by Ryder Stacy
The moaning and tattered crowd of America survivors grew to nearly 80 men, surrounded by dozens of the Slavers who took chains out of a beat-up old Red Army supply truck and attached them to the prisoners’ feet and hands. Several resisted—but they were slammed to the ground with rifle butts and locked up along with the rest. Rockson himself felt the deep urge to fight back—but it was suicide to try anything. He felt as if he were in the middle of a nightmare where nothing is known, and death is everywhere.
Who am I? Who the fuck am I? But his probing thoughts met only a wall as hard as granite beyond which was only swirling blackness. He was without a single recollection of his past life.
At last the Slavers had gathered all that was worth taking from the death fields and herded the prisoners out, heading down an ancient dirt road toward the north. The captured Americans walked in single file, chained to the man in front of them. Many of the more seriously wounded were barely able to walk—the clanking chains around their ankles only adding to the weight they must drag. But they all knew that to fall meant death—instantaneously. The Slavers screamed out curses at them to move faster, to stay in line, frequently slashing out with long leather whips at any recalcitrant prisoners. They headed off down the winding dusty dirt road, created nearly two hundred years before by cows and horse drawn wagons. A time when America had belonged to Americans. Their eyes rested heavily on the ground, their heads unable to rise, to look at the mountains that lay ahead, to look toward a destiny that none of them wished to contemplate.
Two
Hours before Rockson was kicked into consciousness and imprisoned, Rona had waked from her blast-induced sleep and staggered to her feet. Her combat outfit was ripped and shredded by the tank shell. It had been light—now the moon was low in the sky. She had been out for hours, many hours. Her body felt like death warmed over, as every muscle protested any motion in throbbing stabs of pain. Rock? She suddenly remembered—he had been there with her.
She turned around with such force that her skull and neck lit up with a literally blinding pain, almost knocking her out. But she didn’t care about pain—just Rockson. She lowered herself to one knee and looked at the badly wounded man who lay there bathed in the cold rays of the moon, still and ghostly looking. She lowered her head to his chest and listened—the heartbeat felt strong. She knew his strength, his deep physical resources—either something would have to kill him outright or he would live through it. But he was obviously hurt, breathing slowly and deeply, mouth open in complete unconscious relaxation. She tried to reach out with her mind, as he had taught her to do. Again, the screaming pain went through her head, but she continued. To no avail. Either she wasn’t sending properly or he just couldn’t receive. She had to get help and fast. She would never let him die.
Rona rose to her feet, again almost losing her balance as every movement seemed to go right through her central nervous system. All around her was the devastation of the Battle of Forrester Valley—big holes gouged out of the living soil, bodies and parts of bodies strewn wildly around, trees leveled into mounds of toothpicks. She walked over to the edge of the plateau from which the Freefighters had been firing on the Nazi forces and looked down. The moon’s vibrant blue rays illuminated the vast carnage below—burning tanks and half-tracks, craters a 10-ton truck could drive through, and bodies, endless piles of corpses. It was hard to believe that so many people existed, let alone that so many had died.
Suddenly she saw a flash of light, then several, glinting along far below through the graveyard. It could be Freefighters, Rona thought, straining to see—or it could be Reds. She glanced over at Rockson, just yards away, who lay as still and calm as a statue, bathed in the faint light of the moon. She’d have to take a chance. She scoured around and found a coil of rope in a dead Nazi’s backpack, and headed over the edge down the steep mountain slope. The valley floor was nearly 1,000 feet down through loose gravel and treacherous footholds, but by using the rope as a guide Rona moved like a mountain goat, having trained in rapelling and other rope climbing techniques.
She had barely reached the death-strewn valley floor and started toward the moving figures some half mile off when she heard a familiar thudding sound—a Red chopper—and it was heading right toward her, its huge searchlight mounted underneath scanning the ground searching for something. And from the other flank, coughing vehicles suddenly lumbered forth—five flatbed trucks with a hodgepodge of different-sized tires beneath them, and various rusting machine guns nailed down to their flat carriages. Riding in the cabs and on the back were fierce-looking men with bald heads, gold earrings, immense mustaches and beards, and long curved swords dangling from their sides. She knew what they were—Slavers—human slime who preyed on the wounded.
She looked around for a place to hide and dove into a .100mm mortar-created hole nearby. But voices instantly rang out over a loudspeaker from the helicopter which stopped and hovered above her, aiming the blinding light down.
“She’s there—right below us. A young one—looks like a mutant.” The chopper, which Rona could now see wasn’t a Red chopper but an old U.S. Army helio, outfitted with all kinds of half-falling off armaments, kept the tower of light on her while the scar-covered and tattooed Slavers jumped down from the trucks and surrounded her. Inside the 15-foot wide, six-foot high crater Rona grabbed a knife from the outstretched hand of a Nazi corpse and turned slowly around, ready for all comers.
“Careful,” a voice yelled out. “A goodlooking healthy mutant woman would be worth her weight in gold.”
“Yes, better if she has all her limbs,” another growling half-human voice screamed out. “Don’t rip her.” They came down the crater edge from all sides moving slowly, their hands outstretched to grab her. One of them, a big one, with practically no face at all, leaped at her—and got a 14" bayonet blade through his kidney, pancreas and various other organs. He tumbled to her feet as Rona whipped the blade out, wiped it twice on her already blood-soaked khaki trousers and held it up again, the moon bouncing slivers of crystal light off the razor-sharp knife.
“Next,” she said, motioning for them to come forward with her other hand. Four of them leaped at once, screaming and spitting to frighten her. She lashed out twice and the blade ripped two thick bellies. But something was hitting her from behind. Again—she fell back into the darkness from which she had only minutes before awakened.
Rona woke up staring up at the brilliant blue sky laced with spider webs of purple from the back of a speeding flatbed truck. She was tied hand and foot, tightly. And she was naked. Evidently they had carefully inspected the merchandise.
“Red hair good,” a voice suddenly snarled down as one of the Slavers came up behind her. “Here, water, water. Don’t dry up. You are beauty—yes? Too bad you so good—or I would have you. But you are worth much—very much. You have good teeth. Here, we rub cactus salve on your wounds.” He smiled a toothless grin and squeezed her bare left breast, then slopped a blue paste on her and began rubbing it over her chest, nearly salivating as he did so. She had the sudden urge to shout out, “No, no, my name is Rona Wallender, Freefighter,” but bit her lip. They didn’t know who she was. If they did, they would sell her to the Reds or the Nazis for sure. She’d be tortured, or worse. Used to lure Rockson and other Freefighters to her. She would say nothing. Just another slave. There would be no special interest in her beyond her beauty. She would be sold to some fat rich slug from whom it would be possible to escape.
“Where are we going,” she asked the slobbering ugly creature touching the whole front of her body now, his foul breath making her nauseous.
“We going to Goerringrad, new Nazi Fortress City near here. Got ’emselves a slave market there. Gonna fetch a pretty price for you. Red hair, nice long legs, pretty nose—glad your face no got cut. Too bad I poor man,” he smiled with all the toothless charm he could muster, “otherwise I buy you.”
Suddenly she felt woozy, her head spinning into that kaleidoscopic darkness that she
had seen so much of of late.
“Good, happy juice hit you now. Now you be friendly to men you meet—no more hellcat. You be easy, and smile. That be good for sale. When drug wear off—they realize you tiger.” He laughed out loud, this apparently being a quite humorous idea to a Slaver. “But too late—we got rubles! You go sleep now.” He patted her head, getting dirt on it. “Long trip. Want you to look pretty. When you wake we dress you in harem clothes—lots of silk, thin material, see-through, pretty. You be real nice for auction tomorrow.”
She tried to fight off the drug they had put in her water, but found everything revolving around her at a faster and faster speed. No, she didn’t want to go under again. It was frightening, horrible. She fought with all her strength, but to no avail. Her mind slowly but inevitably sank beneath the waves of perception and into a drugged dreamland.
Three
There have been many “Long Marches” in history—Mao’s march to Peking during the Communist takeover, the Japanese Death March for American prisoners on Bataan, the Cambodian march of all the inhabitants of the Asian nation’s cities, by the Khmer Rouge guerrillas, into the countryside to implement their “agrarian policies” in which nearly half the country’s six million people died. The annals of human cruelty are filled with marches of death in which the victor’s bullets don’t even have to be wasted on their prisoners. The captured soldiers or civilian populations kill themselves by the sheer effort of forcing their wounded and tired bodies to go on mile after torturous mile. For to stop is instant death—and any man would prefer the chances of survival, however slim, to the barrel of a gun pointing in his eyes and the shrill scream of the slug that will take his life.
The Slavers took Rockson and the 80 or so other men they had gathered, on their version of the Death March. The women and younger boys that their other unit had captured had already been taken to the slave market in Goerringrad where they would be sold to the highest bidder—men who would use them for their own “pleasures” until the young beauties were used up. Then they would be discarded like so much garbage—sold into whorehouses or into the backbreaking labor camps where life was measured in months rather than years.
The group of men which Rockson was in was already consigned to the S.S. of Goerringrad. The S.S. Col. Struhl, Quartermaster of the Fortress City, had told Yigmar, the leader of this particular band of Slavers, that they would pay cold cash—gold rubles—on delivery for able-bodied men who could be used to build roads, landing fields, housing. “But don’t bring us any garbage,” Struhl had warned him, “or you will take their place.” Thus Yigmar, riding in a rusting 40-year old Red Army jeep with a black flag of chains around a skull snapping in the wind on the front right bumper, had decided on the Death March as a way to weed out the undesirables. Those who made it were obviously strong enough to work for the Nazis, those that didn’t—well. The weaker died all the time, every second, everywhere on earth.
“Water, water,” an aging Freefighter walking along the dusty road a few feet away from Rockson cried out for the fifth time in the last minute. His lips were dry as sand, with a thick white foam surrounding his mouth. His eyes kept rolling up in his head as he stumbled along. Rock kept leaning over to lend a supporting hand but a guard would rush over and slam at his arm with the butt of his Kalashnikov, screaming, “No help. Must walk on own.” It was a game of ultimate stakes and every player was on his own.
Rockson was near the very back of the file of bedraggled, captured Americans. All of them were Freefighters from Century City and a few of the other nearby Freefighting cities who had lent support. All of them somehow left behind, unconscious, wounded, hidden beneath other bodies. They were brothers in war and wanted nothing more than to aid their weakening comrades faltering on the long march. For some men it is easier to die oneself than to see one’s friends, fellow warriors through countless battles, dying alongside, and be able to do nothing. Every hour or so one of the men, their wounds just too severe, would collapse, falling over on the dusty back road, like a tree whose roots have been cut. Even the slamming of the Slaver’s steel-tipped boots into their ribs wouldn’t make them move. So they were left, without water or shade, to die in the roasting sun, baked red and literally cooked to death before this day came to an end. Within 12 hours of the start of the Death March ten of the prisoners lay along the sides of the road, their lives slipping away like so much dust in the wind. And there was still nearly 50 miles to go before reaching Goerringrad.
Rockson was siekened by the sight of the wounded being left like worthless beasts. He felt a fury inside of him that threatened to explode out at any moment. He didn’t know who he was but he knew what he was—a fighter. His powerful arms, his heightened senses, the almost endless energy that his body seemed to possess, carrying him along the road with almost no effort. Even the lack of water didn’t bother him. Somehow, he was different from the rest. There were many things about him which seemed strange. He could almost hear—not the words—but somehow the thoughts of the men around him, the prisoners and the guards. It seemed to happen when he was looking at a tree or the sky for a second and forgot where he was. His body relaxed—then it would occur, the world would start broadcasting out its thoughts, emotions, from all around him. The energy felt like an attack to him and he would tense up in fighting readiness—instantly the signals would vanish. But it was strange. He knew that men did not possess telepathy—yet he did. But when he reached deeper inside for his identity it was like coming up against a brick wall, a steel wall, completely impenetrable.
The Slavers marched them until midnight and Yigmar pulled the convoy of human commerce over to the side of the road.
“We rest scum. Give them water—but no food,” he ordered his dozen or so heavily armed guards who surrounded them. He would cull out the weak, but it was madness to let them all die, they had to at least be given water. Tomorrow those who still lived when they reached Goerringrad would be given huge meals, fattened up, before presentation to the S.S. Quartermaster. And then Yigmar would get the gold. Ah, what a satchel of rubles this crew would bring in.
His guards went slowly down the rows of captured Freefighters doling out one cup of the precious fluid to each man. They drank it down in a second, many of them spilling half the contents in their mad desire for water, water to wet their parched throats. Then they fell into deep dark sleeps filled with nightmares.
Rockson watched it all with a bitter taste in his mouth. He leaned back against a tree, his eyes like twin radar domes absorbing everything in sight. The men around him were already asleep, breathing in harsh raspy tones. But Rockson couldn’t sleep. His mind was awash with thoughts, half perceived images. It was as if the other part of him—the part that had somehow been put into the deep freeze—was trying to make contact with him. It was like hearing voices calling out from the far side of the moon, indistinct, like leaves whispering in the wind. Somehow the combined energies of not knowing who the hell he was plus being a prisoner of these Slavers and seeing the men dying all around him—all pushed him to the point of what felt like madness. He wanted to explode, to grab one of the guards and destroy him with a smash to the throat. He knew how to kill, just the thought of attacking brought up myriad ways to disable, punches, kicks, throws, that he hadn’t even known he knew. But then what? He would get one, two, three . . . and then they would start firing blindly and all these men around him would be dead. He would have to wait, bide his time. And somehow he would have to find out who he was before he exploded in a rage of volcanic fury.
The next morning the slaves were awakened early just as the pale sun hobbled limply into the bruised purple sky, as if it had been fighting its own battles during the night. The Slavers rushed around the sleeping prisoners and kicked and cracked them with gunbutts and boots forcing them to rise to a standing position. Yigmar’s tent was being stowed in the second jeep. When he was ready the Death march started again. And this time the prisoners felt even more agony than yesterday. Their muscl
es were tight as steel cords from the endless walking. Their chests and necks felt as if they were filled with burning needles.
But they knew that they would live or die by what happened today. And every man reached down into the center of his soul for the strength to get through it. They started along the dirt, single-lane road, heading north. Around them the terrain seemed to be getting richer, more bushes, thick green-leafed trees, lending from time to time their precious shade from the blistering sun. Occasionally a rabbit or absurdly groping groundhog would rush away from the road and into the surrounding dense vegetation as the prisoners came marching up. The men looked at the vanishing meat with wide eyes for not one of them had eaten now for nearly three days. They would have devoured the small mammals raw at that moment, ripping them apart, splattering their faces with hot blood. Their stomachs felt hollow as balloons while the acids of their own digestive systems were eating away at the lining, sending ripples of sharp pain through their guts.
Suddenly it was all too much for one man. He rushed toward a disappearing cottontail, his hands outstretched in mindless hunger, his brain forgetting where he was. Six rifles barked out and six burning slugs ripped into his back, sending him flying forward, his dead face smashing into a rock sending his teeth flying out in a spray of white pebbles.
The other Freefighters and Rockson, surged forward, but the rifles barked out again and two more Americans fell down in the dirt.