Jacques was also armed, as were the other members of his party. Jacques drew his weapon without speaking and began firing, his first shot hitting the front man in the chest. Blood exploded onto the street and the man was propelled backwards by the high caliber slug. The others in Jacques party drew and fired as well. Most of the group had never fired a weapon before and most of their shots missed. Jacques was an expert marksman. His shots made up for his group’s inaccuracy.
The group of street thugs – now seven – made a weak effort to shoot back but it was clear the man in front was their leader. With him dead, their resolve weakened. No longer was it a game of easy intimidation and robbery (plus other acts if there were females involved). Now their lives were at risk and this was more than they wanted to gamble. They tried to run but Jacques mowed them down.
When it was over, they looked across the concrete field at the spilled blood and grey matter. Eight bodies sprawled across the road littered with burned cars and broken glass. They all turned and looked at Jacques. When he had begun firing first, their instinct to survive had caused them to react. Now that the smoke from gunfire had cleared and the adrenaline of the moment had subsided, they regarded Jacques. “What were you thinking?” one of the men asked Jacques.
“I was thinking I didn’t want to die here on the street. And then, I didn’t think. I just pulled the trigger. Just like you.”
The men looked at Jacques and then one another. “Well, I guess we better get moving.” one of the other men finally said.
“What about the bodies?” one of the men asked.
“Leave them.” replied Jacques. “Give the dogs something to eat.”
They searched the rest of the city and found small pockets of people but none that challenged them. They took several readings and test swabs for evidence of biological variants and radiation; they found small traces of radiation but would have to wait until they returned to the facility to test the biological samples. After spending the night in an abandoned hotel in the French Quarter, they returned back to the facility.
They tested the samples before addressing the group with their full report. Among the samples, they found traces of anthrax, Yersinia pestis or the Plague, and an aggressive mutated strand of Tularemia. “I think it is too dangerous for us there.” Jacques concluded. “The air there is not good and I’m sure the water is worse. We should stay here for a while longer. Here we have a contained atmosphere and water and food for at least a year.” Julius, who had somehow become the person they all looked to, agreed.
Over the next few months, they searched the surrounding areas looking for signs that the air quality was becoming better. One of the locations they investigated was the Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base in nearly Belle Chasse. They learned too late that at that location, the presence of biological diseases was most dense. The base was completely gone and the radiation levels there were very high. They didn’t think it had been hit by a hydrogen bomb but it had obviously encountered a brutal attack.
Just after they returned the facility, the first of the exploration party began to get sick. Then, others in the facility became ill. Of the fifty six survivors of the facility, eight died. With the self-contained atmosphere, the survivors were living in a bubble of biological diseases. They had vaccinations against the biological agents but they weren’t as effective as they hoped.
Finally, the situation came to a head. They took a vote and it was agreed – they had no choice but to vacate the facility.
Five months after the world shook, the survivors of the facility, led by Julius Babel, left for New Orleans. They would have to take their chances.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It had been many years since Jacques left his people. He had volunteered to leave them the first time, hoping that his time away from New Orleans would lessen the memories of his slaughtered family. He had encountered much to distract him as he traveled to what was left of Washington, D.C. and even more distraction when he learned the nation for which he had fought during the Gulf War no longer existed.
He had returned back to his people and found that the laughter was too much. The darkness that grew within him made it nearly impossible for him to move on from what had happened and join in with that laughter. He left again, searching the world in hope of finding some sort of peace. When he found the world dead, he knew if he was going to continue in this life, he would have to find his own source of peace.
The closer he came to New Orleans on his approach, the more he finally felt at ease. He stopped in the city of Covington, just north of Lake Pontchartrain. The city had once only been forty miles from New Orleans but with the destruction of the bridges across the lake, the distance on foot was now greatly increased.
Lake Pontchartrain had become fouled by the debris and pollutants from the air. The waters were covered by a grey film (over the next four hundred years, the lake would dry up and become a desolate plain). Jacques thought there was something morbidly serene about the grey lake and would spend hours watching the waters roll the debris that had invaded the lake.
Jacques walked past the statue of President Ronald Reagan that inhabited the town. The statue was ten feet tall on a six foot base and was reputed to be the
