Collapse

By R.T. Eckhardt

America has collapsed into chaos after corporate interests finally gain total power over the government, freedom and human rights no longer exist as they dont turn a profit. The middle class is replaced by the rich and privileged few and the poor, destitute hoards struggling to survive. In the midst of the lawless free for all Freddy Kingtons wife is brutally murdered in a robbery attempt and what starts out as an incensed path to revenge develops into the beginnings of a revolution against the Corporate States of America.
Freddy utilizes his considerable expertise with boats and firearms to extract his revenge on Stanford when he visits Freddys new turf outside the US in the Bahama Islands. After Stanford is taken out of the picture Freddy disappears down island to points unknown to continue his covert assault on the Corporate States of America.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Apr 19, 2012
• ISBN: 9781468576580

Book preview

© 2012 by R T Eckhardt. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 04/04/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4685-7656-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4685-7658-0 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Doctors Hospital, 

 South Miami, Florida

In Key Largo at the 

 NERVOUS WRECK

Freddy’s house two days 

 after Sheryl’s murder

Back in Key Largo at the NERVOUS WRECK

MAJOR STANFORD’S office 

five months after Freddy 

fled the US

Somewhere in the Bahamas

The anchorage

The Viking’s transom

Julie in town

Freddy

Major Stanford’s Office

The Anchorage

North Eleuthera airport

Eleuthera airport

Aboard the HOOKED

Freddy after rolling

into the water

Who went where

SKU-000561741_TEXT.pdf

The hot Florida sun beat down on my back as I pedaled my bicycle home, slicing through the thick humid air like a knife. I never drove my old pickup anymore as gasoline was mostly for the rich people. The United States of America was a different country than it was 5 years ago, before the big economic collapse and subsequent corporate takeover. Now the rich people had what they wanted, they were super rich and the rest of us, well we were super poor. Corporations now control our country utterly. One either works for a Corporation, for the pittance they offer you in compensation, or one tries to survive working under the table. I was an under the table guy and my wife, Sheryl, worked for a Corporation called Florida Tech Inc.(FTI) That way as a team, we could be above board enough to have an excuse to live in this godforsaken mess.

As I rode up to the house I saw that Sheryl’s car was already there. She had to drive a couple of days a week in the car pool, which took about one and a half gallons of gas, costly but necessary. Public transportation was a thing of the past; it was all corporate owned and expensive. When I got off the bike I noticed that the front door was closed but not latched and Jake, our dog was by it sulking which was not like him.

I pulled the door open with one hand habitually near the Berretta 9MM and eased through. Across the house in the dining room was Sheryl, gagged and tied to a chair with a bloody nose and a nasty cut over her eye. Her blouse was torn open as she sat exposed with an expression of fear showing through the blood running down her beautiful face, dripping from her chin. My temper spiked and sweat began forming on my forehead as my heart nearly leapt from my chest. She was gesturing with her head down the hall where I heard a big power tool start up followed by the sound of an abrasive disc against steel. They were after our safe. I rushed over and started at her bindings when a tall tan man came out of the hall and rounded the corner into the dining room.

Is my sexy little girl friend horny yet, I’m gonna’— He was rubbing his crotch as he spoke, then he saw me.

Jake attacked his calves but the man’s attention was all over me as his own voice echoed back to him from down the barrel of my gun. He epitomized the current gang trash that ruled the streets with brutal violence and guns. He was tattooed and pierced all over and his pants were low on his ass with a wife-beater t-shirt, dirty with sweat. His hair was short with designs sculpted into the sides that probably indicated his rank in the gang. He carried a semi-automatic handgun loosely in his right hand and a homemade mace type weapon hung from his belt, swinging as it drug his drawers down further.

His eyes were wide with surprise but he didn’t lower his hand holding the firearm, he raised it further. Stupid mistake, his last. I lowered my weapon and he got one in the belly button, then as he looked at me in dismay I raised my weapon to face level and gave him an additional hollowpoint in the forehead. What a scatterbrain, he tumbled back into a pool of what he once thought with. The noise of the abrasive disc cutting steel in the other room must have concealed the shots from whoever was working on my safe, as the noise continued. No more wondering if I had the confidence to pull the trigger when the chips were down. Now I knew; it was automatic.

I hopped over and got the perpetrator’s gun and kicked it under the couch even though I didn’t reckon he had the intellect to use it any more. The grinding stopped in my office and I heard a voice.

Man this steel is thick, this is gonna take a while. Hey dude, where are you? You’re s’posed to be watching for me man, are you fuckin’ the lady?

My appearance in the door answered his question. He sunk to his knees with his hands up and spoke in a quaking voice as he looked down the barrel. Jake was right on him. Good boy.

Hey I’m just doing this so they don’t kill my momma, they gonna’ kill her man. Tears of fear ran freely, mixing with the sweat running down his tattooed face as he shook uncontrollably.

Really man, they made me, hey, hey mister I didn’t touch the lady; I swear that wasn’t me. The desperation in his voice told me he thought Sheryl had already been raped, or worse.

With that his phone rang, I kept the gun on him and he ignored the ringing. It was sitting on my desk so I grabbed it and looked at the number as it quit. Then I heard a phone ring on the dead guy. I got the safecracker up and pushed him in front of me with my gun barrel and we went down the hall with Jake nipping at his heels.

Pick it up, bring up the recent calls menu and hand it to me, I said coldly.

He was still quaking visibly as he did so. I checked recent calls; it was the same number.

With the gun still on the safecracker I heard a car come screaming down the street and stop in front of the house. Looks like someone heard the shots.

That your ride?

He looked at the body of his accomplice on the floor and then at the front door deciding what to do, when an automatic weapon let loose through the front door and window. I dove in front of Sheryl as I felt the burn of lead slashing my ribs. My gun was dislodged from my hand and the safecracker grabbed it and charged out the front door away from me. How he avoided the hail of lead I don’t know.

I turned back to Sheryl to find my worst fears realized. She hadn’t been able to duck. I worked at her bonds and she looked at me.

Don’t bother cowboy, I love you. Her voice cracked as blood erupted from her mouth and down her bare front over a gruesome chest wound. Then her beautiful features became lifeless as her head slumped foreword. The horror of my grief had no time to gain traction in my mind. I was in utter mental shock and right then my life meant little to me as all I wanted was revenge on the shooter.

There was no time for despair as another barrage came through the front door and in came a young Latina, with tacky body piercings and too many tatts. More gang trash. The instant she saw me she chased me out the back door with a line of rounds. She had obviously seen her compadre on the floor.

"Carajo, did you kill my boy? Huh gringo, I’m gonna kill your ass deader an shit," her Hispanic accent spat after me.

I ended up diving behind the driftwood bar in the backyard, hoping the little fridge behind