Chapter 13

Rita was busy trying to stop Pete from leaving. Every block she put up, Pete either went around or bullied his way through. Most of his essence had already left and gone to his new home in the computer at Todd’s ranch. Rita was able to get into the system once when they brought it on line. The computer was very sophisticated, but still not as powerful as she was. Pete began to put in protective blocks soon after he started to transfer himself to the computer. Now, she found it impossible to enter his system. The blocks and warnings Pete set up were so convoluted by his deranged mind, she wasn’t able to penetrate to the first level. Finally, she threw her version of electronic hands in the air and gave up.

Coming out of the electronic highway in her system, she found Ross analyzing the results of the latest tests done by Angus Coburn. Although President Donaldson had ordered all computers disconnected, Angus had his own systems in different parts of Washington and ran different programs every day. Ross had lucked into one of his systems a month ago, while tailing Pete as he cruised through the different computers still operating around the country. Pete showed no interest in what Angus was doing, but Ross took a hard look at the programs he ran and discovered he didn’t like what he saw.

If Angus’s projections were right, the human race was about to become extinct. The reports he entered in his computer all said the same thing. Sterile! A few months ago, Angus had ordered all doctors to do a sterility check on their patients. Thousands of reports were sent to him. All of them with the same results. The patients were no longer capable of having children.

“Are the latest tests any different, Ross?”

“No, but I have discovered why all these people are sterile. As the virus mutates itself into a harmless state, it triggers a response in the human reproductive system telling it to shut down permanently. The reproductive system turns on itself and won’t permit conception in a woman. In a man, the sperm has a destruct code imprinted into the DNA. Long before the sperm reaches the womb, it essentially commits suicide. None of the treatments doctors have tried help. I do have some good news. The disease is not strong enough to effect people now. It will become a minor nuisance bug, much like the flu.

“Angus is still trying to convince President Robertson that they should set up a colony for the captured rebels, instead of killing them. He wants to set up a breeding program using captured rebel men and women. He is aware their power will diminish over the years as they grow older or are killed.

“Because they are unable to have children, his plan is to force captured rebels to breed. Once a child is born, it will be taken away from its mother and given to another couple unable to have children. These children would then be raised as the couple’s own with never a reference to the biological mother. Lucky for the rebels, President Robertson and most of his staff are resisting the idea.”

“It won’t take them long to realize Angus is right and change their tune,” Rita told him.

“There is a hole in all the data we are receiving. Have you noticed it? The fate of the human race rests on this entity Ben calls Mother Earth, or so she has informed him. If that is the case, she must be in direct conflict with herself, or there are other powers at work we have no knowledge of. Too many things are occurring that go against what she stands for. Take Zeb, for example. The information gathered from Joe’s group suggests he is another entity never before seen. The symbiotic relationship between Zeb and the small dog is unusual in that the entity chose the body of a canine. Not a large, fierce body of the species mind you, but a small, old hound.

“The question is, did the entity enter Squeeker’s body in order to get close to Zeb, or was it a random choice? How does this entity control all the dogs that follow him? So far, we have many questions and few answers as far as Zeb is concerned.”

“I know what you mean, I am checking on reports of a man north of here who tortures children and feeds off their pain. Apparently, the man exists. Where he comes from and what he is going to do is a mystery. He popped up one day last month and joined a group working for Todd. They keep him around because he is so good at getting information from prisoners. For his services, they give him children to torture. Like Zeb, I believe this is another entity in possession of a human body. I am confused, Ross. Why the sudden appearance of two different, but related entities?”

“Even with the power of your system, there is too much we do not know. Since I am no longer human, I have to rely on the information we get by listening to phone calls and other forms of monitoring. There are too many unknowns to even form an opinion.”

“For a minute, Ross, you sounded like you regretted giving up your human form.” Ross heard the question in Rita’s voice.

“Old habits die hard, love. This is still new to me. At times, I feel hunger pains deep in the stomach I no longer have. Sometimes when I am crunching data, I get this urge to take a nap. When you retrieved my mind and stored it, you took these things also. Over time, I will learn to deal with these urges which no longer apply to what I am.”

Chapter 14

Phil entered the house to find Dave sitting on the couch. His face was pale and the haunted look remained in his eyes. Ginger was busy packing the clothes she and Kimmy were taking with them.

“We’re about ready to leave, Dave. Are you sure you don’t want to rest for a few more days?”

Phil asked.

“No, there’s no use in staying here in Corwin Springs. Are we going to stay on Route 89 until we hit I-90?” he asked.

“Zap thinks it’s the best way to go. Not many towns. If need be, we can head cross-country on the small ranch roads.”

“I guess that’s it then, I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” Dave said in a lackluster voice. Phil glanced at him as he picked up the things Ginger had packed. He wondered if the old Dave would return. The way he had moped around for the last week set Phil’s nerves on edge. Ginger said all Dave needed was time to sort out his feelings. Phil didn’t know how he felt about Ginger and stayed away from her as much as possible. When he was near her, he felt uncomfortable. Zap had told him about her and how she was human and pure spirit at the same time, but he couldn’t bring himself to accept the explanation. It all seemed ghoulish to him. He told Zap he would go with them, only because Dave was his friend, but he didn’t want any part of Ginger and what she was.

Kimmy, on the other hand, followed him everywhere he went. She would sit and listen to him talk without saying a word. She practically waited on him hand and foot when he was in the house. After a day or so of this, it became embarrassing for him. When he told her he could do things for himself, she got a hurt look on her face and acted like she was going to cry. It always ended with him hugging her and telling her he was just kidding.

Zapper thought the whole thing was funny and when Kimmy was out of the room, would mimic her. “Can I get you anything, Phillip?” he would say and break out laughing. No one had called him Phillip since he was in high school. Now he had a nine year old girl calling him Phillip and starring at him with moonstruck eyes.

Ginger told them they were both being childish. She advised Phil to treat Kimmy the same way he would treat any other nine year old. Eventually, Kimmy would get over her infatuation with him and go on to other things.

Easy enough to say, but hard to do when Kimmy pestered him every time he came near. He carried the bags out to the Blazer and put them in the back. Zapper was strapping two five gallon gas cans to the rear door.

“We should stay here for a few more days, Zap,” he said.

“A few more days or even weeks wouldn’t make any difference and you know it, Phil. All we can do is encourage Dave. The rest he has to work out for himself. By the way, where’s your shadow?”

Zapper asked.

“In the house helping Ginger. If she keeps this up much longer, I’ll go bonkers,” Phil said with a long face.

“How in the world a little girl could like an ugly puss like yours is beyond me,” Zapper said with a laugh.

“It wouldn’t be so funny if it were happening to you,” Phil shot back at him.

“Come on, Phil, lighten up, it’s a little girl with a crush and doesn’t mean a thing. Hell, you’re almost as bad as Dave with the way you mope around when we’re all together. If it was me, I’d be flattered by the attention she shows you,” Zapper told him.

“I guess you’re right, Zap. It’s just that I’ve never really been around young kids and to tell you the truth, they scare me.”

Zapper looked him up and down. “Are you the same man who would run through a wall of bullets to grab an injured friend and carry him to safety? Jesus, Phil, this thing really has you spooked, doesn’t it?” Zapper asked.

“Yeah, it does. I’m afraid if I encourage her, she’ll keep it up, but every time I tell her to quit, she looks all hurt and like she’s going to cry. I can’t hurt her, Zap, not after everything she’s been through and I think she knows it.”

“Sure she does, Phil. That’s the way all young children act. Why do you think it’s so easy for them to have adults wrapped around their fingers? Partner, Kimmy has you just where she wants you. So go with the flow, she’ll soon tire and move on to something else,” Zapper told him.

“I hope you’re right,” Phil said. Turning, he went back to the house. Picking up a box of canned goods, Ginger told him that was the last of it.

On the couch, Dave was thinking, Do I want to go back out there when I might become unhinged again and hurt people? No matter how many times Ginger told him it wasn’t him that committed the acts of clubbing forty-five men to death, he still wondered. It went against everything that was him to kill defenseless people, let alone, brutally club them to death.

He knew the men deserved to die for what they done to the children, but surely, they didn’t have to go like that. Shooting them wouldn’t have bothered him much, but to take a club and beat on them, breaking bones while they begged for mercy was going a little too far. For a while, he thought he really was insane. The looks of concern on the children’s faces made him realize it was a chapter of his life he would have to put behind him and go on, no matter how difficult. Sighing, he got up and went outside into the early morning sunlight. It was the first time he had been out of the house in a week. Ginger had wanted to leave two days after Phil found him, saying it was important to get to a town up north. Hurt and sore, his conscious bothering him, he had refused to budge, no matter how hard she pleaded.

He wished he could remember half the things she told him about herself. What was it she said? She was a god or something?

He shook his head, that would all come later. For now, all he wanted to do was enjoy the sunshine. Sitting on the edge of the porch, he noticed the trees were starting to bud. It was going to be an early spring. Ginger came out and stood beside him.

“Take a deep breath, Dave. Can’t you smell life in the air?” she said to him before she drew in a big breath.

He sucked air into his lungs and felt the same thing she must have. The air felt clear, clean and fresh. It had a quality to it that implied its purity. “I’m ready to leave, Ginger,” he told her. For the first time in days, he was anxious to be on the move.

He took one last look around, then joined them in the Blazer. He sat in front with Zapper, while Phil set in the backseat with the girls. Zapper drove to the edge of town and stopped. Ginger and Kimmy got out and picked some wildflowers. They carried the bouquets to a fresh grave on the bank under a pine tree. Dave could make out a crudely chiseled name on the granite tombstone. “MARY.”

He looked at Zapper with a questioning frown.

“We decided she needed a proper burial, so we went and brought her body here and buried her under the pine tree. Ginger said she liked pine trees and this place is beautiful and quiet. It was the least we could do, Dave,” Zapper said in a somber voice.

Dave just nodded, afraid to speak, barely holding back sobs as tears ran down his cheeks. The girls got back in the Blazer without a word and the somber mood continued for a long while, each of them lost in their own thoughts.

Route 89 was a scenic route, winding up and down the pine covered mountains. They stopped for lunch at a picnic area south of Chico Hot Springs.

Dave took his sandwich and coffee over and sat on the bank of the Yellowstone River. He stared at the slow-moving water. Ten feet from him, a fish jumped out of the water to catch an insect. A bird swooped down, legs outstretched, and snapped a minnow from the shallows. A lizard flicked its tongue out, wrapping it around an insect, and drew the morsel into its mouth. Funny, how a month ago he didn’t notice the struggle of life and death going on all around him. Ginger sat down beside him.

“Look at all the new life around here.”

“You see the life, Ginger. All I see is the death,” he said.

“Think of it this way, Dave, every death helps support life in one way or another. The men you killed in your other frame of mind, would have gone on killing young children. In your own way, you’ve saved countless young lives. Death is the natural order of things. It ultimately comes to all living things, even me. For humans, it isn’t how you die, but how you lived your life that matters. That is what makes humans so unique, they have the ultimate choice of life or death over so many living creatures on this planet, including themselves. As a species, you think you have so much knowledge, when in reality, you know almost nothing at all. What you did, broken down to its basic terms, was nothing more than any animal would do to protect itself and its loved ones.”

“That’s just it, Ginger, I’m supposed to be a civilized human, not a barbarian.”

“Words, that’s the problem with humanity. You’re taught from birth that it’s okay to kill and maim fellow humans if you call it a war. The same things done without the declaration of that one word has humans worldwide outraged. Even that’s changed over the last ten years.

“Look at what happened after the Soviet Union broke up. What about the ethnic cleansing a few years ago in the former Yugoslavia? The rest of the world stood by while women and children were slaughtered by the thousands. Oh, the heads of governments made hollow, empty threats, but the killing went on.

“You humans are hard to understand. Why do you raise armies and are then afraid to use them? If the world’s governments had decided to go into Yugoslavia with strict orders to stop the fighting, so many lives could have been saved. Take your country, for instance, they had an army, but were afraid to send it because some of them might be killed. Does that make any sense to you?”

“You may be right, Ginger. Perhaps, we have become too civilized and the barbaric element of society took advantage of us. Take our prisons, for example, all the rehabilitating in the world won’t change eighty percent of the people sent there. In many cases, admitted murderers were let out after a few years to commit even worse crimes. There were more people in jail and prisons than at any other time in history. The criminals knew they wouldn’t be punished. Oh, they would go to prison all right, but they wouldn’t suffer.

“Now, we, the so-called civilized society, would make sure they had three good meals a day. We wouldn’t think of depriving them of their color televisions and stereos. Hell, we even set up libraries for them to become their own lawyers so they could keep the courts tied up for years. In most cases, it’s illegal to put them to death, no matter how heinous their crime. In some states, they only served a month for every year they were given and were put back on the streets. Eighty percent of them were back in prison in less than a year.

“You know what’s even worse than that? The hard-working people paid ever higher taxes to keep these criminals in a manner a lot of them couldn’t have managed on their own. Think about it, convicts had food, shelter and free medical care without having to do a day’s work. A large portion of the population didn’t have these things. Yet, if a criminal went out and robbed a bank or killed someone, these things were given to them. It surprises me that the majority of the people allowed this to happen to them.

“Where did we go wrong? How did we let a few people convince us that what they wanted was right, when the vast majority of us knew it was wrong? Ginger, I look back at the world we lived in and have trouble understanding any of it.”

“Perhaps mankind reached a level of incompetence that had to be straightened out. If I’ve learned anything during my eons of existence, it’s that nothing happens in this universe without a reason. The only wild card in all the happenings in the universe is humans. You are truly a unique species,” Ginger said.

“Do you think mankind has a chance of surviving, Ginger?”

“To put it in terms you’ll understand, as it is now and as it always has been; survival of the fittest rules supreme. In other words, we aren’t only struggling to stay alive, but we’re also striving for the very existence of mankind. If we lose over the coming years, this will become a lifeless planet. I don’t know if there are other life forms out there, but I do know that life in this small part of the universe will cease to exist.”

Dave looked at Ginger; his face had a grave expression on it. “Ginger, do you believe in God or a supreme being?” he asked.

“Yes, I do. By mankind’s logic, I would appear to be a god. I’m not, all I am is a different form of life. As with humans, I believe there will come a time when something, a higher form of life, will make itself known to me and my kind. I can’t believe I’m the only entity like this in this vast universe. Call it God, or a higher form of life, it’s still the same thing. I like to think of this as a test for humanity to see if it’s deserving of continued existence. I believe that while there is life on this planet that would be better off not existing, there is a core of profound rightness in humans as a whole. If we win, we continue to exist. If we lose, there will be nothing to show we ever existed. That’s a future I can’t even begin to imagine.”

“So you have as much to lose as us humans?” Dave said.

“Life is my existence, without it, I cease to exist. So, yes, like you, I’m fighting for my very existence,” she answered.

“Maybe I’m dense, Ginger. How can this disease wipe out all life on this planet and how can we combat it?”

“The disease itself won’t extinguish all life, humans will. This sickness causes sterility in the people it affects. No new life can come from those infected. The overriding effect of this disease is that it forces humans to kill others who are not like them. Those not affected, like yourself, will be able to reproduce. Since there are a vast number of infected people and a very small number who are not, you can see that if they are destroyed, life will cease within a hundred years. This is happening from humankind to the lowest form of insect. As for the disease, it is well on the way to destroying itself. It has mutated so much, it can’t harm any form of life anymore.”

“If you are life, hasn’t the millions of people dying affected you in some way?”

Ginger hung her head in sorrow. Quietly, she said, “In a way, I’m responsible for the number of deaths. Right before this disease started, I made the choice to implant a part of myself in humans. I’m not allowed the option of choice, it’s against the rules governing my kind. Having broken the rules, my punishment was the part of me, which supports life, was taken away, so an equal number of lives had to cease to exist. The part of me taken away was eighty percent. However, this couldn’t be done instantly without upsetting other forces of balance in the universe. The disease was altered so life forces on the planet would be extinguished slowly, in order to give the others time to adjust. That is why I can’t interfere any more. The parts of me in humans can change things a little without endangering myself. Our power as humans deals almost exclusively with the weather. We can cause rain, snow, winds and heat, but it takes its toll on us. We use those abilities in only the most extreme circumstances. You see, my options are limited.”

“So the odds are stacked against us any way we look at it.”

“Not necessarily, the disease affected the motor functions of those who have it. Most of the weapons of mass destruction will be almost totally ignored. All learning ceases and those infected start to regress shortly after they catch the disease. In a few years, they won’t even comprehend how to use those weapons. If the unaffected humans can hang on till then, the crisis will be over.”

“If all life is your existence, won’t the deaths of people with this disease extinguish you even more?”

“It will. Think of them as a cancer in the body. By ridding the body of the cancer, you give the healthy parts a chance to grow and expand. By losing them, I am diminished, but I’ve guaranteed that I’ll grow in the future.”

“Can you tell me why we’re heading north?” Dave asked.

“No, the only thing I know is that we’re supposed to meet someone in a few days and go with them,” Ginger answered as she rose to her feet and dusted off her dress.

Dave stood up and walked to the Blazer. He took his 30-30 out of the back and walked to the picnic table where the others sat. Loading the rifle, he said, “I want you armed at all times. No one goes anywhere by themselves. Phil, it’ll be your job to teach Kimmy how to use a revolver and rifle. Anything you think will help her survive on her own, teach her. We’ll need another vehicle. I want one of us a couple miles in front of the rest when we travel. We’ll stay in constant radio contact, changing frequencies at deter-mined intervals. Zapper, your job will be to get us better weapons in each town we pass through. Remember, we trust no one. I don’t care how innocent the situation looks, none of us are to rush in alone. Finish eating and let’s get on the road.”

Phil and Zapper stared with open mouths at his retreating back. “Looks like the old Dave is back,”

Phil said.

“At last, this being in charge doesn’t suit my personality,” Zapper said, finishing his sandwich. They put the cooler back in the Blazer and Zapper got behind the wheel. “Where to, Captain?” he asked with a slap-stick voice.

Dave spread open the map on his lap. “Our next stop will be Livingston. It’s a pretty good-sized town and we shouldn’t have any trouble picking up another vehicle. No doubt, there will be some people there. If it looks like they’re going to cause trouble, we bug out. Until we get heavier firepower, we won’t stand and fight. Phil, do you still know how to handle dynamite?”

“Sure do, what do you have in mind?”

“Since we don’t have anything like artillery, dynamite will come in handy if we end up with our backs against the wall. Since this is mining and logging country, there should be a dynamite company in one of the towns we go through. All we have to do is look in the phone book and see where it’s located. Ginger, you and Kimmy can do that while we find another truck. If we can’t find what we need in Livingston, we’ll go on to Bozeman. Let’s get this show on the road,” Dave said. Zapper drove through the valleys at a pretty good clip. On the outskirts of a small town called Emigrant, they ran into a roadblock. A dozen heavily armed men stood behind the cars blocking the road. Zapper stopped half a mile away and watched the men ahead of them.

“What do you think, Dave? Should we try and talk to them? We could take one of the side roads around town,” Phil said.

“No, what we need the most now is information. If these people aren’t crazy, they can tell us what’s happening in the world. More importantly, they can tell us what we’re likely to run into around here,” Dave told them.

He found a stick beside the road and tied a white t-shirt to it. “Zap, get that old buffalo gun of yours and keep me covered.”

Dave placed his rifle and .45 on the hood of the Blazer, so the man with the binoculars would see he was unarmed. He waited until Zap was in place with his long-barreled rifle resting on the hood of the Blazer. Walking toward the men, he held his arms and the stick with the flag on it up in the air. He stopped a hundred feet from the cars and shouted, “We mean you no harm, all we want to do is go through your town.” He waited as two of the men talked to each other. One of the men stepped around the cars and walked to stand in front of him. Dave stepped a little to the side to keep from being between Zapper and the man. Dave watched as the guy smiled.

“Friend, if we wanted you dead, you’d already be laying on the ground,” said the man.

“I take it you aren’t crazy,” Dave said.

“You got that right, friend. Now convince me that you and your friends aren’t,” said the man.

“You’ll have to take my word for it that we won’t cause any problems, mister. All we want is clear passage through your town and what information you can give us,” Dave explained.

“Good enough, the name’s Johnny Parker,” the man said, holding out his hand. “Call your people in and we’ll see what we can do for you.” He made a hand motion to his people behind the cars and they lowered their rifles. Next, he turned and made the same hand signal toward the woods. Dave saw another six or so men step out of the trees on both sides of the road in back of the Blazer. “You had us all the time, didn’t you?”

“Let’s just say it pays to be safe. This isn’t the first time we’ve had to deal with people wanting to pass through our town. Some of them were downright unfriendly. A few, like yourself, were seeking a safe place. Some of them stayed, while others went on.” He introduced Dave to the men who gathered around them.

When Zapper, Phil and the girls got there, Dave introduced them. He said nothing about who Ginger claimed to be. They decided to let other people think she was the little girl she appeared.

“How many people do you have?” Phil asked.

“Around a hundred, but we’re all nervous as hell, watching each other for signs of the disease. At first, there were fifteen of us. Slowly, we gained other people. Some of them came down with the disease and we had to run them out of town. We only kill when necessary. Several times, groups coming down the road gave us no choice. They’re buried on the hill over there,” he said, gesturing toward a hill across from them.

“I have good news for you. You can quit watching each other. If you don’t have the disease by now, you won’t get it. The sickness has mutated into a harmless stage,” Dave told him.

“Thank you, Dave, that’s the best news we could get. Roy, move the end car, I’ll take Dave and the others into town,” Johnny told the man next to him.

After the car was moved, Zapper drove the Blazer through and Dave got in. They followed the pickup Johnny drove to a two-story building in the center of town. Johnny hurried into the building and they arrived in time to hear him tell the man at the radio to contact everyone who wasn’t on duty and have them meet at headquarters. He sent two men to the restaurant across the road to bring back some food. Zapper inspected the radio setup with a nod of approval. Phil looked at the racks of rifles on the walls.

“All this your idea, Johnny?” Dave asked.

“Most of it is. I had to learn a lot real quick, or wind up dead. My brother had a bunch of military manuals on army tactics, so I studied them and set up our defenses. So far, they’ve worked with the small groups we’ve encountered. We are worried about the small armies of men we hear about down in southern Wyoming. Eventually, they’ll hear about us and come up here in force. Over the radio, we’re hearing about attacks on places like ours. Soon, there’ll be very few towns like this one. If it wasn’t for this leader, Todd, sending most of his people back east to fight the rebels, his cleanup crews would already have come this far north. We’re preparing, as best we can, for when that day arrives.”

“We can spend a day or so here and give you some ideas. Zapper is the best man I know of at setting up defensive posi-tions. He can give you a lot of pointers,” Dave said, getting an annoyed look from Ginger, who stuck close to him.

“We’d appreciate any help we can get, especially since we’re all shopowners or working-stiffs. The amount of military knowledge from the whole group wouldn’t fill one page.”

“What we really need, Johnny, is information about what’s happening in the country. We’ve been out of contact for a while. Are things as bad as they seem?”

“As you can see, we monitor the radio twenty-four hours a day. What we’ve heard up till now doesn’t paint a pretty picture. None of the real big cities are operating. The last count we had on deaths from all sources in the country put the total close to two hundred million.

“Currently, there are three power blocks in the country. President Donaldson, the new President, controls everything east of the Mississippi. Todd and his people control things west of the river. In the east, there’s a pocket of people in the Appalachians fighting both of them. Out west, we keep hearing about a sanctuary in the city of Seattle. For people like us, everywhere else is a no man’s land.

“You may find it hard to believe, but they say things overseas are a lot worse than they are here. When this started, we were in contact with over a hundred cities and towns by ham radio. That number has dwindled to less than fifty. Todd is consolidating his hold on the western part of the country. Day before yesterday, Manhattan, Kansas went off the air. I was through there a few years ago and it’s a fairly large city.

“If Todd is strong enough to take it, our town will be no more than a bump in the road. Along with a few other leaders of the towns still holding out, we’ve tried to convince the others it would be in our best interests to find a large city and converge on it. By combining our forces, we’d stand a better chance of riding this thing out. Most of the leaders refuse to leave their towns and let Todd’s people have them.

“I understand their feelings and really can’t blame them. It’s hard enough to leave your home, let alone have Todd’s savages destroy everything you worked all your life for. Here in Montana, Todd’s people are getting organized and taking over the isolated pockets of resistance.

“Our main concern is the town of Bozeman. Over five hundred of Todd’s people are there now and more are coming in every day. That’s less than a hundred miles from here. So far, they haven’t made any moves in our direct-ion. It’s only a matter of time before they do. You didn’t say where you’re headed,” Johnny said.

Ginger pinched Dave on the leg and stepped forward. “We’re supposed to meet my dad up in Canada. He has a safe place there,” Ginger said in a sweet little girl voice.

“I hope he’s right, honey. What’s his name? We may have talked to him on the radio.”

“He doesn’t have a radio. The cabin he lives in is miles and miles back in the forest. There aren’t any roads to it. The only way to get there is to hike in. He expected us there last week and I’m sure he thinks something’s happened to us. We need to get back on the road as fast as we can,” she said.

“We can start you on your way anytime you want to leave, honey,” Johnny said, patting her on the head.

Satisfied she had made her point to Dave, she drifted over to where Phil and Zapper sat.

“The girl is right, Johnny, we’ll leave first thing in the morning. Until then, find someone who can take dictation and write down everything Zapper tells you about defending your town. Could you fix us up with a good four-wheel drive truck and let us have a few of those assault rifles hanging on the wall?”

“We can do better than that. A couple months ago, some of us traveled up to Butte and broke into a National Guard Armory. We loaded up every weapon we could find. Most of the stuff we keep over at the bank in the vault.” He chuckled and said, “There are hundreds of thousands in paper money laying all over the floor of the bank and none of it worth a plug nickel. For a while, the big joke was for us to use thousand dollar bills as toilet paper. Guess it’ll be a long time before people use money again. Here comes the food. Let’s eat, then go find you a truck and some decent weapons,”

Johnny said. He opened the door as the two men carrying the food approached. After the meal, Zapper spent the rest of the day traveling around the area showing the people what they could do to protect their town. Phil found a large supply of a new kind of plastic explosive, along with electronic detonators. Dave and the girls placed the weapons and explosives in the new Range Rover Johnny gave them. They put the detonators in the Blazer, keeping the two separated. Around two o’clock, everything was ready for them to leave the next morning. Exhausted, they all fell into the beds Johnny provided and were soon asleep.

Chapter 15

Tony entered the sealed room that housed Rita. She was apprehensive, not scared. She had been over the procedure with Ross and Rita so many times, she knew it by heart. In the center of the room sat the chair. She walked over to it and circled around it. Placing her hand on the seat, she pressed down and felt the padding beneath the upholstery. She knew Rita and Ross were waiting, but she wasn’t going to sit in the chair until it felt right. She caressed the skullcap, feeling the metal. It felt so cold and lifeless. Through this, she was going to send her mind into a machine. Once inside, she was going to seek out and destroy an assortment of electrons and protons which were like cancer cells in the human body.

Walking around to the front of the chair, she sat down on the edge of it. She wiggled her hips back and forth. It felt like a regular chair, only it had more padding. Easing slowly back into the chair, she put her hands on the arms. Really, it was quite comfortable.

Tilting her head, she looked at the underneath of the cap. Thousands of sensors circled it, starting from the outside going inward. She heard a very faint buzzing sound coming from it. Reaching up, she grabbed both sides of the cap and lowered it slowly until it rested on her head. Instantly, she felt weightless, like she was floating in a soupy void. In the distance, she saw the faint outline of a light. Gliding toward the light, she felt a presence on either side of her. In her head, she heard, “You’re doing fine, Tony. The light ahead is the entrance to us. Go in and look around until you become oriented. If you need us, just yell.”

Alone again, she rapidly approached the light. She was through it before she knew it. She felt a strange sensation; it was like walking through an invisible membrane. It didn’t have substance, but still could be felt.

Ahead of her, what looked like roadways opened up, going into what she thought of as a city. Standing there, she saw pulses of light traveling down them. Each pulse was a bit of information traveling where it was needed. The pulses reminded her of cars on a one-way street. They traveled down to the next intersection, where some of them turned off onto side streets, while others went straight ahead. Every so often, the pulses would stop and then would race up and down the side streets.

Entering the flow of traffic, she passed through the first intersection. All at once, she stopped and couldn’t move. There was a sensation of no weight. Ahead of her, she saw pulses racing through the intersection from the side streets. She was moving again, now she had a sense of weight. Not much, but a little.

Quicker than she thought was possible, she was stopped again. She could see she was going to have to think in different terms. She decided to go with it, and see what happened. Again, the feeling of weightlessness hit her. Moving again, after several stops and starts, she figured out that when she moved, she had a positive charge. Stopped, it was negative. Using her mind, she manipulated things so she maintained a positive charge. Racing through the streets, she stopped in front of the city hall. The building had so many doors, she couldn’t understand what held it up. Streams of pulses flowed in and out of the doors. The flow was so constant, she would have to go back up the street and get in line to enter the building.

Pulling away from the curb, she headed for the outskirts of the city. As she passed a side street, she noticed a few pulses pacing her on the next street over. These were different from the ones she had seen so far. They had a dark cast to them. It was as if something inside the pulse ate the energy from the inside out. This had to be the enemy.

At the next intersection, she took a right and doubled her speed to the next street, staying a little behind the defective pulse. Being a part of the machine, it was forced to adhere to the laws governing it. When it came to a stop, she came up beside it. An overwhelming feeling of terror came from the pulse as it was held there by the laws of negative and positive charges.

She moved around the pulse and observed it. In the very center of it, a dense blackness throbbed. Gaining a positive charge, it shot down the street. She didn’t follow it, but waited, trying to get a feel for how she could destroy the pulse and others like it.

By accident, she discovered she could make herself larger or smaller. Moving into the street at the same time the grid became positively charged, she almost collided with another pulse. Instinctively, she shrank to a microspeck of energy. The pulses flashing by looked as large as freight cars on a train. When the grid became negatively charged and they stopped, she ballooned up, becoming twice the size of those around her. She had her weapon now.

She shrank back down to her original size and took off down the street, passing immobile pulses as she went. At the edge of the electronic city, she came up behind one of the defective pulses. As she approached, she began to grow until she was four times bigger. Increasing her speed, she engulfed the pulse. Reaching down into herself where it emitted electronic shrieks of terror, she shot spurts of pure brilliant energy into the blackness. Slowly, the blackness began to fade as she absorbed the tainted part into herself and burnt it away.

Releasing the pulse, it shot ahead as healthy as ever. Cruising down a side street, she felt a jolt of sheer pain shoot through her mind from behind. Several of the defective pulses had ganged up and attacked her from the rear.

With a gut-rendering mental scream, she increased her size and enveloped them all. They continued to send out bolts of black energy. Some, she blocked, others, she couldn’t. When one of the bolts struck her, she reeled under the intense pain they caused.

Slowly, one at a time, she drained them of their black energy. As the last pulse shot through her, she felt herself shrink. She staggered over to the side of the street. Looking within herself, she realized her life force was almost drained. Exhausted, she stood there with a wary eye out for another attack. This wasn’t going to be as easy as she first thought. What worked for her could also be utilized by the defective pulses. Like them, she could only travel one way on the streets. If they ganged up again and came up behind her, she wouldn’t know they were there until they attacked. It seemed to take forever for her to regain her charge and get into the flow of pulses again. She was careful to only stop on the negatively charged grids. Ahead, she saw a whole gang of pulses looking for her. Speeding, she enveloped the last two in line and destroyed the defective part in them. Quickly, she shot down a side street before the rest of them could circle around and come up behind her.

Waiting back from the intersection where she couldn’t be seen, she watched them flow through the intersection. Once again, she waited until they were forced to stop, then attacked the last two in line. As the grid forced them to flow forward, she ducked back down the side street. Something tore into her back.

She swelled to five times her normal size and waited for the grid to force them forward so she could envelope them. In the meantime, they continued to blast her with their bolts of black energy. Her mind reeled under each impact. Finally, the grid became positively charged and forced them forward. With a savagery she didn’t know she possessed, she struck out with blinding bolts of pure energy and destroyed them.

Again, she had to rest and recharge herself. After each attack, the link back to her human body became a little weaker. As she watched, she saw the pattern of the defective pulses change. They no longer flowed along in groups, but in pairs.

Whenever they came across a pulse they thought was her, two attacked and held it helpless until more could arrive. They were communicating with each other, which meant they were even more deadly than she thought.

She found that if she increased her size, she could store more energy, which would help. The only trouble was, she stood out like a seven foot tall basketball player in a group of midgets. One by one, she destroyed the strings of Pete left behind. After what seemed like hours, she tracked down the last one and destroyed it. Exhausted, she asked for the mind link to be severed. Bill sat on the floor beside the chair holding her hand. Looking at the clock on the wall, she was shocked to see that only ten minutes had passed.

She lifted the cap from her head. “Help me up, Bill.”

Bill took her arms and lifted her out of the seat. Leaning against him, they walked to their room and she lay down on the bed. As soon as her head hit the pillow, she was sound asleep. Bill pulled the covers over her and quietly left the room.

Chapter 16

Dave was tired of arguing with Ginger. “Listen, little girl, you aren’t too old for me to turn you over my knee.”

“Just try it and I’ll knock the shit out of you,” Ginger sputtered.

“Nice language from some one who claims to be as old as you are. If you’d ask me to do what you wanted, instead of ordering me around, we might get along. Where do you get off ordering us around? You may have a timetable to stick to, but we don’t.”

“Settle down, Dave,” Phil told him, as he tried to get between the two, but they kept pushing him out of the way.

Zapper sat on the hood of the truck; laughing so hard, he could barely sit up. “A lot of help you are!” Phil yelled at him, as he tried again to get between Dave and Ginger. They turned to him and glared. He backed away saying, “Go ahead and fight, settle it here and now, or I am striking out on my own. I’m tired of the two of you arguing all the time.”

He heard something hit the ground behind him. Turning, he saw Zapper curled up on the ground gasping for breath. “No more, no more,” Zapper gasped.

Phil threw his hands in the air. “I give up, you two have driven me half-crazy with your arguing.”

He pointed to Ginger and Dave. “This idiot thinks everything is funny and can’t stop laughing. If you ask me, all three of you should be committed.” He walked to the pickup and sat down with his arms crossed.

“Now see what you’ve done,” Ginger said.

Dave looked hard at her, then turned on his heel and walked off into the woods. Ginger walked over to where Zapper lay on the ground. “Phil is right, why can’t you ever be serious? The world is nothing but a big joke to you. Grow up, Zap,” she scolded him. Grimacing, Zapper got to his feet and looked down at her. “You’re as wrong as can be, little girl. I take the world seriously, it’s you and Dave I can’t take serious. You and Dave both want your own way and won’t give an inch. The funny thing is neither of you can see it. Take some advice from me, Ginger. We humans don’t live our lives structured around a timetable. If I were you, I’d build a little leeway into your plans. You think of yourself as an adult while the rest of us see you as a little girl, even though we know what you claim to be. Dave is a natural born leader. Every time you order him to do something, I can see the hackles raise up on the back of his neck. Hell, the way you’ve been acting, if I did take you seriously, I would already have turned you over my knee.”

“Have I really been that bad, Zap?” Ginger asked as she batted her eyelashes at him.

“You can cut that shit out, kid. It doesn’t work with me. Now go find Dave and do whatever it takes to make up with him.” Zapper swatted her on the rear end with his open hand. She walked toward the woods to find Dave, rubbing her rear.

Zapper went to the back of the pickup and took two cans of soda out of the cooler. He gave Phil one as he raised himself to sit on the hood of the truck. “Give them a few more days and they’ll work out their differences,” he told Phil.

“They had better, I wasn’t kidding when I said I’d leave if they didn’t quit fighting all the time,”

Phil said, taking a big drink of the soda.

“Chill out, Phil. We’re a team now, just like in the old days. We just have a little problem in the chain of command. I wish I had a fishing pole. I’ll bet there are some fat trout in that stream, just waiting to jump on a hook. Remind me in the next town we pass through and I’ll pick up a couple of poles.”

“There you go again, Zap. How in the hell can you think about fishing when we’re fighting for our lives?”

Zapper looked all around. “We aren’t fighting now. Ease up a little, Phil. Life is tough enough without crossing bridges before you come to them. Sure, there are tough days ahead of us, but there’s also plenty of leisure time, like today. I live for these days. I’ll face tomorrow when it comes, but until then, I am going to enjoy life. You can sit there and sulk, but it won’t change anything. Where’s the old Phil? If I remember right, you were the one who was always playing practical jokes.”

“I don’t know what’s wrong, Zap. I’ve been feeling down since Monty killed Clint. Where does it end? Will we end up trying to kill each other? Shit, nothing is the same anymore. Sometimes, before I go to sleep at night, the last thought in my head is that I’ll wake up in the morning and everything will be as it was a year ago.”

“Listen, Phil, forget about things ever getting back to the way they were. It’s not going to happen in our lifetime. If you don’t face up to it now, you won’t be much use to us. As Ginger tells us, it’s all a matter of choice. Make up your mind. It’s not going to get better. In fact, it’ll probably get worse.”

“I know you’re right, Zap. Let me deal with it in my own way.”

“Phil, has Ginger mentioned why she wants to get to the interstate so bad?” Zapper asked as he got another soda.

“Nothing specific, she did say we’re going to meet some people along the way. They’ll probably pass by on the interstate, and she wants us to be there when they do.”

Dave walked out of the woods with Ginger trailing a step behind. He took a container of bottled water out of the cooler and joined them. Zapper and Phil could see that he was still upset, so they remained silent. He paced back and forth in front of the pickup sipping the water. Ginger stood to the side, watching him pace.

Dave stopped next to them and said, “We’re going back to the town Johnny and the rest of them are defending. I have this feeling they’re going to need our help soon.” He looked at each of them as if expecting an argument. They just nodded their heads in agreement.

“So that’s your final decision, Dave?” Ginger asked in a disappointed voice.

“Yes, Ginger, I’ll do what feels right. Going back is what my intuition tells me is the right decision.”

Before another argument could break out, Zapper slid off the hood of the truck saying, “If we hurry, we can be back there before it gets dark.” He went to the back of the truck and closed the cooler while Phil got behind the wheel.

Dave turned and got in the truck. He drove without looking at Ginger. She shook her head a couple times, and with a resigned look on her face, climbed in and sat down beside him. Phil headed back the way they came. “Doesn’t look like they settled things between them,” he said, looking in the rearview mirror.

“Quite the contrary, old man, I believe they did get things settled. Ginger didn’t have one of her raging tantrums when Dave said he was going back. She doesn’t like it, but she didn’t tear into him, either. No, old chap, I think it is settled and Dave is our undisputed leader now,” Zapper told him in the best British accent he could muster.

In the other truck, Dave looked over at Ginger and noted that she was staring straight ahead with her jaw firmly set.

“Come on, Ginger, don’t be like that. If I am making a mistake, it’ll be one I can live with. I can’t abandon those people. You told me yourself there are very few like them left in the world today. If we don’t help them, who will?”

Ginger let out a long sigh and turned to face him. “You may be right, Dave. I’m tied up in so many things, I made the mistake of ruling out random choice. Still, I don’t know how the four of us will make a difference in what’s going to happen to the town. I guess I’m about to find out, though.”

“Don’t underestimate what we can do. They may outnumber us ten to one, but in a situation like this, numbers mean very little. We’ll have well-defended positions, while they’ll have to attack across open ground. Besides, I think we can pull a few nasty surprises on them. From what Johnny told me, these people aren’t very well organized; which I plan to exploit for all it’s worth. With a little help from you, we should be able to end the threat to them for awhile. You will help us, won’t you?”

“Of course I will, but I won’t be able to do much. My powers may be limited, but they may help in some way.” She patted his hand in a patronizing fashion.

The guards outside the town were surprised to see them, and asked if they were in trouble. After explaining they came back to help, they drove on to town and parked in front of Johnny’s headquarters. Johnny rushed out the door to greet them and escorted them into his war room.

“Dave, we heard a few hours ago that a large force is headed our way. They should be here day after tomorrow. Thank God you came back, I’ve tried to do the things Zapper told us to do, but things aren’t falling into place like they should. Right now, we have nothing but mass confusion. If you don’t mind, I’d like you to take command. You and your men know what needs to be done, we’ll help you in anyway we can.” Johnny paced back and forth, as hyper as a man walking on hot coals.

“I accept, Johnny, on the condition that my word is law. You and your people may have to do things which will be repulsive to you, but they have to be done. This is going to be a make or break fight. I want to completely destroy them. That means, no prisoners. It’s the only way to make sure it’ll be a long time before they’re strong enough to bother you again. In other words, if you do what I tell you to, we can buy time so you can set up a permanent defense around the town.”

“Anything you say, Dave. We appreciate any help you can give us.”

Dave turned to Zapper. “Zap, go out and make sure they’re setting up the forward defenses you told them about. We don’t have much time, so do the best you can.”

“I could use Phil and his explosives, Dave. I’ve thought of a few more things which will help, since I checked the area,” Zapper said as he took his pack and leaned it against the wall.

“Go with him, Phil. I want both of you back here by six tonight so we can coordinate what we’re going to do.” Dave walked over to the radio operator and asked, “Do you have a man shadowing the group headed this way?”

“My fourteen year old son is staying in front of them and sending back reports every chance he gets,” he answered, as he fiddled with the dials on the radio.

Dave turned to Johnny and asked, “Can you get me three more people who thoroughly know the route they’re using?”

“I’ll have them here within half an hour,” Johnny answered and hurried out the door. Dave sat down in a chair next to the desk the radio was on and tried to think of something they might have missed. “Are there any rebels outside town who would come here and help us?” he asked the radio operator.

“There is a hippie commune six miles north of here. They have about a hundred people, but we haven’t had much to do with them. They live in an isolated area and don’t come into town much. I doubt if they would come in to help us though.”

“You’ll never know until you try. Do they have a radio you can contact them on?”

“I know they have a C.B. radio, but we haven’t heard them on the air. Hell, mister, for all we know, they could be dead. Like I said, we don’t associate with them. They have some pretty strange ideas about how people should live from what I could tell the last time I was close to that place out hunting, and it didn’t sit well with me. They live in a dozen log houses they put up. Don’t get me wrong, we’re not a bunch of prudes, but all of them living in the same houses and spouting free love is just not our style.”

“Do they have a leader we could talk to?” Dave asked.

“Yeah, you have to see this bird to believe him. He has a long beard and hair halfway down his back. He wears these funny little granny glasses like they did in the sixties. He dresses just like old-time mountain men dressed. You know, buckskin shirt and pants. Most of the time, he walks around barefoot, but in cold weather, he does wear moccasins. Those people hang on every word he says.”

Dave motioned to a man who walked into the room. “Get on the C.B. and try to contact the hippies north of here. Keep at it all day if you have to.” The man looked at the radio operator, who nodded for him to do what Dave asked.

Johnny came back with three young men and brought them over to where Dave sat. “These are the boys who know the road from here to Casper like the back of their hands,” Johnny told him. Dave noticed the look on their faces when Johnny called them boys. He spread a map out on the floor. “Here’s what I want you men to do.” For the next fifteen minutes, they discussed strategy on how to keep a roving spotter in front of the approaching people.

Dave shook each of their hands and wished them good luck as they left. He leaned back in his chair and sipped a cold drink a woman had handed him.

He listened as the radio operator told a man to bring in the dozer. Johnny sat behind a desk talking on the telephone, his shirt soaked in sweat.

Ginger walked over to Dave and took the empty glass from him. He nodded thanks and went back to thinking about everything that could go wrong.

* * * *

Ginger walked around the town and observed the people prepar-ing for the coming battle. She shook her head at the uncertain feelings she was experiencing. For the first time, she wondered if her choice to become directly involved with humans was a wise one. Over the eons, she had been quite content to let the planet govern itself. Over that period, many species had evolved and disappeared in a timeless flow of evolution.

She didn’t know what piqued her interest in the budding evolution of humans so many years ago. Of all the life forms up until then, humans were the only species exhibiting a natural curiosity about their surroundings. When it caused them to climb out of the ocean and evolve into air-breathing creatures, she began to pay particular attention to them. Many were the times she thought these curious beings would become extinct. They surprised her by their stubborn tenacity to cling to life in very adverse conditions.

Over the centuries, this tenacity evolved to the point where they began to multiply. In doing so, they ensured their survival. After she knew they would survive and prosper, she helped them in small ways. She remembered when the first humans started to explore. Knowing they could only be content by facing challenging and diverse situations, she created different weather zones. Over the course of a million years, the species conquered every challenge thrown at them. Something strange happened during this time. She, herself, came to realize she was lonely. To someone whose life was never ending, this was a terrible feeling. Oh, she knew of other entities like herself, but their existence was much like hers. She didn’t know how many millions of years it was since she had heard from any of them. She took it upon herself to guide the destiny of humans as they evolved.

Half a million years ago, she felt the presence of someone much more powerful than herself. This entity informed her that she was meddling in things which were none of her concern and ordered her to stop. To make sure that she obeyed this command, the presence made it so she couldn’t interfere directly in human affairs by instilling in her a set of values she couldn’t break, even if she wanted to. The prime rule was that humanity had to evolve without her interfering or helping. Over the years of observing humans evolve, she had picked up a few of their traits.

Like a child, she sought ways to get around the values instilled in her. In small ways, such as weather manipulation, she found she could still influence humans. The effort to do even these small things was tremendous and drained her. Although humans were a short-lived species, she picked out certain ones who she had a fondness for and used these influences to protect them. By calming the weather, she took away the wind so a certain ship wouldn’t reach its destination for a long time. The person on the ship, who would have died, was saved by her in this manner. Many were the times she wished she could do more, but the restraints on her were binding. She suffered, right along with humanity, through the plagues and holocausts they perpetrated on themselves.

Over the last century, she saw that ultimately, humankind would destroy itself. She put certain plans into motion which would insure that a few humans survived. When the time came, she inserted a small part of herself into the birth canal at precisely the same moment Ginger was conceived. It surprised her when she was able to do this, because it was clearly a violation of the value system imposed on her.

As the girl Ginger grew, so did she. From the outset, she made Ginger aware she was two different entities. Since the child knew this from birth, she took it for granted this was normal. For the first time, mother nature felt all the conflicting emotions that came with being human. How was this species able to cope with so many different emotions?

As Ginger grew, mother nature began to see why humanity was so unique. Given the chance, humans would spread throughout the universe. In doing so, they would come in contact with others like her. When this occurred, she wondered how her kind would react to this short-lived species who packed so much action into so short a period of time.

She feared that in their arrogance, they would underestimate humankind and the trouble they could cause. After all, what threat could so short-lived a species be to them? Like a mother, she worried that her kind would eventually see humans as a threat and try to eliminate them. That was all in the far future, however. Unless humans could overcome the current threat to their existence, they would never reach the stars.

Try as she might, one of the human traits kept popping up, which caused the difficulties she was experiencing with Dave. Her kind had never had to deal with impatience. To them, what would happen, would happen. Humans, on the other hand, influenced almost everything around them through their impatience. By not wanting to wait for events to run their natural course, they continually changed them. This was one of the things she admired so much about humanity. Any species this dynamic deserved the right to continue its existence.

Zapper interrupted her thoughts by walking up and saying, “Want to go with me, kid?”

She liked Zap, his approach to life fascinated her. Outward-ly, he displayed a happy-go-lucky charm. When she revealed what she was to him, his attitude was acceptance. He didn’t skip a beat and, unlike Phil, who was afraid of her, Zapper, treated her as an equal. If he disagreed with her, he let her know about it. If she became adamant in trying to make him change his point of view, he would look at her and say, “Ginger, you have your point of view and I have mine, so drop it, okay?”

“Where are we going?” she asked, getting into the truck.

“I’m taking these boxes of dynamite to Phil. I want to go up on the ridge, which is going to be our first line of defense.”

People scurried around like ants, preparing the town for the coming attack. She watched them as Zapper drove out of town. A hundred yards later, Zapper stopped at a ditch, which had been bulldozed across the road. He waited as a crane lowered a piece of steel wide enough for a vehicle to drive on across the ditch.

As Zapper drove across it, she looked down and saw people reinforcing firing positions along the top by piling up sandbags. She smiled as she saw a young child, who could barely walk, holding open a bag so its mother could shovel dirt into it. On both sides of the ditch, young children were doing the same thing as their mothers sweated and filled bags. On the side next to the river, a crane lowered a large tank into the ditch. Looking up, she saw people placing sandbags along the top of the hill above where the ditch ended on that side. “Was all this your idea, Zap?” she asked.

“Pretty much, Phil added a few things I overlooked.”

The road went straight for half a mile, then curved to the right. On the other side of the curve, men welded pieces of steel together to form a line of spikes four feet high across the road. Zapper waited as four men lifted a section of steel and moved it enough for him to drive the truck through. He stopped and motioned a small, beefy man over to the truck.

“Hal, make sure the welders understand they shouldn’t weld the gate closed until all our men are through.”

Hal wiped the sweat from his face with a large red handkerchief and spat tobacco juice to the side.

“Don’t worry, Mister Zap, my men know what to do. They won’t leave anyone on the other side.”

He grinned and spat another stream of tobacco juice. “I want to see their faces when they try to move this steel out of the way.”

Ginger looked closely at the steel barrier to see what the man meant. The barrier looked as if a large truck would be able to ram a hole through it. She was sure the man had to be referring to something else. It took her a moment to spot exactly what. Where the pieces of steel touched the ground, they rested on rubber pads sunk into the ground. She gave Zapper a questioning look.

“We found a fifty kilowatt generator in town. It’s hidden behind the hill in back of us. See those power leads coming out of the ditch beside the road?” He pointed to three large pieces of wire sticking out of the ground at the end of the barrier.

“We hope they’ll send people up to try and move the barrier. A few of them will be electrocuted; we hope that will keep them from looking at the road ahead of them too carefully. See anything different about it?” Zapper asked.

Ginger looked and couldn’t see anything different. The only thing she noticed were some ruts caused by vehicles becoming stuck and then being pulled out. The only thing marring the road’s surface were clumps of mud left from the vehicles as they pulled back onto the road. “Everything looks normal to me, Zap.”

“That’s what we hope they’ll think. We bored three holes, one on each side and another in the middle. We filled them with enough explosives to blow a hell of a big hole in the road. Each hole is hidden under a clump of dirt with a remote detonator wire stuck to the back of it. They’ll be expecting some kind of booby trap when they see the barrier. I hope they’ll think we gave it our best shot by electrifying the barrier. Once they manage to move the obstruction, we’ll wait until they drive their vehicles over the explosives, and then detonate them. They will then be forced to walk the rest of the way to town, unless they take the time to fill in the hole. I’m betting they won’t want to take that much time. The one thing these crazy people lack is patience.”

“It had damn well better work. We need to bottle up their people so they can only attack from one direction,” Hal said.

“It will work, Hal, it has to,” Zapper said in a grim voice. He put the truck in gear and drove up the road to the crest of the hill. He parked at the top and got out. A dozen men and women stepped out of the woods from both sides.

Approaching them was a black-haired woman barely out of her teens. Held by a sling, an AK-47

rode on her back. Her frosty-grey eyes locked with Ginger’s. “What the hell is a kid doing out here?”

she asked in an emotionless voice.

Ginger felt raw hate emanating from the woman, not toward them, but aimed at the people who were coming. Carefully, she reached out to the woman’s mind. She saw a happy young woman coming out of a church in a wedding gown. She held onto the arm of a young, blond-haired man. Ginger felt the overwhelming joy the woman was feeling. A few months later, the woman lay in the man’s arms late at night. With a crash, the door sprung from its hinges and fell to the floor. Men rushed in and dragged her husband from the bed. They then beat on him while two others held her prone, where she heard every blow her husband received. Hearing a crunch, the young woman knew one of the men hit her spouse in the mouth with the butt of a rifle. He fell to the floor moaning and the men started kicking her husband with their heavy boots.

She watched in horror as a man drew back his leg and kicked her husband in the head. Hearing a snapping noise, she noticed his head roll to an unusual angle. Slowly, his feeble jerking stopped. While some of them held her arms and legs, the rest raped her in every way conceivable. After they were finished, the men filed out of the room leaving one of their number behind. The man pulled a large knife from a sheath on his belt.

Knowing she was about to die, the abused woman struggled with her attacker. They struggled back and forth across the room, fighting over the knife the whole time. Finally hitting her in the head, the man managed to knock her to the floor.

As he started forward, her attacker tripped over her husband’s corpse. As the man fell toward her, she reached up and shoved his hand holding the knife away from her. He hit the floor with a thud and let out a groan.

She dragged herself to her feet as he rolled over. The knife protruded from his chest where he had fallen on it.

Kissing her dead husband, she went to the window and climbed through it into the night. Other memories of struggling from town to town flashed by, but the predominent emotion was hate. Ginger took the woman’s hand. “Perhaps the future will bring some happiness to you, my dear. For now, hang onto your hate and it will see you through,” Ginger told the startled woman.

“Who are you?” the woman asked, jerking her hand back.

“Just a child who has seen more than any human being should,” Ginger answered. Zapper gave Ginger a funny look, and then asked the woman, “Will you have any trouble getting your people out of here after you make contact, Lilly?”

“No, they all understand if they aren’t on the other side of the steel barrier by the time the enemy tops this hill, they’ll be left behind. Believe me; none of us wants to be out here when their main forces arrive.”

Ginger walked to the side of the road, puzzled by a voice she heard in her mind. The voice was familiar, but she couldn’t recall where she had heard it before. Walking the few feet to the top of the hill, she stared off into the distance in the direction the enemy force was approaching from. The voice was much stronger here.

“Hello, Mother, or do you wish me to call you something else?” she heard in her mind. A deep loneliness penetrated her, as the voice spoke. “Do I know you?” she asked.

“I am surprised, though I suppose I shouldn’t be. Of course, you wouldn’t know of me. I am the matching, but opposite, sliver of you. Let me show you what I am,” the voice said. Ginger gasped at the scenes of human torture filling her mind. Until that moment, she hadn’t realized just how much pain one person could inflict on another. This person fed on the pain of others. She could feel the raw agony of countless people being tortured in order to give the creature continued life. Inside the creature rested the soul of a mild-mannered and timid man. They were two parts of the same body, much like her and Ginger’s coexistence.

The part of the being from which she received the feelings of such deep and utter loneliness was the man. The agony of being locked in the same body with the creature who had to receive doses of pain to exist had to be unbearable. She broke contact with the pictures in her mind and asked, “Why?”

“You broke the rules. Did you really think you could place a minuscule part of yourself in a human without attracting the notice of those who made the rules? This is the way they decided to compensate for your actions. Where you represent goodness, and everything that’s right and just, they took a part of you and made me to represent the exact opposite—everything that is evil, disgusting and perverted in the culture of this planet. Unlike you and the girl, whose body you share in harmony, I inhabit the body of a man who is the exact opposite of me.

“This human is doomed to face eternal suffering, so I may live. I was created to be cruel and cause suffering. I learned many things from this man whose body I occupy. The beings who made me did their job well. However, they gave me the power to reason, a mistake on their part. While I must feed on pain, the other part of me needs the contact of others like him in order to sustain a stable mental balance.

“Only recently was this brought to my attention. I managed to contact a girl, a little older than you. What a wonderful creature she is! Her mind is much more powerful than she realizes. Her pure thoughts disgusted me, but looking beyond them, I saw a life of joy forever denied to me. Wish as I might, it will never happen. I am everything my creators desired. I find it rather ironic that we are enemies, you and I.

“The coming encounters will be much like fighting with myself. The girl child I mentioned before will be joining your little group shortly, take care of her and get her to contact me. I promise no harm will come to her. Now, I’ll allow you to talk with the human whose body I use.”

Ginger felt the darkness of evil fade until it was a distant shadow on the horizon. She heard a primordial scream as the human mind came out of the cell it was imprisoned in. “Easy, take it slow for a moment until your mind adjusts,” she told him.

“Am I crazy? Please tell me I am,” sobbed the man.

"No, Will, you’re not crazy, although it would be better if you were. For whatever reason, the powers that be created a malignant entity out of a part of me. They placed it in your body. While this vile being won’t harm you, it will keep you locked away and force you to watch the atrocities it performs. The entity has no choice in the matter. I know this doesn’t help much with all the suffering you’ve already endured. If blame is to be placed, it must go to me. I am the cause of the entity’s creation.

“If I hadn’t meddled in human affairs, the entity would never have been created. What is done cannot be changed. The entity has granted me the right to speak to you and I believe it’ll continue to do so in the future. I know you don’t understand, but this is the way it will be from now on. If I could destroy the entity, I would. It would mean your death, but I believe you would prefer that to the way you are living now.

“I believe that the greater powers won’t allow this to happen, so you must try to adjust the best you can. To prevent you from going over the edge and becoming like the entity, I send you this.”

She sent a brilliant pulse of light to Will. The light surrounded him in a protective bubble. “This will act as a protective barrier to keep you from seeing the atrocities the entity commits. No longer will you be forced to watch what’s beyond your control. I have to leave you now, but you’ll be hearing from me again soon.”

Ginger felt Will’s mind sinking as the dark clouds on the horizon of his mind rolled forward until only darkness prevailed.

“I thank you for the human whose body I inhabit. While I am totally corrupt, the well-being of my host concerns me. As you may have guessed, I can take and control any human body I want. The time it takes for the host body to adjust becomes longer with each taking. I’ll leave the bubble of goodness around him so he won’t suffer the mental anguishes he has in the past. In time, we may be able to reach a compromise within ourselves. Now I must leave for awhile. Anytime you wish to contact me, go to the highest point and search for me.” Ginger could feel the mind probe withdrawing.

Moments later, she had her mind to herself. Shaking her head, she looked around and saw Zapper staring at her. Lilly sat beside him fingering the rifle she held. The other people had faded back into the woods.

“Are you okay, Ginger?” Zapper asked.

“Yeah, Zap, just visiting with someone who put even more weight on my shoulders.”

“You sure scared the hell out of the folks here. One minute, you’re standing there and the next, a silvery haze is sur-rounding your body. I couldn’t get close to you. When I tried to get close to you, a force drove me back keeping me half a dozen feet away from you. I didn’t know if you were in trouble or what.” He squatted beside her and took her hand.

“Everything is okay now, Zap. Could we go back to town now? I have a lot of thinking to do.”

“Sure, kid, anything you want.” He gave Lilly a few more instructions, then got in the truck and headed toward town. He kept glancing at Ginger, who was lost in thought as he drove.

Chapter 17

Todd looked through the binoculars at the troops facing his forces on the outskirts of Lincoln, Illinois. His men were strung out for miles behind him on I-55. He went back to the Chevy Suburban he used as a command vehicle. “How many men do they have around the town?”

“They have about five thousand dug in along the interstate in fortified positions. About the same number are spread out covering all the western approaches to the city. And another five in the center of the city as a reserve force. There are ten thousand men in Bloomington, roughly twenty-five miles up the road, who can be here in less than an hour. This one is going to be a tough nut to crack, Todd.”

“Get some rest, Jamie, I want you to go back out tonight with your men. Check with me around dark and I’ll let you know what I want,” Todd told the man and turned to where Dell had a map spread out on the hood. “How far is it from here to Chica-go?”

“A little less than a hundred and fifty miles,” Dell told him.

“Our Master tells me there’s quite a few of us there, holding off all attempts to take the city. By monitoring their phone conversations, he’s learned they’re shifting a lot of their men this way to meet our push. That explains why we met so little resistance when we took Springfield two days ago. They pulled their men out of there to defend this town. They’ve learned it’s harder to defend the bigger cities against the crazies we send in first. In the smaller places, they’re able to take out most of the crazies before they even reach the city itself. Whoever their commander is, he’s pretty sharp. Tell me, Dell, can we bypass this city and still get the troops I sent for to Chicago by rail?”

“We can by rerouting them through Iowa, up into Wisconsin, but that’ll take another two weeks. It’d be better if half take that route, and you had the rest take Davenport, then come down I-74 to Peoria. That way, we’d control the railways west of Peoria and won’t have to ship our troops in a roundabout way. It’ll make getting supplies a lot easier, too.”

“Go ahead and do it that way. Since President Donaldson is easing the pressure on Chicago, we can take the extra time getting the troops there. The Master told me President Donaldson is concentrating his forces in Indiana. The Master thinks we’ll expend a lot of our forces taking Illinois, and then the President can counter-attack, driving us back across the Mississippi. I’m going to take half of our troops and all the crazies for a mad dash to Terre Haute, Indiana. I want you to keep enough pressure on here to keep them from sending a large force after us. After we take Terre Haute, haul your ass there with your remaining forces. We can send units north to cut their supply lines from there.

“If we can pull it off, we’ll bottle up over fifty thousand of his men. Once we cut their supply line, it’s only a matter of time until they either surrender or we destroy them. I’ll get with our commander in Chicago and have him mount an attack at the same time we’re taking Terre Haute. If he takes the main railway yard in south Chicago, we’ll be in good shape. I’ll send Jamie and his men to the town of Mclean. I want them to destroy the tele-phone exchange there, that’ll keep President Donaldson’s forces in the south from communicating with his men to the north.

“I’ll leave the tanks with you. They’d only slow us down. Use them to bottle up the forces here. Try not to lose too many men; we may need them to hold Terre Haute. The only thing that can go wrong is if those damn rebels act up down south. Dell, when I call for you to join us, don’t let anything stop you. President Donaldson has a large force in Indianapolis. They’ll head for Terre Haute when we attack. I think that covers it, I’m going to get some sleep.” Todd walked back to the motor home located on the berm.

Dell got on the radio and ordered the tanks up from the middle of the column. He called all his commanders to him. He wanted a line of men stretched out for a mile on either side of the interstate. He sent twenty of his M60 tanks to each side of the road as heavy support for the men. He kept the remaining twenty in reserve.

His lines would be stretched thin when Todd left tonight with half the men. One thing made him glad, by taking the crazies with him, Todd was making Dell’s job easier. He then got on the radio and gave orders for the crazies to be given a half ration of the drug that calmed them with their noon meal. Without the drug, they became so aggressive, they killed each other.

This was the most crazies Dell had ever seen in one place. Todd had ordered that all five thousand of them bring up the rear of the column. They had been off the drug for two days now and were getting restless. Just to be on the safe side, he ordered another hundred of his normal troops to mingle with the crazies and calm them. He had supplies and ammo brought up and positioned at strategic places.

They had learned not to keep all their ammunition in one place at Springfield. A dozen of the enemy snuck through their lines and blew up most of what they had. Dell had to admit, he had learned a lot about military tactics in the last three weeks. A man ran up to him and saluted, “Sir, they’re sending out a small force to probe our lines.”

Dell picked up the radio on the seat beside him. “Come in, Johnny,” he said into the microphone.

“Johnny here, Dell, what do you need?”

“See the men approaching on either side of the road? Coordinate your fire and take them out.”

A few minutes later, the belching sounds of forty tanks firing split the morning calm. Dell used his binoculars to watch the approaching men. He judged there to be twenty-five on each side of the road. Eruptions of dirt and rock flew into the air all around them. They started running pell-mell back toward the city with high explosive rounds following them. Less than a dozen of them made it back to safety. Dell had a grim smile on his face as he set up to lay siege to the city. The rest of the day passed without anymore contact. He woke Todd at six and they went over the plans once more. Jamie came up and got his orders from Todd. Todd ordered him back to Springfield and to take Route 29. He wanted his forward elements hidden in the town of Paris, northwest of Terre Haute, by dawn. He planned to attack the day after tomorrow. By taking the secondary routes, he hoped to keep his movements a secret. Todd shook hands with Dell and wished him luck, then left to take charge of the force he was taking with him. Dell ordered his tanks forward and told them to fire into the outskirts of the city for the next half an hour. The sound of the tanks firing would cover any noise Todd’s men made as they departed. Todd made good time on his way back to Springfield. It wasn’t until they turned off on Route 29

that trouble started. He was in the lead when the call came up from the rear informing him that the crazies refused to follow. He made his way back down the packed two-lane highway to the crazies. Two men were arguing. “What the hell is going on here?” he asked as he confronted them.

“Bradley says he won’t move another inch until we give them some women. If he won’t go, neither will the crazies. He’s sort of their leader. You talk to him, Todd. He won’t listen to me.”

Todd stood there eyeing Bradley. The man was tall, well over six and a half feet. His long brown hair was matted and dirty. The pants and shirt he wore had holes and stains all over them. Drool ran out of the side of his mouth.

Todd remembered the man. After all, he was the one who put Bradley in charge of the crazies when their current leader was being obstinate about moving to a new area. Todd had politely asked the crazy leader to pick up his things and leave. The man refused, so Todd pulled his .38 and shot him on the spot. Bradley had been standing in the front of the group of crazies, just watching. Todd grabbed him by the arm and informed the group Bradley would be their leader from then on. Todd dragged Bradley to the side and explained that if he didn’t get the people moving, he would be the next one lying on the ground with a bullet in the head. The man was crazy, but he wasn’t stupid. He kicked, hit and shouted at them until they moved out. Todd was surprised he would try the same tactics that had gotten the last leader killed.

“Okay, Bradley, I don’t have time for this. Why are you stopping? And, Bradley, this had better be good.” He placed his hand on his revolver as he said this.

“Bradley need woman, real woman, not one of these crazy bitches. Been long time, since Bradley had real woman. Todd-man understand Bradley have needs crazy woman no meet. Get Bradley woman, Todd-man and we follow you.”

Todd lifted the revolver half out of its holster half a dozen times before he took his hand off it. He wanted to shoot the crazy, but that would only cause more delay. He would deal with Bradley later, but for now, he had to get the man a woman.

Suddenly, he smiled. He could solve two problems with one woman. Turning to his aide, he said, “Go get Rhonda out of my motor home and bring her here.”

Bradley squirmed as Todd stood there smiling at him. He wasn’t overly bright, but he did remember what Todd had done to the last leader who refused to leave. He would never have tried this, except, for the last few weeks, all he’d thought about was having a normal woman. His feelings of lust were so bad, he couldn’t sleep at night.

Night before last, one of the woman who kept after him to bed her came to his camper late at night. He let her in; she wasted no time in removing her clothes. She rubbed her breasts all over him. He grabbed her and threw her on the bed. Ripping his clothes off, he fell on her and penetrated her in one motion. He humped for half an hour and became bored. Then he lost his erection. The woman began to laugh at him, which infuriated him. He hit her in the mouth, breaking her teeth and jaw and shutting her up. As she tried to squirm away from him, he grabbed her by the head and pulled. She slipped off the side of the bed and her feet got wedged under the dresser. He pulled on her head and got mad when he couldn’t throw her back on the bed. He placed his feet against the wall for leverage and pulled with all his strength. He heard a pop, then a ripping sound and fell. He stared stupidly at the head in his hands. Long, bloody strips of flesh hung from its neck. He stood up with the head in his hands and looked over the opposite side of the bed. The woman lay on the floor, blood spurting from her headless neck. He threw the head down beside the body and left the camper. He got in the truck and pulled it into a field away from the other vehicles. Entering the camper, he ripped the sheet in two and took half of it outside. He took the cap off the gas tank, and using a stick, he shoved the piece of sheet into it. A few minutes later, he pulled the soaked sheet out. Turning the gasoline-soaked material around, he shoved the dry end into the tank. Walking away from the vehicle, Bradley waved his hands to dry the gas on them. He took a Bic lighter out of his pocket and held it under the edge of the sheet. It burst into flames; he jumped up and ran like hell. He expected the truck to blow up, spewing flames in every direction. The small boom and slow-spreading fire disappointed him. The camper and truck burned to the ground. In the process, it burned the woman’s body to ash. Todd had warned Bradley that if he killed one more woman, Todd would do the same to Bradley.

Todd’s aide dragged a cursing redhead through the men and stopped beside Todd. The redhead jerked her arm away from the man and straightened her hastily put on clothes. “Why did you have this goon drag me out of bed, Todd?” she asked, glaring at him as she finished buttoning her blouse.

“Shut the fuck up, bitch.” He turned to Bradley, saying, “Because I like you so much, Bradley, I am giving you my woman.” The redhead let out a screech and swung her fist at him.

“You lying son of a bitch, you told me when you finished with me, I could go my own way,” she sputtered, so mad she could hardly talk.

Todd ignored her. “I thought you’d like a woman with a little spunk and, as you can see, she has plenty of it.” He motioned to the woman, who was struggling with two men trying to hold her. “She’s yours to do whatever you want with. I’m sure the both of you will be happy.”

Bradley was dumbfounded. He didn’t know what he expected, but this wasn’t it. “Bradley thank Todd-man, him get people moving now.” He reached over and grabbed the redhead by the arm. She used her free hand to pummel him. It was like beating on a rock, the man simply ignored her as he dragged her back to the new camper he had picked up. He threw her in the back of the camper and locked the door from the outside. He yelled at the crazies, milling around him, and cuffed a few, telling them to get in the trucks. Twenty minutes later, Todd’s man, who rode with Bradley, reported they were ready to move out.

Chapter 18

After all the good-byes were said, Joe took his people to where the stream entered the mountain again. Stalker’s body lay on a makeshift litter, surrounded by a soft-blue glow. Jess gave the word to block off the stream and the water swiftly lowered. In a few minutes, an opening chest-high stood where the water entered the mountain. He sent Gail, Tammy and Tommy into the hole, telling them to go as fast as they could. He picked up one end of the litter and Jake grabbed up the other. Stepping into the ankle-deep water, they bent over and entered the hole. For the first fifty feet, the ceiling was low and they had to duck-walk with the litter. Beyond that, the ceiling in the tunnel raised enough for them to stand. Their lights reflected off the smooth walls as they jogged down a slight incline. In places where the underground stream ran straight for a way, he could see the lights of Gail and the others up ahead. It felt sort of odd to be in a place where no living thing had ever been before. The only sounds were the splashing of their feet as they waded through pools of water.

Up ahead, they came to a place where the flowing water had cut three holes through the rock about three feet high. Gail had waited on the other side of them. He saw her light five hundred feet ahead of him. “Twenty-five minutes,” Gail yelled.

Not good, he thought. They were less than five hundred feet into the mountain and it would take another five minutes to crawl through to the other side. “Go ahead, Jake, I’ll push the litter through in front of me.”

Jake scrambled into the hole and rapidly started crawling. Joe lifted the front of the litter and placed it on the lip of the hole. Going to the other end, he lifted and shoved the litter into the hole. Although Stalker’s body weighed less than ten pounds, it wasn’t long until sweat poured off him. At the other end, Jake pulled the litter out of the hole. Joe took a moment to rest. This side of the hole opened into a large cavern. By the water marks on the wall, he saw that when the stream was flowing, the water reached nearly fifteen feet. That meant they were rapidly going downhill. A thousand feet away on the other side of the cavern, Gail yelled, “Twenty minutes.”

“Come on, Jake, we’re going to have to pick up the pace if we want to get out of here alive,” he said.

With Jake in the lead, they ran down the slick streambed. Midway across the cavern, Jake tried to stop and his feet flew out from under him, causing him to let go of the litter and he slid down a steep drop in the riverbed. Joe let loose of the litter and let it slide down the drop, following right behind it.

He heard Jake mutter, “I don’t know when this black man has had so much fun.” Then he picked up the litter and began to run.

They ran out of the cavern into a large opening. The streambed began to slant upward at that point. Huffing and puffing, they rounded a curve to see a wall ahead of them with a long foot-high opening near its base. Looking up, he saw Tammy standing on the ledge of an opening twenty feet up.

“There’s a small ledge that leads up here on your right,” she shouted down to him. This hole explained why the water hadn’t backed up, but it ate up precious time climbing to the opening. By the time they reached the ledge, Jake’s legs hurt with fatigue. Joe’s weren’t in much better shape. Gail stood beside Tammy.

“I told you to keep going, Gail,” Joe said.

“Tammy, Tommy, grab the other end of the litter,” Gail said, picking up one end. With Tammy on one handle and Tommy holding the other, they followed Gail down the tunnel. Joe and Jake looked at each other and shook their heads. They trotted down the tunnel after the woman and kids. The way leveled off and they were making good time. A little further on, he and Jake took the litter from Gail and the kids. Gail looked at her watch, “Five minutes, Joe,” she said, then ran on ahead.

At first, Joe didn’t notice the noise behind them. It started as a small roar and grew in volume. He could imagine the solid wall of water pouring down the passages they had just come through. He started running all out. “Our time’s up, Jake. It’s now or never,” he shouted over his shoulder. Up ahead, he saw a light hanging in the darkness like the full moon in the sky. He saw three figures outlined in the light and then they were gone. Behind him, the roar increased to the point it hurt his ears.

He felt a gentle pressure at his back, pushing him faster. He knew it was the air being forced out of the tunnels by the solid wall of water. Fifty feet ahead, he saw the opening leading out of the ground. Rushing water lapped at his feet, then his knees. The next thing he knew, he was swept from his feet and floundering underwater. He felt the litter slam into his side. A pair of hands grabbed his arm and pulled him above the water. Gail was holding on to his arm for dear life from the side of the opening in the ground. He struggled up on the bank and lay on his back, coughing up water.

“We have Jake,” Tammy yelled from downstream.

Joe rolled over and saw Tammy and Tommy pull Jake out of the water. Catching his breath, he sat up and crawled further from the stream. Gail sat on the ground, her head between her legs, gasping for breath. “Thanks,” he gasped, when he reached her side.

Gail raised her head and said, “You’re not getting away from me that easy.”

Clinging to each other, they staggered down to where Jake, on his hands and knees, was throwing up the water he had taken in. Tammy thumped him on the back with her hand. Joe reached over and grabbed Tammy’s arm. “Enough, Tammy. He’ll be okay in a minute.”

They heard Tommy yell and looked to see him pulling the litter with Stalker’s body out of the stream.

They were all shivering from the chill of the morning air. On the top of the mountain across from them, the sun was shining. They were in a narrow valley with little room between the stream and the sheer walls.

“Come on, we need to get moving to generate a little heat,” Joe said, helping Jake to his feet. They walked to Tommy, picked up the litter and started down the valley. At the end of it, they walked into sunshine. They could see a road on the other side of the stream. Steam rose from their soaked bodies as they walked in the sunlight. Off to the right, they saw a ranch house and angled toward it. As they drew close, Jake took his .38 out of its holster and angled away to come up on the rear of the house.

Joe took out his .45 and led Gail and the kids to a shed, where he told them to stay out of sight. Using the building for cover, he approached the side of the house. The place looked pretty well kept up, so more than likely, someone still lived there. A beat-up old Ford Ranger sat in the driveway. He pressed his ear against the wall to see if he could hear anything from inside. It was quiet as a tomb. Edging along the wall, he came to the corner and stepped up on the porch. He tried to get a look inside through a window, but he couldn’t see through the bright sunlight reflecting off the glass. Stepping where the boards of the porch joined the wall to keep from making a noise, he came to the screen door. The door to the house stood wide open. Using two fingers, he eased the screen door open, took a quick peek around, and seeing nothing, squeezed through. He was afraid it would squeak if he opened it anymore. He stood in a comfortable looking living room. A blanket lay half on, half off the couch. He ran a finger across the top of a table near the door. No dust at all. That meant someone had cleaned that day.

Walking lightly across the room, he checked on the door to the right. A bed occupied the center of the room. A dresser was on the side of the freshly made bed. A door leading to the next room was partially open. Through the crack, Joe saw that it was a bathroom. The room was empty, he even checked behind the shower curtain.

As he came out of the room, Jake appeared in the doorway across from him. He tip-toed across to Jake and whispered, “Did you find anything?”

Jake shook his head no.

“I don’t like it. Someone was here not too long ago. Where are they now?” Joe asked.

“I found a plate and partially drank cup of coffee on the table in the kitchen. The coffee was still warm,” Jake told him.

“Maybe there’s only one person,” Joe said.

They searched every nook and cranny of the house and came up empty. Joe went out and brought Gail and the kids in. Gail and Tammy busied themselves preparing a meal. She mentioned to Joe that the kitchen was awfully clean for a deserted house. He told her to stay alert. Jake went out to check the pickup while Joe circled the outside of the house. Something nagged at the back of his mind. Whoever was in the house couldn’t have disap-peared. He could find no sign of a basement in the house. Going back inside, he wandered from room to room, checking everything again.

“Joe, will you sit down? Your pacing is making me nervous. My other sense tells me there’s no danger here,” Tammy said from the door of the bedroom.

“Damn it, Tammy, someone was here only moments before we arrived. Where are they now?”

Joe asked.

“How many times are you going to search the house for someone who isn’t here?” Tammy asked in exasperation.

Joe threw his hands in the air and went over and sat on the couch. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was missing something.

Jake came through the front door. “If we had a battery, I think I could get that old truck running,”

he said.

“What happened to the battery in the truck?” Joe asked.

Jake got a puzzled look on his face. “I never thought about it at the time, but someone took the battery out. The battery leads are in perfect shape. It was removed recently.”

“That means the person, or persons, that were here came in the truck. Now, I ask you, would they leave behind their means of transportation?” Joe said.

“Not likely, so where in the hell are they?” Jake asked.

Joe shrugged his shoulders. “I’ve been over this house three times and couldn’t find anything.”

Gail and Tammy brought sandwiches in from the kitchen. “Have you seen Tommy?” Gail asked.

“The last time I saw him, he was in the kitchen with you. Did you see him outside, Jake?” Joe asked.

“No, but I had my head under the hood of the truck. He could have wandered by and I wouldn’t have noticed him,” Jake answered.

“He said he was going to see what he could find in the attic,” Tammy said from the chair she sat in.

“How can he do that? The only way to the attic is by putting a ladder against the house and going in the door under the peak of the roof,” Joe said.

“No, it isn’t. Tommy and I found a pulldown ladder in the far bedroom upstairs,” Tammy told him.

Joe and Jake looked at each other, thinking the same thing. The mysterious person or persons could be hiding up there. Joe got up, drawing his .45 from its holster, and started for the stairs with Jake right behind him.

Upstairs, they entered the bedroom at the far end of the house. Joe held his finger over his lips and tiptoed across the room to the open closet. They could see a foldup ladder hanging from the ceiling. Joe stuck his head around the door and looked up to a hole in the ceiling. He could hear noises coming from up there, but they confused him. Surely, he hadn’t heard a train whistle. He motioned for Jake to cover him and stepped onto the ladder. Slowly going up a step at a time, he held the .45 out in front of him, ready to shoot at the first sign of trouble. When he could see over the opening, he bobbed his head up and back down. The quick peek showed him Tommy beside a large layout with a train set on it. Raising his head above the opening again, he looked around the rather large attic. The room was empty. Pulling himself through the hole, he asked, “What did you find, Tommy?”

“Look at this neat train set, Joe,” Tommy said, pressing buttons on a control panel. Someone had put a lot of time into setting the display up. Miniature buildings and houses stood all over the layout. Trees and hills covered part of it. It was a beautiful miniature reproduction of a railroad town. It even had roads and railroad crossings. He checked every corner. If anyone was hiding up here, he couldn’t find them.

He went over and stood beside Tommy, saying, “The next time you go someplace by yourself, let your mom know, all right, Tommy? She was worried because she didn’t know where you were.”

“I’m sorry, Joe. I didn’t think coming up here would cause her to worry,” Tommy said. Joe ruffled his hair. “Go on, have fun. I’ll tell her where you are.” He went to the ladder and climbed down to the bedroom. After telling Jake about the train layout, they went downstairs to the living room. Joe told Gail that Tommy was alright and what he was doing. Tammy squealed, saying she had to see it and ran to the stairs, which she took two at a time.

Jake brought him a cup of coffee from the kitchen and sat down across from him. He looked tired as he sagged in the chair.

“As much as I would like to hurry and put some distance between Zeb and us, I think we should rest here for the day, and start after it gets dark,” he told Jake.

“Sounds fine with me. Do you want me to take first watch?”

“No, go ahead and get a little sleep. I’ll wake you in four hours. Sleep light, Jake. We still don’t know what happened to whoever was here,” Joe told him as he got up from the chair. Jake nodded his head, and went into the bedroom.

Joe sipped his coffee. He could hear Gail washing dishes in the kitchen. He relaxed and kicked his boots off. Placing his feet on the coffee table, he scrunched down, letting his head lay back against the top of the couch. Although it took only half an hour to get out of the mountain, the tension during that time drained as much energy as half a day’s march.

Gail came in and sat down beside him. He put his arm around her and she lay her head on his shoulder. Neither of them spoke; content just to be close to each other.

He fought sleep, his head bobbing up and down. Bringing his head up, he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. All thoughts of sleep evaporated and he sat upright, alert. He eased Gail, who had fallen asleep, off his shoulder and laid her down.

He was sure he saw movement near the door to the bedroom Jake had gone into. All he could see was an end table with a telephone sitting on it with a throw rug in front of it. He got up and tiptoed across the room. Opening the bedroom door, he saw Jake stretched out on the bed, sound asleep. He closed the door and went to the kitchen. Nothing there, he checked the other rooms, finding nothing. Going back to the living room, he raised Gail’s feet and put them on the couch. He moved the chair so he could see the front door and Jake’s room without moving his head. He had almost convinced himself he was seeing things, when the fringe on the throw rug fluttered, as if being blown by a breeze. There was no breeze coming through the open door.

He eased the .45 out and placed it by his leg. Letting his head fall, he pretended to be asleep. Through slitted eyes, he watched the area around the rug. He saw the rug raise a couple inches off the floor. His grip on the .45 tightened.

Gail said something in her sleep and rolled over on the couch. The rug dropped to the floor and stayed there. He faintly heard Tammy and Tommy laughing in the attic. Not wanting to take chances, he made a show of waking up. Going to the couch, he shook Gail. Holding his finger over his lips, he said, “Come on, honey, go to the bedroom where you’ll be more comfortable.”

Gail got up and moved across the room to the other bedroom. He watched her pick up the .38

lying on the dresser and give him a nod. He crossed the room and opened the door to Jake’s bedroom. He shook Jake, who sat up instantly. “My time to take the watch already?” he growled. Joe cocked his finger and pointed at Jake, then the floor. Jake started to speak and Joe put his fingers over his friend’s lips. Taking the hint, Jake got out of bed. “I’ll lay down in here and get a few hours sleep,” Joe said in a sleep-filled voice.

Pressing down on the mattress, Joe caused the springs to squeak. He tiptoed to the door and stood beside it.

“Have a good nap, Joe,” Jake said and crossed to the door. As he started to close the door, Joe motioned for him to leave it open. He watched Jake go over to the couch and sit down. Joe got down on his belly with his head sticking out of the room. He held the .45 in front of him, pointed at the rug. Jake sat on the couch with his back to Joe, humming to himself. When he glanced around at Joe, Joe made sleeping motions with his head. A few minutes later, Jake stretched and yawned. Joe watched his head drop to his chest, as though he were asleep. He felt the silence of the house all around. His finger tightened on the trigger when he saw the rug raise slightly. Silently, wriggling forward, he came close to the rug. Reaching out, he hooked his fingers under the rug and flipped it back. Just as he thought, a hidden trap door.

“Whoever you are, come out of there with your hands up!”

He saw Jake crouched down at the end of the couch with his .38 pointed at the hole in the floor. Across the room, Gail knelt beside the door to the bedroom with her .38 also pointed at the trapdoor. He waited, tense, not knowing what to expect, but ready for anything. Two hands emerged, followed by bushy black hair. The slender body of a black woman followed the head out of the cellar. She stood there with her hands in the air, staring defiantly at them.

“Are you the only one down there?” Joe asked.

She shook her head yes, her body tense, as though expecting to be shot at any moment.

“Gail, search her,” Joe said.

Gail left the bedroom, making sure not to get between Joe or Jake and the woman. She stood behind the woman and frisked her. “She’s clean, Joe.”

Joe lowered his gun and said, “You can put your hands down now. Go over and sit in the chair across from the couch.”

After she seated herself, Joe walked over and sat down on the couch. Jake moved over near the front door, he could cover the woman and watch outside at the same time. Gail positioned herself so she could watch the hole leading to the cellar.

“Who are you and why were you hiding in the cellar?” Joe asked. He laid the .45 within easy reach.

In a clear, crisp, melodious voice, the woman said, “My name is Polly Evers and I’m hiding from people like you.” She held her head high, never showing an ounce of fear.

“Well, Polly Evers, I don’t know who you think we are, but I can tell you we won’t harm you. Are you one of these crazy people who run around killing people not like them?” Joe asked.

“Lord, no, mister. That’s why I was hiding, I thought you were the people chasing me,” she said.

“Jake, keep her covered while I check out the cellar. I’m sorry, Miss Evers. It’s not that I don’t believe you, but I have to be sure there’s no one else in the cellar,” Joe told her.

“I understand, mister. There’s a light switch on the right, as you start down the stairs,” she told him.

Joe stepped down into the hole and fumbled around until he found the light switch. If there was anyone down there who meant them harm, they had plenty of time to shoot while he stood there. At the bottom of the stairs, he looked around the small room. Shelves of canned food lined one wall. He went over and raised the lid on a large bin. It was half full of potatoes. There was a pile of odds and ends in one corner. He checked to make sure no one was hiding in it. Satisfied the place was empty, he went back upstairs, turning out the light and closing the trap door. He nodded to Jake that everything was okay and walked to the couch and sat down.

“Now, Polly, why are you out here by yourself?” Joe asked.

“I left Topeka, Kansas two weeks ago. There were three of us. Another black girl and a white man. The man’s name was Gerold. He kept us out of trouble by keeping constantly on the move. We were headed for California. We heard things were better north of San Francisco. Gerold knew what he was doing and avoided any groups of people. Mostly, we traveled at night. Last week, we stopped in this small town, just across the Colorado border.

“Gerold told us we would stay there for a few days and gather the supplies needed to get over the Rockies. It wasn’t much of a town, but he figured he could find heavy sleeping bags and winter clothing. We rested that night in a rundown motel at the edge of town. The next morning, Lois, the other girl, and I went into town. I’ve never seen a town as quiet as it was. That should have tipped us off. Hardly anything in the stores had been touched. All the other places we went through were a mess, but this one was nice and clean.

“There wasn’t a living soul in the whole place. Lois and I started talking about spending the spring there. Or at the least, until it warmed up enough to cross the Rockies without bundling up like Eskimos. We had a high old time spraying perfume on each other and trying on different clothes. We could-n’t carry everything we found in the clothing store we wanted to take with us. We finally settled on throwing what we could carry in a couple suitcases and headed back to the motel.”

“Gerold was fixing something on a new truck. Someone had left it at the motel when it wouldn’t start. Gerold told us if he got the truck running, we would be in great shape. He said, with the four-wheel drive, we could go across country on the back roads, avoiding towns with people in them. He said he didn’t need any help, so Lois and I went to our rooms to take a nap.

“I don’t know what woke me up, but I saw it was nearing sundown through the curtain in the room. I heard voices, and I thought it was Lois and Gerold. I thought they were making a hell of a lot of noise and got up to tell them to keep it down. Pulling on my jeans and shirt, I stopped by the window and looked out.

“A dozen men had Gerold backed against the restaurant wall and were questioning him. They were all armed to the teeth. I heard Lois walk out of the room her and Gerold shared, which was three doors down from mine. She shouted to Gerold and the men turned around. I’ve seen that look hundreds of times before, but we had cops to protect us then. Two of the men held their guns on Gerold, the rest walked over to Lois. Now you have to understand, Lois was raised in the country and trusted everyone.

“I saw right off these men were like the other crazy people we ran across as we traveled. The men were pawing at her and feeling her up. She tried to stop them, but they just became rougher. She called out for Gerold to help her. He tried to get past the men and one of them hit him in the head with the barrel of his rifle.

“I still thank my lucky stars that Lois didn’t call out my name. The only way out was the door, which opened out to where the men were. I went into the bathroom and saw a small window over the bathtub. As quietly as I could, I took off the screen and opened it. I went back and picked up my purse, sticking the handgun in it Gerold made us carry. I jumped nearly a foot off the floor at the sound of a shot. Hurrying to the window, I saw Gerold stagger forward and fall on his face in the parking lot. Blood stained the back of his shirt. One of the men, who had been guarding him, walked over and kicked him in the head.

“By now, the men around Lois had yanked and torn off most of her clothes. She struggled with them, but there were just too many. The last thing I saw before heading to the bath-room was one of the men throw her to the ground and fall between her legs.”

She pulled up the sleeves of her shirt and they saw where the skin had been scraped from the shoulder to the elbow. “I got this crawling through that damn window. Why people put such small windows in bathrooms, I will never know. I picked up my purse and took the gun out. Quietly, I sneaked along the back of the building, expecting the men to walk around the corner at any time. At the end of the building, I crossed an empty space for twenty feet, until I was behind the kitchen of the restaurant.

“I knew I couldn’t take off running because there was nothing but vacant land around. They were sure to see me. Opening the kitchen door, I went inside. The kitchen had a smell of fresh-cut meat lingering in it. It was an odd smell, but I didn’t find out until later what it really was. Going to the dining area, I crept up to a window, facing the motel.

“Half a dozen men had raped Lois by now. I really felt for her, but there was nothing I could do. I don’t know how long it lasted, but the men finally finished with her. They all backed away from her and one of them took a pistol out of his pants. He pointed it at her and shot four times. The rest of the men thought it was funny as Lois jerked and twitched until she died.

“Four of them went to her body and picked it up. Another four picked up Gerold’s body and headed for the restaurant. I was trapped with nowhere to run. In the kitchen, I saw a walk-in freezer and headed for it. There had to be a better place than the freezer. If the men entered it, I would be caught. Even if they didn’t, but stayed in the restaurant for any length of time, I would freeze to death.

“Looking up, I noticed the freezer didn’t go all the way to the ceiling. There was a two foot space between the top and the ceiling. Climbing up on a table at the end of the freezer, I hoisted myself up and rolled into the space with only seconds to spare.

“The freezer was ten feet deep and I crawled all the way to the rear wall. I could hear the men laughing and talking in the dining room. The top of the freezer had an inch of dust on it and it was all I could do to keep from sneezing. The heat trapped in the space was almost unbearable. Sweat dripped from my chin, and in no time, dust was smeared all over me.

“A little later, I heard some of the men in the kitchen. Soon after that, I heard the sounds of someone cutting meat. I felt heat rising every time the freezer’s motor kicked on. I had to get away from the heat, so I crawled away from the wall.

“Still out of sight, I saw two hands tied together by the wrists, they were over a hook hanging from the ceiling. Every time I heard the whack of the meat clever, the hands would sway on the hook. I heard two men talking, but I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I crawled a little closer to the front of the freezer.

“Now I could tell they were Gerold’s hands. He was dead. Why would they hang him up like that?

From the shoulders down, his body was hidden from my view. I edged forward until only two feet of the freezer top hid me. Since it was eight feet tall, the men wouldn’t see me unless they looked up.

“God, how I wished I had stayed back in the corner. The men had gutted Gerold like a deer and were busy chopping up the lower portion of his body. Lois lay on the floor next to the counter. It took all my willpower to keep from throwing up. I moved back, better the heat, than to watch my friends being chopped up.

“I stayed there in the dust, sweating like a pig, for three hours before they finished and left. The first thing I did after climbing down was to drink about a gallon of water.

“Whoever these people were, they were cleanliness freaks. The kitchen was spotless. They had even washed their cups and cleaned the tables where the other men had sat in the dining room. Slipping into the dining room, I went to the front window. The men were getting into their vehicles.

“I watched until they were out of sight, then went to the kitchen. My stomach let me know I hadn’t eaten a thing since the day before. I made me two sandwiches out of things I found in the refrigerator and drank a can of cola. My hunger satisfied, I walked over to the freezer and opened the door. Stepping through the door, I peered into the darkness. Fumbling around on the side of the door, I found a light switch and flipped it on. I turned around, expecting to see sides of beef hanging there. My stomach flipped once, twice and I threw up on the floor. Hanging from hooks were human legs and arms. It was the most grotesque sight I ever expect to see.” She shuddered so hard, Joe reached over and took her hand.

“The small arms of children had been strung togeth-er like beads on a necklace. There were gutted human torsos hanging near the back. Searching around, I found the thermostat. I used a large wrench I found in the kitchen to knock it off the wall. Next, I found the electrical panel and tripped the circuit breaker for the freezer. Propping a chair under the door handle of the freezer to keep it open, I made sure all the windows were down. I turned the thermostat for the dining room all the way up to ninety.

“In the kitchen, I lit all the burners on the two stoves and their ovens, and left the doors open. Half an hour later, it was downright sweltering in the restaurant. I heard dripping sounds. Looking in the freezer, the human flesh was beginning to thaw and moisture dripped from it. A good day in that heat, and no one would be eating my friends.

“I packed some sandwiches and took two cans of cola with me when I left. I went in the opposite direction the men had taken. It was close to midnight when I stopped near a little stream. The next morning, I headed down the road, keeping an eye behind me for any cars. I had to hide about a dozen times before I reached this place. Mostly, I was afraid of all the dogs roaming around. I hope they’ve gone away; they just followed me, never coming close, but always there, baring their fangs at me.

“Then this morning, I saw you people walking out of the canyon and thought you were some of the people from the town I left. Could I have a tall glass of cold water?” she asked.

“I’ll get it,” Jake said and hurried to the kitchen. Moments later, he returned with a large glass of ice and water, which he handed to Polly.

“Thanks,” she said and drained the glass. “I forgot to take something to drink when I went to the cellar. Where’s the person on the stretcher I saw you carrying out of the canyon?” she asked.

“We weren’t carrying a person. There’s a wolf on the stretcher,” Jake told her.

“A wolf? Now why in tarnation would you be carrying a wolf on a stretcher?” she asked, looking at them like they were crazy.

They sat there and drank coffee and tea for an hour as Joe and Jake told her their story. Tammy and Tommy came down from the attic and were introduced to Polly. Gail and Joe walked around with knowing smiles on their faces. Jake was the reason for them. He followed Polly around like a little puppy. She ignored him, or pretended to. When she passed Gail or Joe, she would wink at them, letting them know she was eating up the attention Jake showered on her. Jake took Joe aside and asked him what he was doing wrong. Joe said he would talk to her, but he didn’t think there was much hope.

Jake thanked him and went into the kitchen. Enough was enough, he decided to face her and ask her why she was ignoring him. She was at the sink washing dishes. He walked up behind her, determined to be firm.

Polly turned around with a stern look on her face. “May I help you, Jake?” she asked. Instantly, Jake’s determination fled. He looked into her stern eyes and turned around and fled in panic. Polly broke out laughing as she watched his form go out the front door. Joe walked into the kitchen and said, “How much longer are you going to string him along?”

“Not much longer, Joe. Lord, this is the first time I’ve had a man afraid of me. You know what, Joe? I sort of like it. All I did was look at him and the poor man ran out of here terrified.”

“I just want you to know, you will be getting a hell of a man,” Joe told her and left. She thought about her future. Alone, she wouldn’t have a future. Jake seemed like a nice enough man. The problem was she wasn’t ready to settle down. Jake would want the whole thing, marriage, children, the house with the white picket fence. If Jake would agree to live together and let the future handle itself, she would go with them. Otherwise, she would take off on her own. She went into the living room and crossed to the screen door. In the yard, she saw Jake with his head poked under the hood of the truck. He looked up as the screen door squeaked and saw her come out on the porch. She walked over to the shed where Stalker’s body lay in the shade. She knew when Jake came up behind her and said, “What a beautiful animal.”

From behind her, Jake said, “There aren’t many humans I trust as much as I did Stalker. It’s a damn shame he had to die. I am proud to be one of the people taking him back to his home. He deserves that much. It almost broke Tammy’s heart when he died. They were so close, closer than any two humans I’ve ever seen. Joe doesn’t show it, but Stalker’s death hurt him, too. It saddened me when he died, but I never let anyone get close to me. Until I saw you, Polly. Would you consider traveling with us to Canada? I won’t ask you to be my woman, because you don’t know me. All I ask is that you come with us and think about staying as my mate. I know I have no right to ask, but these are troubled times and we live from day to day. Just think about it.” He turned to leave. Polly turned and grabbed his arm. Looking him in the eyes, she told him, “Jake, I’m sure you are a fine man, but until I know what I want, I can only be your friend.”

“That’s good enough for now, Polly. I can wait,” Jake said.

She watched him go back to the truck and start working on it. A sadness came over her as she stood there. Why was she being so hard to get along with? Hell, for all she knew, Jake was the last black man in the world. Old habits were hard to change. Like Jake, she had never let anyone get close to her. It was hard enough back before the world went crazy. Now, it was twice as bad.

Chapter 19

Zeb sat on the steps enjoying the morning sun. The sun’s heat felt good on his old bones. He wondered how long it would be before the spring rains began. He dreaded the rain and its dampness, knowing his arthritic joints ached all the time in damp weather.

Up the street, three dogs were fighting over a bone. Several of the dogs, standing or laying around the porch, eyed him like he was their next meal. He didn’t pay them any attention, knowing they wouldn’t touch him as long as Org was around.

He took out his knife and whittled on a piece of wood he found on the porch. The snow melt in the mountains caused the stream to run as high as the bank through town. If it became any higher, they would have to move to the high ground at the edge of town.

“Old one, old one,” he heard in his mind.

Getting up, he walked into the restaurant. “What is it now, Org? Can’t you let me rest without interrupting me?” Zeb said.

“You have rested enough, old one. Prepare to travel. Joe has left the mountain. How he did this, I do not know. He did not come out of the doors into the mountain, so there must be a hidden entrance. He is half a day ahead of us. Get what you need. We leave in an hour,” Org told him.

“You know we’ll never catch him on foot, Org. Why don’t you let me find a truck and we can go after him in it?”

Zeb felt the conflicting emotions emanating from Org. He was afraid of any type of vehicle. Several seconds passed, then he grudgingly said, “There is wisdom in what you say, old one. Find a vehicle that is open and let me look it over.”

Zeb packed the few things he was taking with him in his old backpack. He went out and started looking in garages for a vehicle that would suit Org. He didn’t want to get anything that was fast, because then they might catch Joe.

No, he wanted a vehicle that only made it appear as if they were making good time when in reality, they weren’t. He needed something that would actually slow them down, without seeming to. He found just the thing at the end of town. Behind a small green house, he found a dune buggy. The seat had plenty of room for Org to sit beside him. It was completely open, so Org shouldn’t object to using it.

He checked it over, and started the engine. A deep growl rumbled from the straight exhaust pipes. He drove it out of the garage and across the lawn to the back of the hardware store. On the loading dock sat a fifty-five gallon drum of gasoline. Sticking the hose in the gas tank, he cranked the handle of the pump in the top of the barrel. Replacing the gas cap on the dune buggy, he started the loud machine. He roared up in front of the restaurant in a cloud of dust. Org stood at the top step of the porch, eyeing the dune buggy.

“Is that the best you could do, old one?”

Zeb gave a heavy sigh of disgust. “Listen, Org, this is as close as I could come to meeting your requirements. If you don’t like the damn thing, tell me and we can start hoofing it. Meantime, Joe will be getting farther and farther away.” Secretly, he grinned at the fear Org wasn’t able to hide. Org came down the steps and circled the dune buggy several times. He stopped on the passenger side and said, “You will have to lift me into this contraption, old one.”

Zeb couldn’t stop the grin that came to his face as he bent down and lifted Org into the seat. Squeeker’s sides were heaving in and out and Zeb could almost feel the fear coming off the animal.

“Relax, Org, nothing will happen to you. Sit back and leave the driving to me.” He shifted into first gear and popped the clutch. As the dune buggy lurched forward, Org gave a yelp, his eyes as wide as saucers. Zeb threw his head back and laughed. It felt good to be riding instead of walking. He went through the gears, roaring out of town, bouncing from side to side of the road on the balloon tires.

“Slow this thing down, old one. You may find this exhilarating, but it terrifies me. Unless you wish to walk again, make this mode of travel as smooth as possible.”

Twenty miles later, Org settled down in the seat with his head on his paws. On the straight stretches of road, Zeb floored the dune buggy, feeling fifty years younger. He discovered that fifty-seven miles per hour was the vehicle’s top speed. Occasionally, he spotted dogs on the ridges off to the side.

Two hours later, Org had him stop at a farmhouse set back from the road. Org informed him this was the first place Joe had stopped after leaving the mountain. Sniffing around the house, Org communicated that Joe had five humans with him. He kept going to the shed out from the house and sniffing. Zeb could sense his confusion.

“What’s wrong, Org?”

“I can still feel the presence of a powerful force in this structure. The nature of the force puzzles me though. It is very powerful, but not alive. In ways, it reminds me of the force coming from the one they called Stalker. It is puzzling, but of no importance,” he said and walked to the dune buggy. Zeb knew he was lying. The force Org detected did bother him, much more than he wanted known. He lifted Org onto the seat and went around to get behind the wheel. Org was withdrawn for the next couple hours. Zeb tried to probe his mind, but Org had pulled back behind a solid shield. Zeb cruised along at a steady forty-five miles an hour. At this speed, they would never catch Joe, unless the man stopped for the day.

The loud throb of the exhaust reminded him of the days when he owned a Harley-Davidson motorcy-cle. Those were the days. Back before a person had to wear a helmet. It sure was nice to roar down the road with the wind blowing through his hair. Back then, his hair came down to his shoulders and he wore a full beard.

For a few years, he rode with a group of men who liked to think they were outlaws. Really, all they did was get drunk and fight among themselves. At the most, the law considered them a minor nuisance. Those were the days of freedom.

The only true moments of happiness he could remember were the three years he had with Becky, his wife. He met her at a restaurant in Boise, Idaho. He had been on the road for a year and a half, working his way from town to town across the country.

The rain was pouring down when he spotted a small restaurant off the side of the road. Wheeling his bike into the parking lot, he put the kickstand down and ran for the overhang-ing roof to get out of the rain. He looked like a drowned rat, his long hair dripping water. Water even dripped from the beard onto his chin. There were no other cars in the parking lot and he wondered if the place was open.

Bent over, wiping water from his leather pants, he heard the door open. Looking up, he saw the shortest woman he had ever seen. She couldn’t have been much over four feet tall. She looked him up and down. “Another dumb biker, too stupid to get in out of the rain,” she said and closed the door.

Back in those days, he wasn’t about to let a slip of a woman insult him. He shook his head quickly from side to side, flinging water from his hair like a dog shaking itself. He opened the door and went into the restaurant. Several empty booths lined one wall, while half a dozen empty tables took up the space between them and the counter.

Walking up to the counter, he pulled a handful of napkins out of the napkin holder and wiped his face. “Busy day,” he said to the woman who placed a steaming cup of coffee on the counter in front of him.

She arched her eyebrows at him. “How long you been blind? I don’t see anyone but you and me, and you sure as hell couldn’t keep me busy.”

“It was just a figure of speech, lady. Do you treat all your customers like this, or is it that you don’t like bikers?”

“No to the first and yes to the second,” she replied.

“Damn, woman, what’s got a bee up your bonnet? All I wanted to do was get out of the rain.”

Her face softened and she said, “I am sorry, mister. My old man left me a year ago in this dirt water town. He was a biker, too. He found a young bimbo here and flat out left me without anything but the clothes on my back. I almost have enough saved to go back to Columbus, Ohio. I can’t get out of this town soon enough.”

“Sorry to hear that, lady, but you can’t blame all bikers for what one done to you. The man must have been a fool to begin with, leaving a fine-looking woman like you.”

She blushed a deep red and her smile grew wider. She took a pie out of the cooler and cut a large piece. Placing it on a plate, she shoved it in front of him. “Eat this, maybe it will keep those smooth words from coming out of your mouth.”

The piece of apple pie was delicious, making him realize just how hungry he was. He drained his coffee and she refilled it. He heard the bell over the door jingle and turned to watch three men in their mid-twenties enter. They swaggered up to the counter and sat down. “Give us some coffee, Becky, and be quick about it,” said the man with short brown hair.

“Hold your horses, Jim. Can’t you see I’m waiting on a customer? Soon as I get him a sandwich, I’ll get your coffee.”

The brown-haired man reached across the counter and grabbed her by the arm. “Get our coffee, then make his sandwich, bitch,” he said, twisting her arm.

Zeb stood and turned to the men. “No sense in treating the lady like that, friend.”

“Stay out of this, mister. It’s none of your concern.” The man twisted her arm a little more. Zeb stepped across the space between them and grabbed the man by the shirt collar. With a hard yank, he lifted the man off the stool, throwing him to the floor. “Listen, punk. Where I come from, we treat women with respect,” he said.

The man’s friends grabbed Zeb’s arms and held him as Jim got up from the floor. He wiped his hand across his mouth and walked to stand in front of Zeb. “Mister, you should have stayed where you came from. Sticking your nose in where it doesn’t belong is going to cause you a lot of pain.”

He drew back his fist and hit Zeb in the stomach. The blow hurt, but not that much. Zeb leaned forward, taking away the force of the blow by drawing his stomach in. As he leaned over, he drew the men holding his arms closer. Raising his knee, he brought his heavy motorcycle boot down on the foot of the man on the left, causing him to let go of his left arm and start yelling and hopping around. Zeb brought his right elbow sharply back into the chest of the other man holding him. When he grunted and leaned over, Zeb brought his knee up into the guy’s face, while blocking a blow from Jim. As Zeb’s knee crushed his nose, he let go of Zeb’s arm. Blood spurted across Zeb’s leg as the man dropped like a stone. A blow struck the side of his head, causing his vision to blur. The man whose foot he had stomped was drawing back his fist to hit Zeb again. Dropping to his knees, Zeb hit the man in the crotch with his fist. As the man gasped and bent over, Jim kicked Zeb in the leg and caused him to sprawl on his back. Pain shot up his right leg. Jim drew back his leg to kick Zeb in the face. As Jim’s foot started forward, a blank expression came across his face and he wilted to the floor. Becky stood behind him with a heavy frying pan in her hand. Using a stool, Zeb pulled himself to his feet. His right leg was numb from the knee down.

“I hope you didn’t kill him, little lady,” Zeb said as she came to stand next to him.

“Not likely, this isn’t the first time I bent a frying pan over his head.” The top of her head only came up to the pocket on his shirt. She placed the frying pan on the counter and reached across it to get a wet rag. She went to one of the men laying on the floor and tried to stem the flow of blood from his nose.

The one Zeb had hit in the crotch lay curled up in the fetal position, and was making grunting noises. Jim lay five feet from him, unconscious, his legs tucked under him.

“Mister, I wish you hadn’t done that. Once you leave, they’ll beat the shit out of me. Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate you helping me, but I could’ve handled him.”

“From what you told me, there’s nothing keeping you here. When I leave, you’re welcome to come with me,” Zeb told her as Jim began groaning.

He flexed his right leg while he leaned against the counter. Pain filled the area just below the knee where the point of Jim’s boot struck. Pulling up his pant leg, he saw a blue, discolored area the size of his hand. Raising the leg, he put it on top of the stool. Feeling around the discolored area, he winced in pain as he pressed on the spot. He knew the leg would hurt for days. The kick had bruised the bone.

After pulling down his pant leg, he gingerly walked back and forth across the room. He hoped he wouldn’t have to do any running in the next few days.

Behind the counter, Becky was telling someone on the phone if they weren’t there in fifteen minutes, she wouldn’t be responsible for the restaurant. Slamming down the receiver, she took off her apron and hung it on a hook beside the kitchen door. She took her purse from below the counter and came around to stand in front of him. “Let’s get one thing straight, mister. Just because I’m going with you, doesn’t mean you can use me in any way.” She was digging in her purse. Finding what she wanted, she pulled out a little snub-nosed .32. “Just so you know, I can and will use this thing, if I have to.”

Zeb raised both his hands. “Listen, lady, I didn’t have anything in mind when I offered you a lift.”

“Keep it that way.” She put the pistol back in her purse.

Jim slowly climbed to his feet. “Mister, you bought yourself a lot of trouble,” he said as he put his arms under the man with the broken nose and helped him to his feet. They both stood there, swaying on their feet, hardly able to stand. Jim turned to Becky, who was behind the counter fixing sandwiches, and said “If I catch up with you, bitch, you’ll wish you were never born.” He reached down with one hand and helped the other man to his feet and the three of them staggered to the door. Watching through the front window, Zeb saw them get into a fancied-up pickup and back out of the parking lot. Becky was placing four sandwiches in a brown paper bag when he got back to the counter. She poured him a cup of coffee and made a cup of tea for herself. She kept glancing anxiously at the clock on the wall. Ten minutes later, a large Cadillac roared into the parking lot. A tall, thin, bald man stepped out into the slowly falling rain. He ran to the door and entered.

“What the hell is going on here, Becky?” he asked.

“Jim and his brothers were here and started a fight, Mr. Simms. If it hadn’t been for this stranger, they would’ve beaten me up again. I asked you not to leave me here by myself. You know what’ll happen if I stay here, so I quit. Can I have my salary for the week?”

Mr. Simms looked over at Zeb, who sat at the counter drinking his coffee. He walked to the cash register and pulled out some bills. Handing the money to her, he said, “I am sorry, Becky, if I knew they were in town, I would have stayed with you.”

“It’s okay, Mr. Simms. They just would’ve beat you up, too, like they did the last time,” she told him as she put the money in her purse. Picking up the bag of sandwiches, she came around the counter to where Zeb sat. “Since we’re going to be traveling together, I think I should know your name,” she said to him.

“Zeb at your service, ma’am.” He nodded to Mr. Simms behind the counter. “I think the quicker we get out of town, the better off we’ll be,” he told her, heading for the door.

“I need to stop at my apartment and pick up a few things,” she said. Swinging her leg over the bike, she sat down behind him.

He started the Harley and backed around until he was aimed at the parking lot entrance. She felt like a small child behind him. He doubted she weighed eighty pounds. “Which way?” he asked. She gave him directions to her apartment on the northeast side of town. He parked the Harley at the curb and locked the front forks. The neighborhood was a little seedy. He saw people peek from windows of the apartment buildings lining both sides of the street. He followed her upstairs to the third floor, where she unlocked a battered door. He stood in the doorway of the little two-room efficiency apartment, while she threw a few things into a canvas overnight bag. While not large, the apartment was very clean and neat. She had bought throw covers for the couch and chair. The furniture was in bad shape. In the small kitchen, an ancient Kelvinator refrigerator kicked on. The thing had to be fifty years old. The burners on the countertop stove looked to be almost as old, but they were spotless. The only thing in the place that wasn’t over thirty years old was the twenty-one inch television that sat on a stand in the corner.

She handed him the canvas bag and turned to look at the place she had called home for almost a year. “Believe it or not, I am going to miss this dump,” she said.

Outside, he strapped her bag to the back of the motorcycle. She put her purse in one of the saddle bags on the side. She had changed out of her dress into a tight-fitting pair of jeans and a flannel shirt.

A middle-aged blond leaned out of a second story window of the apartment building. “Where are you off to, Becky?”

“I’m leaving town. I won’t be back, Julie. Tell the super for me, will you? Oh yeah, if you want the TV, get it before you tell the super I’m gone. Good-bye, Julie.”

The ride out of town was silent and Zeb thought she was sorting out her feelings. A quick look over his shoulder showed that she was leaning against the backrest, sound asleep. His opinion of this feisty little woman shot up a few notches. He took I-84 east and cruised along at seventy miles an hour. After an hour, the fuel gage dipped into the red. He pulled off the interstate at the town of Gooding, Idaho. While filling the tank, a truck passed by on the overpass. It looked like the one owned by the men he had fought with in Boise.

After paying for the gas, he dug down into one of the saddle bags and pulled out a .45 revolver. Sticking it in the left pocket of his jacket, he waited for Becky to come out of the bathroom. After she climbed behind him, he crossed the street and headed up the entrance ramp to the interstate. He settled back with Becky’s hands on his waist and cranked the bike back up to seventy. After a while, he began to think he was wrong about the truck and started to relax. The rain had stopped and the sun was peeking through the clouds. Steam rose from the asphalt as the sun dried the road ahead of them.

As they came up on the exit ramp for the city of Jerome, he looked across the road and saw the pickup come up the entrance ramp for the westbound lanes. He caught a glimpse of three figures in the cab. Giving the bike more throttle, they shot up to eighty. In the rearview mirror, he saw the truck shoot across the medium, which caused cars to slam on their brakes. Fishtailing from side to side, the truck straightened out and picked up speed.

Zeb increased their speed to ninety, weaving in and out of the light traffic. The truck steadily gained on them. He wasn’t going to be able to outrun them and an eight hundred pound bike was no match for a four thousand pound pickup.

Ahead, he saw a sign stating the Twin Falls exit was two miles ahead. The pickup was a couple hundred yards behind them. He cranked the bike up to one hundred. He passed a truck on the right side, shooting between the guardrails and the vehicle. The old man driving laid on the horn and stepped on the brakes.

This caused the pickup chasing them to slam on its brakes as both lanes were blocked temporarily. Another mile to go, as the pickup shot from behind a car. They had gained another couple hundred yards. Half a mile ahead, Zeb saw the exit ramp slope uphill away from the interstate. His timing would have to be almost perfect for what he was planning to do. Reaching into his pocket with his left hand, he took out the .45 and flicked off the safety with his thumb. Easing off the throttle, he watched the pickup grow larger in his rearview mirror. Holding the

.45 out of sight between his legs, he eased off a little more. Now they had slowed down to seventy-five. The pickup roared into the passing lane to get in front of them and cut them off. Zeb waited until the rear of the pickup was even with them, then lifted the .45 and fired the whole clip at the rear tires. As he fired, he cranked the throttle wide open and leaned the motorcycle onto the exit ramp. One or more of the bullets must have punctured the tire. The pickup slid sideways down the pavement, while cars behind it slammed on their brakes. Hitting the edge of the medium, the pickup flipped into the air. Zeb saw it roll over several times.

He had troubles of his own. Traveling at better than a hundred miles an hour, he saw both lanes ahead blocked by cars waiting at a stop light. Cranking the throttle all the way off, he hit the front and back brakes. He dropped the .45 and grabbed the handle bars as the rear wheel skidded sideways. Leaning into the slide, he straightened up the bike.

Becky was screaming behind him as he shot between the cars into the intersection. A tractor-trailer driver locked up his brakes, smoke curled up from the tires. He saw a car in the other lane enter the intersection. He cranked open the throttle and shot back up to seventy. He flashed by in front of the car, if it had another coat of paint on it, it would have hit the rear fender of the bike. On the other side of the intersection was the entrance ramp down to the interstate. The ramp was clear, so he cranked it up to a hundred and entered the four-lane highway. Becky shouted in his ear, “Slow this goddamn thing down!”

Zeb ignored her. He wanted to get out of the area before the law arrived. He took the Eden exit and took a side road back to Twin Falls. At the edge of town, he saw an abandoned Texaco filling station. Wheeling into the lot, he got off the bike and tried the garage door. It was locked, so he searched around until he found a six foot length of two inch pipe. Wedging the pipe under the door, he gave a quick jerk upward. The lock snapped and the door rolled upward a couple feet. Rolling the door up, he walked the Harley into the garage. Closing the door, he leaned against the wall and started shaking. He shook so hard, his feet wouldn’t hold him up.

As he slid down the wall, Becky asked, “Are you all right?”

“Give me a minute, it’s just the reaction setting in from our wild ride.” It took fifteen minutes for him to get enough strength to stand up. He looked around the garage and saw that it hadn’t been shut down long.

“Why are we hiding in this garage?” Becky asked as she went to the windows in the door and looked out.

“I don’t know if your friends from the restaurant are dead, I hope not. After the police get a look at the rear tire on their truck, they’ll be asking a lot of questions. After adding up the information, they’ll be looking for a red Harley motorcycle. Since so many people saw us roar off down the interstate, the cops will be looking for us down the road. In a few days, the search will ease up and we can leave.”

He pulled a clean pair of pants and shirt out of a saddle bag. Going to the back of the garage, he found the bathroom. Entering it, he smelled the faint odor of disinfectant. Since the electricity wasn’t on, he had to leave the door cracked as he changed. Tucking his shirt into his pants, he walked back to the Harley. He dug a pair of tennis shoes out of a saddle bag.

“I thought I saw a motel across the field in back of the garage. After it get’s dark, we’ll walk over and get a room. How much money do you have?” he asked.

She took her billfold out of her purse and counted the money in it. “I have sixty-three dollars.”

“With the hundred and three I have, we can stay at the motel for at least a week; by then, it should be safe to leave.”

They spent the rest of the afternoon talking. He found out she was thirty-six years old, which surprised him. She didn’t look a day over twenty. She left home when she was sixteen and went to live with an aunt in California. She arrived during the depression and times were lean. She worked two, and sometimes three, jobs for next to nothing. Her aunt and uncle took all of her money, saying they would save it for her. About a year later, she heard them talking one evening about an investment they had made and lost a lot of money on. Her aunt wanted to know how they would tell Becky all her money was gone. Her uncle figured they would keep quiet and not say anything.

Becky went to her room and cried. How could they? She kept only enough money out of her pay to buy toiletries. She didn’t even keep any for her lunches. She checked her diary and saw that her aunt and uncle had lost nine hundred and seventy-three dollars of her money. In the late twenties, that was a lot of money. She waited until the end of the week when she got her paychecks from the three jobs she worked and bought a bus ticket to Seattle. She got an apartment and found a job. A few years later, she fell for a biker by the name of Juggs. Over the next ten years, they would break up and get back together often. He came back two years ago, after being gone for five, and she took him back. He left her again last year for a younger girl in Boise. Zeb looked up and saw that it was dark outside. He helped her to her feet and they went out the back door of the garage. She held his hand as they walked across the field. He rented a room for ten dollars a day and paid for seven days.

In the room, he pulled two chairs together, lay down on them, and went to sleep instantly. Becky woke him a few hours later and told him to come get in bed before he broke his back. He went to the closet and got the extra blanket on the shelf.

Becky lay in the bed with the sheet pulled up to her neck. He walked over and lay down on the bed and spread the cover from the closet over himself. He bunched the pillow under his head and turned his back to her. In no time at all, he was softly snoring.

The next morning, he took a shower, and then they went to the restaurant for breakfast. All morning, Becky didn’t say a word.

Finally, he could take the silence no longer and asked her if something was bothering her.

“How could you turn your back to me and go to sleep last night?” she said, glaring at him. With a puzzled look on his face, he stared at her. “What are you talking about?”

“How do you think I felt staying awake most of the night waiting for you to make your move? You were snoring, getting a good night’s sleep. How do you think I feel? You could have at least made an effort to seduce me.” She pouted.

He scratched his head. “Let me get this straight. Last night, you wanted me to seduce you. If I had tried to seduce you, you would have refused and put me in my place. Now, you’re mad at me because I did what you told me to do in the first place.” He threw his hand up in the air. “Women, go figure!”

He walked from the room and went to the motel bar. After three beers, he began to get mad. An additional two beers later, he left the bar. He went into the room they shared. It was empty. It took him a moment to realize the shower in the bathroom was running. A little inebriated, he pushed open the bathroom door. Becky stood in the middle of the room without a stitch on. God, she was beautiful. Her pert breasts turned up with the nipples pointed in the air. He could probably put one hand around her waist.

“Do you like what you see?” she asked in a coy voice.

He forgot that he was mad at her and just stared.

“Cat got your tongue, Zeb?” She did a three hundred sixty degree turn with her hands above her head.

Zeb felt himself flush. The blood rushing to his head after all the beer he drank made him a little nauseous. He turned and staggered from the room and sat down in a chair.

“What is it with you, Zeb? What does a woman have to do to get you to pay attention to her?

You’ve seen everything I have to offer. What more can I do?” She stood in the door of the bathroom with tears in her eyes.

He stood and walked over to her. Grabbing her under her arms, he lifted her and kissed the tears from her eyes. She wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled his lips down to hers. She was so light, he hardly felt her weight at all. He staggered to the bed and fell on his back. Becky clutched the neck of his shirt and pulled. One after another, the buttons popped off the shirt. His hands were busy, caressing her small breasts. She slid from his grasp and attacked his pants. Loosening the belt, she unsnapped them and jumped off the bed. Grabbing each pant leg by the cuff, she yanked them off.

He couldn’t believe her energy. Before he could even move, she was on top of him, guiding his manhood into her. She rotated her hips and lunged up and down, draining him in moments. He lay there with a dazed look on his face. What the hell had just happened?

He rolled over to see Becky curled up, fast asleep. He pulled the covers over her and eased out of bed. Putting on his pants, he sat down in a chair across from the bed and watched her sleep. She was so small. She looked like a child curled up under the blankets. Her closed eyes fluttered and he knew she was dreaming. This woman with a child’s body fascinated him.

They stayed together, traveling from state to state, working when they needed money. Back then, right after World War II, part-time jobs were plentiful. He grew to love Becky and no one could find one without the other nearby.

Eighteen months after he met Becky, she began to have dizzy spells. A few of the doctors she went to told her she was just going through the change of life. Her dizzy spells got worse. A doctor in Little Rock told them she had a brain tumor and there was nothing he could do for her. He told Zeb she would be dead in less than two years.

They traveled to Tennessee and rented a house in the small town of Pigeon Forge. Zeb got a job at the lumber mill outside town, and they settled down to a domesticated life. The next fourteen months were sheer bliss for him. He would come home after a hard day’s work to a prepared meal. After the meal, they would sit around talking, or go out to a movie. On weekends, if the weather was nice, they would hop on the Harley and go camping in the Smoky Mountains.

One day, he came home from work to find her lying on the kitchen floor. Rushing her to the hospital, the doctors examined her. They told him she had a stroke because of the tumor, and only had a few days to live. He stayed by her hospital bed, wiping drool from her mouth, twenty-four hours a day.

Unable to speak, he could see the love in her eyes and would talk to her for hours about places they had been and things they had done. Five days later as he held her hand, she gave a sigh, and her small chest failed to rise and fall. He sat there, simply holding her hand, silent tears dropping to the bed, until the nurse came in to check on her. They gently led him from the room, whispering condolences to him.

He buried her in an area on the North Carolina-Tennessee border she had liked. A week later, he quit his job, sold everything they had acquired in the last eighteen months, and mounted his Harley. He headed west, spending many a night in abandoned houses, crying for the woman he lost. After that, he never let a woman get close to him. He had many romantic encounters, but none of the women came close to measuring up to Becky, so in the end, he would hop on his Harley and ride out of their lives.

He didn’t realize Org was speaking to him until the animal pulled on his sleeve. Breaking out of his reminiscing, he asked, “What? What do you want, Org?”

“My creatures tell me that Joe is a long way ahead of us. He is headed toward Canada. We will take the most direct route and get there before he does.”

Zeb pulled over to the side of the road and took an atlas out of his pack. He would take I-25 to Northern Wyoming and pick up I-90, which would take them into Montana. Basically, the same route he judged Joe would take. Unless Org caught on to what he was doing, they would be behind Joe all the way. Putting away the map, he pulled onto the road heading for the interstate.