Post-Apocalyptic Nomadic Warriors Part 18

"Head straight for him."

"He's not going to let me hit him."

"You don't need to." Jerry hit a second switch. There was a whirring deep inside the hood of the Silver Lining. Slowly a steel plate rose to cover the front of the driver's winds.h.i.+eld.

The rider began to fire. Erica ducked. The coach began to veer.

Jerry grabbed the wheel as bullets bounced off the plate. The pa.s.senger side winds.h.i.+eld shattered. Jerry peered through a slit in the steel plate, and pulled a cable with his right hand.

The Silver Lining's grill dropped and revealed a solid line of barrels that stretched across the front of the motor home.

The rider saw the threat and tried to swerve.

Jerry yanked a grouping of cables that ran across the triggers of fifty-two shotguns mounted under the hood of his post-apocalyptic motor home.

The rider didn't explode, but disappeared into a misty cloud of blood. He caught the blast full on and flew backwards off his bike. The bike continued off to the side of the road and bounced harmlessly down the hill.

"Slow down."

Her foot was glued to the floor.

"Slow down, Erica."

This time she listened.

"Is everyone okay?"

"What was that?" The boys were bruised from the b.u.mpy ride, but otherwise unharmed.

"Fifty-two shotguns all fired at once. I put them there for barricades or zombies. But it seems to work for this too."

He hit the switch again and the armor plate retreated back under the hood.

The boys looked at him in awe. Erica stared at him.

"Take this exit. We're going to have to cut through Dallas."

She responded slowly, but took the exit. The onramp was, for the most part, intact. She navigated it carefully and they merged on to the Interstate highway that would take them into the jungle city of Dallas.

TWENTY-THREE.

The wheel wobbled. Bent out of alignment, it shook the rider who struggled to control the bike. He had one hand on the throttle and the other cradled across his chest; a bone protruded below the elbow.

Two men rushed to steady the bike as the rider carefully pulled a tender leg over the frame. Limping, he approached his commander.

Pacing the length of the trailer, the major surveyed the flattened tire and grumbled as he walked from one flat to another.

"What do you have to report?" he wheezed as he knelt to inspect the bullet hole. The phosphorus rounds had not only torn through the rubber, but melted it as well.

"They got away, sir. The others are dead."

The major didn't react. He continued to study the tires. Placing a finger through the hole, he found that the tire was still smoking. "They shot my tires."

"I'm sorry, sir."

The major stood and turned to the rider.

The battered soldier flinched. The major had always been gruesome and intimidating. Now he stared, patch-less, into the eyes of the fallen rider.

"Is something wrong?"

"No, no, sir." The empty socket was filled with scar tissue deep inside the cavity. The healing wounds across his face puffed around the st.i.tches. The rider backed away. The major's pale blue eye didn't waver.

"The patch was aggravating the st.i.tches. Hurt like a sonofab.i.t.c.h. It doesn't bother you, does it?"

"No, sir."

"Now," the major stepped forward and took the rider by his broken arm, "let's talk about how they got away." The major dragged the rider down the length of the trailer.

The limping caused him to lose a step to the major. The major responded by pulling harder on the arm.

"Tell me what happened."

The rider bit back screams of pain, "The, the Winnebago was armored and there were guns everywhere."

The pair stopped in front of the prison car. The dirty ma.s.ses inside peered out through the slats of the former livestock hauler.

"I cannot allow failure in my command." He twisted the rider's arm at the wrist.

The soldier screamed ferociously and dropped to his knees. Twisting his body, he attempted to move with the major to lessen the pain.

"I gave you shelter, food, purpose, and you reward me with failure!"

Crewmembers stopped their tasks and turned their attention to watch the reprimand.

"You're weak." The major tugged on the arm again, exposing more bone. "My command is no place for the weak. This world is no place for the weak. The weak will only suffer. Only the strong will prosper."

He released the soldier's arm and shoved him back against the truck. There he leaned, doubled over, cradling his mangled limb.

"Stand up, soldier! Stand at attention when you stand before me."

The soldier grit his teeth and stood, painful as it was, with his arms at his side.

"Be strong."

The soldier winced.

"Chin up!"

The soldier buried his pain and complied by raising his chin and standing at complete attention.

"There you go," said the major.

With one fluid movement, the major drew his knife and sliced open the soldier's trachea.

Blood erupted from the slashed jugular and screams gurgled with air rushed from the soldier's lungs as they expelled their final breath. He fell dead at the major's feet.

The prisoners gasped at the sight.

He wiped the blood from the knife on a rag and called to one of the guards. "Send a group to retrieve their equipment."

"And the bodies, sir?"

"Let the wasteland have them."

TWENTY-FOUR.

"I would like to take this opportunity to apologize for my behavior when you first arrived." Roy Tinner s.h.i.+fted from foot to foot. He spoke without hesitation as if he had practiced the spontaneous apology in a mirror. Which he had.

"Don't mention it, sir." Logan instructed the townspeople as they strung barbed wire across the top of the walls of New Hope. Sarah worked next to him. Her smile could light the town.

"You have shown through your actions to be an honorable and capable ..."

"Really." Logan placed his hand on the councilman's shoulder. "You were looking out for your town's best interests. That is what these people elected you to do. And you did it well."

Tinner wasn't used to apologizing and even less accustomed to his apology being refused.

"I ... I have to be sus ..."

"Yes, you have to be suspicious. There's no shortage of con men out there."

"Yes. Like the charlatan that showed up before you."

Charlatan? This guy was trying too hard, thought Logan. "You mean Jerry?"

"Yes. A con man if I've ever seen one."

Logan laughed. "Jerry is no con man. Delusional maybe. But he's no con man. He's a harmless bookworm."

The puzzled look on the councilman's face led Logan to explain.

"Jerry was a librarian. He was stacking books in a storage room when the bombs. .h.i.t. Lucky for him, the storage was in an old bomb shelter. He rode out the aftermath with tinned meat and seventy-year-old c.o.kes."

Logan turned to instruct a woman on how to fasten the wire to the support rods.

"And there he stayed. A time lock on the door held him prisoner for a year. So what did he do?"

The councilman shook his head.

"He read. And read and read. He must have read every book in the place. The books made him smart. Too smart for his own good. When the door finally opened, he was convinced that he could help people."

"That kind of knowledge would be helpful."

Logan looked at the ground and his voice became distant. "They say that a little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing. And, whoever they were, are right."

"How do you know all this?"

"Jerry and I were partners out west. I thought the same as you. This guy was so smart. We could make a difference anywhere. And for a while we did. We traveled from town to town. He taught the folks how to purify water, how to build generators ... that kind of thing. We were making a difference.

"But, then there was Eternal Hope. A small town in Colorado. They had a different kind of problem. One that couldn't be fixed with wells or crop rotations."

Logan looked off into the distance that he a.s.sumed to be west.

"Jerry convinced me and the town that he could defend them from a gang of ruthless bandits. He prepared defenses that he claimed were based on sound military tactics."

"They didn't work?"

"They came right in the front gate and we were overwhelmed. Jerry disappeared. I did what I could. A few of us got away. No one else survived."

Roy turned red; the reverence disappeared. "We should have strung him up!"

"No. I don't know how a man can live with that kind of failure. But it can't be easy. The screams are his burden to carry. That blood is on his hands."

"It's dangerous that he offers to help people."

"From what I hear he doesn't offer protection anymore. He'll offer to run for supplies, solve various problems, find missing persons. He can't offer protection. How could he? How could anyone after that?"

Logan pulled on the taut wire. "Good job, everyone."

"You're a good man, Logan. Thank you for saving Sarah. And for helping us protect New Hope."

Logan nodded without a word. The painful memories were written on his face.

The councilman, his apology offered and thanks delivered, turned and walked back to the town hall barn. There was a list in the cabinet that named Personas Non Grata in the town. He had a name to add.

Sarah turned to Logan. "You said people don't come out of Dallas."