Doomsday

19. A Taste of Things to Come

Soren Anderson reeled. He kept thinking that he couldn’t be seeing what he thought he was seeing. There were about twenty of them. Their clothes were filthy and torn and some were in ratters. The people were filthy, too. But it wasn’t the filth that shocked Soren. It was the sores or lesions that spotted their skin, boiling festers that oozed green pus.

Their eyes, when they raised their heads and stared dumbly at the Hunster, were dull and glazed and so blood-shot they were pits of red. Saliva oozed from their open mouths in steady streams of drool.

“Dear Odin,” Soren breathed. “What’s wrong with them?”

“A chemical weapon, maybe,” Slayne said. “Or one of the new bio bugs.” As CEO of Tekco he had heard rumors of things like this, and worse.

Montoya gaped in disgust. “But why are they eating him? Why not hunt or find canned food?” The things went back to their feeding. One gnawed on an intestine. Another chewed on a dripping chunk of leg.

“They’re ignoring us,” Montoya said. “Go around them. Let’s get out of here.” Slayne nodded, but as he went to press the gas, the back door opened. “Thor? What in hell are you doing?”

“This is an abomination. It must not be.” Soren walked around to the front of the Hunster, Mjolnir at his side. He remembered what the Family Armorer had told him. The hammer could be set to Arc or Bolt. In addition there were four power settings. The lowest was a million volts, and it went up in million-volt increments from here. At four million, the highest, the blast drained the hammer completely and Mjolnir couldn’t be used again until he recharged it using the power belt. But he wouldn’t need that much now. He pressed the appropriate rune, setting the hammer to Arc and one million volts. He raised Mjolnir. “I am Thor. I command you to stop.”

The festering horrors fixed their red eyes on him. They were eerily silent. Then those on their knees rose, and they all came toward him at once, moving with a peculiar shambling gait, their mouths opening and closing as if they were gulping for air. Soren’s skin crawled, but he held his ground. He pressed the rune to fire. Mjolnir jumped in Soren’s hands. The head glowed bright and hummed.

From the weapon lanced crackling lightning bolts that arced and leaped at the advancing monstrosities, striking them in the head, face, and chest. Half died on their feet, writhing and contorting and jerking like puppets on invisible strings. They didn’t scream. They didn’t cry out. Those still standing closed in and Soren unleashed a second blast.

Bodies dropped, thud after thud.

“Sweet Odin,” Soren breathed. He had practiced with Mjolnir but not on living foes. Only two were still alive, and they came for him, their hands outstretched. Revulsion swept through him. He crushed the skull of the first and reduced the face of the second to splintered pulp. Soren moved among them, making sure. Some had burn marks. Some were giving off smoke. He swallowed and looked at Mjolnir, felt the familiar tingle down his spine. “So much power,” he said in awe.

“What in hell did you think you were doing?” Slayne and Montoya had come out of the Hunster, and Slayne wasn’t happy. “You could have been killed.”

“I couldn’t just sit there. I had to do something.”

“They were no threat to us. We could have gone on by. Get it through your head that you can’t go taking needless risks.”

“I did what the son of Odin would do.”

Slayne held his temper. “Just because we call you Thor doesn’t make you Thor. Damn it, Anderson. You have a responsibility to the Family. You can’t go throwing your life away on a whim.”

“I do what I must,” Soren insisted.

Montoya stared at Mjolnir. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said in awe. “I want one of those.” Soren reverently held the hammer to his chest. “Mjolnir is the only one of its kind.”

“How does it work?”

“I don’t understand all the science,” Soren admitted. Richter and Allan had told him that the higher the power setting, the higher the current it induced, and that it was the current more than the volts that killed. But then they had also told him that it was the volts that could blast limbs from bodies. Slayne scanned the bleak landscape. “Get in. There might be more of those monstrosities around.” They gave Billings a wide berth. Later, twice, they spied antelope, but always at a distance. Once they came upon a dog moving stiffly at the side of the highway. Montoya wanted to stop until he saw that most of its hair was gone and it was covered with sores.

Between Bozeman and Butte, as they crossed a barren flat, Slayne braked and got out the binoculars.

“What do you see?” Montoya asked.

Slayne pointed. “You tell me, Ricco.”

To the north was a cloud. Not in the sky, but on the ground. It was green, bright green, so bright it seemed to glow, and it was moving, crawling across the ground as if endowed with a will of its own.

“What is that?”

Slayne didn’t know. It wasn’t much bigger than the Hunster and was heading east, away from them. He resumed driving and commented, “Welcome to our warped new world.” Roadblocks had been set up around Missoula. A National Guard unit, judging by their uniforms and equipment. Slayne spied them from half a mile out and decided to go around. The Bitterroot Mountains of eastern Idaho were a pristine wonder. Except for areas of scattered fallout, the Bitterroots were as they had always been. Or so Slayne thought until it occurred to him that there should be more signs of animal life.

They were east of Wallace—and only twenty miles from Smelterville—when they rounded a curve and a crudely made billboard warned Checkpoint Ahead. Slayne quickly stopped. Several hundred yards down the highway were concrete barriers topped by barbed wire. Heavily armed men moved about behind the barricade. They weren’t in uniform.

“What do we have here?” Montoya wondered.

“To the right of the roadblock is a sign.” Slayne gave him the binoculars. “It explains a lot.” Montoya read the sign out loud. “Warning. You are about to enter the free aryan nation. weapons are subject to seizure. No drugs or alcohol are allowed beyond this point.”

“Read the fine print at the bottom.”

“No persons of color admitted.” Montoya lowered the binoculars. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Northern Idaho was an Aryan stronghold before the war. From here to the Washington border must be their territory now.” Slayne pondered for a few moments. “A lot of them were survivalists. They mobilized at the outset of the war and I would guess that it was Ben Thomas’s bad luck to run into them.”

“Do you think they killed him?”

“Who knows? The important question is what have they done with the SEAL? We’re not leaving without it.”

Montoya nodded toward the barrier. “Before we can leave we have to get in. And I’ll be damned if they’re confiscating my weapons.”

Slayne shifted into reverse. “They don’t appear to have noticed us yet.” He backed around the curve and made a U-turn. “Thor, you’re being unusually quiet. What’s going on in that crazy Norse head of yours?”

“A man is more important than a machine.”

The forest bordering the highway was thick, the undergrowth heavy, but Slayne managed to find a rutted track that suited his purpose. He went far enough to ensure the Hunster couldn’t be seen from the road, then stopped. Climbing out, he slid his blue trench coat from over the back of his seat and shrugged into it.

“A little warm for that, isn’t it?” Montoya said.

“I like to sweat.” Slayne hadn’t told anyone the real reason he always wore it. The trench coat was custom-constructed to his specifications. Woven from the newest Kevlar weave, it was so soft and pliable a person would swear it was cotton or wool. Yet it was impervious to small-arms fire. Montoya went to the rear of the Hunster and swung its back door up. He donned a backpack and a helmet, then passed wafer-thin headsets to Slayne and Anderson. He didn’t need one; his helmet came with an internal com link. He switched it on and tweaked the gain. “Testing. Testing. Are you picking up?”

“Clear as can be,” Slayne said.

Soren adjusted the clip around his ear and nodded. “I hear you.” Slayne reached in and brought out the MP5. “Listen up. We go in, we find the SEAL if it’s there, and we get out. We avoid contact as much as possible. We don’t want a firefight if we can help it.”

“What about Ben Thomas?” Soren wanted to know.

“More than likely he’s dead by now. We have to focus on getting the SEAL back now.” Soren frowned.

Slayne slung the MP5 over his shoulder. “From here on out only use code names. When I say Alpha Triad, it means both of you.” He headed back down the track toward the highway. “Single file,” he snapped into his mouthpiece. “Ten-yard intervals. Ricco, after me. Thor, you bring up the rear. Stay frosty.”

“Yes, sir,” Montoya said.

“Thor?” Slayne prompted when there was no response from him. “I hear you.”

“Then say you do. We’ve been through all this, Anderson. Strict military procedure, remember?”

“I’m not really a soldier.”

“You better start thinking like one. You’re a Warrior, damn it. Get that through your thick Norwegian head. Our lives are on the line here. I don’t know about you but I want to make it back to the Home.”

“As do I. I have a lovely wife and two fine children. Don’t worry. As the son of Odin does his duty, I’ll do mine.”

“The who?”

“The real Thor. The defender of Asgard and protector of Midgard. The bringer of the storm, the lord of the thunder and lightning.”

“Spare me the mythological garbage and concentrate on the mission.”

“As you wish.”

When they reached the highway they crossed to the other side and paralleled it until they neared the barricade. Flattening, they crawled within earshot.

Slayne counted nine Aryans. Two had SMGs, the rest high-powered rifles. Several were playing cards. One man was writing on a sheet of papet. No one was paying much attention to the highway. They were sloppy, this bunch. He could drop half of them before they knew what hit them, but he didn’t. He was about to crawl on when a short bundle of sinew with a neatly trimmed goatee said something that perked his interest.

“When do you think Croft will give the word to move on Spokane?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” another Aryan answered. “Hardin thinks it will be a couple of weeks yet. The scouts haven’t come back and we don’t want to go up against more than we can handle.”

“The Aryan Nation can handle anything.”

Slayne whispered into his headset, “Alpha Triad, on me.” He continued crawling. Once it was safe, he rose into a crouch. “We have a long way to go yet. We’ll double time a few miles.”

“Lead the way, Solo,” Montoya said.

“Thor? Acknowledge, damn it.”

“As he said, lead the way. The son of Odin will not fail you.” Slayne didn’t like the sound of that. Anderson was taking the whole Thor business much too literally. But now wasn’t the time or place to bring it up. Slayne began to jog.

The gray sky cast the woods in somber shadow. Normally the wilds were alive with the warbling of birds and the chittering of squirrels but it was graveyard quiet save for the rustling of the wind. Slayne relied on a GPS unit. From a slope south of Wallace they surveyed the town. Save for a lot of armed men— and women—it could have been any town in prewar America.

A flag flew above a church. The flag’s background was blue and red, with a gold crown atop a sword and what looked to be a horizontal Z through the middle.

“What does that stand for?” Montoya wondered.

“You’d have to ask them,” Slayne said. “Not that they would answer you. To them you’re one of the mud people.”

“The what?”

“Anyone who isn’t white. As a Hispanic you’d rate above a black but below a Jew.”

“I sure would like to waste a few of these bigots.”

The next town was Osburn. An Aryan flag flew over a church there, too. Kellogg, farther on, had half a dozen flags, but then it was twice the size of Osburn. The Warriors saw children playing and laughing, and heard someone singing.

On a normal day the sun would have been blazing the western horizon red, orange, and yellow when the Warriors reached a rise above Smelterville, but on this day there was only the perpetually gray sky. Slayne raked the town from end to end with the binoculars. He spotted four tractor-trailer rigs. One was parked on the main street. Two others were in residential areas. The last one, the one that interested him the most, was in the lot of a tun-down factory. “Gentlemen, take a gander.” He passed the binoculars to Montoya and pointed.

“How do you want to handle this?”

“We separate and go in from different directions. Stay in touch at all times. Remember not to engage hostiles unless you absolutely have to. Understood, Ricco?”

Montoya grinned. “I’m good to go, Solo.”

“And you, Thor?”

“I and Mjolnir are at your disposal.”

“Then let’s do this.”