1990 - Mine v4 by Robert McCammon

Attica, and the other three were — like her — fugitives without a country. The names and faces reeled through her mind as she stared at the black words on paper as if looking through a keyhole into the past: Bedelia Morse, Gary Leister, CinCin Omara, James Xavier Toombs, Akitta Washington, Janette Snowden, Sancho Clemenza, Edward Fordyce, and the Commander, Jack Gardiner, "Lord Jack." She knew who had died by the pig bullet and who still held to the underground faith, but who had written this message? She opened a drawer and fumbled around, searching for a calendar she'd gotten in the mail as a promotion from a furniture store. She found it, the days one white square after another. Today was the twenty-third of January. Thirty-one days in this month. Eight days to go. Meet me there. 2/18, 1400 . She couldn't count right, the acid and her own excitement were screwing her up. Calm down, calm down. Her palms were slick. Twenty-six days before the meeting. Twenty-six. Twenty-six. She intoned it aloud, a soothing mantra but a mantra that was also ripe with dangerous possibilities. It could be Jack himself, calling the last of the Storm Front together again. She could see him in her mind, his blond hair wild in the wind and his eyes gleaming with righteous fire, Molotov cocktails gripped in both hands and a gunbelt around his waist. It could be Jack, calling for her. Calling, calling…
    She would answer. She would walk through hell to kiss his hand, and nothing would stop her from answering his summons.
    She loved him. He was her heart, ripped away like the baby she'd been carrying for him had been ripped from her womb. He was her heart, and without him she was an empty shell.
    "Hey, what's in the Stone ?" A hand reached past her and grabbed up the magazine from the countertop.
    Mary Terror whirled toward Gordie. She felt it come out of her like the seething magma from a volcano. She knew what it was, had lived with it for what seemed like all her life. She had loved it, suckled it, embraced it, and fed on it, and its name was Rage. Before she could stop herself, she placed a hand around Gordie's stalky throat and pressed a thumb into his windpipe, at the same time slamming him so hard against the wall that some of the pictures of the precious infants jumped off their nails and clattered to the floor.
    "Gaak," Gordie said, his face reddening, his eyes beginning to bulge from the sockets. "Jesusgaaklemmegaaak…"
    She didn't want to kill him. She needed him for what was ahead. Ten minutes ago she'd been a slug, its mind aglimmer with the bright wattage of LSD. Now the deep part of her that craved the smell of blood and gunpowder had awakened, and it was staring out at the world through heavy-lidded gray eyes. But she needed this young man for what he could bring her. She took the Stone from his hand and released his throat, leaving a red splotch of fingers on his pallid skin.
    Gordie coughed and wheezed for a few seconds, backing out of the kitchen away from her. He was dressed except for his shoes, his shirttail hanging out. When he could get his voice again, he hollered, "You're crazy! Fuckin' crazy! You tryin' to fuckin' kill me, bitch?"
    "No." That would have been easy enough, she thought. She felt sweat in her pores, and she knew she'd stepped very close to the edge. "I'm sorry, Gordie. Really. I didn't mean to —"
    "You almost choked me, lady! Shit!" He coughed again and rubbed his throat. "You get your jollies outta shovin' people around?"
    "I was reading," she said. She tore the page out and gave him the rest of the magazine. "Here. Keep it. Okay?"
    Gordie hesitated, as if he feared the woman might gnaw his arm off if he reached for the Stone . Then he took it, and he said in a raspy voice, "Okay. Man, you almost put your thumb through my fuckin' throat."
    "I'm sorry." That was the last time she would apologize, but she managed a cool smile. "We're still friends, right?"
    "Yeah." He nodded. "Still friends, what the