Alone in the Dirt: Dogma Has No Place

By Walter Eastwood

In the bleak world of today's religions, one person stands out. William Willard Williams strikes at the core of non-believers with hammer and cycle. Millions of people are slain as they flee to the old western states. Thirteen new states have been established in order to host solely white believers. The new states are currently being cleansed of sinners and non-believers, leaving only their kind to live in a new form of manufactured peace.
Alone In the Dirt begins with a daring escape from one of the hundreds of ditches housing millions of dead sinners who refuse to follow William's Christian principles. A teenage lad is on the run after obtaining his miraculous gift of life, owing to his executioner's inability to hoist the hefty rifle provided to him as an entry into the ranks. The adolescent murderer aims, fires, and misses his target. Billy Wayne's bellicose cellmate gets hit in the shoulder by a misdirected gunshot, causing his arm to swing wildly and knock him into the cavern of doom, unharmed.
The story is divided into separate tales, on the one hand, Billy Wayne and his daughter who he adopted after killing her father, the other being that of Jean Windsong and her friend Stella, as their well-planned escape into Canada goes awry. The two women and their collective children's lives are thrown into a flux after a long-time pest who has for years tried unsuccessfully to become Jean's lover, tries to kidnap them as his own personal pets. Fortunately, they too manage to escape their captor.
As the characters face gangs of redeemers attempting to take their lives, the paths become increasingly complicated. Billy Wayne stumbles across a pristine Eden in the Adirondacks, while Jean and Stella experience nightmare after nightmare. While Jean and Stella continue a vicious murder spree that can only lead to their apprehension, Billy Wayne is enjoying his secondary life. Stella sensibly goes solo, alleviating pressure on Jean, who then isolates herself from Stella and begins on her own less brutal killing spree while moving north to the safety of Canada.
Hell hath no fury like a mother whose child has been cruelly murdered by an unrepentant redeemer. Stella is furious as she bashes the son of her daughter's killer in the head. This is only the beginning of a woman's madness. It is this enraged mother's lethal attempts that precipitates the church's swift downfall. She shows no mercy as redeemer after redeemer perishes in a terrible death. As she kills her way through the new states, other women take up her mantle and fight back against Willian Willard Williams' misogynistic supporters.
Then there's Jason Bates and his friend, a woman he saved from a life of servitude when he kills the man who has put a claim on her. Jason, not your every-day innocent has a history of death and does not want any more of it, so he chooses to leave the pursuit of Stella and her friends to the tall Scraggy who is more than glad to do the Patriarch bidding. Lying and stalling, he keeps William's at bay while working his way to Canada and freedom.
In upper New York, the heroes and villains collide head on, and when the dust settles, just a few survivors remain. At the same moment as Williams is flying to freedom, the stories of the hunters and the prey come to their predictable ends. Some survive and find happiness, while others are slain; nonetheless, there is a trio who successfully escape the new country.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Jun 13, 2023
• ISBN: 9798350903317

Book preview

Alone in the Dirt

Virginia Timberville Internment Camp

It may seem strange to outside observers what I might be thinking considering I had not eaten nor slept in days. Through a tiny slat of a window, I saw an out-of-place blue sky. I felt at peace with the world. What a beautiful day to die.

Through negligence, due to my young age, I suppose, I was captured by one of God’s Special Redeemers with the aid of his apprentice son. They delivered me to the Timberville Internment Facility. I was led to an iron door with the word Dorm stenciled over it—someone’s sick joke, I thought. Stopping me at the door with an armbar across the chest, I was ordered, Wait here, and do not move. A brute of a man pinned a Post-It-Note to my T-shirt and ordered me not to remove it. On his arm was a tattoo, red blending to blue with the name Windsong scribed in jailhouse ink, and on the post-it-note was the number thirteen. Another odd number was twenty-seven, which was all that could be jammed into each cell. I was shoved into cell number thirteen.

There were twenty-seven cells in the block, which was once death row in the old Timberville State Prison. On good days it would take only three days to cram in five hundred one people. When full, they marched to the edge of an open mass grave, one cell at a time.

Many men, women, and children had preceded me in the patriarch’s purge of nonbelievers from his Nationalist Christian Coalition, which now ruled the brand-new Thirteen Colony states after his warless coup.

Looking beyond the bulldozed rows of graves, I could not count the number of human-filled trenches that went on for several hundred yards west, where it ended at a high fence that separated the condemned from the normals. Normals being the new tribe of religious zealots that had taken over most of the East Coast states.

In the beginning the fence was crowded with members of the press and sick eyeballers. But, after weeks of constant death most lost interest or were sickened enough by the carnage that they went home. Each grave trench was a thousand yards long with fifty-seven rows of neatly mounded dirt.

We were marched from the confines of our crowded cell after three days of nearly unbearable conditions. At eight a.m. on this day the cells began to empty. Twenty-seven people marched from cell number twenty-seven, located at the end of the block, out a door, then past a long trench, and were summarily executed. Then, the entire block followed suit. There was a convenient break for lunch, we that were still alive patiently waiting for them to finish their repast.

My siblings crowded in my cell were fortunate to not have the small window to look out as I did. They could not see but only hear the continuous gunfire that brought so many of their cellmates to their believed heaven. For them, it may have just been target practice they were hearing. But as cells emptied every few minutes, and with no one returning, not knowing what was happening on the other side of the wall could only be delusional thought.

I, on the other hand, saw it all and thought that surely they must be running out of nonbelievers. But, then again, when there was a bounty on one’s head and the posse that brought you in didn’t have the least bit of concern as to whether or not it was legit, what did it matter? After all, there were mouths to feed at home.

In the early days after incarceration there was loud and righteous protest over the squaller the detainees were forced to stand in—unfed, unbathed, no water given. The protest suddenly stopped after hundreds of 5.56 rounds emptied the cell closest to the front of the dormitory. Once the bodies were dragged away there was total compliance. So for three days I was not fed, nor given water, and why would they? After all, the entire block would be dead by the end of the day.

We were packed in so tight that we were unable to sit, and I had the misfortune of being forced up against an outer wall, which had the only window. Through that window I was witness to all those souls preceding me in death. For three days I watched and heard the shots fired into the living room. Very few struggled as all walked to their last station on this earth accepting their fate. As one they would stop, then turn to face their executioners. Without protest they waited for the full-metal-jacketed bullet that would end their lives.

In the beginning of this horror show I would count the number of twenty-seven as their march ended in death, always twenty-seven. On occasion, lines had less than twenty-seven lines, which at first confused me. Then looking closer I would find that an exceptionally large person was a member of the file, hence the constant number of twenty-seven was impossible to reach. Each cell could only hold twenty-seven normal-sized people, just an observation to fill the thoughtless void.

The lines were marched past their destiny of trenches filled with bodies, and to a man the next victims refused to look into the abyss. It was always the same: Halt! shouted by the sergeant in charge. Without haste he would command his team: Ready, aim, fire! By this time it was so practiced that the gunfire sounded like one loud weapon. A second of quiet, then the line of standing dead would fall back into the black maw until they were twenty-one bodies deep. Which is why there was a half day of near quiet once the trench had reached its limit.

After the shooters marched away, the next sound heard was that of D9 Caterpillars as they covered up the bodies of dead with loose soil, after which a line of Cats gouged a new, fresh tomb at the feet of the preceding sinners, in which I shall reside.

It really is something to see; well, for me anyway. The first Cat moved forward pushing the earth before the big machine. The second, third, and on and on, each sinking lower into the earth. In the end, another trench had been created with a mountain of dirt piled at the far side, or so I assumed, as I could not see the end of the trench due to my narrow field of view. Four hours was all that was needed to cover and dig the new burial chamber. What a marvelous invention, the Big Cats, as I heard them called, these machines of efficiency.

CHAPTER 2

Odd Numbers

Twenty-seven people crammed into a small cell that left no room to lie down, which meant we had been standing for three days. Every person in this cell faced forward, everyone but me. My unknown friends exhaled stale air onto the backs of those toward the front. I had fresh air, provided through a small hole in the window, broken who knows when. God, I was so fortunate. My time in the cell consisted of three days of desperate breathing and an eerie silence. Twenty-seven times I heard the now-familiar clank caused by an old key being inserted into each cell door down the line. Everyone held their breath for a beat as the door was pulled back. It was our turn to step onto the tiled floor worn thin by those who had preceded us. The clang was followed by the ominous squeal of rusted hinges. A sound my silent friends and I had heard many times during our confinement.

I could suddenly expand my chest with a full breath as the crush of souls emptied into the predeath chamber. I felt a short-lived joy of having room to move, welcomed after days of restricted movement and relief from being the one-man audience to a show I had purchased no ticket to in the theater of death that went on at twenty-seven-minute intervals, sometimes for ten hours a day. Soon it became apparent that there were more cell blocks past the one in which we were housed.

A soft, small hand grabbed my shoulder and turned me away from my window. I was face-to-face with a lad near my age. I was fifteen, and my life was about to end. A remarkable calm came over me, to my relief. I thought I would fear what I knew was to come. I had seen it over and over in the preceding days.

The smallish boy had a sad face; he did not want to be here anymore than I. But if he were to fail in his duty, he, too, would be standing next to me. With hardly a perceptible nod, he indicated that he wanted me to follow the others out of the cell. My brothers and sisters in confinement were already three paces ahead, as if they couldn’t wait to see what was coming, maybe a bite to eat. Sad that I knew no one’s name. In the three days I was with them it had been a tortuous silence of voices over laid with the roar of gunfire. No one spoke. No one told their story. No one gave their name. They did as I did. They waited to die. That is all, except for the man whose back rubbed against mine for so many days, my brother in death. I would never know his name.

We marched down the length of the narrow hall between darkened cells to the light at the end, which was, in earlier days, the last mile to the gallows that once meted out justice for a vastly separate set of sins. Justice today was one man’s vision of a sanitized world that required me and those like me out of it.

Before I exited the chamber of purgatory, a new group of detainees were being marched into the cells we had just vacated. As I exited, I was required to turn right. I took the opportunity to look back. Another young boy was the last to enter my old cell. He would not have to watch the murders that would take place over the next three days. The look on his face must have been the same frightened expression that surely was on mine so long ago.

CHAPTER 3

Stand in Line

Stand in line, was the order given for the umpteenth time to the twenty-seven criminals convicted of no crime. In the New States there was no such thing as a death-bed conversion. If you were an unconverted citizen of the Old-World Order, you were as good as dead in William Willard Williams’s new Christian States; secular law was nonexistent. So, other than being a part of families who were enemies of the evil man who had invaded our state, all rights were canceled. What William feared most were those who might manage to live long enough to exact revenge on his patriarchy, and in his mind, if they were all dead, then there could be no revenge.

What kind of revenge? One would have to wait out this episode of further Christian destruction to find out. So, the easy solution was to eliminate them all. Every last man, woman, son, and daughter. This recent purge had been going on since, well, seemingly forever. And today it was my cellmates and my turn at the ditch of salvation to face WWW’s ire.

By the unfortunate circumstance of facing the single window when the last of my mates were crammed into the already packed cell, it was so tight I could not move. That being the case, I was unable to turn away from the horror that eventually was to be my fate. After the first of those doomed souls marched across my line of sight, I was witness to the evil that had taken over our world. My arms were at my sides, and we were packed in so tight that I could not raise my hands to cover my mouth to mute my screams. It was too late to do otherwise after the first killings, and I was forced to watch it over and over and could not avert my eyes.

In three days of justice, I had been transformed from absolute shock and horror to a mind-numbing reality. My body was an empty vessel ready to accept my fate. The body count that had preceded this day was unimaginable. But now it was me—I mean, us. Three days ago I would have tried to be brave, as only an unlived, young lad could be. Not tainted by doubt, I would have believed that I was going to a better place. Now I do not have the luxury of those ancient feelings, not after all that I have seen.

Once my eyes left the young lad entering my cell, I turned to face my executioners. We marched like all the others across the short distance to our tomb. I was oddly thankful that the burial grounds were filling and that this was the last ditch to be dug at this detention center. The first of us to die must have been out of their minds with fear having to march the thousand yards to where the first trenches were gouged out of the earth.

I was last in line, now facing my executioner. I forced myself to look him in the eye, let him see me. Make him know that I did not fear him, nor his master. From the side and behind the row of condemned, twenty-seven expert shooters. Ready, aim, fire, was shouted over the disturbing silence.

The sound of twenty-seven rifles was terrifying, yet so much different from what I heard inside the cell chamber. In that split second, everything was so clear. The shots rang out, followed by a billow of smoke from the end of the rifles, then the sickening thud as bullets entered the chests of all those left of me. I heard and saw it all. No screams. No pleas to man or God, just death.

The sequence of events that followed was nano inches short of a miracle—for me, not the others. The man discharging his weapon aimed at my heart was less than a second behind the others. At the sound of gunfire, the boy executioner flinched ever so little, deflecting his aim to my left when his gun discharged.

As an oft-used trick by the line of senior executioners, a newbie was offered an older, heavier rifle, the others being 5.56 NATO rounds. The lad had been given an old Henry .50 caliber made unique with its hexagonal barrel. When he fired his round, a rather heavy load that traveled at subsonic speed, it not only missed me, but he was so far off the mark that the round hit the man next to me. It struck him in his right shoulder causing his lifeless body to spin wildly out of control. The bullet intended for me struck him with such force that his left arm swung around and smacked me in the throat, causing me to flip backwards over the bodies below. As a result, I landed in the narrow gap between the heads of the deceased and a wall of earth.

I lay stunned, unsure if I was alive or not. My last memory was that of the man beside me; he had only one ear, an odd thing to notice when the end was at hand. My first instinct was to rattle some semblance of sense into my brain. Then, just as quickly, I thought, don’t move.

That voice of reason demanded that I remain still as long as possible. I must wait in this cavern of the dead and think. If I was still alive, then what should I do next? I was always a quiet boy who watched and listened. Never adding my thoughts to any dialogue or events going on around me, although I had many inward reactions. This quiet may have saved my life—for now.

Grateful, fortunate, or graced by God may best describe the fact that out of the thousands of dead who had preceded me, I remained alive. Staying quiet for a little longer wouldn’t kill me. So it was imperative that I didn’t give any clue that I was still among the living. Also, if I were still alive, how would I escape this hellhole without being seen or buried?

I thought I might dig myself out after the world had gone away, after dark. I reasoned that there would be no one guarding the dead. I lie there waiting for the dirt to bury me. Another lucky happenstance further protected me from sure death. Out there in the world of heavy machines, the operators had decided to wait until the following morning to fill in the grave; after all, the dead weren’t going anywhere.

I could hear diminishing laughter as the guards returned to their man-hall. They would most likely spend the remainder of the night telling jokes about the day’s kill. On the upside, no one was paying attention to the open grave. I began to move about my chamber and readied myself for the exposed run to the safety of the wooded acreage behind the gravesite. I managed a smile, which must have looked insane. I had spent three days wishing I were in those woods.

Think. It was cold and damp. I would need more clothes to keep warm. Shoes. I needed a better pair of shoes, and anything that might be useful. Although my grave mates were fully clothed and shod, I had little hope of finding anything else of use. I laid back and became still and waited with the ghosts of my unknown friends.

At the dimming of daylight, I thought it would be possible to look over the brim of the grave with little chance of being seen. I hesitated and reasoned that if someone saw me, then bang, it was fucking over. While it was still light enough to see, I did a cursory survey of my comrades, mostly to see what they had on them that might be helpful in the chance I managed to make it into the safety of the woods.

There were two men near me who had on heavy jackets, too big for me, but I couldn’t proceed without something to keep away the cold in the coming month should I last that long. At this point in the daily massacre, the guards lusting for trinkets were beginning to wane. Lately, in the process of stealing from the dead, the guards thought that if it weren’t obvious, they would let them pass, so it came to be that I was able to find a few good items of use.

After placing both jackets in a strategic location at the rear of the grave I continued to take inventory. I rolled the shirt off a large man, who must have had some wealth to be so fat. I had no intention of wearing it, but I could use it as a rucksack. By tying the sleeves and shirttails together, it would be sufficient to hold a large quantity of items should I find any. I overlaid the shirt with one jacket leaving the other for immediate use. It was black and would be hard to see in the dark of night. I continued to search through the pockets of the dead. It could be said that crawling over a stack of newly dead people was a blessing, because there were no creaky boards to give me away, just soft flesh yet to rigor.

I thought it best to spread my scavenging around, not concentrating on those near me, which an alert guard might figure out that there was an escaped prisoner about. So I crawled over bodies gleaning what I could, and soon I was satisfied that I had enough to keep me from dying of frostbite, at least.

Placing my trove of goodies on the open shirt, I marveled at my good fortune. I now had a new pair of shoes, several pairs of socks, which required the removal of a dead man’s shoes to remove the socks, then replaced the shoes to avoid any clever guards. I also had several warm shirts and pants, a sturdy belt, and a gold watch fob. How that was missed was a surprise to me. But it did give me an idea that pockets should be searched. I tied my bundle of purloined garments and placed it in the far corner of our grave I had determined to be the easiest to scale. I then returned to the process of robbing my fellow victims. Maybe there was one more item.

Continuing my search of pockets by first patting them down, I found not one but two lighters, which I hoped would work. I did not dare test them now. Also, I found many coins, which I wrapped in handkerchiefs to keep them from clanging. In the boot of another victim was the hilt of a knife. It went in my pocket.

At last the time had come for me to leave my rotting cavern of death. I returned to the point of my escape and lay among the dead to await total darkness, which had required me to crawl over the bodies one last time, a farewell, so to speak. In doing so I gave them a blessing and a promise to somehow exact some kind of revenge.

In the recess of my mind, someone somewhere advised me to walk, not run, to avoid notice. That man was trying to protect me from being arrested. As it were these days, theft was one of the few ways to survive in this revolutionary world. His advice was not out of concern for me, I was one of many youths in his employ, which was his little crime family. This necessary activity surfaced after the patriarch took over. I had managed to escape his hold only to be caught in a trap of another.

The hole in the earth was beginning to creep me out. I whispered, Now is the time. I surfaced an hour after total darkness. There were few lights on this side of the prison; after all, you didn’t need to keep watch over the dead. A dim glow could be seen over the roof of the prison, which provided me with just enough light to see a rarely used path that led into the forest several hundred yards away. Not a smart choice, but I could see well enough to lessen the chance of stepping on something that may send a warning to any alert ear.

Once above the grave I crawled to the nearest Cat, using it to shield me from view. One more deep inhale, then I did a slow, hunched-over walk for the first hundred feet dragging my tote behind. I arose and stood facing my future. I did not look back to my past. I expected a bullet at every step along my route to the forest while walking with determination. Those several hundred yards took an eternity to traverse.

I took another deep breath, the first in a long time, as I stepped past the first tree. Then I counted trees as I passed them. One, two, three… Forty trees later I collapsed to the ground. I listened for the longest time. I needed to move, but first I needed to calm myself. I realized I was shaking uncontrollably. Three days and a few hours after entering the detention center’s gate, my reality came home to me, and dying now scared the fucking hell