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“Where would I go? Where could I go? And do what?” She put her dark eyes on him. “I went home once, right after ... it happened, after I got well from being so sick. Back to Orlando. Found my parents. Dead. I didn't know what to do so I just went back to what I'd grown accustomed to: the campus. I'd been there four years; all my friends were there. Or had been, that is. I tell you one thing, though. The professor might not have had all his beans baked, but he knew people, and he saw something in you he could trust. Lots of guys had been there before you came—all looking for women. But he never said anything about me.”

“How often did you leave the campus?”

“Only once after I got back from Orlando. That was when Penny had joined us in the dorm. Penny Butler, from Miami. Seventeen years old. Things had sort of calmed down, and we went for a walk, just to look around, you know? Some guys started chasing us—all of them drunk and mean-looking. They caught Penny. I can still hear her screaming while they were dragging her into a department store. I hid in a grocery store right next to the department store. I was afraid to move; so scared I thought I'd die. I didn't know what to do. I found a pistol under the cash register, but I didn't know what to do with it. It was kind of like the one you have on your belt. How do you work the damned thing? I've never fired a pistol in my life—any kind of gun, for that matter.

“They took turns raping her; and it wasn't just rape. They did ... ugly things to her. I could hear them through the walls, laughing and shouting. They ... buggered her, you know? Then they beat her when she wouldn't ... suck them off. I guess she agreed to do anything they wanted, ‘cause the beating stopped. I heard them talking about her taking three guys at once. You know, one in the mouth, one up the ass, and one the ... normal way. One of them must have been real big, ‘cause Penny kept screaming in pain and then they'd beat her again.”

She sighed. “I ... guess they beat her too much. All of a sudden it got real quiet. She wasn't screaming. The guys laughed some more, then walked out of the building, up a street. I slipped out the back door of one building and in through the back door of the department store. She was just lying there on the floor, naked, her eyes open, but she was dead. Her neck was at a funny angle. I guess it was broken. I checked her pulse, wrist and neck, but she was dead. Ben?”

“Uh-huh?”

“How come there's so many shitty people in the world? How come they lived and the good people died?”

Jerre had asked pretty much the same question. All Ben could do was shake his head.

April kept pretty much to herself in the big house by the beach. She was impressed by Ben's determination to write a chronicle of the disaster, and she helped whenever she could. But when it got down to the actual writing of the journal, Ben told her to take a hike; he worked alone.

She did not take offense, seemed to understand. So she walked the lonely beaches, picking up driftwood and sand dollars and shells.

Ben had sensed their time together would not be long, for in their conversations, April had let it be known, loud, clear, and proud, that she was a liberal; she opposed capital punishment, believed in gun control, loved the ACLU, was thrilled with Hilton Logan, hated the military, et cetera.

Ben had listened to her blather and babble and then had told her that if she so much as mentioned Hilton Logan or the ACLU to him again, she would find herself back on the road—alone.

She got the message.

On the first day of April, 1989, Ben told her to get her gear together, they were pulling out.

She asked no questions.

They drove up to Perry, then took highway 221 to Georgia. They saw no one along the way, but Ben felt certain someone had seen them. His senses were working overtime, and he could not shake the feeling of being watched ... tracked.

April surprised him by saying, “I think we're being followed, Ben.”

“When did you pick up on it?”

“When we crossed into Georgia.”

A few miles south of Moultrie, Ben pulled off the road and tucked the pickup behind a service station. He checked the M-10 and his 9-mm pistol, then he hooked a couple of grenades into his belt.

“Stay back here and keep quiet,” he told April. “Keep Juno with you.”

He was getting some very bad vibes concerning just who was following them—or what. Then he heard the sound of motors coming up the road from the south. The engines were running ragged, as if they had seen hard use and had not been serviced properly. Or at all.

Two military trucks came into view, camouflage paint jobs. Two men in each truck. That he could see, that is. Ben felt there were probably men in the back of each truck. He clicked the M-10 off safety and stood by the side of the station. He pulled the pin from a grenade and held the spoon down with his left hand.

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Фантастика / Альтернативная история / Попаданцы / Постапокалипсис / Фэнтези

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