Age of Monsters John Schneider (digital book reader TXT) 📖

fair skin beginning to burn in the California sun.  Lucas had not waited for her to complain, but instead stopped the group, confronting her face-to-face, his head tilted analytically.

“Here,” he said, “that's probably heavy,” and switched out her hand-held pistol for Jeremy's shoulder-strapped rifle.  Then he nodded to Allison, who still carried her purse – rifling through, he pulled out a small cosmetics kit and slopped a glob of dark-make-up under both of the startled coffee-girl's eyes.  Then he pulled a bandanna out of his own pocket and wrapped it around her head.

It was a remarkable transformation, Rosa thought.  In less than two minutes, he had turned a timid parking-lot brewista into a wild-looking Rambo-groupie.

But it worked.  The balance of the rifle mimicked her own lost purse, a weight she was accustomed to – the cloth and war-paint across her face kept her temperature down.

And again, most importantly, her posture had changed – Rambette was now acting out the part.

From her own assigned position at Lucas' flank, having also now been provided with a pistol of her own, Rosa found herself constantly amazed at his ability to pull it off.

In point of fact, she realized that somewhere in the middle, she had started to depend on him.  Worse, to believe in him.

Her own third-person perspective always understood intellectually the concepts of military training, but she'd never experienced the psychology at work.

Part of her had always been rather contemptuous of the 'props' – the bluster and bravado.  From a civilian perspective, she had always been cynically amused the way military jargon sounded like a coach revving up a football team to charge across a painted line.  It seemed so trivial.  Worse, it was like mind-control, because the emotions they evoked were all-too real.  She'd doctored many a high-school player who had broken an arm or leg 'for the team.”

Marching along in Lucas' path, however, in a rather thunderstruck 'duh' moment, she realized that was backwards – historically, sports were training for war – that was where the jargon came from.

Rosa, of course, was always adamantly opposed to war, anywhere – she had stood in numerous protest lines, and she never believed in the 'good guys and the bad guys'.  Her educated perspective necessitated a view of moral-relativity, and simple-minded military-code did not translate to her intellectual level.

She realized now, however, it was her own perspective that was limiting.  These simple-minded 'coach's tricks' were actually complex behavior training that had endured for thousands of years.

And as currently being executed by a professional, these techniques were also what had kept them all alive.

Like Patton – lead 'em through hell and make 'em love ya.

And on an even deeper level, Rosa realized that it was just like Lucas himself had said – human-nature was human-nature.

She would be utterly lying to herself if she didn't admit – privately to herself, under threat of torture – that she felt comforted and safe under his wing – following the head caveman, just like his primary 'she'.  It didn't even bother her that Julie was there – the symbolic position of handmaiden in waiting.

But even that was an illusion created by training and circumstance.

They weren't the lead caveman's females – they were his 'assignment'.

Lucas' cavewoman was somewhere else.

Now, as their journey was growing short, that assignment was nearly over, and he would be off to find her.

And in the same manner, with the efficiency of necessity, he would professionally hand-off his albatross to the system – dismissed with the same trained emotion that she would cut away loose tissue from a wound – to be numbed and stitched and never thought of again.

After their last rig had run out of gas, ten miles and almost four-hours ago, Lucas had stepped out, stomping his lame foot, as if for no other reason than to make the pain come.

“I feel like a hike,” he said.  “Almost there, folks.”

And again, just like that, he had his people ready to charge that final hill – their goal at last in sight.

In fact, Rosa was only now realizing how much he had turned her own psychology around that simple goal – just getting there – and now she realized she hadn't given much thought to what happened next.

That finally brought it home – penetrating through weeks of survivalist-shock.  If the world really had ended, she wondered what waited just over the rise.  Some refugee camp?  It wasn't like there was any chopper ride back home.

As they crested that final slope, she was overcome with an overwhelming sense of loneliness.

Lucas caught her expression almost right away.

“Hey,” he said, “you okay?”

Rosa felt the momentary sting of tears – absolutely forbidden in her world – and she bit them back with the same professional face she wore when she told a patient or family member there was no hope.

“I'm fine,” she said.

Lucas raised a skeptical eyebrow.  “I've had more than one woman in my life tell me she was fine.”  He shook his head.  “Never once was it true.”

Rosa stayed stubbornly silent.

Lucas sighed.  “Just like my wife,” he said.

Ahead, the curve of the coastal highway gave them the first view of Fort Hunter.

The first thing they could see was the ocean beyond – filled like a parking lot with the entire pacific fleet – aircraft carriers seemed to have formed a new chain of islands.

And on the coast, surrounding the inland bay, Fort Hunter itself bustled – its sparse lodgings now joined by a make-shift shanty-town of temporary shelters – Rosa was reminded of a camp-out before a Dead-show.

Lucas turned to the others.  “You're not officially survivors until you get there alive,” he said.

He pulled a flare-gun from his pack and fired four blasts in succession over the top of the base.  Lucas smiled.  “I don't really feel