David Robbins - Doomsday

“They’re ignoring us,” Montoya said. “Go around them. Let’s get out of here.” Slayne nodded, but as he went to press the gas, the back door opened. “Thor? What in hell are you doing?”

“This is an abomination. It must not be.” Soren walked around to the front of the Hunster, Mjolnir at his side. He remembered what the Family Armorer had told him. The hammer could be set to Arc or Bolt. In addition there were four power settings. The lowest was a million volts, and it went up in million-volt increments from here. At four million, the highest, the blast drained the hammer completely and Mjolnir couldn’t be used again until he recharged it using the power belt. But he wouldn’t need that much now. He pressed the appropriate rune, setting the hammer to Arc and one million volts. He raised Mjolnir. “I am Thor. I command you to stop.”

The festering horrors fixed their red eyes on him. They were eerily silent. Then those on their knees rose, and they all came toward him at once, moving with a peculiar shambling gait, their mouths opening and closing as if they were gulping for air. Soren’s skin crawled, but he held his ground. He pressed the rune to fire. Mjolnir jumped in Soren’s hands. The head glowed bright and hummed.

From the weapon lanced crackling lightning bolts that arced and leaped at the advancing monstrosities, striking them in the head, face, and chest. Half died on their feet, writhing and contorting and jerking like puppets on invisible strings. They didn’t scream. They didn’t cry out. Those still standing closed in and Soren unleashed a second blast.

Bodies dropped, thud after thud.

“Sweet Odin,” Soren breathed. He had practiced with Mjolnir but not on living foes. Only two were still alive, and they came for him, their hands outstretched. Revulsion swept through him. He crushed the skull of the first and reduced the face of the second to splintered pulp. Soren moved among them, making sure. Some had burn marks. Some were giving off smoke. He swallowed and looked at Mjolnir, felt the familiar tingle down his spine. “So much power,” he said in awe.

“What in hell did you think you were doing?” Slayne and Montoya had come out of the Hunster, and Slayne wasn’t happy. “You could have been killed.”

“I couldn’t just sit there. I had to do something.”

“They were no threat to us. We could have gone on by. Get it through your head that you can’t go taking needless risks.”

“I did what the son of Odin would do.”

Slayne held his temper. “Just because we call you Thor doesn’t make you Thor. Damn it, Anderson. You have a responsibility to the Family. You can’t go throwing your life away on a whim.”

“I do what I must,” Soren insisted.

Montoya stared at Mjolnir. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said in awe. “I want one of those.” Soren reverently held the hammer to his chest. “Mjolnir is the only one of its kind.”

“How does it work?”

“I don’t understand all the science,” Soren admitted. Richter and Allan had told him that the higher the power setting, the higher the current it induced, and that it was the current more than the volts that killed. But then they had also told him that it was the volts that could blast limbs from bodies. Slayne scanned the bleak landscape. “Get in. There might be more of those monstrosities around.” They gave Billings a wide berth. Later, twice, they spied antelope, but always at a distance. Once they came upon a dog moving stiffly at the side of the highway. Montoya wanted to stop until he saw that most of its hair was gone and it was covered with sores.

Between Bozeman and Butte, as they crossed a barren flat, Slayne braked and got out the binoculars.

“What do you see?” Montoya asked.

Slayne pointed. “You tell me, Ricco.”

To the north was a cloud. Not in the sky, but on the ground. It was green, bright green, so bright it seemed to glow, and it was moving, crawling across the ground as if endowed with a will of its own.

“What is that?”

Slayne didn’t know. It wasn’t much bigger than the Hunster and was heading east, away from them. He resumed driving and commented, “Welcome to our warped new world.” Roadblocks had been set up around Missoula. A National Guard unit, judging by their uniforms and equipment. Slayne spied them from half a mile out and decided to go around. The Bitterroot Mountains of eastern Idaho were a pristine wonder. Except for areas of scattered fallout, the Bitterroots were as they had always been. Or so Slayne thought until it occurred to him that there should be more signs of animal life.

They were east of Wallace—and only twenty miles from Smelterville—when they rounded a curve and a crudely made billboard warned Checkpoint Ahead. Slayne quickly stopped. Several hundred yards down the highway were concrete barriers topped by barbed wire. Heavily armed men moved about behind the barricade. They weren’t in uniform.

“What do we have here?” Montoya wondered.

“To the right of the roadblock is a sign.” Slayne gave him the binoculars. “It explains a lot.” Montoya read the sign out loud. “Warning. You are about to enter the free aryan nation. weapons are subject to seizure. No drugs or alcohol are allowed beyond this point.”

“Read the fine print at the bottom.”

“No persons of color admitted.” Montoya lowered the binoculars. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Northern Idaho was an Aryan stronghold before the war. From here to the Washington border must be their territory now.” Slayne pondered for a few moments. “A lot of them were survivalists. They mobilized at the outset of the war and I would guess that it was Ben Thomas’s bad luck to run into them.”

“Do you think they killed him?”

“Who knows? The important question is what have they done with the SEAL? We’re not leaving without it.”

Montoya nodded toward the barrier. “Before we can leave we have to get in. And I’ll be damned if they’re confiscating my weapons.”

Slayne shifted into reverse. “They don’t appear to have noticed us yet.” He backed around the curve and made a U-turn. “Thor, you’re being unusually quiet. What’s going on in that crazy Norse head of yours?”

“A man is more important than a machine.”

The forest bordering the highway was thick, the undergrowth heavy, but Slayne managed to find a rutted track that suited his purpose. He went far enough to ensure the Hunster couldn’t be seen from the road, then stopped. Climbing out, he slid his blue trench coat from over the back of his seat and shrugged into it.

“A little warm for that, isn’t it?” Montoya said.

“I like to sweat.” Slayne hadn’t told anyone the real reason he always wore it. The trench coat was custom-constructed to his specifications. Woven from the newest Kevlar weave, it was so soft and pliable a person would swear it was cotton or wool. Yet it was impervious to small-arms fire. Montoya went to the rear of the Hunster and swung its back door up. He donned a backpack and a helmet, then passed wafer-thin headsets to Slayne and Anderson. He didn’t need one; his helmet came with an internal com link. He switched it on and tweaked the gain. “Testing. Testing. Are you picking up?”

“Clear as can be,” Slayne said.

Soren adjusted the clip around his ear and nodded. “I hear you.” Slayne reached in and brought out the MP5. “Listen up. We go in, we find the SEAL if it’s there, and we get out. We avoid contact as much as possible. We don’t want a firefight if we can help it.”

“What about Ben Thomas?” Soren wanted to know.

“More than likely he’s dead by now. We have to focus on getting the SEAL back now.” Soren frowned.