The grin and the giggling faded as the sounds of Jim Deaton’s M-16 rocking and rolling shattered the night.
Twelve
While most of the others scrambled for their weapons (the reporters didn’t believe guns should be in the hands of private citizens), Cole ran to the rear of the long barracks-type building and hit the master switch that killed the generator and cut the lights, plunging the building into darkness.
Cole ran out the back door, Gary right behind him, and they both almost ran into several men. Cole slammed the butt of his M-14 into the belly of one and then brought the butt up hard, catching the man under the jaw. The sounds of bones breaking could be heard over the rattle of gunfire coming from the front. The man dropped like a stone.
Gary was fighting with two men; it was too close for gunfire. Cole stepped over and used the butt of his M-14 on the head of the nearest attacker. I popped him too hard, Cole thought, as the man went down in a lifeless heap, his skull fractured.
Bev, Hank, Ruth, and the others were assisting Jim at the front of the property.
“All right?” Cole asked.
“Fine,” Gary replied. Gary held a black belt in unarmed combat. The man he’d fought lay motionless on the ground.
“Dead?” Cole asked.
Gary smiled. “If he ain’t, he’s damned relaxed.”
Cole looked down at the man whose skull he’d crushed with the butt of his M-14. He could work up no sympathy for the man. The dead man’s body odor was sickening; he smelled as though he had not had a bath in weeks.
“How do they stand each other?” Gary asked.
Cole just shook his head.
The gunfire out front had lasted only half a minute. The shooting had stopped. Cole could hear the sounds of vehicles cranking up, back tires spinning in the drivers’ haste to get gone from the area. Cole and Gary walked around to the front.
“Anybody hurt?” Cole asked.
Hank replied, “Not on our side.”
“Move, you asshole!” Gene Rockland’s voice came out of the darkness. The group turned. Gene was pushing a young man ahead of him, and not doing so gently. The young man’s face was bloody, a bleeding cut on his forehead. “This one tried to climb in through a window,” Gene said. “He sort of ran into the butt of my rifle.”
“Clumsy of him,” Bev remarked. “You got anything to say, prick?” she asked the young man.
“Fuck you!”
Hank stepped up and placed the muzzle of his pistol against the man’s bloody head. “I am not a violent person, young man. But killing you would produce no more feeling within me than stepping on a large, ugly roach. Watch your mouth, punk!”
All the fight seemed to leave the man. His shoulders slumped in defeat. “I really don’t know why they attacked you. I honestly don’t.”
“You said they, not we, why?” Hank demanded.
The young man did not reply to that. He said, “Those people will be back. Y’all better understand that. And when they do, they’ll be so many of ’em they’ll overrun this place. Y’all won’t have no chance a’tall. Mister, if you’ll take that pistol from my head, I’ll level with y’all.”
Hank lowered the pistol and eased the hammer down, holstering the weapon.
Ruth handed the young man a cloth. “Thank you, ma’am.” He wiped his bloody face, cringing when he touched his forehead. All of them noticed that the young man did not smell like the others. His clothing was reasonably clean. “They’re takin’ Memphis. It’s over here. Lots of fightin’ out at the airport right now. Against them damned Believers. The army’s done pulled their people out and the last I heard, just ’fore we attacked here, was that the FBI people out there was dead. They done wiped out all the police roadblocks around the city. Y’all best get the hell gone from here.”
“Why are you telling us all this?” Cole asked.
“I don’t know,” the young man said. “Tell the truth, I really don’t know where I belong in this mess. I can’t stand being dirty and stinking. Makes me sick. Seems like I don’t fit nowhere. But I don’t believe in God. I never have. Does that make me a bad person, just ’cause I have an opinion? Those damn Believers think so. I was mindin’ my own business when they grabbed me about a month ago. Flung me to the ground. Told me to confess my sins, accept Jesus Christ, or they’ll kill me right then an’ there. Told me they was with the Cumberland Christian Militia . . . whatever the hell that is. ’Bout that time some other folks started shootin’ at them. I got the hell gone from there. Then I hooked up with the bunch that was out here tonight. They ain’t no better . . . or really, any worse than them damn Believers.” He cut his eyes to Gene. “Mister, I didn’t have no gun when I was crawlin’ through that window, now, did I?”
“No, you didn’t,” Gene said.
“Don’t that tell you nothin’?”
“What are you trying to say?” Cole asked.
“Man, I was tryin’ to get away! They’re got to be some decent folks somewhere in all this madness. I was hopin’ y’all might have some sense. I guess I was wrong.”
“Lower your hands,” Cole told him. “What’s your name?”
“Jack Hawkins. Man, I’m tellin’ y’all, get gone from this area. You ain’t got the time for no talkin.’ All hell’s about to pop around here.”
All eyes turned to Cole. He met them, slowly nodded his head. “Pack it up,” he said, weariness in his voice. “Everything we can pack in thirty minutes. Each person drives a vehicle.” He turned to Jack. “You want to come with us?”
“Huh?”
“You heard me.”
“Hell, I ain’t made a right decision since I left home at fifteen. Why should tonight be any different? Sure. I’ll go. Where are we goin’?”
“Away from here,” Cole told him. “Let’s go, people. We’ve got a lot to do in a very short time.”
* * *
Cole wasn’t sure how close they were cutting it, but he figured it was very close. But they got away before the thugs (or whatever they were) returned. The reporters raised unholy hell about the group not leaving them a vehicle.
“You want to stay,” Cole told them, “you’re on foot. And when that gang returns, they’ll probably kill you all ... after they rape the women. If you want to live, come on. It’s your choice to make.”
The five reporters chose to leave with the group. The sounds of heavy fighting was getting closer.
Cole led the convoy around the countryside east and then south of Memphis, staying on rural roads until they were several miles inside Mississippi. They could not cross the Mississippi at Memphis because, according to the CB radio, one faction or another held the bridges and no one was allowed across. Cole started angling west toward the Mississippi River. Cole halted the convoy about halfway between Interstate 55 and Highway 61.
“We’re going to try for the bridge at Helena,” he told them. “I haven’t heard any talk of that bridge being closed or held by some nut group. Once across, we hole up for the night and then try for North Arkansas, the mountains.”
“That’s heavy survivalist country, Mr. Younger,” Jack Hawkins spoke. “I know. I stayed up there for several months just about a year ago.”
“Which side are they on?” Cole asked the young man. Jack’s head wound had been cleaned up and bandaged by Jackie Prescott.
“I don’t know, sir. No tellin’, really. But they are heavily armed and they’ll fight. Let me think. I heard several of the groups say a name of the man they were hooked up with. I remember. Bob Robbins. That’s who it was. Then there was some other group who was all excited about some preacher name of ... ah ... Ely-something-or-another. Then there was another group from up across the state line, in Missouri, run by a man name of Floyd Haines. He wanted to start a revolution.” Jack shook his head. “Those type of folks make me nervous. I got the hell out of there.”
Cole nodded his head in the light of parking lights and reached into his Bronco. He handed Jack a web belt, with holster and 9
mm pistol, and a clip pouch with two full magazines. “Take it.”
Jack looked at the weapon. “How do you know I won’t shoot you with it, Mr. Younger?”
“I don’t. Just call it a hunch. How old are you, Jack?”
“I turned twenty last June.”
“What did you do before this . . . mess happened?”
“Odd jobs. I got by. I’m a good carpenter. Real good framer. I can weld. I can do electrical work. I ain’t never stole nothin’ in my whole entire life. I quit school and hit the road when I was fifteen, right after mother died. Me and the old man, well, he ain’t a bad person, we just didn’t get along. Too much alike, I guess. He never beat me or anything like that.” He smiled. “Well, no more than I deserved, that is. I’m just sort of fiddle-footed, I suppose. I always wanted to see what was over the next hill.”
“And what did you find, Jack?” Ruth asked gently.
The young man grinned. “Usually another hill.”
* * *
The group met no resistance at the bridge. But the town was a different matter. They ran into a roadblock at the city limits sign.
“Just turn right around and head on back wherever the hell it is you come from!” the shout came from behind the blockade.
“We’re not here to cause trouble,” Cole returned the shout. “We just got out of Memphis in the nick of time. We’re trying to get away from trouble. Heading for the mountains.”
“Are you a Satanist, a Believer, or lined up with those damn invaders from space?”
“Good God,” Hank muttered. “It just keeps going from bad to worse.”
“None of those!” Cole called. “We’re just private citizens trying to stay alive.”
“Profess your love of God!” another voice shouted. “Renounce your sins and agree to be washed in the blood.”
“I’m really getting very weary of this,” Hank said.
“Now, baby,” Bev said.
Hank shook his head and stepped up to Cole’s side. “Look, you idiot!” he shouted. “I’m an Episcopal priest. Don’t tell me to profess my love of God. Who in the hell named you God’s spokesman?”
“You’re a charlatan!” the man behind the blockade shouted.
“I don’t know about that,” another man behind the blockade said. “Them Episcopalians is odd people. They stand up and kneel down and squat and carry on more’un Catholics do. I went to one of their services one time. I never could get the hang of it. Everytime they was squattin’ down, I was standin’ up. Made me look like a fool. It was embarrassin’.”
“Ah, hell,” another voice was added. “Let the folks go on through. I think they’re all right.”
“What’s your name?” the spokesman behind the barricade yelled. “Not the priest, the other one.”
“Cole Younger.”
“Horseshit!”
“My name is Jesse Cole Younger!”
“His dad must have had a grudge against his mother,” another man opined. “Let ’em through. That’s quite a bunch. They get pissed-off, we’ll have a fight on our hands.”
“Go on through!” the spokesman shouted. “But don’t stop. Keep on travelin’.”
As the convoy rolled past, Hank, with his window down, said to one of the men standing by the blockade, “Idiot!”
“Idol worshipper!” the man popped right back.
The convoy rolled on through the night. Cole kept them on back roads for an hour, then cut down a gravel road and drove until he came to what appeared to be an abandoned farmhouse, with a barn behind the home.
“Let’s try to get some rest,” Cole told them. “We’ll sleep until dawn and then hit the road again.”
The group was tired and needed no further urging. They laid out ground sheets, unrolled sleeping bags, shook out blankets, and soon most were sleeping. The night was cold, but no one complained. The adrenaline had been pumping steadily for several hours, and now fatigue hit them hard and dropped them off into sleep.
Cole slept for a few hours, and then awakened in that cold lonely time before dawn. He relieved Jim at the watch and poured a cup of coffee from the pot on the Coleman stove.
Cole watched as Jack Hawkins rose from his blankets and stood up, stretching. He carefully folded the blankets and then wandered over to the coffee pot and poured a cup. He sipped in silence for a moment.
“I want to thank y’all for allowin’ me to come with you,” he said. “I was tryin’ to get away from that pack of squirrels when Gene conked me on the noggin. Best thing that could have happened.”
“It wasn’t solely my decision. I received a nod from both Hank and Gene.”
“I won’t let you down. I promise that. I may be sometimes fiddle-footed, but when I give my word, I’ll stick by it.” He shivered. “Cold this mornin’.”
“That jacket you’re wearing is not adequate. Soon as it gets light, we’ll outfit you properly. Where is home, Jack?”
“South Carolina. I just come from there. I went back to try to make up with my daddy. But I found out he died two years ago. Buried beside Mama. I picked some wildflowers for their graves and then went to see my brothers and sisters. They, ah, didn’t seem too thrilled to see me, so I split. I was in Tennessee when all hell broke loose. I’m still not sure what caused it.”
Cole was getting weary of saying, “It’s a long story,” so he just nodded his head at that.
“Nothin’ is gonna be the same after this is over, is it, Mr. Younger?”
“Cole. Call me Cole. No, Jack. It isn’t. But where I stand, the end is not in sight.”
“First it was the devil, then it was people from space. And now every nut group in the nation is playin’ on other people’s fears. It’s all fallin’ right into the hands of those far-out religious types. They love it. Far as I’m concerned, one’s just as bad as the other.”
Cole smiled in the darkness. “What turned you against the church, Jack?”
“Huh?” The young man cut his eyes to Cole. Then he smiled boyishly. “You think you got me pegged, don’t you?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe.”
“I never felt comfortable in church. I never felt that I belonged there. I finally got the impression that maybe I wasn’t supposed to be there.” Again, he smiled. “It’s not that I don’t believe in God, Cole. I told a lie back yonder when I said that. It’s just that I think God don’t want me.”
“You talk to Hank about that, Jack. Hank makes sense about religion.”
“Y’all put together a fine group here. I get a good feeling just bein’ around y’all.”
“Most of us came together by accident. But it’s worked out well. Even the reporters are fitting in ... sort of.”
“I don’t watch the news much. When I do, it’s the same damn stories no matter what network you turn to. And most of what they talk about don’t hold no interest for me. You know what I mean?”
Cole chuckled softly. Indeed he did.
“Cole?”
“Ummm?”
“I was talkin’ to Anne and Pat durin’ a road stop last night. They told me some pretty wild stories. Did the devil really talk to y’all?”
“We think so. For sure, it was something or somebody not of this earth.”
“Why y’all?”
“We don’t know. It hasn’t happened in quite some time now. And as far as I’m concerned, whatever it was can stay gone.”
“Whole world’s gone nuts,” Jack said. He walked over to the portable camp stove and poured another cup of coffee. He shook the pot. “I’ll make some fresh.” He looked up at the blackness of the night sky. “It’ll be light in about an hour. If you’ll show me where you keep the grub, I’ll cook up some breakfast. I was a short-order cook in a little cafe out in New Mexico for a time. I’m a pretty good cook.”
“You make good hash browns?”
“Best you ever ate if you’ve got some onions and peppers. Southwestern style.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“
I learned from an old Mexican. Lived with them for a few months. I ...” He paused for a heartbeat, staring out into the darkness. “Cole?” he whispered.
“I see them,” Cole said softly. “Don’t tip our hand. Ease over and wake up the others. Nudge them with your shoe and whisper the warning.”
“We’re awake,” Hank’s words were just audible in the night. “Trouble?”
“Yeah,” Cole said. “They’re moving closer. We have maybe a couple of minutes, tops.”
Hank and Bev slowly crawled out of the blankets and picked up their weapons. The chambering of rounds was a soft click in the dark. Jack nudged Jim and Ruth out of sleep and whispered the warning, while Cole awakened Gary and Sue.
“My God!” Jules Von Housen said, struggling with the zipper on his sleeping bag. “What time is it? It’s still dark.”
Suddenly, from somewhere out in the darkness, an intruder tripped the wire leading to a perimeter banger and a wild curse followed the sharp blast.
“Take the cunts alive!” a hard voice cut the night.
Cole lifted the butt of his M-14 to his shoulder and let the weapon roar at the dark shapes running toward the camp.
From her sleeping bag by the side of a pickup, young Anne Mercer started screaming.
Thirteen
Jack ran to the line of vehicles and hurled himself at the dark shape that was trying to pull Anne out of the sleeping bag. He slammed into the man and knocked him sprawling. The attacker’s body odor would put a skunk to shame. Jack kicked the man under the chin; the sound of his jaw breaking was sharp in the night. The odious man hit the ground and did not move. Jack jerked up the fallen weapon—a twelve-gauge pump shotgun with the barrel cut off short—and ripped the ammo belt from the man. He turned to face young Anne.
“You all right, girl?”
“Y ... yes.”
“Crawl under the truck and stay there.” Jack turned to face the night, checking the shotgun as he did so. A round had been chambered.
A man, cursing and shouting, came running out of the darkness toward him, and Jack, down on one knee, leveled the shotgun and pulled the trigger. The three-inch-magnum round, loaded with buckshot, stopped the running man in his tracks and flung him backward. Jack squatted there for a moment, stunned at what he’d done, fighting back the sickness that threatened to boil up from his stomach.
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