The Warlord w-1

by Jason Frost

  "Stay close," Eric warned. The batteries were fresh, taken from the University Camp supplies still wrapped in their Eveready black-and-yellow package, a price tag from Safeway still half-attached. The beam knifed through the thick darkness as Eric checked for loose stones indicating a weak wall. Not that there was any way to be sure.

  "Wouldn't it have been safer to just look for a stream somewhere?" Molly whispered, having seen enough TV cave-ins to be aware of the danger of sound. "Maybe we could find one nearby."

  "I did find one," Eric said, inching ahead.

  "What?" Rydell and Molly chorused.

  "Yeah, when I scouted ahead a few hours ago. There's one about a quarter of a mile from camp."

  "Then what are we doing here?" Rydell asked. "Did we miss our daily quota of breathing dust?"

  "The water wasn't any good. No vegetation around it, some dried animal bones nearby. Bad signs."

  Rydell sighed. "Some of these desert pools have dissolved arsenic in them."

  "You mean someone poisoned them?" Molly said.

  "No, it's natural."

  "Like Perrier, huh?"

  He swatted her bottom with a canteen and she giggled.

  "There," Eric said, holding the flashlight beam steady. A pool of black water, still and silent.

  "Christ," Molly complained. "I should've worn a sweater. This place is cold."

  "Don't complain," Eric said. "That cold is why we have water now. Works just like our still down there. If we went any deeper we might even find ice."

  They kneeled around the pool, staring. Eric handed the flashlight to Rydell. "Keep it steady."

  Molly twisted the cap off her canteen and reached toward the pool to fill it. Eric's hand grabbed her wrist with a power that stung. "What's wrong?"

  "See that film on top of the water? That's lead. It's poisonous." He ran his finger along the inside of his ear, dipped it in the water. A clear spot appeared on the water's surface. "The wax provides a safe opening." He removed a plastic straw from his pocket. "Now we sip it up through that opening and spit the water into the canteens until they're full. Then I add some iodine just to be safe. It'll taste a little funny, but it'll be safe. However, you can pour it between canteens a few times to improve taste."

  "Swell," Molly said without enthusiasm.

  "It's better than dying of thirst," Eric said.

  "Barely," Molly answered.

  Eric took the first watch.

  The orange-yellow daylight was slowly being nudged aside by the gray-pink night. The sun itself had only been a bright, hazy glob through the thick Long Beach Halo. Eric couldn't decide whether the Halo acted like an oven and made the desert hotter than ordinary, or whether it acted like branches of a tree and filtered out some of the heat. And if it did filter out heat, would it be filtering certain of the sun's rays? Would they all be breaking out with skin cancer soon? He shook his head. What difference did it make? There wasn't anything they could do about it. The feeling of ignorance and helplessness was overpowering, like a man shoved through time to a past where the language and customs were unfamiliar. But had it ever been any different? Had people ever had any ability to change anything, or were we merely prisoners locked in a room busily rearranging furniture, to give the illusion of control?

  He stood up, stretched, checked the bolt in his crossbow. One of these through Dirk Fallows' heart would change the world. Make him dead. That was change enough for Eric.

  He gazed at the sleeping faces of the others. How quickly they had formed alliances, relationships. Rydell and Molly, physical opposites linked by what, a sense of humor? They slept next to each other, Rydell's big arm lying across Molly's small chest like a felled redwood. Next to them, less familiar but close, Season and Tag. She, loud and abrasive; he, quiet and thoughtful. Companions by need and default more than anything else. But that had been reason enough for most pioneers.

  And there was Tracy. Separated from the others by a few sandy feet of earth-and much more. A loneliness that didn't start with the earthquakes, that went back many years. Annie had hinted at childhood traumas, but had refused to break Tracy's confidences. Annie had been good for Tracy, teaching her self-confidence and maturity, which Annie defined as an ability to laugh at yourself. Together the two of them had often conspired to make Eric laugh more, surprising him with practical jokes, his shoes filled with soil and a plastic tulip they'd dug up somewhere.

  Annie had asked him once if he ever had sexual fantasies about Tracy, and when he'd truthfully responded no, she'd shaken her head sadly and said, "That proves you've been worrying too much. You're not normal."

  He smiled at that, picturing Annie's face wrinkled in mock concern. Tracy was nice, but no one was like Annie.

  A cool wind whipped some sand across Tracy's sleeping body and she frowned in her sleep, turning onto her side.

  Eric rubbed his hands together and, for the fourth time in an hour, counted the number of bolts in his quiver. There was no particular reason, but somehow he knew that tomorrow he'd need them.

  "No more meat."

  The men exchanged disappointed glances, but no one complained. They didn't dare.

  "And we're low on water."

  A couple frowns, nothing else.

  Fallows grinned at that, pleased at the success of his training methods. Most of them were young and raw, and he hadn't had much time with them. Two of the older ones had been with him in Nam, wandered aimlessly after getting back to the States. Part-time jobs, some trouble with the law. Lamar had beaten his girlfriend once too often, breaking her jaw and cracking a couple ribs. She pressed charges and he did a few months on a county farm in New Mexico. Kraus had been driving a taxi in New York City, taking his first drink before work, and making short stops at bars all day. After his fifth accident, they fired him. Rather than go home and tell his pregnant wife, he took off for California to look up his old commander he'd just heard through the veteran's grapevine was getting released.

  Some of the rest were also vets of Nam, though they weren't Night Shift. Others were friends or relatives of men who'd served under Fallows, twitchy kids anxious for power and action. A few he'd picked up since the earthquakes, loners used to following orders. An ex-fireman, the former chief of police of a small town that had been totally leveled. With Cruz's help, Fallows had bullied them into submission, trained them to do whatever he said. To fear him more than any enemy. They'd lost a couple men due to the rigors of training, but it had had the desired effect. Fear and obedience.

  "The situation is simple," Fallows continued, tapping his bayonet against his thigh as he spoke. This action seemed to mesmerize his troops as they listened to his words and watched the blade flashing orange with each tap. "We're low on water, so I sent Cruz out to scout for more." He gestured with his bayonet at Cruz, who leaned against a nearby boulder. Cruz nodded slightly. "He was unable to find suitable drinking water. Even unsuitable water. That puts a serious strain on our water supply. You know the laws of survival as well as I do: If you have all the water you need, you can eat whatever you want; if you have two to seven pints a day, avoid meat, cheese, and beans which contain proteins. Proteins require water for digestion which, if you don't provide, is drawn from body tissues. And that leads to dehydration. If we only had one pint, well, there'd be no eating at all. So I guess we're lucky, we're in the middle range. That means we can eat food with carbohydrates and fats. Fruits, sweets, biscuits. Got it?"

  There was muttered acknowledgment, nodding heads. Fallows eyed them all carefully. He didn't like sharing information, even such basic information as this. He considered every man a potential enemy, a possible assassin, and his edge over others was his knowledge and training. Every time he taught a soldier how to shoot better, hide more effectively, kill more efficiently, he had the uneasy feeling he was giving away precious information that might be used against him, dulling his own edge. Still, they had to know enough to be useful to him, and that was the balance he tried to achieve. Teach them e
nough to be useful, but not enough to be threatening.

  "Which brings me to my current decision. We've been traveling south for the past few days, on our way to do a little trading at Savvytown."

  This time the men gave off a series of jubilant whistles and lecherous cheers.

  Fallows fixed his sharp face with an understanding smile. "I appreciate your enthusiasm. It's been six weeks since we were there. And this time we've got something worth trading." He pointed his bayonet across camp at the prisoners sitting with legs and hands bound. Annie still wore Timmy's shirt, but the rest of her was naked except for shoes, which they'd permitted her for the walk. She'd had to endure the crude shouts of the men as they'd marched, the pinches, squeezes, rough hands and clumsy fingers. But nothing more had happened yet.

  Next to her huddled Cynthia Roth and her twin daughters, Cheryl and Sarah. Cynthia's right eye was half-closed, the skin around it an ugly shade of purple. Her upper lip was swollen and split, a black scab crusted over it. Yesterday she'd kicked a soldier who'd stuck his hand down Sarah's pants, and he'd punched her. She didn't even know why she'd done it, she and her daughters had already been raped by almost every one of them. By now the soldiers seemed almost bored with them. The actual rape itself seemed minor compared with the embarrassment of having her daughters watch, followed by the horror of being forced to watch them. By kicking that animal, she'd attempted to restore some sense of dignity in her own eyes and in her daughters'. She smiled weakly now through her swollen lip. It had been worth it.

  Jimmy was kept separate from the women, his hands bound, but otherwise treated like one of the men. He ate with them, full helpings, not the half-rations the women received. Fallows knew this would make him feel wrenching guilt, and that the only way to rid himself of it would be to reject his mother, the source of that guilt. Standard intelligence brainwashing. The Gestapo used it, the KGB, the CIA. Once you destroy the emotional tie to the parents, the child will need to replace it with something else: a uniform, a flag, a country. Or Dirk Fallows.

  "But because of our shortages, I've decided to switch course and head us all up north, toward Santa Barbara. Or whatever's there now. More food and water opportunities up there. We might even establish a home base there."

  The initial disappointment he saw on their faces was mixed with the excitement of building a base camp of their own. Fallows permitted some excited mumbling among the men. Then he held up his hands, bestowing his huge smile on them. "Now all I need is two volunteers for a decoy mission." His eyes raked the crowd, paused for only a fraction of a second on Foxworth, then on Toomey. For some reason neither understood, both raised their hands to volunteer. "Excellent. Meet me in my tent, men."

  He nodded at Cruz, who straightened up, marched to the front of the men, and bellowed, "Dismissed." The men scattered. Cruz escorted Foxworth and Toomey to the only tent in camp, Fallows'.

  They stood at parade rest in front of him, a little nervous at being in confined quarters with their commander. There was something about his energy, his intensity. Something none of them discussed, even among themselves, but all of them felt. It's what made them want to run, made them stay.

  "You're going to like this mission, men," Fallows grinned.

  "Yes, sir," Foxworth replied, a little too loudly. He avoided Fallows' eyes because they were so pale he sometimes thought he could see clear through them right into the brain itself. The idea made his skin clammy.

  "Here it is then. I want you both to stay behind, set up an ambush for Ravensmith, and kill him. Any questions?"

  They both looked stunned.

  "Uh," Toomey started, thinking he should have a question, but not being able to complete one.

  "Yes, Toomey?"

  "Nothing, sir. Mission understood."

  "Excellent. When you've successfully completed your assignment, we'll meet you north, in the Santa Barbara area. Whatever part of it isn't under water."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Weapons, sir?" Foxworth asked, getting excited now that he thought about it. Ambushing. Killing. Neat!

  "Take a couple of the crossbows. That should give you the accuracy and the stealth."

  Foxworth hesitated. "No guns, sir?"

  "Against one man? What for? Of course, if you want to back out, Foxworth."

  "No, sir!" He snapped to attention.

  "Fine. Check out your weapons and start backtracking to set up your ambush. We'll meet you up north in a few days. Dismissed."

  "Yes, sir," they both said, pivoted, and marched out.

  Cruz sauntered over to Fallows' cot and sat down, something he'd never dared do before. "What was that all about?"

  "Diversion," Fallows said, not seeming to notice Cruz's liberty. "We give them a couple hours to backtrack, then we head over to the water you found, fill the canteens, and shoot toward Savvytown as planned. South."

  Cruz nodded his huge head with appreciation. "You're one smart son of a bitch, Fallows."

  Fallows smiled, tapped his bayonet against his thigh.

  23.

  "I can't remember all that."

  "You'd better try. If you want to eat."

  "Okay, okay, I'll take a stab at it." Season sighed, I looked up into the sky in concentration, began reciting like a bored schoolchild. "First, dig for the roots of trees and shrubs. Peel off the root bark for soft, edible inner tissue. How's that?"

  "Fine," Rydell said. "Molly?"

  "Next, try aboveground parts, such as the flowers or shoots. Young tender leaves are better than old ones. The thicker and fleshier the better. And no obscene comments, thank you very much."

  Rydell laughed. They were sitting around waiting for Eric to return from scouting. Since they only had another day's food left from what they'd brought from University Camp, they'd soon have to start eating whatever they could find. Eric didn't know how good the hunting would be, and didn't want to spend too much time finding out, so he'd spent the whole night lecturing them while they hiked on what to look for in local plants.

  Now, following Eric's instructions before he'd left, Rydell was quizzing them on what they'd learned.

  "You know," Tag said, "each time he goes out scouting, I realize just how vulnerable we are without him. He knows so damn much about this survival stuff."

  No one replied, but their looks showed strong agreement.

  Tag continued. "I used to see him around the library, history books tucked under his arm, students always tugging on his sleeve. He looked like such a typical professor, the elbow patches on the tweed jacket." He shook his head with admiration. "But until the Fallows trial a few months back, I had no idea of all he'd been through before. When I read the papers I was shocked."

  "Yeah," Season nodded. "I didn't know him at school, history and I never got along. But I remember reading some of the stuff about that Vietnam massacre. I can still remember some of the nasty things my friends and I said about him, sitting around sipping beers and making fun of the dumb grunt. We were so goddamned, you know, smug."

  "And now you thank God he's here, right?" Tracy said.

  "Well, I'm not much on God, but I've got a lot of faith in Eric."

  "C'mon," Rydell said, "let's finish up the drill before he gets back."

  "Teacher's pet," Molly grinned.

  Rydell tossed a pebble at her, which she easily ducked. "Okay, Tracy, how do you test plants to see if they're edible?"

  "Well, first, make sure it doesn't have milky juice, or-"

  A rustle of brush and Eric was standing in front of them. "Lesson is over. Let's move out."

  Obediently, everyone jumped to their feet and swung their packs onto their backs

  "What'd you find?" Tracy asked.

  "I followed their tracks a mile or so. They've got some horses with them, three I'd say by the different imprints. But even without them, they're moving at a pretty brisk pace. Those men are in damn good shape. They can probably run all day and night. We're going to have to pick it up a bit just to keep up."
>
  "Why do I suddenly feel guilty because I'm not a horse?" Molly said.

  ''This way," Eric waved.

  "That's not the way the tracks lead," Rydell said.

  "No, this is the way to something we haven't seen in a while."

  "What?" Tracy asked.

  "People."

  "I hate to ask the obvious," Molly said, "but as Rocky the flying squirrel always asked Bullwinkle, 'Are they friendly spirits?' "

  Eric shrugged. "Let's hope so. I saw them taking water from a well, and that could save us a lot of time and trouble."

  "What if they don't want to give us water?" Rydell asked.

  Eric turned and started walking. "Let's go."

  "All right. Who's got something white."

  Everyone thought a moment.

  "I do," Molly said, remembering. She rooted through her backpack, pulled out a rolled-up T-shirt, When she tossed it to Eric, it unfurled, revealing a drawing of a very young Ricky Nelson with the logo "The Irrepressible Ricky" printed under it. Molly smiled. "I was wearing it the day of the quake. Until then it had been my good luck shirt."

  Eric handed it to Rydell, "They're right through there, beyond the mesquite trees. You can't miss them, half a dozen handmade cabins. Chickens running around."

  "Chickens?" Season said, licking her lips.

  "A wash line hanging out. They've got two guards that I could see, one of them with a double-barreled shotgun, the other with a homemade bow. That's all."

  'That's enough," Rydell said.

  "Now, you're going to walk right up to them, waving this white T-shirt. Keep your bow slung over your shoulder. No matter what, don't reach for it."

  "Why send me first? Why don't we all go in at once?"

  "Because if they kill you, we'll know it's not safe for the rest of us."

  "You're serious, aren't you?" Tracy asked.

  "Yes."

  "Isn't that a little like asking him to walk across a mine field to see where the mines are hidden?"

  "Good analogy."

  She shook her head with shock. "What if they kill him?"

  "Then we'll kill them. But one way or the other, we're going to get some of their water."