Avalon: The Retreat (32 page)

“G.I. Bill.”

“What was that?”

“I got out after six years and went to dental school at U.C.L.A. using the G.I. Bill. I’m a Bruin, but don’t hold that against me.”

She was laughing and he wasn’t sure why; she saw the look and explained,

“I’m a Bruin also, Accounting.”

Now he was smiling.

“Do you have any objection to my grabbing one of those street sweepers over there? I’m sure I can do a better job with it than that kid.”

“Help yourself,” she answered, her voice betraying a slight annoyance, “But don’t ever underestimate those boys; they follow orders and they can shoot. They also have a lot more guts than some men I’ve met in my days.”

He smiled at her and asked, “Incidentally, are you ex-military as well?”

“Special Agent Beth Kelly,” she straightened up in an effort to mirror his formal Army introduction, “Federal Bureau of Investigation, at your service.” The temporary humor over she relaxed again, not having the energy to continue the charade. “I’ve been trying to evade those Slavers since right after the nukes began to fall. I hate those sickos more than anything I’ve ever hated in my life… all twenty-six years of it. How’d they get you?”

“Kind of an embarrassing story really; I was asleep under a tree when they came along, and the rest you know. I was with them for about ten days. I think that woman over there might be a little gone upstairs.” He was nodding toward a particular woman in ragged clothes. “I think they not only raped her, but ate her child in front of her.”

Beth looked over at the woman sitting on the ground, staring at nothing, and rocking back and forth. She looked devoid of any feeling or emotion whatsoever. She hadn’t eaten, from what Beth had seen, and it seemed she may have given up completely.

“Beth,” Matthew interrupted her train of thought, “I think those are motorcycles over there.”

He pointed, and when she looked she could see them sitting on their bikes looking at her little group from on top of the hill. It would take a few minutes for them to get to her people once they started down that hill.

“Everybody over here,” she immediately screamed at the kids as she jumped up. “Get behind those rocks over there, now!”

The children, hearing the edge in her voice, stopped playing and ran for cover. The woman who was staring at the ground just sat there.

“Tom and Davey; bring me some of that dynamite,” she directed. “Be quick!”

She started digging in her pack and found the Blue Tips in the plastic sandwich bag. She distributed the matches by giving five to Tom, five to David, and five to Len. Each of them took three sticks.

“Toss them when they get close enough to you to nearly be able to hit them with it,” her instructions were hurried. “Light it, count to ten, and throw!”

“These are thirty second fuses,” she said, turning to Len. “We test-burned a piece of one way back, so wait ten seconds before you throw. They work pretty well, but be careful. We have some decent fire power now between us. I wouldn’t trust anything longer than ten seconds. Now get movin’!”

“Children!” she yelled, looking around at all of them, “Stay hidden. Boys, make sure you keep each one of those creeps on the “O” before you fire!”

The bikes were moving toward them now, by twos and threes. She counted about thirty in total.

“Don’t fire until I tell you and make sure you’re behind some cover.” She was a bit quieter, speaking mainly to those in her immediate group. “Here they come, so get ready.”

As they watched the Slavers approach, they could see only hand guns. It made sense that they would only bring their handguns to this fight, as long guns would have been a little difficult to use while they were riding. They were headed straight for her little group.

“Get ready,” she hollered. “Get a good bead on them… steady now… not yet… not yet… NOW!”

Four of the Slavers went down in the yellow grass at the first volley and their motorcycles either fell or kept going and then fell. A loud boom went off and ten or more of them went flying through the air along with their dirt bikes. One bike landed on another biker and crushed him instantly. One more man blew into pieces and several bikes caught on fire.

A new loud boom went off and more of the scumbags went flying through the air. Five of them stopped, turned around, and headed toward the crest of the hill, back to where they had come. Her boys fired several more shots and several more bikers fell into the dirt. Another stick went off and at least a dozen bikers flew through the air.

“Cease fire! Cease fire!” she yelled as a few more shots went off. “Cease firing!”

Suddenly everything was quiet. The yellow grass was burning fiercely and the blaze was moving away from them.

“Tom, Wyatt, everybody get over there and stomp out those fires or the whole place will go up in flames, hurry! Len, go around and check out those bikers and make sure they’re all dead. No survivors and no prisoners. We’ve all seen how they work and they don’t deserve any mercy… damn them!”

Len walked around and surveyed the dead and mutilated bikers. Some Slavers were still alive. He tapped one man with his foot and David ran over and slashed the man’s throat. Beth watched Len and saw that he was appalled.

“Hey Doctor,” Beth yelled, “Come over here.”

He walked toward her with his sub-machine gun hanging limp and pointing down at the ground from his grip on the handle. Before he reached her she said, her voice low and coming from deep inside her throat as if it was a growl, hoarse and hissing, “Let’s get something straight right now Mister. When I give you an order, you either do it or you can pack it up and get the hell out of here right now! We are not going to leave anyone who can come after us from behind if there is anything we can do to prevent it. Dead men don’t tell tales and I don’t want anyone giving anyone else any information about us. Those people are scum and none of them deserve mercy or any human charity from anybody. You got that Mister!?”

He stood there towering over her five foot-five stature. The man must have been close to six foot seven.

“We are not animals,” he said finally. “I am not an animal and I refuse to do that.”

She pulled the slide back on her sub-machine gun, made sure a round was chambered, stepped back about three feet, pointed the weapon toward his head, and screamed at him,

“Then you best be moving along partner, ‘cause you don’t belong with us anymore! Thanks for your help in the fight but we don’t want you with us any longer!”

She shouted at Tom and Davey,

“Make sure they’re all dead and then escort Doctor Len here out and away from us! If any of you ever see him again after today, shoot to kill! For now, give him food and water and make sure he leaves us!”

Several of the children were screaming and crying and scared witless. The woman, who was staring at the ground got up and went to them and motioned for them as she went down on her knees, encouraging them to come to her. She wrapped her arms around those who were crying and comforted them. One little girl was shaking like a leaf in a windstorm and the woman stroked her hair and they put their heads together.

“I’m waiting, Mister, and I suggest you don’t mess with me. I’ll off you so fast you won’t know you’re dead for a hundred years; I said git!”

“Is it too late to offer an apology?” His voice was soft and non-threatening. “Of course you’re right.”

She glared at him for a long moment, trembling with rage. No one knew what she was going to do until she dropped her weapon’s working end to the ground and slid the safety in place with her thumb. She said in a low voice as she made eye contact with the man when she spoke,

“Don’t ever challenge me again. The next time, I will shoot you dead and there will be no more conversations like this. The only reason I’m doing this is because I believe we may need your expertise later where we’re going. But you will obey me and I will not tolerate any insubordination, period. We are at war and I can’t afford to watch my back because I can’t trust someone. I offer no apologies; the only reason we’ve made it this far is because we have worked as a team. You can be a vital part of that team but you are not that important until you have proven yourself. Look at those boys over there; they aren’t boys anymore, they are men in mind if not in body and they are good soldiers; they do what they’re told. So it’s settled; we will talk no more of it.”

“Everybody,” she said, turning toward her small soldiers, “Let’s go through all these bodies, check them out, and see what they have on them. Gather up all the firearms and put them in the cart we picked up at the last Slaver’s Camp. Take it all… watches, rings, bracelets, gold chains around their necks, bullets, everything… don’t leave anything that can be used. Check out the bikes too; if you find anything on them, take it. None of these guys will be needing anything from now on. Burn the bikes in a pile.”

She turned to her three little warriors,

“We’ll be leaving in a few minutes.” She had made up her mind. “We’re going to a place called Fitch.”

It was a good haul from the dead Slavers. Beth’s group had lots of arms and ammunition, an assortment of gold neck chains, bracelets, watches, rings, canteens full of water, pistols, sheath knives, folders, and some good clothing. It would all come in handy.

She decided to split some of the blankets in quarters, making squares out of them and then put a slit in the middle of each with her sheath knife. One of those over the heads of the children made for great makeshift coats, covering them down to their hip area. With a piece of rope or cloth tied around the middle, it stayed out of their way. If their arms got cold all they had to do was put them inside the blanket.

Most of the bikers had hats and she distributed them among the children and adults. They counted thirty-one dead Slavers lying on the ground that would feed birds, insects, and probably a few coyotes.

They stopped several times because the children needed to rest, eat, and drink some water. There was quite a bit of food on the bikes and that added to their stock, but every stop depleted it that much more. They would run out of food completely in another few days, at the latest. She was nibbling on a piece of dried fruit when the quiet woman who stared off into space all the time came walking toward her. Beth waited as she approached and stopped in front of her.

“If no one cares,” she asked emotionless, “could I have something to eat?”

Beth blinked and was caught without anything to say, but recovered quickly,

“Someone bring this woman something to eat.”

One of the younger boys ran over with a can full of pears and handed it to the woman. “Thank you very much,” she said in a soft voice that was barely audible.

She turned and walked back toward the children and sat down among several of them. They seemed to like her and sat close. She began to eat the fruit quietly.

“What’s the plan, boss?” Len asked as he walked up beside her.

Suspicious at the comment, she studied his face to see if there was any sarcasm in the remark. Not noticing any, she relaxed. She smoothed the map out and picked up a small branch that was laying off to one side of her foot.

“As best I can determine,” she said, pointing to an area on the map with the twig, “We are here.”

“If we continue our compass course in this direction we’ll be on the southern outskirts of Fitch, that’s this little town. I expect with the speed we’re traveling, we should make it there in another three or four days with lots of rest in between and stops to eat. The place I’m taking everyone to is over here, approximately. When I was a kid, I went there with my father and we camped out along the way. There is an old railroad track bed that skirts the side of the mountain and it will take us right to it. It is a large ranch house as I recall. I can’t remember that much about it but I remember it was very large, abandoned, and well equipped.”

Len reached over and picked up the map and studied it. He looked at it for a couple of minutes and traced his finger over an imaginary line he drew on it.

“Do you think it’s still there?” he asked. “I don’t see anything on this map that indicates anything’s there.”

“God, I hope it is,” she replied, making eye contact with him. “There’s no place else for us to go. In a few days, we’ll be out of food and I don’t think many of them will make it without food. I don’t even know what we’ll do when we get there if there’s nothing to hunt, but we have to focus on one problem at a time.”

She looked over at the woman and some of the smaller kids around her, and Len just nodded. She was right of course; few of them would make it. It was amazing to him they had made it this far.

In a half hour they were packed and ready to walk some more. There was no more trouble except for one small inconvenience. While they were walking toward Fitch, one of the children was playing with a kitty cat, except it wasn’t a kitty at all. It was a skunk and it seemed happy to be trotting along with the group and especially the children. She smelled it but didn’t realize it was actually traveling with them until she saw it.