people into this without any of
them having any experience in tactics or logistics.” Ben sighed heavily. “Maybe we can pull it off, Gale. I just don’t know.”
She snuggled closer to him. “Please hold me, Ben,” she whispered.
“My pleasure.”
Long moments passed before Gale asked, “What was her name, Ben?”
Ben pretended to be asleep. But seeking fingers soon found a part of him that proved sleep to be impossible.
It began to rain the morning of the second day out, a slow, leaden dropping from the clouds, with thick pockets of fog lying heavy over the land. It only added to the desolation of the ravaged countryside. The rain and fog slowed the column down to no more than a crawl.
The Rebels saw no people. Not one living soul. And no animals. But they did find several carcasses of cows and pigs. Something had been eating on them, something with super strength and a fanged mouth.
“I didn’t know they had gorillas in this part of the country,” Gale said, shuddering at the sight of the mutilated animals.
“They don’t,” Ben said grimly. “Just mutants.”
“Thanks,” she replied. “I really needed that just after breakfast. If you want to call that slop we had breakfast.”
“Crations.”
“What’s the C stand for: crap?”
“Get in the truck, Gale.”
“Whatever the master wishes.”
The column stopped at Thayer, in Missouri. The town was deserted. They slowly made their way to West Plains-also deserted. Willow Springs looked as though it had been torn apart by angry, petulant teenagers. With the scouts reporting back to them they felt as if eyes were on them.
“Don’t dismount!” Ben quickly radioed back. “Keep on rolling through the town. Get on through and wait for us a few miles northwest of there.”
Ben halted the convoy in Willow Springs. When he spoke to Gale, something in his voice told her not to argue with him.
“Stay here,” he told her. “And do not leave the truck unless and until I tell you to.”
She nodded.
Ben looked at her to see if she was feeling well.
Ben motioned for a team to begin moving up both sides of the street, weapons at combat ready. A thick, almost tangible odor hung over the small town. It resembled a scene from a grade B war movie: the sweaty faces of the troops; the hands clutching M-16’s, AK-47’S, CAR-15’S and numerous other weapons of violence and death.
The thirty tanks in Ben’s column rumbled quietly on both ends of the town, their noise adding to the idling sounds of the APC’S and self-propelled howitzers and heavy trucks.
“Shut them down!” Ben yelled. The order was relayed up and down the street.
The dead town suddenly grew silent, the ticking of cooling metal like out-of-sync clocks.
Ben walked the littered streets, his old Thompson at the ready, on full auto.
“Sinister,” Ben heard one young Rebel mutter, his voice rising above the heavy silence. “And eerie, to boot.”
“Possibly,” Ben replied, not turning his head toward the source of the words. “Steady now,” he called softly. “That smell is of mutants-and a lot of them. Fire only if fired upon. Let them make the hostile move. Pass the word.”
“There’s fresh crap here on the floor, General,” a sergeant called. “Not more than an hour old-if that old.”
“They’re here,” Ben said. “I can sense them. But they’re not running away, and they usually run at the sight of this many humans. Them not doing that bothers me.”
“They want me,” the small voice came from the top of what had once been a hardware store.
All heads looked up at the small figure, looking down at them. Even at that distance, she looked worn out.
“Who are you?” Ben called.
“Nancy Brinkerhoff. Sam Hartline tortured me, then ordered me taken to where the mutants gather. They stripped me naked and tied me to a tree, but I managed to get free. I’ve been running and hiding ever since. The mutants cornered me in this town. They’re all around here, hiding, watching, waiting.” There was a note of hysteria in her voice.
“Just calm down, miss,” Ben called. “You’re all right, now. You’re among friends. Let us handle the mutants. Come on down.”
“Who are you?” she called.
“Ben Raines.”
She began weeping and pointing.
The mutants erupted from the empty stores, screaming and howling in rage and hate. Many of them wielded sticks and clubs and crude spears, sharpened on one end. The stench of them was hideous, almost as much as their grotesque appearance was appalling to the stunned Rebels.
Ben was the first to react.
Leveling his Thompson, he pulled the trigger, holding it back. The stream of heavy .45-caliber slugs knocked the front line of mutants sprawling, blood and hair and bits of bone and guts and brain splattered against the brick of the buildings.
The Rebels reacted just a split-second after Ben fired. The fire-fight was very short, with only one Rebel wounded. He took a spear in his leg. Dead and dying mutants littered the sidewalk and street. Blood pumped from their deformed bodies and leaked into the gutters, clogged from years of leaves and rags.
“Let them rot,” Ben ordered the Rebels, his voice strong in the shocked silence that always follows heavy gunfire. “Get Miss Brinkerhoff and let’s get the hell out of here.”
The brigade was stopped for the night in Cabool, Missouri, some sixteen miles northwest of Willow Springs. Nancy had been bathed and fed and dressed in clean clothing; Doctor Chase had examined her and cleaned and bandaged her cuts. She told her story.
She spoke of what Sam Hartline and his men had done to her. She was blunt, leaving nothing out.
“Those people are perverted beyond imagination,” she said. “I suppose I’m-was-very naive. But I can assure you-all of you-that was tortured out of me.”
“Where are you from?” Ben asked.
“Chicago, originally,” Nancy said. The marks of torture were still very evident on her face and arms. “But my family pulled out of there just after the bombings of 1988.” She looked square at Ben. “You know why, General?”
“Yes,” Ben said, “I know only too well. My brother was a part of that… madness.”
“You later killed your brother, did you not, General?” she asked.
“Yes,” Ben said softly, “I did. Back in Tri-States.”
How hated Ben’s system of government was did not come home to the people of the three states until late fall of the first year. Ben had stepped outside of his home for a breath of the cold, clean air of night. Juno went with him, and together they walked from the house around to the front yard. When Juno growled low in his throat, Ben went into a crouch, and that saved his life. Automatic-weapon fire spider-webbed the windshield of his pickup, the slugs hitting and ricocheting off the metal, sparking the night. Ben jerked open the door of the truck, punched open the glove box, and grabbed a pistol. He fired at a dark figure running across the yard, then at another. Both went down, screaming in pain.
A man stepped from the shadows of the house and opened fire just as Ben hit the ground. Lights were popping on up and down the street, men with rifles in
their hands appearing on the lawns.
Ben rose to one knee and felt a slug slam into his hip, knocking him to one side, spinning him around, the
