The Roaring Twenties had generally been quiet so far. The great land of forty-eight country-states was filled with complacency, calmness. Twelve years had passed since the great armies had dissolved, with each country-state forming its own meager defenses from whatever conventional means available. Fuel had become almost free on the East Coast. The east owed its energy abundance to the research done in the mid-nineties, studies that had tapped into every natural gas deposit from what was once New York to the state named for the sun. All one had to do was look for a six foot flame and somewhere nearby would be a damper to put the fire out. Then, it was merely a matter of how much of the gas you could store in your tank. A hose was hooked to a coupling, a valve was turned and the compression tank filled. You re-lit the flame and left. Oil was more scarce for the engines and gears, and usually ended up being poured through a sieve and used again until better lube could be found or stolen.
Most of the country-states had leaders old enough to remember life before the war that had made the Atlantic Ocean bigger by the annihilation of the British Isles and a goodly chunk of western Europe. These leaders liked to fancy themselves as peace lovers and men of great thought. Most wore beaded necklaces of some sort, as if to further prove their obvious love of everything. The political beauty contest of the past one hundred years or so continued, business as usual, just wearing a different mask.
Cities had become a thing of the past, most destroyed in riots and botched coup attemps around the turn of the century. Many burned with no one even trying to stop the flames. People left like lemmings, most to greet a miserable death on the open roads and back country as desperate inhabitants swarmed out at every passing car or person on foot.
Out on the West Coast of what was once America, there was simply nothing. Just large chunks of land filled with flat expanses of yellow dirt. The country known as Washington still existed, but was only twenty miles square in inhabitable land. Nevada and California were just plain dirt though. Rumors circulated that out in the desert of Nevada the old federal government had been carrying out all kinds of experiments with anything you could think of. Rumor had it that one of these things was a new kind of fission; supposedly, a type that yielded unlimited energy and caused little damage to the environment. Rumor concluded that something had gone wrong in the lab one day, maybe something as trivial as leaving a Bunsen burner on too long. A trivial mistake that had wiped out two and nine-tenths states. The fact that the pattern of destruction went due west from Nevada, then due north through California and stopped dead short of eliminating Washington was disconcerting enough to evoke fears and belief in government tomfoolery. This incident itself was used as a prelude to war, with the good ol' USA blaming outside forces for the damage. A swift first strike was deployed to the USSR, Great Britain, the Union of Socialist Germany, and France. Apparently, the US hadn't quite lived up to the disarmament treaties it had signed with most of those countries. When the dust cleared, no one returned fire. No one was left who had anything to fire.
Two weeks later, the United Nations held its last meeting with an attendance of six members. Arthur Baker, then-President of the US was there and quite insane by most accounts. It was his suggestion that the international group break up, seeing as the US was the only real power left, as he put it. The vote to dissolve was unanimous.
Withing three days, President Arthur Baker lay in a pool of blood on the White House lawn, with sixty-eight bullets from am M-60n machine gun residing in his lifeless body. The door gunner on Heli-One had put them there.
With that, the changes began.
So in the year 2024, the "Roaring Twenties" had been quiet. Life had been quiet since the last of the riots and coup attempts died down. The fifty states had become forty-eight countries, with California and Nevada declared sovereign nations post mortem out of some twisted sense of respect. People settled down to living and trying to get on as best they could. The calm set in and the name of the decade, "Roaring Twenties," was a private joke everyone in the land shared.
Calm.
Until the Horde came.
Roger Hall drank in his surroundings. One word shot through his head: beautiful. The ruined buildings, some fire-gutted, some levelled completely. The battered vehicles, some overturned, some upright, most damaged horribly. All of it beautiful. He was standing amid the ruins of Roanoke, Virginia, once a bunkered city, now a municipal corpse. It made Roger feel so alive. Bodies lay about not sharing Roger's feeling, some shot up so bad that it was a hard-put task deciding the gender of the blood-drenched forms.
But Roger wasn't curious about the dead. He knew what had wrought this destruction. Oh yes, Roger knew. He had been following the Horde for three weeks, standing in the small towns and outposts they had pillaged and plundered as they move south and east. Roger had kept his distance, driving his dying old Victoria minicar at a slow, steady pace, watching the Horde crawl through the dusty mountain backroads and eventually onto Interstate 81. Through his binoculars, he watched them, tried to count them. The best guess at their numbers that Roger could make put them between three and four thousand. And growing. With each town they hit, their numbers grew, picking up the flotsam and jetsam of each community.
Their strategy was simple enough. The biggest heavily-armed vehicles rode at the head of the pack. When a town appeared before them, they roared through it, blasting everything that moved. Vehicles encountered on the road met with a similar fate.
The Horde had two old decrepit tanks, both hybrid concoctions that may have once been Abrahms. Or Bradleys. It was hard to tell with all the patched armor, wild paint schemes, bolted on equipment, steel boxes and various weapons mounted anywhere a man could sit or stand on the hulls. Roger figured that the leader of the Horde rode in the gaudier of the two, as he could see a man waving frenzied directions at all times that the rest followed. The two behemoths led all the assaults, which were supplemented by thirteen buses, twenty-four eighteen wheelers, and an uncountable mass of pickups, vans, and cars of all makes and colors. The Horde's tactics had won out in every town that it had rolled through, mainly because no one was prepared for them.
And now Roger stood in the ruins of Roanoke. God! How many dead? It was clear that the Horde had suffered huge losses, but how many Roanokers had just joined up? That was another thing that kept Roger tracking them. In each town, there was no one alive, not a single person to be found. The number of fallen bodies didn't even get close to accounting for the estimated amount of inhabitants. Why were people joining this renegade army en masse? Why did he suddenly find joy and beauty in the destruction left in its wake? Why? Roger closed his eyes and gritted his teeth together hard enough to scratch the enamel. His questions died like his Victoria had yesterday twenty miles north of there on I-81. He had walked the rest of the way, expecting to find Roanoke intact, thinking that the Horde wouldn't dare raid such a major city. But they had. And how.
But for whatever reasons, to Roger it was a jewel, beautiful and waiting to be plucked. He knew there would be a vehicle somewhere that he could get running. He could spend a week here and outfit himself nicely. Even the Horde could not pick a city this size clean. After resting, he could pick up their trail and then he... Why, he didn't exactly know. Hell, he might very well join them. The biggest land force since the Army and the Jarheads disbanded. Roger smiled. Yes, perhaps.
Jimmy Hess was running scared. He had run all night. Now it was daybreak and his lungs felt like they were pumped full of cement. His legs were sore and cramping, and if they exploded, Martha Hess' boy Jimmy would not be a bit surprised. He ran ten more feet then collapsed next to the small creek he'd spotted. One might say Jimmy Hess was running to beat the devil.
He had joined up with Captain Helman's Freedom Army after it had levelled his hometown of Parker's Village. It had seemed like the thing to do to. So right, so natural, especially when the local volunteer militia had surrended and been recruited. The militia's old rattletrap tank had been added to the convoy, which at that time consisted of the Captain's tank, two buses, four longhaul trucks and about twenty cars. Jimmy drove his old pickup, with a Browning .30 cal. machine gun bolted to the roof, right along with them, hitting every town and settlement in their path, and growing stronger.
But after Roanoke, Jimmy had gotten wary. They had taken out a fortified city, one capable of wiping them out. And when the main gates had crumbled and the Freedom Army rolled through, Jimmy had glimpsed something that had made his blood turn to ice.
He had been right up near the front, driving his old '89 Ford directly behind the Captain's tank. Jimmy had become suddenly enthralled by his leader, gazing at his back, staring at his supple form perched brazenly in the turret's hatch. Jimmy looked lovingly at the exquisitely preserved WWII bomber's jacket the Captain wore, the markings faded beyond reading. Then he cast his gaze upon the Captain's black hair. Jimmy flinched. It was supposed to be cropped short and neat, but it was long. Very long. For a moment, Jimmy could have sworn it was actually growing right before his eyes.
Then he bumped into the rear of the tank, unwary that its pace had slowed drastically. The five new recruits riding in the back of Jimmy's pickup were tossed forward in a clatter of weapons and bodies. Captain Helman turned and grinned at Jimmy, a grin filled with jagged, yellow fangs complemented by a glint in the Captain's solid red eyes. Jimmy's bladder let go like bad brakes. He jumped back, thumping his head against the cab. He looked back at captain Helman. His fierce blue eyes and even white teeth seemed to mock Jimmy. A scowl was on the Captain's heroic features.
"Where the hell you goin', son?" he yelled.
"S-sorry, s-s-sir," Jimmy stammered.
"Get that hunk of junk movin'! And try not to run over any more of us, okay? Please? Not too much to ask?"
"No, s-sir. It won't happen again."
"Good boy."
Jimmy had fallen back to the rear of the column -- no easy task, zigzagging in reverse through the horde of motley vehicles.
Two days later, the Freedom Army moved out of Roanoke, re-outfitted, refueled, better equipped and armed and a helluva lot bigger. Minus one, of course.
Jimmy had crept away to the deserted side of town, to an old area near 18th Street and Patterson Avenue. He had left his truck, taken his shotgun and slept restlessly in an old house that had probably been abandoned twenty years or more. He slept in a small room on the third floor of the sagging brick house, amongst cobwebs and rank smells. His bed was a dry-rotted mattress.
He awoke the next day around three PM and the sun was high and hot. August heat. Jimmy left the house, soaked in sweat and headed towards Smith Mountain, think that hiding out in the boonies would be his salvation. By 8:15 PM when it was getting dark, Jimmy began feeling edgy, as if someone wasn't just watching him but staring at him. Unseen eyes boring right into him. Jimmy had started running about then.
It was the return of the feeling of someone staring that made Jimmy sit up and look around. He saw the creek and the woods and then relaxed. He stared down at his own feet and in front of them saw a battered pair of black motorcycle boots. He let out a wounded shriek and scrambled backwards on his hands and buttucks.
"Hey, Jimbo, how's it hangin'?" Captain Helman asked.
Jimmy saw that the Captain's face had changed, enlongated, became greenish in color. And there were fangs. A whole mouthful of them.
"Y'see, Jimbo, no one leaves my fold. I'm a greedy little shepherd."
Jimmy wasn't even aware that his bowels had betrayed him. He found his voice and screamed, but that was soon replaced by silence. Except for the chewing sounds.
Baron von Aaron, as Mike Stinson liked to call himself, felt like he'd just been hit in the face with a spare wheel off of a semi. He was watching the Captain kick the hell out of a man who refused to wise up and join the Freedon Army. The man appeared to be about fifty, and it looked like he was trying to pray. Captain Helman drew back his fist with a snarl of raw hatred on his face. Baron von Aaron nearly chucked his skimpy dinner when he saw the Captain punch the man so hard that his face seemed to literally cave in. Blood spurted in erratic patterns and the man fell forward in the dust.
No good, babes, Baron von Aaron thought to himself. Bad doin's.
And now that he thought of it, there seemed to be an abundance of bad doin's lately. Not anything so significant that it would raise alarm, but things definitely disturbing.
There were rumors of people deserting the ranks, slipping out like thieves in the night. It was hard to tell for sure. The Freedom Army had gotten so big so fast that no one could be certain. Mutterings had begun of just why they were on this violent crusade, but not seriously enough to stop any of the Horde from gunning down everyone who looked capable of putting up a fight. The joy of Captain Helman's rhetoric was drying up a little more each day. And the Captain himself had, well, turned mean, like a wounded animal. It was one thing to kill in battle, meeting your enemy in combat. But some of the things the Captain had started doing and giving orders too, Baron von Aaron wasn't too crazy about. Beating the rare few who resisted enlisting was bad, but there were worse things. Chaining those 36 people together by the ankle back in Salem and dragging them down Route 460 at seventy miles an hour with a Peterbilt semi, now that was worse. And when the Captain had caught Rollins asleep on guard duty and cut the fellow's eyelids off, well, that didn't give the Baron the best feeling in the world, either. Especially when Rollins looked at you with his red-rimmed bloodshot eyes.
Bad doin's.
Mike Stinson looked over at the Captain and the pain he had felt earlier returned. He was leaning against his tank smoking one of those lousy smelling hand-rolled cigarettes he always smoked. Mike thought it was pot when he first noticed it, but one whiff told him different. It smelled like roadkill after it had had a chance to ripen. Possum and dumplings, yum yum.
A couple of Freedom soldiers carried off the limp man the Captain had just mauled. Captain Helman was looking directly at Mike Stinson and grinning a grin that seemed as wide as a Greyhound bus. Mike looked away and hurried himself off to his van to catch some z's.
He was half-way in through the back doors when he saw the Captain sitting cross-legged on the bare metal floor. Mike froze for a moment then sat down with a feeling of deep dread.
"That's it, Mikey. Have a seat," the Captain said in a low voice that almost purred. "I've got a lot on my mind, and I believe you do, too. We need us a powwow."
Mike Stinson, who felt he no longer wanted the ludicrous title of "Baron von Aaron," sat like someone in a coma, barely noticing the van's rear doors shutting on their own. Mike just looked at the Captain with a deeply moronic expression on his face.
"We're heading for the beach, Mikey, but things may change before we get there. Seems like things are getting more unclear each day. But I want you to know that after watchin' you, I've decided to appoint a second-in-command, and I've chosen you. For reasons of my own."
As Captain Helman spoke, Mike noticed that at times it seemed as if they weren't in his van at all, but in some huge cavern, its walls covered with obscene paintings of primitive figures, all of it flickering by firelight. The Captain's voice and features changed it, it seemed as well, from the dapper renegade army leader to some... beast. A beast that had an aura about it of being infinitely old, wicked, and powerful. A beast that would laugh at man's puny misfortunes and dance on the grave of the whole world. A beast that knew the fears of men and relished the dark. It was the chill in men's hearts, the anger that seemed to walk into a party and make drunken arguments turn bloody. It was all the ugly in the world, rolled up into one neat package. To look at its true face was to know madness. Mike Stinson felt his will being crumpled like a thin sheet of paper. The words the Captain spoke no longer registered. What went on between them was like a rusted, grease-stained car crusher engulfing a small motorcycle. Mike was swallowed, digested, and excreted out into something different. All this done by the will of the beast who called himself Captain Helman.
Mary had small stirrings of her real self rattling about her head. Not strongly enough to cause her to come out of whatever she was in, but just strong enough to make her look at herself and feel like she was trapped in a spewing whirlwind of noxious confusion.
The biggest bother to her was the fact that she hadn't picked up a wrench or hammer since she bacame the Captain's "companion." There were times when she called herself a kept woman, but what was it that was keeping her? Perhaps the lack of mechanical work and a bit of self-pity caused her to chastise herself. And besides, she didn't have to see him so much now, not since he began "collecting" other companions.
Another stirring had begun lately though. One that seemed shrouded in dark shadows and coming doom. Melodramatic and campy sounding, but she felt that it described the feelings within her perfectly.
And hadn't some of Helman's merry men began whispering rumors and complaints of a dissenting nature? Old news in the odd parade of days that had recently passed. It all seemed like a weird play, a comedy of violence in three acts. A farce of blood. She hated him. Given the opportunity she would... would... but no. She had no will when he was around and not for love of him. He made her feel like flawed steel, warped and useless.
Mary tried hard to remember her life before Helman and crew had rolled over her small town of Black Grove, West Virginia, but more and more it had become an exercise in futility.
So now all she hoped for were less midnight visits from the Captain and no more from that equally spooky right-hand man, Baron von Aaron, who had once come to Mary with a smile on his grimacing face. He always smiled. Before she could ask him what he wanted, he hit her in the mouth. He beat her mercilessly for nearly an hour. And all the while, he smiled.
She suffered no serious injuries. A lot of bruises and lacerations. In her master's image, Mary supposed.
In her tent always with her was her small field pouch. In it was a Saint Christopher's Medallion she'd had since childhood, a gift from her anemic mother. She took it out now, the first time since being on the road with the Freedon Army. Staring at it made her think of the home she felt she'd never see again, and to her surprise, she discovered a tear trailblazing its way down her bruised left cheek.
More came. Mary lay down on her old down blankets and waited for dawn to arrive.
"Red Beaver One, this is Thunder Chicken. Acknowledge."
"Gotcha Thunder Chicken, Red Beav here. Where you zoomin'?"
"Oh, 'bout eight hunnert up, twenty minutes behind you."
"Good to go, Chicky babe, we're all in position down here on terra firma. Soon as you fly over the hoss-tiles and announce our arrival properly we'll close the door on our militant little friends.
"Roger, Red Beaver. I'll do my damnedest to pop off on their heavies. Make mopping up a little easier for you."
"Copy that, Thunder Chick. You just keep your tail feathers outta the fire."
"Roger, Beav. Out."
The old F-4 type jet roared across the North Carolina morning sky at a sedate 210 mph. Beneath its wings were four 50 pound napalm cannisters, at its controls was Major Jeffrey Roberts, a fifty-eight year old pilot with the Alabama Air Force. He'd been in hot spots his whole life as a pilot and retiring next month would suit him just fine and his wife even finer. Toasting renegades on the Carolina coast after just one fuel stop was what he considered a cushy assignment, piece of cheese, a milk run and, hopefully, a quick one.
It was.
"Easy now, Baron," Captain Helman purred. "Easy. Our guests should be here any minute."
Baron von Aaron (for Mike Stinson he was no more, never again) sat in the back of the old rusted pickup in a small stiff chair. The Captain was kneeling beside the truck with his back to the ocean, staring at the calm, dark horizon. The Baron was adjusting the sights on the Stinger surface-to-air missile one last time when they heard it: the airplane. Just like the Captain had prophesized.
It appeared just as the first rays of the sun were cracking the sky.
From his perch, Baron von Aaron fired. The plane was above the place where the Captain said the ground forces were. The F-4 exploded in a fireball brighter than the sun ever seemed. The whole beachfront lit up with a brief orange-yellow glow that died as quickly as the high temperature explosive could burn.
Captain Helman was laughing.
"Jesus in a compact!" Lt. Oscar "Red Beaver" Jones yelled. "Full alert boys. Scramble, scramble, move out! Casey! Get your men on the north end of those dunes! Russell! Move south and due east! Jesus!"
Trucks, vans and half-tracks of the 123rd Calvary of Alabama sped about the sandy twill grass, following orders and directions as closely as possible, avoiding collisions and swapping a little paint. The 123rd had expanded its ranks with able volunteers from South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama, the prime southern superpower. They had been given orders to move out and send a call to arms when reports had been made of the wholesale destruction of Roanoke. None of the other nearby country-states had a force as large as Alabama's, so the 123rd had been deployed.
And here at what thirty years ago was Carolina Beach, a sleepy little costal tourist town, they prepared to engage the enemy without their air support, and no true estimation of their foe's strength.
Lt. Oscar Jones viewed the smoldering remains of Thunder Chicken's F-4, ordered the driver of his command half-track to go forward and meet the enemy, and silently asked God to lend a hand if He could.
Roger Hall was soaked in sweat. The hot asphalt he had walked on all day seemed to be a part of him. In a way, it was. Some of it clung to his bare, beet-red feet in specks and pieces, while smaller, harder bits of its were driven into the softened flesh that was formerly callous. Pain was something he hadn't felt for two hours. His numbness was nearly total. He had been walking for three days, had slept little and hardly eaten.
Since leaving Roanoke in an unhealthy sounding Suzuki three wheeler, he had undergone some radical changes, to say the least.
All he seemed to care about was joining the Horde and showing them his worth, proving his potential for destruction. But first, he had to catch them, and the battered tri-wheeler barely appeared capable of motion at times. Lucky to be running at others. Then, just south of Goldsboro, North Carolina, it began rattling very badly, and blue smoke started pouring out of the little transmission casing. Roger had abandoned it, not even bothering to cut off the engine. He didn't bother with acquiring another vehicle, either. He would show the Horde his worth by walking. A pilgrimage to pledge his loyalty. Roger had gone quite mad.
In three days, he covered 110 miles and paid heavy dues in the process. His old imitation leather boots had disintegrated at the end of day one. He discarded them and continued sockfooted for all of six miles, then the socks just seemed to disappear from the ankles down. He barely noticed.
The next two days were a haze of harsh sunlight and asphalt so hot that Roger thought he saw it burning at times. But that couldn't be, he thought. Or could it? He decided he didn't care.
As he entered Carolina Beach, his feet were so damaged that if he sat down, he probably wouldn't be able to get up and walk again anytime soon. But the glee in his heart and madness in his skull helped him ignore the bloody chunks of meat at the ends of his legs. The black smoke he had spotted earlier was proof that he had come the right way. With his goal now in sight, he moved on with renewed fervor.
He hobbled over the first dune leading to the ocean and stopped. About two miles of once-prime beachfront real estate was completely blackened. Sunset was approaching, but there was ample light to see the mass of automotive and human bodies strewn about and entangled with each other. Small and not-so-small fires burned here and there and here. The Horde had been stopped and, apparantly, whoever stopped them had been stopped as well. Nothing moved.
Roger Hall walked forward, oblivous to the fact that his nose had started bleeding, unaware that his mangled feet walked on sand that was twice as hot as the pavement he'd been treading.
To his right, the remains of one of the Horde's tanks was burning, its nose buried in the sand like some weird mutant ostrich on fire.
Then Roger saw the man-thing.
It was almost as blackened as the corpses and cars around it and was squatting on its thick haunches. What once might have been clothes hung on its body in smoking tatters. Roger was strangely awed by its eyes, amazed at how completely red they were. They glowed like an evil sun. If Roger hadn't been so dehydrated, he might have wet himself. Instead his urinary tract flexed uselessly.
Roger went forward a little and heard the man-thing singing. "Ted is dead and Fred is dead, doo-dah, doo-dah..."
Singing for Pete's sake.
"Ned is dead and Jed is dead, oh dah-doo-dah-day..."
It looked up at Roger and quit singing. It smiled. Then it spoke. "Hey, Rog, been waitin' forya. You shoulda been here earlier. Man, talk about fireworks."
Roger kept shambling to the man-thing, slowly shuffling like a B-movie zombie, then finally arrived at the creature. He squatted beside it in a similar position, nearly mimicking its stance exactly.
"You know, Rog," the man-thing continued, "we oughta get us up a whole bunch of folks and head south, maybe near the Gulf somewhere. The weather there sure is sumpin' this time of year."
"Uulluhmpughh..." Roger replied.
"Yep," the man-thing said, after taking a bite from the scarred hand he was dining on. "Ain't nothin' like a good road trip."
The burnt man-thing grinned and offered Roger a bite from the hand that was once Mary's, and to Roger's surprise, it didn't taste bad.
Not bad at all.
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