"Oh, go sit on your saddle horn, cowboy!"

Francis told him. "I agree with the Judge.

If we are to survive, we must unite and fight as one."

"You ain't gittin' your hands or nothin' else on my booty, Petunia."

"I wouldn't touch you wearing a suit of armor, horsef.u.c.ker!"

"That does it," Red hollered. "I'm done talkin'. And I'm a-gonna kill you, Tulip-mouth!"

"Sticks and stones! Sticks and stones!"

"My word!" Dan said. "This is certainly shaping up to be a very interesting campaign." "We are doomed," the Judge said.

"Kissy, kissy!" Red said.

"Go to scramble," Ben ordered. "You heard all that, Ike?"

"I wouldn't have missed it for the world."

"Georgi?"

"Every word, Ben."

"Cecil?"

"Oh, yes."

"Scouts and rec teams back in. We shove off in the morning with main battle tanks spearheading."

The 52-ton main battle tanks rumbled on the interstate as Ben walked back to the wagon and got in, cutting his eyes to Corrie.

"Move them out, Corrie."

The siege had begun.

At Dubois, where Dan was to split from the main column and head down Highway 22, Ben's command hit their first trouble spot.

The town itself was a burned-out sh.e.l.l. No more than a tiny village before the Great War, the town had been looted and destroyed over the years. The Night People had mined the area with Claymores, but it was too obvious for Ben's liking.

"They're getting smarter," Ben said, studying a map. "They want us to swing off the Interstate and take this secondary road that runs parallel to it.

Check it out, Buddy."

"It's a death trap," his son reported back.

"About ten miles down the road there is a bridge.

It's wired to blow. It's you they're after, Father."

"Yeah. They don't like me very much for sure. Come on back. Our people are clearing the mined area now."

He got out of the wagon and walked over to Dan.

"OK, Dan. You and your people take off. We'll see you in Twin Falls. If you get into anything you can't handle, get the h.e.l.l out, understood?"

"Understood, General."

Buddy and his team roared back in and once more took the point, main battle tanks rumbling and snorting right behind them. All the little towns they pa.s.sed through were deserted and burned-out; relics of a dead society that blamed the war for its destruction, but in reality had legislated itself to death, the final blow coming with the disarming of the American citizens by a liberal President who was backed by an equally liberal House and Senate. The Great War only put the dying nation out of its misery.

And now, years later, Ben Raines was dragging the nation out of the ashes and dusting it off, propping it up, and telling its people to stand tall. "John Wayne would have been proud of you, partner,"

Ike was fond of telling Ben. Then, in a more serious tone, he would say, "Tell you the truth, I wish Big John was here. We could use the help."

Buddy radioed back. "The creepies have barricaded themselves in the city, Father. They never learn, do they?"

"They have no other place to go, son," Ben replied. "For some reason unknown to us, they fear life outside the city. Tell the tank commanders to crank up their one-o-five's and start dropping them in. I'm splitting my people and 111 lead a contingent in from Highway Twenty. You take the airport."

"That's ten-four, Father."

Cooper meandered around back roads until reaching the new route and cutting southwest. Ben halted about two thousand meters outside the small city and told his gunners to set up and bring the city down.

d.a.m.ned if he was going to lose Rebels slugging it out with crud when he could use artillery and accomplish the objective faster and with practically no loss of life.

Ben stood with his team in the shade of what was left of a burned-out building on North Yellowstone Avenue when he thought he heard something that was totally out of sync with the bombardment. "Tell the gunners to cease firing, Corrie."

As the big guns fell silent, they could all hear it very clearly.

"What the h.e.l.l?" Jerre said.

"They're on top of us, people!" Ben yelled. "Get down behind cover. The creepies are charging us."

The move had not been totally unexpected. Ben was intensely hated by the Judges -- the ruling body of the earth's Night People comand he knew the creepies were so fanatical thousands would willingly die en ma.s.se if Ben Raines could be killed in the process.

Corrie was on the radio, urging Dusters and more troops to get the h.e.l.l up to their position when the almost solid wall of stinking creepies came into view. The screaming, wild-eyed mob ran right toward and into the guns of the Rebels.

Corrie, Beth, Jersey, Cooper, and Jerre opened up with M-16's on full rock and roll.

There was no need to aim; just point the muzzle in the general direction of the rampaging and screaming mob and hold the trigger back. Ben had bipodded his M-14 and was lying on his belly behind several hastily piled-up concrete blocks. The M-14 was pounding his shoulder as the big .308 slugs tore into flesh and knocked creepies spinning and wailing out their death songs.

Two Dusters came zipping around the corner and opened up with machine guns and 40mm cannon, the heavy fire tearing a great hole in the mob as the city smoked and burned and exploded behind the now b.l.o.o.d.y and body-littered street.

Rebels ran around the corner and stationed themselves behind whatever cover they could find and opened fire on the mob of cannibals. Others climbed up on rooftops and began firing into the still-chanting and screaming mob on the street below them.

But still they could not kill them all.

A Duster pulled in front of Ben's wagon to act as a shield just as creepies came charging from the burned-out building, breaching the Rebel security around Ben.

A stinking creepie hurled himself onto Ben, tearing the M-14 from his grasp and momentarily knocking the wind from him. Ben rolled from under the smelly cannibal and gave the man the toe of a jump boot to the b.a.l.l.s. The creepie screaming and vomited, the puke just missing Ben's head. Ben kicked the man in the face just as another stinking creep jumped on his back. Ben nipped him off, regained his balance and jerked out his .45, carried c.o.c.ked and locked, and shot the man in the head as he was getting to his knees. He turned the muzzle to the first creepie and blew a hole in the man's back.

Rebels surrounded him and forced Ben back, protecting him with their own bodies. They literally pushed him into the armor-plated and bulletproof-gla.s.sed wagon. His team was shoved in after Ben was inside.

"Get the h.e.l.l gone from here, Cooper!"

Cooper spun the wheel and left the firefight area in a squeal of rubber. "What to, General?"

"Next block over," Ben said calmly.

"Let's see if we can find some action there. That's where we left Emil and the bikers."

They found action. Emil and the bikers, joined by Thermopolis and his bunch were on one side of the street, a gang of creepies on the other side, both factions banging away at each other. It was a standoff.

A hard burst of gunfire struck the front of the wagon, the slugs blowing out both front tires.

The wagon lurched to a stop in the street. To compound the problem, they were stalled much closer to the creepie side than to the friendly side.

"Let's go, people," Ben said. "We're ducks in a pond out here."

The team piled out of the wagon and ran for the cover of an office building, all of them carrying boxes of ammo as they ducked between abandoned and rusting vehicles littering the street.

Ben shoved Jerre inside the shattered front of the building and then jerked a grenade from his battle harness and chucked it into the building next to them. The Firefrag blew, clearing the front of the store of any creeps. Ben followed the blast with a clip from his M-14.

Ben ducked into the gloom of the ground floor.

"Corrie! b.u.mp those across the street and see if they've taken any casualties."

"Two wounded," she reported, after speaking briefly with the radio-person with Emil. "None of them serious. Emil had the heel shot off one of his cowboy boots. The force of it knocked him down and he got a splinter in his b.u.t.t."

"Savages!" the voice of Emil Hite drifted to them during a momentary lull in the fighting.

"Philistines! Youil pay for this, you . . ." Whatever he called them was drowned out in a hard clatter of gunfire from the creepie side of the street.

"We're in a p.i.s.s-poor position here," Ben said. "Cooper, check out the back and see what's going on."

"The alley's clear as far as I can see,"

Cooper called from the rear of the store.

"You can bet they've got people just above us, though," Ben said. "Waiting for us to try a run for it." Ben looked up at the ceiling. "This is an old section of town, with mostly two- and three-story buildings constructed fifty to seventy-five years ago."

He handed his M-14 to Jerre and climbed up on a scarred counter-top. Taking out his knife, he removed several pieces of ceiling tile and grinned down at his crew.

"What's so funny, Ben?" Jerre asked.

"The floor above us is wood."

Ben climbed down and retrieved his M-14.

"Spread out," he told his team. "Let's give those above us a hotfoot before they figure out the floor is wooden and spray us with lead."

The team lifted their weapons and put two hundred rounds of .223 and .308 slugs into the room directly above them. Screaming bounced around the dusty room as blood began dripping down from the punctured floor above them, plopping amid the dirt and the torn paper and rat-s.h.i.t-littered floor.

"Tanks," Beth said.

"Corrie, tell the tank commanders to spray the top floors while we get the h.e.l.l out of here," Ben ordered. "As soon as the firing starts, head for the other side."

The .50-caliber slugs began knocking brick and mortar from the top floors as Ben and his team ran for the other side of the street.

Ben plopped down beside Thermopolis. "I thought I told you to stay back with the artillery."

"It was far too noisy back there. Besides, I wanted to see what trouble you might be getting into."

"Did you satisfy your curiosity?"

"To the max."

"Tell the tanks to start using HE, Corrie.

Bring that line of buildings down. And tell one of them to winch the wagon out of the street. Check out the back, Jersey. If it's clear, let's get gone from here."

"Them was my last pair of Tony Lama boots!" Emil wailed from the next building. "And they ain't n.o.body makin' no more of them. And I got a splinter in my a.s.s. You creepie sons of b.i.t.c.hes!" he wailed.

Those outlaws and terrorists Ben had left back in the park linked up and began their plans for moving on.

Villar looked with disgust marking his face at the spot where they had concealed their vehicles.

"The b.a.s.t.a.r.d took them!" he griped. "Raines took every d.a.m.n truck and Jeep we had. That son of a b.i.t.c.h doesn't miss a trick." He glanced over at Kenny Parr. The boy had the look of defeat on his face. They had all noticed the change in him since the ambush that wiped out what had been left of his command.

"He'd never known defeat before this,"

Ashley spoke in a low voice.

"It's more than that," Meg said. "He's scared.

Ben Raines really frightened him."

"Leave him behind," Satan grumbled, contempt in his voice. "The punk's turned yellow. From now on out he ain't gonna be nothin' but a drag on us."

The biker spoke loud enough for Kenny to hear.

"Screw you!" Kenny said, cutting his eyes to the outlaw biker.

Satan laughed at him. "You wanna be my punk, boy? We ain't exactly overrun with wimmen around here and I'm sorta h.o.r.n.y."

"That's enough!" Villar told him.

"You his sweetie now?" Satan faced the terrorist, an evil grin on his ugly face.