Eric Flint - Time spike

Without ammo, they're just clubs. Not very good clubs, at that." "The pistol ammo?" "Leave the pistols and their ammo. For the kind of war we'll be fighting, they won't be that much use. It's the rifles that matter." He paused, for amount. "Well… let Kidd take one of the pistols and plenty of ammo for it. That'll make him happy, and I figure a happy hit man is worth a little extra work." Geoffrey smiled serenely. Softly, Rod clapped his hands. "Okay, people, let's get at it. You know the plan." They were running slightly behind schedule, so Rod didn't dare spend more than four hours at the work of emptying the armory. They still had another important assignment tonight. It was slow work, too. Gathering the stuff up and depositing it by the door went quickly. But the rest was time-consuming. First-and only one at a time, since a group of people might be noticed moving, even in the dark-they had to leave the armory carrying as much as they could.

Walking slowly and as silently as possible, until they reached the cover of the woods. Dropping the burden in the first small clearing and coming back. Timing it so there was never more than one person moving visibly at the same time. Rod exempted Marie from that task.

She was still too worn out from her exertions, and they needed someone good with a rifle shot anyway, keeping the men at the main entrance in sight and ready to shoot if need be. At least the work wasn't too tiring. The ammunition they carried was heavy, but they had to move so carefully that everyone had plenty of time to rest in between stints.

And after an hour, they were able to shed some of their precautions.

Those cretins at the main gate "standing guard" had started a campfire! A few minutes' worth of staring into the flames would make them effectively night-blind. All they had to worry about thereafter was making any loud noise. Forty-five minutes before the time he'd allotted ran out, to Rod's surprise, they'd emptied the armory of every single round of rifle ammunition in it. It had been so long since he'd done simple manual labor that he'd forgotten how much a few people could do, just using their own muscles, if they kept at it steadily. "Okay. We'll take as many rifles as we can. But forty-five minutes, that's it." That work was physically much easier. Rod wouldn't let anyone carry more than two rifles, one in each hand, even though they could have easily handled more weight. He wasn't taking any chances that somebody might stumble out there in the darkness and wind up dropping several rifles in a clatter. Even with that limitation, they managed to empty the armory of most of its rifles.

All that was left in the way of usable weapons were pistols.

Henceforth, Luff and his men would be able to use whatever rifles they had just as long as their magazines still had rounds. Well… Luff had probably stashed some rifles and ammo in his own quarters, too.

Still, the one great nightmare that had haunted Andy and Rod had been the overwhelming firepower the convicts possessed. Which, they had now lost. When the four hours were up, he spent a couple of minutes chewing on the unexpected problem their success had created. The rest of their mission was important, sure, butnothing was as important as getting the rifles and ammo now stacked in the clearing back to the cave. Or, at the very least, hidden somewhere the convicts couldn't find them. That would require a change of plans. The intention had been that they'd use everyone in the mission for the next stage. But Rod decided that he could make do with just himself, Marie, and…

Cook and Kidd, he decided. Cook, because for whatever reason, Hulbert had come to have a lot of confidence in him. Kidd, because if things went sour, it might come to a gunfight at close quarters. In that sort of gunplay, he was pretty sure Kidd was the deadliest man alive.

Literally, in this new world. Besides, if would be safer with just four of them. They couldn't do as much, but they could probably do enough-and there was much less risk of being spotted. Marie led the way to the supply room, with Hulbert bringing up the rear. The room was located between the administration building and the gates that led to the prison cells. The men who'd designed the installation almost a hundred years back had arranged things so anything a prisoner might want or need was beyond a prisoner's reach in the event of a prison riot. They wanted to be able to starve the prisoners into submission if they had to. That worked in their favor. Obviously, Luff had decided the original design suited his purposes as well. The areas were deserted at night. They made their way to the first floor cafeteria, then crossed the large room and entered the back area using Marie's keys to get in. Marie stood outside the door, watching, while the others got busy. They each had a list of what Carter Leffen had called a "Recipe for Destruction." Using everyday cleaning products they were to mix up explosives and divide them between each set of double entry gates. They wouldn't be able to time exactly when they'd explode, but when they did, Leffen thought they'd destroy the gates.

Enough of them, he said, might even take down part of the wall. Even if just the gates went, nothing Luff and his people could jury-rig in their place would be nearly as strong. They had two hours to make up the explosives, he figured. Then, with whatever they had, they'd set them and be gone. By then, Nickerson and Griffin and the others would have been able to haul the rifles and ammunition at least a half mile into the woods and have found a safe place to hide them. Kevin had said he could manage that well enough that only an expert Cherokee or Choctaw or Chickasaw woodsman-"maybe few white men too, I guess"-could eventually find it. But none of the convicts at Alexander had a cold chance in hell. As he was carefully finishing with his fourth bomb, Marie appeared at his side. Her face looked very pale, but that might have been a trick of the dim lighting. They were working by the light of a small electric lantern. "Rod, you have to see this," she whispered. "You justhave to." Puzzled, he followed her into the cafeteria. Marie headed straight for the big walk-in freezers. The door to one of them was open. That, alone, told him how agitated Marie was. The light inside was spilling into the interior of the building.

Hopefully, given the few windows, nobody would spot it. But he'd still have to chide her about the carelessness. When he got to the open door, though, he forgot all about reproving her. His jaw dropped.

"Holy Christ," he whispered. He was sure his own face was pale. Most of the shelves were stacked with naked human bodies. Headless naked bodies. The heads that had once belonged to them were stacked on a different shelf. "Get Cook and Kidd," he said. After Marie left, remembering, he closed the door to the freezer. Not all the way, just enough to eliminate almost all of the light coming out. When Cook and Kidd arrived, he opened the door little. "Look inside." They did so, for about ten seconds. After an initial little intake of breath, Kidd pursed his lips. There was no expression at all on Cook's face. In fact, after a few seconds he said, as calmly as could be: "They must have gotten the generators back up." "What the fuck is going on here?" hissed Rod. "I want a straight answer." Cook and Kidd withdrew their heads and he closed the freezer. Then he went to check the next one.

It was also full of corpses and severed heads. The third one was almost full. After Cook saw that, he shook his head and said-in that same maddeningly calm voice-"I wonder what the maniac man will figure out next. Once this claptrap solution runs out of steam." The man's calm was almost infuriating. "What thefuck is going on? You didn't tell us about this!" He barely caught himself before shouting the last sentence. Cook shook his head. "We didn't tell you about it because it hadn't happened before we left. Remember-I didtell you that Luff was using us Boomers as his body-disposal unit. After we were gone"-he shrugged and hooked a thumb at the lockers-"I guess this was his next solution. And if it finally dawns on you that Luff is jumping from a frying pan into the fire, I told you that also. You know that phrase, 'penny-wise, pound-foolish.' Probably dates back to one of Luff's ancestors." "Jesus." Being fair, Cookhad told them that Luff's madness took the form of solving one problem at the expense of creating a bigger one. But neither Rod nor Andy had imagined anything this… this… "Jesus," he repeated. "It's like a photo I saw once. Some place in Cambodia, during the Pol Pot regime." "Tuol Sleng," Kidd provided. "I was thinking the same thing." Rod stared at him. Kidd smiled. "And if you're wondering how I'd know that, there are three possible explanations. I'm a man of many parts. I have a keen interest in the photography of the grotesque. I was looking to see if I might spot some professional tips. I'll let you decide which explanation is the right one." "I vote for 'you're a man of many parts,' " Marie said immediately. "Smart lady. I think I'll vote the same way myself." Rod sighed. "God help them. How many bodies are in there, do you think?" "Dozens," said Cook. "For a professional estimate, you'd have to let me look inside again." Rod shook his head.