The Warlord w-1

by Jason Frost

They walked in hunched, jerky steps, clinging to the sides of cars and searching the dark for movement. Eric kept an eye to the rooftops and upper story windows, perfect sniper nests. His body seemed to automatically remember the old moves as he led the pack, dodging ahead to secure a position, then waving for the others to follow, one at a time.

  They were hunkered behind a rusty Dodge van with four flat tires and a siphoning tube still dangling out of its gas tank. There were no more cars between here and the Woodbridge Medical Building, just open space. On the other side of the building and down the street two blocks was the Jack in the Box. Thirty-five yards separated the van from the building. Thirty-five exposed yards.

  "Okay," Eric whispered to the others. "Same as before. Wait for me to reach the wall. Don't move until I wave. Each person waits their turn, running only when signaled. The rest keep their bows ready to cover the others. Especially the roofs and windows. Questions?"

  "Let's do it," Season said, the edge of fear in her voice unmistakable.

  Eric nodded, turned and dashed toward the building, zigzagging the thirty-five yards like a scorpion on a hot skillet. When he safely reached the side of the building, he kneeled, snapped his crossbow to his shoulder, and swept the area around him. Not seeing any movement, he waved for the next runner.

  Season Deely didn't hesitate. She sprinted like the track star that she was, not bothering with any zig or zag. Just a straight line toward Eric, her feet slapping pavement in a frenetic beat.

  When she reached him, she pressed her back against the wall and readied her bow.

  "You okay?"

  She started to speak, choked on the word, swallowed. "Fine," she said. "Fine."

  Eric waved again.

  Rydell Grimme imitated Eric's pattern with perfect precision. He lacked Season's blistering speed, but made up for it with cunning. He slammed into the wall next to Season, raised his how. "Better than miniature golf." he panted.

  Eric waved again. Molly Sing, slow but steady, followed, joined the others. Then Tag Hallahan. He jolted out from behind the van, churned mightily for ten yards, then tripped over a break in the pavement and sprawled head first for another five yards. Without pause, Rydell and Molly dashed out, yanked him to his feet, and dragged him back against the building.

  "You okay, Tag?" Eric asked.

  "Sure, I just tripped, that's all. No big deal." He took a deep breath, blew the fear out. "Sorry. I'm fine. Thanks for the help." He brushed the rips in the knees of his pants, winced from the stinging. Some blood smeared onto his palms.

  Eric waved to Philip. Saw a glimpse of white teeth as Philip smiled, waved back.

  Then the rumbling echo of metal grating against metal, like the roar of a monster at the bottom of a well.

  Suddenly, Eric saw Philip running toward him, saw the short man leaping out of the sliding side door of the Dodge van. Saw Philip glance over his shoulder, the expression of terror when he looked back again, his arms and legs churning desperately. Saw the short man's arm flinging something. Philip twisting in midrun, tumbling sideways, his hands clutching the knife sticking out of his throat. In the hazy darkness, the blood pumping out of his throat looked like spraying oil.

  Another man jumped from the van, then another. Their clothes were dirty and tattered, their hair long and wild. One had a spear made from a broom handle with a steak knife lashed to one end with wire. The other had a compound bow with the distinctive green tape wrapped barber pole fashion along the upper limb. It was the same bow that Matt Southern had been carrying the day he'd led his group out of University Camp for the last time.

  The first man was running toward Philip's body to retrieve his knife. Eric followed him through the sights of his crossbow for a few yards, then squeezed the trigger. The sound was like a zipper being closed too fast, then the dull thud as the short bolt punched into the man's chest, spun him around into a comic pirouette, and dumped him onto the pavement.

  The other two let out eerie howls, like coyotes baying at the moon. The one with the spear ran forward a few steps and hurled his weapon. It lofted high into the air, arced smoothly, then clanged into the wall five feet above Eric.

  The man with the bow was tugging his arrow back with a bead on Eric. But he never made it. Five arrows snapped at him almost simultaneously, though only two actually. hit him. One caught him in the chest, the other chipped a hunk of flesh off a rib. Two of the arrows bounced off the van while the third disappeared into the darkness of the parking lot, skidding along pavement.

  The man with the bow crumpled. His fingers released the half-pulled string, catapulting the arrow ten feet ahead. He fell backwards, knocking his head against the van's bumper.

  The spearman, now without a spear and too frightened to grab for the bow, took off behind the van, vanishing into the same thick darkness that had swallowed the arrow. They could hear the thwacking of his feet for a few more seconds. Then silence.

  Rydell started after Philip but Eric pulled him back. "Wait."

  Eric peered intently at the darkened parking lot, the black husks of the abandoned cars lurking like so many backs of dinosaurs trapped in a tar pit. "Okay, Rydell and Molly, see to Philip. Tag and Season, come with me."

  They split into two groups and crab-walked across the lot. Eric motioned for Tag and Season to bracket the open door of the van. With his crossbow cocked and loaded, he dove into the yawning black door, his bow lifted toward the darkened back. His shoulder smacked into a surfboard, but otherwise the van was empty. There were crumbled cellophane wrappers from Twinkies and some empty Sugar Pops boxes, some tattered clothes, torn comic books, but otherwise nothing.

  "Empty," Eric said as he jumped out of the van.

  "Philip's dead," Rydell called.

  Eric walked over to the man with Matt Southern's bow, tipped him onto his back with a nudge of his foot. Beneath the long, wild hair was a dirt-smeared face. He smelled foul, even by current disaster standards, his skin oily and broken out, his gums peppered with raw sores. The short bolt with the red plastic feathers sticking out of his chest was Eric's. Dark blood bubbled around the shaft like boiling soup. The other arrow that had wounded him had nipped its chunk of flesh from the rib and kept going. Eric leaned closer to the face for a better look. Beneath the ravaged face, a boy of seventeen or eighteen. Eric's stomach muscles bunched up, his fists balled against his legs. He remembered this feeling from Nam. The clawing in your guts when you faced your dead or wounded enemy, his limbs half ripped from his body, an eyeball hanging on his cheek by a tiny strand of nerve. The smooth face of a thirteen-year-old boy or girl. The only way you got through it was to remember your own dead buddies, not much older, screaming in agony as they tried to scoop their own intestines back into the hole in their stomach.

  Eric marched over to Philip's body. He needed to see what these kids had done, to stoke his hate like a furnace until the guilt evaporated.

  The blade had entered the back of Philip's neck, severing the sternomastoid muscle, and puncturing the esophagus before the knife's handle wedged into the neck. Philip's eyes were still wide with horror and surprise. Death wasn't at all the way Philip had expected it to be. Not the way he'd read about it in history books.

  Molly was bending over the body of the kid who'd thrown the knife, Eric's bolt sprouting from his chest in almost the same spot as on the other kid. "Hey, Eric! I think this one's still alive. I've got a faint pulse. Just barely."

  Tag and Season were still over by the van gathering the spent arrows.

  "Jesus," Season's voice rang out with excitement, "it was me. My arrow. It's got blood on it. I shot the bastard too." Her face was flushed as she held the arrow up to show the others. "My God, I really did it. Would've skewered his fucking stomach if he hadn't moved. I goddamn did it."

  Eric walked slowly toward her. The others watched, confused about what response to have. Congratulate her? Too grotesque. Offer sympathy? She was too high, too excited for that. She was pacing in circles, waving the arrow.
Once she almost tripped over the kid's leg and hauled off and kicked the corpse, "Son of a bitch," she growled.

  Eric had seen this kind of reaction before, had experienced it himself the first time in battle. The thrill of having survived when a buddy dies. Then the guilt at being alive, compounded if you've killed someone and get to look in their face afterwards. Then the hatred. At your friend for having died, at your enemy for having made you a killer. And finally at yourself,

  Season was laughing in Eric's face as he approached her. "You see, you pompous ass. I did it. Even with a man's bow. Maybe it wasn't a kill shot, but it was better than any of these other clowns did."

  Eric laid his crossbow on the ground, took another step toward her. She flinched back as if she thought he would strike her. Instead he opened his arms and hugged her close to him.

  "What the hell are you doing?" she screeched, struggling to push him away. But his arms held her tenderly, yet tightly, and soon she stopped resisting.

  "Relax," he said, stroking the back of her head. "We're all scared. And angry." He looked into her eyes; she stared back, her eyes slightly dazed as if in shock. "You're a hell of a soldier, Deely, Three months ago, most civilians probably wouldn't consider that much of a compliment. But right now, it's the highest praise you can give someone. It means you're tough, resourceful, clever. A survivor. Someone who can be counted on. Okay?"

  Season stepped out of his arms, nodded, adjusted the bandanna around her forehead. "What is it they say in the macho movies? 'Thanks, I needed that.' " She grinned. "Only I really mean it."

  Eric winked and spun back on the others. His voice was flat but crisp, as if nothing had happened here. "Okay, we've wasted enough time here. We have a meeting to go to. Let's move out."

  Molly looked up. "What about this boy? There's still a pulse."

  Eric picked up his crossbow and trotted over to the dying boy. Except that his hair was longer and darker, he looked very much like the other kid. Perhaps a year or two older. Maybe they were brothers. Cousins. Maybe the circumstances made them look alike. It didn't matter. Eric lifted his foot above the boy's neck, lowered it slowly over the throat, and pressed, leaning his weight heavily on the foot. The boy's fingers moved slightly, curled and uncurled, then nothing. "Now he's dead," Eric announced. "So let's move out."

  There was a shocked silence, a stunned pause, then they all moved at once.

  "Tag," Eric called, "bring the kid's bow and all his arrows. Rydell, grab the backpack from Philip. We'll need the books. The rest of you converge against the building. Now!"

  They jumped at his voice, dashing toward the Woodbridge Medical Building as if someone had fired a burst of bullets at their feet.

  Eric leaned over the dead boy, grabbed the bolt close to the chest, wedged his foot on the chest for leverage, and pulled with a slight twisting motion. It was like yankinga stubborn cork from a wine bottle. But fortunately his arrows had field tips and not hunting broadheads, which he would have had to shove all the way through the body. There was a sloshing, sucking noise from the wound, reluctant to give the arrow up. But it finally slid out, dripping blood from the tip. Eric wiped the shaft on the kid's pants, then stuck the arrow back in his quiver. He ran over to the other body and retrieved his arrow the same way, relieved that he'd sent the others ahead. They were watching him, of course, but the darkness and the distance allowed them to ignore what they chose to avoid. As he jogged across the lot to join them, he purposely glanced at Philip's clenched face. His skin tingled as if his veins were pumping sulfuric acid, and he sighed sadly as he realized yet another nightmare had been added to his growing repertoire.

  "How much longer?" Tag whispered.

  Eric didn't have to look at his watch. It had only been a few seconds since he'd checked it last. "Any time now."

  "Are you sure those guys we killed back there aren't the same ones we were supposed to meet?"

  "I'm sure. They were just scavengers, killing anything that moved. Just relax and get back to your post."

  Tag hesitated, but did as he was told. Eric had positioned him across the street from the jack in the Box, squatting behind an overturned Datsun 280Z. It was the kind of car Tag had always wanted to own, reading about it in the library's issues of Road amp; Track, Car amp; Driver and all the other magazines he sneaked off to read while supposedly checking inventory. Now, as he peered through the shattered windows of the upside-down car, he felt a twinge of regret that he'd probably never have one. At least not with gasoline. For the first time in his life, it occurred to him that he might die. Really die. Like Philip. Like those kids.

  When he'd first started working at the library he was still a student just out to earn a little extra money and meet girls. He was remarkably successful at both. It was the first place he'd ever felt like he belonged. It wasn't a tough decision to switch from a social ecology major to library science. Then after graduation, the job became permanent and he thought he was the luckiest guy in the world. He had a job he liked. He met plenty of pretty young girls, some of whom he dated, though True Love always seemed to elude him. He'd been counting on True Love to hit him by the time he turned twenty-five, twenty-eight at the max. When it didn't, he began to suspect True Love was harder to find than he'd been led to believe. He certainly liked the girls he dated, and they liked him. He wasn't a dynamo in bed, but he was fun and considerate. There'd been plenty of girls who'd wanted to make more of the relationship, but they hadn't been right. No loss of appetite, sudden urges to compose poetry, staying awake wondering what she was doing. In short, not T.L.

  Maybe it was to compensate, or just to distract. Whatever the reason, Tag began noticing the sports periodicals for the first time a couple years ago. Windsurfer, Ski Thrills, Ripcord, Hot Rod. He would leaf through them with fascination; the only letter he'd won in high school had been for band, the slide trombone. Now, staring at the glossy photographs of somersaulting dirt bikes and soaring hang gliders, he knew what he must do. He must make himself more worthy for True Love.

  He tried everything. No sport was too dangerous, too exotic. There were lots of times he was afraid, his bladder swollen with tension, but he never backed out. He'd wanted to, lots of times, he was ashamed to admit. Still, he hung in, dove out of airplanes, swam the ocean bottom, scaled steep cliffs. And though he'd come through it all, he'd not yet found True Love. Just a lot of pretenders to the throne.

  "Stupid," he said to himself, shaking his head. Because now, stooped on cramping legs behind an overturned Datsun 280Z, staring at a dark Jack in the Box at midnight, it occurred to him for the first time that he might die. He saw Philip's face in front of him, the once-pleasant features twisted with agony and fear. Tag felt a chill rake across his neck and quickly glanced over his shoulder.

  Nothing.

  Just darkness.

  He looked thirty yards to his right, saw the ghostly outline of Season's body hunched behind a bus stop cabana. It was too dark to make out her features, but he could sense her fear as easily as he could smell the charred air. The same with Rydell and Molly, decoys standing across the street in front of the Jack in the Box, the five backpacks piled next to the drive-up window. Molly was leaning against the wall while Rydell played soccer with a stone or something. They were even more scared than he was right now, and he didn't blame them. He'd heard Molly gulp like a cartoon character when Eric told her what she had to do. Rydell had made a joke, but his voice had cracked a bit. And the sweat on his face was evident even in the dark.

  Only Eric had seemed unperturbed. He had issued orders, set positions for a crossfire, all as calmly as if he were back in the classroom discussing 15th century Italian art. His expression never seemed to change, the hard edges of his face always dominating. And that scar flicking along his jaw like a serpent's tongue, exploding on his cheek like a sunspot. Yet Tag had noticed the pain tearing across Eric's face-the self-blame mixed with hate. Then it was gone, disappeared as quickly as a spring rain. Now there was the stone face, the
solid marble man. Still, Tag had to admire the man's strength. They'd all huddled against each other, even Rydell, as they'd watched Eric twist that arrow out of the dead boy. Had that only been minutes after he'd tenderly hugged Season, calmed her hysteria? Then crushed a dying boy's windpipe? How could they all be the same man?

  Tag peered at his watch. Twelve-thirty. Whoever they were supposed to meet was a half-hour late. He took a deep breath, looked across the street to the empty gas station where he'd just left Eric. The pumps were torn off their concrete islands. It had been one of the few gas stations that hadn't been burned. But it had been pretty thoroughly drained, though not by University Camp. Tag's eyes scanned the station for Eric, whom he had last seen crouching in the open garage. From here the darkened garage looked like a forbidding cavern leading to the center of the earth. But no Eric. Where the hell did he go?

  Suddenly he felt a hand grip his arm.

  His heart clattered in his ears like an alarm bell. Fear and panic flooded over him until he felt he was drowning in it. But he had to do something. He twisted around, realized it was too late for the bow, tugged at the knife in his belt.

  "Easy, Tag," Eric said, his powerful fingers squeezing Tag's shoulder, stilling all movement. "Follow me."

  Tag followed Eric, his heart still hammering against his ribs. How had Eric sneaked up on him so quietly? It was spooky.

  They moved swiftly along the street, Eric silent but Tag's slight noise alerting Season. They squatted next to her.

  "What's up?" she asked.

  "I don't think they're going to show," Eric said.

  "That doesn't make any sense. They called for the meet."

  "I didn't say they weren't here. I just said they aren't going to show themselves." Eric made a sweeping gesture with his hand. "They may be waiting out there, planning to jump us on the way home. They think that we'll figure they decided not to show for some reason. And then we'll let our guard down. That way we'd be much better targets going home than we were coming here. Old strategy, but effective."