Jason Frost - The Warlord

"Okay."

"There, that's more like it. Now you look like a proper warrior."

"Really?"

"Absolutely."

"Mom?"

Annie looked at her little boy, the bow clutched in one hand, the arrows resting in their plastic quiver on his belt, expectancy in his voice. He was waiting for her approval. She tried to imagine him actually shooting an arrow at someone, killing him. Or worse, being shot at, an arrow piercing his small chest, his body flopping lifeless into the dirt. When they'd first married, she and Eric had agreed to teach the children how to do as many things as possible as they grew, including shooting guns and bows. But they had also agreed not to encourage them along any particular line. No social or sexual stereotypes. Let them decide for themselves what they wanted, who they were. As a result, Jennifer had always been as athletic as Timmy. Both had had their share of fights, with each other and other kids, but neither had developed into a bully. Neither had a cruel streak. Eric and Annie had been careful, conscientious parents, participating in the selection of TV programs and movies, encouraging reading. Trying to raise two well-adjusted children in a maladjusted world. Now that veneer of civilization was being slowly peeled away. Her twelve-year-old son was waiting for his mother to approve of him being called a warrior. But what choice did she have? If he was to survive in this new world, he would have to be harder than before. Tougher. Like Eric, who could shed that veneer as easily as a snake his skin. Sometimes that ability made her envious, sometimes scared.

"You look fine," she smiled weakly. "Fine."

Timmy seemed pleased as he handed Annie her bow.

Eric grabbed his crossbow and the tape recorder and gestured toward the door. "Stay close and move along the walls. Right?"

"Right," Annie and Timmy agreed. It was the usual procedure for walking at night.

Eric unbolted the door and checked outside. The sky was its usual gray-pink, something like what twilight used to look like. Except the sky remained this color all night. "Okay, let's go. The Ravensmiths on parade." They started out the door.

Suddenly an explosion of sound.

A bell clanging.

A drum booming.

The sounds of Emergency Red Alert. They were under attack.

Eric shoved Annie and Timmy back inside. "Lock it!" he yelled as he fixed a bolt in his crossbow and sprinted across the campus toward the bookstore.

Running felt good. Useful. Eric hated the feeling of helplessness and confusion an alarm always gave. A shortness of breath, a squeeze at the bladder. At least now, as his feet bounced soundlessly across the gravel, he was burning the rush of adrenalin that sizzled through his stomach like a lit fuse. Around him people responded quickly to the alarm, scattering in the dark to their posts as they snatched arrows from their homemade quivers or hefted crude spears. Just as they had done during the drills Eric had put them through three times a week since the founding of University Camp. Only now it was for real.

Eric sucked air deeply as he ran, the sharp charcoal tinge stinging his nostrils. He wondered if they'd all eventually get used to that smell, as they had to the gray-pink night and yellow-orange day like a Peter Max painting. When they got back to the mainland, would they appreciate the brisk fresh air again, or would that too smell "funny"?

When they got back.

Christ, now he was doing it. Hoping. He shook the thought out of his head as he ran, concentrating on scanning the grounds for the intruders. The roofs, the barbed-wire fences, the walls of office furniture and useless machinery they'd piled as a barrier against the hostile world. The Great Wall of Orange County, Annie had called it. Inside lived Civilization. Outside, the Dead Zone.

Eric's eyes stabbed at every movement, every shadow. But he saw no intruders, no attackers. The only movement came from his own people scuttling to their posts, clinging desperately to their weapons like a dying priest to his rosary.

Then the noise stopped. The bell and drum were silent.

Eric hurdled an overturned bicycle, dodged another citizen fumbling clumsily with his Coleman lantern, spanked off the side of the gym, and bolted full-speed for the bookstore, the source of the alarm. He could hear men and women mumbling nervously to each other as he passed them, wondering where the attackers were. Fingering their weapons, anxious to kill anything that seemed threatening. Eric had to discover what was going on before they began accidentally firing on each other.

As he cut around the corner of the bookstore, he saw Philip Marcus standing in front of the huge kettle drum they'd moved here from the Music Department. He had the drum mallet in one hand, his long bow in the other. Standing next to him was Season Deely, a slim blonde in a blue Nike running suit clutching the hammer she'd used to ring the bell. She was leaning against the wooden post from which the ten-inch iron bell hung, a memento from Professor Ernesto Alvarez's tour through Mexico last summer with a rowdy group of his Spanish students. The bell was a replica of the one that had hung at the Franciscan Mission of San Antonio de Valero, later known as the Alamo because of a nearby grove of alamo, or cottonwood, trees. Eric had appreciated the irony of using this particular bell for their alarm, though militarily University Camp was far more defendable than the Alamo had been.

"What in hell's going on?" Eric barked at Season and Philip.

Season shrugged, pointed her hammer at the entrance of the bookstore.

"Orders," Philip said.

Eric marched through the open doors and down the aisles of dusty calendars and university bumper stickers into the back section. The door of the conference room was open and the carpet was squishy under his feet with dark puddles of blood.

Trevor Graumann lay crumpled next to the long oak table. His chair was overturned, his papers scattered all about the room. The brass coatrack was overturned with Dr. Dreiser's white lab jacket tangled around it.

"Is he dead?" Eric asked.

Susan Connors, an RN who ran the hospital with Dr. Dreiser, was kneeling beside Trevor, tugging at his eyelids. "No, he's just unconscious. Doesn't seem too serious. No bleeding, anyway."

"Then whose blood are we all wading through?"

Susan Connors gestured toward the conference table where Dr. Epson, Griff Durham and Toni Tyler stood whispering. "Ask them. They called this meeting. Won't tell me jackshit." She looked up, her eyes moist but hard. "While you're at it, ask them where Dr. Dreiser is."

Two men rushed into the room carrying a stretcher.

"About time, fellas," Susan Connors sighed, twirling her stethoscope absently. "Let's get him over to the hospital. And careful with his head. He may have a concussion."

"What's the fucking story?" one of them asked, looking around the room. "The alarm made my three-year-old wet the bed. And the little bastard sleeps between my wife and me."

"I've seen your kid, Roy," Susan said. "And pissing on you is the least he could do for giving him your looks. Now get Councilman Graumann onto your stretcher and out of here. Our leaders need privacy," She didn't bother keeping the sarcasm out of her voice.

Eric turned to the three members of the Council. The muscles in his face were tight, stretching the skin tautly across his face like a plastic death mask. His voice was crisp as dried leaves. "Explain."

They all looked at him, avoided his eyes. Dr. Epson nodded toward Susan Connors and the men hefting Trevor Graumann onto the stretcher. "Let's wait until we're alone, Eric."

"Let's not," Eric said quietly.

"It's okay," Susan said. "We're all done here. We wouldn't want to be responsible for hindering the Council's brilliant strategies." She started to follow the stretcher out of the room, turned, twirled her stethoscope. "But if we're not under attack, I'd sound the fucking bell, I don't want to be up all night treating arrow wounds from people shooting each other."