Avalon: Beyond the Retreat (The Avalon Series Book 2)

by L. Michael Rusin

  “Continue to watch them Corporal. I can see you with my binoculars. We’re probably no more than 15 mikes away… out.”

  Eric and his men walked up the steep hill toward his scouting point men. It was a steep climb, and all the equipment they were packing left them all breathing a bit heavy, despite their physical fitness.

  Eric surveyed the slavers and the hostages down below them. They were spread out under a grove of trees.

  The Corporal was right. They were resting in the shade and completely unaware of the approaching Soldiers. Eric changed channels on the radio and spoke into the microphone. “This is Highway to Leader, how do you read?”

  The radio crackled with static. “Loud and clear.

  What’s up?”

  “We’ve got a group of slavers directly ahead of us at about 500 yards. They appear to be taking a break. I count ten slavers and ten hostages. They’re all on foot and we’re going to attack in about 20 minutes.”

  “What’s the condition of the hostages?”

  “From what I can see from here, everyone seems to be okay. They’re all women. Looks like they’ve had quite a walk, though.”

  “Okay, Eric. But be careful. Report back as soon as you’re done.”

  “Will do. Over and out.”

  Eric stood up and motioned for his troops to gather around him.

  “Okay, here’s the plan. Corporal, take some men and travel off to the left. Make your way to those large boulders down there.” He pointed at the huge rocks strewn near a dried up riverbed. Other than the boulders, there wasn’t much cover.

  “If you travel off to the left side of the field of boulders, you should be able to get there without being seen. Stay there in case any of them come your way. We don’t want to kill all of them, we need a few for more questioning. That said, our main concern is to rescue the women. Does everybody understand?”

  He turned to another group of Soldiers, and Sergeant Rose in particular. “I want you to take two men with you and head right down there.” He pointed to an area where he wanted the Sergeant to go.

  “Walk in that direction, toward those trees and swing left. Come up behind the hostages. Group three will come straight down the middle with two of us providing cover fire. No one fires until my first shot. We need enough time to get sighted in on the targets. We should be able to take out at least three or four of them before they run or hunker down for a fight.”

  All of the Soldiers quietly acknowledged that they understood. “Okay, Corporal… get moving. You too, Sergeant. We’ll begin the move as soon as both of you are in position. Don’t fire at the slavers until they come toward you. We don’t want to take the chance of hitting the hostages. We will do most of the shooting. Your job is to make sure none of the slavers get away.”

  He made eye contact with each of them one last time, “Okay, move.”

  The two groups moved out as ordered and made their way to their assigned positions. Once Eric saw they were ready, he motioned for his troops to advance. After about a third of the way down, Tim set up in position to take care of business by directing Eric’s fire.

  One slaver was propped up supporting his head with his hand, his elbow down in the yellow grass. He was laughing about something when Eric turned his lights out with a shot to the chest. He moved right and fired. Another slaver down. They never even heard the shot. They just fell over dead.

  The other eight slavers looked bewildered, unable to immediately grasp what was happening. One jumped up and was thrown backward when one of the big .50 caliber bullets entered his esophagus. The others jumped up and headed toward a stand of trees. Sergeant Rose and his men trained their rifles on the approaching slavers and yelled something that Eric couldn’t make out. But he knew they were being ordered to drop their weapons and keep their hands in the air. Three of Sergeant Rose’s Soldiers covered the slavers with their rifles and the others searched the slavers from head to toe for weapons.

  When they were done, they ordered all of the slavers face down on the ground, with their hands behind their necks and their fingers locked together. They were told if they did anything that looked even slightly suspicious, they would be shot. Two other Soldiers released the hostages. Sergeant Rose signaled with his hands over his head toward Eric.

  Eric turned on the radio. “Lieutenant, the situation is resolved and we suffered no casualties. All the hostages are safe. Will report further in a few mikes… out.”

  The contingent walked down to the slavers and hostages. None of the slavers were more than 35 years old. Each was tied to the base of a tree using a system called Gurkha Scissor. It’s a foolproof method that the slavers could not escape from. Their forearms were together behind their backs with their wrists and elbows bound together.

  The Soldiers carried the prisoners to a small tree where two men lifted each captive by the arms and crossed his legs with the tree in the center of the two legs at the crotch area. One foot was placed in the crook behind the opposite knee. The other leg and foot was brought back around the tree and above the other prisoner’s leg and foot, with the front portion of the foot pushed against the tree.

  They then pushed each prisoner down from the shoulders until they were seated on their buttocks. This awkward and inescapable position would cause extreme pain in the knee and pelvis joints if they tried to escape.

  Once the prisoners were secured, the women were moved out of earshot of their previous captors and questioned. The women were not related and none were from San Francisco. Most were from the outlying valley and small towns north of San Francisco. Most were captured by the slavers while they were out in search of food. One had been searching for firewood when she was taken.

  Two of the women had been raped. The rest were bound and told they would be slaves for someone called Bone Breaker. Of course they didn’t know exactly what that meant, but they knew it wasn’t good. They were being taken north to the location they believed to be the main camp of Bone Breaker and the rest of his outlaws.

  They had heard the slavers were capturing, killing and eating children… young children in particular. Most of the women thought it was simply a tactic used by the slavers to scare them. None believed it could possibly be true. One of the women said she heard a couple of the slavers saying it would be two or three more days before they got to the main camp.

  All the slavers whined about how they were in pain with their legs wrapped around these skinny trees. Eric began his interrogation of the two that said they were in charge of this group. “How far is the main camp from here?”

  Nobody answered, so Tim walked over and pushed down on one of the slaver’s shoulders He cried out as the pain shot through his joints. “This is just the beginning! I’ve got more tricks to show you. If you don’t tell me what I want to know, I’m going to make all of you regret your sorry asses were ever born. This is no time for games. I could care less if any of you live or die right now. Is there anyone who doubts that?”

  He stared at them with the meanest look he imagined he could level on these dirt bags and didn’t say another word for a couple of long, drawn-out minutes. The slavers didn’t volunteer any information. Eric turned to Corporal Murphy. “Release this one. Take this piece of crap over there behind those trees and blow his brains out. I don’t want these women to see his brain splattering all over the place. It’s ugly and it’ll make them sick”

  “You got it, Sarge.”

  “I gave you a chance and you blew it. I’m going to start with you and then…” he pointed to another slaver, “you’ll be next.”

  The Corporal reached down and released the man’s legs and picked him up by the arms. The slaver was screaming now. “It’s Boner Breaker and he’s about a three-day walk from here. He has a thousand men and at least eight hundred women. A lot of them are slaves. Please don’t kill me!”

  Murphy dragged the man across the grass. “Shut up, you coward. We all die… some sooner than others. I’ll help you be one of the sooner in a coupl
e of minutes.”

  “Please!”

  “Okay Corporal, take him back over to that tree and scissors him up.”

  The Corporal smiled. “You’ve got it, Sarge.”

  He was smiling because he knew the Sergeant wasn’t serious about killing the slaver. All he wanted to do was scare him into divulging what they all wanted to know. Where was Bone Breaker’s main camp, and how far away was it?

  Eric was in a position that he wasn’t sure how to handle. They had these slavers as captives and they couldn’t bring them along with them. And they certainly couldn’t let them go. What were they going to do with these dirt bags? Eric got on the radio and called his brother. “Leader, do you read?”

  There was static and then the radio came alive. “This is Leader. What’s up?”

  “We have some captives and I want to know what we should do with them. We’re about to head out toward the north. We have coordinates for the main slaver camp. We can’t take them with us, and we can’t leave them behind. Any suggestions… over?”

  “We’re on our approach to you now. Should be another 45 minutes and we’ll be there and we’ll discuss, over.”

  “Copy, Leader,” Eric replied.

  “And for Heaven’s sake, don’t shoot us by mistake!”

  “No worries,” Eric laughed into the radio.

  After taking stock of the situation, Chris gave instructions, “Strip all the prisoners down to their underwear, including their shoes. Blindfold and gag them. This will prevent them from communicating with one another and keep them quiet for a while. They will be hard-pressed to run away without shoes. When you’re interrogating them do it one at a time and out of hearing and sight of the others. You’ll get better results when they can’t see or hear any of the others being questioned. All of the prisoners should be securely bound with their arms and hands behind their backs. Make sure you search each one thoroughly.”

  “Try to build a rapport with a few of them. Observe them individually and try to determine which one can be persuaded to confide in you. This is vital in developing communication with your captives. If you handle it properly, you’ll see their demeanor change and a few might look to you as critical for all of their needs… food, water… or in this case, survival.”

  Once the slavers were stripped, blindfolded and gagged, each was taken to widely separated places to be bound in place once again, but not in the scissors position this time. The dirt bags knew by now what that process would do to them and none were eagerly waiting for it to happen again.

  Now the dilemma… what should they do with them? Several of the women wanted them shot on the spot. Some of the Soldiers, Marines, and Sailors wanted to shoot them as well.

  Eric didn’t feel empathetic toward the slavers and he felt it was foolish to release them which still begged the question, what should they do?

  Chapter 11

  Justice

  DIFFICULT TIMES REQUIRE difficult decisions. Eric understood that they were all trained to kill, but they weren’t cold-blooded murderers like the slavers. This was a dilemma for him in a world gone mad.

  He understood the impact that an execution would have on his men, and he didn’t want to make a decision that would turn his troops into a vigilante posse. However, he knew there were moments when acting outside of the box is appropriate. They had already executed one slaver, and it looked like they may have to do it again. They were compelled to move on toward the north as a group, but now they had the women hostages to think about. It would be a daunting task with ten extra people eating their provisions and consuming their precious water.

  No one here wanted to preserve the life of men who would kill or enslave their fellow man. There was a consensus amongst them that they would be better off killing them and being done with it.

  Eric knew it wasn’t that simple, and so he discussed with Chris his recommendation - they would have a trial. If any of them could come up with a defense or a reason why they shouldn’t be executed on the spot, they would be released. It was the right thing to do.

  Chris gathered up the majority of their small force, leaving a dozen “jury members” behind, as well as the women who had suffered at the hand of the slaver. They started back to the main road to gather the supplies they had hidden earlier in order to make better time.

  Eric turned as they departed, “Take the blindfolds off the slavers and remove their gags.”

  When the slavers were ready Eric had each one stand up and face the group. “As you all know, we’re going to move north from here as soon as possible. We have seven of you here, and we can’t take you with us. I do not advocate murder, so we’ve decided that we will give you a fair trial… at least as best as we can manage under the circumstances.”

  Some of the slavers simply sneered, and only one of them refused to look up from the ground. “If any of us can find mercy, or if we determine any reason why any of you should be released unharmed, we will do that now. The decision that we make must be by consensus of everyone here.”

  One by one, the slavers were questioned by anyone who wanted to know anything that would sway them one way or the other. The first two slavers had raped the women hostages. One was named Gary Pell and the other was Steve Morton. Gary was 28 and Steve was 31. Both had joined Bone Breaker right after the war started and moved north with the large gang, which grew larger by the day.

  They looted and pillaged everywhere they went. They strictly adhered to Bone Breaker’s law. There were no rules except one, and that was to maintain loyalty to Bone Breaker. Everything else was okay to do because there were no consequences for any other actions. It was mass anarchy. Everything was allowed and there were few reprimands.

  Both of these men had been members of the gang since the beginning of the war. It was a good lifestyle for them. Eric asked them to describe the reason they became part of the gang and Gary was the first to volunteer his thoughts. “We did what we wanted to do when we wanted to do it. When we had something to drink, we drank. When women came into the group, we picked from the women that were left after Bone Breaker and his head men made their choices. Sometimes we drew straws, sometimes we drew cards, and sometimes we just took the ones we wanted. There were fights, of course, and the winner got to choose first. The fights served as entertainment. It became a Saturday night event when we weren’t out on raids. We did what we wanted to do and it suited everyone.”

  “Did it ever occur to you that maybe the women might not want to be trophies?”

  Steve spoke up. “Nobody gave a rat’s ass what the women wanted. They weren’t important. We’re warriors… and to the warriors go the spoils of war.”

  Tim was angry when he walked up to the slaver. “Warriors? You’re nothing but cowards. What made you feel you had the right to rape these women?”

  “Because Bone Breaker said we had the right.” Gary was smug and his attitude left everyone with the feeling he believed what he said. The women who were raped by these two men had their say and their statements were quite emotional. One woman was a clerk in a convenience store and the other was a dental assistant. Both had been forcibly taken as they were out foraging. Janet Colman, the clerk, was in search of small pieces of firewood to cook with and to warm herself and her elderly mother. She was out in a wooded area on the day of her capture. A slaver came at her on his motorcycle, knocked her down with a blow to the head, ripped her clothes off and raped her right there on the ground. She passed out and woke up bound and enslaved.

  The other rape victim, the dental assistant, was walking down a trail behind her small house when two of them knocked her to the ground, ripped her clothing to shreds, and had their way with her. Her ordeal was lengthy and she was taken captive by both of the men standing before her.

  Eric addressed both men. “Can either of you think of any reason why we should let you go?”

  Gary was quick to speak up. “You Soldier boys are making a big mistake. Sooner or later our main force is going to realize that we hav
en’t gotten back. We’re all sent out in groups of ten or fifteen men to search for children, women, able-bodied men, food and drink and anything else of value that we can find and bring back to our main group. That means your days are numbered. You may have a superior force over us, but you won’t when a thousand men come for you. So what I would suggest to you fellows is this… you better let us go right now if you know what’s good for you. And even letting us go may not be enough because you killed some of us and you’re going to have to pay for that. But let us go and I’ll see what I can do.”

  Eric moved to the next three slavers, ignoring what Gary had just said. “Stand up and face us.”

  The three slavers stood. They appeared nervous and fidgeted about continuously. “Let’s hear your stories boys. And I would give you fair warning… you better make it good. None of you will get a second chance after today unless the group of people you face right now will have mercy on you and let you go. Let’s start with you.”

  Eric pointed at one of the men. “My name is Donnie Stevens and I’m a native Californian. In fact, I’m from Stockton, California.”

  “Okay Donnie… why do you think you should be allowed to go free?”

  “None of us expected the war to happen, but it did, and the whole world changed in an instant! We just survived from day to day. We took most of the people as captives or we took their things. They were weaker and most of them didn’t put up much of a fight. When Bone Breaker came along, I decided right then and there that I would join his group because it was very big and made me feel strong. That made things easy and I have a tendency to like easy.” The slaver laughed at his own joke and several of the other slavers joined in the laughter.

  “Do you have anything else to say in your defense?”

  “Really, this is all one big joke and the biggest joke of all is you wannabe Soldiers.”