervisors. Now Hutchings fancied himself the dictator of the United States. The ProvGov grew very quickly because it had both the U.S. Army units and gold depository at Fort Knox to back it up and lend it some respectability. The rise to power of Maynard Hutchings was more about being in the right place at the right time than it was about statesmanship, oratory, or his political acumen.

The ProvGov filled the power vacuum left when the East Coast suffered a massive loss of life, partly due to an influenza pandemic that struck the eastern seaboard particularly hard from New York to South Carolina during the first winter of the Crunch. Without antibiotics available, the disease ran wild, especially in the cities. The new government rapidly spread outward, “pacifying” territory in all directions. Any towns that resisted were quickly crushed. The mere sight of dozens of tanks or APCs was enough to make most townspeople cower in fear. What it couldn’t accomplish through intimidation, the ProvGov accomplished with bribes.

The ProvGov soon began issuing a new currency. Hutchings’ administration cronies spent the new bills lavishly. Covertly, some criminal gangs were hired as security contractors and used as enforcers of the administration’s nationalization schemes. Some of these gangs were given military vehicles and weapons and promised booty derived from eliminating rival gangs that were not as cooperative. Hit squads were formed to stifle dissent through any means including abductions, arson, and murder. Nobody was ever able to prove a link between the ProvGov and these squads, but an inordinately large number of conservative, pro-sovereignty members of congress from the old government disappeared or were reportedly killed by bandits.

Within the first three months of launching the new government, Hutchings was in contact via satellite with the UN’s new headquarters in Brussels to request peacekeeping assistance. The old UN building in New York had burned, and the entire New York metropolitan region was nine-tenths depopulated and controlled by hostile gangs. At first, Hutchings had naïvely assumed that the UN’s assistance would be altruistic, with no strings attached. It was only after the first UN troops started to arrive in large numbers that it became clear that UN officers would control the operation. Eventually, Hutchings became little more than a figurehead. The UN administrators held the real power in the country. They had their own chain of command that bypassed the Hutchings administration and they had direct control over the military.

In Tavares, news of the ProvGov’s rise to power came first via rumors. But then two copies of a widely circulated DVD reached Tavares in December. It was a video of ProvGov President Hutchings making a State of the Union speech. By the time Jake and Janelle got a copy, José reported, “Yeah, I already seen it on the DVD player built into my neighbor’s minivan. That Hutchings is a big fat blowhard. I don’t trust him or the ProvGov any farther than I can spit. The whole thing is borderline fascist, if you ask me.”

The DVD that Jake Altmiller watched came to him from Mayor Levin. It had a mirror side so badly scratched that he wondered if it would even work. With ample photovoltaic power at their house, they were able to watch it on the television in their living room. Tomas and several neighbors joined them. The video looked professionally produced and started with an image of an American flag fluttering in the breeze, with an accompanying audio track of a brass band playing “Hail to the Chief.” The video then cut to an auditorium in which a podium adorned with the familiar presidential seal had been placed.

The applause made it sound as if a large crowd was present. A man in a dark suit that must have come from a Big Man’s suit shop stepped up to the microphone. Reading from notes, he began:

There was thunderous applause, and Hutchings raised both his hands to wave to the crowd.

Just as Janelle switched off the television with the remote control, José yelled, “What a load of horse caca! He reminds me of that kid Cartman from the cartoon show South Park. When he gets deputized, he starts shouting, ‘I am a cop and you will respect my author-i-tahh!’”

They all laughed.

“Any guesses as to what he meant by ‘strict economic policies’? Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Jake asked.

“Yeah. It all sounds like big government central planning,” Janelle answered.

Three weeks after the Altmillers had watched the DVD, news came that the Provisional Government’s army had begun “pacifying” North Florida. According to ham radio operators, the ProvGov’s troops often treated reluctant towns and cities still held by elected governments with the same brutal tactics they used on looter bastions.

It was a while before any of the Provisional Government’s actions were felt in Tavares. One of the first instances came when the ProvGov distributed a poster that outlined the UN-mandated gun laws. It read:

That poster got the residents of Lake County, Florida, in an uproar. Almost immediately, there was talk of organizing resistance. As the ProvGov army moved deeper into North Florida, horror stories began to circulate. The army was absolutely brutal in asserting its authority. In one town, they massacred more than one hundred people as a reprisal for the shooting deaths of two ProvGov soldiers. The victims were buried in a mass grave.

Eight counties in North Florida were soon officially declared “pacified,” but in actuality, resistance fighters remained active. In the counties farther south, hundreds of small guerilla cells were forming, training, and caching supplies for what looked like would be a protracted war of resistance. The patriot media discouraged the guerillas from forming any bands larger than nine members, for fear of infiltration and annihilation by the ProvGov or their quislings. They reasoned that a profusion of small independent cells with no central leadership could never be defeated. This was “leaderless resistance” in its purest form.

Janelle Altmiller was at home with her son, Lance. While she was in the master bathroom folding laundry, she heard Lance shouting in the kitchen. “Hey, stop! My dad says strangers can’t be in the house!”

When an unfamiliar gruff voice told her son to shut up, Janelle’s blood ran cold.

She drew the XD pistol from her holster, then dashed into the bedroom and reached across the bed to flip the silent alarm switch that was mounted under the bottom center of the bed’s headboard. It was one of four switches that had been installed in the house after the Crunch. She rolled back up just in time to see a stranger standing in the doorway, holding a revolver in one hand and a bundle of large plastic cable ties in the other. She brought the pistol up, got a “flash” sight picture, and fired three times, hitting the man twice in the chest and once in the jaw. He staggered backward, and she shot him once more, hitting him at the top of his right eye socket. He landed on his back in the hallway, dropping the revolver as he fell. She heard someone screaming. It took her a moment to realize that she was the one screaming. Janelle didn’t know what to do next. After just a moment to consider, she maneuvered back to the bathroom, looking for cover. She knelt down beside the door frame and lined up her sights on the open bedroom door. Her ears were ringing.

She heard another man’s voice asking, “Javi?”

A few seconds later, she heard the man shout, “No way! No freakin’ way!”

It was quiet for nearly a full minute. Obviously, the surviving intruder did not want to step forward and make himself a target. Janelle wondered if he had fled. Or perhaps he had gone outside to approach the master bathroom window from behind her. A wave of anxiety and panic went through her. She was afraid to take her eyes off the doorway to look over her shoulder.

Still in the house, the man shouted, “Listen: I’ve got your kid here. Throw out your gun and…”

To Lance, it sounded like the world had exploded. In a deafening roar, Jake and Tomas fired almost simultaneously through the living room’s sliding glass door, striking the home invader with a hail of #4 buckshot from the Saiga shotgun and .223 bullets from the M4gery.

The man never got a shot off in response.

Lance thought there were only two men who had invaded their home, but Jake, Janelle, and Tomas methodically cleared all of the rooms in the house and then both the front yard and the backyard, just to be certain.

When they stepped back inside, they found Lance lifting the head of the dead man in the living room, holding his hair. “These guys are really, really dead.”

“Not like on TV, is it?” Tomas asked.

Lance stood up and said, “No. It’s louder. And it’s messier.”

They found that the two men had broken in by simply slashing one of the window screens and stepping into the living room. After that, the Altmillers never left the sliding windows open unless they were directly guarded by an adult with a long gun.

Janelle had many sleepless nights after that incident. Eventually, she came to the realization that her home was defended far better than most, and that she had to trust in those defenses. But she never felt quite the same about the security of their home. And every time she locked their bedroom door, the events of that day would flash into her mind.