The grinding of gears split the gray morning, and Sallow, the convoy commander, cursed his lead driver.

"You fuck up that gear box," he growled, "and I'm going to make you eat it."

"Sorry," said the Stormer behind the wheel. He didn't sound like he meant it.

Sallow sat in the passenger seat of the forward truck, the leader of a chain of three vehicles that stretched out behind on the road. It was cold in the tight compartment of the ancient GMC and Sallow had to blow on his hands to keep them warm. The heating system had cut out a long time ago and this particular truck hadn't had a couple of holes cut in the firewall the way some had so the cab would be warmed directly by the engine heat. Maybe at the next stop. Sallow thought, he would get one of the boys to chop some holes in the flimsy metal.

Sallow sat back in the broken seat. The elderly springs hurt his ass. He had been uncomfortable since leaving the Cap. Some fucking detail, he thought, and just his luck to draw it. Why did this shit always happen to him, he wondered. It seemed to him that every time Leatherman had a rotten job to do, he had to do it. He was goddamn patrol leader, not a fucking convoy commander. Convoy commanders werejust glorified fucking errand boys.

The patrols were out on the snowy roads; Sallow had no objection to riding, but he hated foraging for supplies. The patrols were moving all the time, providing guard duty and scout information. They were moving, and if you moved fast enough, you were a hell of a lot safer than chugging along wet nursing a bunch of slaves.

Jojo, Leather's main counselor, had brought him to Leather and Leather had said: "Sallow, you're on convoy this trip." That's it, no explanation. Jojo, always the diplomat, had told him that Leather needed his best men on the convoys now. The winter was going to be a tough one, he said, and supplies were crucial, blah, blah, blah. . . .

Maybe, thought Sallow, but his survival was crucial too. To him at any rate. The truth of it was, Leather didn't trust the Slormers anymore.

A mile passed. Relax, Sallow told himself, the smugglers, the raiders, all of the riders, they were all tucked up safe in Chi now. Sallow thought about Chicago for a moment. The place sounded good to him. One of these fine days he was going to cut out for the open city and maybe set himself up as a raider. Sallow had a feeling that it was only a matter of time before Leather's empire came apart at the seams. The only thing holding it together right now was the fact that the other States couldn't get it together enough to challenge Leather . . . and, of course, the fucking freaky Radleps. . . .

Those guys were crazy and they gave Leather the muscle to give orders and make them stick.

That was what told Sallow that Leather didn't trust his Stormers anymore. The convoys carried Radleps now. There was one sitting up on the cab above him, his big Auto Ordnance resting across his knees. Imagine, Sallow thought, putting Radleps on the convoys to watch the Stormers. Man, he told himself, there were Stormers riding with Leather a long, long time before he recruited his first freak. The man didn't trust his old friends anymore. It was the Stormers that had made Leather. They put him in power. And how many of the original ones were still alive? Three maybe; the rest had been brought down or shot by Leather, for "conspiracy," he said.

Sallow thought about the freak perched on the roof above him, imagining his scarred face showing out from underneath his goggles, his clothes soaking up the snow. Sallow knew that if he tried to take the convoy a little to the west, the Radlep would get real suspicious. If he tried to head flat-out for Chicago, the Radlep would blow him away and Leather would award him some broads and booze and probably some huge fucking piece of artillery so the 'lep could take down a couple more Stormers one day. That was the trouble with the 'leps. They were just waiting to die and they didn't very much care who they took with them.

No, he thought, Chicago would have to wait awhile, until Sallow was leading a patrol of Stormers. Stormers he could trust.

Still, Sallow thought, he wasn't as bad off as some. Sitting behind him in the flatbed of the truck were eleven women he had found out here in the boonies. They were huddled together with the cold but when they got to the Cap, things would get plenty hot for them.

Sallow glanced through the little window over his shoulder. Right now they just looked like gray shapeless bundles, trying to shield themselves against the driving snow, trembling from the cold but also from fear of the future.

There was one, thought Sallow, a little chick with dark brown eyes and long hair. He had already fucked her twice and he would give it to her twice more before he got to the Cap. He smiled to himself. Boy, did she hate him. He could see it in her eyes. He remembered her smooth breasts and belly. She kept herself pretty well for a slave. Didn't smell too bad either. Maybe being a convoy jockey wasn't so bad.

Once she got to the Cap she would go into the personal, private harem of Leatherman himself, or maybe in with the Radleps. By the time she was pitched out and sent to the Stormers she would be used and bruised. The Stormers always got second best.

Sallow sat back and replayed his hot, fast fucking of the night before; the firm body, the tits, that long hair that wrapped around you. So she would go the route with Leatherman, or with the Radleps—fucking freaks—but Sallow had her first. Sallow smiled at the memory of it. ...

Behind the slave truck was a Peterbilt loaded with food. That would come in handy in the Cap, and Jojo— Sallow hated oily, fat Jojo—would tell him what a good job he had done. Big fucking deal. Astern of the empty truck was a truck carrying forty-six drums of gasoline. They would probably use three on the trip and Jojo would probably give Sallow three drums so the Slavestates would be richer by forty drums of gas. Great. That stuff was worth a fortune in Chicago.

But the second and third truck were manned by Radleps and slave overseers. The overseers were pieces of shit. The Radleps were freaks with the best guns Leather could find. He gave everything to the Radleps—radiation lepers—fucking bum victims that were dying anyway, so they agreed that Leather's word was law. In return he gave them everything they could possibly want: all the guns, gas, girls, ammo, and food they could consume. But the freaks had the tough end of the deal. In return for Leather's generosity they had to be ready to die for him. . . . The hell of the thing. Sallow thought, was that those freaky fucking burn victims were absolutely ready to take any risk that Leather told them to.

It was pan of the code they lived by: Leather paid, they died. Simple. No one liked Radleps—not even other Radleps. They were as mean as rats. They might get killed in a firefight, but by God you were going to die too. Sallow had seen them take a half-dozen hits and keep on coming; Radleps with limbs blown away, rivers of blood pouring from their torn bodies, still firing, killing until their bodies failed them. Their hearts or lungs had to give out—because their will never would.

Sallow looked out into the snow. They were making terrible time. They couldn't move any faster on the roads than the all-encompassing snow permitted, but, worse than that, they were slowed down by the male slaves. Between the trucks were twenty or so men, each shackled to a chain that trailed from Sallow's lead truck. They sloshed along at little better than a walking pace—they moved, that is, if they hadn't succumbed to the weather and the shitty food. Then, if they gave in to the torments, they dropped and the chain just pulled them along.

At the back of the truck stood an overseer who used his long lead-tipped whip like a scalpel. With a flick or two of that terrible instrument he could open the back of a slave who fell.

If a slave didn't shape up after a mile or two, the overseer would really go to work. The overseers had a way of knowing who was worth saving and who was worth killing. They were expert judges of human flesh—they would rather cut their losses and kill a slave outright than give one a break and see if he might, just might, make the trip to the Cap.

Sallow was a Stormer and he had seen everything, but the first time he had seen a slave whipped to death . . . well, it had made him a little sick. An overseer could handle that whip so well he could just lick little strips off the skin, mile after mile, until the knotty, bloody backbone was laid bare.

Once the bone showed the fun was almost over. Usually then the overseer would really put some muscle into the crack of the leather thong, break a few vertebrae, then, with one powerful slash, break the backbone completely. Then the slave would be cut down—dead, or merely paralyzed—and left on the roadside. If he was still alive, he would either bleed to death, freeze in the winter, or be eaten by animals.

Yes, thought Sallow, next year he would seize a convoy and head out for Chicago. Course, he thought, be had a lot of enemies in Chicago. Well, he told himself, plenty of time to worry about that next year. . . . Bonner might be a problem. But Bonner couldn't be as tough as his reputation. No one was that tough—his raid on the Cap . . . well, that had just been a case of the breaks going his way. No one was so tough that they couldn't be brought down by a bullet in the back on a dark street. Yeah, thought Sallow, I can handle Bonner. And Chicago was definitely in his future.

But he was wrong. Up ahead on the broken, rutted road Bonner and Les Habitants waited. They couldn't see the convoy yet, but they could hear it, they could hear the weary pull of the engines on the old trucks, inching along the cold road.

Seven of the Habs were hidden on an overpass that stretched over the main road. They looked like wild animals hunched over on the bridge clad in their skins and furs. Each pointed his big cannon into the snowy mist, determined to make every shot hit enemy flesh. Just as the convoy passed under the bridge they would open up, raking the three trucks with as much fire as they could muster. After the initial volley, they figured that the convoy would speed up and run right into the combined firepower of twenty guns.

Sallow stared dumbly at the road, slack-jawed. His mind was miles away yet he didn't know that in a matter of seconds it would be even further away, having departed on a journey from which it would not return.

Louis licked his lips and raised his arm, slamming the hammer down onto the flash pan of his uncertain weapon. There was a sheet of flame, and a low deep boom, and the little man was thrown back. The window in front of Sallow turned a sudden stark white. Tiny veins of cracks ran from one side of the windshield to the other. The disjointed glass seemed to hesitate a moment then dissolve in a great wave of crystal chips. Sallow felt the cold air and saw the snow swirl in and suddenly realized he was covered with blood.

"I'm hit!" he screamed at the driver. Thoughts of Chicago were long gone.

But he wasn't. The driver had been hit, thrown back in his seat, his face a twisted mass of flesh, bone, and mucus. The body of the slain Stormer jammed down on the accelerator and the truck growled on. The Radlep on the roof of the cab was blasting at the bridge. A rip of bullets tore into the truck and Sallow saw the Radlep fall down across the hood of the machine, his weapon slipping onto the road.

"Holy shit!" screamed Sallow to no one in particular.

He lay across the driver, yanked open the door, and pushed the bloody carcass out onto the snowy road. Sallow slid over, pushing himself behind the wheel, feeling the still warm blood of the driver soaking his pants, and grabbing hold of the wheel sticky with the dead man's gore. He stepped on the gas and the truck leaped forward.

The Radleps and the overseers and the two or three Stormers were returning fire but Sallow had no idea where they were shooting. He had but one thought: get the hell out of there. Behind him he heard the screams of the slaves as bullets whipped round them. Vaguely he thought that he was going too fast for the slaves that were shackled to his drag chain. Too fucking bad, he thought, and hit the gas even harder.

Louis, up on the bridge, slammed another of his homemade shells into the big barrel of his crude weapon and took careful aim on a Stormer who crouched on the hood of the second truck. He swung his hammer on the dented spot on the breech. There was a crack, a flash, and sheets of black smoke. When the little gunman picked himself up, he noted, with satisfaction, that only a few grisly remains of the Stormer stuck to the hood and cab, a gory little memorial to a tough guy who never fired a shot.

The weight of fire was far too much for the light force assigned to defend the convoy. Starling's Steyr flashed a few times, missing by inches a Radlep who lay beneath the third truck peppering the area with shot. He had already taken down a couple of Habitants. Those damn Radleps are as dangerous as people say, Starling thought. He tossed aside his little semiautomatic and fitted an arrow into his bow. He stepped into the open and let fly. The steel shaft made contact with the bumper just above the mutant's head. It detonated with a blast powerful enough to throw the truck a few inches into the air.

The Radlep was thrown to the side by the blast and the two and half came down on the man's left arm. Even from where he stood, Starling was sure he could hear the snap of bone. He turned his attention elsewhere.

Bonner wondered how many of the walking slaves, now sprawled next to the slack chain, were still alive. A Stormer showed himself and took three rounds of Bonner's bullets in the lungs. Blood welled out of the man's mouth as thick as vomit.

The concrete at Starling's feet was suddenly stirred up as if splattered by angry steel wasps. He swung around, the Steyr at the ready. It was the Radlep.

Trapped under the truck, his arm crushed, no doubt the man was in unbearable agony, but he still found the pain-wracked strength to get off a few wild shots with his remaining arm. Starling shook his head: these Radleps were crazy. The rider greased him, seven bullets thrashing into the man's mottled flesh.

Two overseers reared up from the middle of the huddle of female slaves, their M16s blazing. Bonner dropped one but the other ducked down behind his human shield. Bonner couldn't risk a tear of gunfire without slaughtering a half dozen of the terrified slaves. But the overseer was in there, and while he lived he was trouble.

Bonner was amazed by what happened next. A slave woman stood suddenly and slammed her manacled hands down onto the overseer's head. It was a noble effort but the overseer was a big old cuss and the blow—a light one, the woman was weak from hunger and exposure—glanced off him. But the sudden attack from an unexpected quarter annoyed the man. He turned and fired.

The bullets slammed into the woman at point-blank range, lifting her off her feet, and whipped her back to the cab of the truck. Bonner could see the thin chest of the dead woman open up, twisted and bloody.

A bolt of anger shot through him. Another pointless death, another unhappy painful end to an unhappy life. He jumped out from his cover, the Steyr chattering. Bonner didn't care if he was a target or not. He was going to kill the sonofabitch.

But Bonner had competition. The Mean Brother with the shovel scaled the side of the truck, clambering over the top like a crab. He held the shovel by the shaft, clamped between his big yellow teeth, Deep within his slow brain some innate sense of honor and decency had been awakened. Perhaps it was closer to the surface in a simple man like a Mean Brother than in the "clever" men of the new world. The big man's eyes sparkled with hate. The killing of the defenseless woman had outraged him and he was determined to make sure that the overseer would pay dearly for his act—and the only coin the Mean Brother would accept as payment was pain.

The Mean Brother waded through the crouching women and knocked the overseer's gun from his hands with the heavy shovel. Terror was writ large on the overseer's dirty face. The Mean tossed aside his shovel and reached for the hapless tough guy, his huge hands gathering up the overseer's shirt. He yanked him to his feet. The overseer tried to fight for his life and slammed both fists into the Mean Brother's gut. His hard knuckles struck firm flesh and made no impact on the Mean Brother whatsoever.

An anguished scream tore from his victim's throat as the Mean Brother lifted him effortlessly from the ground. The giant's arms worked as if they were hydraulically powered. He held the overseer over his head, the man howling, mewling like a child, his legs scissoring in the cold air. When the Mean Brother's arms were extended fully, he seemed to jump slightly, then he slammed the overseer down onto the upright side of the truck. He fell across it, his back arched on either side. There was a distinct sound of the splitting and popping of the delicate, dainty bones of the spine.

The overseer toppled over the side to the ground and lay there, his broken body trying frantically to send messages to the brain over the broken highway of his backbone. He couldn't move. He watched as the Mean jumped down from the truck, reached down and pulled the overseer up by the neck. With the man's head tucked into the crook of his arm the Mean Brother smashed it into the side of the truck. Twice, three times, then a fourth. He pounded again and again, as if he was using the man to batter down a stout metal door. The truck rang dully with the thud of bone on steel. He only stopped when it appeared that he was holding a pot of meat in his arm. Then he tossed the shattered body aside, his hairy arms dripping with gore. As he stooped to retrieve his shovel he caught sight of Bonner and the terrified women. The Mean Brother shrugged.

The battle had come to an abrupt halt. The Stormers, Radleps, and overseers lay scattered about. J.B. came wandering out from the culvert where he had been secreted and his men came down from the bridge.

"It is a good thing, this convoy, I think," he said laconically.

"How many men did you lose?" asked Bonner.

"I think maybe four. They fight like hell, these Radleps."

"Yes," said Bonner, "they do."

"And those large men with you, mon dieu." He waved his hand back and forth. "What terrible men for the fighting ..."

Les Habitants were climbing over the trucks, jabbering away, excitedly examining the spoils. "There is much here," observed J.B.

Starling looped over. "What do you want to do with them?" He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the women.

"Any of their menfolk alive?"

"One, but he won't last the night. All of 'em got dragged when we started firing."

Bonner exhaled heavily and walked over to the women. They stared at him wide-eyed, wondering if he was a rescuer or just another tormentor. Bonner himself didn't know.

"Where are you from?" he asked gently. "Down the road," said one hesitantly, "down the road, that way." She gestured vaguely.

"Far?"

She shrugged. "Dunno."

Bonner kicked the dirt by the road. He couldn't take them with him—they would get killed, probably. He couldn't leave them here—they would die of exposure, probably. It was a toss-up. If he left them supplies, maybe they would try to get to the next rubble village. What would happen to them after that

. . . that was anybody's guess.

"Are you going to hurt us?" asked a girl timidly. "No," said Bonner. "You are going to have to stay here." It was a difficult decision, but he had to do it.

"But," she stammered, "but we'll die." The women set up a chorus of complaints.

"We're going to leave food for you. You'll make it okay." Bonner recognized the futility of his words and hoped the women did not. Maybe it would have been better if they had all caught stray slugs in the firefight. Now, he knew, they would stay there, under the broken overpass until their food ran out. Then, nature would claim them, slowly, painfully.

Les Habitants usually traveled piled onto a broken-down old rust bucket of a truck driven by J.B. It was an ancient mongrel hulk that always seemed to be on the verge of complete, irrevocable breakdown. After a hurried consultation among themselves, they decided to trade in their old steed for one of the convoy's more trustworthy vehicles. They loaded it methodically. "Time to go," said Starling. "Mais non," protested J.B. "First we must bury our dead. It is a thing we always do, us."

"Yeah, sure," said Starling, knowing it was just a matter of time before the wolves scented the bodies and dug them up.

Digging was hard in the frozen ground, and by the time four graves were dug and filled in, night was coming on. Bonner decided they should move anyway. He didn't want to spend the night with the women around. They made him uncomfortable.

As the little convoy made its way down the road Bonner could feel the women's eyes on him through the gloom, watching him, coldly accusing him of sentencing them to a long and lonely death.

Web Site Contents (Unless Mentioned Otherwise) ©2012 By Atlan Formularies, Post Office Box 95, Alpena, Arkansas 72611-0095
Phone: 870-437-2999 - Fax: Out of Order -  Email: Addresses

[ Back ] [ Home ] [ Up ] [ Next ]