by Ryder Stacy
“Who knows—maybe it is,” Rock said, rubbing his leg where the mandibles of the half-dead megapede had cut him. “Anything’s possible in this crazy land now. Just when I think I’ve seen whatever all is out there—something comes along and bites me in the ass. I guess it keeps you from getting too relaxed.”
“Relaxed?” Detroit asked with a laugh, bouncing atop his ’brid. “Not me Rock. Not ever. Day I relax is the day they put me under. Too many things got a taste for my black flesh for me to give it up easy.”
“I don’t think our friends back there were too fussy about color—they’d eat anything,” Rockson said, thinking of the grisly scene. Ms. Shriver still seemed quite depressed about the death of Dean Keppel, although she didn’t know what had really happened to the mortally wounded man. But Rockson knew she’d come out of it. As for him, he was glad that Detroit, McCaughlin, and Archer were along for the ride. He knew there’d be hell to pay when they got back to Century City, with all the liberal Council members attacking them for not following the Council’s orders—and they had a point. Democracy had to control the military—otherwise they were just like the Reds. Still, when it came to survival—the wolves and the megapedes and a thousand other mouths waiting to devour whatever came down the pike didn’t give a damn about democracy—or rules and regulations. If the rest of the Rock team hadn’t showed up, he and Chen would be inside numerous brown stomachs at this very moment. Rock looked over at the black freefighter with gratitude in his blue and violet eyes.
“Hey, did I ever thank you for saving our goddamned asses back there?” Rock asked.
“Hey, did I ever thank you for saving my goddamned ass about a thousand times, though I lost track of counting a long time ago?” Detroit smiled back.
A loud voice bellowed out from behind them. “And did I ever thank you for saving my big goddamned ass about two thousand times?” It was McCaughlin, a bear of a man, atop his immense hybrid horse, the biggest that Century City had bred. Pots and pans dangled off the back of the ’brid and an assortment of food filled two seventy-five-pound burlap bags. McCaughlin always traveled well prepared for emergencies, particularly those of the digestive variety.
At last they reached the end of the atomic-made glass ground and hit a series of hills that soon became forested with low growths of thick stunted trees, the bark blacker than Detroit’s dark skin, covered with small needles. After a mile or so they came to a small, bubbling pond formed from an underground spring. Rockson led the palomino to the water’s edge and waited to see if it would drink. Hybrids had an uncanny sense of whether water was drinkable or poison. The big steed sniffed the pond for a few seconds and then began happily licking. The team washed themselves down while the ’brids drank their fill. Then they filled their canteens and gourds to capacity. Ms. Shriver demurely asked after a while if they might all move back and turn their heads so she could wash herself “free of all this dreadful dust and grease.”
They obliged and heard her splashing around in the ten-foot-wide spring. Rockson had to admit that he had been wrong about her. She was turning out to be quite a woman. She never complained about the hardships and dangers and seemed to have toughed up considerably since the night they left Century City. Dean Keppel’s death had affected her deeply—but it had also shocked her into the realities of the strange world out here. A world she had had little contact with in her entire life. But then, education comes in many forms, most of them not pleasant.
“I think we should rest up here for a day,” Rock said to the team as they gathered around a small green warthog Archer had bagged just as the sun was setting. McCaughlin’s spices and the addition of dehydrated applesauce on top of the wild pig cooked in white wine worked wonders for everyone’s spirits. “The ’brids need a break. They’ve been going for nearly eight days without a stop or water, and this is pretty good cover here,” he nodded at the shielding grove of trees that surrounded the waterhole, “just in case the Reds have any of their drones this far out. I’m going to scout on a few miles. After our last encounter, I want to get a little better sense of what lies ahead.” The other freefighters protested, offering to join him, but Rockson was firm. He would go alone, the others would stay. He felt the need to absorb the energies of the land and be alone for a night. His sixth sense worked best in the dark, in the silence of the animal songs. Rock was the head honcho, and when his mind was made up they all knew not to question further.
“You take your time, Rock,” McCaughlin said, stuffing himself with a big slice of the sizzling pork. “I’ve got a whole book of recipes I want to try out on this here little critter. Why, we can have pork pie, pork bread, pork pudding, pork . . .” They all laughed as they stuffed themselves into a stupor.
Rock set out late in the evening as the others were heading off to sleep. Chen was the first watch of the night, and he waved a silent goodbye as the Doomsday Warrior rode off at a steady gait into the darkening shadows. The crescent moon was slicing through the purple-clouded sky, casting shadows on the hills and forests below. Snorter set himself into an even pace, happy to be able to find sure footing in the packed soil of the grassy, weeded ground. He slowly raised and lowered his huge black and white head in obvious contentment, once in a while snapping at a choice-looking high-grown weed with his broad teeth without missing a step.
They rode for miles, Rock letting the night calm him, teach him. As they moved further from the wasteland behind, the animal life grew louder and more varied, the trees thicker, taller, with moist green leaves creating a canopy through which the moon shot little shivers of pure white light. Suddenly, as if dropped down in the middle of nowhere, Rock came to the edge of what was—or had been—some sort of town—with brick walls, half toppled over, demarcating the town border. Stopping by the entrance, Rock listened. Nothing—it was uninhabited; not a sign of life. The choice of which street to enter was obvious—a wide road passed through what had once been the center. Three- and four-story buildings, made of not very well-constructed concrete and brick work, gazed down at him from each side of the street. Dark, dusty windows, the glass long ago knocked free, doors hanging at odd angles in their frames, as if dead. Faded signs hung above stores—DIN’S HARDWARE, MASTER’S SALOON, BEST BEAUTY PARLOR. Rock grinned at the words—an old American town, preserved in its entirety. Should make it into a museum someday, he thought, when we take back the country from the Reds.
As he moved deeper into the town, the air grew damp with a dank, foul odor. Vines grew up and around the buildings, enveloping them in a green embrace. There was the feel of decay in the air, rot, a stench he didn’t like. Rock leaned over and peered through a window. Skulls—piles of them, nearly to the ceiling. He went for his gun.
Suddenly he heard screams all around him. Figures charged from the darkness, leaping from the vines, from above, from all around him. Snorter reared instinctively, throwing several shadowed attackers to the ground. Rock held his gun but didn’t fire. Something . . .
The moon suddenly flickered on like a neon light, and he could see them—women. Primitive, dirty, covered in rags and ratty furs, their faces burned with rage as they came at him. He could see hundreds of eyes peering from within the darkness. A clawing body landed on him from above, but Rock flipped it over his shoulder to the street. He turned the ’brid around and tore off down the street. He didn’t want to shoot any of them. Women, hell, he had sensed something about these attackers. He still held fire. He certainly wasn’t in the mood for killing women. Why the hell were they after him, anyway? Now, they poured from all the buildings, running and stumbling toward him. Some were naked—they were savagely beautiful.
“Take him! Take him alive. Take him for Barbarah—our goddess—and for us,” voices screamed, urging the primitive women on. They came forward, more than he could count, young, filth-encrusted raven-haired women, with long, strong-looking arms and legs—sinewy, agile as cats. They rushed at him.
“Stop!” Rock commanded. “I don’t want to hurt you!�
�� He pointed the .12 gauge pistol at the ground between himself and them and fired. The shell tore into the dirt and out, leaving a grapefruit-sized hole in the ground. They hesitated for a moment, but then came even faster. He whistled twice and kicked the palomino hard on the sides. The ’brid took off down the street, knocking the female savages out of the way like bowling pins. Suddenly Rock saw it—at the far end of the street—they had erected some sort of barricade—chairs, tables, tree branches, anything they could find. It was high, but—Rock looked back. The entire town was after him—hundreds of them, shaking their fists and charging down the street.
“Well, that makes it easy, boy,” Rock said into the hybrid’s ear, “we gotta go for it.” He kicked the ’brid again, and it took off from a full gallop to its fastest jumping speed. They approached the barricade at tremendous speed, Rock hanging on tight. The palomino seemed confident, running in long, even strides. They reached the obstacle and the steed leaped high, its immense back legs springing up like a catapult. They sailed toward the top, a good eight feet off the ground, just clearing it. As they went over, one of the women standing on top dove at Rock with an outstretched spear. He ducked and grabbed her hand, swinging her up onto the saddle in front of him. Snorter continued his leap, just scraping his back hooves on a table, but managed to come down on the other side smoothly. The captured she-lion struggled furiously in Rock’s grip, pulling out a small dagger, which she stabbed at him. He caught the small wrist and twisted it slightly, making the knife drop out, then hit her lightly on the jaw. She went out cold.
He galloped through the town, meeting no more of the female attackers, and stopped finally in a clearing several miles away when he was sure that they were safe. She came to and instantly began struggling as Rock lifted her down from the palomino.
“No, no,” she screamed, trying to bite, scratch, anything she could.
“You speak English,” he said. “I’m amazed you can speak at all. You all acted quite animallike back there.”
“Yes, we speak English,” she said haughtily, drawing herself up to her full five-foot-ten of quite shapely woman. Not uncomely when you looked through the dirt. He pulled out a slab of the pork McCaughlin had cooked up and handed it to her. She grabbed it with greedy eyes and chewed it down within seconds. Rock stared at her in amazement. When she had finished and taken some water she seemed to relax a little. He gently sat her down, asked her questions.
“We are the Barbarahs, a race of women warriors. No men are allowed to join us—so it is written in our holy book—Man, the Enemy—the only writing remaining to our ancestors after the Great Blast. The Man-Made Blast,” she added, looking accusingly at Rock. “It is the man who has laid waste to our world—and thus it is the man whom we shun and despise for all his black habits.” Rock’s jaw nearly dropped open as he listened to her venomous monologue.
“When men come into our land we attack them and rape them—for their ability to procreate. We use them a few days, getting as many of the fertile women pregnant as we can. Then, when their sperm runs dry—they are beheaded.” She said the word with a malicious glee, staring Rock in the eyes. “Their bodies are fed to the sacred fire and their heads are piled on stakes around our holy church.”
Suddenly she quieted and looked sad. “But we have failed. No women have become pregnant for two years. It is a bad omen, for many of the women are growing old, past childbearing age. Soon we may die.” She paused, looked at the muscled slab of man in front of her, and got a strange look in her golden eyes.
“Do me!” she said, pleading. “Fertilize me and release me! I shall be as a goddess back there—I will be pregnant. And they will feed me and not hurt me anymore. For I am not well-liked now, and they punish me for no reason.” Without waiting for an answer she pulled off her rags and furs and stood before him naked. In spite of himself, Rock felt the desire rise in his loins. She was beautiful, muscled from head to toe, with firm, grapefruit-sized breasts that pointed straight ahead, and a patch of midnight black hair covering her pink sex. There was an animal wildness in her eyes that Rockson had never seen in a woman before, and it aroused him. She let out a deep, gutteral, catlike growl and walked slowly toward him, her arms outstretched. Rock was hypnotized, unable to resist even if he had wanted to.
She reached forward with a smile on her flushed lips and undid Rockson’s belt. She let the pants fall to the ground and then took off his jacket and khaki workshirt. She rubbed up against him like a cat, moaning and writhing against his hard flesh. She pulled him down to the cool earth, atop a thick cushion of cottony green moss, and reached for his manhood, guiding it between her opened legs. She let out a loud hiss as it entered, biting his shoulder through the skin, and wrapped her long, firm legs around his back. She ground up and down on his staff of living flesh, moving harder and harder until almost out of control—wriggling and slamming against him. Her long nails dug into Rock’s back and ripped razorlike cuts that just penetrated the skin down to his waist. Rock didn’t know if he was fucking or fighting—but he went with it—with this wild creature of the night. She grew more and more frantic and then came to her peak. Her eyes flared like a burst of golden fire and she opened wide for him so he could go into her very core—penetrate her deepest tunnel. Then she came with an ear-shattering scream, her body arching and contracting in powerful spasms. Rock felt his own desire reach its culmination and let out an explosion of molten fire that rocketed up into her center. She screamed again and swooned as the staff plunged to its fullest depth. Then her head fell to the side and she was totally silent.
Rock pulled the fur she had dropped over them and she pressed close, kissing and touching him. Rock guiltily thought of Kim, but this was not exactly an affair that would last. Besides, he was doing it to help an entire race avoid extinction. After about half an hour, she reached her hand down for him and they went at it again. And again. And again.
In the morning Rock woke to the sounds of birds standing all around him, chirping at him with mocking faces—a naked man lying in a field of moss. Even Snorter, about twenty feet away nibbling on some choice orange-petaled flowers, glanced up at Rock and seemed to shake his head. Rock smiled, remembering the night. He looked around—she was gone—and so was his hunting knife. But she could have tried to kill him—and hadn’t. She needed the blade more than he did, anyway. He hoped he’d “fertilized” her. And he hoped for its sake that it wasn’t a boy.
He got dressed, aching as he rose from the clawing and biting she had done the night before, and felt more exhausted than after fighting a whole battalion of Reds. He headed back to the rest of the party, and, with the bright sun and a path that he found, the ’brid pulled up by the pond with the sun only risen three hours. They’d be able to get a good start on the day—and Rock could detour them around the village of the Barbarahs.
McCaughlin’s warthog-sausage and eggs filled the air with a heady aroma, as did the black coffee perking away in rising trails of delicious steam.
“Hey man, where you been?” Detroit yelled out, seated atop a fallen tree.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Rock said, and wouldn’t utter another word.
Fifteen
Georgi, the head waiter at the Elite KGB Commissary on the seventy-ninth floor of the Monolith, walked into the kitchen carrying Colonel Killov’s tray in one hand and nodded to the short, squat chef, Yasok.
“He is still playing with his toy soldiers,” Georgi said contemptuously as Yasok hacked away at a chicken on the butcher block table. Georgi turned on the radio—Russian martial music, loud—and whispered to the chef, “There might be microphones in here. Yes, he is a madman, holed up in his office up there with all the shades drawn and sunglasses on, playing with his little dolls. He was bad before the assassination attempt—now he is totally gone—his mind snapped. I am fearful that he’ll have us all executed if he doesn’t like the soup or I drop a glass or—anything.”
“Perhaps we should—” Yasok, the bald ch
ef began.
“Don’t even say it. There are spies everywhere.” Georgi glanced furtively about the big, twenty-four-hour-staffed kitchen. Yards away an old woman stood, stirring stew. She couldn’t hear him. “He’s started eating again. So he’s not going to die of starvation like we had been hoping. Perhaps, perhaps—”
“Perhaps poison,” Yasok said, almost inaudibly.
“No, don’t even think it.” Georgi put his fingers to his lips. “Look what happened to that assassin who got into the hospital. One of the orderlies told me the man had no skin on his flesh when they took him away.” They both shuddered and went back to their tasks. Georgi picked up the glass he was to take to the colonel and inspected it carefully for grease spots. A tiny speck could mean death for the whole staff when the commander of all the Blackshirts was in an especially paranoid mood. He poured some white wine, chilled to Killov’s specifications, with a shaking hand.
The chef started up again. “I know an untraceable—”
“No time to talk,” Georgi said, loading the tray will Killov’s chicken in white cream sauce and asparagus au gratin. “Got to get back quickly.” He left the hot kitchen and headed down the hallway at a half-run, expertly balancing the full tray after twenty-seven years of experience. He silently entered the chamber of the “Skull,” who sat smiling to himself at his nearly twenty-foot-long curved marble table with veins of red and gold rippling through it.
In front of him were four foot-high dolls that he was rearranging in order. The order in which he wanted to kill them. They were cast from fleshtic, accurate features painted on their faces—representations of those who stood in Killov’s way to world domination.
First was thin, stooped Premier Vassily, and next to him his ever-present black servant, Rahallah, who, according to the colonel’s agents in Moscow, had been the reason the Doctors’ Conspiracy had failed. The damned nigger bastard had treated Vassily with “tribal herbs” and cured him. Rahallah’s features were exaggerated to make them ridiculous—huge lips, and a nose as big as a cup.