Chapter 19

Josh counted a slow five after the group of bikers was in range, then lowered his sights to the lead bike's front wheel, rather than trying to hit the crouched rider. He took a deep breath, exhaled and squeezed the trigger of the extended battle rifle. Then immediately squeezed off shots at the two bikes away from the group on the extreme right, his left.

The first of the 165 grain soft points went through the front wheel twice, before expending its tremendous energies against the cast iron block of the old Harley. The bike went one way and the rider another as the forces of the flat tire, the speeding bike and more than a ton of force from the bullet combined to make straight-line travel impossible.

The second worked almost as well, it expanded while passing through the gas tank, then struck the driver high on the hip turning him into a rag doll thrown from his speeding bike.

The third shot missed entirely, but was unneeded in any case. Marty Johnson's spark-sowing Harley accounted for two other riders as it skidded its way into the group behind, and his bouncing body reached up to embrace a third, bearing him too, to the rushing pavement.

Joshua had no way of knowing, but the main perpetrator of the ghastly crime at the Forbisher house was paying for his deed in spades. Though his skeleton now contained seventeen major breaks, and more than two hundred less severe fractures, he was still alive. He stayed alive for almost three days with every pain receptor in his body screaming just short of overload, and no relief from agonies a thousand times worse than labor. As his body slowly died of dehydration he had the opportunity to remember the agony he dispensed so easily, and almost, he realized every pain he had given was mirrored, times seven, in his own body.

Joshua watched as the pickup following the riders slewed to a stop just out of effective range of his weapon. He lingered only long enough to toss three more shots, and determine they were not following, before slinging the rifle and taking his retreat. He radioed his companions after he started and had them pull off the main route back to the house, stop, and wait for him at the firetower. He then found a straight stretch of road with good cover at its end, where he could set up another ambush on the off chance the remainder of the thrice decimated group chose to renew pursuit.

At five miles from the proposed meeting place he was out of touch with Judy, Jesse, and Darrell, and was concerned about the condition of the other members of his party. He couldn't kid himself about another piece of reality either, he was more anxious about Jesse and not because she was riding with Chico. He worried because in less than twenty-four hours she had endeared herself to him, and affected him more than any woman he knew, including his wife.

He hadn't thought about his wife and daughter since the crying jag the night before, and he was surprised at the reaction he exhibited now. He felt the loss. He knew there was a hole in his life, and it would be there forever. He knew he still loved his wife. Most of all he knew he would never forget, or stop loving all of the family who were gone. But he also knew he would not cry again for those who were no longer there. He would do all in his power to help rebuild, at least his small part of this world, and make sure nothing like this would ever happen again.

He turned the big bike to face the direction from which he had come as he pulled to a stop after going through the high banked turn. He looked back along his path of a moment before, reversed his direction, rode slowly over the crest of the manmade ridge and into the ditch behind. He set the bike up on its stand, and cut the engine, but left the key in the lock below the gauges. Absently he checked the level in the tank, then trekked back up the bank to a point where he could watch for any who might follow. The shotgun he left on the Homemade mount, but before getting comfortable in the prone position, he spread out his BDU jacket, laid out four extra magazines for the SXGI, and all but two of the extra mags for the OMNIVORES. He had set the weapons up to use .45 ACP ammunition before he left, because using .45 ACP rounds allowed him to use the special CAL-COMP barrel also designed by George Callicotte. He lost a minute of preparation as he drew one of the monstrous stainless steel weapons, and marvelled at the simple, yet practical innovations George had used in constructing not only the special competition barrel, but the entire weapon itself. He knew not a single part of the weapon was cast, but machined from solid stainless to exacting tolerances mimicking perfection.

George had put his soul into the weapon. He had not allowed any room for error, even in the production of the special alloy barrel. He had finally cooked it himself, to strength, hardness, and durability standards he had been told, by the best in the business, were impossible attain. He created the special wedge-and-block extractor system which had not failed even after the prototype was fired sixty three hundred times without cleaning, and then fired five hundred more times with quarter power ammunition.

The accuracy was phenomenal. Bench groups of less than an inch even with the bulbous .45, and the awesomely powerful .44 Magnum. All of the internal moving parts were super-teflon, on super-teflon, and even the springs were coated with a special teflon as flexible as the stainless spring material itself.

" A truly wonderful machine." Josh whispered aloud as he stored it back in his shoulder rig, and settled himself for what he hoped would be a long wait for someone searching for him.

Gerrald Burke was livid as he surveyed the havoc wrought by Josh and his crew. Fully one third of his men were dead, and three others hurt so badly they would probably be better off dead. Bobbie Burger with a compound fracture of the left femur, and a hide that looked like it was sanded off. Bill Wilson was in a lot better shape, though he had dislocated both shoulders, sprained both wrists, strained his neck, and had both palms scraped to the bones. Most discouraging of all was the third casualty, Marco Guitierrez. Still alive, and unless someone took a hand, he would probably remain so even though he would have a mass of scars for a face, a claw for a right hand, and would have to carry his jewels in a box, that is if he ever found them.

" The son-of-a-bitch should be dead. " He raged at his lieutenant. " I should kill the bastard right now, but he is the only one who can tell us what happened. And it looks like that prick Chico got himself captured if he didn't run away when the fighting started."

Burke knew Chico would never run from a fight, but he had suspicions that maybe the youngster would split from the group to keep from having to kill the girl. He glanced around again. The fucking bitch was nowhere around. The mother had probably run off with the girl after whatever had happened.

" Sir."

Burke turned to look down into the preternaturally white face of Alton Vargas.

" What is it Vargas?"

" There were four vehicles. Two cars, or probably trucks, and two motorcycles. We found places where six people moved around, and spent cartridges from a .3030, a .223, a .308, and a couple of thirty-eights dropped by the passenger's side of the larger of the two vehicles. At least two of them were hit, both of them over there, and one of them was hit pretty bad, if we can judge by the amount of blood he lost. They went back along the side road and could be anywhere by now. "

The entire monologue was delivered with the cold professionalism of a newscaster, Vargas's vocation until the day before.

Burke could remember listening to the same voice repeating the world news on the only black music station in town, and was surprised when he saw the young man was an albino. At first it put him off from the man, but there was a cold exactness about everything Vargas did that finally made him decide to include Alton in what he called Headquarters section. He was glad he had, because it had given him a chance to get to know him a little better.

Vargas was an excellent shot with both rifle and pistol, and could read more information from bent grasses and scuffed footprints than anyone he had ever seen. On top of that he moved like a cat, and was a lot stronger than his small frame led one to believe. In short, he was commando material.

" Fergie, load everyone into the vehicles and let's head to the warehouses. One of the trucks can take the wounded back to the main camp later, but we need to secure those supplies and keep looters out of them."

Burke watched his Lt. walk off to carry out his orders, then turned back to Vargas and motioned him back to the car. He followed after surveying the chaos once again and promising himself he would kill the bastards who had done it.

Josh's eyes swept back and forth over the approaches to his position for what seemed to be the millionth time before he decided the gang had had enough for the day, and had probably returned to wherever they had come from. He slid the stacked .45's back into the Spark's Six-Pack, and replaced the .308 clips in the crossed bandoleers on his chest. He left the SXGI propped on its bi-pod while he whipped the grass and dust from the BDU jacket, and then donned it over his other gear. He re-slung his rifle so it would ride better on his back, then climbed aboard his bike and set off back down the road to the old firetower.

Stitches would probably be needed in the gash above the temple of Alex's head, but it was beyond the ability of Jesse to do so in the Suburban speeding down the gravel road toward the old firetower. She did all she could to ease the pain in Rafe's leg, but it was frustrating not to be able to do anything else. The headphone unit had been silent since Josh's last transmission, except for the directions Darrell gave her to be relayed to Chico. The boy, she thought it strange to think of him that way, had been silent since getting behind the wheel of the truck, but demonstrated he was a better than competent driver on the wash-boarded roads they traveled.

" Chico, why did you turn on your friends back there?"

" Ma'am, in the first place I'd rather not talk about it right now, and in the second place they weren't my friends. They were just some guys I got hooked up with."

" When Josh catches up to us you know that he's going to ask you the same thing."

" Yes Ma'am, I know he will, and he probably won't be as nice about it, but I really don't want to talk now. I got a lot on my mind and I figure I will need to have a clear head when Mr. Hardesty, if Mr. Hardesty catches up to us. "

" Yeah, if he catches up to us."

She didn't say anything else until the firetower was in sight, then it wasn't to anyone in particular." That son-of-a-bitch had better catch up."

There was little the small group could do once they arrived at the firetower, except attempt to hide the vehicles, and set up a defense. Rafe was left in the rear of the wagon with Gretchen and Alex, both still oblivious to what was happening. Jesse climbed the stairs of the tower, and moved to a point where she could watch the road in both directions. Darrell climbed a tree allowing him to watch along the pipeline in either direction.

Judy also climbed into position on top of the small pump house serving the natural gas pipeline. Her's was an exposed place, but it let her watch the vehicles, and was shaded against the heat of the brightening sun. She was glad no one was been with her in the small truck, because she had been unable to control her violent sobs prompted by her fourth brush with death in less than a day. She wanted to kill the young boy they had captured, wanted to shoot into the bodies of the others who where already dead and helpless to prevent her rage. But by the time she extracted the UZI from the engine compartment, Josh had been organizing things to leave and she had to look after Alex and Rafe. She glanced at the Suburban, and could see the movement of the boy in the front, and the form of Rafe reclining in the rear, and she wondered...

"Josh, is that you?"

"Yeah, Da-rell. Its me."

"Judy, Jesse, Josh is coming up the pipeline from the west. Are the roads clear?"

"The roads are clear for as far as I can see, and I don't see any dust in the distance either. Josh, are you ok?" Jesse queried while watching from the firetower.

"I'm alright 'Little-bit.' How are Rafe and the others?"

"They were all doing ok when I started climbing the tower. Rafe is awake and watching the kid, the other two are still unconscious but seem to be resting comfortably. What happened back there?"

"Later. First we need to get our butts back to ' The Haven ' and find out what, if anything, the kid knows."