Copyrighted material. Do not reproduce without permission of publisher, Zumaya Publications, and author, Joan Upton Hall

 

Study guides are available on request for book clubs and classes.

Email:   jmuHall@aol.com

ARTURO EL REY

Chapter 1: The Plague 

August, 2011

Under his gas mask, sweat trickled along a new knife-scar on Lance Corporal Art Reyes’s cheekbone. Los Angeles’s heat cooked up the mask’s rubbery stink and steamed his goggles. An NBC Suit would have been even hotter, but as much as he hated that and the scrub-down after discarding it, he felt naked to the plague virus without it. Vulnerability crept up the back of his head, left bare by a high and tight Marine haircut.

Earlier Marine expeditionary units had used up the supply of Nuclear-Biological-Chemical protective gear. And for what? Only thirteen of his unit were still standing, not enough for mob control.

The hospital loomed behind them, all black glass and concrete. It had been the city’s newest, a beacon of hope for the sick, with state-of-the-art equipment and an elite staff. Until it filled up. Outside, cries of agony rose and fell in a discordant hum.

Out of the hundreds sprawled in the parking lot, a gray-haired couple caught Reyes’s eye as they inched forward. The woman supported the man whose face looked like half-melted wax. He collapsed, and she fell with him. A dark, bloody mass let loose at the seat of his slacks. Authorities said the plague liquefied a person’s insides.

Olive drab trucks, six-bys, blocked all entrances except a curved cascade of steps that led to the front door. Marines held their M-20s at port arms to barricade that passageway from the civilian mob. The massive glass doors reflected the early morning sunlight in vertical slabs like clenched teeth.

Orderly procedure was supposed to facilitate quicker attention, and at nineteen, who was Reyes to question his superiors? He’d botched his own life plenty of times. But there were no new admittances, and the only releases he’d seen were in body bags out the back door into six-bys to be hauled off.

“Stand firm, Marines.” Sergeant Jones stalked the line, his voice metallic through his mask. He moved further back to communicate with his superiors on his compact Singars radio.

Ironic that the military would use Singars. Sure, their frequency-hopping capability could foil enemy listeners. But who the hell was the enemy?

Recent boot camp indoctrination blocked Reyes’s survival instincts, but holding the line would have been easier if the sight before him was completely fogged. It wasn’t.

A disheveled blonde woman struggled under the weight of a small child, wrapped in a blue blanket printed with little yellow ducks. The blanket looked as if it had been dragged around and cuddled too much. Probably the kid’s favorite. His small head wobbled with every step the woman took. When she came closer, Reyes could hear her crooning, “...and if that mocking bird don’t sing...” Her voice thinned to a hum.

Had the kid looked like her? Reyes couldn’t tell for the purple swelling of ruptured veins under the skin, but he tried not to think about it. Blood from the kid’s puffy eyelids dribbled to join a red stream from his nose. The young mother shifted her little boy’s weight and mopped at the blood with a corner of the blanket.

She set down a gallon water jug, that she’d carried hooked over one finger. When she eased down on the hot asphalt, a guy near her eyed the bottle. Trouble.

Why hadn’t somebody told her there was no room in the hospital before she started out? Reyes tore his gaze away. Better to think of them as one teeming lump, not even human. Better to be just one cog in the wheel of the Corps’ battle machine, following orders.

Sergeant Jones seemed to have no trouble with orders. Stocky and gravel-voiced, he had marched along the line spreading confidence since predawn hours when this unit came out. He left them only long enough to use the Singars or to check conditions in the hospital lobby, which was serving as a decontamination area.

A scowling young man in a suit and tie called to the sergeant, “Hey, is it true they have a vaccine in there?”

“No.”

“Ha!” yelled a redneck in jeans and a gimme cap. “You mean not enough. They’re hoarding it for the rich bastards.”

“I can pay, sergeant.” The suited man held up a briefcase. “You’ll get your cut just to let me through.”

“Sonofabitch!” The redneck grabbed his shoulder.

Sergeant Jones raised his M-20.

The suited man jerked free and bellowed. He charged through the crowd and swung the briefcase, knocking down anyone in his path. His rage ignited others, and they fell in behind him.

Sergeant Jones’s rifle thundered. The man staggered backward, gazing at the bloody hole in his chest. He laughed in disbelief, then crumpled lifeless to the pavement.

“Jesus Christ!” The Marine beside Lance Corporal Reyes nearly dropped his weapon.

“Get back in line!” Reyes ordered and the soldier remembered himself before anyone could seize on his weakness.

The crowd fell back, the sun beating them down. When a Marine reported sickness or wavered, Sergeant Jones sent him to the truck they’d arrived in, but was there anyone to care for them? The sergeant went inside the hospital. Was it Reyes’s imagination, or did he stagger a bit?

In the mob, healthy people would now and then carry away the body of someone they must have loved, loved a lot. Most bodies were abandoned where they fell.

The sergeant trudged back out of the hospital, his failed gas-mask in his hand. Purple welts distorted his face. His eyes were raw liver.

“Remove masks at your own discretion, Marines,” he called out. “Headquarters just confirmed they’re useless.” He went back inside.

A few uncertain hands fingered the devices but none acted. Lance Corporal Reyes removed his. If he was going to die, by God, it wouldn’t be from heat stroke. The air hitting his face reminded him of something he’d grown used to in the past few days. Oily black smoke from the garbage dump filtered the daylight to an unnatural color. The stench of burning corpses hung in the air.

“Get comfortable. This could last awhile.” Reyes’s accent, a cross between Texan and Spanish, marked his origins. His light gray eyes against tan skin showed his mixed race. The others seemed to find reassurance in his lack of plague symptoms, and they too took off the masks.

As the morning wore on, the sergeant ordered Reyes into the building, where he found conditions only slightly better. The staff had given up maintaining the lobby as a decontamination area and moved between it and the hospital rooms without decon procedure. Even some of the staff lacked NBC Suits.

Back outside, Reyes realized the main difference was having to wait in the broiling sun. Death didn’t seem particular.

Somewhere on another street they heard plate-glass breaking, shouts, gunfire. If martial law was called for, some other unit would have to take care of it. Somebody else’s detail, a detail he would have preferred. At least, looters were looking for trouble.

The young mother sat on the hot pavement, still rocking her dead child while she shaded his face with the ducky blanket.

Reyes stared through them. Don’t think of them as separate people. Giving a damn hurts too much. But how could he keep from it? Giving a damn was what had made him trade in the gang world for the Marines. Presented a way to do what he was good at, fighting, without going dead from the neck up like guys who had been in the gangs too long.

“Reyes,” Sergeant Jones said behind him.

He turned to see blood snaking out of the sergeant’s nostril. The civilians backed away fast.

The sergeant corked the flow with his thumb and shoved the radio into Reyes’s hand. “You’re in command, Reyes. Hold your position. You’ll take further orders from Lieutenant Haggarty inside the hospital. Trouble is he’s sick too.” The sergeant’s misshapen face showed no emotion. He headed up the steps toward the hospital door, weaving like a drunk. Twice he sank to his knees, got up, and finally toppled face down. His face crunched against the step, and blood spread from under it.

The sight of their dead sergeant on the steps shook the men. He’d been immortal to them. Immovable and invulnerable. Like The Corps. Now he was gone, a disintegrating corpse. Hopelessness was setting in. Panic would follow.

A lance corporal makes a pretty weak leader. And I thought I was such hot shit getting promoted right out of boot camp.

When Reyes dragged the sergeant off to a flower bed flanking the steps, nausea surged through him. He’d grown up with street fights and seen a lot of bad stuff. Knife wounds in gang fights. Violent deaths. But he’d never handled a contaminated corpse before. He covered it with a sheet he got from inside. Nothing he could do about the blood drying on the steps.

Emptiness and fatigue made it difficult to focus on his duty. He took a sip of water from his canteen and grimaced. It tasted bad, but at least it was boiled and supposedly safe to drink. Forget how much water he’d consumed before they realized it was contaminated.

“Better ration the water you have in your canteens,” he called out. “We might be here awhile.”

These were guys he’d joked with, shared training with, griped about hard treatment with. He wanted to tell them he was scared too, but if he did, discipline would go to hell. And everything depended on discipline.

Where’s the relief shift?

He opened communication on the radio, brought it to his ear, and made his voice sound as mechanical as the device in his hand. When he raised Lieutenant Haggarty, he reported the situation. Put into bare words, it sounded insignificant. “Sergeant Jones is dead. No other casualties among the Marines for a while now, sir. But I’m not sure how much longer they can hold up. Can I tell them how long before we get relieved, sir?”

After a long, static-filled pause, a weak voice on the other end of the line said, “The radio and TV stations that are still operative are broadcasting that the hospital’s full. No reinforcements available, Lance Corporal. Carry on.” He didn’t wait for Reyes’s “Yes, sir.”

While people in and out of uniform collapsed, new waves of civilians kept rolling in. They banked up in the parking lot. Five Marines, besides himself, remained on their feet. As their numbers had decreased, the Marines had gradually pulled back and were half-way up the steps. The crowd could have engulfed them if they’d tried. These five Marines must have known it too, but they didn’t show it.

In the uneasy lull of crowd activity, he went around among the Marines to give them encouragement and to distribute crackers and candy bars he’d gotten out of a vending machine in the hospital lobby. Too bad the drink machines were empty, but he dared not fill canteens from the faucets.

He realized that none of the five had dropped since the last count a couple of hours ago. While he talked to them, he studied their faces for symptoms of the virus. They looked tired. They looked worried. But they didn’t look sick, and he felt healthy enough himself.

“Here’s some chow to eat while you can. Go easy on your water supply. I don’t like the looks of some of the crowd. Our orders are to shoot if we have to.”

“Like Sergeant Jones did?”  Benny rested the butt of his M-20 between his feet and tore the cellophane off his peanut butter crackers with his teeth. Benny was close to thirty years old, a black career man and fellow Texan who had taken Reyes under his wing ever since he arrived at Camp Pendleton. Why wasn’t Benny in charge instead of him? But Benny kept getting busted down to private due to one insubordination or another.

“Seems pretty damn cold, don’t it, Art?” Benny said.

Lance Corporal Art Reyes didn’t answer. At least the afternoon sun had swung a shadow over the front of the hospital. Dead-eyed, the black glass facade no longer glared, and the dark entrance was a slack mouth.

Sun on the parking lot had beaten down the sea of people. Their defeat shook Reyes’s sense of control. Discipline. Lance Corporal Reyes must hold his position here, but damn if that meant shooting citizens you were supposed to protect.

Only vaguely aware of what he was looking at, Reyes saw the young mother soaking the corner of the ducky blanket from her water jug. She began bathing the child’s face.

“Hey!” A man near her shouted. “Don’t waste that on a dead baby!” He grabbed the bottle, and the woman shrieked.

The crowd surged forward, and Reyes lifted his rifle. Something heavy struck his head. He fell backward. Dazed, he looked up at the hospital’s slick facade.

But its glass and concrete blurred out, became ancient, mossy stone. The walls of a castle, one he loved fiercely. He was on a horse, and he wore knight’s armor, heavy but familiar. The dream darkened and fog closed in, so dense he couldn’t see. Dread engulfed him. Just out of his memory’s grasp--the knowledge that worse was yet to come. He tried to blank out all thought.

A knight in black armor bellowed and charged at him. The opponent’s ax clanged against Reyes’s shield. The impact unbalanced him for a second. Adrenaline surged through him. He swung his mace, wheeling his horse to add force. Through the mist, the spiked, steel ball crumpled metal. Connected with flesh and bone.

His head cleared and he was back to reality. Benny helped him to his feet behind the other four Marines, whose bayonets held the mob at bay. Only three insurgents really, the other people hanging back as if waiting for an opportunity.

Farther away, he saw the young woman trying to retrieve her water jug while holding her baby’s body with one arm. The thief held her off and guzzled, water dribbling off his chin. The woman sank to the ground in defeat.

Reyes fired his rifle in the air. Its sudden thunder silenced even the flies. The mob moved back. The water thief froze, his eyes wide as he turned around.

“Give it back,” Reyes commanded.

A gray-haired woman rose to her feet beside the thief, and Reyes recognized her as the one who had collapsed beside her dying husband who still lay in a pool of his own fluids. She took the water jug from the thief like a stern parent correcting a naughty boy. She gave the jug to the young mother and knelt beside her.

“The water’s yours,” Reyes hooked his rifle strap over his shoulder. “Go ahead.”

The young mother blinked up at him in bewilderment. She brushed away a dried crust from the little boy’s eye, then bundled the blanket all around him, covering his hands, his feet, his face. She struggled to her feet with the older woman’s help and stepped up to Reyes. Holding out the bundle to him, she pleaded, “With your sergeant?”

“My honor, ma’am.” Reyes took the bundle, an odd mix of fuzzy softness, damp slime, and crusted nap in his hands. Somehow, it didn’t revolt him this time. If he was going to catch this virus, it must be already working inside him. He did a sharp about-face and bore the bundle up the steps to the flower bed. He placed it gently beside the sheet-wrapped form of Sergeant Jones.

The two women held to each other.

Discipline. Lance Corporal Reyes must report in on the Singars. With forced composure, he called the lieutenant.

Nothing for several attempts till finally a shrill voice answered, “Lieutenant Haggarty’s dead. We can’t faze this damned virus. Let ‘em mob the hospital if they want to. I’m going home.”

The lance corporal couldn’t raise anybody else at Company Headquarters, so he called Battalion Headquarters. Without any lower-ranking intermediaries, a tired voice answered, “Major Peterson here.”

Art identified himself and the situation, asking for backup.

“Son, your mission is unachievable. We’ve done all we can do. You men are relieved. Save yourselves if you can.”

“Sir?”

“Son, we can’t even raise anybody in Washington. Not at the Pentagon. Not at the White House. Not anybody. I’m the only officer here and I’ve got the virus. Just enough time to destroy the Camp Pendleton arsenal and keep it out of terrorists’ hands.”

At sixteen hundred, Lance Corporal Reyes’s order-response mechanism failed. He shook like a defective robot. His mind dredged up an awful sense of the time before...Before what? For an instant, he almost remembered, as if through a door barely ajar, a glimpse of familiar things gone wrong. And the blame was his, wasn’t it? The door of his memory creaked shut.

It must have been that damn dream that came when he got hit. No more than that, but why the hell does it seem so familiar? I’ve never worn armor, and I don’t know a horse’s front end from its ass.

On the way back outside, the rebel inside him aroused his survival instincts. “Marines, listen up. Battalion Headquarters has released us from duty.” He waited a second for the news to soak in. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m going home to Texas.”

He was barely aware of the footsteps that followed him, five sets of combat boot heels echoing off the concrete and the muffled steps of the two women who had surrendered their dead.

* * *

In the shadows of the wet concrete guardrail, twelve-year-old Shanna Cranston huddled against her daddy with a voiceless prayer: Don’t let the bad men see us! The men lurked in the highway that passed under the bridge where they hid. Her small fingers, clammy from misting rain, clutched her father’s jacket as if he too might be wrenched out of her life. Her teeth chattered, spasms of violent shivering gripped her body, and her father’s warmth couldn’t stop it.

In school only two weeks before, Shanna had enjoyed a certain special treatment as the daughter of Texas A & M University professor, Richard Cranston, Ph.D. Enjoyed gossiping with her friends between classes. Triumphed in A+ papers that she’d show to her mom, who smiled and waited for her in the car.

But that was before Mom got sick. Before practically everybody Shanna knew got sick.

And died.

That was before she saw the newspaper with the giant headlines, “Germ Warfare Kills Thousands in Cities Worldwide.”

She hadn’t understood then and she didn’t understand now. But from where she and Daddy concealed themselves, she could still see the rooftops of their old neighborhood and their own house ablaze through the mist that veiled the city. Ablaze by her father’s own hands.

“This way the damned looters won’t defile Mom’s things, darlin’,” Daddy had said in a choked voice.

Shanna watched from the doorway, hurting too much to wonder why he splashed gasoline over and around the bed.

Sudden flames claimed Mom’s body and Shanna felt her father’s arms sweep her, screaming, out of the house. Through a blur, she knew they had started out in the car but abandoned it when a mob with crowbars and axes blocked the road several cars ahead. Her father grabbed up an armload of their belongings from the back seat and hustled her three long blocks to the overpass. Glass crunched under their shoes. Smoke hung, sodden in the mist.

Now, in the shadows beneath a broken street lamp, they hid from the hunched forms below.

“Shh,” Daddy whispered. “Gotta be quiet, baby! Shh.” His bristly jaw pressed against her forehead. There was a different smell about his sweat, and it scared her. His arms held her too hard and his rifle hurt her ribs, but she clung to him, her teeth chattering.

The drop-off to the highway below looked like a window into the Hell preachers talked about. A van’s headlights in the fog gave an eerie glow to the men who flagged it down. They yanked open the doors and dragged out the screaming passengers. Shanna’s gaze locked on a girl about her age--hair long and caramel colored like Shanna’s own. The girl broke free and started to run. But one of the men caught her by the hair.

A keening sound came out of her like nothing Shanna had ever heard. The men-turned-monsters clubbed the people. Two men, a woman, and a toddler, chubby and cute as her best friend’s little brother.

Daddy’s hand turned Shanna’s face the other direction. She tried to shut out the screams, sounds of hard objects clubbing flesh, curses, car doors slamming, tires squealing. The van sped off, and the girl’s keening sound faded away with them.

 

Shanna and Cranston claimed an old Ford pickup and took to the back roads. Everywhere they went, they found dead people and silent, empty towns. Certain images stamped themselves into Shanna’s mind.

A pack of dogs stripped meat from a corpse, and all her daddy said was, “Good. The Plague doesn’t seem to affect animals,” the way he talked about one of his academic projects.

And the man in the blood-red limousine. They had to stop at a one-way bridge where the vehicle was parked, its driver slumped over the steering wheel.

“Come on, darlin’,” Cranston said. “We’re nearly outta gas anyway. We’ll take that car.” He didn’t seem to think twice as he pried stiff fingers off the steering wheel and pulled the driver’s body out on the ground. The man’s pockets were stuffed with money, and a tangle of gold chains dangled out. But the Plague’s tell-tale signs swelled his face with purplish blotches, the way Mom’s once beautiful face had become.

Cranston dragged a TV set from the back seat and dumped it on the road. It crashed beside the man, who lay on his side, still in sitting position, his hands gripping a phantom steering wheel. Cranston said, “We damn sure won’t be watching any TV. We’ll need this space for blankets and food. Get in, sweetie.”

Shanna shrank from walking past the dead man. The corpse looked like he might reach out and grab her. She hurried around and scrambled into the seat beside her father.

“But, Daddy, the stores are all closed.” She pointed toward the dead man and stammered, “We aren’t gonna be looters, are we? Like him?”

“Honey, people we take things from don’t need them anymore.”

“D-dead?”

“I’m afraid so, darlin’.”

“But, Daddy, there might be germs.”

“It’s okay. Looks like the germs don’t like some of us.”

If only she could get rid of the rotten smells that stuffed her nose. At least, she slept warm in the limousine that night. It was comfortable riding the next day too. Then the engine chugged to a halt and her daddy couldn’t restart it.

“Well, honey,” he said, “I’m afraid we’ll have to walk. Have to give up some of our comforts.” He lightened his load to a backpack and a rifle, shouldered them and turned away.

“But, Daddy.”  She held up his maroon-tinted, alligator briefcase. “Mom gave you this.”

“I’ve only got room to carry what we need to stay alive.”

“I could--”

“No, Shanna, you’ll be doing well to carry yourself as far as we’ve got to go.”

She thought she saw tears in his eyes for a second but decided she must be wrong. Other daddies might cry, but hers never did. Just the same, she bit back the question, Where are we going? She stroked the glossy surface of the briefcase one more time and traced the words on the brass nameplate, “Richard Cranston, Ph.D., Agricultural Engineer.”

“Whoever that was,” Cranston said and started walking. He smiled but it twisted his mouth funny.

She hurried to keep up with him.

“Don’t worry, honey. Nobody’s going to hurt you if I have to grind every thug into the ground from here to Kingdom Come.”

Violence and hunger blurred all her impressions together.

Shanna woke up sick the second day. She only half knew it when Cranston took the risk and carried her into a town, calling, “Help! I need a doctor for my little girl.”

From her semi-conscious state, she heard her father talking to several other people. She picked up part of what they said.

“...come with us. We’ve got a doctor.”

They put her to bed on a pallet. A gray-haired doctor studied her through glasses riding halfway down his nose and said, “Your daughter just has the flu...complicated by exposure and trauma.”

The next thing she knew, a woman was humming a lullaby and bathing her face with a cool cloth. Shanna opened her eyes to see, not Mom as she hoped, but a plump, gentle face she had never seen before. Shanna’s pallet was at the end of a school gym. A banner read, ”Panthers Rule,” but she couldn’t stay awake to keep looking.

When she awoke now and then, her gaze roved around the white-painted walls, and she always found either her father or the woman beside her.

She asked the woman, “What’s your name?”

“Nancy.”

“Do you have any kids?”

“Had two little girls--the older one about your age.” The woman sniffed and busied herself folding clothes. “The Plague...”

“...Mommy too,” Shanna murmured and her hot eyelids fluttered shut. Fragments of the grownups’ talk drifted to her from across the room.

“Damned terrorists!” A voice invaded her consciousness. “Even did themselves in.”

“Served ‘em right,” another voice said.

Daddy said, “Last news reports I heard were that Europe and the Middle East wiped each other out with nuclear missiles.”

“My God.”

“Anybody know...places like China and Australia?”

“Might never know. Thank God we were spared the nukes.”

Daddy said, “For what? Goddamn Marauders seem bent on finishing off whoever the Plague didn’t take.”

Shanna’s eyes popped open in panic.

The woman soothed her. “Shh. It’s all right. Don’t you worry, baby, Nancy’s here to take care of you, and so’s your daddy.”

Across the room, another voice spoke, “Doc, there haven’t been any new cases for several days. How come we didn’t catch it?”

“I guess we have a natural immunity,” the doctor said.

“Must have some recessive gene,” Cranston said.

Uninterested in their incomprehensible words, she let sleep drag her back down. But a day or two later, when she felt better, she listened to her father telling about their destination.

“...a thirty-acre compound, self-sufficient, uses intensive agriculture. It’s got a lake on the south side and a steep cliff drop-off on the north. A chain-link fence blocks the other two sides. We could electrify the fence to keep Marauders out for awhile. Probably have to put up more fortification later.”

Shanna’s spirits rallied. She knew the station at Lake Travis, the other side of Austin, a wonderful place with fragrant gardens and orchards, animals to pet, and a lake to swim in. She and Mom always loved going there with Daddy when he went to inspect it. It wouldn’t seem right without Mom, but Shanna was glad to hear they’d be leaving here. This town smelled like dead people, and everybody acted like scared mice.

Daddy said, “I designed the compound to cut down on the amount of space needed for farming. A & M University, where I work--used to work--set it up as an experiment to deal with over-population.”

“Ha,” somebody said, “and here we are, what did the TV say? Ten or fifteen percent survived?”

“Then let the compound keep us alive,” Daddy said. “You won’t be able to make it here when the food in the stores runs out. And what if Marauders come back? This place would be impossible to defend, and the hoodlums that are left are organizing into gangs.”

“And you think we could do better at this compound of yours?”

“Damn right. It’s got its own electrical power, water, everything you need. Any of you who want to come along, you’re welcome. We’ll need more hands to fight off Marauders than the people employed there, and who knows if we’ll find any of them alive?

His hands knotted into fists. “I can tell you this, by God, I will make it work. And I’ll crush anybody who tries to take it away from us.”

Chapter 2:  The Jungles of San Antonio

 

2013, Post-Plague, Year 3

Art Coulter Reyes led eleven other bikers down the empty interstate. Gloria rode double with him, copper hair flying in the wind. For a moment, her fingers reached under his leather vest to tease at his spine. Spring wildflowers crowded the roadside in a riot of color and fragrance, but Art had to watch for great, weedy cracks in the pavement.

A rusty sign, hanging upside down by one screw, announced, “SAN ANTONIO ALAMO PLAZA DISTRICT NEXT EXIT.”

Against the early sunset, skyscrapers and the HemisFair Tower stood as proud as if they still served a purpose. Survival was easier now since his gang was big enough not to be messed with, but damn, life seemed pointless. He could have made it his point to claim a piece of territory like some gangs did, but there was no shortage of emptiness, and recreational head-bashing wasn’t his brand of beer.

Near the off-ramp, vines grew over the remains of a flame-gutted house. Inside the sagging chain-link fence, the wind squeaked the gate and nudged a child’s swing. A doe and fawn grazing there jerked their heads up, sailed over the fence, and disappeared into the woods.

Art raised a hand and the group slowed their motorcycles to a stop. He pushed his reflective sunglasses on top of his head. The scar that sliced across his cheekbone and chin had turned white and thin now. He wore jeans and a leather vest without a shirt, revealing a Marine Corps emblem on one biceps, but the military high and tight had yielded to cropped, curly hair with a bandanna sweatband tied around it Apache style.

Over his shoulder, Gloria’s beautiful face bore a tattoo on one cheek, an ornate dagger cutting off a tear. Copper hair fluffed out around her head. While the Plague was raging, both she and Art had returned to the Children’s Home they grew up in, and she’d been with him ever since.

The next guys in line came up alongside him, two men who had been with him since LA, the last of his Marine buddies. Blade, beefy, and crazy as hell, stayed barely in check due to Art’s rank.

Good old Benny was the one man Art knew he could count on, for either back up or a joke. His chocolate-colored face always seemed to hint at some private mirth.

Fifteen-year-old Tom rode on the back of Benny’s bike. His eyes, nesting over-large in their sockets, were dark with fear at the thought of entering San Antonio.

“What are you stopping for?” Gloria asked.

“Just thinking,” Art said. With motorcycle engines at idle, he heard the cries of jungle birds. Then, from somewhere among the abandoned skyscrapers, came the screams of a cat fight, big cats that had been set loose from the zoo during Plague-times. Concrete and asphalt were their lairs now, and the parks and River Walk their feeding grounds.

“Whoa!” Benny said. “That ain’t Garfield and Spot in there.”

Tom shuddered and clamped his jaws tight. No wonder, less than a year ago, Tom had been one of the kids left to fend for themselves in that new-style jungle.

One day, the Knights had chased off a pack of wild dogs from their prey trapped in a culvert, prey Art mistook for a monkey. He grabbed it as it fled. He remembered the whimpering thing in his hands, heart pounding against thinly-covered ribs. It stunk with a mixture of sweat, fear, spoiled food, and blood from the raw meat it had snitched. Wide eyes glared white. Rags of clothing and its skin were muddied to one even brownish gray, and the whole bundle couldn’t have weighed more than eighty pounds. Only then did he realize it was human, one of the Post-Plague “gophers.”

The boy hadn’t been able to speak when Art first took him in. Damn if he ain’t a dummy, Gloria had said. Why do you always have to save the fucking world? Too late, he’d told her, it’s already screwed.

Gloria pinched him back to the present. “Come on, Art. We’ve gotta hole up behind a good, solid door before night.”

“We’ve got time.”

“Shit!” Blade said. “Gloria ain’t scared of nothing. She’s having a fit for that brew at Rosie’s Tavern.”

“Go swim in the river.” She sneered, and Blade guffawed.

Art imagined the River Walk as it had been three years ago, winding through the town, peopled with sightseers enjoying shady, sidewalk cafes and lazy boat rides. But now the crocodiles owned the San Antonio River.

Art put his glasses back on. His face went stony as he shifted gears and led on into the cavernous, empty streets where the buildings grew taller.

The unpeopled city reminded him of his dreams where Stonehenge’s huge uprights surrounded him. The dreams would start out okay--no, better than that. Good as coming home after a long absence. Like the previous night when he’d started out as a little boy, pretending Stonehenge was his castle. Grass cushioned his bare feet. A cool breeze carried the scent of...What kind of blossom? He’d once known. Why couldn’t he think of the name?

Then came the repetitious part. The part that woke him up in night sweats. Fog would close in, so dense he couldn’t see. He’d find himself a knight embattled. He’d swing his mace at his opponent and feel bone crushing. Triumph!

But when the air cleared, he’d see his Mexican mother and Caucasian father crumpled before him like paper figures. Totally out of synch, in jeans and western boots, his most hated, lifelong enemy would stand there, his acne-pussed face laughing, laughing.

Why Eddie Reeves? Art had purged Eddie out of his life when he’d left San Antonio to join the Marines. Jesus, those dreams hounded him.

The sensations felt as real as the motorcycle purring under him now. As real as the eleven members of his “Knights” riding behind him. As real as Gloria’s thumbs hooked into the loops of his jeans, her fingers on his hips, drumming out the rhythm of the song she hummed over his shoulder. And her hair now and then brushed his face when she turned her head in the wind.

They drove down East Houston Street. A sidewalk squeezed alongside an old stone wall that ran the length of the block. It was part of the Alamo grounds, and he’d never been able to pass it without the hairs on his neck standing up. Of course, there was a live reason for that nowadays. He had to keep alert for attackers hiding behind that wall, either four-legged with fangs and claws or two-legged with Uzis and knives.

Rosie’s Tavern was on another street perpendicular to Alamo Plaza. The aroma of grilled meat greeted them before they reached the wooden sign creaking in the wind. Half a dozen Harleys and Hondas were chained to parking meters in front. The Knights parked, chained their bikes, and went inside, Tom almost glued to Art’s side.

In the dingy room, a few customers played cards and drank beer. Two of the regular whores sat unoccupied. All eyes turned toward the Knights when they entered, then relaxed as the Knights split up.

Rosie, a sturdy, bulldog-faced woman, laid down the sawed-off shotgun she readied at each new arrival. Seeing who they were, she gave a curt “Howdy.”

Ezra, her common-law-husband and business partner, grinned broadly and stowed his baseball bat under the bar. Art knew the customers would back up the pair at the first sign of trouble. Nobody wanted Rosie’s Tavern shut down.

Benny and three other Knights stacked barter items on the counter, tow-sacks full of salvaged ammo, cases of beer, and fresh game. Rosie started up a CD player with some guy singing about his achey, breaky heart. Then she went over to inventory the goods for their credit.

Art and Tom took barstools, and Ezra set down two mugs of beer, froth running down the cool glasses. The women served the other Knights.

Ezra said, “Art, old buddy, you look hungry enough to eat a skunk with the hair still on.”

“I’d rather have chorrizo con huevos. Got any?”

“Just plain sausage but plenty of eggs.”

“No doubt about the chickens.” Art held his nose. “We’ll take it.”

The barnyard smell coming from the attached building and the chug-chugging of a gasoline powered-generator for the refrigerator assured customers of fresh food.

Ezra called the order back to the kitchen and leaned on the bar.

“Wouldn’t happen to have any coffee, would you?” Art asked.

“Haven’t seen any in months. Tell you what, Art. You find coffee and you can forget all the other barter stuff, except gas.”

He and Ezra small-talked through the usual difficulty of finding gas and what a mess everybody would be in when it was used up. Ezra told of a new brewery he was starting up. Business was so good he and Rosie had opened up the old Menger Hotel nearby that had been boarded up since the Plague.

“Worse part was a few skeletons left in there all this time. Guess I should’ve expected it, but...”

“Must have been one of the few places animals couldn’t get in to scavenge.”

“Just rats,” Ezra shook his head. “Damn ugly sight.” After a pause, he seemed to shake off the memories and beamed. “Anyway, we’ve got us a luxury hotel now. How’s that for progress?”

“Regular urban development.”

Rosie, her sleeves rolled above her elbows, lugged out a wire basket of clean dishes and set them on a shelf under the counter. She scowled at Ezra, and he resumed mopping a spot he’d apparently been working on before the Knights came in.

“Art, how do you put up with that damn sicko?” She nodded toward Blade near a barred window. “Him and that ‘blade’ of his.”

Blade sat next to a snaggle-toothed but dolled-up girl of fifteen going on thirty. With his Bowie knife, Blade carved graffiti into his arm, to the girl’s apparent shock. Better than doing it to somebody else, Art figured.

Ezra said, “That old boy sure can give you the screaming meemees.”

“But he’s the best fighter I’ve got,” Art said.

Rosie said, “I won’t have him hurting my girls.” Rosie’s girls ranged in age from early teens to late forties.

A boy brought out the two breakfast plates with tortillas stacked on top and a spicy aroma steaming up. He set the plates before them, smiled at Tom, and returned to the kitchen.

Tom picked up a fork and bent over the plate.

“Well, I swan, if the kid ain’t a regular gentleman,” Rosie said. “Who’d of thought a gopher could clean up so good?” She pulled a dog-eared, rolled-up comic book from her apron pocket and handed it to Art. “My kitchen boy, Juanito, thought he might like this.”

“Great, Tom’s turning into as bad a bookworm as I am.” Art patted a worn paperback in his hip pocket and laid the comic book near Tom’s almost empty plate. The boy’s eyes brightened with excitement.

“Th-thanks.” Tom’s finger traced the cover picture of Cyber-Man flying out of a computer screen. What could that possibly mean to the kid? Or anybody else anymore?

The sound of a chair scraping made Art turn to look back at Blade’s table. The girl backed away from him and came to her feet.

Blade grabbed her arm. “What did you say, bitch?”

She yelped.

Rosie reached for her shotgun.

Art was on his feet and over to the table in an instant. “Let her go, Blade!”

“You can’t tell me how to run my sex life!”

“Hurt that girl, and you won’t have a sex,” Art said.

“Shit! Other gangs take whatever they’re big enough to take. How come we gotta go around acting like some kinda damn cops?”

Without dropping eye-contact, Art pointed at the hand gripping the girl’s arm. Blood trickled from cuts Blade had made on his forearm to impress her.

Blade shoved the girl away from him. She scurried for cover behind the bar.

Blade waved his knife at Art. Art bent and withdrew a Bowie knife from its scabbard in his boot.

Blade wavered for a second, then stabbed his knife into the table top and slumped in a chair. “Bunch of pansies.”

Rosie called, “One more stunt, buster, and you’ll get no more service here!”

As Art replaced his knife and walked back to his seat, Blade mumbled, “One of these days...”

Benny sat down next to Tom and ordered a steak.

Ezra said, “About the girls, me and Rosie never intended to run whores in here. But safe room and board’s no small thing these days. The girls convinced us it was safer to rent their bodies than have psychos like Blade take ‘em for nothing and dump ‘em.”

“Guess that’s true.”

“Uh-oh.” Benny thumbed toward Gloria. “Here comes Miss Sunshine, a couple of whiskeys under her belt and ready to spread a little cheer.”

She wove her way between tables, and Art recognized the nasty stage of her drinking.

Rosie’s jaw jutted out. “And there’s another one you’d be better off without.” She went off to wait on some other customers.

Art turned back to his eggs, which had congealed into rubbery slabs. Gloria plopped onto the stool at his other side.

“Jesus, what kinda rot-gut you serving, Ezra?” She groaned.

“Take Gloria here,” Ezra ignored her question, and Art could tell he was fixing to get on his soap box.

“Fools rush in,” Benny shook his head.

Ezra told her, “You know women have it hard these days.”

“Thanks for the news flash,” Gloria said.

“I’m serious. You don’t know how lucky you are, having a man look out for you.”

She glared.

“Look after her?” Art said. “Besides keeping me happy, Gloria’s a good fighter herself.”

“And nobody better forget it.” She propped her elbows on the bar and clutched her head as if it might otherwise fall off.

Ezra moved off to wait on a customer.

Art looked over Tom’s shoulder while he studied his comic book. “Pretty neat, huh? Read this to me, Tom.” Art pointed to a balloon of Cyber-Man that said, “Hurt innocent people, will you, you fiend! Take that!”

“I’d rather draw,” Tom said, “if I had me some paper.”

“We’ll find some.” Art ruffled the boy’s lank, brown hair. “Maybe some art books too.”

Gloria slapped the bar. “Goddamn! First you give up partying to baby-sit this fucking stray. Now you’re a teacher. What next?”

“You don’t like it, Gloria, you can clear out any time.”

The music changed to a Britney Spears classic, and Maggie, a female Knight, began to dance and pretend to sing the words.

“This beer’s good for one thing.” Gloria slid off the stool, doused the front of her white teeshirt, and shimmied her way to the dance floor.

“Wet teeshirt contest!” The guys clapped and whistled. A couple of them shook up their beer bottles and sprayed Gloria and Maggie.

Art turned back to his plate when he saw Gloria trying to catch his eye. Damn her, always trying to prove how much other guys want her--like I’d love her more for it.

Bam! The front door flew open. Eight men swaggered in just as the song ended. In front was a man with wild black hair and beard. He wore cowboy boots and a neon-yellow nylon jacket, hanging open. The jacket’s oversized shoulder pads couldn’t counterbalance the hairy beer belly lapping over his jeans. Several gold chains hung around his neck.

Something familiar about him raised Art’s hackles.

The man called out, “Anybody know where we can get gas? Up North we could find all the gas we needed.”

Somebody across the room called, “Then get your Yankee ass back where you came from.”

The all-white gang drew up, ready for action.

The leader said, “Yankee? Hell, I’ve come home to San Antone. We’re the Hellions, and me, I’m the head Hellion, Eddie Reeves.”

That name kicked the wind out of Art. Eddie Reeves without the “skinhead” look he’d used in high school! That asshole alive!

Eddie froze when he recognized Gloria. She folded her arms across her chest and sank into a chair. Her face drained of color, but she wouldn’t look away from him.

Art had to admire her gumption for that. He stood up. “Well, if it’s not old home week.”

Reeves stopped in front of him. “Goddamn! Art Reyes?”

“I thought the Plague swallowed you, but I see it spit you out. Guess it didn’t like the taste.”

“It spit out half-breed Meskin bastards too, huh? Hey, you still got that gang you call the ‘Nighties’?”

“Knights!” Three of Art’s men moved closer.

Ezra laid a calming hand on Art’s shoulder, his baseball bat in his other hand. “Okay, settle down, boys.”

Rosie came up behind Eddie and shoved the shotgun barrel against his kidney. “You wanna start a fight, do it some place else. If you need gas, I suggest you get outta here and find it.”

Some of the Hellions drew their weapons.

Rosie said, “Make me pull these triggers and you’ll be taking your boss outta here in little bitty pieces.”

“She’ll do it,” Ezra said.

Eddie hitched up his jeans and told his men, “Put up your weapons, shit-for-brains.” He grinned at Rosie like a dog caught sucking eggs. “We don’t want no trouble--we’re just outta gas. We’re hot and thirsty from hoofing it the last few miles.” He started to lower his hands and turn around.

Rosie jabbed the gun into his side. “I said ‘get out.’”

“Okay, okay. This don’t look like my kinda place anyway.” He stiff-legged toward the door.

Rosie said, “Whoa, get your men out first.”

He stopped and jerked his head in that direction. While the Hellions filed out, he announced, “Anybody got any ideas where to get gas, I’d reward you for it.”

Rosie jabbed him again and he started moving.

A raw-boned drifter stepped forward. “Hey, wait. I’ll take you to a place I just got kicked out of. They’re rolling in riches over there, gas, horses, food, and women. Plenty of women, and I can show you how to get in.”

“Plenty, huh?” Eddie cut his eyes toward the drifter. “You shitting me?”

“Nope. They call the place Cranston’s Compound.”

“Out!” Rosie said.

“You too.” Ezra shoved the drifter.

They went, the door slamming at Eddie’s back.

“I’m gonna be sick!” Gloria clamped her hand over her mouth and ran for the back door.

Art plopped on the stool. All through high school, Eddie and his cohorts had harassed “Meskins, especially the half-breed, bastard kind,” forcing Art to join a gang for defense. And Eddie’s lust for Gloria fueled his hatred for Art, the object of her affections.

Was that what the crazy dreams were about? A warning that Eddie Reeves was back in San Antone? Maybe Art would try once more to see if they could fit in with his commune friends in Abilene.

* * *

Eddie led the way down the street, seething over the insult he’d just had to swallow. He was vaguely aware that his men were bristling with weapons ready against the jungle-like sounds around them. Good. Let them handle anything that attacked. Eddie needed to sort things out.

He’d wanted to give a rebel yell at the sight of Gloria, more gorgeous than ever, with her nipples standing at attention through her soaked shirt. And those pale eyes of hers looking right at him--what did that mean? Was she inviting him for another chance? Just remembering her scent made him horny.

Then the truth crashed in. She was back with Art Reyes. He’s been a fucking boil on my ass ever since high school. The happiest day of Eddie’s life had been when Reyes joined the Marine Corps and left Gloria. Always the tease, Gloria still held Eddie at arm’s length even when she went out with him. He would have won her over if booze and wanting her so much hadn’t got to him. He hadn’t meant to hit her. It just happened. And the more she fought back the more he had to show her who was boss. She shouldn’t have made him force her like that.

About that time, the damn Plague threw a kink in his plans, and he hadn’t seen Gloria again until tonight. Sitting there in all her glory--red hair like a halo. Hell, if the Pearly Gates had angels like that, it’d be worth getting in.

“Hey, man,” the drifter cut into his thoughts. “We’ve gotta get somewhere safe till morning. Only a crazy person would walk these streets--“

Eddie grabbed him by the throat. “I’m the one that calls the shots, shit head! We’re getting outta here as soon as we find some kinda a ride. Somebody’s bound to’ve left a car parked for the night. And don’t make me forget why I need you.”

Now that he thought about it, the streets looked pretty clear. A few abandoned cars and trucks squatted rusting against the curb, but not like right after the Plague. And those few were obviously gutted of car seats and anything the human gophers could use. People like Ezra and Rosie who’d decided to stay in the city must have towed away all the trash they could.

“And the crocks and lions towed off the dead meat.” Eddie chuckled. “Everybody doing his part to keep San Antone beautiful.”

“Huh?” the drifter squeaked.

Eddie released him and kept walking.

A wolf howled a block or so north of them. An answering howl came not forty yards behind.

In the light of the full moon, half the street was bright as dawn, but buildings blacked out the other half. Something in the shadow to their right clattered a piece of loose tin. Eddie realized he’d better put his walk down his shitty memory lane on hold. He drew his full-size Glock 9 from its holster and, with the other hand tossed a piece of loose asphalt in the direction of the sound. A common alley cat darted into the storm drain.

A couple of the guys laughed in relief till a wolf howled again behind them. For an instant Eddie saw three of the suckers silhouetted on a rise of pavement. He took careful aim and fired. A yelp. But all three vanished into the shadows. How had he failed to drop the sonofabitch? Eddie’s marksmanship was legend among his men.

He brought the Glock close to his face to savor the smell of burnt gunpowder and carressed the hot barrel. “Keep close and watch our backs,” he said.

“There’s a pickup, Mr. Eddie,” the drifter whispered and pointed to a Dodge Ram that had probably rolled off the assembly line just before the Plague.

“Joe and Purvis, go check it out,” Eddie said. “We’ll cover you.”

The two men circled it, peering underneath and finally inside. “Looks good, and the tires are up.” Joe said. “Somebody’s just left it for the night.”

Purvis withdrew a slim-jim from his boot and, in a couple of minutes, tripped the lock. He flung open the door and jumped back, weapon ready for anything that might jump out. Nothing did. Joe wriggled in to hot wire the starter.

Eddie turned his attention to movement in front of them where no moonlight touched the street. The faint sound of padded feet and panting breath iced his spine, and he knew they were surrounded.

The pickup engine roared to life.

“Get in the cab,” Eddie elbowed the drifter, and the guy didn’t need a second invitation. Joe was already inside but slid over against the far door. Purvis started to climb behind the steering wheel.

“I’ll drive.” Eddie pulled him back and took his seat. “The rest of you get in the back.”

The others jumped in, but Purvis started to argue. Just then the wolves attacked and Eddie slammed the door. Gunfire erupted from the pickup bed, but Purvis was thrown to the ground, a wolf at his throat.

Eddie threw the truck into gear and spun out. In his rearview, he saw one guy slide out the back. He hung on for a second or two before the wolves dragged him out and abandoned the chase. They had their kill for the night.

The drifter giggled like a damn school girl, but only for a second. Then he screamed, and Joe gave a gagging cry. In the glow of the dashlights, Eddie saw the slick coil of a snake as big around as his arm tightening around Joe’s throat. Another coil slithered up from behind the seat and looped around his face.

Eddie was braking to a stop when Joe managed to open the cab door, struggling to tear the snake loose and throw it out.

The drifter was doing his best to crawl over Eddie. Eddie punched the guy, and he slumped unconscious on the seat, but the vehicle swerved. 

Joe fell out, wrapped in snake. The truck bumped as they ran over him. Eddie shrugged and sped up with the door banging, and a red light flashing “door ajar” on the dashboard--No shit.

But he was glad to see the drifter stirring awake, shaking his head. Eddie rolled down the window and shouted to the guys in the back, “Next stop, Lake Travis!” The wind felt good in his hair. Too bad it had to be Joe and Purvis. They were handier than all four of the guys he had left.

He smiled at the drifter. Might as well be nice to him till he showed Eddie what he needed to know. The guy would have to die of course. If he’d been kicked out of the place, it wouldn’t do to bring him along as a recommendation. And this could be just the break Eddie needed to move up in the world. Get some real power, and he’d put that Meskin in his place and have Gloria begging him to take her back.

“Close the door, would you?” he told the drifter amiably. “Now what was it you called that paradise you were telling us about?”

“Cranston’s Compound.” The drifter obeyed with a sigh of relief, grinned, and settled back for the last ride of his life.

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