Red Holocaust: Book Summary
The group awakens in another Redoubt. After exiting the gateway, they find that the redoubt is inhabited. As they are walking down a long corridor, someone causes blast doors to lower from the ceiling, effectively trapping the crew inside. Then, over the internal intercom system, a man who calls himself the keeper demands that they drop their weapons. Having no choice, the party does just as they are told. They are pretty sure that there could be several hundred sec men in the redoubt.
They finally meet the keeper. The keeper is actually three people. First is an ancient man named Quint, second his equally old wife Rachel, and the third is a very pretty mute with blond hair, who is his second wife Lori. After meeting with Ryan and the rest of the crew, the keepers begrudgingly decide that they are allowed to stay in the redoubt and explore, as long as they stayed away from certain places inside the redoubt. Quint informs the party that they cannot leave the redoubt as they would be attacked and killed by all the mutie dwarves who live around the exits.
They spend six days resting and exploring this huge Alaskan redoubt It is the biggest building that any of the people have ever seen. The amount of pre-ruin goods they discover is incredible. The entire party could live here for the rest of their lives and never run low on food, weapons, or other goods. They discover that it is twelve levels deep and has over seventy miles of corridors and huge rooms. The gateway is located on level four, while the exit is located six levels below, on level ten.
Quint, the keeper finally allows the party to retrieve their weapons. Both Okie and Finn want to kill the keepers and be done with it, but Ryan refuses. It is also during this time that Doc finally reveals his full name. Doctor Theophilus Tanner.
Due to the amount of goods stored in the Redoubt, J.B. takes several maps from the entrance to the redoubt. During one of their moments together, Krysty and Ryan discuss the Keeper. She tells Ryan that the keeper is illiterate, and that his father was the keeper before him, and his father before him, all the way back to the original keeper of the redoubt. It isn’t difficult to figure out that the keeper and the two women are related. Quint’s wife Rachel is actually his sister, and his other wife Lori is their daughter.
After being inside the redoubt for six days, Ryan tells Doc and J.B. he is sick of being cooped up. He plans to head outside and do a little exploring. He doesn’t care about Quint’s warning about the mutant dwarves that are supposed to live around the exit. When he informs Quint of his plans, the old man has a fit. He says that everyone who goes out is dead. He leaves in a huff. As Ryan is about to leave, he encounters Lori. She uses pantomime to warn him that if he goes outside, the mutie dwarves will kill him. He finds himself physically attracted to her, but fights off his desire.
Finally, as he exits the redoubt, he is surprised at how cold it is. Almost immediately he spots a couple of huge mutant polar bears. He draws his LAPA assault rifle just in case. Its a good thing he did because a group of small mutie’s whole immediately attack. He opens up on them, killing three. He is about to open up on the rest when his LAPA jams. Dropping it, he draws his Panga and closes in on the remaining three mutants. He quickly dispatches the three and returns to the redoubt.
One thing the party notices is the fact that a great deal of the equipment is beginning to break down, the more often it is used. They may not be able to stay for very long after all.
One of the biggest discoveries they make is the huge armory located on the top level. It is here that the party gets new weapon system, and load up on ammunition and, explosives. Ryan gets his brand new HK G-12 assault rifle, JB and Okie both take a new mini Uzi, Hunn grabs a Ingram Mac 11, Hen and Finn both grab Model 92 Beretta’s. This is where Doc picks up his sword cane and his Le Mat gun. They return to their quarters to rest up and decide what to do next.
Quint, Rachel and Lori show up. They are all carrying their weapons. Lori screams to Ryan that it is a trap. Rachel whirls and fires on her daughter, grazing her head. A firefight ensues, and this is where Hunaker is killed. Ryan kills Rachel and Quint surrenders. Ryan executes him on the spot. They spare Lori because she warned them of the impending attack.
Now, during the time Ryan and his companions are inside the redoubt, a band of Marauders lead by a deadly man named Uchitel, the teacher. They carve a swath of death and destruction as they make their way to the Bering Strait. Their first attack is a tiny ville named Ozhbarchik, a dirt poor Russian hamlet of thirty seven men, nineteen women, and four children. They first encounter a boy who they kill after learning about the ville. They enter the ville and rape, pillage, and eventually destroy it. The leader, Uchitel, learned from reading books in the ruins of the city of Yakutsk, that peasant farmers such as those in this tiny ville usually have hoards of gold and silver hidden away. He is disappointed to learn that he is wrong. They leave shortly after killing everyone, as they are trying to keep well ahead of the soldiers who were sent to destroy them. Uchitel makes plans to cross the Bering Strait into Alaska.
It takes the marauders nearly two weeks to cross the Strait into what used to be Alaska. During this time, one of the band, a man named Nul is left behind after his pony injures itself. This man is later killed by one of Zimyanin’s snipers.
Major Zimyanin is hoping that after they capture and deal with the marauders that he will be transferred to the west, to get away from the cold and perpetual nuclear winter which blankets this part of the world. After trailing the bandits for weeks, His mutant Tracker informs Zimyanin that they are only about four days away from them.
The first American the bandits encounter is a lone trapper, a thirty three year old man named Jorgen Smith. Uchitel attempts to use an ancient Phrase book he found to communicate with the American. The trapper gets nervous and fires on the band, wounding a man named Stena. Uchitel neatly decapitates him with an ancient sabre. They continue on, disappointed in the low quality of the Americans they have so far encountered.
They come across two more communities and end up destroying both. Uchitel is very unhappy that the villages are as poor as those they had back home in Russia. In the first village everyone except for an eighteen year old boy kill themselves. After interrogating the boy, they learn of a second ville which they promptly locate and destroy.
As they continue to travel through Alaska, they lose two more men due to a sniper who promptly kills himself. Two weeks into Alaska finds the band of marauders on the ruined highway between Fairbanks and Anchorage. This is where they discover the ruins of a DEW radar installation.
After the brief firefight and the death of Hun, Ryan decides that they are going to leave the Redoubt and explore the terrain. He orders the party to load up on weapons, armor, survival equipment and other goods to help them last in the frozen wilderness. Okie is all for killing the girl Lori, but J.B. and Ryan refuse to, as it was her who warned them that the attack was about to occur.
Next morning, they leave after they load up in three snow buggies. They head out into the arctic wilderness. They plan to first check out the ruins of Anchorage. While travelling, they come across a tiny ville of people who worship a burnt and melted crucifix. They meet the people who are lead by a tall, skeletal man by the name of Apostle Ezekiel Herve. He invites the party to stay the night with them. When they see Hen, who is a black man, they believe that he is the Dark Lord that they have been expecting all these years. Herve attempts to drug the party by giving them liquor laced with a knockout drug. The only one who drinks it is Finn. Henn is taken away, where the women of the ville mate with him. Next morning, Ryan discovers that the door to the shack they are in is locked. Peering through a knot hole, he is horrified to see that Herve is about to drive a knife into Hen who is tied buck naked to an alter before the blackened crucifix. With a scream of rage that distracts the worshippers, Ryan and the rest of the party exit the building after Krysty breaks open the door with her mutant strength. The worshippers are killed. Herve is killed by Doc. They rescue Henn and leave.
They get caught in a horrible blizzard near the ruins of an old Radar installation, part of the DEW system. After the blizzard blows over Hen and Finns buggy breaks down. Ryan, J.B. and Krysty leave the other two buggies behind to go investigate a deep valley they see ahead of them. The buggy they are riding in is hit by an Anti Tank weapon. The vehicle is disabled, and the three are knocked out by the concussion. Uchitel and his marauders capture them.
Uchitel attempts to interrogate the three of them, and Ryan is surprised that the Russian is speaking to them using similar language to Docs. Uchitel wants guns. Ryan tells him there are no guns. Uchitel brings in his torturer to begin working on J.B. A powerful quake hits which gives the three of them the opportunity to escape. Ryan gets separated from the others. He spends two days wandering, trying to make it back to the rest of the party. He kills a huge mutie polar bear and eats part of it. Near sunset of the second day, he spots the ruined Radar installation and is found by his companions.
The next day, J.B. heads into the ruins of an old mining ville located near a huge dam. He discovers a pair of missiles, one ready to be fired, the other a dummy. Ryan plans to return to the redoubt next day and jump away from this frozen wasteland. During the night, Uchitel sends in four men to plant dynamite to bring down the sluice on top of the party. Okie spots them, kills three of them, and then is in turned killed when she attacks the bomber and his bomb explodes.
Realizing that they are trapped, Ryan has J.B. fire the operational missile at the dam, destroying it and killing all but for of the marauders. They capture Uchitel and the other three survivors. At this time Major Zimyanin comes up and demands that Ryan turn the prisoners over to him. He refuses but eventually they come to a compromise. Ryan keeps Uchitel and the huge woman Bizabraznia. Ryan kills the woman, and Krysty kills Uchitel. The other two prisoners are strangled by the majors men, have their ears cut off and then the bodies are dumped in the river.
Zimyanin now declares Alaska in the name of the party and Russia. Ryan refuses to let them do this. Even though he knows that they are outnumbered, Ryan plans to fight. He points at the dummy missile, and Zimyanin gets the pictured, because he believes the missile is still operational. The Russians leave and begin their long trek home to Russia. Ryan and his companions return to the redoubt and make another jump.
A total of 11 days pass in this novel (seven in the redoubt, 4 travelling outside).
End of Red Holocaust.