Ever Onward

by Wayne Mee

“Willllarrrd!”, the little Turk screamed.

  The farmer’s graying head rolled to one side. His eyes remained closed.

  Slowly Sadat looked around. Less than a hundred feet out into the lake the bow of the yacht was slowly coming into view. Snapping off the safety of Willard’s daddy’s 12 gage, the mild little man stood up, a look of intense anger in his bright blue eyes.

  “Bloody bastards! Bloody, stinking bastards!”

  He raised the heavy gun and fired the first barrel. The stock kicked him like his grandmother’s donkey. He grunted and fired the second. Dropping the now empty gun, he grabbed Willard under the arms and pulled. One of the farmer’s boots had become wedged in a fork in the tree. Sadat yanked with all his might.

  Willard groaned and opened his eyes. “Jesus Christ, Sadat! I aint a bloody wishbone!”

  The little Turk sank down behind Willard, still clasping the heavy farmer to his breast. All about them smoke and fire raged.

  “I...I thought they had killed you!”, he said, trying in vain to hold back his tears.

  “Not bloody likely!”, Willard grunted, painfully freeing his foot. His head still ringing and blinded in one eye by his own blood, he staggered to his feet. Sadat helped as best he could. Willard had the Turk retrieve both his weapons, then, using the shotgun like a crutch, both men hobbled away into the swirling smoke.

  “You want me to drive?”, the smaller man asked.

  “Hell no!”, the bigger laughed. “We might have an accident!”

  Things were far from well on board the not so good ship Sadistic. In fact, all was bloody chaos. Sadat’s first shot had missed by a country mile. The second one, however, had been dead on. Loaded with # 9 birdshot, the tiny pellets from Willard’s granddaddy's old gun had raked the wheelhouse. Made years before the modern invention of Cylinder or Invector chokes, the 585 pellets per ounce, each one .08 inches in diameter, spread out in a vast inverted triangle to blanket the entire ship. The lion’s share of these tiny led balls however, had entered the wheelhouse. Stinging like red-hot hornets, they pierced cloth, skin and flesh.

  Straw has hit seven times. Twice in the legs, thrice in the arms and the rest in the side of his head. One pierced his ear, another pierced his eardrum. To the day he died he would be deaf in one ear.

  Pete was hit by thirteen little devils, all in the upper thigh and groin. It would be many days till Peter Piper would be up to using his pecker.

  One Arm, partially shielded by the wheel, was struck only twice on the chest, yet one of the stinging little balls did score a bulls-eye on his right nipple.

  Standing in the centre of the shattered window, Rambo took over two dozen tiny hits. Starting at his left shoulder and ending at his right temple, his once handsome face looked like Queequeg, the tattooed harpooner in Melville’s ‘Moby Dick’. Small oil wells of blood sprouted from his chin, lips, cheeks and brow. Several led pellets tore off the lobe of his right ear, while several more put out his right eye.

  One Arm, surveying both the physical and human wreckage about him, swung the large wheel around and slammed the throttles all the way forward. The purring lions beneath the deck roared to life and the once sleek yacht leapt forward, seeking the safety of open water. Over the sound of the motor, One Arm’s maniacal laughter could be heard. Mixed in with the laughter were curses, moans and a promise that set him on a collision course with his own dark destiny.

  “I’ll be back, you fuckers! I’ll be back! And when I do you’ll curse your mothers for ever giving you birth! I’LL BE BACK, I SWEAR IT!”

  Chapter 27: ‘THE TEXAS RANGERS’

  Lake Champlain

  New York August 10

  Driving back across New Hampshire and Vermont, Josh and his people came across several small communities. At Concord they met people living as an enlarged family in a town-house complex. On a large farm outside the town of Lebanon they found a religious group living as Orthodox Jews. Passing through the Green Mountain National Forest, they stopped at the village of Brandon Gap where they came across a number of people who were already reverting back to the days of Daniel Boon --- complete with flintlock and muzzle loading weapons! In Middlebury, Vermont, they found people who had taken up residence in a shopping centre and refused to venture outside!

  Josh brooded over the diversity they’d found. Each one of these groups were struggling to rebuild their lives as best they could, yet it seemed to him that each was taking on a flavor of its own. What would these small communities look like in ten or twenty years? In fifty years? Would they hold to the democratic, North American view of society, or would each individual sect take on a way of life unique unto itself?

  Being a student of history, he was well aware of just how fast a society could slip backwards once central authority had been lost. It had happened in Egypt, Greece and Rome. Christ, the whole of Europe went down the tubes during the Dark Ages! His thesis, entitled ‘A World in Decline’, had searched for the real man behind the legendary King Arthur. What he had found was a 6th century war-lord struggling to hold back the inevitable. The all encompassing power that was Rome had vanished, leaving half-Celtic, half-Roman Britain to fend for itself. The ‘Arthur’ character had managed to hold it together for a short, glorious time, but with his passing, Celtic Britain had soon tore itself apart.

  Was that about to happen here?

  All over the world, both figuratively and literally, the lights were going out. Darkness seemed to be creeping in from all sides. Brave little islands of light were struggling to shine forth, but like Arthur’s fabled Camelot, for how long? How long could good people like Maybelle Smith in Bangor, Granny and Buz in the Lighthouse commune, even Doc Gruber and the folks back at Mount Hawthorn, hold out against the growing dark?

  Then there were the wild, roaming bands. Again, just as it had happened before: barbaric Huns, Viking Sea-Wolves, looting Vandals. They’d come across several of theses ‘gangs’ on their way back from the coast. Homeless, rootless people, in search of something they themselves couldn’t describe. Some were just poor, lost souls, banding together in 2’s and 3’s for moral as much as physical support. Harmless, haunted survivors of something they had no real desire to survive.

  Others, however, were not so harmless.

  These groups were what really bothered Josh. Though they came in all shapes and sizes, they resembled Snake’s group in many ways. Always run by a loudmouthed male, always armed to the teeth and always deadly. They’d had two run-ins with such groups on the way back to Crown Point.

  The first had been just outside of Concord. Heading up I-89, they had passed through the small town of Davisville. Several motorcycles and a large four-by-four had been parked outside a hotel. Two men had been sitting outside a bar when they drove through. They’d taken one look at Flame on her Harley and started out after them. Luckily these young gallants hadn’t taken the time to inform their brethren of the manna that Heaven had just seemingly dropped into their laps.

  Leaping on their bikes, they’d raced by the vans and caught up with the fiery red head a couple of miles out of town. Driving dangerously close, they’d hassled her for a mile or so. Josh, his Beretta in his hand, was about to try to force them off the road when Flame drew her large Smith & Wesson and blew out one of their front tires. The unlucky biker suddenly found himself face down in the ditch, his foul mouth filled with dirt and missing a few teeth. The second biker, finally realizing that ‘the date’ had suddenly turned sour, wisely decided to cut his losses and head back to the barn.

  The second group had caused them considerable more trouble. Two days before they came across a Daniel Boon type bunch in Brandon Gap. They had stopped for an early morning swim in a lake at the base of Round Mountain. The tow-truck had been running rough since leaving the Lighthouse commune, and Brad and Billy decided to try and fix it. Gus had talked Kenneth into a day of fishing in the mountain lake. Josh and the rest had left to conquer the 3400 foot summit of Round Mountain. Though not as high as New Hampshire�
��s Whites or the High Peaks in New York, The Round was said to be one of the prettiest of Vermont’s famous Long Trail.

  The five spent the day climbing, swimming in the streams and enjoying the natural beauty. It was nearing dark by the time they got back down. Still a quarter of a mile from the trailhead, they saw Kenneth jogging up towards them. Og and Princess bounded ahead to meet the panting boy.

  “Four men...”, the boy gasped. “in a big camper...”

  “Is anyone hurt?”, Josh demanded

  Kenneth shook his head. Jessie gave him some water. “No, but Dad told me to get you,” he said after several swallows. “To warn you. They wanted to know if we had any...you know, women.” His flushed faced went a shade redder. At sixteen the ‘facts of life’, though hazy, were still very much known.

  Kenneth continued. “Dad told them we didn’t. That we were waiting for three more men. I don’t think they believed him.”

  “There’s four of them?”, Josh asked. “Armed?”

  Kenneth nodded.

  “How long have they been there?

  “Not long. We just started supper when they came”.

  “How were they acting? Tough? Friendly?”

  Kenneth shrugged. “Sort of both. The one that did most the talking smiled a lot, but I didn’t like it. He talked funny too. Dad got me aside and told me to pretend to go back fishing, then head up here and warn you. He said not to let Trina and Flame come into camp.”

  Eddy moved up to stand beside Josh. “We could leave our packs here with the girls and run down. It’s only about a quarter mile.”

  “Like hell!”, Flame put in.

  Eddy shook his head.

  “We’ll all jog down,” Josh said. “But nobody leaves the woods till we see what’s going on.”

  Twenty minutes later they were on a rise of land overlooking the long, narrow lake. The trailhead was just below them. A large Winnebago was pulled up behind their vans. Though the sun was still up, someone had built a fire between Brad’s new red camper and the tow-truck. Six men were sitting around it; Brad, Bobby and Gus on one side, three strangers on the other. The fourth man was nowhere to be seen. Gus seemed to be casually whittling and Bobby was strumming his guitar.

  “Looks like a bloody weenie roast,” Flame scoffed.

  Trina peered down at the circle of men less than a hundred yards away. “If we had rifles, we could ...”

  “But we don’t,” Eddy said, his voice uncustomary harsh. “All we’ve got are handguns and that’s close work.”

  Flame grinned. “Then me and Josh will go. We’re the best shots. You three can cover us from the edge of the woods.”

  Josh shook his head.

  “Why not?”, Flame demanded. “I’m as good a shot as you! Even better!”

  “And a whole lot sexier,” Josh added. “But Brad told those guys that we didn’t have any women with us. If they see a walking centerfold for Guns & Ammo come out of the woods they’ll know he lied. It could get a bit awkward.”

  “Screw ‘awkward’!”, Flame responded. “I say we walk up and off the buggers!”

  Josh frowned. Until now, Flame had never come right out and opposed him on anything. She’d grumbled a bit, but never shown open defiance. Until now.

  “And what if they’re just four nice guys lonely for a little female companionship?”, Josh demanded. “Do we ‘off them’ first and ask them later? That might have been Snake’s way, but its not ours.”

  He could see his last remark hurt her, but it had to be done. Flame was always too ready to use force to solve a problem. Force or sex. He couldn’t really blame her, but he didn’t have to like it.

  She sulked for half a minute or so, then shrugged. “What the hell. They might just be four lost Boy-Scouts for all I know. But when you step out to meet them, Lover, remember to keep out of my line of fire.” She was grinning now, and gave him a saucy wink.

  Josh shook his head, smiling in spite of himself. “I’ll bare that in mind.” He turned to Jessie. “You and Trina move off to the left. Quietly move up behind them but stay in the shadows. “Flame, Kenneth stays with you. And don’t come out unless I call.”

  Flame gave him another knowing wink. “Anything you say, Lover.”

  Over a week ago, Brad, an avid reader, had introduced her to James Axler’s ‘Death Lands’, a futuristic series about life in America a hundred years after a nuclear holocaust. ‘Pulp fiction at its best!’, Brad had described it. Flame, reluctant at first, had surprised herself by gobbling up the first volume and searching every book store she came across for the rest of the series. Brad told Josh privately that he believed Flame ‘had the hots’ for the novel’s main character, Ryan Cawdor, a gun-toting, knife-fighting, one-eyed anti-hero. The fact that Flame herself bore a striking resemblance to Ryan’s love interest, the tough/gentle heroine, Christy Roth, Brad believed to have a lot to do with Flame’s sudden literary obsession.

  Christy often called Ryan, ‘Lover’.

  “But Uncle Brad told them he was waiting for three men,” Jessie said. “Shouldn’t I...”

  “No you shouldn’t!”, Josh growled. “When just Eddie and I walk into camp, they’ll think the third one is somewhere close by covering our back, which is exactly what you’ll be doing.”

  Jessie looked like he was about to say something, but changed his mind. Instead he nodded, hefted his bow and faded off into the trees. Trina followed. Flame and Kenneth moved off in the other direction. Eddy and Josh checked their handguns and began down the trail.

  When they heard the shot, they began to run.

  “So Sport, where are these ‘hikers’ o’ yours? Been a long time gone, aint they?”

  Besides the thick country drawl, William ‘Tex’ Roundtree’s voice had a high, nasal twang to it that grated on the nerves. The words, like his movements, were slow and deliberate. Dressed in a filthy pair of jeans, hand-tooled cowboy boots and an expensive but gaudy leather jacket, he looked like something out of a third-rate spaghetti western. A once white Stetson and two pear-handled six-guns slung low on his hips completed the image. From a distance he looked comical, like an actor that had been rushed through make-up; yet one look at the cold, hard gleam in his eyes made you swiftly change your mind. William ‘Tex’ Roundtree burned with the inner fire of madness.

  “I said, Sport, these three mountain men o’ yours been a long time gone. Maybe they aint comin’ back?” He leaned towards Brad, leering across the fire. “Maybe they never were.”

  “They’ll be here,” Brad said, trying to sound casual. He went back to frying the fish.

  Tex grinned at his two other companions. The one called Skull was nervous looking youth with a shaved head and a long skull-shaped earring dangling from his left lobe. The firelight caught the red glass embedded in the tiny skull’s eyes as he listened to Bobby’s guitar.

  Next to Skull was Fats. As his namesake implied, Fats was a rather large individual. Just under six feet tall and three feet wide, this portly gentleman weighed in at well over three hundred pounds --- and every ounce was pure, down-home, back-woods mean. The result of a rather sordid but fruitful liaison between an alcoholic, sadistic father and a retarded sister, Fats had inherited the worst of both his illustrious parents. A psychopath that was too dumb to know it and too damn mean to care.

  “Hear that, Fats?”, Tex chortled. “Sport here says his three big buddies are on their way.”

  Fats seemed not to hear. Instead, he sat staring into the fire’s dancing flames. The look on his face was one of complete rapture. Fats dearly loved fire. Fire was the main reason he’d been doing three to five in Houston's version of Sing-Sing. The only thing Fats loved better than watching a fire was starting one.

  Tex, himself a longtime member of the Houston Penal System, had been doing a ten to fifteen stretch for armed robbery in the same establishment as Skull and Fats. One fine summer morning nearly six weeks ago he had awoke to find the remains of a guard laying just outside his cell. At least, there wa
s a guard’s uniform laying there with grayish shit pouring out. Tex’s hard eyes, however, had been drawn to the set of keys clipped to the dead guard’s belt. Half an hour later, Tex, Snake and Fats were racing down Freedom’s road in the Warden Francis J. Palmer’s own car. Under the circumstances, Tex didn’t think Francis J. would mind.

  Unsure of just what had happened, the gruesome threesome had headed for Dallas. What they found was a dead city. Here and there they came across the odd survivor, but on the whole, they drove through a land almost totally devoid of human life. Tex liked it that way. He hadn’t the slightest idea what had caused the catastrophe and he didn’t give a shit. Mrs. Roundtree, though herself a hooker hooked on Cocaine, hadn’t raised no idiot, and William ‘Tex’ Roundtree knew a good thing when he saw it.

  From Dallas the ‘Texas Rangers’ had started on their own mad, cross-country tour; looting, raping and killing as they went. They worked their merry way through Memphis and Nashville, north through Louisville and Columbus, reaching the coast at Atlantic City and then up to New York. Through all this chaos, Tex had held true to his own personal dream --- to take a big Texas bite out of the Big Apple.

  Though the chemical plague, created by Estelle Doherty and loosed upon an unsuspecting world by Sergeant Richard Henderson, had wiped out 80 to 90% of the global population, the megalopolis that was New York City had contained over eighteen million souls. That remaining 10 to 20% made for one hell of a lot of frightened, shell-shocked survivors.

  New York City had been a mega-downer. Already going to seed before The Change, by the time Tex and his bosom buddies arrived, the Big Apple had rotted to the core. Mobs of crazed, armed people ran through the streets. Fires raged out of control. Bodies hung from streetlights. Packs of wild dogs fought with packs of wild humans for food. And the rats were everywhere.

  A country boy at heart, Tex decided to head for the hills. Instead of making tracks for home, however, Tex shifted his gaze further northward. Back in Houston pen there’d been a good ol’ boy by the name of Jean-Paul Boulregard. Half Cajun, half French-Canadian, and totally insane, Jean-Paul would waxed almost lyrical about the warm, wet merits of French pussy. Tex had decided to mosey on up to Montreal and see for himself.