Winners

By G.C Anderson

Winners! is a collection of ten writing competition winners that showcase G.C. Anderson's talent for crafting riveting reads. The lead story, Fog of War starts as a routine traffic stop on a frigid winter evening in New Hampshire two weeks after the Angels foretold of in Revelations descend from heaven to warn the faithful that Satan's hoards ha

• Language: English
• Publisher: Book Writing Experts
• Release date: Nov 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9781088001905

Book preview

Badlands

This is a story set in a future AFTER civilization is re-established by the survivors of the Y2K-like attempt [depicted in the first novel in the series, Hard Reality] to flush democracy (and with it the rule of law) down the toilet by the world's first 'immortal'.

Central to this tale is one of the world's oldest, most successful criminal organizations, one that rules by fear and intimidation.

This is an optimistic tale because in it, the forces of good take to heart the message 'the only thing evil needs to succeed is for honest men to do nothing...

Probably the most ironic factor here is all crime is cash and carry. Eliminate cash and crime disappears!

It is no accident that cash persists; nor are the perpetrators ignorant of what they do.

In the future, those who do not appreciate the benefits of civil society will have those benefits withdrawn from them.

Angelo Forte stands alone in the circle of the accused. After the revolt, the rebels would hold court in school gyms with the accused being made to stand inside the circle that surrounds the basketball foul line drawn on every gym floor across the country.

Since that time, the new regime has rebuilt the courthouses of old, incorporating the circle of the accused into the new design.

Like the tableau suggests, trials these days no longer involve judges and lawyers. There are no spectators or reporters allowed inside. The accused pleads their case directly to a jury made up of three people who know them and four who don’t. The whole process is presided over by a magistrate who’s only job is to present the jury with the people’s case against the accused.

Angelo is his given name but he prefers to be called Andy. In the old days, Andy was a feared and respected man around town. He was and still is a high-ranking soldier in the organization.

The revolt brought with it many changes. One of these changes forced Andy to find a real job for the first time in his life. Having no documented prior experience to draw upon the only open job he qualified for turned out to be at the DPW.

He now pushes a broom up and down the city’s sidewalks five hours a day to satisfy his ‘work requirement’. Even people who knew better had a hard time concealing their amusement at Andy’s plight. Sweeping city streets is not a job for any self-respecting forty-eight year old man, especially a man of Andy’s stature.

Andy complained about this change in circumstances to the council, not the civil authorities but to a power higher than that. He had been told to bide his time, the organization was waiting for the young upstarts to go to sleep.

When the decision was made to act, Andy himself was chosen to deliver the message. The gist of the message was simple; we’re still here. The instrument of the message was to be the teenaged daughter of a prominent public official. The wording of the message was to be short and brutal.

Andy was a skilled mechanic and he planned the details meticulously. He got the girl, savagely raped her, executed her ‘gangland’ style and left her where she was sure to be found. The media would have a field day with a news story like this--which was exactly what the organization wanted.

No one was more surprised than Andy was when the only mention of the girl’s death in any media at all was her standard four-line obituary in the paper.

Almost as surprising to Andy is the fact he was taken into custody and charged with her murder in less than four hours.

At the stroke of nine, a thirty something year old ‘kid’ in a gray jumpsuit with a black armband that is the emblem of his office, banged his toy wooden hammer on his desk.

Without any of the old ‘all rise and here comes the judge’ nonsense, the kid announces that the case of the People vs. Angelo G. Forte is now in session.

Andy gives the men and women of the jury his most intimidating glare as the kid reads the charges against him.

Angelo Forte, you stand before this tribunal accused of the kidnap, rape and gangland style murder of one Ms. Tracy McKeown, a minor and the daughter of City Manager Phillip McKeown. How do you plea?

Andy puts on his best poker face.

Not guilty!

The court acknowledges your plea of not guilty and charges you to prepare to defend that plea.

Andy nods solemnly, as if he were as innocent as a newborn babe. He is totally unprepared for what happens next. The kid dims the room’s lights and big screen TV is wheeled into the courtroom. The kid hits a button on the remote control and the TV begins playing the most interesting show, a show that stars one Andy Forte!

The first scene captures Andy being given his orders to undertake the hit! The next scene shows the actual abduction and getaway while the final scene shows the getaway vehicle’s arrival and departure from what will later be identified as the murder scene.

The tape takes five minute to run from start to finish and by the end of those five minutes Andy’s jaw is on the floor.

The kid takes center stage once more.

Mr. Forte, the imaging lab reports with 100% accuracy that the man seen abducting the female on this tape is YOU! The lab also positively identifies the woman captured on this security video as the deceased, Ms. Tracy McKeown!

The kid fiddles with his remote control and the getaway vehicle’s license plate fills the screen.

This capture is from the scene of the abduction.

He hits the button again and the matching license plate is seen from the rear of the stolen vehicle as it drives towards the murder scene.

And this one was taken at the murder scene.

He hits the button one more time, and Andy’s face can be clearly seen in the vehicle’s side view mirror."

And this is you at that scene.

Andy is totally dumbstruck!

This is unbelievable! What do you do for an encore? Show me bum-blasting the bitch? Andy asks sarcastically.

The kid turns on Andy and for a moment it looks like he’s going to let loose on him.

The victim was in fact sodomized, information that was not released to the public. The People have presented their case against you, the floor is yours Mr. Forte. Andy eyes the jury nervously; he can see his doom in their eyes.

"This is all made up, I didn’t do it I tell you, I’m innocent!

Can you give your exact whereabouts at the time of the murder Mr. Forte?

It was a Saturday, I was with a hundred witnesses at my nephew’s birthday party!

You do not have a nephew Mr. Forte but the murder was indeed committed on a Saturday, another fact that has not been released to the public. The kid replies deliberately. Do you have anything else to say in your defense Mr. Forte?

Yeah, I didn’t do it, this is a frame up!

Can you present any facts to corroborate this claim?

Like I told you, I was with a hundred witnesses that will place me fifty miles from that dump in Marlboro.

The murder scene is indeed a landfill and it is also located in Marlboro, another fact that has not been released to the public! The kid replies like he’s Perry Mason.

Let me bring the witnesses in here, they’ll tell you I didn’t do it! The kid glances over at the jury and the jury foreperson gives a barely perceptible nod.

You have permission to call in your witnesses, We will adjourn this tribunal until Nine O’clock tomorrow morning.

Andy is led to a phone so he can call someone on the outside to round up his hundred witnesses. The problem is that there are no witnesses to call in, Andy had made it all up. He dials the number of an ‘expendable’ flunky and fills him in on what he’s to tell the Capo.

"They’ve got me cold. Tell the boss I’m gonna to take the fall tomorrow. Ask if he can pull some strings for me, maybe a nice Federal pen something.

Consider it done! replies the voice.

Andy hangs up the phone and shuffles back over to the guard so he can return to his cell. The trial lasted all of fifteen minutes and he’s emotionally drained.

Andy swears that regardless of what happens next, the kid is a marked man. Then Andy slaps his forehead. He’s just blown what was likely his last chance to put the finger on the kid! It’s too late now; it will have to wait until later.

The following morning Andy returns to the hearing room to find the kid and the members of the jury already waiting for him. Andy takes his spot in the circle and the kid begins.

We are aware that there will be no witnesses to testify on your behalf this morning Mr. Forte. I ask you one final time, is there any evidence at all to back up your claim of innocence?

Andy makes one last attempt at making the jury feel sorry for him. He hangs his head in shame and says I have nothing to defend myself with but my own good word. I throw myself upon the mercy of this court.

You understand, Mr. Forte, that the People are seeking the death penalty. If you were to turn People’s evidence and testify against your former confederates, the People may settle for a lesser punishment. The kid offers.

Nothing doing! I don’t roll over for nobody!

How about if we let you go free?

Free, like let me walk, free?

Free as a bird!

With a better job?

Any job you want!

Andy mulls the offer over for a moment. They’ll kill him for sure; the evidence against him is just too strong. One thing’s for certain, the new regime runs a tight ship; nothing gets leaked to the press as evidenced by the girl’s murder.

If Andy were to roll over, who’d know? He could start all over again with any job he wanted somewhere else, maybe even somewhere warm even!

Let me think it over. Andy replies finally.

Fine, you’ve got one minute.

One minute?

The new rules are an eye for an eye Mr. Forte. In sixty seconds the guard is going to take you to a cell where you will be put to death in very much the same way you murdered Ms. McKeown…including the anal invasion. The kid says grimly.

Horse of an entirely different color! Suddenly Andy is feeling very cooperative. He agrees to turn People’s evidence and for the next three weeks he sings his heart out.

The Magistrates’ office has piles of evidence that corroborate his testimony and by the time Andy’s done, the mob in this neck of the woods is finished.

The Capo himself is the last one brought to justice and Andy is the People’s star witness against him. The jury convicts and Andy is compelled to watch the Capo’s execution.

It is the execution they had planned for him and it is every bit as brutal as the acts he carried out on the young girl at the Capo’s orders.

That was the last of them. You should be proud of yourself Andy, you did a fine job! The kid tells him as they leave the ‘Justice chamber’.

Now it’s time for you to make good. Andy replies ominously.

Indeed it is, guard!

Yes sir?

Prepare Mr. Forte for exile.

What!

I said that you could go free Mr. Forte and I’m a man of my word but if you think for one minute that I’d release you back into society you’d better think again!

Wait a minute, what’s this exile crap?

"Did you live