A Rage for Revenge

17 The Broom

I approached the gully cautiously. I didn't want to startle Falstaff. Jason said that Falstaff had made himself a nest in a bed of purple coleus. "We told him to be invisible. Most likely, all that you'll see will be his two big eyes sticking up out of the purple growth." Falstaff wasn't in his nest.

I stepped into the cool shade enveloped by the thick, sweet, spicy smell and looked around. The nest was still warm. He'd been here only moments ago. Where could he have gone?

I backed out of the nest cautiously.

Falstaff wouldn't leave his hiding place without a good reason. That meant . . .

Abruptly, a giant pink and purple Chtorran rose up from underneath me, making a deep rumbling, whirring sound as he did. "Hey-what!" He toppled me backward, I had to leap and catch myself. I fell back against the side of the gully, tumbling sideways and falling on my ass. The worm rose up above me, and then made a high-pitched, giggly noise and came down lightly at my feet. He'd been hidden so deep, I'd been standing on him.

I jumped up, annoyed. "Jesus H. Christ on a bicycle! Don't do that, Falstaff! You scared the hell out of me!"

Falstaff giggled again. It was an eerie sound. I wanted to slap him. But I didn't. He was so proud of himself. He was playing with me.

"You asshole," I said. "Come here,"

He flowed forward. I reached up and hugged his side, then reached up high and scratched his eye-stalks as hard as I could. Falstaff farted appreciatively: Ph-aatttt.

"I love you, too," I said. What the hell, I could hold my breath for a couple of weeks. That wasn't too much to ask for the privilege of climbing all over the mountains with a creature that demonstrated an occasional affinity for the taste of human flesh. "Come on, Jason wants us to patrol. You want to go hunting?"

"Whrrr. Rhrrr."

"Right. Me too. That way, first."

We headed down the gully together, side by side, a boy and his worm. When we got to the narrow part, Falstaff surged ahead and took the lead. It was steep and narrow, carved by years of uncontrolled erosion. I followed Falstaff down. He knew the gully better than I did. He flowed down through it. Underneath all that blubber, he had several hundred little feet. That made him much more sure-footed than me.

We went all the way down to the old power-line towers-they were black and tilted at an angle; they'd been abandoned for years-and even a little bit beyond.

We spotted a couple of wild bunnymen. They were naked and ugly and hooted rudely at us. One of them grabbed his penis and jerked his pelvis in a very suggestive manner, but Falstaff just yawned. He wasn't hungry. He responded with a bored chirrup and the bunnymen hopped back into the underbrush.

And that was all the excitement we had in the gully.

There wasn't anything up at the crest of the hill either to worry about. We followed the firebreak as far as we could and it was overgrown with weeds and strewn with rubble almost its entire length. Nobody was maintaining this area.

We probably should have maintained the firebreak for our own protection, but we'd be moving soon, so it wasn't worth worrying about any more.

We were almost ready to turn back when Falstaff burped. It was a funny kind of burp, so I walked over to see what he was chewing on.

A broom.

It had been hidden under the brush that Falstaff was munching on. He'd eaten half the bush and part of the broom as well. I grabbed it and pulled it out of his mouth; he didn't look annoyed.

"Sorry," I said. "Let me see. You can have it back in a minute."

It was just an old plastic broom-but it wasn't weathered. It hadn't been left outdoors for very long.

Now why would someone leave a broom here? I walked a little ways farther on.

Footprints. Leading down the opposite side of the hill. Right.

The broom was for brushing them out, but whoever had been here had gotten lazy. He hadn't expected Falstaff and me to come this far.

I'd have to tell Jason.

But should I go back now? Or should I wait till Ray relieved me? I looked at my watch. Five o'clock. I could wait an hour. We could scout around a little bit more, then be back in the gully by six.

The footprints led down the hill toward a loop of dirt road, an old logger's trail.

Hm.

It seemed to me that somebody had been deliberately scouting the camp. And very carefully too.

Of course, that was a lot of supposition to hang on the evidence of a single plastic broom; but if they had been as careful as I would have been, we wouldn't even have found the broom.

That's why I didn't think it was the army.

The army would have come down on the camp with choppers and napalm and fire-balls. This had to be somebody else.

At least, that was how I saw it.

Falstaff and I headed back toward the gully. We were late getting there. It was 6:40 before Falstaff was settled back into his nest. He went as deep as he could-he was going to play the same joke on Ray, if he could.

I was a little annoyed. Ray should have been waiting for us; Jason said that most people didn't take punctuality seriously, as if being late wasn't the same as breaking your word. He could get real angry about people not being on time or completing a job when they said it would be done.

Jason said that integrity starts with the littlest things, because that's what you build the big integrity out of.

So, for someone to be even ten minutes late was unusual. Ray wouldn't have been late unless it was important. He'd explain to me when he got here.

At 7:00, I started to get annoyed.

They could have at least sent one of the kids up here to tell me what was going on.

At 7:10 I got worried.

I had the paranoid thought first.

Maybe they'd decided to kill me. Maybe I was supposed to wait here with Falstaff until he got hungry.

No, that was stupid. I knew better. Worms didn't need meat every day. Once a week was fine. A healthy worm could go several days without eating, and could last indefinitely just grazing on the countryside, eating nothing but trees.

No. Maybe something else had happened.

Maybe Jinko and Gregory-Ann had returned; maybe they were packing the camp to move. In that case, Ray wouldn't need to come and relieve me until the last truck was ready to roll.

But still, somebody should have come to let me know.

By 7:20, I'd made up my mind. If no one came by 7:30, I'd head over the hill and find out why they'd forgotten about us. Me. At 7:35, I left my post. I broke my word, I abandoned my responsibility and I headed over the hill. "You better wait here, Falstaff. "

The worm chirruped and disappeared into his hole.

The old motel looked quiet as I approached. Just as I thought. Everything was normal. I could hear them partying frorn here. They'd forgotten all about me. I had the right to be annoyed. Jason put such high emphasis on people keeping their word to each other, and nobody remembered to tell Ray he had to come and relieve me.

One of the bunnydogs came scampering up to meet me. He flubbered his lips and goggled at me with big silly eyes. "Hi, Bozo. Did you leave me any dinner?"

Bozo made gobbling noises and fell into step beside me. He picked up a stick and carried it like I was carrying my gun.

I sighed and slung my rifle over my shoulder; I came around the corner of the garage and-

-nearly tripped over Ray's body. His head had been blown open. A pool of dark red blood stained the ground.

Army reflexes took over and I was back behind the corner, with my back to the wall and my rifle cocked and ready, before I had even finished registering the fact that Ray was lying on the ground dead. Bozo imitated me, flinging himself back too.

I listened to the noises. Partying?

The sounds were motorcycles, and men hooting and whooping. I could hear children screaming. And women too.

I peeked cautiously around the corner. Just a quick glance. Bozo started to peek too, I kicked him back.

No one was in sight.

A longer look. A dead bunnyman. Some scattered clothing. A motorcycle roared past, circled and headed back. The rider was laughing.

I pulled back. I took a deep breath. There wasn't time to go back for Falstaff. I was going to have to do something now.

I needed to know more about what was happening.

I edged around the garage and up to the next corner. Bozo followed along behind me, tiptoeing in exaggerated parody. "Keep it up," I muttered. "That's how people get elected president."

Bozo stopped and gave me a hurt, sulky look. I didn't care. Where was Orrie? Where was Orson? They wouldn't have let the camp be overrun.

Were they dead?

I could hear the motorcycles louder now. And the screams were more definite. And the laughter. And the crying.

I peeked around the next corner of the garage. Just the quickest glance, and then pulled back again.

Just enough to catch a fast glimpse of the bikes, roaring and circling around a small huddle of frightened women and children. I kicked Bozo away and took another peek.

I thought so. There were only a few of the Tribe members in that huddle. Where was everybody else?

There were a few dead bodies on the ground, mostly men. I recognized Jinko's body, and Gregory-Ann's as well. Well, that explained how the bikers had found us.

Bikers. Big and ugly and dangerous. The gangs had been roaring up and down the coast for months. The army had ignored them; they weren't worth the trouble. The official position was: Let the worms take care of them.

Now, I saw how stupid that policy had been.

The bikers must have been here a while. Most of the girls had been stripped naked; they were trying to cover themselves with their hands or they stood shamefacedly hanging their heads and made no attempt to cover themselves.

I wondered how many of them had already been raped. Damn me for being so cautious.

All right, I'd make up for it now. I had two advantages.

I had the element of surprise.

And I had an AM-280 and plenty of ammunition. Mr. Mayhem. I didn't have the helmet, but I didn't need it here. This was going to be point and shoot.

But I'd have to be fast; there were at least twenty of them and there was only one of me.

I wasn't going to give myself time to think about it.

I stepped around the garage and started firing toward the oncoming edge of the circling bikes. Bozo ran out behind me and made gobbling noises, pointing his stick. Three of the bikers went down almost immediately, and it was a couple of seconds before any of the others realized what was going on. Two bikers skidded into the toppled ones and went crashing and tumbling. They were dirty, hairy, broad-chested animals.

Two more bikers came around the far edge, saw me, and charged. Their bikes were armed with missile launchers. I didn't wait to give them a target. Bozo was bouncing up and down, but he followed after as I ran back to the first corner of the garage and waited until they came skidding around-knocked one off his bike and took the other's head off; then whirled around to fire at the three who were coming at me from around the other side of the garage. The gun buzzed and burped and the belly of one of them erupted in red. One of the others skidded sideways and crashed; I hadn't shot him, he'd just lost control. The third guy was trying to turn around-I got him in the back.

Dropped and rolled and came up firing; took down the one who had just come around the corner of the garage behind me-whirled again and went after the one who'd skidded out of control. Got him before he could get up. Bozo was already bouncing up and down on one of the fallen bikes.

And then there was silence.

No, not quite. There was the sound of motorcycle engines running unattended. There were six bikes lying on their sides in the dirt.

The thought crossed my mind. Grab a bike. Get the one with the missiles. Counterattack. I started for the bike Bozo was pretending to ride

It blew up.

Knocked me flat on my ass. Skidding backward, I had a quick glimpse of orange flame, a wall of heat, a tower of greasy smoke. It had been booby-trapped.

It flung little pieces of Bozo the bunnydog in all directions. The dirt was still pattering down around me.

That could have been me. My head was still ringing. Never mind. There were still bikers.

No, I didn't know how many there were; but if there were any still alive, I had to take care of them now.

Headed around the other side of the garage at a run--came skidding around the corner ready to fire.

And stopped.

My help wasn't needed.

Valerie was just slicing open the throat of the last biker.

She stood there, naked and grinning and covered with his blood. She looked triumphant.