The Damn Disciples (10 page)

Once the main frame was completed Stone showed them how to lay the cross pieces, tying them down at each end with vine and
then building a cross foundation with smaller branches. Again, they caught on once they had a visual demonstration. They seemed
to think it was fun, with all of them wanting to participate now as if it was some kind of game. Even the crippled ones crawled
around underneath weaving in small branches to help make the roof dry. Another hour produced a woven lean-to that looked for
all its twisted unevenness fairly strong—and well designed. The angled roof would push off the rain; the mud-cemented corner
beams would keep the thing strong enough to take any but the strongest winds. Now for the mortar. Stone directed them to make
thick buckets of mud and then pour them over the walls and roof, mixing in leaves and twigs to form an almost impenetrable
natural barrier to the elements. Again, slow at first, once they saw that all that it entailed was mixing mud and playing
pat-a-cake with the roof, they contributed.

Once Stone saw that the whole mud-splashing operation was well under way, he gathered the pit bull, Smythe, and one other
fellow who he had observed to be a cut above the rest. Which wasn’t saying a hell of a lot. Still, the man didn’t drool, could
talk—if only softly—and had a little more muscle on his wasted body than the rest. He’d have to do. Stone took them out as
the others worked on. The night had fallen black as a velvet sheet, with just a few stars and the glow of the universe to
guide them through the woods. Smythe and the second man, who called himself only, “Damaged,” were extremely reluctant to come
along, to go into the shadows where they had heard the screams of their fellows. But with Excaliber taking up the rear and
showing a few teeth when they slowed down, and Stone taking the lead holding the Ruger .44 in his hand, safety off and ready
for quick fire, they had no choice.

They had to learn how to fend for themselves. And fast. Stone didn’t say a word, just led them through the forest until they
came to a rise, with a large flat boulder atop it. He led them up to it and then lay down prone on his stomach and pointed
that they should do the same. The dog got down on its haunches alongside him and looked down toward the large meadow below
them, stretching off for nearly a half-mile in each direction with trees at the end. Smythe began to complain that he “didn’t
know a whole lot about hunting,” but Stone just put his fingers to the man’s lips.

“Look—just watch me!” The two of them watched sullenly as Stone whistled softly twice to the dog and then slapped it on the
side. The animal shot down the side of the boulder, dropping down the eight-foot face to the meadow-land below. Like a rocket,
it tore ass straight away from them and headed for the woods on the far side, just a gray mass of shadows. Stone held the
pistol in his outstretched hand and breathed out hard, getting his arm and body as relaxed as possible. Then he waited.

They didn’t have to wait long. The dog had been gone less than two minutes when there was a commotion from out of the trees
and suddenly they could see a large shape coming straight at them as if its tail was on fire. At first it wasn’t clear just
what it was. But then, as a mass of thick clouds passed overhead and the stars suddenly splashed down over them inundating
the scene with a billion pinpoints of light, they could see exactly what the dog had flushed out. A buck—and a big one at
that. A good six feet at the skull, with horns on each side that looked as if they could make good chair frames. Behind the
thing the dog was racing up a storm, snapping and barking and putting on quite a show, considering the buck was much larger
than it was.

Stone waited until the animal was within about fifty yards, and pulled the trigger twice. The two men next to him let out
little whelps of fear from the sharp retorts. But the buck did a lot more than just make sounds. It stopped dead in its tracks
as two red holes the size of silver dollars appeared in its skull. The thing rose up on its back legs, did a little dance
to some unheard at, and then fell right over on its back, one of its horns sticking into the turf as it wiggled around in
its death throes.

“Jesus, Jesus,” Smythe kept mumbling under his breath. The rapid-fire events of the evening were apparently a little too much
for him to take in one sitting.

“Come on,” Stone said, reholstering the Ruger and jumping down from the rock. They followed behind, their stomachs growling
as they approached the game. Excaliber had stopped and was pointing at the buck. Smythe and Damaged got down on their knees
and leaned over to begin drinking, lapping at the blood that was collecting below it.

“No!” Stone shouted, pulling both of their shoulders back so they didn’t have a chance to drink. “Men do not drink blood like
animals! We will cook the buck, and eat like civilized beings—not savages.” He knew they were incredibly hungry, could hear
the stomachs making all kinds of gurgling sounds. But still, they had to learn certain things. At least as long as Stone was
on the scene, the men would not drink up blood like a hyena on their hands and knees.

It took them about fifteen minutes to drag the carcass back to camp. And Stone was glad to see, when they pulled the thing
into the Broken Ones’ village, that the rest of them had just about finished the roof and walls of the hut. They continued
to pour unending amounts of mud over it, not really knowing when to stop. The mud would just protect them a little longer
from being washed off by each storm.

All of their eyes went wild with hunger as the meat was hauled in. But again Stone kept them back, and first skinned, drained,
and then butchered the animal, showing them all how to do it. They watched, fascinated and starving, as his razor-sharp Bowie
blade ripped through the meat as if he was in the back room of a supermarket. With the fire higher now, Stone took a whole
bunch of select steaks and organs and slammed them onto spits over the flames. The sound of twenty or so stomachs gurgling
ravenously by the fire was not the greatest appetizer. Nor were the whinings of the pit bull, which looked at the sizzling
meat with the expression of a priest spotting God in the very heavens.

After a few minutes, when the meat was cooked enough to kill any disease, bacteria, whatever, Stone gave them the go signal.
It was as though a stampede of lions had been let into the arena to devour the Christians. He grabbed his own stick up and
barely got out of the way in time. And if the gurglings had been a little disgusting to Stone, the rippings and tearings,
the splatterings, the faces coated with blood and half-chewed meat, like werewolves at Gristedes, made Stone turn away and
chew his smoking ribs behind a tree.

When Stone got up the next morning at the stroke of dawn, the first thing he had them all do was clear out of their newly
constructed home, which in the dim light of the coming day looked almost respectable. Then it was exercise time, to get their
watery blood sloshing around inside them. They groaned and complained, but they more or less followed along. Even the legless
cripples slapped their hands together and rolled around on the ground trying to get into the spirit of the whole thing. And
that, after all, was what mattered. Spirit.

Stone could see, as the burning scalp of the sun poked up over the tree line, that they already looked slightly healthier.
A touch more flesh on the bones after all the meat they’d eaten last night. Half the buck was gone, and it had been big. Still,
he had no illusions that he had done anything more than stave off their decline into complete savagery. He headed over to
the fire and saw that at least Smythe had kept it going. He and a few others were still slicing up pieces of the beast, toasting
them over the flames on spits as Stone had shown them. They seemed to have a hunger that had no bounds. He understood why.

Stone made an instant decision and went to his bike, took out a small bundle, and walked back over to Smythe, who stood up
as he approached.

“I’m giving you this, man,” Stone said, handing the skinny fellow a .38 snub-nosed revolver that he had stashed in one of
the boxes on the back of the bike—just in case. Just in case was here now. “And a box of ammo. That’s almost a hundred shots.
Make ’em count. You can keep this bunch fed for a while, anyway. You hear what I’m saying?”

“I hear you, Stone,” Smythe replied with a look of awe as he took the weapon. With this he could get them much food, could
protect them at night. It changed their whole world in an instant. From one of constant fear and hunger to one of possibility,
however minute it might be.

“Do you know how to use it?” Stone asked, not wanting to embarrass the guy, but not wanting to leave him unable to operate
the thing.

“Yes, yes, I do, Stone. I had a pistol many years ago, on my father’s ranch. Before … before—”

“Easy, easy,” Stone said, putting his hand on the man’s shoulder. Smythe strapped the holster on around his waist and took
out the pistol. He aimed it at a rotten stump of a log about forty feet off and squeezed the trigger. The gun erupted with
a sharp burp and the Broken Ones around him pulled back, oohing and aching in fear and excitement. The slug hit the bottom
of the stump and sent a whole little cloud of ground-up wood into the air. Not bad.

“You should be able to bag something,” Stone said. “Now remember, save your ammo. And have the other men flush out the prey
like the dog did. Send them into the woods, make noise, bang things, whatever. And then wait in a field outside. You can’t
miss. It’s what hunters have been doing since caveman days.”

“Thank you, Stone,” Smythe said in a whisper as he slid the gun back into the holster. He had felt like a piece of dried-up
spit just the morning before. And now.… This one man had changed things beyond dreams. It was impossible, and yet—

“Just one favor for me, ” Stone said as he took the man around a be so. the others couldn’t hear. There was no sense in trusting
anyone more than he had to. It seemed unlikely that there would be spies among these. But the one thing Stone had learned
about the new America was, you never knew what was going to happen next, and that enemies lurked behind the softest of flowers.

“I want to leave my bike here. We’ll push it back out of sight into the woods. But I need you to guard it, keep an eye on
it, make sure none of your brain-cleansed pals here get a hankering to start chewing on the leather or something.”

“No, Stone!” Smythe said firmly. “Those days are gone. I will not let these men, as you say, be less than men. At least while
I’m here. And this is here.” He patted the gun. “I’ll watch the bike, sure. Me and Damaged can cart it off.”

“I’d rather keep it out of town,” Stone explained. “My ace in the hole. Because I have to go into what you all came out of.
My sister is in there.”

“God help her,” Smythe whispered, crossing himself with his hands. “And you, friend,” he added softly as he put out his hand
and gripped Stone’s arm.

“Come on, dog,” Stone yelled, whistling for the mutt, which was needless to say over on the meat line for break-fast. The
animal was chomping down the meat as fast as it could be cooked up. The man who was doling out the sizzling meat didn’t dare
refuse. Not with these almond eyes focused on him. The dog swallowed down its last helping fast when it heard Stone whistle,
and then grabbed another piece that must have weighed a good five pounds. The pit bull dragged it along as if it just happened
to be attached to its mouth, and came up alongside Stone.

“We’re moving, dog,” he said, looking down as the animal chewed wildly away. Stone took one last look at the chomping encampment
of mental cases as they sat around the fire. Well, he’d done all that he fucking could. He wasn’t God. He saw Smythe and Damaged
taking the bike off into the woods as he turned and started down the back road toward La Junta. He hoped he could trust them.
But Stone had basically been trusting his intuition up until now. There was no sense in stopping now. At least he was still
alive. Which was more than a lot of men could say.

He walked quickly along the dusty road as the sun rose up into the sky like a flaming basketball searching for a new position
among the high puffy clouds. The dog followed behind, still gulping down every last meat flake it could. They walked for nearly
an hour and a half at a fast gait. Wildlife rushed off as they approached. They didn’t pass any cars. Just one of the same
walking-dead type, his clothes hanging in shreds over him as he walked by, his eyes focused on infinity. Maybe the poor bastard
would find the others down the road; if not … well, maybe it was better to just go out fast. Before you discovered you no
longer had a mind.

Then the town of La Junta was suddenly right before him as he come over a slope and looked down. It was spread out over acres,
mostly low-built structures, all crude log-cabin-type construction. A few larger buildings here and there, including a nearly-four-story-high,
very elaborately and peculiarly decorated one, like some sort of mix between American Pioneer and twelfth-century Hindu. Stone
headed down the slope, a little more slowly now, as he wanted to take in everything carefully. There wasn’t going to be room
for mistakes here. He pulled Excaliber close to his leg, telling the dog in no uncertain terms to stay close, stay cool, and
be ready to go for the jugular.

He had barely set foot in the town when Stone did a triple take. For coming around the side of a log building was an elephant.
It was pulling an immense tree behind it that was attached to a chain wrapped around its trunk. Excaliber made a strange sound
deep in its throat. It had never seen anything so big. Stone and the canine waited until the thundering beast had hauled the
multiton tree past them and down a side street. Stone could see already that the people here were in better shape than the
Broken Ones out on the road. At least on the outside. These had pink cheeks, and their clothes weren’t torn. But their eyes,
as he walked by more of them, were just as vacuous. Perhaps more so. For these were all smiling. Dumb painted-on smiles sat
on every face like the superexaggerated expressions of the old smile buttons, the demise of which was to Stone one of the
positive benefits of the collapse of American civilization.