“You think the Trolls came from this facility?” Daffodil deduced.

  “Their descendents anyway,” Nadine answered. “I don’t know when they were first called the Trolls, or why. I did find one illuminating paper written by a man named Aaron, the head of the facility. Apparently the Government ordered an evacuation of the town and most people fled. A bus was to be sent from Minneapolis to pick up the criminals in his charge, but it never arrived. Aaron scribbled some notes on a piece of paper, steps he would take if help didn’t eventually show up. One of the sentences could be the key to our current predicament.”

  “What was it?” Jenny asked.

  “I have it memorized,” Nadine said, quoting: “If we are left on our own, must find women. None left in town. Must find women!”

  Silence momentarily engulfed their little group.

  The door suddenly crashed open and a Troll stalked into the room.

  “Are you all comfy?” He laughed.

  No one else thought he was funny.

  “Four of you will come with me,” he barked, raising his right hand and pointing at four of the women standing near the right wall. “You and you and you and you. Move it!”

  The women meekly complied, hastily departing.

  The Troll looked at the Family members. “Get plenty of rest today and tonight, because you’ll need your strength for the testing tomorrow.” He grinned, pivoted, and walked to the door.

  “I’m not looking forward to this testing business,” Angela anxiously whispered.

  “Oh, by the way.” The Troll had stopped with his hand on the door. “I don’t know if anyone has told you yet, but if you don’t pass our tests tomorrow, you’re in for a very nasty surprise. Sleep tight and don’t let the bed bugs bite!” He cackled and exited, the door slamming behind him.

  “Can’t those bastards close a door quietly?” Ursa asked.

  “What did he mean by that last comment?” Jenny glanced at Nadine.

  “They haven’t told you yet?” Nadine seemed surprised.

  “No. Saxon mentioned feeding us to somebody called Wolvie, Runt, or Momma. Who are they?” Jenny noticed Nadine stiffen.

  “They are not persons.” Nadine gazed at each of them. “If you fail the tests, you will suffer the same fate as any woman who has outlived her usefulness to the Trolls.” She paused, her face a pale, haunted visage.

  “What will happen to us if we fail?” Angela gripped Nadine’s right shoulder.

  Nadine stared into Angela’s eyes. “You will be thrown, alive, into a pen of ravenous wolverines.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  “This road makes our trip a lot easier,” Geronimo commented. He was sitting in the front, in the passenger-side bucket seat. Blade was driving the SEAL. Hickok sat in the back seat, behind Blade, Joan’s head cradled in his lap. She was stretched out on the seat, sound asleep.

  “At least there aren’t any trees,” Blade admitted. They were cruising in a northeasterly direction on Highway 11, an artery the map referred to as a

  “principal paved route.” Possibly, at one time, it was, but not now. The pavement was cracked and split, some sections completely buckled, grass and weeds growing in the fissures. A century of neglect had taken its toll.

  Blade carefully avoided a rut in the asphalt. Despite the damage nature had caused, the highway was still functional, probably because the road had not experienced any traffic for one hundred years. Traffic volume, Blade once read in the library, forced prewar societies to spend considerable portions of their budgets on highway repair each year.

  “Badger should be just ahead,” Geronimo stated while consulting the map.

  Blade had to hand it to Geronimo. Their route had progressed exactly as he predicted. First, they had reached the stream and turned south. Within four miles the SEAL had burst through a thicket onto the highway and they had headed for the next town, a place called Greenbush. Joan had fallen asleep after Hickok had tended her wounds and bandaged her right shoulder. Seeing them so happy, so content to be together, had made Blade feel uncomfortable, reminding him of Jenny’s absence and her dilemma.

  Greenbush had been a monumental disappointment. Uninhabited, in utter disrepair, the buildings decayed, the vegetation reclaiming the land, it was an eerie reminder of life before the Big Blast.

  “Sure is pitiful,” Hickok had commented.

  Blade had decided to head straight to Badger. He couldn’t see any sound reason for stopping to explore Greenbush, and time was too crucial.

  Nine miles had elapsed.

  “There it is,” Geronimo pointed.

  Blade braked.

  The buildings of Badger were visible, interspersed with numerous tall trees.

  “From here,” Geronimo observed, “it looks as run down as Greenbush.”

  “Let’s find out.” Blade gunned the engine. “Roll up your window,” he advised Geronimo, a precautionary measure to prevent anyone from shooting them or hurling a projectile into the transport. Plato claimed the body of the SEAL could withstand a gunshot blast at close range.

  “Somebody is home,” Geronimo said.

  Blade saw it too. Gray smoke was curling skyward.

  “If they turn out to be Trolls,” Hickok spoke up, “they’re all mine.”

  Blade glanced in the mirror at Hickok’s granite features. He was worried about the gunman, concerned for his friend. After Joan had drifted into slumber, while tenderly stroking her hair, Hickok had become uncharacteristically quiet and reflective. Blade would look back and see Hickok’s lips compressed, his blue eyes hard. He could imagine what the gunman was thinking, even understand and condone it, but the reprecussions could be deadly for Hickok and those with him. Sheer blood lust made a person reckless, heedless of his personal safety, oblivious to everything but revenge.

  Hickok wanted revenge.

  The SEAL slowly entered the outskirts of Badger. The structures here were similar to those in Greenbush: gradually disintegrating, windows shattered and doors off their hinges, the concrete and brick buildings in better shape than the wooden-frame houses.

  “There!” Geronimo spotted the source of the smoke.

  Approximately fifty yards ahead, in the middle of the highway, was a raging fire, the blaze consuming a neatly stacked pile of dry wood.

  “This doesn’t read right,” Geronimo warned Blade.

  “I know.” Blade braked the vehicle. It made no sense. Who would build a fire in the center of the road? More importantly, why? On a hot day like today!

  “Let’s take the bait,” Geronimo recommended, twisting in his seat to retrieve the Browning. The shotgun was leaning against the back of his bucket seat.

  “Should I wake Joan?” Hickok asked Blade.

  “No need,” Blade answered. “She’s been through an ordeal. You stay in the SEAL with her.” He shifted into Park and switched the motor off. “I’m leaving the keys in the ignition,” he said over his shoulder. “If something should happen to us…” He left the sentence unfinished.

  “Understood,” Hickok said.

  Geronimo opened his door and slid out of the transport. He glanced back at Hickok, grinning. “You two try and behave yourselves while we’re away, okay?”

  “Cute, pard,” Hickok rejoined. “Real cute. You be careful, okay?”

  Geronimo hefted the Browning. “They’ll never know what hit them!”

  “Don’t forget!” Hickok advised. “Try for a head shot.”

  Geronimo was about to close the door. Instead, he opened it and leaned inside. “That reminds me,” he mentioned. “When I was checking the Trolls you blew away, I found one shot through the heart. What happened? You suffer a memory lapse?”

  Hickok smiled. “Nope. He was carrying a bow, and from where I stood it covered part of his face. So I went for a heart shot. I never said the head rule was chiseled in concrete.”

  Geronimo chuckled and closed the door.

  Blade was waiting for him several yards in front of the transport, the Commando in his hands.

  “How do we play this?” Geronimo inquired as he joined Blade.

  “The direct approach,” Blade ordered. He began slowly walking along the left side of the highway, while Geronimo did likewise on the right.

  Tumbled-down houses bordered Highway 11 at this point. Blade, analyzing the setup, spotted the probable ambush site. On his side of the road, directly across from the fire, was a crumbling brick wall. On Geronimo’s side, again across from the blaze, was the rusted hulk of a large vehicle.

  Perfect positioning for a bushwhacking, as Hickok might say.

  Blade pretended to concentrate on the fire, the Commando hanging slack in his arms, his senses alert, his nerves tingling.

  Movement.

  Blade wanted to smile. Whoever these people were, they lacked skill and training. He had seen someone move in the second-floor window of a house behind the brick wall.

  Geronimo was keeping his eyes on the wrecked remains of what appeared to be a former bus.

  What were they waiting for? Blade wondered. The fire was now only ten yards away.

  A woman suddenly jumped up from behind the brick wall, a bow in her hands, the string already drawn, pivoting for a shot.

  Blade was faster. He crouched, leveling the Commando, aiming for the top of the wall and not the woman. The Carbine bucked as he pulled the trigger, the bullets biting into the lip of the brick wall, spraying dust and chunks of brick in every direction.

  The woman, startled, dropped from sight.

  Geronimo’s Browning boomed twice as a youth stepped into view, a spear in his right hand. The shots hit the bus near the youth’s head, forcing him to leap to safety behind the bus again.

  Blade saw a gray-haired man stand erect in the second floor window of the house behind the wall. The glass in the window had long since disappeared. The man held a rifle, but it was obvious he entertained little enthusiasm for using it. He was gaping at Blade and Geronimo, his mouth open, his brown eyes wide in surprise and disbelief.

  Blade covered him with the Commando anyway.

  “Don’t shoot, mister!” yelled the woman behind the brick wall. “Don’t shoot anymore!”

  “Hold your fire!” the man in the window shouted. “We mean you no harm!”

  “You’ve got a funny way of showing it,” Blade countered. “Get down here on the double,” he commanded. “Hold your rifle above your head when you come out the front door or I’ll blow you away!”

  The man nodded and vanished.

  “And you!” Blade faced the wall. “Stand up with your hands in the air. Now!”

  The woman, actually a girl in her late teens, did as he instructed. She had blue eyes and brown hair, worn cut off at the shoulders. The clothes she was wearing were tattered rags.

  “You too!” Geronimo called to the boy behind the bus. “Leave the spear and step out. Now!”

  The youth reluctantly emerged from hiding, his arms upraised. He wore torn jeans and a ragged brown shirt. His hair, like the girl’s, was snipped at the shoulders, the brown strands oily. His brown eyes glared at Geronimo.

  “You!” Blade gestured at the girl with the Commando barrel. “Get on this side of the wall.”

  She promptly obeyed, clambering through a gaping hole in the waist high wall.

  “And you!” Blade looked at the boy. “Get over here.”

  The youth arrogantly shuffled across the highway.

  “Move it!” Blade barked, swinging the Carbine to cover him.

  The boy paled and increased his speed.

  The elderly man stepped from the ramshackle house, the rifle held aloft.

  Blade brought the Commando around and kept it trained on the man as he crossed a weed-choked yard and climbed through the hole in the wall.

  “Lay the gun on the ground. Slowly,” Blade ordered.

  The man complied. All three were lined in a row: the scared girl, the haughty boy, and the bewildered man, their arms upraised.

  “Looks like the posse collared some vicious outlaws,” Hickok wryly commented behind Blade. “Might be the James Gang.”

  Blade glanced over his right shoulder. Hickok and Joan were just feet away, Joan carrying the Henry.

  “I thought I told you to let her sleep,” Blade said to Hickok.

  “I was going to, pard,” Hickok chuckled, “but your Commando alarm clock woke her up.”

  Blade faced the amateur assassins. “Who wants to do the talking?”

  “I have something I’d like to say,” the boy with the oily hair said angrily.

  “What?” Blade demanded.

  The youth glanced at the man. “I told you, asshole, they were not Trolls, but no! The day you listen to me is the day I die of a heart attack!”

  “You mind that tongue of yours,” the old man retorted testily.

  “Papa!” the girl chimed in. “Can’t you two stop your fighting for a minute! At a time like this! These men may kill us!”

  “No, I don’t think so.” The man shook his gray head, his eyes twinkling.

  “And why wouldn’t we kill you?” Blade asked him.

  “You ain’t natural killers like the damn Trolls.” The man looked directly into Blade’s eyes. “You could of killed my girl with that machinegun of yours, but you didn’t. And your friend could of killed my son with that cannon of his, but he didn’t. Nope. Somethin’ tells me you won’t kill us in cold blood.” He paused, eyeing the Carbine with open appreciation. “What is that thing, mister? Never saw a gun like that in all my born days!”

  “It’s called a Commando Arms Carbine,” Blade told him, amused.

  “They were factory shipped as semi-auto,” Hickok added, “but we converted it to full auto.”

  “What’s that mean?” the man wanted to know.

  “It means it can shoot a lot of bullets real fast, old-timer,” Hickok responded.

  “My name is Clyde, sir. This is my daughter, Cindy. And this contrary pup is my son, Tyson.”

  “Why did you attempt to kill us?” Blade queried.

  “I thought you was Trolls,” the old man replied, and the boy made a loud snorting sound.

  “You don’t love the Trolls much, I take it,” Hickok said.

  “Sure as hell don’t, mister!” Clyde exploded, his face reddening. “The damn Trolls should all be killed, and that’s no lie! For years and years they’ve been after my family. Long time ago they took my dear Bess, the Lord bless her soul. We never know when some of them bastards might try and sneak up on us and take my Cindy. So far, though,” Clyde said, laughing, “we been too smart for ’em! Even killed a few in our time.

  They’re not too bright.”

  “You live here?” Blade gazed at the deteriorated buildings in their vicinity.

  “We hole up where we can,” Clyde said sadly. “Used to have a farm south of here a ways. My granddad owned it. But the Trolls discovered us. We’ve been runnin’ and hidin’ ever since.”

  “Why didn’t you move away from here?” Geronimo chimed in. “Away from the Trolls?”

  “Because he’s too proud,” Cindy answered.

  “Too stupid,” Tyson amended.

  “Watch your mouth, boy!” Clyde fumed.

  Hickok walked up to Blade and winked. “So what are we going to do with the James Gang here? Line them up against the wall and execute them?”

  “Please! Don’t!” the girl screeched, taking him seriously.

  “Let me think.” Blade studied the three, debating. What should they do with them? Leave them here, in effect banish them to a miserable life, a furtive existence of constant conflict with the Trolls? Clyde, apparently, wanted to retaliate against the Trolls for taking his wife. But what about the girl and the boy? Was this the type of life they should live? Never knowing a roof over their heads, never feeling safe and truly happy?

  Cindy was staring at Joan. “You sure have pretty clothes, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

  “You call these pretty?” Joan looked at her torn, dirty blouse and jeans.

  “You should see some of the clothes the women wear at the Home.”

  “The Home?” Cindy repeated.

  “It’s where we live,” Joan informed her. “We make our own apparel or mend the garments still around from the time of the Big Blast.”

  “Big Blast?” Clyde reiterated.

  “Clyde,” Blade interrupted, “I have a deal for you.”

  “A deal?”

  “You say you don’t like the Trolls…”

  “You got that right!” Clyde confirmed.

  “Neither do we. What do you know about Fox?”

  “That’s their filthy den. We’ve snuck up on ’em a couple of times and done in a few of ’em.” Clyde cackled delightedly.

  “So you’re familiar with Fox?” Blade pressed him.

  “I’ve seen it from the outside,” Clyde said. “I’ve never been inside. No one goes inside and ever comes out again.”

  “At least you know the area. Here’s my offer.” Blade lowered the Carbine and stepped over to Clyde. “You help us rescue some friends from the Trolls, and after this is over you can come and live with us at our Home.

  What do you say?”

  “I don’t know…” Clyde bit his lower lip, his brow furrowed.

  “Oh please!” Cindy exclaimed, excited at the prospect. “Please! These are nice people, Papa. You said so, yourself. Please!”

  “How do we know we can trust “em?” Tyson asked suspiciously.

  “You don’t trust ’em?” Clyde asked his son.

  “Nope.”

  “Then I know they can be trusted.” Clyde beamed at his own wit and nodded twice. “You got a deal, mister.”

  “Good,” Blade smiled.

  “Say, pard.” Hickok was grinning at Blade.

  “What?”

  “If these fine folks are coming with us,” Hickok said casually, “don’t you reckon they can lower their arms now?”

  Chapter Nineteen

 

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