The Dying Time (Book 1): Impact Read online

  There! A gap in the trees showed him a good spot for a hasty ambush. Forget hasty, none of these people in their patched jeans, faded sweatshirts and trash-bag rainwear would know how to do it. He’d have to place each man (and woman, he reminded himself).

  The reddish rocks came right down to the river forming a steep cliff on the East side of the valley and since the Tarryall was out of its banks the water almost filled the gap, coming all the way up to the road cut on the West side. Spotters with powerful flashlights on top of each ridge could signal him if the enemy attempted to flank his position. He started men dragging downed trees into place for a barricade and digging in across the road and along each ridge. At a guess he had fifteen hundred civilians who had never faced enemy fire. He was uncertain how to control them when the shooting started so he deployed a few hundred as a ready reserve a quarter mile behind his position with orders to turn any fighters around who were running away.

  Freeholders were fleeing up the valley, choking the road. He sent the injured and children on, grabbing able-bodied males and females and putting them to work after questioning them about enemy strength (lots of them) and armaments (more bullets than we had).

  Thirty homesteads lay south of his line, but most of the people were making it out. They told him eight or ten homes were aflame, though several had fallen without catching fire. Evidently, the enemy was making an effort not to burn them. Want them for themselves, he figured. The best information he got was that the enemy advance had slowed from looting.

  Emil raised his Minolta 10x50 binoculars and looked down the valley. He saw them--approaching cautiously. Some waded waist deep in the river pushing logs ahead of them for cover. He allowed himself a moment to admire their ingenuity, then pulled a dozen sticks of dynamite out of his pack and instructed the men on the cliff to throw them at the men in the water. The pressure wave of a near miss would crush any part of their bodies below waterline.

  The rattling roar of diesel engines warned him of the arrival of the heavy equipment.

  Wayne Anderson vaulted out of the front-end loader bucket and pulled men off the road so Iskos and Jim could improve the barrier.

  The enemy saw this and charged across the valley floor, thousands strong.

  Emil pulled the equipment back, telling the operators to be ready to lead a counterattack.

  Bullets whizzed by and Emil reveled in the opportunity to stop planning (which he regarded as officer work) and start shooting. Dozens of Freeholders lost their nerve, broke and ran as the reality that these people were trying to kill them came home.

  Jim Cantrell rolled his bulldozer across their path and turned most of them back to the front.

  Ellen flew down the road, slipping on curves, jolting through potholes, until she saw Emil. She tried to stop too quickly and dumped the bike, coating herself with mud in the process.

  She came up to the Sergeant spluttering and wiping goo off herself, but her hazel eyes were steady.

  “Situation!” Her first word impressed Emil.

  “They’ll hit our lines in less than a minute.” A ricochet spanged off a nearby rock.

  “Can you hold for half an hour?” He looked up and down his line of untried troops. No more than half were firing at the attackers. “Ma’am, I don’t know if I can hold for ten minutes.”

  She peeked over the earth and log barricade. The enemy was bunching in the valley as they ran forward. She emptied her pistol at them and ducked back down as a near miss lodged a splinter in her cheek.

  She broke a small branch and with a few swift strokes outlined Emil’s defensive position. “Cavalry,” she said, pointing her stick behind her sketch.

  Emil nodded, as did Jim Cantrell, who’d joined them.

  She added two quick lines in the mud and saw the light gleam in his eyes.

  “We’ll hold,” he promised.

  Jim told Iskos what was up and then climbed aboard his Cat.

  Emil helped Ellen pull the Harley upright out of the mud. She wiped the seat, swung on and kicked it to life.

  His hand on her arm stopped her before she could leave. “Ma’am,” he said. “You’ll do.” He snapped to attention and saluted.

  “Thanks Sarge,” her smile flashed back over her shoulder as she sped off.

  “And when I see you hit them I’ll send in the armor,” he added to himself. He stepped up on Jim’s Cat to arrange signals.

  *

  Ten minutes later Ellen was back astride her palomino and had finished explaining her plan. Minutes after that Michael was scouting the cattle trail that led along the East side of Farnum Peak and dropped into Allenpark.

  She dispatched half a dozen horsemen for more shotguns and ammo, Michael having explained how effective they were.

  Fifteen more minutes of hard riding and they were in position, having flanked the enemy. Allenpark was a creek fed hanging meadow that followed the South, or enemy held, side of the ridge Emil was defending. The mouth of the meadow plunged down a steep slope and opened onto the valley floor, where the refugees were attacking.

  She waved her cavalry into a line abreast and started them forward at a walk. They wove among clumps of budding aspen and pine, skirting swollen beaver ponds, until they topped the rise overlooking the valley. Below them the enemy was storming over the barricades and fighting was hand-to-hand. Emil couldn’t hold any longer. He was too outnumbered.

  Ellen wasted no time, simply waved her arm forward and plunged her gelding over the lip of the embankment, holding on for dear life while the horse sledded down on his haunches. Jacques couldn’t sound a charge while his bay slid down since he needed both hands to stay in the saddle; but once he hit the valley floor the trumpet was at his lips and the clear, sweet notes cut through the battle, startling the enemy.

  Sergeant Smolensky and his troops heard that trumpet song and fought with renewed vigor.

  Once again the ground shook as horse hooves thundered across a meadow. The enemy looked up and paled as a tide of death rolled toward them. No one who wasn’t trained to do so could face such a charge. They panicked and ran. But where were they to go? The cavalry was charging from the West. To the North was the barricade and to the East the river.

  A few panicked and simply ran whichever way they were facing. A small number kept their heads and fled south from where they came. But most felt they were trapped with no way out. And these fought desperately as the horses plowed into them driving a furrow deep through their mass.

  Ellen swung her pistol from side to side firing into them, reloading, and firing until the gun barrel was hot. Her palomino fell and before she could pull herself free a man clubbed her. Through dazed eyes she saw Michael shove his shotgun barrel against the man’s head and pull the trigger. Then he was on the ground, fighting above her, while Jacques and Denise reined their mounts around and fought their way back toward her.

  Michael whirled in a circle, firing the pump action Remington so fast it sounded like a machine gun, shredding the men and women nearby. The shotgun snicked empty and he pulled his .357.

  A large man lunged at him. Michael blew a hole in his chest, then kicked him aside and shot another man. A woman screeched and fired at him, the slug burning through his side. He shot her in the face.

  Ellen tried to pull herself up and Michael shoved her back down out of harms way.

  All around them firing slackened as ammo ran low. Everywhere, men and women were using guns as clubs, kicking and stabbing with hunting knives.

  The hammer of Michael’s pistol fell on an empty chamber and he threw it at a man who swung at him with an ax. Michael ducked under the blow and came up inside the man’s reach, braining him with the shotgun.

  Ellen struggled to her feet, knocking Michael’s hand away when he tried to push her back down. She fired her last bullet, killing a man who thrust at her with a pitchfork, then wrenched the pitchfork from his failing fingers and stood back to back with Michael while their attackers circled

  .

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nbsp; *

  Emil Smolensky kicked his attacker in the balls with his metal leg and slashed his throat. Beside him, Don Haley muscled a metal fence post out of the ground and swung it like a cleaver.

  The roar of diesels forced them to jump out of the way as Iskos drove the loader over the barricade and plunged into the frightened enemy, Wayne Anderson firing madly from the bucket.

  Jim Cantrell and Randy McKinley didn’t even attempt to climb their bulldozers over the mass of mud and logs, just slammed into it full throttle and pushed it back into the attackers, burying many alive. Jim raised the dozer’s blade to deflect gunfire and smashed into a large group of men, crushing them under his treads as he rolled down on them. Randy McKinley did the same and suddenly those enemy fighters who hadn’t fled the cavalry were bolting in terror. Armor was even more terrifying than horses.

  *

  Three men attacked simultaneously. Ellen impaled one with the pitchfork. Michael cracked another’s ribs with a blow from the shotgun and as the man reeled away, gutted the third with his Kabar. Heart pumping madly he glanced about for the next threat, but the enemy was melting away.

  Ellen’s horse lunged to its feet and Michael boosted his wife into the saddle. Jacques Lachelle pulled up leading Michael’s mare and he swung aboard. Denise handed Ellen a handful of ammunition. More of the cavalry arrived. Aaron and Moira Goldstein shared a mount, her horse having been killed.

  Ellen’s head pivoted as she took in the scene. Dead and dying lying everywhere in bloody gore. Jim Cantrell on the Cat was grinding people into the muck. The battlefield stench hit her like a fist--cordite, blood and voided bowels. Her ears rang, as much from the screaming as the blow to her head.

  Suddenly, she kicked her palomino into a gallop heading south. She had to finish this once and for all. The rest of the horsemen followed across the field and up onto the road, catching the enemy, trampling those who didn’t get out of the way.

  They hit a tight cluster of men and women and bored through like a power drill in soft wood, blasting out into the open.

  Ellen slid her palomino to a stop and whirled it around facing the enemy. The other horsemen formed up on Ellen, a line of death barring escape. The mob milled to a stop, attempting to change direction, no desire but to get away.

  Jim Cantrell and Iskos Theodoratus with the heavy equipment and the remains of the Freeholds infantry arrived and opened up on them from the rear and suddenly Ellen was screaming, “Cease fire!”

  The attackers were throwing down their weapons and raising their hands. Bloodied and wounded and weeping they submitted and the sight tore at Ellen’s heart. Tears ran down her cheeks. If this was victory…she couldn’t help but wonder what she would do in their place.

  Her heart hardened as she saw Michael leaning in the saddle, one hand pressed against his side to staunch a wound. Bright red blood flowed down the side of his face into his beard from a gash on his forehead. One eye was swollen shut and his upper lip was split. She picked a piece of mud from her hair, licked a bloodied lip and wondered if she looked much better. Her head throbbed.

  He caught her looking at him and grinned, letting her know none of his wounds were serious.

  She turned to her horsemen, for the first time noting there were less than thirty left. Killing anger flared as she faced back to the enemy.

  The infantry pushed among them disarming the invaders, who slumped to the ground in defeat. Emil detailed one hundred men to guard them, then approached Ellen.

  “What do we to do with them?”

  She swallowed most of her anger, recalling that these weren’t evil people, just starved and desperate wretches who had lost their sense of decency and murdered her friends and neighbors! In that brief fury she wanted to kill them all, personally. Instead she took a deep breath, clenched her fists, and spoke in a clear steady voice.

  “Hold them here tonight. Tomorrow we’ll use them as a burial detail. We’ll move the bodies up into Allenpark to avoid fouling the river.” She paused, thinking. “After that,” she shook her head. “I don’t know, Emil; but I want their leaders.”

  *

  Michael dumped another kettle of hot water in the bathtub.

  “Too hot,” Ellen scolded. “Too…aaahhh. Just right.” She slumped down into the water until just her face and breasts showed through the steam.

  He grinned as he refilled the kettle and placed it back on the wood stove to heat. Once they finished patching the houses, and restored full heat to the greenhouse, and got the methane digesters back on line, then maybe they could focus on restoring the small-scale hydroelectric plant that had supplied most of the freeholds with electricity. Right now only those few who had gasoline generators or photovoltaic installations had any juice at all, and between the fuel shortage, cloud cover, rain and darkness, they didn’t even have enough to keep the alkaline battery rechargers going to power flashlights. Until then, he and Ellen would heat bath water on the wood stove and be thankful for it.

  He slipped into the tub behind her, the hot water making his bullet-burn sting. His legs slid down her velvety flanks and she leaned back against his chest.

  “Mmmmmm.” She wiggled against him and he felt himself respond. They had been so busy surviving and getting reorganized it felt like forever since they had made time for each other.

  *

  Ellen wiped the smile from her face while she smoothed a Neosporin and aloe salve over Michael’s bullet-burn. She hated wearing the sappy smile, but loved the contentment it sprang from. Her legs felt like rubber. Her hands left the area of his wound and kneaded his back. The smile reappeared on her face, matching the one on his.

  Suddenly she wondered if their lovemaking had anything to do with the fact they had been fighting for their lives a few hours ago. Post-combat horniness? She rolled a gauze pad over Michael’s wound and taped it in place. Does the nearness of death stimulate reproductive proclivity?

  Michael rolled over and pulled her down to him. To hell with it, she thought. Go with the flow.

  *

  “Burial detail’s done for our folks ma’am,” Emil Smolensky said. He handed her a list consisting of 506 names.

  “Anything else before we start burying their dead?” The rain was pouring down harder than ever, glistening as it ran in streams off his camo pattern poncho; but the sky seemed lighter than it had in months. He turned toward the prisoners. Hundreds of them were sitting in the mud, a few standing, using the rain to clean themselves off.

  “Ellen?” Jim Cantrell asked.

  She stared at the list shaking her head. 506 Freeholders. Friends and neighbors. Some of them were names of people she hadn’t even liked, but they’d all died defending her home.

  She’d met with the rations committee earlier. There was not enough food, even with so many gone to feed the prisoners.

  “Ellen?” Jim prodded. “I think we need three work parties, like we discussed earlier.”

  She raised her head and looked him in the eye. “Yes,” she said, coming back to herself slowly. “Jim, will you take charge of…” she paused--it was even hard to say--”the prisoners who will be butchering their dead?” It was how the people who attacked them had been surviving and it was how they would eat until she was done with them.

  “Michael? Would you and Iskos scoop out a hole for the remains and supervise their burial?”

  He nodded and left to find Iskos and fire up the Cat.

  She turned back to Emil. “Use the rest on sandbagging detail.” Ellen pointed to the river.

  “You can’t do this!” The voice floated up from the crowd. A wild-eyed man, his black hair plastered to his scalp pushed his way through the crowd. Alexi’s inner voice told him to shut up but his anger drove him on. “We aren’t slaves.”

  “No,” Ellen snapped. “You’re murderers!” She’d just finished the damage reports. The full extent of the disaster last night staggered her.

  “It isn’t murder when you do what you must to survive!” Alexi F
ederov shouted back.

  “Only if you won!” her answering shout silenced him. “I’m quite certain that if you had won last night you’d rationalize your actions somehow. But you didn’t win. And as the victors we have every right to call you murderers. More than five hundred of us died last night defending our homes and families from you.”

  She still couldn’t comprehend why, so in one last effort to understand, she asked, “Why attack us? We don’t have stores of food. Our ribs show almost as bad as yours. Our children cry themselves to sleep with hunger pangs. We have nothing to--”

  “You have everything!” Alexi screamed, waving his arms. “You live in houses. We shiver under tarps. Your children still have strength to cry. Ours lay listless with distended bellies. You ride horses while the grain you feed them or their meat would keep us alive.

  “You have something to eat,” Alexi Federov railed at her as he stalked to the very edge of the crowd, stopping only when weapons were leveled at him. His attitude proclaimed surer than words that he was their leader. “We eat our dead!”

  “And this is our fault? We worked--”

  “You worked!” Alexi yelled, interrupting her. “We worked until we ran out of strength and had to beg for help.”

  “You didn’t run out of strength!” She pinned him with a hard stare. “You had strength to attack us, to murder us and burn our homes--homes we rebuilt after the quakes and fires. We siphoned gasoline from abandoned cars to power generators so we could have lights to grow food indoors. We hunted and fished and scavenged food from empty houses. We cut wood and burned it indoors to stay warm. We melted and boiled snow for drinking water and filtered that through old nylons to get out the ash.

  “But unlike you, we didn’t give up our homes and go elsewhere to beg for a handout. We remained a community and we helped each other. And if you had done as we, you wouldn’t be here now.”

  Alexi stared up at her through his unruly black hair. His voice blasted at her when he spoke. “We did not abandon our homes. We were driven out by gangs who murdered us, who enslaved our neighbors or killed them for food!”