FEMA Camp 37 by R.E. Riepe

Scott made his bed very carefully and straightened up his room. To leave any dirty clothes on the concrete floor or to leave his bed in a messy or unkempt way would generate demerits and that was something a FEMA camp resident tried to desperately avoid. To accumulate too many demerits in a given period of time would risk his losing the room he had worked hard for over the past five years. Over time he had managed to be rewarded with a private room by doing what was required by his FEMA superiors. Most FEMA inmates shared smaller rooms with four to six people and some shared larger rooms with a hundred people or more. Scott winced remembering those difficult times during his first five years in FEMA camp 37. He considered himself one of the luckier inmates. He always did what he was told to do. Plus he was a big and intimidating man which had helped. During the first five years of his incarceration in his young life he remembered those years and how difficult it was to just survive. During those five years he had seen a lot of people die simply from lacking the ability to get clean. The young man loved his stainless steel sink and commode. To have your own toilet and your own sink was a major reward from FEMA authorities. Now days he never had to worry about someone stealing his razor or soap and he always had toilet paper. Toilet paper was a coveted commodity in FEMA camp 37 still to this day. For the past five years the young man had developed his routine to perfection. When the clock on the concrete wall displayed twenty minutes after five he retrieved one of his standard issue black one piece jump suits with the word FEMA in big orange letters stamped on the back from his locker by the corner shelves and put it on. He then sat down on his neat bed and donned his black FEMA issued pair of socks. The black socks also had the word FEMA stamped on both sides and they too were bright orange letters. Over the past five years he had been rewarded with ten pair of black socks which eased his laundry load time each week. Then he laced up his shiny black work boots also issued by the government. He was one of the lucky ones in FEMA camp 37 to have two sets of work boots and he worked often on both pair keeping them in the cleanest of conditions. The black boots were as shiny as black boots could possibly be. As he fitted his work boots on his feet and laced them up he continued to watch the morning news, now with some interest. It seemed to him that the crime wave that was occurring in the valley was getting more active and more violent the past two weeks. For the past five years there was very little crime in the Las Vegas valley as well as the rest of the country. From twenty twelve when the world economy crashed and martial law was declared until twenty fifteen most prisoners contained in all prisons nationwide had been put to death during those three years. The government had run out of money to house, care and feed the serious offenders. There were rumors that even non violent offenders had been exterminated. Nobody really knew what the total amount of executions was around the United States but Scott had heard that it was in the millions. At any rate, according to the government and its television stations, the crime rate in America came way down during the first three years of martial law. Those three years also contained a vast amount of violent rioting in every major American city. A lot of Americans were sent to FEMA camps across the United States and were never heard from again. Nobody knew to this day what happened to them. Then Sin City prison was put into operation and crime in the country dropped dramatically. No one really knew much about Sin City prison other than it was not a place to be. He was deeply worried about his parents and two sisters who had been sent to a different FEMA camp in northern Nevada ten years ago when the FEMA authorities raided his family’s home. As of this day he did not know what had happened to his family. He continued to watch the television report on the car bombing. This event was unusual and highly intriguing to the young man. To kill a FEMA officer or a Homeland Security agent was an instant death sentence for anyone. To kill six FEMA officers at one time was hard to digest and in the past two weeks someone had managed to kill over fifty FEMA officials despite the vast resources of the government. He found it difficult to believe any one man or group of men could accomplish that deadly task without getting caught and it was very unusual for the government to ask for the public’s assistance in this day and time. The television announcer seemed to be pleading for help. Scott knew that most people in the outside world would not contact FEMA authorities because that would invite unwanted scrutiny and some severe interrogation techniques. Suddenly without warning what sounded like a shot rang out from the tiny speaker in his television set. At least for the moment it sounded like a gunshot to the young man. He quickly discovered that was precisely what he had heard. The morning news desk anchor on screen at Channel 13 peeled over across his desk with blood spewing out of the side of his head. Scott was frozen on his bed not knowing if what he had just seen emanating from the tiny screen was real or not. For this brief moment time seemed to slow down to a crawl. Five seconds later a man wearing a black bandana across the lower part of his face, much like the bandits who used to rob the stagecoaches in the old west years ago, appeared on screen. The man had long hair highlighted by streaks of gray cascading down his shoulders. He was wearing a black long sleeved tee shirt with the words ‘Free America’ in white letters on his chest. The masked man pushed the bloody news anchor off the report desk and then casually sat down in his chair placing his dirty cowboy boots on the table as the broadcast continued. It was obvious to Scott that the man must have had some associates off screen. The long haired man seemed to be in no hurry and was calm considering the circumstances. The bandit looked directly into the camera in front of him with piercing green eyes, eased back in the news anchor chair and began to speak with a southern drawl with grizzled voice. “How do you like that morning news alert Las Vegas? I think I got everyone’s attention! I never liked this channel anyway or that government employee. Welcome to the first Free America broadcast in Nevada. It’s a good day Free America. Listen up you jerks who work for FEMA and Homeland Security. Every one of you is now marked for death unless you quit your job tomorrow. The car bombings that have been happening in this valley are going to intensify over the next few weeks and so are the assassinations. You have all been judged as accessories to murder and I am the executioner. The dear leader and his minions are not going to be of any help to any FEMA or government employee for the next few weeks. Stay tuned for tomorrow nights broadcast on another channel. This is our declaration of war on FEMA and Homeland Security. They have killed one person too many. This valley will have one less television station to view after today. This is the executioner signing off and by the way, it is going to get hot today in Las Vegas.” Then Scott watched as the television station transmitted the image of an American eagle that was gliding through the air while the old national anthem of the United States played. Then the broadcast disappeared displaying nothing but white static on the screen for a brief moment and then a test pattern.