Anaheim Run

Chapter Three

Once, the deviate might have been a feral cat, but now it was a deformed, grotesque horror. Three feet tall at the shoulder, its streamlined body was covered with splotches of brownish-gray hair alternated with patches of wrinkled, dry skin. The oval ears were utterly devoid of hair, but the feline face was unnaturally bushy. Slanted green eyes were locked on its prey.

Fangs protruded from its upper and lower lips, and spittle seeped from its mouth and over its chin. The legs were short and sturdy, and its tail was a mere stump.

Blade didn’t hesitate. He leaped, interposing himself between Plato and the mutant.

The cat was in motion, having shifted its attention to the approaching giant. It attacked, launching itself toward the giant’s throat.

Blade had a split second to react. If he dodged aside, the thing would be on Plato with its slashing claws and teeth. His only recourse was to stand his ground, and stand it he did, twisting his torso to narrowly evade the mutant’s raking claws. He plunged his left Bowie up and in, the razor point easily slicing into the feline’s throat, burying the knife to the hilt.

The enraged mutant, impaled in midair, thrashed and swiped at the giant human.

Blade felt an intense stinging sensation in his left wrist and knew the cat had drawn blood. He let go of his left Bowie, allowing the mutant to drop to the ground.

Spurting blood, the mutant landed on all fours, but its stance was wobbly and its green orbs were glazing.

Blade swept his right Bowie up, then down, ramming the knife into the feline’s neck, into the spine at the junction with the head. There was a distinct snap as the right Bowie was imbedded in the mutant, Blade’s exceptional strength driving the knife all the way in, slamming the feline to the tarmacadam. He held onto the hilt as the mutant convulsed wildly, then expired.

“Thank you,” Plato said.

Blade slowly straightened, wiping perspiration from his forehead with the back of his right hand.

“Why do you always do things the hard way, pard?” Hickok asked, standing to Blade’s left with his Pythons in his hands. “You should have given me a clear shot.”

“I’ve never seen anyone take on a mutant with a knife before,” commented the captain, joining them. He was gawking at the dead feline.

Hickok noted blood on Blade’s left wrist. “Are you okay, pard?”

Blade raised his left forearm and studied the trio of gashes extending from his hand to the middle of his forearm. Crimson coated his skin. “It’s just a scratch,” he remarked.

“You are lucky it wasn’t one of the pus-covered ones,” the captain said.

“If a drop of that pus gets in your system, you’re a goner.”

“We call the pus-covered genetic deviates mutates,” Plato mentioned, “to differentiate them from the typical mutants.”

“Either one, you were lucky,” the captain reiterated to Blade. “I have a first-aid kit in my jeep. I’ll get some disinfectant.”

“I don’t need it,” Blade said.

“We don’t want you showing up at the summit with your arm all bloody,” the captain stated. He hurried toward his jeep.

Blade knelt and yanked his Bowies from the mutant’s body. He carried the knives to the edge of the highway and wiped the blades clean on a clump of tall grass.

Hickok, his Colts still in his hands, was alertly watching the vegetation.

Plato donned the uniform shirt. “Thank the Spirit the creature didn’t attack before you intervened,” he said to Blade.

The towering Warrior grinned at his mentor. “Weren’t you the one who said this trip would be a—what were your words?—wonderful, scenic vacation?”

“I appear to have miscalculated,” Plato remarked.

“If you want to finish gettin’ dressed,” Hickok offered. “I’ll tag along to make sure nothin’ bites you on the butt.”

“Thank you.” Plato and the gunman walked into the trees.

The captain hastened over with a bottle of hydrogen peroxide and a blue box of cotton swabs. “There’s a roll of gauze in the first-aid kit I can use to bandage your arm after I get through applying the peroxide.”

“I won’t need a bandage,” Blade said.

“Suit yourself,” the captain acquiesced. “Let’s go over here.” He headed toward a jeep parked ten yards to the rear of the ravaged limousine.

“What’s your name?” Blade asked as they passed the limo.

“Captain Di Nofrio, at your service.”

“What’s your first name?”

“Vincent,” Di Nofrio said. “But you can call me Vinnie.” They reached the jeep and he deposited the hydrogen peroxide and the cotton swabs on the hood. “Now let me tend your wound.”

Blade held up his left forearm.

“So tell me,” Di Nofrio said as he began to work on the gashes, “What’s it like where you come from?”

“Cold.”

“I mean your Home and all,” Di Nofrio said, clarifying his query. “I’ve heard a lot about it, about your Family.”

“What did you hear?” Blade inquired.

“I attended a briefing on the summit, on the different groups in the Freedom Federation,” Di Nofrio explained. “You live in a thirty-acre walled compound in Minnesota, right?”

“Right,” Blade confirmed.

“Why do you call the compound the Home? And why do you call yourselves the Family?” Di Nofrio queried.

“Kurt Carpenter, the man we call the Founder, the wealthy filmmaker who built the retreat just before the war broke out, was a very spiritual man, a moral man,” Blade expounded. “He wanted his followers to live in peace together, to devote themselves to their close-knit group, to live like one big happy family.”

“So Carpenter named his followers the Family,” Di Nofrio deduced.

“Exactly. And to insure his followers and their descendants viewed the compound as theirs, and not just his, he—” Blade began.

“He called the compound the Home,” Di Nofrio said, finishing the sentence.

“You’ve got it.”

“We were also told about the Warriors,” Di Nofrio mentioned. “You fifteen guys have quite a reputation.”

“We have eighteen Warriors now,” Blade divulged. “And three of them are women.”

“Women Warriors?”

“What’s wrong with having women as Warriors?” Blade asked. “You have female soldiers in the Free State Army.”

“I know. It just never occurred to me you’d have women Warriors,” Di Nofrio said.

“We also have three mutants,” Blade disclosed.

Di Nofrio, in the act of dabbing the gashes with peroxide, stopped and glanced up in surprise. “Mutants?”

“Mutants,” Blade confirmed. “The animals weren’t the only species to experience mutations because of all the radiation and chemicals unleashed during World War Three. Human mutations are quite common in some areas.”

“You have some of these human mutations at your Home?” Di Nofrio asked in stark amazement.

“Just the three Warriors,” Blade elaborated. “And they weren’t by-products of the war. They were created by a scientist, a genius in genetic engineering.”

“Mutant Warriors,” Di Nofrio declared, as if boggled by the concept.

“The arm?” Blade prompted.

“Oh.” Captain Di Nofrio resumed his ministrations.

“Tell me about your borders,” Blade stated.

“Our borders?”

“Yeah. California’s borders. Do you patrol them? Are sections fenced?

How do you keep undesirable elements from entering the state?” Blade inquired.

“Oh. We use fences and patrols,” Di Nofrio answered. “There are checkpoints on all the roads and highways.”

“On every one?”

“Every one,” Di Nofrio replied. “I was stationed in eastern California a few years ago, assigned to checkpoint duty. I was bored to tears.”

“Little traffic, huh?”

“Are you kidding? There was no traffic,” Di Nofrio mentioned. “No one in their right mind would want to leave California, so there’s never any outgoing traffic. And incoming traffic is sparse. Except for California, the Civilized Zone, and a few other spots where there’s some semblance of civilization, there aren’t many cars and trucks in running order. So the few arrivals we do see have had to walk here. Those coming from the east must cross the Nevada desert, and I imagine most of them die before they reach our border.” He paused. “Decades ago it was different. Right after the war, and until about forty or fifty years ago, there was incoming traffic on a regular basis.”

“What about your northern border?” Blade questioned.

“We do have more incoming traffic from the north,” Di Nofrio said.

“But it’s still not much compared to what it was years and years ago.”

“Would it be easy for someone to sneak in?” Blade asked.

“Sure. We can’t patrol everywhere at once, and it would be impossible to fence in the entire state. And there’s always the Pacific Ocean. The Free State Navy, which is made up of old Coast Guard and U.S. Navy ships and boats, patrols our coastal waters, but it would be a breeze for a boat to land on any of our secluded beaches.”

“So if professional assassins wanted to enter the state, they could practically do it in their sleep,” Blade summarized, frowning.

“Do you really think these attacks were by professional hit men?” Di Nofrio inquired.

“Do you have a better explanation?” Blade rejoined.

“Nope. Guess not.”

Blade heard footsteps and turned to find Plato and Hickok approaching, Plato attired in a uniform with his beard tucked under the shirt. “You look spiffy,” Blade joked. “Maybe you should enlist.”

“Are we ready to depart? I’m eager to reach the summit site,” Plato stated, addressing the captain.

“I’m done with Blade,” Di Nofrio said. “But we should wait for the helicopter to arrive.”

“The copter can catch up with us,” Blade stated. “Let’s leave now.”

Di Nofrio shrugged. “Whatever you want.”

“Looks like we’re causin’ quite a stir,” Hickok remarked, pointing to the northwest.

Blade swiveled, espying a line of traffic blocking the Freeway several hundred yards distant. Three soldiers with M-16’s were preventing the cars and trucks from proceeding.

“We can use this jeep,” Di Nofrio proposed. He took off his helmet and handed it to Plato. “I’ll be right back.” He moved off, barking orders to his men, organizing the escort to depart.

Plato placed the helmet on his head, then carefully tucked his excess hair underneath. He looked at Blade. “One aspect of the attack on the limousine puzzles me.”

“What aspect?”

Plato gazed at the wrecked vehicle. “Why didn’t our assailants destroy the limousine first? Why did they destroy the two jeeps?”

“I can answer that,” Hickok spoke up. “If those cow chips were usin’ a mortar, they couldn’t bank on hittin’ our limo with their first shell. A movin’ target is hard to hit with a mortar, even when you know the exact range. So they took out the jeeps, knowin’ it’d slow us down or force us to stop, which it did. Once we stopped, we were easy pickings. Most likely, they had an approximate range on that low hill, but they didn’t want to tip their hand by tryin’ for our limo first.”

“That’s the way I see it,” Blade agreed.

Hickok lifted his clenched left fist and commenced extending his fingers, one by one.

“What are you doing?” Blade asked.

“Countin’ the days until I see my missus again,” the gunman replied.

“The blamed summit is supposed to take three days. There are meetings today, a banquet tomorrow, another day of meetings, then the farewell shindig. So we won’t fly to the Home until the fifth day.” Hickok sighed.

“Pitiful.”

“What is?” Blade queried.

“Havin’ to put up with five days of this if we don’t nail those buzzards sooner,” Hickok said. “At the rate this trip is going, when we get back I’ll need a vacation from my vacation.”

Blade watched a flicker of orange flame sprout from the demolished limo, his facial contours tightening grimly, bothered by a somber thought.

If we get back!