One Second After [140]
The prisoners were herded over into the truck lane, where a couple dozen more prisoners waited.
As the second group approached, those already there looked over anxiously. Some stood up staring at the short slender man in the lead, white, gray hair cut close, tattooed arms, ugly face twisted up from what looked to be an old knife wound, one of the final group flushed out of the burning house.
Malady, still alive, arm in a blood-soaked sling, came up to John.
John smiled and extended his hand, which Kevin clutched with his left.
"Good job, Kevin, damn good."
"I lost a lot of kids, though," he replied sadly. "It got real ugly once these bastards knew they were cornered. Kids were reluctant at first to shoot somebody who was down and looked dead, or badly wounded, but they learned real quick...."
His voice trailed off.
He looked at the young soldiers standing around, gazing cold-eyed at the prisoners.
"You interrogate any of them?"
"Oh yeah, they're spilling their guts, pointing at each other. Everyone claiming they were forced into it. That piece of shit over there is their leader."
Kevin looked over at the ugly man.
"Amazingly, that bastard is the leader. Apparently a big drug player in Greensboro, contact guy for major shipments of coke and heroin coming up from Florida. He might look soft, but they're all scared of him, even the worst of the lot. They say he claimed to have the inside line with Satan himself, that God had abandoned America and Satan now ruled and he was the appointed one sent from hell to pave the way for Satan's reign over America."
"The stories about cannibalism?" John asked. Kevin nodded and spat. "They're all true."
John walked over to the leader, who gazed at him and then actually smiled.
"So let me guess, you're the general here?" John did not reply.
"Masterful plan. I bet you're the professor, aren't you. I heard about you yesterday from a prisoner we took. A sweet girl she was, captured her yesterday."
John froze. The girl they had most likely lost in the skirmishing on the dirt road.
"I see a touch of military history in this fight. The la Drang Valley
perhaps, lure in, get close up, and envelop? Saw it in that movie and on the History Channel."
"And you walked right into it," John said sarcastically.
"Yes, I did; indeed I did. I guess he decided it thus."
"He?"
"Satan of course."
The man turned and looked at the other prisoners.
"Did I not tell you that if you failed to offer your souls to him fully and in all things he would abandon you? Now you are indeed doomed to the fiery pit of hell. For God has cursed this world and because you failed me, Satan shall turn away from thee as well. Your reign by his side will be replaced by eternal punishment for your lack of faith.
"These dogs will show you no mercy. Rather than feasting tonight on their flesh, as Satan wished for you, instead you will be carrion for the dogs and crows ... or perhaps..."
He looked over shiftily at John. "... they will feast on your flesh."
John, his Glock half-raised, was tempted to blow the man's brains out right there.
The other prisoners looked at him wide-eyed. Some started to cry; others knelt down, heads lowered, resigned to their fate.
It was so damn strange, John thought, how sometimes the most unlikely, an ugly little man like this one, could hold such power. He had a tremendous command presence, his voice sweet, rich, carrying power. So strange how some had that, could spout utter insanity and others would follow blindly.
"Cannibals," John said coldly.
The man looked up at him, face twisted into a smile that almost seemed warm and friendly.
"My friend. You know enough about what has happened to know that this nation is doomed except for those chosen few with the strength to live. The flesh of the weak is the holy sacrament to us, the living, to survive and to have strength, to allow us our triumph of the will."
He