“Guess nines will have to do,” she mumbled, stripping the dead airman of his boots, then his gloves, armor, combat harness, and weaponry. When she was set, she pulled on the helmet and ran to the back of the shop where Marty was still having trouble shaking the dead soldier out of his harness.
“You look like a monkey fucking a football,” she said, shoving him aside.
“How do you people wear all that shit?” he asked. “I’ve never seen so many buckles and zippers on one human being.”
“Shut up. It’s not that many. Go strip that other dude’s ACU. This guy’s a lot bigger than you.”
“What’s an ACU?”
“Army combat uniform. Come on, Marty, we don’t have all fucking day here!”
She had him suited up and looking like a proper soldier five minutes later, with the exception of his sneakers and the bloody mandarin collar. They slipped out the back of the coffee shop, leaving all the other weapons behind save for Joe’s Springfield Armory .45.
“Goddamn, it feels good to be back in harness!” she said, punching him in the shoulder. “Full battle rattle! Hooah, Marty?”
“Who what?”
She laughed and grabbed him around the neck with her arm as they walked north up the alley. “Thanks for saving my ass back there,” she said, kissing him on the cheek. “You’re my fucking hero.”
“I’m tired of being a hero,” he said wearily.
“Here, hold on a second. I’d better make sure you know how to operate your weapon system before we hit the street again . . . this is an M-4 carbine. It shoots as smooth as that other gun you had, but it’s got better range and better penetration. Just look through the scope and put that red dot on whatever you want to hit. Got it?”
“Got it.”
She made sure he knew how to load the weapon and they started off again.
“Let’s make a pact,” she added. “Neither lets the other be taken alive. Hooah?”
“Who what? What is that?”
“It’s the Army battle cry. I say, ‘Hooah’? You say, ‘Hooah’! Got it?”
“Got it, yeah.”
“You’re a grunt now,” she said. “So let’s hear it.”
“Hooah!”
“Good. So we got a deal?”
“Hooah!” he said again.
“Fuckin’ A,” she said, slapping him on the back. “We’ll probably both be dead by dark, but what the fuck!”
They got to the end of the alley and Emory checked west then east, seeing troops crossing southward two blocks up.
She ducked back. “Okay, listen. Whenever we’re moving, it’s your job to cover our ass. And whenever we cross a street, we do it one at a time. First I cover you, then you cover me. Got it?”
“Hooah!”
“Don’t overdo it,” she said. “Now, get across the street and take cover at the corner, then cover me as I come across.”
Marty ran across the street and tripped over the curb, falling on the sidewalk. His weapon went off and shot a hole in a shop window on the opposite corner. He got up and ducked around the corner of the building, self-consciously watching up and down the street as Emory came across.
“Nice job, dumbass!” she said, belting him on the helmet. “Keep your finger off the goddamn trigger unless you’re gonna shoot!”
When they got to the next corner, they spotted a soldier in the second-story window of an apartment building waving them down.
Emory pushed back against Marty and pulled him down into a crouch.
“What’s he want?”
“He’s warning us to stay put,” she said. “He’s Army, but be ready to blow his ass outta that window.”
“How do you know he’s not Air Force?”
“Because his camo doesn’t match yours . . . it matches mine.” She double-checked to make sure the M-203 40mm grenade launcher on her carbine was ready to fire.
“Why don’t I get the one with the grenade launcher?”
“ ’Cuz you can’t even walk and chew gum at the same time.”
The soldier continued to signal for them to hold their position as he watched eastward down the street. A minute later he signaled for them to cross as a pair, and Emory dragged Marty across and into the lobby of the apartment building. They went up the stairs to the second floor, where the soldier met them in the hall.
“In here,” he said. “There’s bad joo-joo up the street.”
Emory saw the blue arrowhead of the Thirty-sixth Infantry Division on his shoulder. On her own shoulder she wore the red and yellow patch of the Arizona National Guard with two arrows crossed over a bayonet. He was a broad-shouldered man with handsome dark eyes, and his name tag identified him as Sullivan.
“You’re a long way from home, Sullivan.”
“Tell me about it,” the trooper said. “But Texas ain’t where you wanna be.”
“Did you desert or get run off?”
“Depends how you look at it. I wasn’t exactly down with the shit they were doin’.” He took a second to check out the window. There was a lot of gunfire coming from the direction of the motel now, building to a crescendo.
“So did Mexico attack us or the other way around?” she asked.
“It all went to shit too fast,” Sullivan said, turning back to them. “We’d just gotten into Nogales. We were trying to restore order there when somebody said the Mexicans were firing on us across the Rio Grande, but who the fuck knows? They didn’t have any tanks, so it was a pretty lopsided battle. Personally, I think we picked the fight.”
Sullivan recognized the camouflaged pattern of Marty’s uniform but didn’t recognize the unit. “How about you, Miller? The Air Force doesn’t issue boots anymore or what?”
Marty looked down at his sneakers. “Me?”
“No, the other Miller standing over there.”
Emory chuckled. “That’s Marty. He’s only just enlisted, actually. The real Miller was dishonorably discharged.”
“Explains the blood,” Sullivan said, checking briefly out the window again. “Closest most of those Air Force jerks down there ever got to combat before this was dragging a can of gasoline over to an airplane.”
“They’re all Air Force?”
“Yeah,” Sullivan said. “From Tinker AFB. They’ve been probing Mesa all week. Now they’re finally attacking some biker gang a few blocks over in that motel.”
“We just came from there,” Emory said. “You got any food to spare?”
“Got a case of MREs in the closet. I swiped it from the Air Force last night.”
Emory showed Marty how to use the chemical heater contained in the MRE pack to warm his food, using a little bit of water from the back of the commode. The heater was a plastic bag containing a simple combination of powdered, food-grade iron, magnesium, and salt. The added water started a chemical reaction that gave off enough heat to warm the ration to more than a hundred degrees.
“This doesn’t taste too bad,” Marty said.
“I don’t know what you’ve been eating these past few months,” she said, “but this shit’s fucking fantastic. That bastard made me eat a can of Alpo last night.”
“What bastard?” Sullivan asked.
“The Mongols had her,” Marty said.
“Who the fuck are they?”
“Those bikers you were talking about.”
“You were with those animals? They’ve been kidnapping people all over town. They’re eating them!”
“That’s a fact,” Emory said. “So what’s your plan?”
Sullivan shrugged. “Keep stealing from the Air Force as long as I can. It’s all about the food now.”
Emory looked at Marty. “What do you want to do?”
He shrugged dolefully. “I hadn’t really thought past getting you to safety.”
“Well, I’
m safe now,” she said with a grin. “So what’s Marty want for himself?”
“Nothing. I’ll help you two steal from the Air Force. If anything ever happens, I can stay behind and cover your retreat.”
“No, Marty. You’re not a sacrificial lamb. You’re an intelligent guy. You have to have an idea or two rolling around in your head.”
“Well, I would like to see the impact crater before I die.”
“See what?” Sullivan blurted. “Are you nuts?”
“He’s an astronomer,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“See the fucking impact crater,” Sullivan said. “That’s the craziest thing I’ve heard yet.”
“It’s a hell of a lot less crazy than people eating people,” Marty said. “Which is all that you’ve got to look forward to—whether it’s eating or being eaten. And that crater’s going to make the Grand Canyon look like a crack in the sidewalk.”
Sullivan looked at Emory. “Where did you find this dude?”
“Look, I’m just talking here,” Marty went on. “But there isn’t too much of a future in stealing from the Air Force. Why not see the greatest sight of all time?”
“All right, suppose we find a truck,” Sullivan said. “Something that can handle rough terrain. And suppose we swipe enough food from the Air Force to get us there. What are we gonna do after that? Sit down and starve?”
Marty shook his head, saying, “Everybody left alive is headed south. They think it’s going to be warmer down there, but it won’t be enough to make a difference. You were exactly right. It’s all about the food now . . . and the food is north.”
“You’re crazy.”
“No, I’m not,” Marty insisted. “Everyone’s dead up there. Killed by the blast wave or burned alive. But the canned food—at least a percentage of it—is still edible. Scorched and without labels, but edible, buried in the rubble, hidden in basements. You want food? Head north.”
“Bullshit,” Sullivan said. “You just want to see the crater.”
“No,” Emory said, “he’s serious.”
“And I’ve already got our transportation problem solved,” Marty added. “It’s even on the way.”
Thirty-Three
Early the next morning, Vasquez glanced up from his book, movement on one of the monitors having caught his eye. “Puta madre! Where did that ugly bastard come from?”
Danzig looked up from his Game and Wildlife magazine to see a burly looking man with a thick black beard and grubby parka wandering around in the kitchen above. He had a shotgun slung over his shoulder and he was rifling through the cupboards, tossing things about. This was the first sign of life they had seen aboveground since the impact three months earlier. “Better get Jack in here.”
Vasquez pressed the button for the P.A.: “Forrest to Launch Control. Forrest to the L.C.”
Danzig was busy checking the different camera feeds around the upper compound to see if there was anyone else wandering around up there. “Look at this shit.”
A different man in a camouflaged coat stood on the porch, holding a shotgun on two women and a third man. All three of the captives were equally disheveled and filthy, their hands tied behind their backs.
Forrest entered Launch Control tailed by Ulrich and Kane. Many of the others, Veronica and Michael among them, gathered outside the door waiting to learn what had put the urgency into Oscar Vasquez’s voice. In addition to being the first sign of life from above, it was also the first excitement there had been since the impact.
Forrest watched the burly man kicking around the kitchen without comment, waiting to see what was going to happen with the prisoners on the porch. The man in the kitchen checked the stove to find that the gas burners still worked and moved quickly out of the room.
Ulrich glanced at Forrest. “That was an oversight. I’ll go and remedy that right now.” He slipped out the opposite door and went to shut off the gas supply to the house.
“Stay with Black Beard,” Forrest said to Vasquez.
Vasquez changed feeds to show that Black Beard was now standing on the porch talking to the man in camouflage. The man in camouflage beckoned to their male captive, apparently ordering him into the house. The captive stepped back, shaking his head, and Black Beard stepped after him. The captive then dove over the porch railing and landed on his back, rolling to his feet as Black Beard ran down the stairs into the yard and tackled him, taking some sort of truncheon from beneath his parka and beating him with it until he stopped fighting. Then he hauled him to his feet by the hair, kicking him in the butt to get him moving toward the stairs.
Forrest noticed the man on the porch covertly snatching the pack of cigarettes he’d forgotten on the windowsill months earlier, jamming them into his pocket before Black Beard came back up the stairs. “Sumbitch took my smokes,” he muttered, stepping into the hall to brief the others on what was happening. “Okay, ladies, we’ve got a couple of scavengers upstairs, but they’re no threat to this installation. They haven’t found the blast door, and even if they do, there’s no possible way for them to open it.”
“What are they doing?” Veronica asked.
“Searching the house for food.”
“Can we see?”
Forrest looked at her, wishing she wouldn’t put him on the spot. “They’re pretty ragged and they’ve got a few prisoners. It might be a little disturbing. We’re taping everything and everybody will be able to view it later if they want to.”
He was fine about letting Veronica in to watch, but if he showed her any favoritism, it might cause hard feelings within the group and he didn’t need that. Things were going too well . . . or at least, as far as he knew.
“Why don’t you let Ronny in to act as our representative?” suggested Joann, the tall black woman. She had a strong personality and she knew the other women would probably not object to her suggestion. Besides, Veronica’s relationship with Forrest was easily now the worst kept secret in the silo.
Forrest agreed. “Mike, it may not be a bad idea for you to watch too.”
They went inside, and the first thing Veronica saw on the monitor was Black Beard using a steel baton to bash in the skull of his captive, who was now sprawled facedown on the kitchen floor with his hands still tied behind his back.
“Oh, my God!” she said, turning away.
Black Beard then picked the dead man up and laid him across the kitchen table on his belly, cutting his hands free and slitting his coat up the back with a large Bowie knife. He wasted no time slicing into the man’s lower back.
“Excuse me,” Veronica said, pulling open the door and leaving the room. The moment she came out, the other women could see that she had just witnessed something ghastly.
“What did you see?” Tonya wanted to know.
Veronica looked at the children now gathered about, leaning to whisper into Erin’s ear: “Cannibals.”
“Oh, Jesus,” Erin muttered. “Okay, kids, come on. Let’s get back to school before Andie comes looking for us.”
She took the kids back to class, and Veronica went on to tell the rest of the women in the hall what she had seen. Back in Launch Control the men were still watching as Black Beard stood carving out the dead man’s liver, dropping it black and greasy-looking onto the countertop, where he cut it into portions and set them aside. When he was finished, he retrieved the frying pan from the floor and put it on the stove, laying parts of the liver into it and turning on the gas.
“He’s about to get pissed,” Ulrich said.
The flame burned for almost a full minute before going out. Then Black Beard fiddled with the knobs, realizing there was no more gas in the line. He smashed the chairs into pieces and left the kitchen.
Kane looked across at Forrest. “Captain, I request permission to go up there and blow this asshole’s brains out.”
“I wish we could,” Forrest said,
leaving it at that.
By now the man wearing the camouflage jacket had moved the women into the living room and made them sit on the couch, where they huddled together for warmth. They looked alike, sisters perhaps, appearing to be in their early thirties, but with the grime on their faces, it was hard to tell. Black Beard spoke with his comrade, then went back into the kitchen, where he began building a fire in the sink with wood from the broken chairs.
“Those two women aren’t for food, you know. What are we going to do if these assholes rape them on camera?”
“Feel bad for them,” Forrest said. “If we go up and kill those two assholes, we may as well kill the women too. We sure as hell can’t bring them down here. God knows how sick they might be.”
Black Beard got a fire going and stood holding the frying pan over the flames.
“That’s gotta smell like holy hell,” Danzig said, seeing the smoke rising up from the pan.
They all watched as Black Beard stood cooking up the liver, taking a piece for himself. When he was finished, he piled the pieces onto a plate and carried it into the living room, where he sat down on the couch beside the women. His comrade grabbed a handful of the meat and stood eating ravenously. Black Beard then offered a piece to one of the women and she took a bite.
“Oh, Christ, she’s eating it!”
“What do you expect her to do? If she doesn’t, that bastard will torture her. They want those women alive, dude.”
“Let’s go up there and waste these dudes, man!”
“Look, we all knew this kind of thing was going to happen,” Forrest said peremptorily. “So soldier up!”
“What do you think about this shit, Doc?”
“I don’t know,” Michael said in amazement. “Though I guess it is fascinating in a horrifying kind of way.”
“I wonder how long before those women end up as food.”
“Well, I can tell you this much,” Michael said. “One of those two men is likely to end up as food before either of the women.”
They watched as the meal was ghoulishly devoured.
Black Beard left the room and dragged the dead man out into the backyard, butchering him much the way one would butcher a game animal, dumping the intestines and other organs in a pile. He then spent the next couple of hours cooking up the rest of the dead man’s flesh on the grill, using the bag of charcoal from the back porch. As he cooked the meat, he dropped it into a black trash bag he had taken from beneath the sink. When he was finished he came back into the house and took a container of salt from the bottom cupboard and poured all of it into the meat bag, shaking it around.
Cannibal Reign Page 20