Circle of Wagons: The Gospel of Madness (Book 4 of 6) (The Gospel of Madness - (A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller Series))

by Georg Bruckmann

  The size of this group was impressive for times like this, Milan found. It suggested that the leader of these people knew his trade. However, he also knew that his father, and by that in some ways he himself, was in command of at least ten times the number of men and women.

  But Christiano was also Christiano.

  Milan crept in a few steps closer, careful not to move any of the concrete bricks lying everywhere that had blown some long ago explosion out of the wall at some point, causing a noise. For several minutes he was still watching them.

  It didn't take long and he was sure that they were also children of the Cardinal. Seekers on their way to innocence, who should rise like a phoenix from the ashes of human hubris.

  Just as he was about to retire to think calmly about how to deal with this situation, he recognized a face.

  That was Viktor.

  He and his father had been to Rome with him.

  Ascetic, even features and a sharp hooked nose between piercing eyes, framed by dark, slightly curly hair.

  The typical centurion.

  Milan was painfully aware of the fact that he himself did not have such an impressive appearance, but above all that this association in his head came from the time of hubris, and that the Cardinal would have rebuked him severely if he had spoken the thought out loud in his presence.

  That would have been a painful reprimand, he thought.

  The image he had of a Roman centurion in his brain, which he now associated with Viktor, had been implanted in him by Hollywood during the years of his childhood.

  Sword-and-sandal movies.

  Trash!

  This thought process took place only in a part of his brain. Most of the time he was busy thinking about what his father would like best. For a few minutes, he was indecisive.

  A few minutes during which he continued to observe Viktor, sitting on a removed saddle next to one of the three flickering campfires and stirring around with a stick in a kind of vessel.

  What's he doing? Milan asked himself.

  Viktor now carefully closed the small vessel and held the stick close to the embers of the fire.

  Milan thought that a strange smell was reaching his nose, but at the same time he was aware of the fact that he had to imagine it. Only a few seconds later when Viktor held the small stick with the glue-like, steaming substance before his eyes, checking it out, and then began to stroke with it in very careful and slow movements over the tips of his arrows, which he took from a quiver next to him, did Milan understood.

  Viktor, you little devil.

  He should ask this insidious centurion for the recipe for the stuff. That's what his father would want, Milan said to himself as he slowly withdrew.

  Would he also like to see the centurion's cavalry squadron lead into the camp so that Viktor and his father could celebrate a reunion? Or would he prefer Milan to ensure that the centurion and his riders left Christiano's territory as quickly as possible?

  He remembered darkly that the two men had enjoyed a similarly high reputation with the Cardinal, but that his father had outstripped Viktor in terms of fanaticism and dedication. Then again he wondered whether all this played a role at all, given that his father's troops were at least ten to one superior to those of Viktor.

  Quietly, he turned to one of his five bodyguards. He whispered:

  "Back off, out of the building. Send one to the station to let my father know about this. And then we'll pay these horse lovers a visit. An official one, as it should be, when you receive high guests in your kingdom.

  Rolf

  It had been so foolish of Rolf to think that they would do nothing. That his guerrilla warfare could have an appreciable effect. Of course, he had caught quite a few of them and had exhibited many of them dramatically and cruelly, just as they had done with the defenders of the station - his friends, his comrades, his protees. But all the cruelty had not had the desired effect.

  How could I also assume that people who do something like this themselves, who like to erect perverse sculptures from the corpses of their enemies, that such people let themselves be put in fear and terror in the same way?

  He was still haunting them, yes. He still walked the streets night after night and climbed the roofs, sneaking through empty buildings and ruins, always searching for degenerates he could fight.

  But the initial series of his successes had diminished more and more, had become smaller and smaller, had shrunk, until only a sluggish, steady, but very, very tenacious forward movement had remained of the initial, raging, feverish impulse.

  Rolf had the uncomfortable feeling that this forward movement would turn into a retreat during the next few days. Amphetamines or not - he felt that his strength and will were diminishing.

  The patrols of the degenerates were now larger, more cautious, and behaved more cleverly. They spread better. They were divided into vanguard and rearguard. They set traps for him. He had taken away their arrogance - and they adapted.

  The day before yesterday he had pursued a degenerate, whom he had shot from ambush, northwards, towards the wild palm garden. He had almost felt sorry for the boy, so panicked he had suddenly turned around and disappeared into a house whose door somebody had torn out of hinges for some reason.

  Rolf had stormed after him in blind hunting fever.

  In the relative darkness of the wide hallway, he had not been able to immediately recognize the archers who had ambushed him there. Only when a feathered shaft had touched his jacket at the hip and he had heard the buzzing of the bowstring did he understand. He had only been able to save himself by emptying two complete magazines into the darkness within a few seconds and then stumbling backwards out of the building, still hearing the echoes of his shots and the cries of those he had wounded or killed.

  Another day, he might have gone back and finished them. Not that day. Rolf had withdrawn into Ivan's old bunker, careful not to be watched by anyone. Looking back, he thought this behavior might be a sign that he was getting tired of it. The question was, what exactly was he tired of? The killing, or the fact that he basically achieved nothing?

  The next morning he thought about it again as he inventoried his ammunition and food supplies.

  Initially the degenerates had stayed anxiously in the battle-bruised station building and had buried themselves when he had started his attacks. They had gained confidence in the meantime, it seemed to Rolf. They had spread throughout the city. Occupied various buildings around the station. Were these measures in the end only an expression of desperation on their part? Rolf didn't know. He had interrogated some of his victims from the beginning before killing them. So he knew that the name of their leader was Christiano. This man was apparently not a complete idiot.

  Of course he's not. That would have been too nice.

  They seemed to have established a kind of personality cult around him. By setting up spy posts throughout the city, he considerably increased the likelihood of Rolf's discovery. This Christiano obviously knew all too well that the Ghost had to sleep and eat and shit somewhere. Yeah, they called him the ghost. He had also learned this in one of his interrogations before cutting the throat of the frightened degenerate.

  Since Rolf didn't venture into the streets in daylight, he could only keep an eye on a small part of his surroundings out of the building in whose basement Ivan's emergency bunker was located.

  It could also have been due to the booby traps I laid out, Rolf thought, that they were expanding their search area only so slowly.

  After one of those things went off and killed or mutilated a complete patrol in one fell swoop, they had indeed become more careful. He had distributed these booby traps all over the city, randomly, so that their placement would not point to his hiding place. Ivan's C4 and the hand grenades served him well.

  Christiano couldn't afford to keep losing people at this speed. On the other hand, Rolf was already wondering.

  How long has he been attacking the Deg´s patrols now?

&nbs
p; Was it two weeks?

  Three?

  Four?

  Actually, there should be fewer of them by now, he said to himself. But that wasn't the case. From somewhere they apparently got new people, and more and more often Rolf had the feeling that he knew some of these new faces.

  The captured red sleeves and the hurters - the few who had survived the battle for the station - began to break. Shepard and Wanda were right. Christiano and his people knew about brainwashing and torture. They made them their equals.

  During the day, from the apartments above the bunker, he could monitor a limited part of the area he was haunting, even if he had to be extremely careful. Maybe more degenerates came from over the tracks or somewhere else. Rolf was sure that there had to be some other kind of supply line as well. He just hadn't discovered it yet.

  Rolf had only recently noticed that they had set up bases outside the station when he had been fired at with arrows from dead, eye-cave-like windows twice in one night. One had even hit him, but had bounced off a metal buckle on the strap of his backpack.

  In the second incident of this kind, in addition to the bombardment, three particularly courageous degenerates were thrown out of the ground floor of a residential building, equipped with spears and clubs. They hadn't been a problem for Rolf's superior firepower, but they had distracted him so much that one of the archers had managed to hit him on the arm below the shoulder. Fortunately, the arrow had not caused any serious damage, as the tip was made of sloppily sharpened plastic. But those two incidents were enough to scare the shit out of him.

  Soon, he'd be targeting that very base where it had happened. It was time for another interrogation. He needed to know exactly what was going on in the camp at the main station and why these damn bastards didn't want to get any less.

  Do you dogs want to live forever?

  He grinned bitterly.

  The movies in the bunker were his only company for a long time now.

  ***

  Rolf began to prepare himself. Nothing bulky, nothing big. Two guns, his two MPs and a sawed-off pump gun.

  As always, when he looked at the arsenal that Ivan had hoarded here, his guilty conscience seized him. He had known about the weapons, and he hadn't even tried to get Ivan to use some of this equipment to protect the camp at the main station.

  Sure, I'm sure.

  It would have been useless.

  But still.

  I should have tried.

  Maybe the battle would have turned out differently. Maybe many of his friends and comrades would still be alive. In these moments of insight and self-torture, he realized very clearly that what he was doing here and now - his little campaign - had its origin in these feelings of guilt. He knew it was suicide by time, playing avenger here. Someday his luck would run out on him. But everything he had known in recent years, everything in which he had invested his energy and blood, was lost. Irrecoverable. Sure, there might be a community somewhere that would take him. But would he be able to find his way into there? It was by no means just about his place in the hierarchy. He didn't have to be the captain or the right hand of the leader. But... well, he didn't know either.

  He stood in front of the little mirror in the storeroom. As always when he did this, he looked at the wrinkles on his face and wondered how long he could go on. At some point, when he had noticed that his thoughts were turning in circles, he turned away again. He then treated the small flesh wound left by the arrow.

  No problem. No problem.

  No inflammation.

  He'd try to get some sleep. So far, alcohol has still helped, although the amount of alcohol he needed to fall into his usual restless and nightmarish sleep has increased. The nightmares also got worse and worse in the meantime.

  ***

  The small, battery-operated digital alarm clock made him wake up. It indicated twenty-three o'clock. Rolf didn't know exactly if the clock was working correctly, but it was close enough. He rose. He hadn't slept deeply, but at least he had managed to doze most of the day and dream of friendlier places. More or less. Since his initial triumph against the Degs had come to a halt and they made it harder and harder for him, Karla's face appeared more and more often in his dreams.

  Not that they were in a love relationship. It had been that Rolf, as he admitted before himself without shame, had used his position as Ivan's right hand to satisfy his needs. He could have had almost any woman in the camp without violence.

  For reasons he had never thought about before, he still ended up with Karla again and again, and she didn't seem to mind. It was weird. He never thought he'd miss her. Their relationship had been too business-like for that. Yet she had given him the feeling that there could be such a thing as warmth in the dying world.

  Her initial interest in him had eventually faded and given way to a cool routine, and he had accepted it with moderate regret. That's the way it was.

  He forced himself to shake off the memories. He had something on his mind. And that wouldn't take care of itself.

  ***

  Some black birds fluttered away in the rain when Rolf reached crow´s nest 4.

  How fitting, he thought, as he crawled to the edge of the flat roof. From here he could observe the station forecourt without running the risk of being discovered. The degenerates were not aware of this spy post. He hadn't killed any of them from here yet.

  Inside the station, lights flickered, and from time to time he could see a human silhouette in the windows. The morbid works of art on the forecourt had collapsed. Decomposition and scavengers had taken care of it.

  Time. Time kills everything. The crows I scared up certainly ate one or two pieces, Rolf thought.

  He placed the rifle he had deposited in the stairwell of the building on his shoulder to use the rifle scope mounted on it. The degenerates had also set up guards and spy posts in the area. Of course they did. He had to be very, very careful. At three points on the roof of the station building he could recognize archers. Two men and a woman. Out of the main entrance came a patrol consisting of five degenerates. Everything was as it always was. But wait. It wasn't quite true. Something was different. He had expected that the patrol would quickly cross the forecourt and disappear into the street canyons. In that case, he would have left crow´s nest 4 and pursued them.

  But they didn't. About fifteen meters away from the decaying monument of their dog master, they stopped. They didn't seem very tense. They seemed to be waiting for something while talking to each other.

  He took a closer look at the troop. Two of them were unarmed.

  Astonishing.

  The other three carried spears and knives.

  One of the spearmen he had hunted a few days earlier, he remembered. It was only with good luck that the guy had escaped. He'd get him by now. But right now, he was more interested in the unarmed. They radiated a certain authority, both of them. The fact that they felt so confident suggested that one of the two was Christiano.

  Interesting, Rolf thought when he looked at the faces. Rolf studied them. Memorized them. As much as his private guerrilla war had faltered, he now believed he had identified two of the key figures of the degenerates.

  He'd take them out. In his mind he imagined the chaos that would result from his attack on the leadership of the degenerated army. If Shepard had been right in his accounts, then fighting for the leadership of the group would break out again as soon as the current leaders were dead.

  Rolf unlocked his hunting rifle. It was windy today, but the distance was not too far. Less than a hundred meters, he estimated. One of the two unarmed offered him his profile, and Rolf aimed at a spot above his ear.

  Slowly, his finger approached the trigger. He paused for a second, reconsidering his course of action. Was the hit worth it? After all, crow´s nest 4 would be burned as a spy post as soon as he´d pull the trigger. The degenerates would either occupy it themselves or put it under observation in order to ambush him. This one shot would be safe for him, maybe two o
r three, until the survivors would have fled back to the station or a combat troop would come at him.

  On the other hand ... he had always had to change positions quickly. The sheer number of degenerates in Frankfurt had forced him to learn to move quickly. Rolf decided that one or two dead degenerate leaders more than just made up for the loss of crow's nest 4.

  He could see the bristly tuft of hair growing out of his victim's left ear through the telescopic sight.

  Son of a bitch.

  Rolf held his breath. With an infinitely slow, almost tender movement he pulled the trigger back until he felt the pressure point. Now a tiny twitch of his finger muscle would be enough to trigger the shot.

  In a minute.

  Wait till your breathing calms down a bit.

  In a minute.

  In a minute.

  Now. Now.

  But at the last moment Rolf took his finger away again.

  He had heard something.

  Something he heard last at the movies. It was so bizarre, so strange. He knew this sound, although he was sure that he had never heard it in real life.

  At least not in this form.

  There were many.

  John Wayne. Karl May. The Riders of Rohan.

  These associations shot through Rolf's head without really becoming aware of them.

  The sound of horse hooves.

  A lot of horse hooves.

  Not at a dramatic, full gallop, but at a slow, steady pace.

  Rolf listened with fascination and almost forgot to keep an eye on the degenerates. It sounded strangely wooden as the horses' hooves clattered over the torn asphalt of the city. In the meantime, he was sure that the noise was getting louder. When the first rider came out of Post Street, and then rode from the side, leading the horse from two other degenerates on the reins, Rolf was astonished.

  He had completely misjudged the distance.