Madness Town

By Nathan T. Wade

In the region of Rowan, the leadership seems to be getting worse every minute. Abel McKenzie and Franklin Evans struggle to cope with new laws while maintaining order as enforcers of Rowan. When Franklin becomes more enraged at their leaders and starts to act out of character, Abel will have to ask himself how far he is willing to go for his partne

• Language: English
• Publisher: Indy Pub
• Release date: Jan 19, 2021
• ISBN: 9781087942698

Nathan T. Wade

Nathan T. Wade resides in Memphis, TN where he has lived his whole life. He is currently a therapist for a recovery program and mental hospital with a master's in counseling and a minor in criminal justice. Madness Town is his first novel.

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Madness Town

Madness Town

Madness Town

Nathan T. Wade

Indy Pub

Copyright © 2021 by Nathan T. Wade

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

First Printing, 2021

This story is dedicated to Benjamin Wade Pylant. 

Thanks for being a true friend. 

Contents

Dedication

1 Prologue

2 Tired

3 Badge

4 Truth

5 Madness

6 Donnie

7 Interruption

8 Order

9 Thaddy

10 Superior

11 Vigo

12 Cold

13 Exit

14 Rowan

15 Epilogue

1

Prologue

Well, a week from now the de-escalation law goes into effect for you guys. Tell me again…why do you two do it? I mean, I know I’m one of the Saviors too but Tombs be raised man… Simon said as we sat on the hill that looked over a great deal of the region, the region that we had dedicated years of our lives to. This was the region that gave us the endearing title of ‘The Saviors’ and yet, it could turn on us at any moment and more than likely would once the de-escalation law took effect. It was a law that compelled enforcers like my partner Franky and me to not even draw our extractor, which is the firearm issued to all enforcers, before having a little chat with the criminal first—regardless of the situation—so that we could avoid violence at all costs as if we’re old buddies with them or something.

Don’t get me wrong, I hated killing. Tombs knew I’d seen more than my share but this…this was just plain suicide, unless we turned in our badges of course, but then who knows what the 1st Estate would say after that. Then the public could hang us at the Tribunal…if they believed that we were giving up on them that is, and if enough found the need to do so. Then, we would be nothing more than a few extra bodies to add to the Temple of Tombs (T.O.T.). They put us on a pedestal since coining the term for us. Being called a Savior implied that we could do no wrong and were incapable of disappointing others but these were impossible expectations for anyone. The region did not handle disappointment well. So yeah, it was very possibly suicide either way.

All three of us had met up on that hill every Saturday since we were kids to clear our heads. First, it was just to get out of our parents’ houses and feel free for a moment and occasionally skip out on school. Then it was to just vent about the drama of our next to nothing jobs as teenagers, but soon we became adults and traded our school uniforms for shirts, ties, and trenchcoats—or in Simon’s case, a very bright shirt and tie and whatever perky colored coat he could find. At least one of us was still a kid at heart. We also had bigger issues to discuss like how things had taken a turn that I believed none of us could’ve predicted. None of us expected to reach such fame in the region either.

After cursing under his breath, Franky replied, This region is full of garbage. Someone has to take it out. If it wasn’t for us three, this piss hole of a region would just be one big freakin’ landfill and I’m so sick of arresting the same people over and over again. I say it’s time we start burning this trash instead of taking it out just for it to be taken right back to our doorstep. Ya know? I knew all too well what he meant. He had been saying things like that for a while.

I saw him glaring at me to see my reaction as he took another mouthful of his beer. His emotions were quite heightened due to his inebriated state but it wasn’t just that. Franky wanted a drastic change, even if that meant war. He not only wanted it but he was starting to feel like he didn’t have a choice anymore. I suppose he wanted me to agree and have us all die in a chaotic mishmash of a firefight but I just shrugged my shoulders and told him that this was out of our control, a response he had always hated.

Dude! Simon shrieked out as he looked back and forth, a look that said he was ashamed to be with us on his face. You know the 1st Estate is just aching to hear us say that man. He was whispering now. Simon was a bit paranoid and rightfully so. If the 1st Estate is against you, more than likely the public will be too. Just because we were the Saviors didn’t make us free of this.

Ah don’t worry about it, ya free bird, Franky replied, smacking Simon on the back of the shoulder. Just have ya some herbal tea and relax…man.

Simon rolled his eyes and replied, Maybe it is best to be less violent and think for a moment. That way the criminals can have a fighting chance for recovery.

Franky laughed a bit too loudly over this as he said, Simon, you’ve seen what the criminals and 1st Estate are capable of and neither give a rat’s ass about living a more moral lifestyle so just quit embarrassing yourself, but hey, screw what I think. What about Abel? Good ole Franky. He was a rebel till the end. He even still owned a broken down old red car that I believe was called a convertible and was quite popular ages ago, knowing it was illegal to drive anything on the roads that wasn’t a buoyant these days.

Even though there was not much variety to buoyants, they were very convenient vehicles. They floated which meant no bumpy roads, they were easy to charge up as well as they had a very long battery life, and they were so smooth that they pretty much drove themselves. Franky, of course, thought these means of transportation were a bit ridiculous. What’s the point of having a road if all the vehicles float? he would say. The road once was meant to burn rubber and I’m at least going to do it once before I die.

I could understand both of my friends’ concerns entirely. The 1st Estate and the public seemed to love gossip and loved to hate the people at the source of it, even if that gossip involved the ones that would lay down their lives for people. Entertainment is prioritized over justice in this region so unless it impacts the public directly, there will be no progress on this matter, I replied. But years ago this place made history and it was considered an honor to live here. I still consider it an honor to live here. You asked why we do it. Well, I just simply fight for Rowan. This is the only region I’ve come to know and love. Furthermore, we are men of the law and must respect its changes, no matter how idiotic they may be. We’ll find a way. They both just stared for a moment.

I loved the region for sure but I didn’t believe myself about the new law. It was suicide. It seemed as though someone passed it in an effort to kill my partner and me or perhaps someone else that was rubbing the 1st Estate the wrong way. Simon showed me a grin that looked as if he was relieved and Franky had on his all too familiar little smirk. They knew that my answer was all that needed to be said but still, with a smack on my back, Franky said, Ah well maybe you can join your lady hero down in the T.O.T. when we’re all shot or hung.

It was strange that we had gotten to this point. I’ll start by saying Simon was a genius from the beginning. Ever since Franky and I met him in grade school, he always carried himself as an old soul mixed with a laid-back spirit—a ‘free bird’ as Franky so eloquently put it—and he was very serious about his passion, which was psychiatric science. So maybe it wasn’t as surprising to think about him becoming famous among everyone. I believe that it was this combined with us all being friends and with Franky and me getting cases solved back to back—with some being skill some being luck—that got us all in such favor with everyone. Maybe every region needed a hero so there we were, three friends with a close bond and a desire to help the region with a dash of a winning streak…so far, anyway. Times were changing. People became less appreciative of our success and more infuriated with any mistakes we would make. The 1st Estate seemed to fuel the fire with the public by not speaking up for us but instead putting pressure on us themselves. This was due to us seeing some of their corruption as well as us not always getting along. Cases needed to be solved faster among the enforcers, progress reports were to be made more often, and then this happened. For the Saviors and other hardworking enforcers, this was applied. As for the others who didn’t care, some were eventually let go but most flew under the radar. This went especially for the corrupt.

Was it possible that another war was brewing?" Years ago there was no region here but rather two towns that were growing in population and refused to come to a union due to their differences in beliefs, customs, and laws. They both, of course, needed more land to prosper because they seemed to be multiplying like rabbits. Back then, mayors ran towns and cities and from what I’ve read, they were not so different from the 1st Estate and the region. If they wanted war, then war is what they got. No bones about it. So, much like in Rowan, I suppose the people were always used to some form of violence on a regular basis. The people in these towns were usually extremely loyal to their mayors and the mayors would go to war to prosper their people. Yet, there was one woman that was a friend of both towns. She was, again, what good ole Franky would refer to as a free bird. Both mayors came to love her as their own daughter but they didn’t know that she was moving from town to town. She was in every sense of the word a do-gooder. She was a young woman and from the pictures I’d seen of her in history books (and my visions but I’ll get to that later), she was extraordinarily beautiful but also wise beyond her years. She was always helping the downtrodden and counseling the discouraged, whether they were rich or poor, but there was no documentation on where she lived exactly. She begged the mayors not to go to war but they insisted. Her counsel was good but not good enough to them when it came to leading their precious towns. On the day of the war, both mayors came out to give each other one last chance to come to some form of agreement in person. Each had a handful of bodyguards around them, a sniper who was posted a fair distance away and bombers ready to strike the moment either one of them made a move. They were ready for anything, well, except for the young woman they had both come to know and love to stand right in between them. They couldn’t believe that she was so well known to both of them, and not as a war ally but a friend and a mentor. As they both began to come to their senses and think about following their mutual love’s example, a shot rang out. No one knew why the man shot but he did. He shot her. He shot Faith Rowan dead in front of everyone who loved her dearly. The only thing they all had in common, the only shroud of mutual love that existed in their lives at that time died that day. Both of the mayors sought the man out before he could explain himself and hung him in the abandoned house that he was posted in. In time, it was rebuilt and became