are

comfacing the greatest threat we’ve ever encountered. And we’d damn well better win it.”

Ben led the convoy over to the Interstate, using a badly rutted country road, and halted them at Greencastle. That town, unlike the others, showed no signs of any battle. No shell casings, no blood, no bodies.

“This place was abandoned years ago,” West said.

“The survivors probably decided that living beside any well-traveled road, like this Interstate, meant trouble and grouped out in the country.

Probably in those towns we just left.”

“That’s my thinking,” Ben agreed. “We’ll clear Hagerstown in the morning. I want us on full alert this night. The creepies know we’re hot on their butts, and they probably also know Voleta and Monte and Ashley are somewhere behind us. They may try to form another alliance.”

“You really think those thugs are following us?” Emil asked. Emil was slowly recovering from his one-sided affair of the heart with Michelle.

“Oh, yes, Emil. And on both sides and ahead of us, probably. They’re wanting to get us in a box for an ambush. That’s why I keep taking a snake’s route getting home.”

Thermopolis arched an eyebrow. He had wondered why the column was traveling like a bunch of wandering nomads.

“The creepies just might decide to clear out tonight rather than face us in the morning,” West said.

“Personally, I hope they do,” Ben told him.

Ben had his people up and fed and ready to roll while Dan sent his Scouts into the city well before dawn.

It had turned colder during the night; winter was preparing to show them all it still held a punch.

“Tina reporting that the town definitely has creepies,” Jerre told him. “No signs of other life.”

“Order Tina and her teams out. Tell artillery to stand by. They will commence firing on my orders,”

Ben said. “HE and incendiary. Damned if I’ll lose people when I can prevent it.”

Less than a minute passed before Tina reported that her teams were clear and in position to act as forward observers.

“Commence firing.”

The artillery rounds began singing their songs as they roared through the cold dark morning. In five minutes, portions of Hagerstown had been turned into a raging inferno, the flames caused by the incendiary rounds licking upward into the darkness. An old underground gasoline storage tank went up with a whooshing roar, balls of flame jumping high into the air like angry fingers of hate, searching to destroy.

The gunners began lobbing shells in with much more discrimination, setting one section of the town blazing, then moving to another. After an hour of pounding, Ben ordered the gunners to cease firing.

Dawn was just beginning to pierce the darkness with thin silver fingers, lifting up and pushing away the lid of night.

“If Monte and the others are within fifty miles of this area,” Cecil said, “they’ll sure know where we are.”

“That they will. Jerre, order Tina and her teams back. Let’s get ready to pull out.”

The Night People finally figured out that Ben and his Rebels were moving westward, and nothing was going to stand in their way. The leaders ordered their kind to abandon any towns that stood in the way, moving either north or south until the Rebels had passed.

The Rebel columns bypassed the burning city and picked up Interstate 70, heading west, leaving the smoke and death behind them. Full dawn found them looking at the deserted little town of Hancock, Maryland.

“Less than two thousand people lived here before the Great War,” Jersey said, looking at an old map.

“I had friends here,” Jerre said. “Just up the road is a little town called Piney Grove. My suitemate at college was from there. I was so sick I couldn’t even move off the floor of the room. I lay there watching her die. The thing that got me moving was when the rats came and started eating on the dead in the dorm. How come it didn’t kill the damned rats? I crawled outside, found a car that was unlocked and passed out in the front seat.

All around me people were dead or dying. Absolutely, totally gross. When I finally was able to see and sit up, and my eyes stopped seeing double, I found that the damn car didn’t have any keys in it. The cars that did have keys also had dead bodies in them. I finally found a car that was empty and had the keys in it.”

“Where was college?” Cooper asked.

“Salisbury State. Took me days to get home. I had to drive all the way up

into Pennsylvania because Washington had taken a direct hit. I met people who had been on the fringe areas. They didn’t have any eyes! They had looked at the blast and their eyes had melted. The flesh was burned off of others. I had never seen anything like that. I didn’t know what to do to help them. Then it dawned on me that there wasn’t anything I could do; nothing anybody could do. They were j ust walking around dying.”“

“You sure you want to do this, Jerre?” Ben asked, his voice soft, for he was remembering finding his own parents in Illinois, just after the bombing.

“Yeah,” she said, her voice just as soft. “I need to do it.”

Ben waved the column forward.

“Creepies have been here,” Tina’s voice came through the speaker. “But they’ve bugged out. It’s pretty grim here, Dad.”

“Hold what you’ve got. We’re not far behind.”

Jerre’s eyes were busy as they approached the small city. But whatever thoughts and emotions she was experiencing, she kept bottled up … at least for the time being.

Ben halted the column just inside the city limits and walked back to Thermopolis’s van. “Seems like I’m always asking you to do some unenviable job. So I’m asking again. This is where Jerre grew up.

Would you people stay with her while she tours the area?”

“Don’t you think she would rather have you with her, Ben?”

Ben blinked; looked shocked. “No. I don’t.”

Thermopolis cut his eyes at Rosebud, and both of them smiled rather sadly. “All right, Ben Raines. We’ll look after her.”

Ben and Dan took Tina and a team of Scouts and went on a quick tour of the town. It was just as Tina had reported: grim.

Mutilated bodies had been stacked in houses to rot and gather flies-after the choicest cuts had been carved from them. That the men and women had been carved upon while still very much alive was evident by the hideous expression on the still twisted and pain-filled faces, mouths still open in a silent scream, before death mercifully took them across that dark shore.

“Did you find any survivors?” Ben asked Tina.

“None, Dad. And no sign of any.”

“The creepies took their meals with them,” Ben said.

“Twenty-first-century version of fast food.”

They all looked at him to see if he was kidding.

He wasn’t.

“Large hordes of thugs and outlaws and warlords out west, Monte and Ashley and Sister Voleta operating here to the east, night crawlers all over the bloody place. We have long years of war ahead of us, General,” Dan said.

“Probably more years than you and I have, Dan.

Our children’s children will be fighting to pull this land out of the ashes of barbarism and ignorance and savagery.

It’s up to us to see that they don’t have quite as hard a battle.”

Ben lifted a map and studied it for a moment.

“We’ll let Jerre get her fill of her old hometown-and it probably won’t take

her long; then when the birds land and get the rescued out, we’ll cut south. I’ve got a hunch the creepies didn’t go far. We’ll check out this little town on the West Virginia line. It’s just far enough off the beaten path for the crud to feel safe. If so, we’ll see if we can’t crash their party.”

Jerre stood before a plaque that read: GOD HAVE

MERCY ON THOSE WHO DIED IN THE

GREAT WAR. TWENTY-ONE THOUSAND FIVE

HUNDRED FIFTEEN SOULS. CUMBERLAND,

MARYLAND.

“Itwas this way all over the nation, Jerre,”

Thermopolis told her. “The survivors scooped out great holes in the earth and buried them in mass graves. It would have been impossible any other way.”

“I know. Well,” she sighed, “I’ve seen it.

Hell, I don’t even know if my parents are buried here. They were pretty badly decomposed when I finally got back to the house.”

“I thought that a neighbor was going to bury them?”

“He was too busy trying to get my pants off.

No. They were still in the back yard when I popped that jerk with a poker and split.” She shook her head.

“I’ve seen enough. Let’s go help

clear the airport. The birds are on the way in.”

“West, you take your men and cut south off the Interstate on this county road, Thirty-six.

It’s about ten or twelve miles west of our present position. Hold up when you get to this little town of Barton. We’ll be coming down Two-twenty and we’ll stop at McCoole. I want both our forces to hit Westernport together. I think the creepies have prisoners with them, so shelling is out until we learn different. You go ahead. We’ll pull out thirty minutes behind you.”

West nodded and left.

Ben glanced at Jerre. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m all right. In a way, I’m glad my parents died back then, rather than like … the creepie way.”

“Let’s start getting mounted up, people.” He glanced up at the sky. He would like to travel through West Virginia, but he didn’t want to get caught in the mountains in a snowstorm. The weather had turned decidedly cooler, but the skies remained clear.

After Westernport had been cleared, if the weather still looked good, they would angle over and pick up the Interstate, take that south down

to Charleston. After that… his Play it by ear.

And where in the hell had Monte and the rest of that crud gone? Ben didn’t think they had given up-although that could certainly be possible. They might well have reassessed the situation, found it not to their liking, and then pulled back to gather up more men. It seemed like for every decent person left in what had been America, there were ten times ten more crud. He shook his head. Time would tell.

He walked the line of vehicles, deep in thought and killing time until West was well on his way. He wasn’t even sure what month it was.

February, he thought. They had spent so many weeks in the city that all of them had lost track of time.

He looked up the line. The column seemed to stretch for miles. The trucks and tanks and APC’S and jeeps and Hummers containing the only army in the world-that Ben was aware of-fighting to restore some type of democracy to the nation.

So much to do. And where in the hell did that large force out west pop up from? Had the nation been invaded by some foreign force? It was certainly possible. Khamsin had

done it.

The Libyan had waltzed right in and caused a lot of grief before he elected to stick his nose in with the creepies in New York City.

Another force knocked down and out. But how many more to go? And would it ever stop?

“Miles to go,” Ben muttered. “Miles to go.”

Jerre was very quiet as they rolled out, as could have been expected after experiencing one hell of an emotional jolt. Ben noticed that she looked back several times with tears in her eyes.

What could he say? He knew only too well the sense of loss when you have nobody left, all family dead. Kith but no kin.

“Recent fire right over there, General,” Cooper broke into his thoughts, pointing to what was left of a house. The ashes were still smoldering.

“The creepies are just one jump ahead of us, that’s for sure.”

A mile farther down the road they saw another home that had been torched. Fat carrion birds were strutting around in the yard, too heavy to fly after gorging themselves on dead human flesh.

“Yuck!” Beth said, her eyes lingering on the bloated birds.

“All part of the plan, Beth,” Ben said.

“You believe in God, General?” she

asked.

“Oh, yes.”

“Heaven and Hell?”

“Sure. But I also believe-rightly or wrongly-that there are levels, with the highest plane being very sparsely populated.”

“And what level will you attain?”

Ben laughed. “I don’t think I’ll get very high, Beth. I’ll probably be with the rest of the warriors. And I’m not at all certain that Valhalla is going to be a paradise. My punishment will probably be having to listen to Emil sing throughout eternity.”

After the laughter, Jerre said, “Emil appears to be bouncing back rather quickly after his loss.”

“Life goes on, Jerre. Emil is a sharp little guy and he’ll be all right.”

But,

he added silently, still

can tell you for an iron-clad fact that he’ll never forget the woman.

“So you believe that love fades after a time?” she asked.

“Sure. I don’t know that true love ever really dies. It just loses its sharpness, dimming into a memory that one can live with.”

After that brief exchange, the miles passed quickly and in silence. Ben was surprised diat Jerre even brought up the subject of love; but then, she had always been full of surprises.

“Coming up to the junction, General.” Cooper’s words jogged him back to the present.

Ben pulled the mike from its clip. “Eagle to West.”

“Go, Eagle.”

“In position?”

“Setting on ready.”

“We’re turning west on One-thirty-five.

Five miles to touchdown.”

“I’m rolling.”

“Eagle to Scout.”

“In position, Dad. The town is populated, but it’s iffy as to who or what lives here. Those that we have seen don’t look like creepies.”

“Ten-four, Scout. We’ll be with you shortly.

Hold what you have. Tank commanders, take your beasts to the point. Convoy slow, let them pass. Dan, block the road leading south out of the town. West, split your people and block the west end of One-thirty-five.”

“Welcoming committee coming out,” Tina reported.

“They’re dressed in normal clothing, but they’re all armed.”

The tanks were in position as Ben pulled up. He stepped out of the Blazer and walked up to the knot of men and women. The first thing that caught his attention was the paleness of skin. Even though, he cautioned himself, that could be attributed to staying indoors during a very long and cold winter.

But he didn’t believe that for a second.

“Welcome, General Raines!” a man called, a smile on his lips.

But he did not step forward to offer his hand in greeting.

“Thank you,” Ben responded. “We just thought we’d drop in for a visit. Maybe stay a few days and rest up … if that wouldn’t be an imposition on you good folks.”

“Well …” The man hesitated. “We

don’t have much food. It’s been a long winter and our supplies are almost gone.”

Ben waved that aside. “We have plenty of food.

We’ll be happy to share it with you. As a matter of fact, I have an idea: Why don’t we all get together for a potluck supper this evening? We’ll all bring a dish and share. That sound good to you?”

“J… wonderful, General.”

Ben spotted a group of kids; they had the same flat look of hatred and contempt as the kids taken from Philly.

Stepped right into a snake pit, Ben thought, as his eyes caught faint movement on rooftops and second floor windows of homes. Riflemen waiting to open fire.

Ben and the spokesman stood and smiled at one another. And each smile was filled with contempt for the other. The creepies knew that Ben Raines would take no prisoners, so if this ruse didn’t work, and the spokesman knew it wasn’t, they would try to kill as many Rebels as possible …

especially Ben Raines.

“Shouldn’t your children be in school?” Ben asked.

“Well … it isn’t every day that the famous Ben Raines drops in for a visit. We turned school out for the

auspicious event.”

“I’m flattered. But auspicious is a very heady word. Really, all we’ve been doing is killing crud. You folks been having any problems with the Night People?”

“Ah … no. We haven’t seen

any.”

“You’re a goddamn liar!”

The man brought his rifle up, his face mirroring his inner hate. He was shot all to pieces by Rebel fire just as