The Savage Horde

Chapter 49

Sarah Rourke opened her eyes—she looked at the wristwatch she had taken from one of the dead brigands after the attack on the Mulliner farm. It was a Tudor, the band hopelessly big for her, but the construction simitar to a Rolex like her husband wore—made by the same company before the Night of The War as she recalled. It read a little after ten in the morning.

"Ohh—I was tired," she told herself, sitting up, banging her head on the tent pole above her.

She remembered—where she was—the refugee camp, the resistance commander David Balfry—how she had fallen asleep dreaming of her husband.

Pete Critchfield, the local commander who had, with Bill Mulliner, taken herself and the children to the camp had said there were showers.

She sat up on the blankets, searching through her kit— she found a clean T-shirt, a bra that didn't look too dirty and clean underpants. Mary Mulliner still slept—Sarah realized the trek would had to have been harder on the older woman. She decided to find the shower. She had no towel, but perhaps she could find one—or just be wet—to be clean was more important.

She gathered up the things as she stepped into her tennis shoes, stood up and stepped through the tent flap, finally rising to her full height. She noticed, suddenly, that without being aware of it, she had grabbed up the Trapper .

Bill Mulliner had given her and replaced it in the belt holster on her hip.

"I'm going crazy," she told herself. She started across the camp, hearing children laughing, the sounds of play, from the far left end of the camp. She decided to find her children first—her own two and Millie Jenkins as well. She started through the camp.

More of the wounded, the habitually injured—they walked the impacted dirt of what had perhaps once been a front yard and was now a street. Their eyes—she could see no hope in them.

But the sound of the children laughing—it was nearer. At the furthest extent of the camp itself but still inside the security perimeter was a corral, white painted, though as she cut the distance, running her free right hand through her greasy-feeling hair, she could see the fence paint chipped and cracking.

She could already see Annie, and with her Millie Jenkins and more than two dozen other children, all seated on the ground, some older girls—teenagers, talking with them, the children laughing.

She stopped, not wanting to distract her daughter—the children were beginning to sing a song. Like many more things since the Night of The War, it held religious overtones—a hymn, but a cheerful sounding one, how Jesus loved little children.

She didn't see Michael, and as she started searching the crowd of singing children more closely, she noticed his total absence.

"I'm over here," she heard a voice say, the voice shockingly deep, but recognizable.

She turned, looking at her son—he was growing too fast, she thought absently, watching him sitting on the running board of a Volkswagen beetle, the car dirty, dented, but apparently still serviceable.

"What's the matter, Michael?"

He looked up at her, his brown eyes not smiling, the corners of his still childish mouth downturned, the leanness of his face more pronounced than she ever remembered

having seen it. He had killed, he had saved her life and Annie's life—he had been a man.

"That's stupid—playing. Stupid."

"It's not stupid to play," she began, walking over to him. "Scoot over," and she nudged against him gently, sitting beside him on the running board of the VW.

"Yes, it is stupid—you know why?"

"No—tell me why," she told him.

"You know why."

"No—no, I don't. What is it? Just because you're a man when I need you, you figure you can't be a little boy anymore. Well—you are a little boy. You'll be a man soon enough—don't rush it anymore than you already have."

"That's not what I mean," he answered, looking up at her.

She folded her arms around him, drawing his head against her right breast. She heard the other children playing, the singing stopped, the children running off excess energy, chasing each other around the fenced-in corral.

She held her son very close—the little boy in him had died somewhere and she started to cry as she held him more tightly against her body.