Ever Onward (65 page)

Jocco couldn’t sit still. The waiting
was really starting to get to him. By the looks of the four others
in the room, it was getting to them too. Pam was pacing back and
forth in front of the fireplace, her hand nervously resting on the
pearled grips of her Browning automatic. Eva Madeau was sitting on
the edge of the couch, her Uzi in one hand and her third Jack
Daniels in the other. Bobby-Joe Burlis, an M-16 hugged to his
chest, stood looking out the large patio doors, his gaze fixed on
the backs of the two captives suspended from the eves. The only two
in the room who seemed unruffled were Pussbag and Ace. Pussbag
because, like the calm before the storm, never felt more at peace
with himself than just before a killing; Ace because he was already
dead.

Sergeant Phil McBride, a walkie-talkie
in his hand, stepped in from the balcony and spoke to Bobby-Joe in
hushed but urgent tones.

“What is it?!”, Jocco
demanded.

Bobby-Joe shrugged nervously.
“Probably nothing, Jocco. It’s just that Phil here can’t get two of
the guards on the radio.”

“What two?”

McBride drew himself up to attention.
“Peterson and Hobbs, Sir. They were our advanced perimeter, out by
the edge of the forest. One minute they were there, the next they
weren’t.”

“Maybe they heard something and went
in to check it out,” Bobby-Joe put in. “They’ll show up.” Despite
the bluster, tone of his voice gave him away. Peterson and Hobbs
had already shuffled off this mortal coil, bit the bullet, bought
the farm, took a long walk off a short pier --- and all there knew
it.

“What the fuck...?!” Eva, on her way
for another shot of Jackie D, was now staring wide-eyed at a cloud
of smoke billowing out of the kitchen. Apparently Peterson and
Hobbs, along with buying the farm, had also burnt the
biscuits.

“Fire!”, Pam the Bitch
screamed.

Eva the Butch complied.
Dropping her Jack Daniels, she gripped her Uzi with both hands and
sprayed the kitchen with a liberal helping of 9 mm. led. The half
opened French doors exploded, splinters of wood and shards of glass
joining the heavy pall of smoke that was rapidly filling the
room.

Since even before Josh set the fire in
back of the lodge, Cobb, from his position on the first ridge, had
Private Leo Lions in the cross-hairs of Scar’s captured H & K.
At the same time as a befuddled Eva was emptying her clip into an
empty room, Cobb squeezed off a shot. The powerful rifle seemed to
cough and Leo the Lion’s skull suddenly became a gory mess of
brain, bone and blood. Punched backwards, what was left of Leo
shattered the plate glass window of the balcony and lay leaking
blood on the polished pinewood floor. Cobb shifted slightly,
searched for the second guard that had been standing on the far
side of the balcony. Jessie’s swaying body was blocking his
view.

Cobb taking out the two men guarding
the prisoners was the signal for Eddy and Bobby to open fire. As
planned, their targets were the two soldiers standing out front on
the grass. Bobby’s Python boomed once, twice, three times. His
target went down, then started returning his fire.

At the same time, Eddy, sighting down
the long barrel of Nate’s 44-40, squeezed off a shot at the second
man as he turned and sprinted for the lodge. As Nate had warned,
the gun kicked like mule and walnut stock slammed into Eddy’s jaw.
Where the powerful bullet hit, a chunk the size of a hand went
flying from the log wall of the lodge. Stars swirling, Eddy cursed
and worked the bolt. Bobby, his Python empty, was fumbling more
shells out of his pocket; in doing so he presented a clear target
to the soldier he had wounded. The man, fixing Bobby’s head in his
sights, was about to squeeze the trigger when Cobb made his second
head shot of the day.

The second guard, the one Eddy had
missed, had by now reached the lodge, sprinted into the basement
and slammed the heavy door shut behind him. His breath coming in
ragged gulps, he leaned against the solid door, a satisfied smile
on his flushed face. Then something struck the door hard. The
vibration seemed to pass right through him. Directly behind him an
ancient snowblower jumped as though hit by an invisible hand.
Through dimming eyes the man noticed that a large hole had been
punched in the snowblower’s metal hood. Looking down at himself he
saw that an even larger hole had been punched in his
chest.

“Shit!”, he hissed, his legs going out
from under him. He was dead before he hit the floor. Nate’s 44-40
could be a real bitch indeed.

While the gun battle was taking place
out front, a battle of a different kind was taking place out back
--- a battle against time. Josh knew he had only minutes to reach
Flame and his son before Jocco had them killed. Cobb, having been
part of several hostage situations in the now dead past, knew that
those first few minutes could easily shrink down to seconds. Hence
the reason for the fire.

“You need a diversion,” Cobb had
reasoned. “Several if possible. Fire. Explosives. A sudden killing.
Anything to keep them disoriented.”

They had had the killings and the
fire. Now it was time for the explosives. While Charley Little Dog
tossed two grenades into the burning backdoor of the kitchen, John
Lonefeather and Josh rushed up the steps leading to the front
balcony. From his position high on the ridge, Cobb laid down a
continuous cover-fire, spacing his shots on both sides of Flame and
Jessie, still hanging helplessly out front. Both prisoners could
hear the hot led screaming past their ears. Dangerous but
necessary, for Cobb’s constant barrage kept everyone well away from
the front windows.

Everyone but
Pussbag.

In the year since The Change, most of
those who had survived had gone through some profound personal
changes of their own, sounding the depths of their souls and
finding their true selves. Private Theodore
‘Pussbag’
Smith
however, had gone through a metamorphosis. Never very stable at the
best of times, the horror unleashed at Nellis Airforce Base had
driven him completely over the edge. A brooding sociopath to begin
with, the shocking events of June 21
^st
had crushed his
already twisted brain and bruised soul to such an extent that what
remained was hardly human. Though he walked on two legs, any
remnant of Theodore Smith was gone forever, leaving in its place
the psychopathic creature that answered to no one but its own inner
ravings and its one true friend: Jocco, The Dark
Stranger.

‘Follow me and I shall make you
great
,’ Jocco’s eyes had told him on their first meeting.
‘A
promise is a promise.’
Pussbag had followed his new friend
willingly, blindly. The Dark Stranger, embodied in the man called
Jocco, had accepted him, sheltered him and given him his life
purpose; an empty, perverted purpose, but a purpose none-the-less.
Pussbag had become the Dark Stranger’s avenging sword, his mighty
right hand, his Angel of Death.

“Kill them!”, Jocco screamed. “Kill
them both!”

Pussbag lifted his shaggy
head. His friend’s voice seemed to come from far away; cold and
cruel, edged with anger and eager anticipation. ‘As it is said, so
let it be done!’ A distant quote from a dead past. Pussbag
instantly moved to obey. Ignoring the fire, the bullets and the
bodies, Pussbag, bayonet in hand, stepped through the shattered
patio doors. The sun had set and darkness was squeezing the land in
its inky grip. All was as it should be. The victims waited,
watching his every move. King Jocco’s Angel of Death strode
forward. Which one would be first? The woman with the hair of fire
or the boy with the old eyes? It really didn’t matter, for blood
was blood. The boy was closer so the boy would
do.

Jessie saw the man approaching, saw
the long knife in his hand and saw also that he had but seconds to
live. In the past year Jessie had faced many dangers, seen good
people turn bad and bad people turn into monsters. Something told
him that the man moving towards him was worse than all those other
horrors combined. Pure evil on two legs. Instinctively Jessie
kicked the evil thing.

The youth’s thick soled hiking boot
caught Pussbag squarely in the throat, all but crushing his larynx.
Pain coursed through Pussbag like an electric current. Starting at
his throat, it spread outward, weakening his knees, stabbing at his
heart and causing a strangled groan to escape through his clamped
jaws. The bayonet fell to the balcony floor as his hands went
instinctively to his throat. Gasping for breath, he doubled over.
As he did so Flame’s long legs wrapped around his neck, her ankles
locked and her muscular thighs began to squeeze. As Pussbag’s hands
came up in a reflex motion, Jessie kicked him again. And again ---
and again.

Phil McBride, seeing Pussbag’s plight,
stepped over Lions’ body and came up behind Flame. He was about to
put a bullet into the back of her brain when an explosion rocked
the kitchen, caused by the grenades Charley Little Dog had tossed
in the back door.

Shrapnel shrieked about like angry
killer bees. The windows blew out, as did a good portion of the
fire. Eva Madeau, still standing in the kitchen doorway, took the
full blast. One piece of red-hot metal struck her in the forehead,
sizzling its way into her brain.

Turning from his position behind
Flame, Sergeant McBride saw Josh Williams and John Lonefeather
running up the outside stairs. Startled, he began to swing his M-16
around --- and took three hits in the chest from Josh’s Browning.
Knocked backwards, he came to his final rest atop his ol’ buddy Leo
the Lion.

John Lonefeather, having left Josh to
free the prisoners, dove into the room, rolled over some broken
glass and came up behind a smoldering sofa. Ace’s dead eyes stared
up at him.

“Shit!”, he exclaimed, stepping back.
At that moment Pam the Bitch came out of the smoke and shot him
twice in the stomach. Knock backwards, Lonefeather went down hard,
loosing his rifle in the process. Grinning, Pam advanced. Kneeling
by the body, she pressed the silver plated barrel of her revolver
into Lonefeather’s ear. As she pulled the hammer back, the body
suddenly rolled. Something flashed in the dying light. Pam screamed
and pulled the trigger. Lonefeather died with a bullet in his
brain, but not before giving his murderess something to remember
him by. Blinking back the tears, Pam looked down in disbelief at
the knife buried up to the hilt in her left shoulder. As the pain
set in she started to scream.

Bobby-Joe had had enough. After
emptying his clip at the open doorway, he bolted for a side window.
Shielding his face with his hands, he crashed through the heavy
glass, cutting himself badly in the process. Landing in a clumsy
roll on the sloping grass, he came up with his legs and heart
pumping. The sheltering trees were only fifty feet away. If he
could but reach them he might just ---

A young man suddenly materialized
between him and the forest.

For a frozen moment their eyes locked.
The world shrunk to the few green yards between them. One man
trying to flee, the other determined that he would not. With
bleeding hands the one raised his weapon, the other did the same.
Shots were fired, several from both combatants, their staccato
barks adding to the roar of the fire and the screams of hate and
pain. Then both men went down.

Eddy, seeing Bobby fall, yelled out
his name. Rushing forward, Eddy was nearly struck by Pussbag’s body
as it tumbled from the balcony above. The body smacked the heavy
log railing, folded in a way human bones were never meant to fold,
then flopped in a mangled heap at Eddy’s feet. Glancing up he saw
Josh cutting Flame and Jessie free.

“Eddy, I’m hit!” Bobby’s voice seemed
more surprised than hurt. The youth was sitting up cradling his
left arm. Eddy had covered half the distance when he saw the man
Bobby had shot rise like Lazerus from his grave. Covered with blood
from his dive through the lodges window and two of young Bobby’s
bullets, Captain Bobby-Joe Burlis, his lower jaw hanging by a flap
of skin, pointed his revolver like an accusing finger at Bobby’s
kneeling form.

“Noooo!”, Eddy screamed, raising
Nate’s heavy 44-40.

The bleeding man that had
once been Mrs. Burlis’ baby boy, swung his deadly finger in Eddy’s
direction. There was a puff of smoke, followed by a wine near
Eddy’s ear. Then the long rifle bucked, slapping his already
bruised cheek for the third time. As though in a dream, Eddy saw
the man spin around, his weapon going one way, his lower jaw
another. Landing on his stomach, the gaping hole in his lower back
steamed from vaporized organs.

Inside the lodge chaos ruled. A woman
was screaming. Flames licked at the aged wood, bodies smoldered,
smoke filled the rooms and seeped out the windows. Josh, having cut
Flame and Jessie free, pressed them back against the outside wall.
Someone had just fired wildly through the open doorway.

“You’re fine now!”, he repeated,
holding them both in his arms. “It’s over.” Flame kissed him and
pushed herself up straight. Taking the shotgun from him, she
chambered a shell.

“Not yet, Lover.”

Jessie squeezed his father’s hand,
then, pulling the Desert Wind from Josh’s belt, looked into eyes
identical to his own. “Flame’s right, Dad. He’s still
alive.”