The 1000 Souls (Book 1): Apocalypse Revolution (35 page)

Bobs had been studying Bertrand very closely. "So you really want to go after him," she said.

"Well doesn't everyone in this room? Doesn't it make sense to cut the head off the snake? Colonel, shouldn't this be your biggest priority?"

But Webb was already shaking his head. "Satellite photos show armored columns from California moving up the coast to join others that are forming up in Oregon and Washington. They only travel at night and those are ripper states, so it is my belief that they are preparing for a drive on Minot and Malmstrom. Protecting those bases is key, and I will not waste my time going after one ripper hiding in a hole in a mountain."

"But he's the guy!"

"He has also isolated himself for some reason. I tell you those nukes going off in China changed everything. Even if he's the commander of the rippers, he's placed himself in a location so remote that there wasn't cell phone communication from there even before the rippers. His only communication out is via satellite phone or radio, and after last night, Malmstrom started jamming his communications. As soon as they're able, they'll deal with his Black Hawks, but aviation fuel is becoming scarce for everyone. He's shut down for now. We'll deal with him later."

"How many people do you think he has there with him?" asked Bertrand.

"No more than a hundred."

"Then I'm going to round up everyone I can and I'm going after him."

The colonel was already shaking his head. "I won't be going with you, but like I said, I'll give you ammunition, a case or two of M67 grenades, that kind of thing. I have to reserve the heavier equipment for my boys."

"I'll go with you," said Bobs to Bertrand. "Let's talk."

Relief washed through Bertrand when Erics answered the Skype call.

"Greetings, Mr. Allan." Erics looked even older but still wore his three-piece suit. Behind him Bertrand could see evening light coming through a large window, and a prairie field of brown corn waved in the wind—corn that should've been harvested.

"Please, you can sure as hell call me, Bert. Your people made all the difference the night before last and I'm deeply in your debt."

Erics gave a toothy smile. "Did I not tell you that I understand the 1000 Souls? I sent you only Fighting Souls, Courageous Souls and Selfless Souls, and even a few Ruthless Souls."

"They did a hell of a job—"

"As. Did. You." Erics spoke each word as if they were separated by punctuation, pointing at Bertrand as he spoke. "You are a very dense soul, and this gives you great strength."

"Yeah, well I'm going to need it. Listen, I need your help again. We know where Vlad is, and we're going after him, but we won't be getting many people from St. Mike's to go with us. I was wondering if some of your people would be willing to go along."

"This, verily, is the most important task. Of course we will help you, as many of my people as I can contact. Also, it is no longer safe for my people to stay in Chicago. Murray tells me that Father Alvarez is distinctly hostile to my followers and is intolerant of our beliefs."

"He's probably just stressed about the pope and all."

Erics leaned forward, holding the polished cane between his hands for support. "I know his soul, and it is a dangerous soul for people who are not Catholic. Do not misunderstand me, he will do great things for Chicago, he will save the city if he can, but it would not do well for my followers to be near him once the current crisis has passed."

Bertrand shook his head. "He's a good man."

"I did not say he was a bad man, but good men can be dangerous to those they perceive as enemies, whether they are or not. It has been my plan to evacuate my followers from Chicago to come and join me here, but I will adjust this plan if it will mean the end of Vlad the Scourge, for he is the most dangerous soul: the Believing General. He is most ruthless, for he fights for his beliefs. He has ruled many times in history, always to the great detriment of humankind."

"I couldn't agree more."

"Now, tell me how I can aid you."

Bertrand drew his Glock and nodded to the door warden, a pudgy man with a revolver.

"Should be clear," said the man. "Bell tower says they can see a lot of fires to the north and west, but there's no activity anywhere near Old Town."

"Thanks." Bertrand turned to Joyce. "You ready?"

Joyce had her Uzi hanging from a sling on her shoulder, but she took it in hand.

"Should be a piece of cake. Let's go."

The door warden pushed open the heavy front door of the church, and Bertrand and Joyce rushed down the front steps in the dark. The streetlights were dead because of another power failure, but a generator hummed from the top of the house across the street, and a single floodlight fixed to a chimney bathed the street in front of St. Mike's with a harsh glare. They ran across the interlocking paving stone of the forecourt, past the white statue of St. Michael and straight for the front door of Emile's blockhouse. The door opened before they even reached the house, and Jeff, his Ruger drawn, held it open for them.

"I wonder where all the rippers are tonight?"

"West and north apparently." Bertrand headed through the door first at Joyce's wave, and once inside, Jeff slammed the door and bolted it.

"Emile's waiting upstairs," he said. "This way."

Jeff hurried up the stairs, the spring in his step proving him better rested this evening. The house smelled of kerosene lamps and candles, and as they made each turn of the narrow staircase, Bertrand caught glimpses of people, the light softening their skin and reflecting off the gunmetal of the weapons they carried. The house was very crowded, and no one was asleep. Several people wore the white armbands of the 1000 Souls.

The top floor of the house had a computer in operation, obviously supplied with power from the generator above, which droned on, the white noise irritating to Bertrand only at first, because after a few minutes he ceased to notice it. But the room itself was lit with a single kerosene lamp turned low—apparently the generator's power supply was maxed out by the external lights and the computer. The furniture, except for a dresser and a dining-room table, must have been removed. The border of planes and trucks high on the wall suggested that this had once been a boy's bedroom.

Emile had given up all attempts at shaving, his black beard now thick and maturing. He had a wicked-looking rifle slung over his shoulder and a pair of binoculars in one hand as he stood by the window, looking north to columns of smoke that caught the moonlight and obscured the stars. Barry St. John stood beside him, his hard hat on the dresser, a beer in his hand and a sidearm holstered around his thick waist.

Emile looked over his shoulder. "Hey, Bert. Think we should go hunting?"

"I do, but not tonight, 'cause I've got bigger game. I want to get the guy who started all this."

"Mr. Anti-Christ? Is he nearby?" Jeff walked over to the window and borrowed the binoculars.

"No. Unfortunately he flew out yesterday, apparently as part of a squadron of Black Hawks, but some airbase in Montana tracked them to a mountain out there."

"Well they might as well be in Spain." Barry turned to a cooler and flipped open the lid to retrieve two beers, the sound of ice sloshing in water suggesting that he'd planned ahead for this refreshment while the power was on. He handed them to Joyce and Bertrand. "I'd be in my place in Canada by now, except every time one of my guys takes a drive up the Kennedy to get out of the city, they still find blockages set up by the rippers the night before to stop people from leaving, usually a pile of wrecked cars, and I mean a pile, like a crane would build. We've bulldozed a few clear, but the guys had to hole up for the night."

"We've got help that way," said Joyce, twisting open her beer. "The Illinois National Guard is planning a drive through to North Dakota to that airbase, and they'll let us tag along as far as Bismark, I mean that's where they'll head north and we keep going."

Jeff turned from the window and sat back against the sill. "How long is this drive?"

Bertrand sighed, knowing this weakness in his plan might provoke a negative response. "It's over a day—like a full day and night of driving."

"And we'd have to fight how many at the end?" Emile went to the cooler for a fresh beer.

"Over a hundred anyway," said Bertrand. "But here's the good news, Erics is giving this mission his thumbs-up, which means a lot of those people you've got downstairs will be willing to go. Better yet, Erics himself plans to meet with us somewhere along the way in Montana, city called Billings, and he promises he'll be going with us into the mountain."

"Into the mountain." Jeff took a big swallow of beer and gestured with the bottom of the bottle. "Sounds pretty grim there, Bert. What do you think we're going to find at this mountain? What's to stop him and his Black Hawks from flying back to Chicago tonight?"

"Hopefully his Black Hawks are toast by now. And I think he's run there for a reason. I mean we know he's been around Chicago for months, so why bail now?"

"The nukes," Joyce said. "Remember what Webb said about the nukes? Those nukes goes off in China—"

"What the fuck?" Jeff stood up. "When did this happen?"

Joyce filled the others in and then went on. "Here's what I think: we know full spectrum sunlight kills the parasites. What about nuclear fallout? Why the hell did he run for a mountain the day after that explosion unless he was worried about fallout."

"From China?" Jeff's tone expressed his disbelief.

"From the U.S. The rippers have been attacking bases that have nukes. Maybe they're worried about a few being used here on cities like L.A. that have gone to the rippers."

Barry sat heavily on the cooler of beer. "Or maybe they're planning their own nuclear strike. Maybe Vlad the Scourge has run for the hills because he plans to really unleash his scourge. We know the guy's frigging genocidal."

Bertrand leaned back against the wall, suddenly weary and hopeless. He had always assumed the scourge was the ripper plague. He had never thought of nuclear destruction—that kind of Armageddon.

"Well," he said. "If that's the case, then we'd sure as hell better move fast. It'd be a total shit to secure Old Town only to have it blown from the face of the earth."

"Could be worse than that," said Barry. "Maybe you're too young, but you ever hear of the theory of nuclear winter? That was the big scare back in the eighties, when they figured out that if every nuke in the world was detonated at once it would put so much crap in the atmosphere that it would block out the sun and cause about ten years of winter with no growing season, maybe even trigger another ice age. If you want a scourge of biblical proportions, that would be it."

Jeff sat at the chair in front of the computer. "Maybe," he said. "But that means we'd have to fire the missiles at Russia and, like, China I guess, and they'd have to fire back. If things are as screwed up there as they are here, I don't see that happening."

"We can't take the chance." Bertrand tried to look more confident than he felt. "Colonel Webb says he's working to secure the nukes, and I think he's the right man for that job, but he's not going to rush all the way to the far side of Montana after one ripper, no matter how important. That leaves us."

Bertrand looked around the room. Jeff drummed his fingers in front of the keyboard, looking ready for action. Emile drank from his beer, but Bertrand remembered how good the man had been over the last few weeks, always ready for a fight. Joyce looked angry, but she always did when she was summoning up her courage.

"I'm going after this guy. Bobs is rounding up a bunch of her people to go along."

A white flare popped high over the city to the west, descending slowly, illuminating rooftops and streets, and throwing shadows into harsh contrast with light.

"What the hell is that all about?" Emile put the binoculars to his eyes to look below the flare.

"That's a detachment of the Illinois National Guard. They're clearing a route north up the 298 for their colonel with tanks and bulldozers. You'll be able to head for Canada in the morning, Barry."

Barry looked up from his cooler. "No, I think I'll head out with you, and I'll bring my crew with me. If this guy really is planning to pop nukes off, even just in Chicago, there'll be no hiding from the fallout in Canada. Most of my family's already up there, but I'm not going to run and hide if they're not safe. Alison can stay here at the church until I get back."

"'Course I'm coming," Emile didn't lower the binoculars. "Best fighting I did was beside you, Bert. I just can't sit around here while the world falls apart."

Bertrand looked to Jeff, who smiled and took a gulp of his beer. "I'm always up for a fight. Besides, I said the three of us should stick together."

"Great," said Joyce. "But we're going to have to work fast if we're going to leave at dawn. First problem, we're going to need some buses."

Barry gave a weary smile that had no mirth. "I happen to have some fueled and waiting."

Joyce smiled. "That's what we hoped."

Winter would be a disaster. That became obvious to everyone on the Greyhound bus when they passed out of the suburbs and into the Prairies. Farm fields that should have been harvested were untouched, the corn withered and brown, the grain flattened by early snows that had melted in the seesaw of temperatures that is late autumn. But the true horror was the blackened fields, those that had been intentionally burned. Bertrand and Joyce sat in the front seats on the passenger side, their view out the windshield as good as the driver's.

The flat highway ran out before them, one of the Strykers that Bobs so coveted immediately in front, it's fifty-cal machine gun ready but unmanned in the cold wind. The three buses of Bertrand's little army followed the National Guard convoy in the relative safety of its wake.

"I guess we know why all those sunsets in October were so beautiful," said Joyce as they passed one of the blackened fields. "They were burning the harvest. They want people to starve."