Graham Masterton - Plague

'Trumbo?'

The ginger-haired Trumbo, still gasping for breath, nodded and grunted in agreement. They started to walk her back to MacDonald's. The other three Angels were waiting for them at the back gate, shading their eyes against the harsh sunlight. Adelaide's legs went mechanically one in front of the other.

The Hell's Angels' leader applauded Adelaide as his two cohorts brought her in.

'A nice piece of meat there, gentleman. I couldn't've picked it better myself.'

He came forward and inspected her appreciatively. 'You got a name?' he said mildly.

'Adelaide.'

'That's pretty. I'm the Captain. That's Trumbo there, and the gentleman holding your arm is Fritz. These others are Okey and Sbarbaro. We're a kind of a team, if you understand what I mean.' Adelaide didn't answer.

The Captain said, 'I hope you don't think we're imposing or nothing. I mean, we'd hate to cause you any kind of inconvenience.'

Adelaide looked at him. She tried to speak boldly, but she felt terrified. 'Will you let me go, please?' she said, in a high voice.

'Let you go?' the Captain said, frowning. 'Do you think that's a very good idea?'

'I would like to go,' said Adelaide quietly. 'If you don't mind.'

The Captain shook his head like a worried welfare officer. 'It ain't as easy as all that,' he said thoughtfully. 'Y'see, this disease business, well, it's really changed the way things are. Because the cops have had to help out with the sick people, well, they've all caught this disease business themselves, and now there ain't too many cops left. That means that folks like us, who didn't have to help out, we're left alive. We're left in charge.'

'I just want to go.' Adelaide repeated. She started to cry.

The Captain gently laid his hand on her shoulder. 'Please don't upset yourself,' he said. 'We're going to let you go, all right, but you must realize that we want you to exercise your rights.'

One of the Angels started giggling. The Captain glared at him with mock-disapproval.

'Everyone has rights, my dear,' went on the Captain, in a soothing voice. 'You have the right to say that, yes, you would like to entertain us gentlemen, or that, no, you wouldn't like to.'

Adelaide felt tears sliding down her cheeks. 'What — what's supposed to happen — if I don't?'

The Captain stared. 'The question don't never arise. They all says yes.'

Adelaide stopped weeping and looked at him. A long silent moment passed them by, and miles away they heard the sporadic crackle of rifles.

Finally, she said, 'I don't care what they all say. I say no.'

The Captain nodded equably. 'Okay, then,' he said. 'If that's what you want. It's your privilege.'

He snapped his fingers and it all happened with the well-rehearsed speed and proficient brutality of long practice. Trumbo and the Norseman marched her into the restaurant again, through the kitchen, and pushed her against the wall of the hamburger bar. She stood there, wild-eyed and panting. Then the Captain stepped forward, very close, and grasped the top of her white tee-shirt. She could see the necklace of sweat along his upper lip, and smell his heavy, ox-like odor. His hands were hard and powerful, with big death's-head rings on the middle fingers.

'Last word?' he said gently.

Adelaide closed her eyes. It was going to happen, one way or another, and neither yes nor no were going to make any difference. The Captain said, 'Okay,' and ripped her T-shirt apart with three savage tugs, baring her breasts.

She tried to protect herself with her hands, but he forced them away, and roughly pulled and squeezed her breasts and nipples.

'Oh God,' she begged him. 'Please don't, please don't.'

He seized the top of her jeans, and tore them open.

She tried to twist away from him, but Okey and Trumbo took hold of her arms, and pinned her against the formica wall while the Captain jerked them down.

When she was completely naked, they stood around and touched her and grinned. All she could do was stare at them, and whimper. It wasn't even worth screaming. She was alone with these animals in a world where no one could hear her, no one could protect her, and no one cared.

The Captain casually unzippered his jeans, and prized his penis out. It was stiff and swollen, and he held it in his hand in front of her.

'Are you ready for the Captain's Special?' he asked her softly.

They pushed her face-down on to one of the tables. Her breasts were pressed against the sticky formica, and her legs were held wide apart. She stared at the floor, at the mosaic pattern of red-and-white, and tried to detach her mind from what was happening and think about something else altogether, like her childhood in Maine, or her mother's kindly face…

He forced himself into her. He seemed enormous, and it hurt so much that she bit her tongue. His hard hands were gripping her thighs, pulling her on to him, and she couldn't do anything but twist and turn and keep her teeth tightly clenched together.

They all raped her, one after the other, and it took an hour and a half. After an hour they didn't even have to hold her down, because she lay there gripping the table-top of her own accord, dulled to everything that they were doing to her. She didn't even hear them leave when it was all over, and she lay on the table until it began to grow dark, her body red and sore, her eyes swollen with unshed tears. One by one the bikes started up, and roared off northwestwards into the gathering night.

A little after midnight, in the first few moments of Thursday morning, Dr. Petrie and Prickles crossed the Suwanne River on 75, not thirty miles away from the Georgia state line. It was a black, cloudy night, like the suffocating inside of a soft velvet bag, and the Torino's air-conditioning had packed up altogether. They drove with the windows open wide, feeling the damp night draft blowing in on their faces.

They had had no trouble with roadblocks or National Guard since they had left Disney World. Through Clermont, Gainesville and Lake City they had seen nothing but deserted houses, corpses covered in black flies, and burning cars. If anyone had been left alive in this part of Florida, they were long gone.

Prickles was still pale and sweaty, but her pulse seemed to have normalized, and her breathing was easier, too. Dr. Petrie was still determined that her condition was nothing more than summer flu. The hurt, if she died now, would be more than he could bear.

He checked his rear-view mirror regularly to see if Adelaide might be following. Just outside Clermont, he had seen a bunch of bikers way behind, but they had turned off west towards Groveland, long before he had got a good look at them. He kept the National Guard automatic rifle propped up on the seat next to him, in case they were ambushed by looters or Hell's Angels or even by police, but north Florida was more like a graveyard than a jungle.

It took him forty-five minutes, driving on marker lights alone, to reach the state line. He saw the floodlights before he saw anything else. Two miles ahead, the highway was illuminated by batteries of powerful lamps, and the surrounding trees and brush were swept by searchlights and torches. It was the National Guard again, imposing their doomed quarantine on a dead state.

He pulled the car over to the side of the road, switched off the engine, and rubbed his eyes. Crossing the state line was going to be a hell of a lot harder than he had expected. By now, he conjectured, all the National Guard contingents which had been ordered to prevent a northward exodus of plague-carrying Floridians must have been pulled back to the border. Florida, with only two dozen major roads connecting it to the main body of continental America, was an easy limb to amputate.

'Prickles,' he whispered softly, 'try and get some sleep. I think we're going to have to wait until morning before we go any further.'