Ahern, Jerry - The Nightmare begins

"Like rape, Paul," Natalie said. "Or sex-related murders. Is intercourse or death the purpose of the act, or just something that happens as a result, the act itself being the purpose?"

"I think Behavioral Psych 101 just let out, gang," Rourke said softly, starting to slow the pickup truck as he wove it between two of the nearest semis and into the circle.

The girl beside him unsnapped the thumbreak opening flap on the holster with the big Python. Rubenstein pulled back the bolt on the "Schmeisser."

"Be cool," Rourke cautioned, stopping the pickup truck in the approximate center of the circle. In front of the hood were perhaps fifty people, mostly women and children, a few older men, some of them still in pajamas or nightgowns, their clothes torn, their faces dirty and their eyes filled with terror. Rourke whispered, "This must be the place," and shut off the key on the pickup truck and swung open the driver's side door and stepped out, the CAR-15 slung under his right shoulder now, his fist wrapped around the pistol grip.

The knot of townspeople stared at him, almost as though they collectively made one frightened organism. He looked away from them, rolling the cigar in the corner of his mouth, his chin jutting forward, his legs slightly apart. He turned and looked behind the pickup truck. Already perhaps a dozen or more of the motorcyclists from the brigand gang were walking toward him, some of the drivers of the eighteen-wheelers were climbing down from their cabs and walking toward him as well. Rourke squinted against the sun and shot a glance skyward—the entire northwestern quadrant was so gray it almost seemed black by contrast to the deep blue of the sky above him. The wind was picking up, making tiny dust devils around his feet.

"Who the fuck are you?" The voice came from a tall man, Rourke's height or better, but an easy fifty pounds heavier, wearing a dark blue denim shirt with the sleeves cut off, leaving frayed edges across his rippling shoulder muscles.

He wore a military-style shoulder holster, a stag-gripped .45 automatic riding in it on the left side of his chest. In his right hand was a riot shotgun, with extension magazine and a sling, web materialed, blowing now slightly in the wind like the man's dark, greasy-looking hair.

"Rourke—he's Paul Rubenstein, the girl's name is Natalie." Out of the corner of his left eye, Rourke could see Rubenstein, standing half-inside the cab of the pickup truck, the MP-40 submachine gun held lazily in his left hand across the roof of the cab. The girl was already out of the pickup truck, standing beside Rourke and a little behind him.

"The goddamn names don't mean shit to me, man—what d'ya want here?"

Rourke sighed, a small cloud of the gray cigar smoke filtering through his nostrils as he rolled the cigar in the corner of his mouth. "Got the paramils after us—we hit a truck back a ways and boosted some ammo and stuff. Killed a coupla their guys gettin' away—figured you might be able to use a few extra people who could handle a gun. You got those suckers less than a day behind you and you guys leave plenty of tracks," and Rourke gestured over his right shoulder with the cigar toward the townspeople huddled behind him.

"We got enough people can handle a gun, buddy—what the hell we need you for?"

"You're amateurs, I'm professional—I'm worth at least any three of your guys."

"Bullshit," the big guy laughed. "I'm gonna kill me these little pieces of scared dogshit behind you, then we'll see just how good you are."

The big man started forward and Rourke, the cigar back in his mouth, took a step to his right, blocking the big man's path. "You know," Rourke whispered, his face inches from the face of the brigand, "you guys are real assholes."

The brigand turned, his face red with rage, his hands starting to move.

Rourke—again whispering— said, "Go ahead—from here I can't miss," and he edged the CAR-15 slightly forward, the muzzle almost touching the bigger man's stomach just above the belt buckle. "See, you guys keep knockin' off the civilian population, after a while, no matter how many of 'em you kill, they're gonna finally get just mad enough to band together and come after you guys—then you'll have them and the paramils on your neck. Same thing happened to the Romans, two thousand years later it happened to the Nazis when they marched into the Ukraine in Russia. How would you like snipers behind every rock, explosives under every bridge? It can happen to you, friend."

"What d'ya want? I'm askin' again."

"I told you—me and my friends wanna join up for the duration," Rourke told him.

"You're as good as any three of us, huh?" the bigger man said, a smile crossing his lips.

Rourke smiled back, nodding, the cigar now just a stump in the left corner of his mouth. "Easy." Rourke glanced toward the growing knot of brigands and their women collecting perhaps a yard behind the pickup's tailgate. He could see the warning look in Natalie's eyes, the worry written across Paul Rubenstein's sweat-dripping face.

Then, in a loud voice, the man shouted, "This man is named Rourke—he claims he's some kinda lousy professional—as good as any three of us. I need two men to help me show him different!" More than a dozen men, as big at least as the brigand standing inches away from Rourke, stepped out of the knot of onlookers. "You, ahh, you wanna pick 'em?" the brigand said, smiling.

"You the head honcho around here?" Rourke asked.

"Yeah—I'm the leader—you backin' out?"

"No, no—nothin' like that," Rourke said softly. "I was just wonderin' if you had your replacement picked yet."

"Bite my—"

"Not in front of the lady," Rourke said, gesturing with the CAR-15.

Loud again, so all the brigands could hear, apparently, the brigand leader shouted, "If Rourke wins, he and his people can join us and we let all them over there go and everythin'," and the brigand leader pointed toward the townspeople, visibly cringing now, some of the children crying out loud. "But if he don't,"

the brigand shouted then, "we kill him and the other guy and the little piece they got with 'em—after we all have some fun with her first, huh?" There was some laughter by the men who'd stepped forward for the contest, and from the crowd behind them as well.

"You pickin' them or me?" Rourke said.

"Hey—I'll pick," the brigand leader laughed, gesturing broadly with his outstretched hands.

Moisture was already falling on Rourke's hands and face, thunder rumbling in the sky off to his left, what sunlight there had been fading and replaced by a greenish glow that seemed to be in the air, something he felt he could almost reach out and touch. "Be quick about it, huh," Rourke said. "I don't feel like standin' around in the rain all day waitin' for you—guns, knives, what?"

The brigand leader looked at Rourke, his eyes traveling up and down, then said, "We fight barehanded—Taco, Kleiger—up here—everybody back off and give us some room!"

"What's your name—don't like fightin' somebody if I don't know his name."

"Mike."

"I've got a son named Michael—he's tougher than you, though," Rourke smiled.

The brigand leader backed away, slipping the shoulder rig off his chest and wrapping the strap around it, then handing the holstered .45 and the riot shotgun into the crowd.

Rourke flipped the safety on the CAR-15 rasped, "Natalie!" and tossed the gun across the six feet or so separating them. The girl caught it in both hands, moving the sling onto her right shoulder and then diagonally across her body, the pistol grip settling in her comparatively tiny right fist. Rourke could hear the safety clicking off. He slipped off the shoulder rig, and both guns together, he handed it across the roof of the pickup cab to Rubenstein. "If I die, I'll will 'em to you," Rourke whispered to Rubenstein.