Ever Onward (36 page)

“Looks like a bloody weenie roast,”
Flame scoffed.

Trina peered down at the circle of men
less than a hundred yards away. “If we had rifles, we could
...”

“But we don’t,” Eddy said, his voice
uncustomary harsh. “All we’ve got are handguns and that’s close
work.”

Flame grinned. “Then me and Josh will
go. We’re the best shots. You three can cover us from the edge of
the woods.”

Josh shook his head.

“Why not?”, Flame demanded. “I’m as
good a shot as you! Even better!”

“And a whole lot sexier,” Josh added.
“But Brad told those guys that we didn’t have any women with us. If
they see a walking centerfold for Guns & Ammo come out of the
woods they’ll know he lied. It could get a bit awkward.”

“Screw ‘awkward’!”, Flame responded.
“I say we walk up and off the buggers!”

Josh frowned. Until now, Flame had
never come right out and opposed him on anything. She’d grumbled a
bit, but never shown open defiance. Until now.

“
And what if they’re just
four nice guys lonely for a little female companionship?”, Josh
demanded. “Do we ‘off them’ first and ask them later? That might
have been Snake’s way, but its not ours.”

He could see his last remark hurt her,
but it had to be done. Flame was always too ready to use force to
solve a problem. Force or sex. He couldn’t really blame her, but he
didn’t have to like it.

She sulked for half a minute or so,
then shrugged. “What the hell. They might just be four lost
Boy-Scouts for all I know. But when you step out to meet them,
Lover, remember to keep out of my line of fire.” She was grinning
now, and gave him a saucy wink.

Josh shook his head, smiling in spite
of himself. “I’ll bare that in mind.” He turned to Jessie. “You and
Trina move off to the left. Quietly move up behind them but stay in
the shadows. “Flame, Kenneth stays with you. And don’t come out
unless I call.”

Flame gave him another knowing wink.
“Anything you say, Lover.”

Over a week ago, Brad, an avid reader,
had introduced her to James Axler’s ‘Death Lands’, a futuristic
series about life in America a hundred years after a nuclear
holocaust. ‘Pulp fiction at its best!’, Brad had described it.
Flame, reluctant at first, had surprised herself by gobbling up the
first volume and searching every book store she came across for the
rest of the series. Brad told Josh privately that he believed Flame
‘had the hots’ for the novel’s main character, Ryan Cawdor, a
gun-toting, knife-fighting, one-eyed anti-hero. The fact that Flame
herself bore a striking resemblance to Ryan’s love interest, the
tough/gentle heroine, Christy Roth, Brad believed to have a lot to
do with Flame’s sudden literary obsession.

Christy often called Ryan,
‘Lover’.

“But Uncle Brad told them he was
waiting for three men,” Jessie said. “Shouldn’t I...”

“No you shouldn’t!”, Josh growled.
“When just Eddie and I walk into camp, they’ll think the third one
is somewhere close by covering our back, which is exactly what
you’ll be doing.”

Jessie looked like he was about to say
something, but changed his mind. Instead he nodded, hefted his bow
and faded off into the trees. Trina followed. Flame and Kenneth
moved off in the other direction. Eddy and Josh checked their
handguns and began down the trail.

When they heard the shot,
they began to run.

“So Sport, where are these ‘hikers’ o’
yours? Been a long time gone, aint they?”

Besides the thick country drawl,
William ‘Tex’ Roundtree’s voice had a high, nasal twang to it that
grated on the nerves. The words, like his movements, were slow and
deliberate. Dressed in a filthy pair of jeans, hand-tooled cowboy
boots and an expensive but gaudy leather jacket, he looked like
something out of a third-rate spaghetti western. A once white
Stetson and two pear-handled six-guns slung low on his hips
completed the image. From a distance he looked comical, like an
actor that had been rushed through make-up; yet one look at the
cold, hard gleam in his eyes made you swiftly change your mind.
William ‘Tex’ Roundtree burned with the inner fire of
madness.

“I said, Sport, these three mountain
men o’ yours been a long time gone. Maybe they aint comin’ back?”
He leaned towards Brad, leering across the fire. “Maybe they never
were.”

“They’ll be here,” Brad said, trying
to sound casual. He went back to frying the fish.

Tex grinned at his two other
companions. The one called Skull was nervous looking youth with a
shaved head and a long skull-shaped earring dangling from his left
lobe. The firelight caught the red glass embedded in the tiny
skull’s eyes as he listened to Bobby’s guitar.

Next to Skull was Fats. As his
namesake implied, Fats was a rather large individual. Just under
six feet tall and three feet wide, this portly gentleman weighed in
at well over three hundred pounds --- and every ounce was pure,
down-home, back-woods mean. The result of a rather sordid but
fruitful liaison between an alcoholic, sadistic father and a
retarded sister, Fats had inherited the worst of both his
illustrious parents. A psychopath that was too dumb to know it and
too damn mean to care.

“Hear that, Fats?”, Tex chortled.
“Sport here says his three big buddies are on their
way.”

Fats seemed not to hear. Instead, he
sat staring into the fire’s dancing flames. The look on his face
was one of complete rapture. Fats dearly loved fire. Fire was the
main reason he’d been doing three to five in Houston's version of
Sing-Sing. The only thing Fats loved better than watching a fire
was starting one.

Tex, himself a longtime member of the
Houston Penal System, had been doing a ten to fifteen stretch for
armed robbery in the same establishment as Skull and Fats. One fine
summer morning nearly six weeks ago he had awoke to find the
remains of a guard laying just outside his cell. At least, there
was a guard’s uniform laying there with grayish shit pouring out.
Tex’s hard eyes, however, had been drawn to the set of keys clipped
to the dead guard’s belt. Half an hour later, Tex, Snake and Fats
were racing down Freedom’s road in the Warden Francis J. Palmer’s
own car. Under the circumstances, Tex didn’t think Francis J. would
mind.

Unsure of just what had happened, the
gruesome threesome had headed for Dallas. What they found was a
dead city. Here and there they came across the odd survivor, but on
the whole, they drove through a land almost totally devoid of human
life. Tex liked it that way. He hadn’t the slightest idea what had
caused the catastrophe and he didn’t give a shit. Mrs. Roundtree,
though herself a hooker hooked on Cocaine, hadn’t raised no idiot,
and William ‘Tex’ Roundtree knew a good thing when he saw
it.

From Dallas the ‘Texas Rangers’ had
started on their own mad, cross-country tour; looting, raping and
killing as they went. They worked their merry way through Memphis
and Nashville, north through Louisville and Columbus, reaching the
coast at Atlantic City and then up to New York. Through all this
chaos, Tex had held true to his own personal dream --- to take a
big Texas bite out of the Big Apple.

Though the chemical plague, created by
Estelle Doherty and loosed upon an unsuspecting world by Sergeant
Richard Henderson, had wiped out 80 to 90% of the global
population, the megalopolis that was New York City had contained
over eighteen million souls. That remaining 10 to 20% made for one
hell of a lot of frightened, shell-shocked survivors.

New York City had been a mega-downer.
Already going to seed before The Change, by the time Tex and his
bosom buddies arrived, the Big Apple had rotted to the core. Mobs
of crazed, armed people ran through the streets. Fires raged out of
control. Bodies hung from streetlights. Packs of wild dogs fought
with packs of wild humans for food. And the rats were
everywhere.

A country boy at heart, Tex decided to
head for the hills. Instead of making tracks for home, however, Tex
shifted his gaze further northward. Back in Houston pen there’d
been a good ol’ boy by the name of Jean-Paul Boulregard. Half
Cajun, half French-Canadian, and totally insane, Jean-Paul would
waxed almost lyrical about the warm, wet merits of French pussy.
Tex had decided to mosey on up to Montreal and see for
himself.

Hence, this little side-trip through
the Green Mountains of Vermont.

The fourth member of this merry band
was named Cobb. Dressed in a black SWAT team outfit, complete with
padded Kevlar vest and laser sighted automatic rifle, Cobb had
joined them only the day before. Tall, lean and silent, they had
picked him up just outside of Brandon. All Tex could get out of him
was that he had been on his way east when his bike blew a
gasket.

When they’d first picked him up, Tex
had thought Cobb would make a nice addition to the ‘Rangers’. But
that soon changed. The sullen bastard rode in the back of the
Winnebago with the laser-scoped automatic across his knees. He ate
alone and slept outside. Cobb had made it clear to Tex that as soon
as he found his own set of wheels, he was history. That suited Tex
just fine. He didn’t much like the silent shit anyway. He wouldn’t
mind having his rifle though, and secretly planned to off Cobb at
the first opportunity. So far, however, Cobb hadn’t given him one.
Even now the sneaky bastard was off somewhere.

‘Christ!’, Tex thought to himself. ‘He
could be sighting down on us even now!’ Glancing around at the
lengthening shadows, Tex knew that either of the two vans would
suit Cobb just fine. Hell, even the tow-truck would do! Though far
from being a mental giant, Tex was smart enough to know that,
things being the way they were, a few more good ol’ boys on his
side might come in handy. Lately, Tex had been in a recruiting
frame of mind. He now turned again to the three strangers sitting
across from him, his cold eyes sizing them up.

The one playing the guitar was just a
long haired kid. Probably a fag. Still, Tex considered himself an
‘equal opportunity employer’, and seeing as how he’d known a few
fags back in the slammer who were also stone cold killers, he was
willing to give the kid a try.

‘Sport’ he wasn’t too sure of. He had
nervous eyes that kept glancing at the forest. That alone made Tex
believe his story about waiting for others to arrive. Whether it
was ‘three big, brave mountain men’ or something a little more
feminine, Tex wasn’t so sure. Sport looked a might too wholesome as
well, what with the young boy and all. Still, like his Ma used to
say when the migrant workers came looking for a good time; ‘All
cocks are grey in the dark.’

As for the old man, bringing him along
was out of the question. Tex needed men who could carry their own
weight, not an old fool who just sat there smiling like an idiot
and whittling on a piece of wood.

Tex leaned towards Brad again, his
large yellow teeth seemed to dance above the flames. “You sure you
aint interested in coming up north? I got it first hand there’s
some grade-A pussy-pie waiting on us. Frenchies up Montreal
way!”

Brad continued turning the fish in the
pan. “Afraid not. We’re heading...south.”

“And what if I say you aint?”, Tex
asked, his voice low and dangerous. “What if I say you boys are
coming north with me?”

Brad looked back into those cold eyes.
“Then someone’s going to die.”

This caught Tex by surprise. Sport had
a hell of a lot more sand in him than he had thought! The firelight
reflected off Tex’s crooked teeth as he stood up. “Maybe. But it
aint going to be me!” As he spoke he drew one of his Colt .45’s. To
Brad, the barrel looked like the mouth of a cannon. He thought of
reaching for his own gun, but knew he’d be dead before his hand
touched the grip.

“Fats! Skull!”, Tex barked.
“Take them!”

No sooner were these words out of
Tex’s mouth than the front of his head exploded. Blood, brains and
shards of bone spattered over Brad. The body stood there for a
moment, then sagged and fell across the fire. Fats, his brain slow
to take in this sudden change of events, sat blinking as Tex began
to smolder. Skull, however, was a lot faster. Leaping to his feet,
he began yanking out a .38 he had thrust in his belt. The revolver
was halfway out when Bobby brought his guitar around in a vicious
arc. The heavy twelve-string shattered, as did the back of Skull’s
head. Reflex took over and the .38 went off. The slug buried itself
in the layers of flesh encasing Fats’ right thigh. As the pain
slowly registered, Fats looked up just as Gus leaped towards him.
The old man stepped on Tex’s back, bent and drove the sharpened
state he’d been whittling into Fats’ right eye. The body sat
quivering like a mountain of Jello, then toppled sideways, the
piggish face and the wooden stake caught in the rays of the setting
sun. Stepping up, Gus used his heel of his worn workboot to drive
the stake home. Fats shuddered twice more, then lay still
forever.

In less than a dozen heartbeats three
men had died. Brad, his face and chest dripping gore, vomited on
the tangled bodies. Looking up, he saw a fourth man silently
approaching. Clad all in black, he carried a rifle fitted with a
laser scope.

“Hello the camp!”, Josh called,
stepping out of the trees. The shadows long now, the sun almost
gone. Eddy walked several feet to Josh’s left. He had his pack
slung over one shoulder; all the better to cover the stubby Colt
Cobra gripped tightly in his right hand.