Liberty Run

Chapter Six

Four days later.

“What’s the name of the town ahead?” Blade asked.

Bertha consulted the map in her lap. “It’s some dinky place called Huntsburg.” She checked the population index on the reverse side of the map. “The map doesn’t say how many people lived there before the Big Blast.”

They were in Ohio. The SEAL was idling on top of a low rise. A cluster of buildings was visible about a quarter of a mile ahead on U.S. Highway 322.

“How am I doing?” Bertha queried Blade. “Am I readin’ this sucker okay?”

“You’re doing just fine,” Blade complimented her.

Bertha grinned. “Lordy! It sure is fine knowin’ how to read!”

“You’ve come a long way,” Blade said. “I know how hard you’ve applied yourself over the past year or so, taking all of those classes. It must have been very difficult.”

“It wasn’t easy,” Bertha acknowledged. “But the Elders are good teachers.”

The Elders were responsible for the Family’s educational regimen. They taught classes on the basics, on history, geography, math, reading, writing, and more, to the family children. The Elders also offered advanced courses based on their individual expertise. The Home was unique in this respect. For most of America, public education, like all other cultural institutions, was nonexistent.

Bertha ran her left hand over the map, delighted at her progress. When she’d first arrived at the Home, she’d been illiterate. Now, thanks to the Family, she could read and write quite well. She took particular delight in signing her name, and had developed a flamboyant flourish as a token of her pride.

“Huntsburg doesn’t appear to be big enough to pose any problems,” Blade mentioned. “But stay sharp! We can’t take any chances! We learned that the other night.” He glanced in the rearview mirror at Sundance. “I know this is your first run away from the Home. You did real well against those goons, but you still don’t have any idea how rough it gets out here.

You never know when something will pop out at you. So keep your eyes open.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Sundance said.

Blade slowly drove toward Huntsburg. The four days since the last incident had been relatively uneventful. As on all his previous trips, Blade had deliberately avoided cities and large towns. Even smaller settlements, when there was any indication of habitation, were skirted. From prior harsh experience, Blade had learned the futility of foolishly relying on receiving a friendly reception anywhere. There were too many savage bands, too many scavengers, raiders, and worse roaming the landscape to permit the needless taking of any risks. Blade prevented trouble by avoiding it. The SEAL was capable of navigating any terrain, so bypassing cities and towns by swinging a loop through the contryside was an easy task. If the town or hamlet was a small one, lacking any evidence of being inhabited, Blade would gamble and drive straight through to save time.

Usually, his instincts in this regard were reliable.

But not this time.

A small business section appeared ahead. A dilapidated restaurant was on the right, a crumbling bar on the left. Ancient signs, too faint to read, adorned some of the other ramshackle structures.

“Looks like nobody’s home,” Bertha remarked.

Blade scanned the cracked sidewalks and the shattered windows.

Huntsburg seemed to be a ghost town.

“Think we can stop and stretch our legs?” Bertha asked. “It’s almost noon, and we’ve been drivin’ since dawn.”

“I don’t see why not,” Blade replied. He angled the SEAL up to the curb in front of the restaurant. “It looks like the looters tore this town apart during the war,” he noted.

“Sure is a dump now,” Bertha agreed, leaning out her open window.

Blade braked, then shut off the engine.

Bertha opened her door and dropped to the sidewalk, her M-16 in her hands. “I’m gonna take a look around.”

“Just be careful,” Blade advised her.

“If you don’t mind,” Sundance spoke up, “I’d like to go with Bertha. My legs are getting cramped from all this sitting.”

“Go ahead,” Blade said. “I’ll stick with the SEAL.”

Sundance climbed out his side of the transport, closed the door, and joined Bertha.

Bertha cocked her head, scrutinizing him. “Why’d you want to come with me?”

“Do I need a reason?” Sundance inquired.

“Just so you ain’t got the hots for my body,” Bertha said. “It’s already spoken for.”

“So I heard,” Sundance stated.

Bertha’s jaw muscles tightened. “What’s that crack supposed to mean?”

Sundance started walking along the pitted sidewalk, bearing to the east. “It means I don’t have the hots for your body.”

Bertha quickly caught up with him. “You don’t?” she asked, sounding surprised.

“Nope,” Sundance told her.

Bertha looked down at herself. “Why not? What’s wrong with my body?”

“Nothing,” Sundance said, surveying the street ahead. “It’s one of the nicest bodies I’ve seen.”

Bertha beamed. “It is? Really?”

Sundance glanced at her. “I don’t lie.”

They strolled in the sunshine for several moments.

“What do you mean by nice?” Bertha asked.

Sundance suddenly stopped. “Did you hear something?”

“No.” Bertha studied the nearby buildings. “Why?”

“I don’t know…” Sundance said, and resumed walking.

“Mind if I ask you a question?” Bertha mentioned.

“No.”

“Why’d you pick the name Sundance? I know White Meat took the handle Hickok ’cause he’s wacko about Wild Bill Hickok. What about you?” Bertha probed. “Was there some old-time gunfighter named Sundance?”

“There was,” Sundance replied.

“Ahhh!”

“But he wasn’t exactly a gunfighter,” Sundance explained. “His real name was Harry Longabaugh, and he was an outlaw in the Old West. I read about him in a book called the Encyclopedia of Western Gunfighters.

He was nowhere near as famous as Wild Bill Hickok, and far less deadly.”

“Then why’d you pick his name?” Bertha asked.

Sundance grinned and looked at her. “Because I like it. The name has a certain ring to it.”

“Sure does,” Bertha agreed. Sundance cocked his head, listening.

Bertha glanced over her left shoulder. They were a block from the transport. “Maybe we shouldn’t stray too far from the SEAL,” she suggested.

Sundance stopped. “Fine by me.” He gazed up at a broken second floor window across the highway. “There it is again.”

“There what is?” Bertha queried.

“Didn’t you hear it?” Sundance asked.

“Hear what?”

“A sort of low whistle,” Sundance said, moving to the edge of the sidewalk. “I’ve heard it several times already.”

“It must be the wind,” Bertha speculated.

Sundance held up his right hand. “But there’s no breeze,” he pointed out.

That was when Bertha heard it too: a low, warbling whistle coming from the empty office to their right. She peered into the inky gloom of the interior, trying to perceive movement. What could it be? she asked herself. A bird of some kind? A small animal?

But it was neither.

Bertha was just beginning to turn, to head back to the SEAL, when she discerned a bulky shape materializing out of the darkness shrouding the office building. A stray shaft of sunlight glinted off a metallic object.

“Sundance!” she shouted in alarm, not waiting to determine if the figure was friend or foe. The M-16 snapped up, and she fired from the waist, on automatic, her rounds chipping away the jagged pieces of glass remaining in the front window of the office and striking the shape inside, propelling it from sight.

Someone screamed in agony.

And all hell broke loose.

Over a dozen attackers burst from the buildings lining U.S. Highway 322, charging through doorways and bounding over windowsills, some with guns blazing, others armed with knives, swords, hatchets, and whatever else they could get their hands on. All of them were bestial in aspect, with unkempt, bedraggled hair and apparel. Most wore tattered clothing or filthy animal hides and skins. They jabbered and yelled as they surged from hiding.

Sundance was in motion even as the first scavenger rushed from a doorway across the highway. His hands flashed up and out, leveling the Grizzlies, and his first shot boomed while the scavenger was raising a rifle, the impact of the .45 Winchester Magnum slug lifting the scavenger from his feet and slamming him against the wall. Sundance swiveled as a filthy raven-haired woman appeared on a balcony on the other side of 322, a crossbow in her hands. She was aiming at Bertha when both Grizzlies thundered, and the top of her head imitated the erupting of a volcano. The female scavenger dropped the crossbow, tottered, and fell, crashing into the balcony railing and through the railing as the rotted wood splintered and gave way. Sundance never saw her fall. He had already spun to the left, finding a trio of scavengers sprinting toward them, spilling from the mouth of the alley, blocking their retreat to the SEAL. One of the scavengers was armed with a spear, and his hand was sweeping back for the throw when Sundance shot him in the right eye, jerking his head to the right, and sending the scavenger tumbling to the sidewalk.

Bertha was firing her M-16 as rapidly as targets presented themselves.

“We’ve got to get the hell out of here!” she shouted.

“To the SEAL!” Sundance replied, squeezing both triggers, both Grizzlies bucking in his hands, and the two scavengers between the SEAL and them went down in a jumbled mass of flaying arms and legs.

Bertha took off, blasting a tall scavenger shooting at them with a revolver from the roof of the bar. His head whipped back and he vanished from view.

Sundance followed Bertha, covering her, killing two more scavengers sprinting across the street. Bullets smacked into the wall behind them.

Something tugged at his left sleeve. They were still three-quarters of a block distant from the SEAL when he heard the loud pounding to his rear.

He whirled.

A mob of maddened, bloodthirsty scavengers was pounding toward them, bellowing their rage and brandishing their assorted weapons. A grungy character in the lead was sighting a Winchester.

Sundance fired both Grizzlies, and the grungy scavenger was hurled from his feet to collide with another scavenger coming up behind him.

Bertha shot a scavenger on the other side of the street.

“Bertha!” Sundance yelled as an arrow streaked past his right cheek.

Bertha glanced over her right shoulder, spying the maddened throng pursuing them. “Shit!” she exploded, turning to support Sundance.

Sundance risked a look toward the SEAL, and he was surprised to see the transport roaring from the curb and racing down the center of the highway. The front end suddenly swerved toward the sidewalk, and Sundance leaped, his left arm catching Bertha around the waist. “What the hell!” she blurted, even as his momentum carried both of them over the lower sill of a demolished window and onto the hard wood floor of a deserted building.

Outside, the 50-caliber machine guns opened up, almost drowning out the shrieks of the decimated scavengers. The chatter of the machine guns was followed by a tremendous explosion. Screams and wails punctuated the din. And then there was a sibilant hissing, and smoke wafted from the nearby structures.

Sundance and Bertha slowly rose, coughing, their nostrils tingling with an acrid odor.

Sundance stepped over the windowsill, the Grizzlies leveled, prepared for more combat.

But there wouldn’t be any.

Bodies seemed to be everywhere. Scorched, blasted, bloody bodies and body parts littered the highway and the sidewalks. Gray smoke hovered overhead. Whimpers and cries rose on the air.

The SEAL was idling in the middle of the street, not ten feet away.

Tendrils of smoke rose from the front fender and the grill.

Sundance saw a scavenger with shredded stumps below the waist flopping on the ground and whining. Near the front end of the SEAL was a blackened, smoking pair of boots, minus their owner. On the sidewalk to the right was a severed right arm, the fingers still twitching. The tableau was grisly, ghastly beyond belief. Sundance felt sick to his stomach and grimaced.

Bertha grinned. “When it comes to wastin’ chumps, Blade is almost as good as White Meat.” She had seen the Seal in action before, and knew firsthand the havoc it could wreak.

Sundance stared at the twitching fingers, simultaneously fascinated and repulsed.

Bertha looked at the Warrior in gray, startled by the loathing reflection in his expression. “Ain’t you ever seen the SEAL kick butt before?” she asked.

Sundance shook his head.

“You must of seen worse than this,” Bertha stated. “How about when the Home was attacked while Blade was off in Denver? I was told the Home was knee-deep in bodies.”

“I wasn’t a Warrior then,” Sundance replied absently. “I took a hit early on in the siege and missed most of the action. They had the mess cleaned up by the time I was released from the infirmary.”

“Well, don’t let it get to you,” Bertha advised. “It was them or us.”

A door slammed, and Blade came around the front of the SEAL, a Commando Arms Carbine in his hands. “Are you two all right?” he inquired. His eyes alighted on Sundance. “Sundance?”

Sundance grimly nodded. “I’m fine.” The right corner of his mouth twisted upward. “If I can’t take this, I don’t deserve to be a Warrior.”

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Blade said. “We don’t know who might come to investigate all the firing.”

Bertha nudged Sundance. “Let’s go! Get your cute rump in the SEAL.”

Sundance glanced at her in disapproval. “I wish you would stop that.”

“Stop what?”

“Stop talking about my… rump,” Sundance said, walking toward the transport.

“I’m just returning the favor,” Bertha said.

“What favor?” Sundance asked as he opened the door.

“You said I had a nice body. Can I help it if I feel the same way about your buns?” Bertha stated.

Blade grinned and ran to the driver’s door. He clambered into the SEAL and deposited his Commando on the console.

Sundance and Bertha took their seats.

“Here we go,” Blade said, gunning the motor, weaving between the corpses as he bore to the east. “If all goes well, we should reach Philadelphia in two days at the most. Possibly sooner. It all depends on what we run into along the way. I’ve managed to keep well north of the Soviet lines, but we could still run into one of their patrols. Even the Technics.”

“Aren’t the Technics those bozos in Chicago?” Bertha queried. “The ones who forced you to drive the SEAL to New York City?”

“They’re the ones,” Blade confirmed. “I imagine the Family hasn’t heard the last of them.”

They drove past the rusted wreckage of a bus.

“You were right about one thing, Blade,” Sundance commented, in the process of reloading the clips in his Grizzlies.

“What was that?” Blade asked.

“You never know when something or someone will pop out at you,” Sundance stated. “You have no warning whatsoever.” He paused. “I think the next time I take a leak, I’ll do it with a gun in one hand.”