Chapter 18

Marco was tired of listening to the bitching and moaning Gretchen had been doing ever since she had found out her mother had been killed. Coupled with the hell he was catching from Ali and Gerald Burke, it had placed him in a particularly savage mood. He had lost a lot of points with the two leaders because his mission to the Klienschmidt's had not gotten him the guns and ammo he had known were there. To have brought back more weapons would have smoothed the ruffled feathers, and the firepower was sorely needed by the now seriously depleted original force of Accabarra's Army.

They lost a full fifty percent of his and Burke's forces in the many scirmishes occurring after the boy and the blonde nurse disappeared from the remote farm. Their searching turned up nothing but trouble. Three of the warriors died at the old couple's farm, and they hadn't even had the satisfaction of taking vengeance on the old bitch. After she pumped five shots into Lofton, she used the last chamber in the old thirty-eight to splash her brains onto the ceiling of the house. They hadn't even been able to get the guns because she had set fire to the place before she did herself in.

He wiped the grease from his hands after he finished tightening the chain on the old zook, and set to checking the supplies drawn for the duty he had been assigned. That stuck in his craw too, because he should be with the soldiers going down to Atlanta, but instead of going where the fighting was, he was being sent to hold some warehouses on the river. To top it all off he had to take the bitch Gretchen with him to get her out of the main camp. He toyed with the idea of killing her, to get her out of his hair, but memories of the fun he'd had with her the night before quickly quelled those thoughts.

Gretchen had no memories of the previous night's activities but she did have one hell of a hangover. Her pounding head mercifully prevented her from realizing she had been given to all comers the night before. There were no visible bruises, but it was only because she didn't bruise easily. Even so areas of her buttocks, which she was unable to see, would soon be turning a deep purple from ruptured capillaries.

She had started drinking heavily the morning before, after being told her mother had been killed in her flight from the house, and her brother had escaped with Sue Gordon. She feared her brother would hold her responsible for their mother's death, but at the same time she had not truly accepted the fact that her parent's were dead. Instead, she had retreated within herself away from the reality, away from any of the realities of changes occurring in the real world. She was functioning on automatic. Her emotions were so grievously harmed she was mentally numb to any feelings of loss, or the related pain. Intellectually she knew a lot had happened, but her mind refused to acknowledge those happenings. She had retreated into a fantasy where everything was occurring to a third person whose experiences she vicariously shared through some awesomely realistic medium.

" Hey bitch, get your ass over here. We've got to move if we're goin' to make it to the fucking warehouse before 9:30." Marco's frustration coloured his actions as he strode to the shuffling figure and cuffed and kicked her toward the waiting motorbike.

Gretchen accepted the verbal and physical abuse without reaction. The listless acceptance irritated the young chicano and pushed him closer to the edge of sanity. The rage gave him the strength to pick the girl up by the scruff of her neck and throw her to the ground behind his bike. The feat even more surprising because she was within five pounds of his own 140, and was two inches taller than his five and a half feet.

Chico Lopez cursed under his breath as he watched the scene unfolding at the next campsite, and again wondered what he was doing with this bunch of losers and moral degenerates. Sure he had felt discriminated against in the old order, but the minor indignities he had suffered in no way justified even a part of the senseless violence and cruelty he witnessed during the twenty-four hours just passed. He was sickened by the changes in the people he called his friends, and finally resolved to leave the group at the first opportunity.

He had impressed Gerald Burke the day before, and was removed from Marco's section to lead a section of Baker force himself. He realized none of these people had their heads on straight, and he hoped all of his bridges had not been burned by his actions of the previous day. He had liked and admired Marco, until he had found him abjectly cowering in a corner of the stable during the action at the farm. He had not revealed this occurrence to anyone else, but knew any respect he'd had for the former friend was shattered, and swept away when he watched Marco give the poor girl's body to his compatriots in an obvious attempt to regain the stature he had lost in the failed raid the day before. He had not participated, but had not stopped the abuse from happening either. He hoped he would have the chance to make it up to her before this was all over. If, he thought morosely, it did in fact, if it did end at all.

The group had not shrunk since the day before. Additions had been from the outpouring of refugees from the poor outlying areas of Texarkana. Few of the newcomers knew anything beyond a shotgun, and they were thus armed for the upcoming task.

The task was at once simple and difficult. They were to hold a small complex of warehouses located on the bank of the Red River not far north of the small town of Garland. The warehouses held everything from pharmaceuticals to grocery stocks of rice, flour, sugar and sundry other dried foodstuffs. It was this warehouse that interested Ali the most.

The leader of the local OFFER group knew how important food would be in the chaotic months to come. One of the first things that would happen after the initial shock of the bombings wore off, would be the realization that the frozen foods, and other perishables everyone in this country depended on would suddenly disappear. With little or no electric power frozen food would thaw and soon begin to rot in the freezers and refrigerators of the nation. Within a week the only edible meats would be dried, or freshly killed or caught. By the end of another, only locally grown vegetables would be available, and then only those grown in the few greenhouses in the area. At that point Ali wanted to control the largest source of supplies for the southwest section of Arkansas.

His information was good, of all of the grocery warehouses within seventy miles of what had been Texarkana, only three survived the sudden onslaught of the previous day, and the other two were supplied from the central warehouse in Garland. Huge steerable barges were used to supply the IGA Red River Warehouse. Barges partially powered by the immense solar exchange panels covering the top, and by engines fueled with a combination of grain alcohol, vegetable oils drawn from the pesky Kudzu vine, and methane gases produced by combining the leftover Kudzu mash, rotten vegetables from all of the IGA food stores, and bacteria cultures developed originally to reduce the damage from spilled oil. The power produced by engines fueled with this mishmash, was not enough by itself to prove dangerous to the oil industry, but when coupled with the large area of solar screens possible on a barge it made the use of waterways around the country perfect for moving high bulk items such as dried foods.

This was only one of the reasons the IGA had located in Garland. The others were led by the simple fact that the IGA specialized in supplying the small towns of rural America with food, and part of their philosophy was locating all of their non-retail operations in those small towns as well. This offered employment to the people who bought at their stores.

Ali was ignorant of these facts, but would not have cared had he known. The only thing concerning him was the control of the warehouse, and thus the control of people dependent on those supplies. Baker force was the instrument he would to use to do it. To gain complete control of the people left alive in the Texarkana region.

Chico was worried, but took great care not to let it show as he checked the weapons and supply packs of each of the recruits assigned to his section. They were what most would call 'scum of the earth' and he agreed with that classification. What made his skin crawl with fear was Marco. He had been assigned to his section and was livid that he was not commanding. Marco had not spoken when the orders came from Burke making Chico section three's leader, but the hatred he focused on his former friend was comparable to the fury of a volcano fueled from the very bowels of the earth. Soon after the announcement, he vented some small part of his latino emotion upon the hapless anglo girl. Had it not been for the intervention of Ali himself, he would have beaten the poor girl to death there and then. Marco still held Ali in high regard, but it was not returned. Ali had called Chico to his hut soon afterward and laid down the law. The next time Marco flew off of the handle, or disobeyed a lawful order, he was to be put down where he stood. In addition, Chico was told to " lose the white bitch," before the group came back from Garland. The orders left no room for doubt, he was going to have to kill his friend some time within the next two weeks, and he didn't like it at all.

Chico relaxed in the saddle seat of the Virago 750 he had looted from one of the farms laid waste to the day before. It had been in the garage of the big house where Marty Johnson and Fergie Williams had raped and killed the mother and daughter they had found hiding. He had not gone into the house, but had heard from Bart Brennen about what Marty had done to the little girl. How he had killed the child's mother with a hot poker from the fireplace, after making her watch her only child being raped and strangled. Johnson was leading Section 1 at the rear of the column, and Chico was happy he did not have to deal with the slow witted killer.

Section two rode in pickups grouped around the command car, an old Eldorado convertible, and was led by Mike Barker, another survivor of the search. Bart Brennen, Fergie Williams, and Burke rode in the convertible being driven by the best of the new recruits, a hard eyed albino named Alton Vargas. Chico led the lead group. With him were Marco and Gretchen on Marco's old Suzuki, Jamie Carter, a drifter riding Chico's old bike, and Luther King and Arthur Vance on big Honda's picked up from the local Honda dealership at gun point. King and Vance were both black, small time hoods who ripped off the black neighborhoods on the fringes of the city. They had joined the force the day before, when the State police car they were prisoners in, had gone into a pond after the driver was shot by Jake Malley. Malley had been sideswiped by the speeding vehicle and ended up wrapped around a telephone pole, but Luther and Art climbed out through the broken rear window of the car and waded neck deep from the pond. They had been chained hand and foot at the time, but Mike Barker made short work of the chains with tools from his bike, and the two rode pillion until they stopped at The Bike Shop just before the bombs went off.

Chico's thoughts returned to escape after he mentally rehashed the previous days events. He knew his best bet for getting away would be while the others slept, while he was on guard duty at the warehouse. That way he would be able to pack some supplies with him, and get a good head start. He tried to figure a way he could take Gretchen with him, but each method would alert Marco and probably cost him his chance as well. Finally, a short way out of Garland, he gave up and decided to just save himself.

The miniature FM transceivers Toby found just before their departure, and the neutral colours of their bikes and clothing, made it possible for the small group of Havenites to escape the immediate notice of Chico's riders as they rounded a curve in the road. Josh and Rafe were about to enter the highway from a side road, but backed down the slight incline and notified those who followed of the oncoming bikers. They had time to lay their bikes down in the grass of the bar ditches and hide in the rank growth along the roadway. They remained there, rifles at the ready, as the first group passed, and continued their vigilance as the others followed. Josh became concerned when the second group stopped just over a quarter of a mile away, but relaxed a little when he saw jerry cans unloaded from one of the pickups, and watched as one of the outriders siphoned the remaining gasoline from an abandoned vehicle.