The Earth Died Screaming

by Chuck Rogers

  It was a warrior culture.

  Everyone else were serfs and slaves.

  Serfs were people of use, doctors, chefs, barbers and such. They were issued some kind of civilian uniform or work apparel. Slaves wore sweats or pajamas and unless they were doing work that required shoes they were kept barefoot so they couldn't run far.

  A-Camp had two gunsmiths and five mechanics. They were still serfs but they had a sort of exalted servant status and had privileges and were mostly kept happy.

  Me, six guys and the girl, all of us in purple sat around a table in the mess tent. Breakfast was ten kinds of beans and four kinds of dry pasta boiled in restaurant-size, 100-quart stockpots in a kind of poor man's pasta fazool. The beans were undercooked. The pasta was overcooked. The breakfast beverage was Orange Tang. We were all issued a Flintstones gummy vitamin.

  Several of my fellow Barneys whined about the grub.

  Pussies.

  I've been hungry. Hell, I've done time. I have a piece of advice for each of you one and all. Doesn't matter whether you're in prison, on a plane, in hospital or in high school.

  Eat everything they give you.

  Don't trust the guards.

  I tucked in with a will and hoped there was seconds.

  Food was hierarchical as well.

  Meat was for members. You could smell the bacon and coffee being served over in the member's mess tent and there was a shitload of grumbling about that.

  Booze was for members and prospects being rewarded.

  Sex was for members and prospects being rewarded. We were warned. All the guy provisionals could talk about was the fabled "Fuck Tent."

  The starkest thing about A-Camp was that there were no children and there were no old people.

  "You!" Dez snarled behind me. "Fuckface!"

  I told you she liked me.

  I shot to attention. Eyes front. "Yes, ma'am!"

  Dickie, Muttonchop guy, and half a dozen prospects were with her. A bunch more seemed to be loitering around the provisional mess tent for no reason.

  "You and this table are stripping for me today."

  "Yes, ma'am!"

  "I'm making you Barney first class."

  "Thank you, ma'am!"

  "So out in the field, and here in camp, you're gonna be responsible for all the other Barneys at this table. You're gonna answer for them, and answer to me."

  I nodded once. "Ma'am."

  "I like you. I like your attitude." Dez stepped up close. "What's your name again? Frame?"

  "Yes, ma'am."

  Dez untied my drawstring.

  Mutton-chop guy whooped. "Here we go!"

  I was getting the impression that as SOG drill instructors went, Dez was the most amusing.

  Too watch.

  Dez took my cock out. "Oh."

  She gave it a squeeze.

  I kept my eyes forward. Dez shoved her right hand between my legs and got a great big handful of scrotum. She gave the sack a soft rolling motion with her fingers. "How do your balls feel, today, Frame?"

  I stood at ramrod attention.

  My evil twin began standing at attention.

  I knew where this was going. I was already redlining into how much testicular trauma one man could take in twenty-four hours, but there was nothing for it. All I could do was Kamikaze forward. It was all that Dez would respect.

  I snapped my gaze down at Dez and leered. "Better now."

  She stopped her rolling and fluttering fingertips. He hand shoved right up against the root and cinched it off slightly. "Yeah?"

  "Yeah."

  She started squeezing.

  "Yeah?"

  I "Mmmph'ed."

  I couldn't keep the grimace off my face.

  Her other hand squeezed as well. My balls were swollen. My face was swollen. Now everything was swelling. She slowly started pulling my balls downward as she squeezed. I felt the already traumatized chords-that-bound being inexorably stretched.

  A small, awkward, sound of distress came unbidden from the back of my throat.

  She looked up at me with huge, mocking goo-goo eyes. "Yeah?"

  She squeezed and pulled, and continued squeezing.

  I believe I said "Guh . . .!"

  The mutton-chop guy spoke up. "Dez?"

  "Yeah?"

  "You're gonna put him back in the med tent. Marrs said put him to work. You want to geld another one, you gotta get permission."

  Geld another one?

  What-the-fuck.

  I gasped as she suddenly let go.

  To my immense satisfaction?

  I was hard as a rock.

  "Check out the iron balls on Frame." Dez nodded in admiration. "Cup check!"

  Dez palm-swatted my balls. Not hard enough to drop me, but enough to sink in that sick ache. I didn't drop but my hands went to my knees and a ragged cough tore out of me.

  "Everyone at this table is mine! Finish your food, provos!" Dez stalked away. "We're leaving in ten! Light is a wasting! These days it always is!"

  I gingerly sat on the bench and put my head between my knees until the ache subsided.

  Several of my fellow Barneys muttered low. "Iron balls."

  Iron balls.

  It was a good nickname.

  It beat Fuckface.

  Glory was forever.

  I was sure Dez liked me.

  I would have to explain to Lalli later why I couldn't give her children.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Turning, burning, doin' the moon rock dance.

  "HOODS OFF!"

  I pulled the hood off, blinked and found myself back in Agoura.

  I was standing in the Malibou Lake Lodge parking lot.

  Once my eyes adjusted I could see Alice's house across the lake.

  They'd hooded my team of Barneys and ushered us into a 9' U-Haul van with a trailer attached. A-Camp was where provisionals and slaves got their fates decided and they did not want us knowing where we were and jumping the rez. There were no seats so we bounced around for about forty-five minutes and emerged half-blind into the sun.

  Dez stood before us.

  She had a Colt submachine gun in one hand and I swear to God a cat o' nine-tail made out of braided paracord. The tails were deeply stained. I couldn't imagine how fast something like that would shred skin from bone.

  I had a feeling I was going to see it before this dance was done.

  "The rumors you've heard are true. We met resistance here." A horrible look crossed Dez's face. "This is where I lost my sister. So watch your ass. Watch the ass of your brothers and sisters. I will be watching over all of you. You are stripping. Everything goes in the truck. You steal a weapon you will be slaved. You steal a valuable or find food and eat it without permission?" She held up the whip. "You go between two trucks. If you want to make prospect, finding me some good shit is a step in the right direction."

  She looked straight at me.

  "Frame."

  I'd graduated from Fuckface and managed to skip Barney in between.

  Yay me!

  I dropped the yes ma'am shit.

  "Boss?"

  She almost smiled. Dez reached into the trailer and handed me my Halligan bar. "Find me some good shit."

  "On it."

  Dez pointed at a gleaming new-build Malibu McMansion set up on one of the hills. "That one. Go to it. Try to leave the bones intact."

  "Boss?"

  "What?"

  I pointed to a rambling, ranch house looking place tucked back between a bit of hill and surrounded by oak trees about a quarter mile west. "How about that one?"

  Dez gave me a frank look. "I bid good spoils for the mansion."

  I stayed on target. "So no one's bid on the ranch?"

  "What are you up too, Frame?"

  "Mansions are kind of sterile places. Maybe you'll find a Ferrari and a bunch of expensive shit that hit its expiration date the day the beam hit."

  "And?"

  "The place over there looks to be at least fifty
, maybe even a hundred years old. That looks like a barn in the back and that garage has a ventilator in the wall. That tells me whoever lived there converted the garage into some kind of shop."

  You should have seen the look on her face.

  FRAME POOL!

  SEXY MOTHERFUCKER!

  Dez shouted over the crowd. "I give up dibs on the mansion! I'm going down the street! Good luck!"

  Two members I didn't know began arguing and bidding.

  Dez jerked her head at three prospects. "Choi brothers! You're with me!

  Peter, Paul and Phillip Choi, brothers number one, two and three whooped. The Choi brothers were prospects and everyone knew they were good ones. They universally wore black motorcycle riding suits and were equipped with the body-armor, gear and M16A2's they'd taken from some California National guardsmen they'd killed. They were universally six feet tall, wore their hair like Elvis, were Tae Kwon Do black belts, apparently devoid of fear, cheerful, and word was any slave they took a shine to took "The Train To Busan" from all three brothers as a unit.

  Peter the elder punched me way too hard in the shoulder but he smiled as he did it. "Fuck yeah, Frame! Heard about you, old man!"

  Old man . . .

  I gave him the leer. "I hear you Choi brothers are mad, bad and dangerous to know."

  They all grinned happily.

  Dez looked to the mutton-chop beard guy. "Pork Chop? You in?"

  His name was Pork Chop.

  Of course it was.

  Pork Chop looked up at the big white house on the hill regretfully but nodded. "Yeah, I'm in, Dez, but why'd you give up the mansion?"

  "Frame says that shit hole ranch at the end of the road is the shit. I want it before anyone else bids on it."

  "Yeah?"

  "Yeah, and if Frame fucked me over on the mansion I'm going to hang him by his ankles and let the Choi brothers use him as a heavy bag."

  The Choi brothers grinned and gave her the Taekwondo bow as unit. "Anything you say, Dez!"

  Dez commanded respect and loyalty. She regarded me gravely. "You give up your dibs, you give up the spoils you dibbed with. We all pitched in. Good stuff. You'd better not have fucked us."

  "I got a good feeling."

  I did.

  We took a ride down the road.

  The ranch was tits.

  Both the house, the barn, the guest cottage you couldn't see from the street and the garage had solar panels. Out back there was a buried five hundred gallon propane tank with a gauge that said 80%. The house had two chimneys and the cottage one. There was a good cord of wood stacked out by the barn. This place had light, heat and hot water for a year.

  Bonus round?

  It had a well.

  "I don't suppose you have my picks on you?"

  Dez handed me the leather wallet of locksmith tools. It took me three minutes to pick the kitchen doorknob and lock bump the deadbolt.

  I looked her in the eye. "Give me a gun and I'll take point."

  Dez took a titanium Smith & Wesson snub nose .38 from out of the small of her back. I checked the load and looked to the Choi brothers. I had strong suspicions they'd been LA Korean Mafia. "On my six."

  Dez waved the rest of Barneys back.

  We swept the house.

  It was a great, big rambling ranch house. I used hand signals and military lingo as we went from room to room and the Choi brothers thought this was the most awesome thing ever.

  "Clear!"

  "Clear!"

  "Clear!"

  They loved saying "Clear!"

  In the bedroom we found the remains of a man and a woman. They lay in bed together with a Mini-14 rifle between them and the backs of their heads missing. The ants and flies had done their work months ago and what remained was mostly bone, gristle and beef jerky. The wall safe was behind a painting.

  We got to the garage and hit the mother load. I thought whoever had lived here might've worked on cars. What they had was a very respectable home machine shop. Drill press, lathe, band saw, solid worktables with vises, a welding torch with acetylene tanks and masks and gear and loaded pegboards and tool drawers lining the walls.

  I turned to Dez. "If you can claim this place you need to claim it now, and not just the spoils. This place is sustainable, defendable and has a lake view. I don't know what the SOG benefit plan is but you could retire here."

  Dez gave me a funny look. She blinked rapidly and I am 99% sure she stopped herself from fanning her face with her fingers like a beauty pageant winner. She'd just lost her sister and was internalizing that someone, yours truly, was thinking about her health, wealth, wellbeing and future.

  Nailed it.

  Thumping and thudding interrupted our moment.

  The Choi brothers were in the craft room, and that was fully loaded too. I wanted to move Lalli and Face here now. The Choi brothers took turns rapidly throwing front, back and spinning kicks of every description at the closet door.

  The Choi brothers bounced off like rubber balls.

  I looked to Dez. "May I?"

  "Please do."

  I rapped my knuckles around the door jam. The hollow-core interior door had been replaced with solid core. The way the Choi brothers were handballing off it I would not be surprised if it was solid wood sandwiching steel. It wasn't just a sexy door. It had to have super sexy, long-ass, hinge and strike-plate screws to stop Korean battering rams. I knocked on the wall. It was a dull thud. I rapped on the wall across the craft room.

  Hollow.

  "It's a safe room."

  Dez rolled her eyes. "God damn it. The only safe rooms we've cracked we used dynamite and it blew the fuck out of everything."

  "There's a chance."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "The people who lived her kept everything traditional. They didn't sink in a steel cube or pour reinforced concrete. They added the door and put the reinforcement behind the drywall. This is a conversion."

  "What are you saying?"

  "This place doesn't have an attic. The HVAC is below the house." I shrugged hopefully. "I'm just wondering if they bothered to reinforce the floor."

  SEXY MOTHERFUCKER!

  "You can break in?"

  "I can try. Can I borrow your knife?"

  Dez gave me her knife.

  I held out the .38.

  "Keep it. Sometimes the burned shit likes to sleep under houses."

  Good to know.

  "I need a flashlight."

  Phillip handed me his tactical light.

  I found the crawlspace hatch back in the master.

  Once more onto the breach, dear friends.

  Once more down into possum country.

  Once more it was close, hot, and for a guy who wears XXL purple tops, crawling through and around the HVAC with a tac light in my teeth was not fun. No possums. The raccoons were not amused but at least they weren't burned and they fled before Frame.

  I got a little lost.

  Somewhere behind me Chop shoved his head down the hatch. "What the fuck Frame!"

  Like most men you know, with shame and reluctance I asked for directions.

  "Dez! Kick the floor!"

  Dez stomped. I followed the thudding. The floor of the house was original and I was pretty sure I'd hit pay dirt.

  "Stand in front of the door and jump up and down!"

  I got directly under Dez and moved a yard forward so I would hopefully come up in the open space behind the door. I began shaving floor board seam with the tip of Dez's knife until I could get the blade up and between boards and use the saw teeth. A knife with a survival saw on the back of the blade wasn't ideal. Neither was sawing upside down in coffin dimension confines. It took a good half hour.

  Dez stomped the floor behind me. "Don't make me come down there, Frame!"

  "Bring me a sandwich!"

  I finished my project, shoved my new hatchway up and reverse limbo'ed my way in.

  Even by flashlight it was pure gold.

  Thoro
ughly modern ham radio set. I suspected I would find the fallen antennae on the roof. Three Mini-14 rifles, racked. One empty space and I knew where the missing rifle was. Ammo, spare magazines and cleaning kits on the shelves underneath. One corner was cartons of MREs that reached the roof. I flipped the light switch. It was connected to the solar and I saw survival-oriented books, a generator, a full EMT trauma kit and very exciting survival paraphernalia of every description. There was even a safe in the safe room wall. These people had painstakingly prepared for the end of the world and then something had made them decide it wasn't worth it.

  That gave me a creepy feeling.

  Dez pounded on the door. "Quit fucking around!"

  I opened the door and grinned in full idiot-Frame mode.

  "Miss Dez?" I handed her back her blade. "You rule the school."

  The Choi brothers ooh'ed and ah'ed.

  It was a good haul, and that wasn't even counting the rest of the house and its amenities.

  Dez looked about mentally cataloging her hoard. I nodded at the safe. "There's another one in the bedroom, too. They're both old, cutting them out of the wall should be no problem and I'm pretty sure I can drill them out with what's in the garage."

  Dez gave me a very appraising look.

  Pork Chop actually smiled at me for the first time. With his two front teeth missing it was charmingly child-like. "I hear Dez getting wet."

  "Fuck you, Chop."

  I was pretty sure I could hear it, too. I kept grinning like an idiot. "Did I do good?"

  "You did good, Frame."

  "You want me to check the cottage and the barn?"

  "Chop, take Frame and two Barneys. Go check the cottage and the barn."

  "You got it, Dez."

  I held out the pistol.

  Dez shook her head. "Keep it 'til the end of your shift."

  I took up my Halligan bar and followed Chop outside. He pointed at MMA girl and a complainy guy named Bob with a Mohawk. "You, Barney bitches. With me and Frame."

  I scanned the hills and trees around the ranch. "You want me to take point?"

  Chop grinned. "You're doin' good so far!"

  "I want to walk the perimeter."

  Chop liked it. I wouldn't want to fight him unless I had too but Chop was a real yes/no kind of guy. He liked me and I already owned him.

  We took a walk.

  Three-rail horse fencing surrounded the property. I'd say they had about 2 ½, maybe three slightly twisty acres. You could plant crops and raise animals to sustain a family and have a surplus.