by Ryder Stacy
The sky was aglow all night. The Little U.S.A. sector was bombed for four hours straight, using nearly fifty thousand tons of explosives. When it was over, it was little but a rubble-strewn plain. Not a trace of life. But the Reds hadn’t fared well at all. Fires still raged out of control. Seventy percent of the fort had been destroyed. The records buildings, most barracks, virtually all their armaments, tanks and cannons had gone up in a tremendous roar at three in the morning. There was little left to save.
In the morning, Colonel Killov drove slowly through the sooty streets of the Red fortress. One of the biggest in America. Now in smoldering ruins. He couldn’t believe it. It was impossible that the rabble of the American sector had done this by themselves. They were barely capable of excretion, let alone the construction of these insane catapults that Gorky had told him were the cause of the fires. Not one was left on the American side. Nothing remained but ashes. No, the underground, the rebels must have had a hand in this. Maybe that Rockson.
Killov surveyed the ruins in disgust. The great example he wished to set had turned topsy-turvy. It was the Russians who had been taught a lesson. They had been defeated again! A whole Soviet fortress. This was the first time this had happened, as far as he knew, in the whole history of the occupation. Was it all just terrible bad luck or were the Reds much more vulnerable than they could have imagined? Was this the beginning of a series of attacks in fortresses all over America? There were so many unanswered questions. What was wrong with his intelligence? He had thought it was in total control. But that was not the case. And even worse, his standing had been eroded by this escapade, just as Zhabnov was strengthening his hand. Killov felt his body tremble with a violent rage. His rise had been meteoric. He had never faltered. Never made a mistake. Until now. Others would question his power. It had been his plan and now it was his disaster.
Thirty-Two
Leaving the charnel ground, the Freefighters retrieved theire supplies and hybrids from the bandits’ barn. Their bruises and lacerations were beyond tallying. They ignored all but the punctures and open cuts for these had to be sealed. The radioactive sands had a way of digging into wounds. The smallest cut left uncovered could be fatal in a high-rad zone. The men took out the medikits and used the plastisalve—cleanser, healer and sealer all in one—and rubbed it on every wound. Detroit had a gash, one he hadn’t mentioned, that you could put a finger into. A gift from one of the bandits on the way to their hideout. He put salve on it and then spray-bandage, leaving a thick plastic seal over it.
“Hey, you need better medical treatment than that,” Slade said, his doctor instincts acting up.
“Hey, relax, man. I’m A-OK. Sure as hell I am,” Detroit shouted back. “Besides, when we get to these Technicians, I’m sure they have some computer-operated infirmary that will heal me instantly with some kind of purple ray.” The men smiled weakly and tended to their own wounds from the bandits’ pushing knives and slamming gun butts.
With the red sun starting to rise over the trees, they resaddled their hybrids and gathered what supplies they could find back into their packs. Some of their stolen weapons had to be pried from the bandits’ hardening fingers, and then the blood had to be wiped off. Most of their things were retrieved.
Rock gave Archer the largest of his pack ’brids. The big man seemed confused at first, not quite sure just where to put his legs and butt. But after mounting several times he got the idea. He pulled the reins of the horse and it responded jerkily, not sure what he meant. It reared and then came down, running in quick little circles. The Freefighters laughed aloud at the exasperated Archer, who finally fell, thrown by the bucking hybrid. He got up and tried again. And again. By the fourth time the hybrid seemed to tire of the game and grudgingly began to follow Archer’s brusque commands. Rock looked over at the big man. Archer had been an incredible help in the fight. It renewed his faith in providence. Luck had been on their side all along—despite their losses. And Archer, by God, could fight. And that crossbow weapon of his—such tremendous accuracy. The bearded giant of a man seemed to enjoy the company of the Freefighters and made quick friends among them with direct, albeit slightly strange, gestures and stutterings.
Soon, they were all mounted again and off over the mountain ridge toward the pass Rock had discovered earlier. Already, small forest mice were eating the cooling bodies that lay in piles around the blood-filled yard behind the Expeditionary Force. Buzzards circled lower and lower, eyeing the motionless bodies beneath their clawed feet.
It took Rock and his team a good two hours just to reach the opening of the long-dried stream bed Rock had discovered. The men entered it single-file, slightly apprehensive. If there was another cloudburst, they’d be trapped inside the cutaway, sheer rock walls on each side, climbing hundreds of feet into the air. But there was no choice. With Rock in the lead, they moved slowly through the pass, the hard hoofs of the hybrids echoing like gunshots on the close walls. They came to what must have been an avalanche fairly recently, with rocks and small boulders piled ten feet high. But using the muscle power of the hybrids and throwing some ropes around the biggest obstacles, they soon cleared enough of a path for the ’brids to stumble over.
They moved through the rocky passage for nearly four hours—the stream had been a long one. At last they saw the opening at the other side of the mountain. They came out on the pine-covered hillside and looked ahead at their destination. The fog-enshrouded plains that Rock had seen from the mountain top. They didn’t look any more appetizing up close. Several of the men looked over at their commander. He just nodded wordlessly. It was the leader’s duty to pull the men forward—even when they didn’t want to go. They headed quietly down the hillside, then rode through several miles of brush and cactus-filled field before reaching the outer wispy fingers of the dense, pink and purple fog banks that lay ahead. Fortunately the fog wasn’t particularly high rad. God knew what it was made of, but taking a deep breath, they rode into the mists.
They rode for hours, not able to see more than ten feet ahead. Keeping careful eye on the hybrid in front of them, and calling out from time to time to make sure they hadn’t gone and gotten themselves lost, the Freefighters made their way across the sour-smelling, fog-encrusted plain. Rock kept checking his compass. It seemed stable enough, not rocking or spinning madly on end as it sometimes did amidst highly magnetized, radioactive rocks or stretches of land. They went on for seven, nine, eleven hours. Rockson didn’t want to stop in the middle of nowhere. Besides, though the fog wasn’t high rad, who knew what else it might be, though he didn’t notice any horrendously painful effects taking place inside his lungs.
“I’ve got a weird feeling, Rock,” Detroit said, riding up alongside the head man.
“What?” Rock asked.
“I’ve just been feeling that something is watching us from out of the fog. Had it for about ten minutes.”
“Me, too,” McCaughlin piped up from the horse behind Rock’s. “Been seeing shadows out of the corner of my eye.” The other men spoke out. Half the troop had been twisting and turning in their saddles, anxiously scanning the impenetrable mists.
They moved ahead slowly, Rock’s senses radaring out into the blankness ahead. There—in the fog—running figures. Were they human? “Let’s ride, men!” Rock yelled. “This way.” They tore off after the fleeing figures, the hybrids pulling up alongside them. They looked primitive, like cave men. They screamed and scattered again into the mist. Rock kneed the palomino sharply in the left side. It turned and sped into the mist. There! The creatures were disappearing into some sort of huge structure covered with cracked asphalt. He shouted to the others.
“Over here, men. They’ve gone into some sort of building.” The Force pulled up around Rock, and stared at the immense squat structure. It was but two stories high but spread off in every direction, apparently going on for hundreds of feet. Broken windows, huge, nearly ten-by-fifteen-feet square, stood every few yards along the wall nearest the Freefighters.<
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“My God, Rock,” Perkins, the archaeologist said, “I know what it is, I think. If my memory serves me correctly, from my twentieth century American buildings, it’s a shopping mall. A goddamn shopping mall.”
“A what?” McCaughlin asked, dismounting.
“Americans used to come to these structures to buy all their goods—shoes, cars, food, clothes. Everything in one place. The car was king then. And so, people drove to do their shopping. The mall was the peak of the evolutionary scale of the American shopping center. This looks like a classic.”
They walked inside, through one of the large, now-empty picture windows. Vast corridors stretched off in every direction, filled with clothes, torn and eaten away, appliances, dishware—all the goods America had coveted one century ago. It was dark inside. The sun was falling low on the horizon and the fog bank grew rapidly denser and blacker.
“I think it’s worth exploring, Rock. In fact, we could hole up here for the night.” Perkins looked at Rockson hopefully.
“Got them primitives lurking around in here somewhere,” Rock commented. But it was true. They had to stop. They’d be blind out there with no light at all. Easier to fight off cave men inside than get swallowed up by a pitch-black fog. They all dismounted, tied their horses to the sides of counters, and looked around. The men spread out, in pairs, their pistols ready, safeties off. The Freefighters were fascinated by the stock of the shopping mall. They had never seen so many items in one place and all of them from the old America. They prowled through the rows of dresses, shirts, lingerie, socks and hats, picking things up, trying them on in the cracked mirrors that dotted the walls. It was like being in a dream. A dream of childhood when they had often had nighttime visits to the old America brought on by reading their history books in Century City’s classrooms. Archer was just as fascinated, trying on jackets and hats and finding them all on the small side.
Rock walked along with Perkins, who kept explicating the importance of such a find. “Really, Rock, it should be turned into a museum. This is all most exciting. Why, look over here. Televisions, radios. I bet a lot of these still work.” He picked up a transistor radio and turned it on. After a century, the batteries inside still managed to put out a tiny current. No music came through the Sony Walkman but static filled the little speaker. Even Rock had to admit, it was all quite amazing.
Rock suddenly saw figures by the far wall. Crouching, skulking along. Rock shined his flashlight up and the beam hit the three primitives, who covered their faces and uttered little high-pitched screams. They scrambled off, swinging their long arms.
“They never saw an artificial light before,” Rock said, running toward them. The Freefighters rushed from different aisles of the main floor—women’s clothing, lingerie, men’s shirts and jackets—toward the fleeing creatures. They passed a large, open artificial courtyardlike structure with a fake fire and benches. The plastic flowers that had ringed the display still made their attempts at beauty but had become black with dust over the hundred years—ever since business had experienced a rather quick shutdown.
The Freefighters passed a dead campfire built in the middle of a marble lobby. “They can make fire,” Rock yelled out to the others. “Careful, they might make spears or traps.”
As if listening to this warning, a spear landed right next to Rock, clumsily bouncing off a pillar to his right. The Freefighters flattened out on the fancy-tiled court that separated the two main sections of the first floor. They aimed their pistols into the darkness. Several yells of primitive glee or fear, Rock wasn’t sure which, burst forth from the shadows. Three more spears came flying out, bouncing across the floor.
“At least their aim is bad,” Rock said.
“Rock, I know this sounds crazy,” Perkins, the archaeologist said, “but I don’t think we should try to hurt them. After all, look at it from their point of view. These crazy, pink-skinned creatures come smashing into their home, riding atop hairy monsters and begin taking over the place. You see?”
“I get the drift,” Rock said. “All right, let’s give it a try the other way. Hold your fire men,” he yelled out.
“Why don’t I have a go at it?” Perkins said, poking his head over the top of a long glass case filled with earrings and bracelets.
“OK,” Rock said, lowering his gun, but keeping it at the ready in case of a sudden attack.
“Hello,” Perkins began, yelling out across the darkened innards of the mall. “We are friends. We are Americans like you. We’re here to help you, not to hurt. To help, not to hurt.”
“You go way,” a guttural voice screamed out. “You hurt. You go way. We no want!”
“But we must talk with you. We are friends. If you’re hurt, we can help you. We don’t want to hurt you. Help you. We help you.” Rock looked over at Perkins skeptically.
There was silence at the other end, then frantic whispering between what sounded like at least ten of the creatures.
“How we know you good?” a querulous voice asked. “How we know you not Reds?” Perkins stood up suddenly, ignoring Rock’s hand motion to get down.
“Here, do I look like a Red?” Perkins asked. He stepped on top of the glass counter, spreading his weight at the edges so the thing wouldn’t collapse. His baseball cap, big, oversized mountain boots, khaki uniform that somehow resembled a duck-hunting outfit, and sandy-haired freckled youthful face gave him an unmistakable appearance of Americana.
Hairy heads appeared about forty feet away, rising ever so slowly above a wooden display of children’s toys. They edged forward nervously and the Freefighters could see that they were primitive indeed. Their bodies had growths of dark hair everywhere, covering their shoulders and backs, their legs and arms. Their faces looked somehow apelike with wide, square jaws, pushed-in, flattened noses and a narrowing of the skull at the back. The leader of the primitives stood in front of his clan, nearly naked, clad only in what looked like a loincloth, but on closer examination turned out to be a pair of blue boxer shorts.
“You no hurt?” he said, trying to put up a brave front, raising his shoulders high, filling his lungs with air.
The Freefighters all slowly rose until they were standing. They put their guns away, moving easily so as not to frighten the store creatures.
“We no hurt,” Perkins said, jumping down on the aisle floor as Rock leaped over the counter and joined him. “Who are you?” the archaeologist went on. “Do you live here?”
“We are the shop people. Yes, live here. Always live here,” the leader, the tallest of the creatures, said. “We thought you be Reds. They come here years ago and kill. You carry rifle sticks like them. We thought you kill.”
“No,” Perkins continued, walking closer to the tribe of huddling savages. “We fight the Reds too, like you. We are all Americans.”
“Americans,” the lead savage said strangely. “I am Floorwalker.”
“Floorwalker?” Rock asked.
“Yes, that be my name. Son of great-great-grandfather named Floorwalker Macy. That be my name. That be all our name. We Floorwalker.” Again, he raised his head high, obviously proud of the family title.
“Can you make sense out of that, Perkins?” Rock asked.
“Archaic expression. I think it’s a title of a store employee in ancient times. Probably someone who literally walked the floor. Some sort of security perhaps. And Macy’s, if I’m not mistaken, was a chain of large stores that sold general merchandise.”
One of the savages in the crowd suddenly fell forward, hitting the floor with a thud. The others pulled away, leaving their fallen comrade in the aisle.
“Him hurt,” Floorwalker Macy said. “Rip flesh and now red and blood.” Slade walked over to the fallen primitive and looked at the young man’s leg which was swollen purple from a nasty slash the week before.
“Grab me my medikit would you, Detroit?” Slade yelled over to the Freefighter. Detroit high-tailed several hundred yards over to the hybrids and came back with the kit. Slade
quickly stuck a painkilling hypo in three spots around the infected spot, as the savage grimaced on the floor.
“Him hurt! Him hurt!” the leader of the primitives started up again.
“Calm down,” Rock said softly. “He’s helping. He’s fixing the hurt.” The leader looked suspicious, but folded his arms across his hairy chest and looked on curiously. Slade waited a minute or two until the local anesthetic had a chance to work and then sliced the wound open. Green and white pus oozed out of the infected area and dripped onto the ground. Slade wiped the inside of the wound down with alcohol and then rubbed in antibiotic cream. He sealed the wound with plastisalve and stood up.
“Good as new, Chief,” the young doctor said. “Just keep him off his feet for two days and he’ll be throwing spears like the rest of them.”
“Good. That be good,” the chief said eloquently. “We be friends now.” He walked over to Slade and grabbed him in a bear hug. “Friend!” Slade’s face turned red as the bear hug squeezed half the wind out of him. The other Floorwalkers ran over to their new hero and, one by one, grabbed Slade around the shoulders and pulled him close to their hearts.
“I think that’s their form of payment,” Chen said, watching with amusement. After all the profuse thanks were given, Perkins questioned the store creatures who sat on the floor grouped around the Freefighters.
“Are there any firesticks here or food?” Perkins asked, notebook in hand, as he took notes on the fascinating offshoot of the human race. The war had led to the evolution of man in thousands of isolated little communities. Adapting to their special needs and situations and helped along by the genetic engineering rearrangements of atomic radiation, countless new forms of Homo sapiens had sprung up throughout the world.
“Food all gone in store here, but there be more cans in Price Chopper Store.”
“Price Chopper?” asked Rockson.
“Probably another food chain store. Don’t forget, Rockson, America was a huge, vast society with chain stores that sold every kind of goods throughout America. There was A&P, Associated, Grand Union—”
