Into the dung heap

Day Sixty-five, 5:40 AM

James

"Fuck me. This bastard needs to die!" I said.

"What is it James?" Vala asked as she carried several web belts to the DUK and tossed them into the back seat. Walking back to me as she stood there, she waited for me to explain.

"This letter is from the enemy commander telling him to kill all the men and kidnap all the women and children," I said.

The dogs jumped out of the DUK and ran downriver and stopped. They stood there growling at the bank. I pulled my pistol and started walking towards the embankment when I heard splashing. I started running, and saw a small head in the water that was struggling. I dropped my pistol and ran for the water. I dove off the embankment and hit the water in a perfect dive. Surfacing, I started swimming hard after the bobbing head. I saw the head go under, and I dove under the water. Kicking my feet as hard as I could, I gained ground and saw the body sinking for the bottom. I reached out and missed the first time, but my other hand came in and snagged the child's heavy leather coat. My feet hit the bottom of the river, and I pulled the child to me as I kicked off. We broke the surface and I started kicking as hard as my legs would let me as it carried me downstream.

We were nearing a bend in the river, and I could hear the water breaking on rocks as I reached out for the long grass that hung over the embankment. My fingers snatched at the stands and the clumps of grass were ripped out. I was watching down river and saw the tree that was laying half on the bank, and half in.

I pulled my feet close to my body, and as we neared the tree I shoved them outward and the soles of my boots slapped on to the trunk of the tree. I reached out and grabbed at one of the limbs. My hand wrapped around the tree limb, and it snapped under my weight. I dropped the limb, and snagged a second one, and I prayed it would hold.

My weight on the limb swung me around, and I hit the mud bank. With determination in my body, I shoved my feet into the bottom of the river and stood up with the child. Turning the body, I flipped it over my shoulder as I looked up at the five feet of mud and grass riverbank.

Turning, I stepped to the tree, and I could feel the water ripping at my feet as I reached the tree, and then I was in a pool of calmer water. I started climbing the tree and reached the top just as the girls ran up to me.

Setting the child on the ground, I rolled the body over on its belly. I had noticed it was a young girl as I started doing CPR on her. Thirty seconds later she was coughing up the water she had taken in. She had rolled onto her side, so I started rubbing her back to help her breathe. Before I could ask her name, she started crying, and speaking in her own language.

Vala

I stood there in fear as James dove into the water, and then I was running with the other girls behind me. I was frantic when he went under and didn't come up. I picked his pistol up and started running down the river searching for him. I saw James come up and start swimming, and then he went under, and I screamed his name out in fear. We stood there watching and then I started running down the river.

The river turned up ahead so I angled my run to cut across instead of following the bank. I was searching the water when I saw a hand come up the side and then James was there with a small child in his arms. He rolled her on her stomach and did something I couldn't see, and then I heard coughing and crying. Dropping beside James, I pushed him out of the way and took the child in my arms. She was about seven or eight years of age.

James

I let Vala take the young girl, as I stood up. Picking up my pistol where she had dropped it to take the child, I looked around and frowned. We were out in the open with just my pistol. With fear running down my spine, I said, "Come on, back to the DUK."

I reached down and yanked Vala to her feet, and we ran for the vehicle. We piled in, and I lifted the two dogs in and ran back to the trailer and said a silent prayer that the modifications that Kalib made to the thirty foot trailer would work. I flipped the switch and watched as an inflation collar burst from beneath the bottom of the trailer. Running back, I scrambled up the side of the DUK and dropped into the seat. Starting the engine, I turned us around and headed into the river.

"What are you doing?" Vala asked.

"Getting us out of here," I said.

"But ... the rocks. You said they could tear the bottom out," she shouted as I started to descended and slammed on the brakes.

She was correct it would, but what the hell was I supposed to do. "Fuck!" I said.

"What? Now?" Vala asked.

"No, it's an expression. You're right. So I will head down river, but I need to do something first," I said. I put the DUK into park, and climbed out of the DUK and ran back to the trailer and flipped the switch to the other direction and the collar was sucked back into its storage compartments. I was back inside the DUK and driving across the ford and turned southwest towards the lake in the distance.

I hoped keeping the rapid river between us and the other side would keep us safe. We traveled for an hour and then I slammed the brakes on as my eyes looked at the trip indicator. "This is fucking impossible," I snapped out.

"What is?" Vala asked as she came out of the cabin.

"The trip odometer says we have gone just over a thousand miles..."

"And what's that mean?" she asked as she interrupted me.

"We have only been gone for seven days; the top speed of this DUK is forty miles an hour. But I have been keeping us at ten to fifteen miles per hour when the terrain has been flat and level and slower when it was rough. We should have traveled just around eight hundred miles, but the odometer says we have traveled eleven hundred and ninety miles. We are almost four hundred miles over," I said as I figured out the math.

"Maybe it's broken, you said this is an old vehicle," Vala replied.

"No. If it was broken, it wouldn't record anything," I said as I rubbed my chin as I tried to figure it out.

"Then worry about it, later. Right now we have to go, and I mean NOW!" Vala said.

She stood up and swung the fifty around and opened fire.

I looked were she was pointing and blanched as I saw about a hundred riders coming down a hill on the other side of the river. The big rounds were ripping the enemy apart. Killing humans and horses alike and then they were gone, back over the hill.

"Shit!" I snapped out.

I pressed the gas and we took off from where we were sitting. I could see them paralleling us as we traveled. The river narrowed in a few places and then widened out to over a five hundred feet in some. I was traveling as fast as I dared over the plains.

I handed Vala the binoculars and said, "Get up above and see what you can see."

Vala

I took the glasses and replied, "Ok."

Turning I left the smoking machine gun behind and climbed the ladder up to the roof. I crawled up on top and scanned around us. I watched to the right and I could see the horsemen as James called them, pop up and down on the hills watching us. I turned to look behind us and could see some of them riding towards the ford, but they had a long ways to go. Scanning to my left it was clear and then I looked directly ahead and froze.

Coming towards us was about twenty men on horseback and they were lowering the poles as I scrambled down the ladder. I pulled the baseball bats out that I had driven the big nails through while James was watching and laughing. I handed one to Kugg and Sali. They looked at them in wonder and I said, "Anyone tries to climb in. You hit them. Ok?"

They nodded their heads and I scrambled to the front seat as I shouted, "Everyone but Kugg and Sali get below."

The rest of our new family ran below and I manned what James called the Ma Deuce. I added a new belt to it and stood there waiting.

"What did you see?" James asked and I told him. He pulled his pistol out and set it the dash in front of him and then set the second one on his lap.

I looked up and pulled the trigger on the gun. It started bucking in my grip as the bullets started chewing through the men charging us. James jerked the wheel to the left and I swung the gun around taking out some more of them and then we were past them.

James

"Fuck!" I said and picked up the pistol when I saw the man on horseback less than ten feet from me. Clutched in his left hand was a massive sword, and he swung it at me as I fired. The round hit the man in his chest, and he flew backwards off his horse. I turned to look ahead and swerved the DUK to avoid the lance that shattered on the armored plate in front of the window. As I missed the man and horse I heard a thud and a scream behind me. Glancing back, I saw the man tumbling from his horse and Kugg jumping up and down in her chair waving the club in her hand.

"JAMES!" Vala shouted beside me.

I whipped my head around and avoided another group of mounted troops. Two lances shattered on the armor and the third one was high and scrapped along the top of the armor, and I heard a high pitched scream behind me. I jerked around in my seat and blood rushed to my nuts as I looked at Kugg lying back over the seat, the three feet of broken wood sticking out of her chest. I roared in anger, and slammed the brakes on. Something slammed into the back of the trailer.

Jumping out of the DUK, I lifted my pistols I had picked up. The first round hit the man in the lead, and he tumbled from his horse with his head blown off. I started firing as fast as I could. Beside me, Vala was firing with the M-2 machine gun emptying the plains around her of any living thing. I heard a scraping and I looked up and saw a man about to jump down into the DUK. Just as he jumped, I fired both pistols and the big 44 rounds hit him in the chest. He was dead before he landed in the vehicle. I looked around and saw three of the men riding away.

"Vala, my rifle," I shouted as I holstered my pistols.

I turned and took the sniper rifle from my lover. Setting my arms on the deck of the DUK, I took aim at the first man to the left of the group running for their life, and I gently squeezed the trigger. I quickly adjusted the gun and had the second round in the air and was traversing the gun and firing the third round when the man to the left fell from his running horse.

I watched the third man fall from his horse, and then I turned to Kugg. I climbed up into DUK and over to Kugg. She was lying on her back, her hands clutching the broken remains of the lance. Tears ran down my cheeks as I knelt there.

She turned her head and reached up and touched my cheek with her fingers and said something. I looked at Vala and asked, "What did she say?"

"She asks you to take care of her son. Love him and teach him, and that she will wait for you with The Mother," she replied.

"Don't die!" I shouted as I grabbed the medical kit to try and save her. Opening it, I ripped open a gauze package and pulled the pad out, and I gently pulled the remains of the lance out and pressed the pad against the wound. She gasped and started coughing blood up as I tried to save her. She stopped breathing and I started CPR on her trying to revive her.