The Future War

Then lowered it again as nausea threatened. He lay still, listening to sounds from outside. Sounds of something heavy hitting the ground, sounds of bottles breaking and Mary's pleas for whoever was making all that noise to stop. In the vague way of the recently returned to consciousness, Dennis kind of wished she'd stop yelling.

The sound of a slap and the sudden breaking off of her complaints brought him completely alert. Quietly he opened the door of the truck and slid out through the narrow gap he'd made, putting his feet down carefully on the rocky ground.

The truck door was pulled fully open and Reese spun around, almost losing his balance. He found himself staring up the barrel of a Colt Commando, the carbine version of the army's assault rifle.

'Hello,' he said, trying to sound friendly. That was probably more prudent than: put that thing the hell down!

'Didja think we didn't know you were in there?' the young man holding the gun asked with a sneer. 'Hands on top of your head, fingers joined; now march.'

The lieutenant did as he was told. He stopped in shock when they came to the back of the truck and he saw the bodies of his patients writhing on the ground. As he stood there, another body came flying out, but this one was dead. A sharp poke in the back with the gun muzzle got him moving again.

As he came around the back of the last truck, Mary shouted,

'Lieutenant!' in shock, then she ducked away from a middle-aged man who threatened her with his rifle butt.

Laughing, he approached Reese and looked him over. 'Well, this must be Mr. Reese,' he said.

'Lieutenant Dennis Reese, United States Army Corps of Engineers,' Reese said crisply.

'We don't recognize any of that horseshit, Mr. Reese. There is no United States anymore, let alone a United States Army. No, sir, it's a new world.'

'A world where you attack sick people?' Reese asked.

The man struck like lightning, bringing down the butt of his rifle precisely between Reese's neck and shoulder. The lieutenant dropped like a sack of rocks.

'That was a stupid remark,' the man said calmly. 'Those people were dead anyway. Waste of time and resources tryin' to keep 'em alive. Now get up.' Reese struggled to his feet under the man's hostile gaze. They stared into each other's eyes for a long moment; the man with the gun laughed scornfully. Then he looked up at the truck. 'You done?'

'Yes, sir,' a woman said.

'You sure? Check again. I don't want to find anything back there that we don't need.'

A moment later a man came out with the bucket containing the dirty diapers.

'Well, that would have made a pleasant traveling companion,'

the older man said. 'I ought to make you eat that, Cloris.'

'Oh, stop showing off in front of the prisoners, George.' She gestured at Reese and Mary. 'We gonna shoot them or what?'

'Or what, since you ask,' George said. 'Everybody mount up; we're due in New Madrid.'

From out of the woods came thirty or forty people, mostly men; they began to get in the trucks. Mary was clearly beside herself with anxiety, making abortive gestures toward her patients and the people getting into the trucks as though the suffering humanity at their feet didn't exist. She opened her mouth to protest, and Reese took her hand and squeezed it.

When she looked at him he shook his head slightly. George grinned at her.

'Don't even ask,' he said. 'They'll be dead in a couple of hours anyway. Ain't nothing you can or coulda done for 'em.'

'There is no central hospital, is there?' Reese asked.

'Hell, no,' George said cheerfully.

'So this was all some kind of trap?' Mary asked.

George leaned toward her. 'Yep.'

'Why us?' Reese asked, gesturing between himself and Mary.

'The little lady has big ears, and you've got a big mouth,'

George said. 'But I like you folks. You're feisty. So I'll give you guys a little clue.' He leaned forward and whispered, 'Y'all find yourselves some shelter.' He winked and, laughing, went and climbed into the cab of the truck.

Reese and Mary watched the small convoy turn and start off back down the rocky track the trucks had climbed to this spot.

At least they threw the sick to one side, Reese thought. Either they had just enough humanity left to not run them over, or they didn't want to have to wash the blood off the trucks afterward.

Mary knelt by one of the patients. Reese recognized the man as one of the ambulatory patients. He was a lot less ambulatory now. Mary looked up at the lieutenant.

'His fever's way up,' she said, her voice shaking.

'Go,' the man said. Mary was ignoring him, looking around for something to help him with. He grabbed her arm. 'Go!' he insisted. 'There's nothing you can do for any of us. No water, no blankets, no medicine—we're goners. You should go. Now.' He dropped his hand and looked at her, clearly spent.

Reese looked down at the man. I have every intention of leaving, even if I have to knock Mary out and carry her off. A trained nurse was not an asset he was likely to leave alone in the wilderness with a clutch of the dead and dying. But I feel a lot better about it because of what you said, mister.

Mary opened her mouth to speak and was interrupted by a crashing in the woods and a loud thuttering, whooshing sound, like a combination helicopter and vacuum cleaner. The man at their feet looked frightened, but he formed one word with his pale lips: 'Go.'

Reese took him at his word. He grabbed Mary by the arm and the waistband of her trousers and hustled her toward the trees.

'Hey!' she shouted in protest.

'Be quiet,' he hissed in her ear. They ducked behind some bushes.

'Gimme a break,' she snarled. 'I could be singing grand opera and I'd never be heard over that racket.'

She was right: whatever was approaching was loud. It reminded Reese of hovercraft he'd been on. Nevertheless, he kept her crouching beside him, looking out through a ragged screen of still-leafless blackberry canes.

'Maybe it's help,' she suggested.

He looked at her until she tightened her lips and shrugged sheepishly.

From out of the trees came…

I don't know what the hell it is! Reese thought, struggling against panic. Breathe slowly…

It was oblong, made of steel, with no attempt made to camouflage it so that it would blend into the woods. It had multiple stubby arms from which the barrels of heavy machine guns extended. A central row of larger barrels were thick and stubby…

Grenade launchers? he thought.

It had antennae on top that looked like satellite dishes and on each visible side was some sort of video arrangement—not unlike security cameras in armored boxes. The machine was compact, about six feet tall and maybe four feet along the longer sides; call it twenty-four square feet. It rose and fell as it came forward, though it never touched the earth, riding a cushion of air.

Reese didn't need or want to see what was about to happen.

He grabbed the nurse by the shoulder of her short jacket and pulled her deeper into the woods.

The hammering sound of gunfire echoed behind them; the screams were few and feeble.