by Ryder Stacy
“Food, we need food,” the leader yelled from the front of throngs. “We are hungry. We are human beings. We deserve more than scraps.”
“You deserve nothing,” the young officer said, standing tall in his crisply pressed uniform. “We decide what is given. Now disperse back to your wretched holes before you all die.” He fired a shot over their heads. Many of the untouchables cowered, pulling their heads down, diving to the ground. But not the leader and those who stood with him in the mob’s front ranks.
“This time you cannot frighten us with your toys,” the big man said, pulling a large curved dagger from the back of his mud-coated gray pants. “You are the ones who are going to die.” Others in the mob also pulled their weapons from their sleeves and pockets: knives, pieces of glass, icepicks, meathooks. All had killed before. Their own. But now it would feel good to kill those who had enslaved them, destroyed them. They started toward the car.
The lieutenant grew pale. They weren’t supposed to act like this. He had never seen the dulags do anything more than cower. His power of authority seemed to crumble around his suddenly frail-looking body. He aimed at the leader and fired. The shot caught the leader in his right shoulder but he didn’t flinch. He laughed and spat at the ground as he came forward.
“I have survived much worse than that fool.” The driver slammed the car into reverse and stepped on the accelerator, but before he had gone a yard the mob was upon the army vehicle. They grabbed the sides and lifted it, quickly tipping it over. The wheels spun uselessly in the air. The mob fell upon the three Red officers, stabbing at them, flailing away with their crude but efficient weapons. Within seconds the soldiers were bloody carcasses lying in the road, blood pouring from a hundred wounds.
The death of the Reds emboldened the small army of untouchables. They raised their arms and roared out screams of defiance. Never had they felt like this—like men. Several of them sawed away at the corpses and quickly butchered the heads free from the bodies. They found branches at the side of the road and speared them into the bloody appendages. They held the three heads high—their flag of conquest. Now they marched forward even faster. Anger, hate, murder in every step. More and more of the dulags joined them, streaming out from their hiding places in trees, under bridges, behind bushes. Within a mile their number had grown to nearly a thousand and continued increasing at every step. They came upon four more army cars and quickly disposed of the inhabitants, losing several of their own in the skirmishes.
But they were no longer afraid. The taste of blood was maddening—they wanted more. They came to the very edge of the city. Huge gates stood open at each side of the main entrance several hundred feet away. The twenty or so guards, lounging around the front, stared at the approaching army of the untouchables with eyes as big as moons. They never had any trouble with the rabble other than a few incidents of thieves grabbing at a gun or lunging at a soldier—and being quickly disposed of. The officer in charge ran to a phone just inside the entrance and frantically called central command.
“We’re being attacked,” he screamed out.
“What? What the hell are you talking about?” the officer at the other end asked in a bored tone, wondering if the gate guard had been drinking again.
“We’re being attacked, you idiot. There must be a thousand of them. They’re right here at the gate.”
“Who? Who?” the desk officer asked, suddenly alarmed.
“The dulags. I know it sounds incredible but—” His voice was cut off as a thrown knife whirled through the air and caught him in the back. The officer fell to the concrete ground, the phone dropping from his hand. The front ranks of the dulags tore into the gate troops. Within seconds twenty torn bodies lay in pools of hot blood, their eyes wide, their mouths contorted in screams of sheer horror. The heads were again sliced clean from the corpses and mounted atop poles. The head bearers marched at the front, into the city, walking through a large open area that was sometimes used as an outdoor market, still largely empty in the early morning. The peddlers who were just starting to set up their vegetable and used goods stands stood stock-still in amazement at the vision of the army moving forward, forty heads now held aloft on blood-splattered pikes.
“Join us, men who are nothing. Join us or die!” the leader yelled. The peddlers ran in terror toward a second gate at which Red troops were now setting up machine guns. As the peddlers came toward the inner gate they were mowed down like so many rats, falling by the bloody dozens onto the concrete square. The dulag army surged forward screaming as they charged at the line of defense.
“Food, give us food—bread, meat. Give us food or die.” The troops opened up on the advancing ragtag army, taking out nearly fifty of the forward ranks in just seconds. But still the untouchable came forward, no longer afraid of anything. Death was a joke to them now. Blood was what they wanted. If they could not eat bread, then they would taste Red Army blood. The officer in charge of the second line saw that they would be overrun within minutes. Already the ranks were shouting at one another, getting ready for another charge.
“Close the gate,” he bellowed, a large-paunched sergeant with muscular arms and thighs. “Pull back.” The machine gunners dragged their tripod-mounted .55mm back several yards as the officer slammed his fist onto the buttons that controlled the motion of the two towering steel gates. The nearly thirty-foot high, two-inch thick steel doors whirred swiftly along ball bearing tracks and slammed shut with a resounding bang that echoed through the square.
The army of no-men looked around. Who could they kill now? They ran through the large open space, grabbing the food the dead peddlers had dropped as they ran.
“Food, food—see, we have won our dinner,” one of the headholders cried out. They forgot their weapons and even their whereabouts, so intense was their hunger. They pounced on the fresh fruits, the flaky pies, and loaves of bread piled high atop round wooden tables. They didn’t even notice a squad of Russian soldiers silently close the front gates as well. After they had gorged themselves, gobbling down the feast by the handful, slamming it into their thin, starving mouths, they looked around, suddenly remembering their situation and the trouble that might ensue.
“We leave now,” the leader said, still bleeding from the shot that had caught him in the shoulder. “We have won! Now we go back to hills—we hide.” He held one of the heads high, moving it up and down high above his arms, an insane flag of Red death.
Suddenly they heard a sound above them—choppers—three of them roaring over the square. The army of dulags, clutching every bit of food they could carry, rushed toward the front gate. The first to reach it found it locked tight and they screamed out.
“We’re trapped. The bastards have trapped us.” The untouchables ran off in every direction, their cohesion and unity broken by the sudden realization that they were about to be victims. They spread out over the nearly six-square-acre marketplace like roaches fleeing for their very lives. The helicopter gunships came in from one end of the square, flying slowly about seventy-five feet apart. The twin machine guns in their bellies opened up, sending a hail of .55mm slugs down whistling murder. The chopper guns were capable of firing nearly five thousand rounds a minute. They tore into the dulag mob like the Angel of Death. The huge slugs tore right through the bodies of the untouchables, some of them taking ten, twenty of the three-inch-long bullets in their bodies. They were ripped to shreds as arms, lungs, faces, and hearts were blasted right out of their human containers.
It didn’t take very long. The glass slivers and knives and hooks of the dulags were hardly a match for the death-dealing high-tech weaponry of the Red helios. The vast, screaming crowd was peppered with tens of thousands of rounds. The concrete around the falling bodies was ripped apart in little explosions of dust as the cartridges created countless little craters between the falling bodies.
When the helicopters reached the far end of the square they turned quickly and came back again, sending down a deluge of death. Within two m
inutes of their initial appearance over the walls not a dulag moved. All were dead. All were not recognizable as men any longer. Their bodies had been blown into a bloody swamp of crumbling flesh which covered the entire square. Not a moan, not a single breath stirred the smoky air. The army of untouchables was now an army of the dead.
Ten
The two captured freefighters were whisked up the aisle of the huge Illyushin-78 Ramjet and told to make themselves comfortable. There were nearly two hundred seats inside but only they, a dozen guards, and the plane crew got aboard. The stewardesses were bulky Russian women in drab gray suits and low black shoes with their stern potatolike faces. The stewardesses strapped Rock and Archer into their seats at the tail section of the plane. The guards sat in front, behind, and in the seats on each side of them. They were taking no chances.
It was a gut-wrenching takeoff, and it felt as if the jet went nose up the second it left the runway, not leveling off until it reached the stratosphere after about five minutes. The ear-splitting roar of the engines died somewhat as they hit the thinner air high above the earth and caught into the global jet stream. The chunky stewardesses brought them tasty caviar spreads and sandwiches without crusts and good thick rich Columbian coffee, black as a pit. Archer picked up five of the tiny sandwiches at a time and swallowed them down without apparently tasting their delicate subtle flavors from around the world. Rock savored each bite—better than the slop they’d been given in the prison. He still felt a bit weak from the aftereffects of his little pain session. But Archer seemed just fine. After a few loud burps and one fart that threatened to make the guards retreat to the far end of the plane, the big primitive fellow fell asleep, his head plopping down onto Rockson’s shoulder, and he began snoring like a bull elephant.
Rockson was looking forward to the meeting with the Grandfather, wondering just what the cagey premier had in mind. He was intrigued that Vassily had a black servant—with some power—how odd. The man was also, rumor stated, of above average intelligence and read profusely. He knew from his sources that Vassily was of late locked in a struggle to the death with Colonel Killov to maintain his power over who ran America. Suddenly Rock realized the reason for the trip: to be used by Vassily to defeat Killov. But two could play that game, and Rockson was an ace at no-rules poker.
The steel curtains over the windows rolled back, and Rock nearly gasped as he took in the view below. They were in goddamned space itself They were, Rock guessed, nearly twenty miles up, and the curve of the horizon above which stars dotted the sky was slow and beautiful. He had known the Ramjets flew high but this . . .
“Mmmm,” Archer groaned, suddenly rising and unsnapping his seat belt. The guards leaped up, leveling their pistols and Kalashnikovs at the giant, but Archer pointed to his groin and made a pained face.
“I think he wants to use your gentlemen’s facilities,” Rock said.
The Red guards motioned Archer forward but as he took a step, much to his astonishment, he began slowly floating up toward the cushioned ceiling, banging his head. He flailed his arms and kicked his long legs frantically as if trying to swim through the weightless air.
“Relax buddy,” Rock said, grabbing an elephantine ankle and pulling gently down until Archer reached his seat. The Red guard came over and gave them each a set of shoes with magnetic bottoms. Archer put his on, not quite able to close even the largest pair, and began, nimbly for him, walking up the aisle looking sick as a dog.
“How high are we?” Rock asked one of his guards.
“Twenty-eight miles,” the beefy soldier answered proudly. “Flying about seven times the speed of sound at ground level. Five thousand miles per hour. We are in free fall, as you say.” Rock heard the toilet flush and wondered if Archer’s huge deposit was now a meteor about to flash across the sky of the north pole. The Doomsday Warrior unhooked himself under their careful gaze—why they bothered to keep a gun on him was beyond him. If they fired it in here, it would blow a hole in the side of the jet, and they would all suffer explosive decompression as the air rushed out of the sealed jet. He slowly made his way down the carpeted aisle, passing Archer on the way, who looked a little happier but was apparently hungry again as he went up to one of the guards and pointed a finger at his own mouth.
“Fooooddd. Mooorre.” The guards quickly acquiesced, not wanting to face the wrath of the hungry mutant American.
When he had finished his trip to the men’s room, Rockson returned to the open passenger section. He was curious about the effects of weightlessness. Under the watchful eyes of the guards, he released himself from the magnetic shoes and leaped up into the air, tucking his legs in under him. He went into a spring that accelerated faster and faster the more he pulled into a tighter circle. His years of physical training and his martial arts abilities made him quickly understand how to move in zero gravity. The Doomsday Warrior took off like an acrobat, soaring around the interior of the jet like some airborne porpoise. Even the guards were impressed, lowering their rifles as they watched the gymnastic performance.
It felt wonderful, Rock thought—like being a child in a dream when one could fly by merely flapping one’s arms. He pushed his body to the limits, trying every angle, every torque of hips and arms that he could think of. He glanced down suddenly at the guards and realized that he could easily take them out. A quick push off the top steel-ribbed ceiling and he would be down upon them like a wolf among the chickens. But he wanted to meet Vassily. Who knew where such an encounter would lead?
After about fifteen minutes of weightless gymnastics, Rockson returned to his seat. Both guards smiled at him. They couldn’t help but respect the man—his abilities were almost superhuman. They looked at him with strangely friendly eyes. Rock returned the gesture. It was not the common Red troops who were his enemy—even if he did have to kill them when the occasion arose. No, it was the leadership. It had always been—since the dawn of time. Those few, power-mad men who had to rise to the top and let their primitive, sadistic impulses become the rules of life. It was governments that had caused all of man’s problems. Wizened old men who sent the young out to die while they stayed at home making pronouncement after pronouncement on the need to kill, to conquer, to destroy. Maybe the world would have been better off if man had never evolved civilization; if man had stayed in the trees, in small clusters. Hadn’t the industrial world given humanity myriad ways to die, culminating in the atomic bomb which had turned the blue and green paradise of earth into a living hell? What was it a great philosopher had once said—“Power corrupts—absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Rockson suddenly wished that every government official on earth would suddenly disappear—and just the people would be left—the workers, the farmers. They had no wish to destroy one another. Just to live and let live.
The Doomsday Warrior sat back in his seat and stared out the window. Far below, earth could be seen—its oceans and continents, like a child’s jigsaw puzzle, fitting perfectly together. The planet seemed so beautiful, fragile from way up here. The devastation that had been done disappeared at such a height. The Doomsday Warrior felt a surge of tenderness toward his planet. It seemed so small, so vulnerable from twenty-eight miles up. A living, breathing thing that wished only to heal its wounds and create life once again.
Rockson sat back in his seat and remembered what the “Glowers” had taught him—how they had taken him on a mind excursion into the energy currents of the earth. He closed his eyes and sank deep into the meditative state that the strange race had taught him. It took time without the Glowers’ help, but after about ten minutes he felt his consciousness begin to rise up and drift free of the physicality that was Ted Rockson. Pure energy, he drifted through the molecular structure of the jet and soared down through the atmosphere. He could feel the cosmic rays shooting down from space, the gravitational pull of the planet like a billion arms grabbing, pulling all solid objects into itself. He flew like a shooting star across the vast cleansing oceans, feeling their tidal swells, the un
dulations of the waves as they traveled from continent to continent. He dropped lower onto the countries that had once been Europe and saw the people in all their misery—ragged and ill-nourished—hopelessness etched in their eyes as all that they had was consumed by Russian state. He felt their hearts bursting with pain, their children dying. He dropped lower and lower onto the planet and felt it, the soil, the rocks moving just beneath the surface, taking the radioactive poisons deeper down into its burning core trying to neutralize them. In spite of the charnel ground that the war had created, the planet forgave and tried to return to its pure state, tried to purify the soil and the streams in an attempt to recreate itself in the image of a century before.
The Doomsday Warrior saw the thousands of villages, the people reduced to primeval state of savagery—the Russian military fortresses never more than one hundred miles apart with their hordes of food and purified water. He felt that his heart was about to burst—so much pain and suffering. It was beyond the ability of a man to change—so much, so much destruction. And yet in the midst of his anguish, Rock heard the singing voices of the Glowers as if from a million miles away. Encouraging him, pushing him on, sending out their own power and mental strength to give him the will to accept it all.
“Yes, Rockson, yes. You must see it all.” He heard their voices in his brain in rippling harmony. Like a memory flying on the winds of the world. “See it—don’t turn away. This is the earth as it is. You must understand it all. For you are the man whose destiny it is to change things.” Their spirit filled him. And somehow in the midst of his visions of death and de-evolution came a new feeling. The spirit of the heart of man. It never stopped trying to survive. It glowed like a diamond, like the very core of the sun taking what is was given and trying to make it better. This was why it was all worth it. The soul of man itself. The mind, the greed—that was the poison. But the soul, the eternal essence of the human creature—this was the indestructible thing—more brilliant than the exploding supernovas that he could sense far above him, deeper then the oceans. He felt the purity, the nobleness of humanity, and it filled him with a glowing fire that he had never known.
