Daniel carefully laid Rosie on a dusty gurney and sat down in a nearby chair to rest, while Carmen started to search the clinic. The place looked pretty ransacked. Rosie hadn’t opened her eyes since they had entered the clinic, and he had thought that she was sleeping. That is until she spoke.

“Daniel, am I going to die like everyone else?”

“You are not going to die, Rosie.” He reached over and squeezed her hand. “Do you want me to share a little secret with you?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Many, many people are not dead. They are just living somewhere else,” he whispered.

“A bad place?” she questioned.

“No, not really.” He thought about it for a second, the added, “Just different. They have plenty of food and friends.”

“It sounds nice,” she murmured.

“They just don’t know any better. It’s like a dream place really.” He smiled, thinking about Victoria and Number Seven.

“I would really like to visit there someday,” she whispered.

Daniel didn’t have the heart to tell her that there were no children in the pods, but it didn’t matter because Rosie had fallen asleep.

A couple of minutes later, he heard Carmen shout for him. When he made his way to her, she was standing in an office, staring at a locked cabinet. He banged on the lock with the butt of his gun, but the lock didn’t pop off.

“Okay, this is going to be loud,” he said, then took aim and fired the Thunder Ranch, blowing the lock to pieces.

“Holy cow,” Carmen said after she opened the cabinet, making Daniel laugh at her use of English. There was every type of medicine that they could imagine and more. Sutures, band aids, wraps, and other items also lined the shelves. After grabbing a nearby empty medical bag, they stuffed it full of their newfound healing treasures.

Suddenly they heard some banging near the far side of the clinic. Daniel unstrapped his 12-gauge and pointed for Carmen to make her way back to Rosie. He very cautiously worked his way towards the banging noise, which suddenly stopped. When he entered a back room, he saw a shutter swinging in the breeze, causing it to bang into the side of the building.

Daniel lowered his shot gun and took a step forward to secure the loose shutter when he saw one of the three-foot-long iron tools with the two-pronged fork on one end and the hammer on the other. It was lying on the inside of the windowsill.

Daniel was struck from behind, a heavy body driving him to the floor, causing the Thunder Ranch to fire into the wall. A heavyset man was on his back, punching him in the head. Daniel threw a hard elbow back, catching the man in the throat.

It had little effect, although Daniel did manage to flip over while under the man. He immediately saw that his attacker had no hair on his head, including his eyebrows. He also wore one of the same silver metal bands that he had seen before, all the way around the top of his forehead.

Daniel reached up and grabbed the metal band, trying to pull it off, but it only stretched the man’s skin, appearing to be bolted into the man’s skull. His bald attacker responded by punching Daniel hard in the stomach several times. Daniel grabbed the man’s tan shirt and pulled him in close, to stop the painful blows.

The man fell chest to chest with Daniel, his creepy eyes that were covered in a milky white film just mere inches from his own eyes. Drool fell from the man’s grunting mouth and landed on Daniel’s cheek. He brought his knee up hard into the bald man’s groin, which did…..nothing.

The big man got his meaty hands around Daniel’s throat and began chocking him. Daniel clasped the attacker’s wrist, but was unable to dislodge the hands from his throat. He couldn’t breathe and started to pass out. Then the man’s head exploded, spraying blood and brains all over Daniel’s face. The dead man fell on top of him, but he didn’t have the strength or energy to push him off.

Somebody grabbed the body and rolled it off him. Carmen stood over Daniel, a worried look on her face, with the smoking .357 Taurus in her hand. She put her gun back in her shoulder holster, and helped him to his feet. Once Daniel caught his breath, they made their way back to Rosie, who had slept through all the gunshots.

Carmen woke her and gave her several pills. Then the older woman removed the old bandage and replaced it with a clean one. The eight-year-old held Daniel’s hand very tightly until it was over. He stared into the young girl’s big brown eyes and realized that he would never be able to leave her. He cared too much for the child.

Daniel located a jug of water in a long defunct refrigerator in an adjacent room. He used it to clean up. Rosie started to feel better rather quickly, but they were still an hour away from sunset, so they decided to rest up in the health center and make their trip back to the barn under the cover of darkness.

The trio settled in and played some cards with a deck that they had found in a desk drawer. It wasn’t long before they were all laughing. Carmen chattered on in Spanish, apparently not caring that Daniel couldn’t understand a word she said. He did catch the phrase handsome gringo several times.

“What’s she talking about,” he grinned at Rosie.

“She thinks that you are handsome and a hero, because you carried me all the way here,” she said thru giggles.

“Well, I am handsome,” he teased the little girl.

“She also said that once we get back to the barn, she is going to make a hot bath for the two of you in the old cow watering ttub that is there. I guess that I am going to bed early.” She giggled again.

“You know too much for your age,” he said.

“She can’t stop talking about how cute you are, and she really likes your blue eyes.” Rosie rolled her eyes, then smiling, added, “So do I.”

“Well, you can’t have them. They are mine.” Daniel tickled her, bringing about more laughter. It was a good moment for the three of them. Then it was over.

It was time to go. The sun had fallen over an hour ago. They packed up their backpacks, and Daniel put them on his back. He was still sore from his fight, so Carmen agreed to carry Rosie for as far as she could. Once she picked up the girl, they headed for the side door.

Carmen turned back and looked at him, blowing him a very seductive kiss which sent a shiver of anticipation down his spine. He wanted her very badly, and couldn’t wait to get back to the barn. Then the Hispanic woman stepped through the doorway, and was gone.

Carmen and Rosie had been hit by a green power circle and had disappeared. Daniel grabbed his shotgun from his pack and rushed through the door. He was suddenly blinded by several road flares being ignited. Once he could see again, he was startled. The first thing that he noticed was the nickel-plated .357 Taurus lying in the dirt. Metal must not transport in the green power circles.

The second thing that he noticed was that there were four men standing in a half circle facing him. They all held the two-foot batons of the overseers, but they weren’t overseers. They looked like a motorcycle gang. The leather outfits and chains weren’t the only thing that led him to this conclusion. There were five motorcycles lined up behind them.

A big-boned tough-looking white man stood in the center of the line grinning, and winked at him. Daniel raised the Thunder Ranch to blow the smirk off the man’s face.

“We thought you and your girlfriend were going to stay in there forever Princess,” he heard from the shadows to his immediate left.

Daniel felt stupid when he suddenly came to a realization. Five bikes meant five bikers. That was his last thought before a rifle butt struck him in the temple. “Goodnight Princess,” the same voice said.

The darkness came on quickly, sending Daniel to the ground. He caught one last sight before he went unconscious. One of the gang members, a very chubby black man, had turned towards their motorcycles. The back of his leather vest had their gang patch, showing a motorcycle running over a pile of skulls. Above the depiction were the words ‘Dirty Down and Dead.’

“You gonna sleep all day Princess?” He recognized the voice of the man who had butt-stroked him.  “I barely hit you.”

Daniel realized that he was lying in the dirt. When he reached for the lump on his head, he discovered that he was wearing handcuffs. He touched his temple and felt that it was swollen with dried blood around it. He managed to sit up.

“Well, I thought you were awake.” A slender, yet athletic black-haired man stood before him. He had a handle-bar moustache and a five o’clock shadow on his chin. “My name is Stan. Stan the Man. What do they call you?”

When Daniel didn’t answer, another biker spoke up.

“I guess he likes to be called Princess,” the stocky man that had been in the center of the line last night spouted off.

 “Are you a princess, pretty boy? I bet you are,” the big white man continued, licking his lips as he said the words with a slight southern drawl.

“Look here, dumbass. You want to answer my questions. I am the only friend that you have here, and I ain’t much of one,” Stan scoffed. “I am the leader of these jackasses, and I’m gonna tell ya, none of them like you much. They had wanted you to come out of that clinic first, so that we could have kept one of them females for some fun.”

“I’m all good with keeping this princess,” the southern white man said, winking at him. “I could have a lot of fun with him.”

“Shut up Horndog. I haven’t decided anything yet,” Stan said, then turned his attention back to Daniel. “Now let’s start off on the right foot. How’s about you tell me what they call you?”

“My friends used to call me Dat,” he answered.

“Your lady friends?” Stan the Man questioned.

“No. My Marine Corps buddies.”

“Oh, we got us a Devil Dog here, boys.” Stan laughed, rubbing his handlebar moustache between his fingers. “So, tell me this, were you one of those do-gooder honor and integrity marines, or were you one of those shoot people from a bell tower marines?”

“I like to think that I fall somewhere in the middle,” Daniel said. “Why do you care?”

“Now, I’m gonna need some genuine honesty from you Dat.” Stan the Man ignored Daniel’s question, continuing with his own, “This is extremely important, so answer truthfully. Was it just you and the women, or are there any others in your group?”

“It was just the three of us,” he answered, seeing no value in lying. “What are you planning to do to me?”

“Well. I have two choices here, Dat,” the biker leader answered. “My first option is to shoot you with my baton and finish you with the green light. Second, I could ask you to join my little crew here and have you ride with us. You should be full of tingly fuzzy excitement hoping and praying that I ask you to join up. It seems so much better than option number one.”

Daniel just shook his head, and said nothing.

“So, last question.” Stan the Man looked him hard in the eye. “If I do decide to patch you in, would you join us?”

When Daniel went to answer, Stan interrupted him, saying, “No, don’t answer me now. This is an incredibly big decision for you Dat. Not as big a decision as if you should settle for a finger bang on prom night, but still a pretty big decision. What say we go for a nice ride so that you have some time to mull things over.”

The fat black man, and a less fat, but older Hispanic male loaded Daniel into a sidecar on one of the bikes. The Hispanic man climbed onto the motorcycle and fired her up. The rest of the gang mounted their cycles and soon they were all roaring to life. The distinct, and loud sounds of Harley Davidsons rattled the doors on the nearby businesses.

The gang rolled slowly back east on State Highway 4, dodging potholes, tree branches, and the occasional abandoned car. In about fifteen minutes they hit the larger city of Longview, Washington. When Daniel saw a column of overseer hover cars parked at a roadside gas station, he tried to warn the Hispanic man driving their bike.

The chunky man looked down at him and grinned through broken yellow teeth while they drove past several overseers, who completely ignored them. The gang took the exit onto southbound Interstate 5. The highway was in relatively good shape, so the gang stepped on it, racing south at a good speed. There were several junked out cars in the slow lane, but the fast lane was clear.

A half hour later, Daniel saw exit signs for Portland, Oregon, but they continued south. Daniel enjoyed feeling the wind blow through his hair, not allowing himself to think about Carmen and Rosie. There was nothing that he could do for them now. He had to focus on how to survive this. Nearly an hour and a half later, they arrived at Eugene, Oregon.

They pulled into a gas station and parked, shutting off their bikes. The same two bikers that had put him in, lifted Daniel out of the side car and walked him over to the left side of an aluminum shed, where there was a twenty foot by ten-foot concrete pad. The pad had about twenty metal eyebolts sticking out of its surface along the shed side. The two men shoved Daniel to the ground, causing him to land roughly on the concrete pad.  

The one called Horndog took out a handcuff key and undid his left hand, securing the now empty loop on one of the metal eyebolts. Although his left hand was now free, Daniel was cuffed to the concrete pad by his right hand.

The stocky white man grabbed Daniel by his hair and said, “If Stan the Man doesn’t patch you in, I’m going to do things to you that you will never forget Princess.” He blew Daniel a kiss, and shoved his head hard, before walking away chuckling.

Daniel couldn’t move more than a few inches, but he could put his back against the shed to sit up. He noted that the pad had a slight slant away from the shed, where it ended in a grated drain. Probably for peeing he thought. He was screwed. He needed to escape, but the bikers had him locked up tight.

Stan went to the nearby storage shed, and pulling a chain from around his neck, picked out one of several keys.  Once he had it open, the bikers went in and came back out with gas cans that they used to fill up their bikes.

Daniel wasn’t paying much attention to the shed, because there was a much more interesting sight across from it. There was a large module sitting there. It was much bigger than the command module back at the apple orchard pod, but looked about the same. Also, there were no overseers standing guard outside.

The bikers got a fire going directly in front of his pad, and started cooking their dinner from unlabeled cans. Stan the Man made his way over to the overseer module and went inside. Daniel’s curiosity was piqued now. He really wanted to know what the hell was going on.

A green power circle opened up on the ground beside the fire. Inside of it appeared several wooden crates. Once the green power circle disappeared, the bikers went and collected the crates, taking them into the storage shed.

Later that night, after the others had eaten, Stan the Man came over and offered him a can of food. Daniel was very pleased to discover that it was fresh brown beans. He hungrily gobbled down the food, never taking his eyes off the lead biker who held out his hand for the empty can.

“Can’t have you bashing one of us in the head with this. Never know if you are still holding onto some bad feelings over us zapping your girlfriends,” he said smiling.

“What is going on?” Daniel asked. “I don’t understand why you attacked us.”

“Don’t understand?” Stan the Man frowned. “Where are you from, Dat?”

“From? I was born in Battle Creek, Michigan, but---"

“No dumbass , what clan? What clan are you from? Oakland? Frisco, Los Angeles? What clan?” he asked.

“Clan? I’m not from a clan. I escaped from an apple orchard pod run by the overseers,” Daniel explained.

“No shit? We got us a real-life celebrity here.” Stan’s comment caused the others around the fire to chuckle. “Well, I guess you would be confused then, so let me explain things for you real clear. We are bounty hunters. We work for the overseers.”

“You work for them?” Daniel interrupted.

Let me finish, Dat. You can’t learn much when you’re running your mouth,” Stan the Man admonished. “We collect bounties for the overseers. In the beginning there were a lot of crews like us, mostly outlaw bikers, and the bounties were plentiful. We would zap ten to fifteen people at a time. But, it didn’t take long for us to learn that no matter how many people we sent in, the reward from the overseers was always the same. Five crates of supplies. One person or fifteen, the reward was always five crates. Food, water, batteries, medicine, plus booze and smokes.”

This caused the five men around the fire to let out a cheer.

“Now times are different. People became scarce. That didn’t bode well for the crews because we are required every month to produce at least one bounty. Once we do, we get resupplied, and the thirty-day clock starts all over again. But like I said, people became scarce. Once the bounties disappeared, the crews started hunting each other. The hunters became the hunted. And now, we are the last men standing.”

Daniel remained quiet.

“Do you understand?” Stan inquired.

“Yes. You have turned on your own kind,” he said with obvious disgust.

“Look. It isn’t like that.” The large black man came over, continuing, “Times are different. We hate having to kill people, but we do what we have to do to survive. It’s us or them.”

“You aren’t killing them,” Daniel said, catching all of their attentions, his comment drawing the others over.

“What do you mean, bato,” the Hispanic man asked.

“When you shoot people with the green power circles, they do not die. Well, at least not the adults. They are sent to large holding cells, where they are forced to drink a liquid that brainwashes them. They end up in pods, as couples, controlled by the overseers. They expect you to mate and work. At least that is what happened to me. I worked in an apple orchard and was partnered up with a woman called Number Seven. I suspect that there are many other types of pods as well. When I escaped, I saw several of them all over the hillside.”

“Well, how about that. Not so bad after all. Here we thought we were killing them.” Stan the Man whistled.

“They feed you and give you all the poon that you want? Why would anyone escape that?” Horndog snickered.

“Because you live as a mindless drone slave. They label you with a number. And once a woman is impregnated, they take her away and god knows what they do to her,” Daniel spat out.

“God has nothing to do with this, Bato,” the Hispanic male hissed. “He has forsaken this planet long go.”

“I suppose that we could sit around and discuss politics and religion all night with our puds in our hands, or we can get to the meat and potatoes of the issue.” Stan the Man reclaimed the conversation. “I guess that I have to decide what to do with you. I am allowed to have six men. Since we failed to meet our bounty last month, I had to blast one of my own men, Pistolero. You see, the first time we failed to get our bounty, I didn’t understand how the game was played. The overseers came and blasted the first man that they saw, who happened to be my brother, Butch. Now, when we hit thirty days, I make the decision, not them.”

“So, now that you filled your bounty this month, you are going to hold me to fill next month’s bounty?” Daniel asked.

“Oh Dat, you weren’t paying attention when we had our little talk earlier. That is option number one. Option number two is that I patch you in and you become my sixth man. If we fail to meet our bounty in thirty days, then we will cross that bridge when we come to it. But I must admit, being the junior man, you would be on the chopping block, or short stick as we call it. Let’s consider that as your motivation to help us find a bounty.”

“So, I am in?” Daniel asked.

“Well, I know that you weren’t with those ladies for long. We had seen them a couple of times before, and you weren’t with them. Been tracking them for a while, but they kept switching locations on us. We almost had them at the corn house. So, the question that I must answer for myself is how attached did you grow to them, and are you feeling vengeful? I mean, I am sure that you were “knocking boots” with the older broad. She wasn’t half-bad for her age.”

Daniel felt himself getting angry, but he controlled himself and remained silent.

“I’ll tell you what. Let me sleep on it and I will give you my decision in the morning. You’ll be amazed what a long night on that hard concrete pad can do to alleviate your anger, break you of vengeful thoughts, and adjust your loyalties.” Stan grinned, then headed back to the fire.