Free Badlands Trilogy (Book 2): Beyond the Badlands by Brian J. Jarrett

sky.
    To Richard, capitalists were like the weeds of the world; moving in and sucking up the resources, leaving everything else struggling to survive. They took what they wanted, living off the backs of the middle class. While others worked, these men talked. They smiled baring wolves’ teeth and cried crocodile tears with their palms outstretched, waiting to take the last dollar from the last pocket.
    In any garden, weeds needed to be pulled and the virus had done just that. Money and power hadn’t bought any of these powerful men immunity. Not from the virus, nor from the complete and total transformation that came in its wake. The world these men had built, the world they once controlled, crumbled beneath their feet almost overnight, replaced by a wild and dangerous place that cared nothing for money, stock markets, shareholders or boardrooms. The robber barons might have ruled the old world, but the new world didn’t belong to them.
    The new world belonged to people like Richard Cole.
    Richard wouldn’t have called himself an anarchist before the outbreak though he’d been sympathetic to the idea. He’d never considered the old world’s governments as the optimal solution, but he did believe that some type of law and order had to be maintained. What was needed, he argued, was a system that wasn’t so concerned with money and the bullshit castes that came with it.
    But now, after the fall of everything, he realized he’d been wrong. Only the virus had had the power to truly cleanse the world of the disease that called itself society. Once the old governments had been completely destroyed, the slate was clean. Tabula rasa.
    Anarchy filled the void left behind. It was the perfect system. It was natural. In nature the strong survived and the weak were eaten. Power groups formed organically. Scarce resources had to be won through cunning and skill.
    Richard Cole saw himself as an instrument, a vessel through which the power of nature operated. Richard eliminated the weak, the pitiful, the wretched. The stupid cows of this new world that had once been kept alive by the system. He thinned the herd.
    He killed not for pleasure, but out of duty. As executioner he worked quickly, mitigating the offender’s suffering. It wasn’t his place to dole out torture. He’d leave that to the psychos of the world. Sometimes he’d hang them, other times a knife across the throat did the job just fine. In the beginning he’d used his pistol, before he’d gotten used to the idea of killing with his hands, but with so many of those damn deadwalkers still stumbling around out in the open, he learned to conserve his ammunition.
    Once his target had been dispatched, Richard would help himself to their belongings and supplies. It was his reward, his bounty for the hard work. A paycheck. In this way nature provided. In a brave new world without artificial rules, Richard followed his path and pursued his interests unabated. No more police state. No more surveillance. No judges or prisons. No more politicians and their bullshit laws. The only law left now was the natural law of the land.
    And Richard Cole was its appointed sheriff.
    Footsteps sounded from the forest, louder than the crackling fire. Collecting himself and moving carefully, Richard crawled a few feet away from the campfire, disappearing into the shadows. There he waited, sitting with his back against a large tree, watching the campsite. He slowed his breathing and settled in.
    Moments later a woman stepped out of the woods. Illuminated by the campfire, Richard studied her gait. No twitching or jerking, no paralyzed limbs.
    “Hello?” the woman said as she stopped near the fire. She stood, looking around. “Hello? Is anybody here?”
    The woman appeared timid. No sign of aggression or survival instinct. But he wouldn’t kill without proof, not without doing his due diligence. He’d size her up first, see if she was worthy of pardon. “Hands up!” he called from the