The Nightmare begins

by neetha Napew

pulling back the blanket from the baby's face. The flesh was cold to his touch,

  the complexion blue-tinged. "This child is dead," Rourke said softly, dropping

  the blanket back over the infant's face and staring up skyward to where the

  woman holding the child was mumbling a prayer.

  They spent several hours with the refugees, some thirty in all, Rourke doing

  what he could, Natalie finally getting the woman to release her dead baby, then

  helping Rubenstein bury the child by the side of the road. The people were from

  a town some fifteen miles or so up ahead, a place Rourke had never heard of.

  There had been a cafe and a U.S. Border Patrol Station there. Brigands had come,

  the woman said, starting to pick up the story then, rocking back and forth on

  her knees on the ground, her dirty face tear-streaked, blood on the front of her

  dress from the dead infant she had carried through the night.

  "My Jim and I was sleepin'—he was tossin' and turnin' so much that it woke me up

  and I couldn't get back to sleep. I kept wonderin' if the radiation from the

  bombs was gonna get to us and kill my baby." She choked back a sob then, Natalie

  putting her arm around the woman's shoulders, the woman coughing and going on,

  "… and then I heard all this commo­tion. Engine noises, gunshots, screamin' and

  all. I thought maybe somethin' good was happenin', like maybe there were U.S.

  troops coming in, or the Border Patrol men had come back. I got up and looked

  out the window and saw them…" Her voice trailed off into a whisper, then she

  began again. "There was maybe a couple hundred of them—all of them kinda young,

  some of them ridin' motorcycles, some of them in pickup trucks or jeeps. Some of

  our folks started runnin' out into the streets, some of the men shootin' at the

  strangers, but they all got shot down or run over. They started smashin' and

  burnin' everythin' then, stealin' everythin' like they owned the whole world or

  somethin'. Jim was up then and he took his rifle and ran out after them and

  they—" the woman stopped, crying now uncontrollably, her head sinking to her

  breast, Natalie wrapping the woman in her arms.

  An old man, sitting on the ground beside Rourke began talking, "They took those

  of us they didn't kill and lined us up in the street. Just gunned down some of

  us for fun it looked like, raped some of the women there in the street makin' us

  all watch, took some of the women with 'em, looted all the houses and the couple

  stores we had, took every gun in town, all the food and water they could find

  and told us to go before they changed their minds about wastin' the bullets and

  just killin' us all."

  Rourke looked away from the man, hearing Natalie say, "They must be up ahead of

  us, some­where."

  Rubenstein muttered, "I hope we get to meet them."

  Rourke looked at Natalie, then at Paul Ruben­stein, slowly then saying, "Chances

  are we'll meet up with them. Anybody see who shot that woman's baby—what he

  looked like?"

  The woman Natalie had folded in her arms suddenly stopped crying, looking up at

  Rourke, saying, "I saw him. Not too tall, thin kind of and had blonde hair,

  curly and pretty like a girl maybe, and this little beard on the end of his

  chin. Carried a long, fancy-lookin' pistol—that's what he used to kill my baby,

  that's what he killed her with."

  Rourke leaned forward to the woman, huddled there in Natalie's arms, saying

  slowly, deliberately, his voice almost a whisper. "I can't promise you we'll

  find that man, but I can promise you that if we do I'll kill him for you."

  Rourke started to turn away and caught Natalie's blue eyes staring at him. He

  didn't look away.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  "You must assume the presidency sir," the green fatigue-clad air force colonel

  said, leaning forward in the mustard-colored overstuffed chair, his blue eyes

  focused tight on the lanky Samuel Chambers.

  Chambers held up his left hand for silence, leaned back in the leather-covered

  easy chair and began to speak. "Colonel Darlington—you and everyone here urge me

  to essentially 'crown' myself as president of the United States—when I'm not

  even sure there still is a United States. According to Captain Reed's contact

  through army channels before the army ceased to function as a unified command,

  Soviet landings were anticipated in Chicago and several other major U.S. cities

  that were neutron-bombed. We could and probably do have thousands of Soviet

  troops already in the country and thousands more on the way. The worse the

  damage our forces did to them, the more desperate they'll be to utilize our

  surviving factories and natural resources to get their own country back on its

  feet. And what about the radiation fallout, the famine, the economic collapse we

  are facing now? Is there actually a country—even a world—that's going to be able

  to go on, even if it wants to? Answer me that colonel!" Chambers con­cluded.

  Captain Reed leaned forward in his chair, a Sherlockian pipe—unlit—clamped in

  the left corner of his thin-lipped mouth. He snatched at the pipe with his left

  hand, pointed with the stem and said, "I've been listening to this sir, and I've

  reached one conclusion, and I think it should be obvious to every­one here by

  now. We're talking about a situation of mass confusion out there. The former

  president did what he had to do. Had he stayed alive, essentially trapped in his

  retreat, the Soviets could have used him for whatever they wanted to—with or

  without his cooperation. But you're different, sir." Reed leaned back, glanced

  briefly around the room and went on. "Your sentiments against Communism on a

  philosophical basis are widely known, so putting words in your mouth would be

  useless. They don't have you trapped in one spot—they don't know where you are.

  Now we can see that apparently there are people still alive, there are armed

  citizens out there willing to fight someone—but someone has to point them in the

  right direction, to channel what they're doing. Maybe that's the word. We need

  someone to channel the energies of the country. We need a leader and we don't

  have that now. And there's no one else but you, sir."

  Reed sat back, glancing around the room again, then looking down to the floor as

  if studying the toes of his combat boots.

  Colonel Darlington, after a long silence, said softly, "The captain is right—he

  put it better than any of us," then staring intently at Chambers, said, "Mr.

  President."

  Chambers looked at Darlington, then at Reed and then at the others there in the

  room—Randan Soames, commander of the Texas Militia, volunteer paramilitary

  group; Federal Judge Arthur Bennington; his own aide, George Cripp.

  Chambers lit a cigarette, saying through the cloud of smoke as he stared down in

  front of him, "Perhaps Judge Bennington could find a Bible so that he can

  administer the Oath. After that, gentlemen, I'll anticipate we'll be proceeding

  with this organiza­tional conference well into tomorrow morning." Chambers

  looked up, catching the judge's eye, saying, "Arthur—whenever you're ready."

  Moments later, Chambers stood in the garden, swore to protect and defend the

  Constitution of the Uni
ted States, so help him God. His aide, George Cripp, was

  the first to address him afterward as "Mr. President."

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Natalie had kept the four-barreled COP derringer-type pistol, giving the other

  guns Rourke had salvaged from the jeep and the brigands she had killed to the

  most likely-looking of the refugee group. Rourke, Rubenstein—by now

  understanding firearms reasonably well—and Natalie showed the new gun owners how

  to employ them. Sharing the water and food left Rourke and Rubenstein and the

  girl with enough to reach Van Horn and nothing more. Before parting company with

  the refugee party early the next morning, Rourke sent Rubenstein back down the

  road in the direction in which the refugee party would be traveling, to scout

  twenty miles ahead, then come back. The younger man, dark hair whipping across

  his high forehead, eyes squinted both against the sun and apparently to keep the

  perpetually slipping wire-rimmed glasses from falling off the bridge of his

  nose, returned almost exactly forty minutes later, reporting nothing up ahead

  for the refugees—and nothing close behind for Rourke.

  Rourke, the girl he knew as Natalie sitting behind him on his bike, watched

  until the refugee group had straggled a hundred yards or so down the road, then

  turned to Rubenstein, straddling the Harley beside him. Rourke glanced at the

  smaller man, noting that the complexion which had been pallid only days earlier,

  and then red from the sun, was now starting to darken. Already, too, there was

  an added leanness about Rubenstein's face. Rourke exhaled slowly, saying, "Well,

  partner—about ready?"

  Rubenstein looked at him, saying nothing, and nodded, then hurriedly pushed his

  glasses off the bridge of his nose. "You know, Paul," Rourke smiled, "We've

  gotta do something about getting those glasses fixed." Not looking at the girl

  behind him, Rourke said, "Hold on—I want to make some time." Rourke pushed the

  sleeves of his already sweat-stained light blue shirt up past his elbows, ran

  the long fingers of his hands back through his brown hair, then started his Low

  Rider, cutting a slow arc off the road shoulder and back onto the highway. A

  road sign a hundred yards off to his right, faded from the sunlight, read: "Van

  Horn—75 miles."

  They rode in silence, flanking the yellow line at the center of the road. Rourke

  checked his speedom­eter, his odometer and then the Rolex wristwatch, then bored

  his eyes back up the road and gunned the cycle harder. They had driven for just

  under an hour when Rourke signaled to Rubenstein and started cutting across the

  right-hand lane to pull up alongside the right shoulder. Ahead of them stretched

  a low, bridged highway running past smokeless high chimneys, and beyond that

  were the faint outlines of buildings scorching under the already intense sun.

  Rourke glanced at his watch—the Rolex read nearly ten A.M. now. As Rubenstein

  pulled beside him, Rourke said quietly, "Van Horn," and gestured toward the

  lifeless-seeming factories and beyond.

  "It looks dead," Rubenstein said, squinting against the light.

  "Does," Rourke commented.

  "What do we do?" It was Natalie, leaning over his shoulder.

  "Well," Rourke began slowly. "We need food and water, and Rubenstein here could

  use some clip-on sunglasses before the glare does permanent damage to his eyes.

  You could probably stand some things. And we could use some more gasoline. I

  promised I'd get you as far as I could toward Galveston. I don't know yet

  whether Paul and I are going to have to go down that far to find a safe way of

  getting onto the other side of the Mississippi. From what I was able to judge

  from the air that night—the night of the war— it looked as though that entire

  area should be nothing but a nuclear desert. But there's no way of telling that

  from here—unless you know something."

  He craned his neck and looked at the girl, who smiled at him, saying, "Remember,

  I hadn't even heard about the war until you and Paul told me?"

  "Yeah, I remember that," Rourke said slowly. "I guess though it sort of strikes

  me as odd that you seem so good with a gun, seem to have seen refugees close up

  before, and that somewhere in the back of each of our minds we remember each

  other from somewhere. I just thought maybe some vibrations or something might

  have come to you about the Mississippi Delta region."

  "Sorry," the girl said, as though dismissing Rourke's remark.

  "Right—sorry," Rourke echoed. "Well, since you just seem to have this mystical

  skill with borrowed handguns and submachine guns, when we get down into Van

  Horn, until we rearm you with something more than that little pea-shooter you've

  got, why don't you snatch my Python out of the leather here in case some

  shooting starts. I think if you study it for a while, you can figure out how it

  works. Right?"

  The girl smiled again, almost whispering, "I'd imagine I can."

  "Good," Rourke said softly, then turning to Rubenstein, "Paul, there's one main

  drag down there, probably. When we hit the town, I'll wait five minutes, you cut

  down along the perimeter as fast as you can, then turn into the main street and

  start back toward me. Those brigands who destroyed that town those refugees came

  from are up ahead of us somewhere. I figure they probably already attacked Van

  Horn, but some of them could have hung around. People like that are usually

  pretty loose organizationally, coming and going when they please. Keep that

  thing you call a Schmeisser ready, huh?"

  "Gotcha," Rubenstein said, swinging the sub­machine gun off his back and

  slinging it under his arm.

  Rourke turned back to the girl. "That Python of mine is

  Mag-Na-Ported—gas-venting slots on each side of the barrel. So it won't give you

  as much felt recoil as you might expect."

  "I don't understand," the girl said.

  He turned his head and looked at her a moment, saying, "Just fake it," a smile

  crossing his lips.

  He started the Harley Davison Low Rider between his legs into first and back

  onto the highway and toward the bridge. The buildings coming up on his right

  were gray factory smokestacks from light industry. Rourke's Harley was halfway

  across the bridge now, and from the elevation he could look beyond the largely

  flat rooflines and into the town and beyond that into the gray-seeming desert.

  There was no sign of life. The winds were coming strong and Rourke tacked the

  Harley into them to keep their buffeting effect from flipping the big bike down.

  Three-quarters of the way across the bridge he angled right, trying to keep

  quartering into the wind as he did, heading the bike down and onto the off ramp

  into the town. Rubenstein, behind him as he looked back, was evidently having

  greater problems handling the heavy winds.

  As Rourke's Harley dipped below the level of the bridge, the bridge itself

  seemed to block the winds and he swerved slightly left, then straightened out,

  coming to a slow halt at the base of the ramp, then cutting a lazy figure eight

  in the street fronting it as he scouted in both directions, then heading right

  from the direction he'd come and into the town itself. Th
e main street seemed

  some two blocks ahead, Rourke gauged, and he waved Rubenstein down along a

  narrow side street, glancing over his shoulder, watching the younger man sharply

  turning the bike and disappearing behind an intact but deserted-appearing

  building.

  Rourke reached the main street, slowed and cut a gentle arc in the large

  intersection there and came to a stop. "It looks like everyone just vanished,"

  Natalie commented.

  "I've got a bad feeling about this place," Rourke said, staring down the street,

  waiting to see Rubenstein reappear approximately a half-mile down.

  "A Neutron bomb?" the girl asked, her voice hushed.

  "Now what would a nice young lady like you know about Neutron bombs?" Rourke

  said, not looking at her. He settled his sunglasses and pulled back the

  bolt-charging handle on the CAR-15, setting the safety on and swinging the

  collapsible stock Colt's muzzle away from the bike and into the empty street.

  "It's not a Neutron bomb," he said. "Look over there."

  He watched over his shoulder as the girl turned, looking in the general

  direction the CAR-15 was pointed. Scrawny but healthy trees were growing in a

  small square. "No," he said. "Everybody just left—or mostly everybody."

  He glanced down to his watch, then back up the street.

  "Where's Paul?" Natalie asked. He could feel her breath against his right ear.

  "That's just what I was starting to ask myself," Rourke muttered, his voice a

  whispered monotone. "It might not be a bad idea, you know, for you to reach

  around my waist, unbuckle my gunbelt and put that Python on yourself—you might

  need the spare ammo on the belt."

  Rourke felt the woman's hands and arms encircling his waist.

  He helped her undo the buckle, craned his neck and watched as she slung the

  cammie-patterned gunbelt from her right shoulder across to her left hip, the

  Python in its flap holster on her left side, butt forward.

  "You ready?"

  The girl took the massive revolver from the leather and nodded.

  "Okay," Rourke said softly, starting the bike down the center of the deserted

  street.

  He stared ahead of them, whispering over the hum of the Harley's engine, "Did

  you just see something moving in that space between buildings about twenty-five