The Nightmare begins

by neetha Napew

  yards back?"

  "On the right?"

  "Yeah…"

  "Man with a rifle, I thought, but wasn't sure."

  "Yeah… okay… I'm going up to the end of the block here and turn down and back

  into that secondary street Paul was coming up. That's when we should hit it."

  "Brigands?" the girl said softly, her voice even, calm.

  "Maybe worse—people defending what's left of their town," Rourke answered,

  curving the bike wide to the right and then arcing left into the far lane of the

  intersecting street—also seemingly deserted. The secondary street was coming up

  on the left, and as Rourke's eyes scanned back and forth there was still no sign

  of Paul Rubenstein.

  He pulled the Harley into another wide arc, cutting left into the secondary

  street. As he started the big machine along the uneven pavement, he heard

  Natalie behind him, whispering, her voice hoarse, "John—on your right!"

  Rourke perfunctorily glanced to his right, raised his right hand in a small wave

  and whispered back to the girl. "Yeah… I saw them." As they cruised slowly down

  the street on each side of them now armed men and women were appearing, stepping

  out of doorways, from behind overturned cars and trucks, closing in like a wall

  behind them. "Relax," he rasped. "If they wanted to shoot first they'd be doing

  it by now."

  "I don't take much comfort from that," the girl said, almost angrily.

  Suddenly, the girl almost screamed, "Look—up ahead—they've got Paull"

  "Yeah… I see it," Rourke said softly. Ruben­stein was on his knees at the end of

  the street, his hands tied out, arms stretched between the rear axle of an

  overturned truck and a support column for one of the smaller factory loading

  docks. There was a young man standing beside Rubenstein, an assault rifle with

  fixed bayonet in his hands, the point of the bayonet at the side of Rubenstein's

  throat. "I don't know who these people are—but they aren't brigands either. At

  least not the type we've seen."

  "John—go back!" Rubenstein screamed, the man beside Rubenstein then pressing the

  bayonet harder against Rubenstein's throat, silencing him.

  Rourke stopped the Harley he rode about twenty feet in front of Rubenstein,

  slowly but deliberately swinging the CAR-15 in the direction of the man with the

  bayonet, his right fist clenched on the rifle's pistol grip.

  "Who are you people?" Rourke asked slowly, his eyes scanning the knot of young

  men and women, all of them armed. He had counted—including the ones walled

  behind him now and blocking his way out— perhaps twenty-five, more or less

  evenly divided male and female and all of them in their middle to late teens.

  "We'll ask the questions," a dark-haired boy with what looked like acne on his

  left cheek shouted.

  "Then ask away, boy," Rourke said, glaring at the young man but keeping the

  muzzle of his CAR-15 trained where it had been—on the one holding the bayonet to

  Rubenstein's throat.

  "Who are you?" the acne-faced voice came back, unsteadily but loud.

  Rourke exhaled hard, saying in a voice not much above a whisper, "John T.

  Rourke, the girl here says she's Natalie Timmons and the man your pal has on the

  ground there is Paul Rubenstein. Just wayfarin' strangers, kid."

  "Who are you with?" the leader shouted.

  "You don't listen too good, do you boy?" Rourke said, shooting an angry glance

  at the perhaps eighteen-year-old belonging to the voice.

  "I mean what group are you with?"

  "Well," Rourke began. "I belonged to a motor club before the war. That do you

  any good?"

  "Cut out the smart-ass routine, mister!"

  "Boy," Rourke said slowly, menacingly, "you talk that way to me once more and

  you've got an extra navel—just a shade over five and a half millimeters wide,"

  and Rourke gestured with the CAR-15, then settled it back covering the man

  guarding Paul Rubenstein. "Now—what are you doing with my friend here?"

  "You came to steal from us, didn't you?" the acne-faced leader shouted.

  "What—you deaf kid," Rourke said. "Learn to control your voice. If you've got

  something I want, I'll deal with you for it. If there's something I want that

  nobody's got but it's there anyway, yeah, I'll take it. Promissory notes and

  money and checks and credit cards aren't much good these days, I understand."

  "We call ourselves the Guardians."

  "Well—how nice for you. What are you the "Guardians" of?"

  As Rourke asked the question, he could hear Natalie trying to whisper to him. He

  leaned back away from his handlebars and caught her voice, "Rourke—behind us—six

  of them coming."

  "We are the Guardians—"

  "You ask me," Rourke said, "I think you're the crazies, myself." Suddenly

  Rourke's body tensed as he leaned forward. His tone softening, he addressed all

  the young men and women there, shouting, "How many of you have marks on your

  faces like he has—or elsewhere on your bodies?"

  A girl stepped forward out of the knot around the leader. Rourke saw the

  acnelike marks on both her cheeks and neck. "Who are you?" she demanded.

  The six advancing from behind Rourke were getting closer. He could see them now

  out of the corner of his left eye.

  "Where were you the night of the war?" Rourke asked, slowly.

  "Were we anywhere near a blast site, do you mean?" the girl asked, almost

  laughing, her dark eyes crinkling into a strange smile.

  "We were," the acne-faced leader began. "And we know what we've got. But

  guarding here is what we do."

  The girl beside the leader of the young people went on, "We were away on a

  senior class field trip. By the time the bus ran out of gas and we walked back

  here everyone had gone. We knew where there were some guns and we've been

  running the town ever since. We know we've all got radiation sickness, we're all

  dying. But we're guarding the town until our families get back. We're doing this

  for them."

  Rourke eyed the six, now just a few feet behind himself and Natalie. "What if

  they don't come back?" Rourke asked slowly.

  "We'll guard the town until the last of us has died," the girl beside the leader

  said flatly.

  "Anybody with sores like that is going to die—and soon and painfully," Rourke

  told her.

  "We know!" the girl beside the leader shouted back to him, her voice shrill.

  "John!" Natalie rasped hard in Rourke's ear.

  "I know," he muttered, catching sight of the six readying their weapons behind

  him. Then turning back to the leader, Rourke asked, "What do you want us for—let

  my friend go and we'll be on our way."

  "People like you—violent people, people without a home or a town—you caused the

  war. You deserve to die!" the leader shouted.

  "If you all feel that way, you're all crazy," Rourke said calmly. He was

  watching the leader now, but out of the corner of his eye saw the young man

  guarding Rubenstein take a half-step back, drawing the bayonet rifle rearward

  for a thrust. He heard Paul Rubenstein shouting, "John!"

  "I am sorry," Rourke said so softly that he felt perhaps no one heard him, then

  pulled the trigger on the CAR-15, twice, cutting down the young man with th
e

  bayonet just as the thrust began for Paul Rubenstein's throat.

  Rourke's left hand flashed across his body, snatch­ing one of the stainless

  Detonics .45s, his thumb jacking back the hammer as the gun ripped from the

  Alessi shoulder holster, his left trigger finger work­ing once, the slug

  catching the leader between the eyes and hurtling the already dying youth back

  against the knot of followers around him.

  Rourke started to shout to Natalie, but as he turned, he could see her, already

  off the bike and in a crouch, the Python in both her fists, firing into the six

  attackers coming up behind him.

  Rourke started the bike forward, the Detonics slipping into his trouser belt,

  replaced in his left hand by the black-chromed Sting IA, and as he reached

  Rubenstein he hacked out with the double-edge blade, cutting the ropes on

  Rubenstein's left wrist, then the right, tossing the younger man the once fired

  .45.

  Rubenstein, still on his knees, looked up at Rourke, shouting, "They're only

  kids, John!"

  Rourke, his eyes hard, bit his lower lip, then shouted, "God help me—I know

  that, damn itl"

  Three of the heavily armed youths were rushing toward Rourke already and he

  swung the CAR-15 on line and opened up, cutting them down. He glanced back to

  Rubenstein, the younger man finishing a knee smash on a beefy-looking boy of

  about eighteen, beside Rubenstein's bike. Natalie was reloading the Python and

  as she brought it on line, with her left hand she brushed the hair back from her

  face. For an instant, Rourke wasn't in the middle of a life or death gun battle

  with a gang of bloodthirsty kids all dying of radiation poisoning—he was back in

  Latin America. The gun she held wasn't a Python—it was an SMG. And the hair was

  blonde, but the gesture, the stance, the set of the eyes—they hadn't been blue

  in those days—was exactly the same.

  There was a burst of submachine gun fire from his right and Rourke turned,

  seeing Rubenstein firing the German MP-40—the "Schmeisser"—into the dirt at the

  feet of three attackers. The youths kept coming and—the reluctance was visible

  in the way Rubenstein moved—Rourke watched as the younger man raised the muzzle

  of the SMG and fired. Rourke turned back toward Natalie. He knew now that wasn't

  her name. His gun in her hands was silent. Rourke's eyes scanned the area around

  him, the muzzle of his CAR-15 sweeping the air. There were bodies, but no living

  combatants. He counted ten dead—meaning at least fifteen still out there

  some­where.

  In an instant, Rubenstein was standing beside him, the girl who called herself

  Natalie turning and facing him. The girl spoke first. "I was beginning to think

  you never were going to make your move—I know why you waited. I think I realized

  before you did that they were all dying of radiation sickness."

  Rourke looked down to his bike, taking his .45 back from Rubenstein and swapping

  in a fresh load, saying to the girl, "I remembered where I saw you— South

  America, a few years ago. You were a blonde— I think your eyes were green. But

  it was you. Contact lenses?" He looked up at the girl then, taking off his

  sunglasses and pushing them back past his forehead into his hair.

  He squinted past the midday sun at her.

  "They were contact lenses," she nodded. "But what now?"

  "You mean about this, or about my remembering you?" Rourke asked softly.

  "Whatever," the girl said.

  "Let's stick to this for now—we can worry about the other thing later. We still

  need supplies. Looks like the town was abandoned for some reason. Probably, if

  we look hard enough, we can find what we need. Still gotta worry about those

  kids sniping at us."

  "I can't understand this!" Rubenstein almost cried.

  "What?" Rourke asked.

  "We just killed ten perfectly decent kids, or at least they were. What's

  happening?"

  "Sometimes when people realize they're dying, it's almost as if they step out of

  themselves," Rourke began. "Those kids were smart enough to realize what was

  happening to them, and they focused their energies, their thoughts—everything—on

  guarding this town. Kind of calculated mass hysteria. It didn't matter to them

  that it was wholly irrational, impos­sible, even that they knew I was right that

  no one was coming back here for them. Probably once the first one started

  noticing what was happening and then some of the others started coming up with

  the symptoms they just made a sort of pact. Kids are big on that sort of

  thing—pacts, blood oaths."

  Rubenstein stared into the dirt, saying, "That radiation poisoning thing—just

  because they were in the wrong spot at the wrong time. It could have been us,

  instead."

  "It still could be us," Rourke said quietly, putting on his sunglasses again.

  "When was the last time you checked the Geiger counter?"

  "Sometimes I like it better when you don't say anything—like you usually do,"

  the girl, Natalie, said, holstering Rourke's revolver.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Rourke sat by the small Coleman stove, water still steaming from the yellow

  kettle, the red-foil Moun­tain House package in his left hand, a table spoon

  he'd found held in his right. He gave the contents of the foil package a last

  stir and scooped a spoonful of the contents up and put it in his mouth, then

  leaned back against the rear bumper of the pickup truck. "I love their beef

  stroganoff," Rourke commented, almost to himself.

  "This stuff is terrific!" Rubenstein said.

  "What have you got there, Paul?" Rourke asked.

  "Chicken and rice," Rubenstein answered, his speech garbled because his mouth

  was full.

  "Next time try some of this—the noodles in it are great, too."

  Natalie, still stirring at the contents of her packet, looked at Rourke across

  the glow of the small Coleman lamp between the three of them, saying, "Well—now

  that we've found food, plenty of water, gasoline and a four-wheel drive

  pickup—what next?"

  Rourke leaned forward, looking at the full spoon inches from his mouth, saying,

  "Don't forget we found cigars for me and cigarettes for you."

  "That guy really had the stuff put away under that warehouse," Rubenstein

  commented, his mouth still full.

  "Yeah—too bad he never got a chance to use it, apparently," Rourke sighed,

  finally consuming the spoonful.

  "I can't understand that town," the girl said. "Why hadn't the brigands been

  there?"

  "Well…" Rourke began.

  "And why and where did all the people who lived there go?" the girl went on.

  Rourke looked at her, took another spoonful of the food and began again. "The

  way I've got it figured, everybody in the town just evacuated—I don't know to

  where. When those kids showed up and started shooting everything that moved, I

  guess the lead elements of the brigand force probably pulled in there, got

  killed and never reported back. There are two kinds of field commanders.

  Whoever's in charge of the brigands apparently isn't the kind of guy who took

  losing a squad of men as a personal challenge. He just went around the town,

  maybe
figuring the people there were too well armed. That means he's smart. He's

  not out to conquer and hold territory— he's just out to keep his people going on

  whatever they can plunder. I'd figure right about now he's got a dicey job.

  Could be several hundred of them, no discipline, drinking up everything they can

  get their hands on and staying smashed most of the time on drugs. Be like tryin'

  to control a gang of alcoholic gorillas—or maybe more like the stereotype of

  Vikings. Come in and strike hard, earn a reputation for brutality, retreat or

  withdraw fast and steal every­thing that isn't nailed down."

  "Then they're still ahead of us," the girl stated more than asked.

  "Yeah—and strong and probably by now spoiling for a good fight. I wouldn't

  worry. We're bound to bump into them," Rourke concluded, finishing the last of

  his food packet and crumpling it in his hand, then tossing it in a sack in the

  back of the truck.

  "Why did you go to all that trouble?" the girl asked, looking at him earnestly.

  "What—not just throw it on the ground? Enough of the country's ruined; why ruin

  more of it?" Rourke reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a cigar,

  lighting it with the Zippo.

  "Here—give me that, the lighter," the girl said and Rourke snapped it closed and

  tossed it to her. She stared at it a moment—the initials "J.T.R." on it— turned

  it over in her hands and lit her cigarette, then snapped it closed, looked at it

  a moment and threw it back to him,

  "Am I starting to ring bells for you, too—can you remember me yet?"

  "I don't know what you mean," Natalie told him, smiling.

  "Hey—" Rubenstein said, brightly. "Why don't we all have a drink? I mean, I

  could use one—we got six bottles back in the truck. "Where'd you put 'em, John?"

  "In the front right-hand corner," Rourke answered, not looking at Rubenstein,

  but looking at the dark-haired, blue-eyed girl instead, her face glowing in the

  warm light of the lantern. "There, just in front of my bike—I wrapped 'em up in

  an old towel I found. Go get one if you want."

  Rourke glanced away from the girl and toward the truck. They'd found the

  warehouse just as darkness had started, and Rubenstein—good at finding things,

  Rourke decided—had uncovered the doorway lead­ing into the small basement under

  the main floor of the place. Using one of the flashlights they'd taken a long