The Fox Run

Chapter Six

The Family had completely uncovered the opening to the underground chamber, and tied lengths of stout rope to the three iron rings imbedded in the concrete. Ten men were assigned to each rope, and they now held the rope in their hands, their legs braced, awaiting the command to pull.

Plato gave it. He raised his left hand over his head. “On the count of three,” he shouted for all to hear. “One.” The men tensed and tightened their respective grips. “Two.” He saw Blade and Jenny press their way to the front of those surrounding the pit. Hickok stood off to one side, his hands looped under his belt buckle. Joshua was standing quietly in the center of the crowd. “Three!” Plato called.

The men dug their heels into the ground and pulled, their muscles straining, a determined set to their features.

Nothing happened.

“Pull!” someone shouted. “Pull!”

The men grunted and heaved, exerting all of their strength.

Plato knew the door was designed to swivel outward when the rings were pulled on. Had the mechanism rusted or broken, preventing the door from operating properly? To be so close!

“It’s working!” a Family member yelled.

Everyone heard a loud, grating, grinding metallic noise as the massive recessed hinges, unused and unlubricated for a century, protested a slight movement. The entranceway jerked open several feet and stopped, resisting further tugging on the ropes. A sibilant hissing, similar to the sound of steam escaping from a boiling pot of water, could be clearly heard.

“Keep at it!” another person goaded the men on the ropes.

The hissing, still audible, was decreasing in intensity.

The rope pullers were striving with all their might.

The hissing had stopped. Plato speculated it had been the sound of air being drawn into the chamber, or expelled from it, probably the former.

The hinges squeaked as the door began swinging out and down. It was designed to pivot completely outward and rest on the ground.

A dozen excited voices were urging the men on.

The entranceway was now open a good six feet, and the more it opened, the less the hinges scraped, and the easier it become to pull on the ropes.

“It’s going!” a woman enthused.

It did. With a resounding thud, the entranceway swung fully open and landed on the rough ground. The men nearest the door had to scramble backwards to get out of the way in time.

A huge, dark, gaping hole was revealed.

The Family members broke into spontaneous applause, evincing their appreciation for the effort exerted by the men on the ropes.

Plato’s hands were shaking from nervous anticipation.

“What now?” Blade, wearing a faded, patched fatigue shirt, was standing at Plato’s side.

“We’ll need torches,” Plato directed.

Blade faced the Family. “Would some of you get some torches?”

Eight of the Family hastened to comply, entering F Block. Each Block was well supplied with torches constructed by wrapping layers of birchbark around the top, or broader, end of a length of oak or maple. The Family’s supply of candles, sparingly used over the years, was dwindling despite efforts to conserve them. Carpenter had stocked an enormous reserve of candles and matches; the Family still had cases of candles and matches stacked in the underground chambers below the Blocks, secure from the elements and the nullifying effects of moisture. While most of the original supplies were depleted, a few stockpiled items, such as the weapons, candles, and several other items, if stringently preserved, would last for years to come. The Family’s population was not a factor in consumption. Carpenter had started his Family with fifteen couples, and over the decades the population had grown to only seventy-three. The harsh lifestyle, a high mortality rate, and the creeping senility had all combined to limit Family growth and expansion.

The torches were brought. Plato took one and indicated another should be given to Blade. “You and I will venture down first,” he said as a woman lit his torch. “The rest of you will wait until we come back up.”

“Need a back-up?” Hickok as at their side.

“Thank you,” Plato answered. “I don’t believe we’ll encounter any danger your guns could dispatch. Still…” He eyed a pile of coiled rope on the ground near his feet. “We will tie this rope about our waists before we enter the chamber, and several of you will play out the rope as we advance.

When we stop on our own, we will yank on the rope twice. If the rope should go completely slack, and we haven’t given the signal, haul us up as quickly as you can.”

“What’s this for?” Blade asked as he tied one end of the rope around his middle.

“There is the slightest possibility of encountering toxic fumes,” Plato replied. “We must take every precaution.”

The Family was now crowded around the entranceway.

Jenny peered into the hole. The waning sunlight illuminated a ramp leading down into whatever lay below. “You be careful,” she said to Blade.

Blade smiled, then led the way, holding his torch aloft with his right hand.

Plato paused before entering and looked at the faces surrounding him.

“If the Spirit is willing,” he announced, “our expedition can proceed as planned tomorrow.”

Blade and Plato descended the ramp, their flickering torches enabling the Family to follow their progress.

“There is a musty, dusty scent down here,” Plato remarked. “Not surprising, when you consider the last time this chamber saw the light of day.”

The ramp angled lower, the torchlight reflecting from polished walls ten feet away on either side, and from the ceiling twelve feet above their heads.

“This ramp shouldn’t be very long,” Plato commented.

Blade was peering into the darkness ahead. His feet suddenly touched a flat surface, evidently the floor of the underground chamber.

“See what I meant?” Plato grinned.

They stopped, pulled on their ropes twice, and raised the torches as high as they could.

“Will you look at that!” Blade exclaimed.

“Absolutely incredible!” Plato agreed.

The chamber was relatively small, only twenty feet by twenty feet. Along the walls were stacked various containers. Their fascination was prompted by the object resting in the center of the chamber, undisturbed since parked there a century ago.

“What is it?” Blade asked.

“Your father told me it’s called a SEAL.”

“A seal? You mean like that aquatic animal we have pictures of in the library?”

“Something similar,” Plato smiled. “The word of mouth, passed down from Leader to Leader, was that this transport vehicle was called a General Motors Prototype Solar-Energized Amphibious or Land Recreational Vehicle, otherwise known by the acronym of SEAL.”

“Did they give all their vehicles such long names before the Big Blast?”

“Some, apparently. I saw a picture of a large white truck called a Sanitation Retrieval and Disposal Conveyance Unit, a vehicle manifestly disliked by some people.”

“Why do you say that?” Blade wanted to know.

“Because someone had scrawled the word ‘garbage’ across the face of this photograph. Quite puzzling.”

They fell silent, gawking at the SEAL, the first motorized vehicle they had ever seen. Carpenter had provided two trucks and a jeep for the Family, all three vehicles maintained for nearly twenty years after the Third World War. Eventually, parts had worn out that couldn’t be replaced, and the vehicles had been hauled into the woods and abandoned.

The rusted hulks were only five hundred yards from the Home, and it was a special treat for the small children to be permitted, under guard, to trek to the junkers and stand in the presence of this reminder of prewar industry and mechanization.

The SEAL had been Carpenter’s pride and joy. He had known his trucks and jeep would last only so long as fuel was obtainable and the parts could be replaced. The beauty of the SEAL was its power source, the very sun.

The sunlight was collected by two solar panels attached to the roof of the SEAL, the energy converted and stored in a bank of six revolutionary new batteries stored in a lead-lined case under the SEAL. The experts had told him that, if the solar panels were not broken and the battery casings weren’t inadvertently cracked, the SEAL should never want for power, unlike the fossil-fueled cars, wagons, and trucks. Additionally, the solar collectors on the SEAL were prototypes, designed to function at a more efficient rate than any previous collector. Carpenter had personally financed the research for the SEAL. The financially strapped automotive executives had welcomed his support, confidently predicting that they were developing the recreational vehicle “of the future.” Carpenter had never revealed his ulterior motive for insuring the SEAL was constructed according to his specifications, incorporating unique capabilities and unusual functions. The automakers had assumed he was another strange eccentric with enough money to purchase whatever he wanted and indulge in flamboyant toys. Little did they realize the SEAL was not intended to be a plaything, but a salvation.

Carpenter had projected several assumptions, and derived conclusions from the thorough consideration of all possible and probable contingencies. If the Home was spared from damage or destruction in the world-wide conflagration, and if the Family could survive and persist to subsequent generations, and if it become necessary for it to venture from the Home, a typical conventional vehicle would be out of the question, lacking an adequate fuel source and being hardly rugged enough to endure the structural strain of the undoubtedly altered terrain. The idea of regularly tended asphalt highways being maintained after World War Three was ludicrous.

The SEAL, Carpenter had hoped, would enable his latter-day followers to overcome such obstacles.

Carpenter had been aware of the temptation the SEAL would pose. If it were left above ground, with ready access, someone might be enticed to take it for a spin, as it were, and thereby jeopardize the Family’s one shot at a successful extended trip.

Carpenter had appreciated the risk he took in directing the information concerning the SEAL’s existence to be passed on by word of mouth from one Leader to the next, but he had believed it was a gamble worth taking.

He wanted the SEAL intact and fully functional when the Family would need it.

That time had come.

Blade was mesmerized by the SEAL. He had seen the junkers, the trashed trucks and the jeep, and had studied photographs of various vehicles in the Family library, but this was the first operational transport anyone had laid eyes on in eighty years. He searched his memory, trying to recall if this SEAL resembled any of the pictures he had seen in the books he’d studied. There was one photo, of a vehicle called a van, the SEAL bore a likeness to, but not in every respect. The general contours were similar, but that van was constructed of metal with windows built into the center of each wall panel. This SEAL appeared to be made entirely from some sort of glass. Blade reached out and touched the front section.

“Is this glass?” he asked Plato.

Plato touched the substance. “No, it isn’t,” Plato answered. “This is a special plastic. I was told it is heat-resistant and shatterproof. You could shoot a Magnum at it at point-blank range and the bullet would not penetrate the substance.”

Blade held his torch closer to the SEAL. “Why can’t I see inside?”

“The plastic is tinted, enabling those within to see out. Anyone outside, however, can not see in. A sensible security precaution.”

“Is the whole thing made of this plastic?” Blade inquired.

“Only the shell.” Plato began circling the SEAL. “The front, sides, back, and roof. The floor is a metallic alloy. The engine is air-cooled and self-lubricating. If everything I was told about the SEAL is true, and I have no reason to doubt it is, then I know you’ll be astonished and delighted by the numerous distinctive features built into it. I envy you.”

Blade followed Plato. “You envy me?”

“As Hickok correctly noted,” Plato said, running his left hand along the SEAL, “just think of the adventure! Yes, I envy you a great deal.”

“I must admit, despite my concern for Jenny, that I’m excited at the thought of what we may find out in the world.”

They stood at the rear of the SEAL. Rungs of a ladder, imbedded in the plastic, led to the roof of the SEAL.

“You can climb up to inspect the solar collectors,” Plato commented.

“Solar collectors?” Blade was puzzled.

“I can see I have a lot of explaining to do,” Plato said. “Let’s check the interior.”

They continued their circuit of the SEAL. Plato stopped next to a door on the driver’s side. He slowly reached for the handle, hesitated, then pulled. The door swung quietly open.

“Wow,” was all Blade could say.

“Wow indeed.” Plato leaned into the SEAL. “Ahh. What’s this?” There were several items lying on the driver’s seat.

“What’s what?”

“These.” Plato removed two folders and a set of keys.

“What have you got there?”

Plato studied the folders. “One is labeled ‘Operations manual for the Solar-Energized Amphibious or Land Recreational Vehicle’.”

“Couldn’t they have just said ‘Instructions’?” Blade asked.

Plato grinned. “This second folder is from the Founder! I’ll need to read it first.”

Blade gazed over the outline of the SEAL. “I still can’t believe it.”

“Believe it.” Plato knelt and scrutinized the undercarriage. “Everything appears to be intact. Now if it’s only functional…”

“Don’t you think it will work?”

Plato was examining one of the four huge tires, the one nearest the driver’s door. “If the Spirit smiles on us, it will operate as designed. Hmmm.”

“What is it?”

“I wonder what this tire is made of? I had read that rubber was a prime component, but this is not rubber-based.”

“I bet the others are getting antsy,” Blade announced.

Plato attempted to rise, but his knees pained him, his right leg lanced with an excruciating spasm. He started to fall.

Blade silently grabbed Plato by the arm and lifted his mentor to his feet.

“My gratitude,” Plato thanked him.

Blade nodded and led the way toward the ramp. “The Family will go crazy when they hear what we’ve uncovered,” he predicted.

They stopped shy of the hole, removed the ropes, then exited. Plato briefly informed the Family of their find, and pandemonium erupted.

Everyone began talking at once, asking questions, pressing towards the ramp, wanting to see for themselves. Plato was crowded to the edge of the ramp before Blade intervened, stepping forward and placing himself between Plato and the rest of the Family. He raised his arms over his head, glaring, and they stopped.

“Calm down!” he ordered. “Calm down! You’ll all see it soon enough.”

Hickok positioned himself beside Blade, his hands on his Colts. His presence, despite the fact they knew he wouldn’t use his guns on a Family member, promptly sobered them.

Geronimo joined them.

“Please, loved ones!” Plato asserted control again. “We have a lot to do before the Alpha Triad can leave tomorrow. We must remove the SEAL

from the chamber and bring it up here.”

“What do you want us to do?” a man called Sinatra, the best vocalist in the Family, asked.

“As many men as possible should go below,” Plato directed. “We will push the SEAL up the ramp.”

“I’ll pick the men,” Blade offered.

“Fine. While you’re engaged, I’ll peruse this manual.”

Blade selected a score of the strongest men. He led them below, half bearing torches.

Plato walked to a mound of dirt and sat down, resting his sore joints and tired muscles. He opened the Operations Manual and began reading.

Time passed. The setting sun was touching the western horizon.

Blade emerged from the passageway, his face a study in consternation.

Plato looked up from his reading, anticipating what was coming.

“Problems?”

Blade sighed. “I’m afraid I have bad news.”

“Such as?”

“Don’t take this too hard.” Blade was frowning. “I know how much you were counting on the SEAL, but it’s broken.”

“Broken?” Plato suppressed an urge to laugh.

“I’m sorry. We’ve tried our best. We pushed and pushed and couldn’t budge the thing one inch. The SEAL just won’t work,” he said sadly.

Plato laughed.

“What’s so funny?” Blade was confused.

“I just read a portion of the instructions pertaining to your difficulty.”

Plato handed Blade the keys. “Before the SEAL can be moved, you must insert one of the keys into something called an ignition, located on something else called a steering column attached to the steering wheel.

Turn the key towards you until it clicks. This won’t turn the engine over, but it will permit you to engage the transmission by slipping a lever into a position marked with a large N for neutral. Once accomplished, you should be able to push the SEAL to the surface.”

Blade held the keys up. “These things certainly were complicated.”

“It’s my understanding that every aspect of prewar society was vastly more complicated and nerve-racking than any reasonable person would have a right to expect,” Plato commented. “I thank the Spirit daily I was not born in those times.”

“You’re happy where you’re at?” Blade had never broached this subject with Plato, and he was surprised Plato would make such a statement.

“Quite content actually,” Plato said.

“With all the hardships? The clouds? The mutates? Wouldn’t life have been easier before the Big Blast?”

“Easier?” Plato mused a minute. “Who ever said life should be easy?

Hardships might intimidate the average and cower the fearful, but they rightfully should inspire you to greater heights of spiritual awareness. Ever remember, Blade, life is a study in contrasts. How can any person claim to aspire to unselfishness if he or she isn’t constantly engaged in conflict with an ego clamoring for attention? How can anyone develop loyalty if he or she never faces temptation? How could we develop a love for truth if, by contrast, error and evil weren’t waiting to ensnare us? How could you appreciate the exquisite bliss of love if you hadn’t known the tormenting pain of loneliness?” Plato stared off at the sun, half hidden from view.

“Yes, life was easier before the Third World War. I could argue that this very ease was responsible for an atrophy of the human potential for growth. Ease promotes complacency, and complacency is deadly for society and the individual. I readily admit our lifestyle leaves something to be desired, but I prefer living in the here and now.”

“Never thought of it that way,” Blade said.

“You’d better hasten below,” Plato advised. “We want the SEAL up here before nightfall.”

“Right.” Plato watched Blade descend the ramp. The poor youth had so much to learn before he could assume the mantle of leadership.

Experience was the best teacher. If the Alpha Triad and Joshua survived the trip to the Twin Cities, they would return wiser and no worse off for the wear and tear.

The tip of the sun protruded above the horizon.

Not much light left. Plato resumed his reading of the manual.

The Family was still posted around the pit, waiting for the SEAL to emerge. Meals had been prepared and distributed among those waiting.

No one wanted to miss the greatest event in recent Family history. The entire Family was on hand, except for the Warriors guarding the perimeter of the Home.

Plato suddenly remembered the folder from the Founder. He had completely forgotten it in his haste to understand the functional operation of the SEAL. He placed the Operations Manual on the ground and picked up the other folder. On the cover, written in Carpenter’s own hand, were the words “To The Leader.”

Plato opened the manila folder and began reading:

“I feel peculiar writing a message to someone who will live decades after I am gone. To you, and to the rest of those left, I extend my love and my prayer for your continued safety and survival. This letter will be buried with the SEAL. I’ve hired a construction crew to bury the SEAL before any of those I’ve selected will arrive at the Home. I don’t want anyone to know about the SEAL. They might want to see if loved ones in New York or California survived, and I can’t allow that to happen. We must stay isolated if we’re to have any chance at all. It’s coming, and coming soon.

You can almost feel the fear in the air. All the talking in the world hasn’t helped. Mankind is about to commit the ultimate folly, self-obliteration. If it weren’t so pitiful, it would be humorous. Whoever you are, I want you to know I’ve done my best. Eventually, those left will need to find out what has happened, will have a need for reliable transportation. The SEAL is my gift to you. I’ve spared no expense in having it made, and if any vehicle can stand up to what’s coming, the SEAL can. Read the Operations Manual before you try to activate the SEAL. My scientists are confidently optimistic the SEAL will work when you need it. They don’t know my real reason for having it made, and they’d probably laugh if they did. I’ve insisted on a nearly indestructible vehicle, one that could still run ten years or one hundred years from now. They think I’m a harmless crank.

Maybe I am. I don’t know if this compound I’ve built, this Home for my loved ones, will still be standing after the missiles are launched and the bombs dropped. I might have wasted countless hours and millions of dollars for nothing, but deep inside something keeps telling me that it won’t be in vain. I don’t mind telling you, though, I’m tired. Weary in my soul. It’s taken a lot out of me, building the Home, stocking it, and, the worst part, deciding which of my family and friends would be invited here before the world goes mad. How do you pick thirty from all the people you know, all those you’ve met and loved and liked during a lifetime? It isn’t easy. I don’t know what else to say. I pray the SEAL will work for you.

There are so many questions, aspects I wonder about. How many men and women are alive? Have we grown and prospered? Did the Home provide the protection I hoped it would? Are you any more loving and considerate toward one another than my contemporaries are, or have you succumbed to this mass paranoia? Have I wasted my life? I wonder if I’ll ever know.

Whoever you are, relay my love. Remember me as one who gave it his best shot. I hope I wasn’t firing blanks. Kurt Carpenter.”

Plato straightened, his back sore. He realized he had bent over the yellowed paper to see better as the light decreased.

The sun was gone. Fires were being built around the entranceway. The air was cool, a strong breeze blowing in from the west.

Jenny approached him, carrying a blanket. “Here.” She handed it to him. “It’s starting to get nippy.”

Plato wrapped the blanket around his shoulders. “Thank you.”

“Anything important?” She pointed at the folders.

Plato nodded. “One contains the instructions for the SEAL. The other is a letter from the Founder.”

“Oh? What does it say?” she asked, her curiosity aroused.

“It tells me that, despite our reverence whenever we think of Kurt Carpenter, he was a human being with sentiments and shortcomings similar to our own. I suspect he went to his grave a torn man.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Look!” someone cried, and the Family was quickly clustered around the opening.

“It’s the SEAL!” Jenny clapped her hands together.

The front of the vehicle was slowly emerging from the entranceway, the firelight glinting off the tinted windows and body.

“Oh! It’s beautiful!” Jenny was hopping up and down to get a bitter glimpse over the heads of those nearest the pit.

Plato stood, with difficulty.

The SEAL was almost out, the men still pushing.

Plato heard a young child, perched on his father’s shoulders, squeal in alarm. “Will it eat me, daddy?” the boy inquired.

The SEAL stopped moving, the men, many of them, sprawling on the ground.

Blade came through the crowd and gave the keys to Plato. “It was incredibly heavy, even in Neutral,” he said, “took us a while to grasp we had to keep one hand on the steering wheel if we wanted it to go in a straight line. If that ramp were any longer, the SEAL would still be in hibernation.”

“You’ve done well.”

“What’s next?”

“A good rest,” Plato advised. “I’m going to sit by a fire and finish this manual. Tomorrow, hopefully, you can start. If it won’t function, we may have no recourse but to use some of the horses.”

Jenny put an arm around Blade’s waist. “Let’s find a quiet spot where we can snuggle.”

Blade and Jenny, arm and arm, walked away from the Family and the fires in an easterly direction. They reached the edge of a tilled field, the corn waist-high. A quarter moon was overhead, the stars points of bright light.

Jenny leaned against Blade. “It’s so beautiful out here tonight,” she sighed.

Blade nodded.

“I don’t want you to leave tomorrow,” she said.

“Are we going to go through all that again?” he demanded.

“No.” Jenny kissed him on his left cheek. “We settled that this afternoon.

I’m resigned to it, I guess.”

Blade ran the fingers of his right hand through her hair. “I will miss you more than words can ever say,” he acknowledged.

“I wish I were carrying your child,” she announced unexpectedly.

“What?”

“You heard me. I want to have your child,” she repeated. “Our child,” she corrected. “A little Blade to remind me of his daddy.”

“You make it sound like I won’t be coming back.”

“There is that possibility,” she pointed out.

Blade stared up at the stars.

“Well, what about it?” she asked him.

“What about what?”

“About me having our child.”

“Be serious,” he admonished her.

“I’ve never been more serious.”

“You know it’s impossible,” he reminded her.

Matrimony and child-rearing were taken as the supreme social responsibility by the Family. Carpenter had attributed part of Western civilization’s decline to the breakup of the family and the instability of the home. He considered the home fundamental to the preservation and maintenance of society. In his diary he discouraged his followers from engaging in promiscuous sex. Instead, he staunchly advocated monogamy, promoting marriage and the creation of children as one of the prime duties of any daughter and son of the Spirit. Carpenter viewed marriage as an eternal binding, and this description resulted in the Family applying strict guidelines to the relations between the sexes. Children before marriage—or binding, as it become generally known—were firmly discouraged. The Family’s tight-knit structure, the genuine love of the parents for their offspring, tended to perpetuate the traditional Family values.

Violations were rare. The situation was further compounded by the constant fight for survival. Children required constant protection and supervision. Every Family member wanted children, but no one wanted more than he or she could handle. Children were a necessity for the continuation of the Family, not an idle luxury indulged in on a passing whim. Nurseries, day schools, grade schools, and the like were all things of the past. Parenthood could not be studiously avoided, nor could the responsibilities be shirked and passed to someone else. From infancy, the Family members faced the often grim realities of existence.

“You know it’s impossible,” Blade reiterated when Jenny didn’t respond.

Jenny squeezed him as hard as she could. “I know,” she admitted. “I’m just dreaming.”

“One day your dream will become a reality,” he predicted.

“I want you to know I’m holding you to your promise,” she said.

“I was serious,” Blade stressed. “When I return, if you’re willing, you and I will bind. We’ll get a cabin and start a family and thank the Spirit daily for our blessings.”

Jenny smiled broadly. “It sounds almost too good to be true, doesn’t it?”

“Plato has said that your life is only enjoyable if you work at making it what you want,” he philosophized. “If you really want something, go for it.”

“I can’t think of anything I want more than to be your mate,” Jenny said.

“I’ll be counting the days until you return.”

Blade leaned down and gave Jenny a warm, protracted kiss. She reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck.

“Think you can find us a soft patch of grass somewhere, big guy?” she whispered.

“Do you have something in mind?” he teased her.

“I want to remember this night forever.”

Blade turned serious. “Just remember what I said about not having children. I won’t have you carrying a child and bearing the responsibility of rearing it without me by your side. Don’t try and make me lose control.”

“Why, honey,” she said softly into his right ear, her hands stroking his neck, her legs pressing against his, “I don’t have the slightest idea what you mean by that. How could little old dainty, defenseless me ever make a strong, strapping hunk like you do something against his will?”

Jenny kissed him again, entwining her tongue with his.

I could be in serious trouble here. Blade reflected.

The breeze picked up.

They were standing fifty yards east of the row of cabins used by the married couples. Tilled fields and clusters of trees, preserved natural areas, continued eastward until encountering the protective moat and the outer wall. At night, Warriors were posted on the western wall, at positions nearest the Blocks. Periodically, a Warrior would patrol the compound, making a circuit of the Blocks and the cabins, but not bothering to check the eastern half of the Home, the portion devoted to agriculture. Only lovers and those enjoying a solitary stroll used the eastern section at night. They believed they were secure behind the wall, the barbed wire, and the moat. No one would attack the Home at night; there were too many mutates and other monsters abroad in the woods.

But from a tactical standpoint, the Home was most vulnerable in the eastern sector, and after dark.

Blade mentally noted that fact when he heard the twig snap.

Jenny broke their embrace. “What’s wrong?” She glanced at the rows of corn and several nearby trees.

“Why do you ask?” Blade scanned the corn. The noise had been loud, distinct.

“You suddenly tensed up.” She grinned. “Hope it wasn’t my kisses! Are they that bad?” Jenny giggled.

“Shhh,” Blade whispered. His Warrior instincts were warning him that something was amiss, some element in the night was out of place. But what?

Jenny sensed his concern and stepped back a step, freeing his arms.

Blade faced the cornfield and drew his right Vega. Were his nerves playing tricks on him? What could possibly be wrong? The odds against someone invading the Home at night were astronomical. Could it be another mutate?

“Blade…” Jenny gripped his left arm.

“What is it?”

“I thought I saw something move.”

“Where?”

She pointed to a clump of trees ten yards away, situated at the edge of the cornfield.

Blade turned, studying the trees. He wished he had Geronimo’s exceptional night vision. What should he do? Investigate? And expose Jenny to possible danger? No way. He would get her out of there, find Hickok and Geronimo, and come back.

“Let’s head back,” he said casually.

Jenny took several steps, then froze, inhaling deeply.

Blade spun, following the direction of her frightened gaze.

Something was blocking their path, standing about twelve feet in front of them, something big and bulky, the features indistinguishable in the dimness of the night.

Blade drew his other Vega and aimed both at the thing.

From behind them came the sound of rustling in the corn.

“There are more of them behind us!” Jenny stated the obvious.

“You are surrounded,” said the form in front of them in a deep, growling voice. “Drop your guns or we will kill the woman.”

Blade risked a quick glance over his right shoulder. More of them were advancing on them through the rows of corn. He counted at least six, maybe more. Who were they? What did they want?

The giant in front of them answered his second question. “We want the woman. We won’t harm you unless you interfere, don’t make the Trolls angry,” he added in a threatening tone.

Trolls? What in the world were Trolls?

“Blade…” Jenny said softly.

“Stay close to me,” Blade whispered. He had to get her to the row of cabins between the fields and the blocks. Many of the married couples would be in their cabins, and he would find help. First things first.

“You Trolls want this woman?” Blade asked grimly.

“Trolls always want women,” the Troll in front of them replied.

“Well, just try and take her, bastard!” Blade whirled, the Vegas extended, and fired four times at the shapes in the corn. They dived for cover.

Blade twisted for a shot at the one ahead of them.

It was gone.

“What the…” Blade gave Jenny a shove. “Run! Head for the cabins! I’ll be right behind you.”

Jenny tore off, making good speed, Blade on her heels, searching for any sign of the Trolls.

Forty yards to go and they’d reach the cabins.

Blade spotted a shadow slithering along the base of a row of bushes to their north and snapped off a shot. The shadow disappeared from view.

Thirty-five yards to safety.

Blade could hear shouting from the direction of the cabins. His shots had been heard; help would be on its way.

“Blade!” Jenny abruptly screamed, terrified.

Several black shapes had jumped up and engulfed her.

“Jenny! No!”

The Trolls were swarming on her, overpowering her.

Blade couldn’t risk a shot. The bullet might accidentally strike Jenny. He didn’t even break his stride as he dropped the automatics and drew his Bowies, making for the nearest looming shadow.

The Troll had turned to face Blade, the feeble moonlight gleaming on a metallic substance as it made a sweeping arc at Blade’s head.

Blade ducked and lunged, burying his right Bowie to the hilt in the Troll’s abdomen.

The Troll grunted and collapsed.

Blade surged upward, leaping at the second form.

“Blade!” Jenny was still fighting for her life.

A hard object unexpectedly crashed into Blade’s head from behind and he toppled to the turf, his senses swimming.

“Blade!” Jenny screamed, kicking one of the Trolls in the groin.

“Finish him off!” someone ordered.

Blade tried to concentrate, but his consciousness was jumbled. He realized he had dropped his Bowies.

Someone gruffly yanked his head back, pulling on his hair, nearly bending his neck to the snapping point, exposing his jugular.

At the same time there was the sound of a solid blow landing and a body fell to the ground.

“Finally!” said the voice of the first Troll. “Get her and let’s get out of here.”

Blade was struggling, trying to break free. His vision cleared and he saw a Troll towering over him, one arm upraised, a knife in hand, ready to strike.