William Forstchen - One Second After

He finished the cigarette, stubbed it out in an empty coffee cup, and looked, appealing, at John. John handed him another and pulled one out for himself; it was down to nine now.

“They had something like a gallows set up. Bodies were hanging from it….” Don shook and started to cry.

“They were cut open, some without legs and arms. Ten or more like that. Like hogs hung up to be butchered. My God…”

He fought for composure.

“You could see other people who were prisoners. As I flew over they were looking up at me, started to jump up and down, waving like poor bastards stranded in a nightmare. I sideslipped to get down lower for a closer look. One of those scum, I could see him looking up at me, and as I flew over he cut a woman’s throat, cut it so I could see it.

“That’s when I almost got shot down. They have an automatic and it opened up. Stitched my starboard wing. I dived down low, skimmed over not a dozen feet high, weaved and dodged.”

He smiled.

“Like the old days. Damn, I was good then, could put my spotter between two trees not thirty feet apart with telephone wires waiting on the other side.”

And then he seemed to unfocus again.

“I don’t want to believe what I saw.”

John sighed, sat back, lost in thought. Cannibalism. Leningrad, Stalingrad, with those cases it was civilians driven mad by hunger. Reports as well in China and, frightfully, documentation of Japanese soldiers doing it either out of desperation when cut off by the island hopping campaign, or ritualistically against American POWs.

“Not here,” Charlie sighed, “not here. This is America, for heaven’s sake.”

“Yes, here,” John said softly. “Why should we be any different?”

“Damn it all, we’re Americans; it just doesn’t happen here.”

“Donner Pass, the Essex… Jeffrey Dahmer? Our sick fascination with films about that Lecter character. Sixty days with little or no food just because the electric suddenly shut off. Hell, yes,” John said coldly.

“Most likely some damn cult down there. Like Doc said, psychotics running loose.”

The cult over in Knoxville with its leader proclaiming he was John the Baptist reincarnated was still running. There were reports of others, some nutcase proclaiming he was the messiah, others speaking in tongues and looking for answers in Revelation, others just beyond madness believing that aliens had invaded. He thought of that one small coven up above Haw Creek, a couple of dozen families and a church, which according to rumors not too long ago was into passing snakes around. They had sealed themselves off completely, said that it was the end-time and God’s wrath was at hand. No one dared to even get within a hundred yards of their barrier now, and John wondered what madness they were practicing up there.

“They have nothing to lose now,” John continued. “A nation under martial law, they’ve looted, raped, murdered. They know that if civilization ever gets the upper hand again, any semblance of order, all of them will be put against the wall and shot. So nothing to lose.

“Mix into that the terror of it all. We figured out it was an EMP, but others… especially others who were already off-kilter? What’s the answer? God got angry, Gaia the Earth spirit got pissed, Satan took over?”

He found he was almost on the edge of hysteria himself. His hands shaking slightly, he pulled out another cigarette and tossed yet another over to Don.

“Satan’s taken over. Maybe whoever’s leading them is preaching that. God has turned his back on America, Satan has won, so anything goes. I doubt if all of them are doing it; I want to think most of them are as terrified of whoever is running their crew as we are. But I’m willing to bet whoever is running it is shouting that he has the inside dope from God, Satan, whomever.”

“It’s insane,” Charlie whispered.

“Remember Jonestown. Those were Americans, even though they no longer lived in the forty-eight. And nearly a thousand of them committed suicide because of some damn nutcase who told them to drink Kool-Aid laced with poison because God had ordered it through him.

“Look, you get people scared, then you knock out every prop that we’ve taken for granted. After these last sixty days I bet there’s a dozen prophets running around this country saying, ‘Follow me,’ and even if but one-tenth of one percent of the survivors do so, that will still be hundreds of thousands of barbarians on the march and the rest of us running, scared shitless of them.

“Damn our enemies who did this to us, they knew us well,” John sighed. “They knew human nature too well, and just how fragile civilization is, and how tough it is to defend it. Something we forgot.”

No one spoke until Don finally stirred.

“I flew back along the interstate,” he said softly. “I counted, between Morganton, Old Fort, and on the road, about two hundred-fifty vehicles total.”

“A thousand to fifteen hundred people then,” Washington said.

“And just remember this, gentlemen. I was a trained artillery spotter, so I know how to count and how to spot.”

“We don’t doubt you,” Charlie said.

“In this case, don’t doubt me. Now for the troubling aspect tactically.”

“They’re coming round the back,” John said.

“Exactly. That’s why I flew over here on my way back. I counted two dozen vehicles on the old dirt road, right at the base of the mountains by Andrew’s Geyser. Some on the abandoned paved road. A couple more farther up, near where the railroad track crosses over the old dirt road. They know our back door, and not just the interstate.”

“Any on the old fire roads?” Charlie asked. Don shook his head.

“Hard to see, with the summer canopy,” he said.

“I doubt it,” Washington interjected. “Unless they have a couple of local boys, those old fire roads are mazes. My bet is they’ll stick to the old abandoned paved road, the dirt road farther to the north, and the railroad track as their flanker, and they’ll hit there first.”

“I agree,” Charlie said.

“They could be here trying to maneuver into a flanking position by late afternoon,” Don said. John nodded.

“They must have a good military leader in there, knows his stuff and has done a thorough recon on us by now and sees the flank roads as the opening move. They’ll hit just before dawn,” John said. “Hope to catch us sleeping. If I was one of them, Don here flying around would tell me that what’s waiting for them has some kind of warning, so they will move fast rather than give us time to prepare.

“We can pray they’re just a mob that overruns by numbers and surprise, but it looks like there are some ex-military with them. Worst case, they got a couple of recon types who know how to figure out the ground, the defenses, the approaches, and formulate the plan of attack.

“Their advance party is in Old Fort to secure the place for the rest of them later today. I’d bet by late afternoon their advance will start probing, and we’ve got to meet them forward of the potential line of battle. They see our setup, get a good judgment on our strength, we’ll have even more problems holding. They’ll laager in Old Fort tonight and tear the place apart, then hit us before dawn.”

“We’ll be prepared,” Washington said sharply, and stood up.

“We feed the troops, then move them into position today. Washington, we’ve talked about this scenario, so we both know the plans. I want officers’ briefing within the hour. Tom, start to evacuate all homes behind our fallback line beyond the old toll road as we’ve talked about before. Charlie, I want every citizen who can carry a gun as our reserve. Mr. Barber, I hope you can stay up in the air most of the day. Keep high, though, sir, real high; just keep an eye on their movements,” John said.