One Second After (44 page)

John raised his Glock, muzzle touching the man's forehead.

“Go on, you bastard,” he whispered. “Be like me; drink my blood once I am dead as I would have drunk yours. I know you are hungry. You do it, and all who follow you will join in, for they are hungry, too.”

John hesitated, then backhanded the man with the muzzle of his pistol, knocking him down.

John turned and looked at the hundreds who were now gathered round.

“You heard it from his own lips.”

No one spoke, all filled with shock, revulsion.

John looked around.

“Rope.”

One of his students came forward, a coil of rope in hand . . . the knot already made. John motioned to the aluminum crossbeam that supported the traffic light.

The rope went over the beam. Several already had the man up. He had expected to be shot and at the sight of the dangling noose he began to struggle, kicking, screaming, as they dragged him over and tightened the rope around his neck.

John walked up to him, almost spoke to him, but the hell with that. There would be no last words.

“By the power vested in me by the citizens of Black Mountain and Swannanoa I declare this man to be a condemned criminal, a murderer, an eater of human flesh. He is not even worthy of a bullet.”

John stepped back.

“Hang him.”

They hoisted him up and it took several long minutes of spasmodic kicking before he finally died. His followers watched, terrified. Several fell to their knees and started to cry that they had repented and wished to be saved, one calling for a priest to hear his confession.

John looked at them and then turned away. He saw Tom standing there, grim faced.

“Hang as many as you can; shoot the rest of the bastards. I want a sign painted onto the side of the truck over there: ‘Cannibals.' ”

Tom nodded and within minutes half a dozen more were hoisted up.

The others now saw their fate, there were screams, pleas, and John stood there silent, watching.

“John?”

Makala was by his side.

“For God's sake. A couple of them aren't much more than kids. Most likely got sucked into this. Stop it.”

He didn't speak.

“John, this is a lynching now. This is out of control. It's what you tried to stop this town from becoming. Look at us.”

He looked down at her and then back around at his young soldiers, the townspeople who had fought, and saw the savage light on more than one face.

Ten of the prisoners were led away from the side of the truck stop, most pleading, screaming . . . and were shot. Their bodies were tossed over the railing, dropping down the sheer cliff to shatter on the rocks below.

A minute later, another ten were shot, their deaths greeted with angry shouts of approval.

And it was as if at that moment a film was winding through John's memory. Old grainy film, Russians hanging from makeshift gallows in that cold winter of 1941; the etchings of Goya, Spanish prisoners pleading, holding up their hands as French soldiers of Napoléon gunned them down; naked prisoners being led to a pit by the SS, kneeling down, shot, bodies tumbling forward. It was the face of war, of all wars, and now it was here and it was us against ourselves, John thought, as we fought for the last scrap of bread and now even for the bodies of the dead.

There were eight left, Tom's men picking them up, dragging them to the edge of the ravine.

John stepped forward, Glock out, and Tom, seeing him approach, stepped back, assuming that John was reasserting his old position as the town's executioner.

He looked at the eight. Several stood defiant, the same as the punk with the snake tattoo long ago. John looked into their eyes wondering, wondering
why. Was this inside all of us? He turned and looked back, the hundreds gathered falling silent, and on more than one he now saw that same cold gaze. And he slowly turned back.

Makala was indeed right. Three of the prisoners, one a girl, were not much more than kids, fourteen, fifteen at most, though all three had that distant look of coldness and ice. He wondered if they were like that long before all this had ever started, gangbangers, as Washington had said, kids who would kill even then and think it a joke.

Next to them was a woman in her early twenties, shaking, so terrified that a trickle of urine was running down her leg, pooling at her feet. The next was an old man, eyes vacant, crazed, and beside him was a Hispanic kid, lips moving, the Spanish all but unintelligible but now obviously praying a Hail Mary.

“Kevin.”

Malady came down to John's side.

“Get out your knife.”

Kevin looked at John, hesitated, but then obeyed.

The eyes of one of the three defiant men widened. “Shoot me and be done with it,” he said coldly. “But not the knife, man.”

“Cut their bonds.”

“What?”

“I said cut their bonds.”

Kevin stepped behind each and cut their hands free. None of them moved.

John looked back at his students, his neighbors, his friends.

“It's over,” he said.

There was a murmur of complaint from the crowd.

“What's to prevent those bastards from coming back tonight and trying to cut our throats?”

John shook his head.

“I was wrong.”

“For killing them?” someone shouted.

“They killed our wounded without mercy!” a girl cried, one of his students, a girl who had been a Bible major long ago.

“And we have killed theirs. Washington and I ordered it because there is not even a fraction of the supplies needed to take care of our own.”

“Cannibals!”

John nodded.

“Yes. Some undoubtedly yes. I won't bother to ask these, because they will lie to save their lives.”

He wearily shook his head.

“I'm stopping it because I started to love it. I hate them. I hated that bastard hanging there more than I've ever hated anyone in my life. . . .

“But I will not become him. . . . I will not let us become them. Because God save us, we are on the edge of that now, here at this moment.”

He did not wait for a reply but turned back to face the prisoners.

“I'm not going to go through some bullshit ritual of you swearing to me that you will leave, never return, and repent.”

The Hispanic boy started to nod his head, went to his knees, and made the sign of the cross repeatedly.

“Remember what you saw here. Don't ever come back. All of you, if you survive, will carry the mark of Cain upon you forever for what you've done. If you come across other bands like yours tell them what happened here, and tell them they will face the same defeat.

“I ask but one thing. We've given you back your lives. Do not take any more lives, for then you surely will be damned forever.”

He started to turn away.

“Go!”

Six did not hesitate; they simply turned and ran. The boy on his knees looked up at John wide-eyed and moved as if to kiss his feet. He backed away from the boy and motioned for him to get up and leave.

“Gracias, señor.” He turned and ran off.

The young woman who in her terror had urinated just stood there, unable to move.

“Go,” John said softly.

“Where?”

“Just go.”

“I'm sorry. God forgive me, I'm sorry. I don't know if I can live now with what I've done. I'm sorry.”

Sobbing, she turned and slowly walked away.

John turned and faced the crowd.

“Cut those bodies down,” he said, then paused. “Except for their leader. I want a sign under him. ‘Hung as punishment for leading the gang known
as the Posse, murderers, rapists, and cannibals. May God have mercy on his soul and all who followed him.' ”

John holstered his Glock and walked back to the rest, his soldiers, his neighbors, his friends parting as he passed, many with heads now lowered.

“You were right, John,” someone whispered.

His soldiers. He looked at them as he passed. Some were now beginning to break down. Postbattle shock, perhaps what had just happened here as well.

Some started to cry, turning to lean on one another for support. Others stood silent. More than a few were kneeling, praying, others wandering back now, stopping to roll over a body, then collapsing, crying, hugging a fallen friend.

John felt weak, sick to his stomach.

“John, let me take you back into town.”

It was Makala, who had come up alongside of him, slipping her hand into his.

He stopped and embraced her.

“Thank you for stopping me,” he whispered. “I was out of control.”

“It's OK, sweetheart. It's OK.”

She leaned up and kissed him, the gesture startling, for so many were walking by him now, seeing this and respectfully not looking directly at them.

He suddenly did feel weak, as if he was about to faint, and had to kneel down.

“Stretcher!”

He looked up and shook his head.

“John, you have a concussion. You're suffering from shock; you need to lay down.”

“I must walk out of here. Just help me.”

He leaned against her, walking across the battlefield.

A battlefield, he thought. Memories of photos of the dead at Gettysburg, bodies lying in the surf at Tarawa, the dead and wounded marines aboard a tank at Hue. Always photos, but never in a photograph was there the stench.

The battlefield stank not just of cordite but also the coppery smell of blood, feces, urine, vomit, the smell of open raw meat, but this raw meat
was human, or once human. Mixed in, the smell of vehicles burning, gasoline, rubber, oil, and, horrifying, burning bodies, roasting, bloating, bursting open as they fried.

The forest fire to either side of the highway had been a tool of battle but an hour ago. Now it was a forest fire raging, the heat so intense it could be felt from hundreds of yards away, moving with the westerly breeze, already over the crest of the mountain, moving down into the valley towards Old Fort, bodies, the enemy but also his own, roasting in those flames.

Now that it was over, hundreds were moving about, looking for loved ones, sons for fathers, mothers for sons, young lovers and friends looking for lost lovers and lost friends.

Film, yet again film. The scene from the Russian film
Alexander Nevsky
, after the battle on the ice, the mournful music, the haunting twilight effect of the lighting, wives and mothers weeping, looking for their fallen loved ones.

Again, though, this was no film; this was real. A boy, one of the tougher kids from the ball team, collapsing, lifted up the shattered body of a girl, cradling her, screaming, friends standing silent around him and then suddenly pinning him down as he dropped her, pulled out a pistol, and tried to shoot himself.

John staggered on.

A line of vehicles on the highway ahead. Wounded being loaded onto the flatbed trailer. Makala motioning for help. Hands reaching out, pulling him up, Makala climbing up by his side.

The sound of the diesel rumbling, exhaust smoke, they started to move, picking up speed as they cleared the ramp for Exit 65, the driver holding down the horn as the trailer came up State Street and then stopped in front of the furniture store in the center of town. All the furniture had been moved out, tossed into the street, except for the beds and sofas in the main display room.

But the facility was already overflowing.

“All ones here!” someone was shouting. “Twos over here!”

Four of the ones, all of them on stretchers, were lifted off and rushed inside.

John looked at Makala.

“I need to go in there.”

“John, it's a concussion, not too bad, I hope. I think it's best I just get you home and into bed. You should be all right in a week or so. Jen can take care of the burns.”

“No. I have to go in there. Those are my kids . . . my soldiers.”

She didn't argue with him. A couple of townspeople helped him down. The last of the wounded off the truck, the driver revved it up, swung around the turn to Montreat Road, then turned through the parking lot of the town hall complex to race back to the battlefield.

John stood outside the door, hesitated, took a deep breath.

He let go of her embrace, stepped aside from her, and walked in.

He almost backed out but then froze in place.

It was the hardest thing he had ever done in his life up to this moment. Worse than holding Mary as she died, worse than anything.

“Jesus, give me strength,” he whispered to himself, and then he walked in.

Dozens were on the floor, all with ones marked on their foreheads. Some were crying, others silent, trying to be stoic. Fortunately for some, they were unconscious. Every wound imaginable confronted him.

He walked slowly through the room. If any made eye contact he stopped, forcing a smile. Some he recognized, and he was ashamed of his lifelong inability to remember names. All he could do was bend over, extend a reassuring hand, and kept repeating over and over: “I'm proud of you. . . . Don't worry; they'll have you patched up in no time. . . . Thank you, I'm proud of you. . . .”

He left that room and in the next one he truly did recoil and Makala came up to his side. He looked at her, wondering how in God's name she had ever handled what he was looking at.

The two towns had nine doctors and three veterinarians Day one. One had since died. There were eleven tables in the room and on each was a casualty and around each was a team at work, the veterinarians as well in this emergency.

The anesthesia saved from the vets' offices and the dentists' offices was now in use. He saw Kellor at work and the sight was terrifying. Kellor was taking a girl's leg off just above the knee. The knee was nothing but mangled flesh and crushed bone. Her head was rocking back and forth, and she was weeping softly.

Horrified, John looked at Makala.

“We're using local for amputations,” she whispered. “We have to save the general for the more serious cases.”