When the Devil Dances

“Just one,” Mosovich said, looking up at the sun. They had managed to pack the whole group into the appropriated Humvee by much sitting on laps and packing some of the children in the bed. But travelling much further would be problematic. And the afternoon was upon them; it was October and most of the kids were underdressed for nighttime fall temperatures. “How you doing, Captain?”

“I’m… fine,” Elgars said, shifting her body to track on the sergeant as he stumbled past. “The… number of armed personnel is throwing me. I’m… feeling twitchy.”

“That’s normal,” Jake admitted. “And not out of reason; there’ve been some hellacious firefights in these military towns.” He looked around and shook his head. “Franklin is out. There are probably places frequented by the locals, but it would be pointless to look for them.”

He looked at the sun again, counted on his fingers then looked at Wendy. “Do you trust me?”

She regarded him calmly for a moment and then nodded. “Strangely enough, yeah. Why?”

“I’ve got a buddy who’s got a farm near here. He’s got a granddaughter not much older than Billy and he’d probably be more than happy to have some company. We could go there, but it would be an overnight stay.”

“Oh.” Wendy looked at Shari, who shrugged then looked at the sun herself. “We need to get the kids out of the cold before dark.”

“That won’t be a problem,” Mosovich said. “Getting back might have been a problem, but not getting there. And, frankly, he’s probably got some clothes that would fit them; they’re the worst outfitted kids I’ve seen in years.”

“All we’ve got for the surface is what we arrived in,” Shari said quietly. “Billy’s wearing a jacket I borrowed a couple of years ago. And none of the other children have anything.”

As if on cue, Kelly pulled at Shari’s hand. “Mommy, I’m hungry.”

“That’s it,” Mosovich said. “The farm or go back to the Urb as a bad plan.”

“I don’t want to go back underground,” Elgars admitted. “Not just yet. I… like it up here.”

“So do I,” Shari admitted, looking up at the sky. “I miss the wind. Okay, if you’re sure this friend of yours won’t completely freak at having five adults and eight kids descend on him out of the blue.”

“Not a problem,” Mosovich said. “He can handle anything.”

* * *

Michael O’Neal, Sr., pulled the Palm from his belt and frowned. Since the interesting events a few years back he had updated his security systems. The cameras at the front gate now transmitted back to a webserver that, in turn, sent a compressed video stream to the device. So he found himself looking at a Humvee piloted by Mosovich. Not a big deal, Jake had been up a couple of times in the last year. But the fading light showed that the Humvee was packed with other bodies.

O’Neal rolled the huge wad of Red Man in his cheek from one side to the other and frowned in thought. He was not a huge man, but he had an aura of squat stolidity that was almost preternatural; it appeared as if it would take a bulldozer to move him. His arms were overlong for his body, reaching, simianlike, almost to his knees, and his legs were just a tad bandied, adding to the overall aura of a slightly annoyed male silverback.

He jacked up the gain on the distant cameras and zoomed in on the front seat. Jake was driving and the guy next to him had to be Mueller from past descriptions. But Mueller had two kids on his lap and unless Papa’s eyes were deceiving him there was a female leaning between them. Hot diggety. Just what he’d been praying for this last few months; maybe there was a God who took care of fools and drunks.

As he activated the gates there was a scream from upstairs like a panther with its leg in a trap.

“WHERE’S MY GUN-SMITHING KIT?” came a shriek from above.

Ah, Cally had apparently found something to her dissatisfaction.

“Have you looked in your desk?” he called calmly.

“DON’T YOU TAKE THAT TONE WITH ME, GRAMPS!” she yelled. “Of course I looked in my DESK! I keep it…”

He nodded at the cut off sentence. Time to get out of the house before she got down the…

“I just looked there!” she said, breathing angrily and waving the cloth-wrapped tools above her head as if she was going to use them as a weapon. The young woman was as tall as her grandfather, long of hair and leg with wide, cornflower blue eyes. Her grandfather had often considered that it was a good thing she’d gotten her looks from her mother rather than her father. But those looks, along with the fact that she was barely thirteen and a few… incidents had gotten surreptitious pictures tacked up on barracks walls. With the caption: “Warning: Jailbait. To be considered ARMED AND VERY DANGEROUS.”

“Cally,” Mike Senior said calmly. “Calm down. You found it and…”

“DON’T YOU DARE SAY HORMONES!” she shouted.

“And what I was going to say was we’re about to have visitors,” he continued as if she hadn’t said anything. “Mosovich and a packed Humvee full of women and kids it looks like.”