Death Springs Eternal: The Rift Book III (3 page)

This fact made him feel regret despite its obvious practicality, for he hated seeing
good
, salt-of-the-earth folks set to pasture.

Soon, with the supply gathering complete, the platoon was back on the highway heading for their temporary home of Roanoke Rapids. As he rode in the back of his personal Humvee, General Bathgate gazed at the gently rolling hills and dense forests of northern
North Carolina
. The sights caused a stir of memory within him, a spark of joy as he recalled the life he’d lived before his true purpose had been revealed. The tale itself seemed unreal, like a fairy tale.

In this fairy tale there was once a man named Terrance Graham. He’d been a high-school history teacher in
Jacksonville
,
Florida
, for more than half of his fifty-two years. Short in stature but large in voice, he was an intimidating educator who cared for his students. He was also a card-carrying member of the Ku Klux Klan. He had joined in college, when his roommate at the time, Johnny Kingsley, whose father was deeply entrenched in the organization, insistently passed him literature to read. Though Terrance was initially hesitant due to the Klan’s sordid history, he eventually began to see what they were trying to do.
This was a new Klan
, the literature said.
We do not condone violence. Our only desire is to assist in the advancement of the white race, to celebrate its history, its achievements. Simply
this,
and nothing more.
To Terrance, those words made sense. He saw nothing wrong with promoting your own nationality—after all, he saw the blacks around campus doing the same thing every day, gathering together in protest groups, gaining special advantages and being awarded financial help they didn’t necessarily deserve.

“It’s because they band together,” Johnny told him. “We have to do the same.”

Terrance agreed.

He carried that card in his wallet with pride for the rest of his life. Every year he would get in trouble with the school board when he’d present the card to his classes tell them how wonderful this new-age Klan was.
Jacksonville
was a diverse city, and to Terrance’s surprise, it ended up being mostly whites who were opposed to his presentations. Most blacks took his lectures in stride, or as a joke, though there had been the occasional near-violent reaction. To him, this was simply more evidence of how divided the white race had become, so he pressed the issue, defending himself by saying he was doing nothing but passing information on to his students. Being a tenured teacher who never actually said anything
illegal
, there was nothing they could do to stop him except slap him on the wrist.

Terrance Graham had a wife, a fellow educator named Maggie who he’d met during his third year after graduating college. Though she wasn’t the woman he’d dreamed of marrying as a younger man, they were perfect for each other, sharing the same prejudices and causes, likes and dislikes. In other words, Terrance had everything he ever wanted, and he was happy.

Then the world ended. Maggie was among the first casualties of the Rodent Flu (or
Wrathchild
, as he’d come to find out was the epidemic’s unofficial codename), contracting the disease from one of her students, who’d spent a week with his family in
Mexico
. She was sick for eleven days before
the change
came over her. Terrance watched as Maggie, strapped down on her gurney,
flailed
her arms and legs, breaking her own arm while she tried to free herself from her restraints. Her features became distorted, as if her bones were growing beneath her skin. He saw her rip out the throat of a doctor who tried to subdue her, gawked as the man’s blood spewed from the wound and painted her nightgown red. Then she had looked up at him, and his heart dropped in his chest. There was no sign of the old Maggie in those eyes any longer. She was long gone, and a monster had taken her place.

That night, after the nurses had finally sedated her, Terrance used a scalpel to carve her neck from ear to ear.

General Bathgate shook his head, trying to get back to the present. He felt tears begin their steady trek down his ducts and he gritted his teeth, halting them before they arrived. He would show no weakness, not now, not after all he’d accomplished. There was too much at stake.

Yet his mind still retreated despite his efforts. He saw his old self sleepwalking through the days and nights that followed his wife’s death; felt the anger rise within him every night as Jacksonville deteriorated into brutal chaos; heard the riotous boom of explosions ring through his ears, shaking his small home to the rafters; sensed the panic of not knowing what to do as deformed fiends rushed through the streets, murdering his neighbors and laying waste to all around him; lived again through the shame of his cowardice when hiding in his basement, before a final loud detonation sounded, dropping his humble abode atop him in a rain of splintered wood and dissolving plaster.

But most of all, he felt the loneliness and confusion that followed as he lay in the dark, trapped beneath his work bench with only one of his old World History textbooks and a small LED headlamp for company. He felt his stomach rumble and his mind grow weary as time passed. He started reading, becoming enraptured by the story of Alexander the Great the way he had as a child, and soon, as starvation made him hallucinate, he pictured himself grasping the mantle of greatness from that legendary ruler, uniting the globe and reforming it in an image of perfection that only he could imagine.

Bathgate punched his leg, trying to get the storm of memories to stop, but in doing so he glanced down and saw his uniform, the uniform that was the source of all his power. He moaned, recalling the day the earth shook, shifting the roof of his prison and giving him a sliver of hope. He suffered the torment as he dug his way out, clawing at the dirt and wood, reaching for that shard of light until his fingernails cracked and his hands were covered with blood and sores. He sensed the rain falling around him when he emerged from the earth, a torrential downpour that he opened his mouth to, letting the water slip down his throat no matter how much it stung.

A. Bathgate. That was the name stitched upon his right breast. Terrance had met the
real
General A. Bathgate on the side of the road as he exited the ruined city of
Jacksonville
. The man was alone, lying inside the very Humvee he found himself in now, as dehydrated and hungry as he, suffering from a gangrenous left leg and an infected gash that ran down his side. The man begged Terrance for help, pleaded with him to get behind the wheel and drive to
Baton Rouge
, where the last “safe” outpost of the American military establishment was located. Terrance heard his cries, his moans, and wished him to shut up. So he dragged the man out of the vehicle, removed the general’s gun belt, un-holstered his sidearm, shoved the barrel into the man’s mouth, and ended his life. He then stripped the man of his uniform and slipped it on his own body, blood stains and all. The fit was perfect, in more ways than one.

From that moment on, Terrance Graham of
Jacksonville
,
Florida
became Alexander Bathgate, five-star general.
I will lead this country back into prosperity
, he thought as he drove the Hummer down the cluttered, wreckage-filled streets, in search of like-minded survivors.
I will rebuild this land, and all I find will be soldiers, soldiers of a new freedom, and we will finally live in peace.

As the caravan approached Roanoke Rapids, General Bathgate smiled. His goal was close at hand. He could just about smell it.

*
  
*
  
*

“Get that goddamn thing down!” shouted Greg Pitts. “We’re leaving in fucking nine hours, you douchebags!”

The men who were busy dismantling the huge tent that served as the SNF triage center rolled their eyes but kept on working. All but one of them, that is—a young, spunky kid with a shaved head and eyebrows so blond it looked like he didn’t have any adjusted his sash, the required outfit of any SNF soldier, cracked his neck, and stormed across the short distance that separated them.

“Excuse me?” he asked, his wiry muscles flexing. Pitts chuckled, thinking the kid looked like a tiny male bird trying to frighten a bigger, scarier suitor away from his female.

“I said get the fuck to work, twerp,” said Pitts.

“No, that’s not it,” the kid said with a roguish grin. “You said nine hours. How long is that, anyway?”

Pitts steamed.

“That’s right,” the kid continued. “That’s old-talk. What was it the general said? Official military time is all that’ll be accepted, right?” He laughed. “You’re supposed to be a Lieutenant, right? What, rules don’t apply to you?”

Pitts couldn’t believe the kid’s balls. He was out-and-out
provoking
him, which never should’ve happened, especially since Pitts not only outranked him, but probably outweighed him by close to a hundred pounds. Then the kid started laughing, pointing his finger at him, and Pitts looked down. He stared at his leather chaps, his old, ragged jeans, his black t-shirt, and finally understood. There was a giant wet spot running down the front of his shirt and soaking the crotch of his pants. It must’ve been the result of drinking too quickly and sweating too much in this goddamn heat. He looked pathetic.

It pissed him off.

In a rage Pitts leapt forward, his meaty hand wrapping around the front of the kid’s sash. The young soldier, for some reason surprised that Pitts had reacted in such a way, let his mouth drop open while he tried to back away from the larger man’s grip. But Pitts was having none of it. He cocked his arm back and belted the kid square in the nose, breaking it. The kid’s head snapped back and blood gushed over his lips. A spit bubble popped as he muttered, his head lolling.

Pitts pulled him close, so close he could literally taste the blood running over his mouth. “What was that, shithead?” he asked.

The kid’s eyes rolled and he muttered again. Pitts smacked him across the cheek with his free hand, and that seemed to do the trick. The young soldier snapped to attention.

“I said, what
was that
?” he repeated.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the kid replied with a slur.

Pitts let go of the sash and the kid stumbled backward. Turning around, he saw that he had an audience. The workers had stopped breaking down the tent and twelve pairs of eyes glared at him with a mixture of bewilderment and anger. For a moment he feared the group would rush him, would take him down for striking their comrade, but then they all swiveled their heads at once, snapping to attention as if they’d been standing that way the whole time. If there was one thing about the COC, the nutty religious group the boss bent over backward to please, they always stuck together. Pitts hated them.

The sound of footsteps reached his ears, and he peeked over his shoulder to see the general and that punk Jackson marching toward him, side by side. The general’s hands were clasped, while
Jackson
’s arms swung in an exaggerated manner, as if he was trying to make himself appear bigger than he was. Pitts, too, snapped his heels together and straightened his posture. He might have considered General Bathgate a friend and ally, but he’d seen far too often what happened to those who didn’t show him the proper respect,
especially
in public. Not even those closest to the man were spared his wrath during those instances.

“What’s going on here?” asked the general as he approached.
Jackson
just smirked.

Pitts cleared his throat. “This little shit was giving me lip,” he said.

The general’s eyes fell on the young soldier with the bloody face. “Is that true, soldier?”

The kid shook his head.

General Bathgate sighed and rolled his eyes. “What
really
happened, Lieutenant?” he asked.