Chapter 2

Colonel Augusto Martinez was the commander of the special unit tasked with keeping the roads clear and open for convoy traffic clearing the impact zones. He had started on Day Zero with slightly over 300 troops under his command and now on day 17 he was reduced to only 60 men and two officers excluding him. The unit had become so tattered that it was on the verge of disbandment but he heard there were some reinforcements coming from Fairbanks before the end of the week.

Master Sergeant Holmes was looking a little tired at this early morning briefing but he stood and gave the updates with a firm voice that disregarded the loss of two fingers in a vicious Looter ambush only a short week ago.

The unit only had three females now. They had started with about a dozen but the harsh attrition reduced their numbers just as rapidly as the men despite the men's efforts to shield them from the consequences of constant combat and dangerous operations. One of the females was Corporal Sandy Hess who was more ruthless than most of the men. She had no tremors of guilt about removing any treat to her survival and the men around her were happy to have her watching their back.

The two vehicles they had stopped on the paved road were most likely filled with Looters despite the fact half of the eight detainees were female. They were all a disreputable looking lot in need of bathing and sever attitude modification.

Corporal Sandy was in charge of the interrogation and she had a very successful "break" rate with her technique of asking a question and shooting any detainee who either didn't answer or was obviously not telling the truth. Sometimes, she would just shoot them in the foot or the arm to give them another chance to be honest, but lately, she just shot them in the head and went on to the next one. The men watching were smiling at her dedication to the truth.

A girl who was bewildered and confused looked up at Sandy and just said,

"Shoot me, bitch, don't waste my time."

Corporal Sandy accommodated her by putting a round in her left ear and the sight of the blood and brain splattering out the other side was enough to have the next detainee trying to answer the questions before they were even asked. It was so amusing that the Colonel was forced to smile as well.

There were seven bodies in the dirt of the ditch when Sandy came up to the last detainee. He was a young boy of about 18 who was trembling with fear knowing that his end was certainly near. However, she took a shine to him and told him to strip down to his dirty underwear and let the men make sport of his obvious lack of muscles anywhere on his body. He did, however, have a fairly impressive bulge between his legs that caught Sandy's attention in an obscene and totally inappropriate matter for a professional interrogator. The circle of exhausted men all laughed when she reached inside and pulled out his equipment with a well-practiced hand.

The evil-eyed blonde bitch stroked the young lad until he was helplessly hard and dripping with pre-cum. She removed a long sharp knife from her belt and the watching men collectively held their breath. Some of them were too squeamish to look any further despite the fact they were seasoned veterans of the "cleansing" operation. It was easy to see they all expected her to slice the poor boy's pretty cock off at the root and leave him a sniveling former man in the dust on the road. It was a fate worse than death for most men and none of the watching males wanted to be in his shoes at that very instant.

The boy almost fainted when Sandy waved the knife under his nose.

"Please, ma'am, I ain't done it yet and I need that a bit longer."

The men snickered because the fool didn't realize his cock was only a part of his body and the likelihood of his joining his seven companions in the ditch was far more likely than the losing of his manhood.

The poor lad was almost in tears when crafty female interrogator began to fondle the hard shaft and the hanging balls beneath with the flat side of the blade. The boy's whimpers made the men chuckle nervously. Everyone waited expectantly for the final slice of the cutting instrument.

I'll talk. Please, I'll talk. We are not looters. We are survivors and just trying to stay away from any trouble. Most of these guys are new recruits. I've been with the survivors from the beginning up at the cave. Let me keep my cock and I will show you where they are located. I don't want to die."

The boy was so talkative that it was really pathetic. Sally put away her knife and cradled him in her arms as the men walked away disappointed.

"You stay with mama, young fella, Sally with take good care of your pretty cock. You say you haven't done it yet. Well, we need to take care of that right away in case an accident should happen. You can't be going to the hereafter without having dipped your wick in a nice puddle of female juices."

Sally took him into the back of the security van and it rocked and rattled for a very long time.

It was too late to follow the informant's instructions to the cave entrance. They set up a blocking force at the side of the road and buried the seven "Looters" before they started to stink or attract the attention of the wild dogs that seemed to multiply in numbers every day since Day Zero.

The fallen bridge kept them from using the heavy equipment or even the non-off road vehicles. They fanned out in a skirmish line of about platoon size and let the lead squad scout out the terrain. The fast-talking boy warned them of the booby-traps before they came to the slope of the mountain and they marked them and avoided them rather than try to remove them from the path. Some early morning fog was burning off from the lowland section near the streambed but the cave entrance was easily visible and looked deserted with absolutely no movement at all. If it were not for the booby-traps on the path, the Colonel would have suspected the informant was just making the whole thing up to prolong his miserable life.

Two flash-bangs broke the silence of the barren cliff, but only the screeching birds gave any indication that there was life in the vicinity. They quickly determined that the quarry had flown the coop. Only the abandoned tools of existence remained to give credence to the boy's story.

Sandy seemed really pissed off and nobody dared to comment when she marched up to the kneeling boy and dispatched him with a quick slice across his throat. His gurgling body convulsed in some sort of lurid jig on the bloody dirty stones outside the entrance to the cave.