Forced Conversion Read online

  He would not make a move to save any of them. Not to tend their wounds and burns, not to comfort or convert them as they died, and certainly not to risk life and limb—even if he were not already himself a physical disaster—to pull them from the fiery wreckage. Not even if they called out in pain or screamed in writhing agony. He wrote them all off the second the explosion occurred.

  He had not a scintilla of hesitation over A. K. or Manning.

  A. K. was no more than a brutal thug, a gleeful hunter and exterminator of his fellow man, and a wannabe warlord of the most amoral type. He represented what the Conversion Forces had become as the number and quality of souls who were unconverted had dwindled. Men who served not from duty or obligation or honor, or even from stupidity in falling for the damn recruitment vids, but from bloodlust for the hunt and the megalomania that springs from the power of life and death. Derek felt no sorrow from the fact that apparently one of A. K.’s prey had successfully turned on the hunter. He imagined a squirrel—a sinewy gray and black squirrel like they had here in the west, not the chestnut, bushy-tailed things that had back east when he was a kid—dropping a round into a mortar tube and chittering gleefully as the round popped out of the tube and dropped through one of A. K.’s putrid smoke-rings, right into the bastard’s lap.

  He wouldn’t . . . couldn’t ever . . . lift a finger to save A. K., not if the asshole was screaming for help as he burned right in front of him. It’s not that Derek wanted to hear the screams, but it would somehow be satisfying to know that the macho jerk screamed like a little girl.

  As for Manning, well Manning aspired to be a macho amoral asshole like A. K., but he didn’t have the strength or the skill or the cunning or the discipline or the self-control or, quite frankly, the quality of character to be a ruthless, amoral hunter. No, Manning was a whiny, vicious, pathetic, immoral psychopath. He was the type of individual who graduated from incinerating ants with a magnifying glass to pulling the wings off flies to exploding frogs with firecrackers and then turned mean. He was the kid you always suspected when a cherished family pet went missing and who always acted as a brainless henchman for the biggest bully in school. He was the guy you would never trust alone with your girl, with any girl. He was the maniac you always thought about when you heard a news story about a rooftop sniper or a string of grisly serial murders. He represented what the Conversion Forces were becoming—a corps of evil sadists, delighting in torturing and annihilating the weak, the passive resisters, the moralists, and the religious types—the better humans who remained unconverted—just for the sheer sick pleasure of creating and causing terror.

  No, if Manning was roasting vigorously right before him, Derek would pour kerosene on the fire and piss on the ashes only after they stopped smoldering. There was not a single thing that could have improved Derek’s life . . . or what remained of life in this world . . . more at this moment than for the psycho little bastard to be blown straight to hell.

  Derek did have some modicum of remorse for Digger, Pancek, and Sandoval. Each was, in his own manner, like him, just trying to get along and do his duty as a member of the Conversion Forces. Digger in his relaxed good ol’ boy way, Pancek doing his quiet, professional best, and Sandoval trying to fit in, but hating himself for doing it. But Derek knew, also like him, they all would just keep marching forward and following orders and doing what they were told to do without having the gumption or the backbone or the strength of character to resist the accelerating slide of the Conversion Forces into the terror death squads that Manning had wet dreams about.

  But, it was also because they were just like him that Derek had only a tinge of remorse or sympathy for the trio. He knew deep in his mind (only mals believed they had souls) that, like him, they never would have forsaken their duty or taken action to check out of this world with pills or a gun or a rope, but that they all wished on most days that somehow it would happen. They craved death because they hated their duty, they hated their life, and they hated that they didn’t have the integrity or the character or the courage to do anything about it.

  No, if any of the three of them were aflame before his eyes, he wouldn’t move to save them, because it was clear to him that they wanted to escape this world. And death, even an agonizing, tortured death, was the only way to escape the ConFoes, absent unauthorized conversion. Even if Derek had his gun in his hand as they burned and sizzled close before him and even if his tired, quivering muscles could hold the weapon steady enough to shorten their trip into nonexistence, he would probably not even attempt that mercy, because he knew that, like him, they also recognized that they deserved to suffer for what they had done. More accurately, what they had allowed to be done.

  Wires caused Derek the only hesitation—a second or two before he confirmed by deliberation what his mind had instantly determined. It’s not that Wires was an order of magnitude more noble or moral or brave than Digger or Pancek or Sandoval. He, too, had kept his nose to his own responsibilities when terrible things had occurred, yet he had always endeavored to make conversion readily available. No one had died or been beaten to death or destroyed because Wires was slow or the equipment was not being efficiently handled or assembled.

  Wires had made some effort in his own quiet, limited way, but he still shared the responsibility and likely the mindset of Digger, Pancek, and Sandoval. No, Derek had a few second’s hesitation in rethinking Wires’ pain-wracked demise only because killing a Converter was like killing a non-combatant, like offing a priest, back when priests were respected and revered by civilized society. Wires’ only purpose on the squad was to orient the mals, give them a choice, and allow them to convert if they so chose.

  But Wires was a throwback to what the Conversion Forces had once been meant to be. He had not converted anyone in months, and between the tactics of the ConFoes and the recalcitrance of the remaining mals, it wasn’t likely he would have converted anyone anytime soon. Wires no longer had a place here. Derek would not make a move to keep him here.

  If Derek were a better man, maybe, just maybe, he would have tried to save Wires. He might have been able to save the tech and use his bulky scanner to convert him if Derek were strong and brave and had high ideals. But none of that was true. Derek was weak and tired and injured and depressed physically, emotionally, and morally. Besides, if poor, diligent Wires was blown to smithereens, Derek was convinced that Wires’ precious scanner was burning alongside him. Better to let fate take its course.

  Derek wasn’t sure how he had really decided all this, when he had written off every friend he had left in this world. Perhaps it was intuitive. He certainly had no memory of ever thinking it all through beforehand. Yet the mind is quicker and deeper than one’s conscious thoughts. It could have been simulating hypothetical scenarios on its own accord during his body’s arduous treks up and down mountainsides searching for their elusive and misguided quarry.

  Perhaps none of it had been decided before the flash of the explosion. Perhaps he was simply a coward, a man without enough character to care for his squad-mates, and it had merely taken a few moments after the manifestation of his inherent character flaw for his clever mind to fix upon a series of plausible and comforting rationalizations as to why abandoning his comrades was the correct thing to do.

  His combat sense, the part of him that had been trained and drilled and instructed in military maneuvers at ConFoe boot-camp, knew that it was likely that the enemy was here . . . now . . . and that it was also likely that the mals did not know that Derek was in the vicinity. If they did know, surely they would have waited to trigger the explosion until he had joined the others.

  Of course, it was also quite possible that the detonation was an unmanned booby-trap and he had just been lucky enough not to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Still again, the mals could be watching the vehicles and his companions burn right now from cover. Any move he would make to save his companions or even to cry out in anguish over their wretched demise would bring the enemy up
on him.

  And as much as he was in pain and despised his miserable existence and loathed himself for failing to instinctively move to save his companions, right now he chose life. To do anything other than to hunker down and wait and see was not a rational choice for continuing that life.

  He tenderly lowered himself into the waist-high, dry, wheat-colored buffalo grass, as the acrid, thick haze of the vehicle fires rolled vigorously by. He would wait and see.

  It was many hours ‘til dark and there was nothing he dared do before then.

  * * * * *

  Maria never thought or rethought for a nanosecond about lifting a finger to rescue or relieve the suffering of the savage ConFoes. If she had been close enough to hear their screams, their horror would not have affected her one iota. She had done her duty in a war . . . a war that was a matter of more than life and death to the Believers . . . a war that was a matter of life and life after death.

  The torment of the ConFoes in this world was nothing compared to the anguish that faced their heathen souls in the afterlife. They had long since chosen that terror by their words, their actions, their non-beliefs. Now they were martyrs to non-belief.

  But then, martyrs have always abounded in religious wars.

  At some point, when she was sure she was safe from any survivors, as well as from detonations from any of smoldering ammunition and provisions that remained, Maria would inspect her handiwork, count the bodies—Joshua had been sure there had been seven—and return to Sanctuary.

  Right now she was tired. Dead tired. Killing tired.

  She slept the sleep of the righteous . . . the exhausted, wounded, and seemingly victorious righteous.

  She awoke thoroughly pissed off.

  Chapter 5

  Again Derek awoke in blackness and in pain. It had not been a good night. Swirling black smoke and unseen, sinister forces had tormented him in his dreams and his muscles had stiffened in odd positions as he lay sprawled in the buffalo grass. He absently brushed the gnats away from his face and vowed to check himself thoroughly for chiggers and deer ticks when it was light. Yeah, the insects were inheriting the world, but they didn’t need to do it at his expense.

  He cautiously raised his head above the level of the grass. A gentle northwesterly breeze had arisen anew during the night and pushed the haze of A. K.’s wildfire away from the abandoned highway. The destroyed ConFoe vehicles were no doubt long since burnt out, too, as he could see stars twinkling in the sky in that direction.

  It was good to have awoken before daybreak—the darkness would give him cover to investigate the site of yesterday’s destruction and recover any useable supplies without being noticed by any mal watchers on the far ridges.

  Supplies or no, though, he wasn’t sure his aching body was up for the challenges he now faced, alone in the Rockies—one of the last bastions of the mals—with no transportation. But his difficulties would only increase if the mals saw him. The highway, nestled into valleys and passes in the shadow of majestic mountain peaks, was too easily seen and too closely watched to be safe without the weapons and manpower with which the ConFoe team had first arrived.

  He had best get on with it.

  Making his way quickly down the slope on the faint game trail his squad-mates had followed the day before, Derek scanned the scrubby bushes and young pines that littered the area for movement. Something, after all, had made this trail and he no more wished to meet a mountain lion or black bear than he did a mal patrol.

  There was, however, no movement save his own and the murmur of the gentle breeze.

  Finally, he followed the game trail around the corner of an erosion ridge and came in view of the highway. Even in the starlight, the wide ribbon of Interstate 70 gleamed a ghostly gray as it stretched through the wilderness, marred only by the burned out hulks of the two ConFoe Hummers smack-dab in the middle of the westbound passing lane. There had been no reason to pull off onto the shoulder before parking, not anymore. Besides, the placement of the vehicles would force any attacker closing on them to traverse open ground, making the squad’s parking selection one of the few tactical military decisions that A. K. had gotten right this mission.

  Surrounding the vehicles were various hard-to-recognize lumps of debris, charred supplies, and other things best left unidentified. Derek gathered up a few scorched MREs he found scattered about. One of the boxes had apparently been open when the blast occurred, propelling the nutritious but pasty military meals in a wide arc near the edge of the debris line. Heavier items had been consumed by the fireball and resulting inferno. His erstwhile comrades fell in that category, he was sure.

  It was dark and there wasn’t much he could readily scrounge, but along with the MREs he did find a partially burned topographical map of the area, an extra canteen, and a working flashlight. He tested the flashlight by hunching his body over it and flipping the switch with the beam pressed against his thigh, so as to not reveal his presence. He was about to give up his search for additional items when a metallic glint caught his eye, down the road a ways, behind the guardrail in the center median.

  He arced to his left, edging slightly closer, his eyes peeled on the position of the brief glimmer of light. There it was again, a momentary flicker of some sort. He froze and moved his head back and forth slowly, trying to recreate the angle. Finally he managed to catch it again. Straining, he finally made out that the light was merely a reflection of the stars from an irregular three-foot high lump leaning against the backside of the guardrail.

  He watched for several minutes, but the lump was motionless—more motionless than he could have remained even with his ConFoe training. He unslung his weapon, fingered off the safety with slow, even pressure, and moved toward the lump, ready to fire the second it twitched.

  No twitch came as he approached, however, and Derek eventually discerned that the lump was an emergency blanket draped over something or someone. Stepping carefully over the guardrail ten feet west of the object, he crept stealthily forward.

  Finally, his left hand trembling as he reached forward, still attempting with his right to keep his rifle trained on the target, he grasped and flung the blanket up and to his left over the guardrail revealing . . .

  . . . Wires’ conversion equipment pack.

  The meticulous Converter had apparently set the valuable equipment aside while the crew had unloaded boxes of food for a quick snack before departure. Mindful of the effects of sun and dust on the machinery, he had no doubt draped his own emergency blanket over the pack, before joining the others in preparing foodstuff. Now the pack was all that remained intact of the squad’s extensive equipment and supplies.

  The scanner would be a bitch to carry. Heavy, unwieldy, and somewhat fragile, it would be a definite burden for Derek. But it was ConFoe equipment, he was still on a mission, and it would be against regulations to leave it behind or destroy it, not that the latter would prevent him from hiding behind the bulky machinery for cover if he got into another firefight. The conversion scanner also included an integrated, short-range laser communications device, which could come in handy when he got within line-of-sight of a ConFoe facility. Besides, the equipment in this pack was what the Conversion Forces were supposed to be all about. Conversion was the essence of their mission. And he believed in their mission, at least the idealized version of their mission, even though the reality of service had become increasingly brutal and shameful.

  Derek sat in the dirt, shouldered on the bulky pack, and pushed himself upright, using the dull and pitted metal guardrail for support. He slung his weapon as best he could given the wide pack, stepped back over the guardrail, and headed northeasterly off the highway. The interstate was too dangerous and, from the glow on the horizon in that direction, A. K.’s fire raged on somewhere to the southwest.

  He would head northeast and figure things out with more precision come daybreak.

  As he looked back at the devastation one last time, he was sure this was a scene that would never be i
n a recruitment vid.

  * * * * *

  Maria stirred from her well-deserved slumber and her emergency blanket reflected not starlight, but the glaring rays of the mid-day sun.

  She was pissed. Not at the sun, but at herself. She had slept well into the day, much longer than she intended. She berated herself mentally and gazed down upon the scene of yesterday’s destruction. All was silent. All was still.

  She took care of her necessary biological functions, then sat for a bit, still irked at her dereliction. She watched the highway while she nibbled at some rations and swigged a bit of water. Still, there was no sign of movement, no sign of life or rescue on its way.

  Finally, she made her way down to the scene, itself. Maybe she could find some food or salvage some equipment or find some information of use to Sanctuary. Of course, before she could do any of that, she had to verify her kills. It’s not that she gloried in the body count or made notches in her gun stock, it was simply a matter of good military tactics.

  It was neither an easy nor a pleasant task.

  The first four bodies were grisly, but not that difficult to verify. She guessed that the largest one was the ape that had shot at her and most likely torched Sanctuary’s valley. He had been in the driver’s seat of the lead vehicle when the explosion occurred. The body was black, the skin and muscle charred and cindered by the fire that had consumed the vehicle. Unfortunately, the ape’s neck was also broken. The bastard had probably been killed by the initial concussion and had not suffered at all, certainly not enough. If she were lucky, though, his neck might have broken, but left him conscious, to watch in terror as his unfeeling, motionless body grilled like a well-done steak.

  The other three of the four easily confirmed kills had apparently been standing near the back of the lead truck when the explosion occurred. The shock wave had propelled the three soldiers hard into the front of the second truck and trapped them in the inferno that consumed both vehicles. From the position of their bodies, she guessed that they all had died even before the time of the secondary explosions from the rear vehicle and its stores of ammunition. She didn’t look for dogtags. The ConFoes disdained them, given their superior firepower and attitude. Besides, the names of these heathens meant nothing to her. To her, they were indistinguishable from one another, except that one had apparently carried a shovel.