When he moved off, walking down the center of Interstate 70, Gale asked, “What happened, Ben? I mean, the mutant.”
Ben had walked out of the communications shack and toward a thick stand of timber. He wanted to think, wanted to be alone for a time. More and more, since leaving Idaho he had sought solitude.
A young woman’s scream jerked his head up. Ben sprinted for the timber, toward the source of the frightened yelling.
Ben reached the edge of the timber and came to a sliding halt, his mouth open in shock.
It was a man, but it was like no man Ben had ever seen. It was huge, with mottled skin and huge, clawed hands. The shoulders and arms appeared to be monstrously powerful. The eyes and nose were human, the jaw was animal. The ears were perfectly formed human. The teeth were fanged, the lips human. The eyes were blue.
Ben was behind the hysterical young woman-about fourteen years old-the child of a Rebel couple. She was between Ben and the … whatever in God’s name the creature was.
The creature towered over the young woman. Ben guessed it was an easy seven feet tall.
Ben clawed his .45 from leather just as the creature lunged for the girl. She was very quick, fear making her strong and agile. Ben got off one shot; the big slug hit the mutant in the shoulder. It screamed in pain and spun around, facing Ben. Ben guessed the thing weighed close to three hundred pounds. And all three hundred pounds of it were mad.
Ben emptied his pistol into the manlike creature, staggering but not downing it. The girl, now frightened mindless, ran into its path. Ben picked up a rock and hurled it, hitting the beast in the head, again making it forget the girl. It turned and screamed at Ben. Its chest and belly were leaking blood, and blood poured from the wound in its shoulder.
Ben sidestepped the lumbering charge and pulled his bowie knife from its sheath. With the creature’s back momentarily to him, Ben jumped up on a stump for leverage and brought the heavy blade down as hard as he could. The blade cut through skull bone and brain, driving the beast to its knees, dying. Ben worked the blade out and, using both hands, brought it down on the back of the creature’s head, decapitating it. The ugly, deformed head rolled on the grass, its eyes wide open in shocked death.
Ben wiped the blade clean on the grass and replaced it in leather. He walked to the young woman and put his arms around her.
“It’s all over now, honey,” he spoke softly, calming her, patting her on the shoulder. “It’s all right, now. You go on and find your mother.”
A young boy stood a short distance away, holding hands with his sister. Both of them were open-mouthed in awe. “Wow!” he said. “He is a god. He can’t be killed.”
“He fought a giant and beat it,” his sister said. “Just wait ‘til I tell Cindy over in Dog Company about this.”
By now, many Rebels had gathered around. They stood in silence, looking at the beast with some fear in their eyes, looking at Ben with a mixture of awe, fear, respect and reverence.
Ben looked at the silent gathering. “You see,” he told them. “Your bogey men can be killed. Just be careful, travel in pairs, and go armed. Now go back to your duties.”
The crowd broke up slowly, the men and women and kids talking quietly among themselves-all of them speaking in hushed tones about Ben.
“Maybe it is true.”
“Heard my kids talking the other day. Now I tend to agree with them.”
“A mortal could not have done that.”
“So calm about it.”
“Tell you, gods don’t get scared.”
“Kid prays to General Raines before bed. Maybe it’s not such a bad idea.”
Ben heard none of it.
Ike stepped up to Ben, a funny look in his eyes. He had overheard some of the comments. “Are you all right, partner?”
“I’m fine, Ike.”
Ike looked at him. Ben’s breathing was steady, his
hands calm. Ike looked hard at the still-quivering man-beast. “I wouldn’t have fought that thing with anything less than a fifty-caliber.”
“It had to be done, Ike. Don’t make any more out of it than that.”
Ike’s returning gaze was curious mixture of humor and sadness. He wanted so badly to tell Ben that feelings about him were getting out of hand; something needed to be done about them.
But he was afraid Ben would pull out and leave for good if he did that.
Afraid! The word shocked Ike. Me? he thought. Afraid? Yes, he admitted. But it was not a physical fear-it was a fear of who would or could take Ben’s place.
Nobody, he admitted, his eyes searching Ben’s face. We’re all too tied to him.
“That was a brave thing you did,” Gale told him.
“I was there and it had to be done.” Ben stood, looking down at her. “I was lucky.”
“Maybe,” she replied cautiously. She did not tell Ben that all during her travels since the plague struck the land, she had heard of Ben Raines’s powers. At first she had dismissed the talk as the babblings of a hysterical populace seeking something to believe it, something to grasp during this time of upheaval. Now she wasn’t so sure.
“Let’s get rolling,” Ben told her.
The convoy backtracked, picking up Highway
54,
heading for Mexico, Missouri, where they would spend the night.
Ben and Gale rode in silence for a time, with Ben finally breaking the uncomfortable tension between them.
“Tell me about yourself, Gale.”
“I’m boring. I’d rather talk about you.”
Ben smiled.
“And keep your ethnic cracks to yourself.”
Ben laughed. “I wasn’t going to say a word.”
“Sure. We’re friends, right, General?”
Ben pretended to mull over that for a few seconds, pursing his lips and frowning. “Come on!”
“OK. But only if you call me Ben.”
She pretended to think seriously about that, frowning and pursing her lips.
Ben laughed at her antics.
“All right,” she said. “Tell me more about the monster you killed single-handedly, Ben.”
Ben had hoped that episode was past history. “It was a matter of necessity, Gale. It was there and I was there. Believe me, I would have preferred to have been elsewhere.”
She doubted that. The general, she had concluded, thrived on action. “But you didn’t run?”
“No. But a young girl’s life was at stake. Gale, don’t make any more out of it than it was. Too many people are doing that now, I’m afraid.”
“You’re afraid? I don’t believe you’re afraid of anything, Ben Raines.”
“I meant that as a figure of speech.”
“I know it. I still don’t believe you’re afraid of anything.”
They were again silent for a few miles, and again Ben wondered if his staying with the Rebels was the right thing, both for himself and for the people. He knew Gale had heard the stories and tales and myths and rumors about him. He wondered if she believed any of them. He hoped not.
He glanced at her. She looked so small and vulnerable. But he knew for her to have survived she had a deep well of toughness in her. He suddenly wanted to put his arm around her; but he wanted to avoid having his arm broken even more. He resisted the impulse.
The town of Mexico, Missouri, once a thriving little city of about thirteen thousand, appeared deserted. After pulling into a large motel parking area, Ben sent a team into town to check it out. He had detected that odor in the air and had ordered the rest of his contingent to stay mounted up. He was bracing himself mentally for what he hoped the recon team would not find.
Col. Dan Gray reported back to him. From the look on his face, Ben knew the news was not good.
“It’s rather grim, General,” the Englishman reported. “Looks like the beasties have used this place to winter and to breed. The stench of them is strong.”
“What do you think, Dan?”
“I think it’s
very unsafe, General.”
“Very well,” Ben said. He turned to his squad leaders. “We’re pulling out. It’s about sixty miles to Hannibal. Well bivouac there.”
The column rolled and rumbled through the town. Downtown Mexico looked as though a pack of wild kids
had trashed the streets and stores. Not a window remained intact; filth was strewn everywhere. Once, Ben stopped to retrieve part of a heavy metal gas can from the street. The can appeared to have been physically ripped apart, torn open, much like a huge bear would do, with super-animal strength.
Ben silently showed the can to Gale.
For once, she had nothing to say.
Unlike Mexico, Missouri, Hannibal appeared untouched by time or mutants. There were a few rotting skeletons to be seen, but the Rebels had long months back grown accustomed to that sight.
Ben ordered the people to dismount and clean up the Holiday Inn; they would use that for a base while in the area. Ben wanted to spend several days in this part of Missouri. He wanted to search for any original manuscripts of Samuel Clemens and as many of his artifacts as possible. Ben felt that something had to be preserved-some link with the past, when times were better and life was easier. Before the bomb.
Gale mentally prepared herself for the proposition she was sure was forthcoming from Ben Raines, for his sexual antics were almost legend among the Rebels, and she had been subtly warned to prepare herself.
She went to sleep in a chair in her room, still waiting for Ben’s advances. When she awakened at one o’clock in the morning, her back hurting and her neck stiff from sleeping in the chair, she smiled ruefully at the white, almost virginal nightgown she had picked up from a store in Fulton, Missouri. The gown lay across the foot of the bed.
She carefully folded it and replaced it in her duffle. “Another time, another place,” she said, adding, “Shit!”
Doctor Carlton took several Rebels with him right after breakfast. Said he wanted to prowl around a bit, see what he might discover. The others took the two-day lull to wash clothes, lounge about, rest or sightsee. Ben and Gale visited the many landmarks in that part of Missouri: Hannibal’s Cardiff Hill; Lover’s Leap, overlooking the Mississippi River; the old lighthouse, built in 1935 as a monument to Mark Twain.
“I don’t understand,” Gale said, as she and Ben sat eating lunch, “how one town could be virtually destroyed by those… things, mutants, and another town could be almost untouched.” She looked at the can of Cration and grimaced.
“I can’t answer that,” Ben said. “Maybe a scientist could, but I don’t know of any in this area. I don’t know of any scientists-period. So much has been lost, and it doesn’t appear that too many people really care. I can understand it, but I don’t have to like it.”
“Explain then, please. Take my mind off this horrible food.”
Ben laughed at her. “I lived off that stuff for months, Gale.”
“No wonder your disposition is so rotten.”
Chuckling at her, Ben said, “I think many who survived the bombings of “88 somehow found the strength to bounce back. Maybe the world would have survived if the rats had not brought the plague. Just seems like it knocked the props out from under most who made it through that sickness.”
“It didn’t knock the props out from under you,” she observed.
“No, it didn’t. But we’re different, the Rebels and me.”
“I.”
“Are you sure?”
“Damn, Ben-you’re a writer!”
“Me still sounds correct.” “Ben!”
“Whatever. We had a goal, we were organized, we had a dream of a better society. Maybe we were just stronger people. Sometimes I wonder if it’s all worth it.”
“Hitting those new lows you told Mary Macklin about, Ben?”
“No, not really.” Ben shook his head. “The fact the IPF is here shows that we have survivors from around the world, shows that somebody other than myself is going to try to pull this world out of the ashes. Even if it’s just a small part of the world. Walk before you run,” he quoted the old saying.
“If you don’t mind, Ben.” She looked at him, putting her hand on his thigh. “I’d rather it be us than them.”
“So would I, Gale.”
“Then let’s do it, Ben Raines.”
He met her gaze. “All right, Ms. Roth. Let’s do it.”
“It was only a matter of time,” General Striganov spoke to Sam Hartline. “But Ben Raines need not disturb us all that greatly. Neither he nor us is strong enough to mount any type of sustained attack against the other. Perhaps, really, we might never need to fight. If he will keep to the south, and we to the north, perhaps we could work out some kind of peaceful coexistence
plan. I think that would behoove both of us.”
“Don’t count on it,” Hartline said. “Raines is a communist hater out of the old school. And he is one tough bastard.”
“I do not want a fight at this time.” The Russian was adamant. “Let us attempt to converse with President-General Raines. During the meeting-if he agrees to it-we shall attempt to work out some dividing line that would separate his form of government from ours-a physical line.” He turned to an aide. “Have leaflets printed and order a team sent out to find General Raines. No contact at this time. Later we shall have a pilot do a fly-by and drop the leaflets. Raines is slowly progressing northward, taking his time, according to our people just in from Rolla.” A look of disgust passed quickly over his face at that thought. The general had already seen to Mikael. “Iowa would be a good place to locate him and for us to meet, I believe.” He studied the map on his office wall. “Yes. Ask Mr. Raines to meet me at, ummm, ah, Waterloo.” He smiled. “Yes, Waterloo, Iowa. That should be a very appropriate place, don’t you think, Sam?”
“For one of you,” Hartline grunted his reply. The Russian did not know Ben Raines as well as Sam. Ben Raines would never permit a communist form of government to exist alongside his own. At least Hartline didn’t believe he would.
Not for any length of time.
But… maybe it was worth a shot.
On the morning of the third day in Hannibal, the column pulled out, rolling northward on Highway
61.
Ben had cautioned his people to be careful, for he remembered only too well the incidents last year, when the Rebels were moving west out of Richmond, when the government collapsed.
The scouts had failed to report in at their given time. Ben and the convoy waited impatiently on the cold, wind-swept highway. The bridge at Fort Madison had been plugged up tight with stalled and wrecked cars and trucks. The scouts had radioed back they were going on to Hamilton, taking a secondary road. Ben waited a long half hour past the time they were supposed to have radioed in. He turned to Cecil.
“I’m taking a patrol,” Ben told him. “I’ll call in every fifteen minutes. Anything happens, you’re it.”
“Ben…”
“No. It’s my show. Maybe the radio conked out. Could be a lot of things. I’ll be in touch.”
Back in his pickup, Ben looked at Rosita. “Out,” he told her.
She refused to leave.
“Do I have to toss you out bodily?”
“That would look funny,” she calmly replied.
Ben closed the door and put the truck in gear. “Your ass,” he told her. He pulled out, leading the small patrol.
Rosita smiled at him and said something in rapid-fire Spanish. It sounded suspiciously vulgar.
“Check your watch,” he told Rosita.
“Ten-forty-five.”
“Call in every fifteen minutes. It’ll take us forty-five minutes to an hour on these roads to get to Fort Madison. That was their last transmission point. Whatever happened
happened between there and Hamilton. You’ve got the maps. What highway do we take?”
“96 out of Niota.”
At Nauvoo they found the pickup parked in the middle of the highway. One door had been ripped off its hing
es and flung to one side of the road.
“What the hell?” Ben muttered.
Rosita’s face was pale under her olive complexion. She said nothing. But her eyes were frightened.
Ben parked a safe distance behind the pickup and, Thompson in hand, off safety, on full automatic, walked up to the truck. Thickening blood lay in puddles in the highway.
“Jesus Christ!” one of Ben’s Rebels said, looking into a ditch. “General!”
Ben walked to the man’s side. The torn and mangled body of the driver lay sprawled in the ditch. One arm had been ripped from its socket. The belly had been torn open, the entrails scattered about, gray in the cold sunlight.
A Rebel pointed toward an open field. “Over here!” he called.
The second scout lay in a broken heap, on his stomach. He was headless. Puddles of blood spread all about him.
“Where’s his head?” the man asked.
“I don’t know,” Ben answered. “But we’d damn sure better keep ours. Heads up and alert. Combat positions. Weapons on full auto. Back to the trucks in twos. Center of the road and eyes moving. G.”
Back in the warm cab of the truck, Ben noticed Rosita looking very pale and shaken. He touched her hand. “Take it easy, little one. We’ll make it.”
He radioed in to Cecil. “Cec? Backtrack to Roseville and 67 down to Macomb. Turn west on 136. We’ll meet you between Carthage and Hamilton. Don’t stop for anything. Stay alert for trouble.”
“What kind of trouble, Ben?”
Ben hesitated for a few seconds. “Cec-I just don’t know.”
“Ten-four.”
Ben honked his horn and pulled out, the other trucks following.
They saw nothing out of the ordinary as they drove down 96. But Hamilton looked as though it had been sacked by Tartars followed up by hordes of giant Tasmanian devils.
“What the hell?” Ben said, his eyes taking in the ruins of the town. Bits and scraps of clothing blew in the cold winds; torn pages of books and magazines flapped in the breeze, the pages being turned by invisible fingers. Not one glass storefront remained intact. They all looked as if they had been deliberately smashed by mobs of angry, sullen children.
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