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

by Georg Bruckmann

  I didn't blame Wanda either. Or yet, I did, sometimes, but I could understand how driven she was. Why she was so driven. I blamed myself. For of every wrong decision I had made, for everyone who had lost his life in my presence, whether I had been able to do something about it or not. Gustav did not manage to talk me out of this mood. He had realized that a few days after he had told me that I was ready to go outside again. Then he did the right thing. He has forbidden the Hurters around Petra and her Scarface to bring me food and empty my bucket. I lasted two more days, then I walked outside for the first time.

  Now, a few days later, I was with Gustav on the roof of the polyclinic. We installed solar cells. Well. Actually, we just laid them next to each other on the helipad and connected them with cables, according to a scheme that Gustav had developed with the help of manuals and data sheets he had found in some of the houses from which we had removed the solar panels. I was skeptical about this plan. Gustav, on the other hand, was in good spirits and quite sure of his cause, and I just went along with it and left the thinking to him.

  While he was tampering with the cables, he said:

  "Yes, and when television and radio stations at some point only sent perseverance slogans through the ether in a loop, or only static noise, then the order completely collapsed. The instructions became more and more contradictory. In the beginning, the military could still communicate with each other via satellites, but at some point they were no longer in operation. Either they had been destroyed in space or the receivers down here. Then the gas came. Probably so as not to destroy the infrastructure too much. At least in our neighborhood. There were no masks for the population. I don't know what it was like anywhere else."

  He gave me the pliers back.

  "No gas with me. But the communication-thing was just the same. At some point, nobody knew what to do. That was the big problem. Our own soldiers were disobedient, just like the others, just like the police, just like everyone else. They've deserted on a massive scale. I think most people saw the war as lost, which was true. There were many shootings and executions. Then they began to desert in groups, in groups so large that it was not possible for those who still wanted to hold the position to prevent them from doing it. They wanted to go back to their families. I can understand that. But for law and order, that was a broken neck. If your own soldiers no longer listen to their orders, why should the civilian population still obey them? The people slowly understood that the state, which had offered them security so far, could not do anything for them anymore. Some of them couldn't take it. Others began to take the initiative themselves. At the latest when the food became even scarcer than it already was. The Bundeswehr had occupied the corn farms and fattening farms. It was okay at first. Only at some point, they didn't give anything back. Something's gone wrong. Either there really wasn't enough left for everyone, because the enemy had released masses of new microorganisms, as was claimed, or they wanted to keep the yield of the farms for their own people. That's the way it was. At some point the people close to you were all that was left, all you could trust in. That applied to families, that applied to neighborhoods. The world had become narrower, much narrower, and smaller, and it was impossible for a single person to keep track of the big picture. Then what do you do? One does not know what will happen two streets further because the inhabitants have built roadblocks to protect their few possessions. You do that yourself, of course. Then you clash with what's left of the forces of order. And with the deserters, who are also hungry, of course. They didn't just run away, there were always others coming through from outside. People who were worse off than ourselves. Every few days there was a firefight somewhere between soldiers and deserters, between deserters and militias, between militias and other militias, between soldiers and militias and so on. There were feuds between families and streets, even between individual troops within the military. For a while at least this chaos was somehow stable, a constant you could cling to. Yeah, you could get used to it, somehow. Then winter has come."

  Gustav was already three cable connections further and nodded now.

  "Yes. Winter. You mean the winter the jets came in?"

  "Exactly. Jets and drones. I still have no idea what this was all about. Everything was already broken. But they came anyway."

  "In the Black Forest, most of the time, they just flew over us. Tracked something down in the cities. Bombed on a large scale. But I saw them. A lot. Drones don't, though. Where exactly have you been?"

  "Herford. These things didn't have much range without those satellites. I think they came from an aircraft carrier somewhere in the North Sea. At least they always disappeared north when they were out of missiles. That went on for about six weeks. Then they stopped coming. Either there was a mutiny, they ran out of gas or somebody sunk the carrier. That's what I'm thinking. But it was already too late. All the infrastructure the people had built themselves had been destroyed, and many had fled the city for fear of the air strikes. Contrary to the attacks that had taken place before, they were directed against residential areas, not against industrial plants or railway tracks."

  "You don't tell anything about your wife and uncle?"

  "No."

  Gustav said nothing, and when the break became too long for me, I asked:

  "Do you think we can finish the panels today if we hurry?"

  "Depends … when will you finally start helping out?"

  We did manage to get the work done, and for the first time since Wanda left I slept dreamless. When I came to the cafeteria the next morning, there was already a lot going on. The Hurters of the polyclinic, those of them who could still walk, were already on their feet. I discovered Gustav, who sat at a table with Petra and Scarface and had breakfast. Petra drew his attention to me, he turned around and waved at me.

  I didn't really know how to face Petra and her co-leader after living at their expense for so long, so I put on a face as meaningless as possible and took a seat. Scarface nodded to me and then continued to spoon some unidentifiable stew into himself, which was fine with me. Petra seemed to want to say something, but Gustav was faster than her.

  "Glad you could make it. We were just talking about the future of the clinic. We've got a lot to do. The energy is only the first step. Greenhouses. Gardens. The river's only a few hundred s away. A lot of farmland on the outside. Pastures. We won't survive forever from the looting and supplies in the canteen kitchen."

  He was right about that. Someday it would get harder and harder. People had to start feeding themselves again.

  Sure, he was right. Of course he was. Sure. All that.

  But not here.

  The polyclinic was unsuitable and had remained untroubled for such a long time only thanks to the anemic. Greenhouses and gardens, okay. But how were they going to till the fields and pastures? Or secure? I let Gustav continue talking about irrigation systems, granaries and everything he had invented.

  How was that bunch of cripples supposed to do that?

  I remembered the wounded and the mutilated around me. No, what Gustav and the others had in mind was laudable, but not feasible. Not as long as there was danger from all sides. Even if Da Silva's lunatics didn't exist. If all the plans that I heard them talk about with half an ear would work, if all this succeeded, others will come and try to take it away from them.

  Yeah, them.

  Even though they had nursed and fed me, even though they obviously didn't hold it against me that my appearance had confused their microcosm ... - no, that's too mildly put. Only now, as I sat here among them, among these people, these people who ate and drank and made plans and did what they could to stay alive, or even simply continued with their routines, continued with their lives, did I realize that my appearance here - in the long run though, but nevertheless inevitable - resulted in their death. And that I didn't feel guilty about it. I had - we had - destroyed the symbiosis that the Hurters of the polyclinic had entered into with the vampires and that had protected them. That coul
d not be undone. So much the worse that Gustav was so determined to change things for the better here.

  Despite all the good that had come to me here, I simply did not feel connected to them. I should have felt grateful. I should have felt friendship, comradeship to Gustav. And if I couldn't feel anything in this regard, shouldn't I at least have felt guilty for this very inability to feel?

  But there was nothing.

  I let Gustav, Petra and the Scarface talk on and got up. Turned me around, looked around. They were all already dead. They just didn't know it yet. The women, the men, the children. All of them.

  Who wants to commit to the dead?

  To dead people like Wanda and Mariam.

  To the dead like myself, to all of us and to all the others who were still crawling through the rubble.

  "What about you?" it came from Gustav, who now also stood up behind me.

  I just couldn't share his faith in these people, in this world around us anymore. Could he really be that stupid? With his help, provided he could find a way to make more of the antidote he needed since the vampire doctor had poisoned him, this structure might last for another year or two, maybe three, if just no one was interested in conquering this location.

  I turned to him. The skin stretched over his skull, his left eye was inflamed. Surely because he had to be so sparing with the antidote. The poison consumed him. It was incomprehensible to me how he could make plans for the future while he slowly perished.

  The way I looked at his haggard figure, something came back. A touch of ... let's say it was loyalty, not as a deep, self-evident feeling, but rather as a concept of thought.

  "Nothing's wrong, Gustav, everything's okay."

  I had made up my mind.

  I'd stay another week. I'd stay and help him.

  Seven days, and then ... I did not know.

  ***

  Around noon we had left.

  Just now Gustav said:

  "Inverter. Without a power inverter, we cannot use the electricity generated by the solar cells, at least not with the grid available in the clinic. But that's exactly what I want. I want a fully functional operating room and a lab. Centrifuges, cooling, microscopes. A dental kit from the head clinic over there. Have you looked at the visages? They'd rather die of mouth rot than ulcers. Don't look at me like that. You had a better sense of humor once. We might be able to use the rest of the power for lights and hotplates. And for tools, saws, drills. We're gonna turn this place into something good."

  "Yes," I replied.

  "Come on, let's hurry up. There's still a lot to do."

  I felt his gaze in my back as I increased my speed. We still knew roughly where we had removed the solar cells from the roofs, and that's where the matching inverter thingies had to be. Today we would be walking and disassembling them for the sake of inconspicuousness, tomorrow we would take two motorcycles and attach carts or wheelboards, as they were to be found in the tunnels of the hospital, to them and collect the stuff. Petra had already ordered a small squad to search for suitable vehicles and check on the motorcycles. That would keep the cripples busy for the rest of the day.

  "Say, where's your crossbow anyway?"

  "I'd rather take the rifle."

  Actually, I was carrying two rifles and two pistols and Gustav was carrying two jute bags with the faded imprint of some chain store, into which we had simply thrown all the tools we could find in the polyclinic and the janitor's rooms in the basement because we both didn't know exactly what we would need.

  "Not that I can't understand it, with Wanda and everything, but you're... acting differently. If you want to talk..."

  "No."

  We had just passed the fire station where Tommy had shot me and walked along the tracks of the tram. The place where Gustav had found me that day was not far. Fresh, but already thawing snow had covered the old traces of blood. Also, there were no new dog tracks to be seen, which was good.

  "We should split up," I said.

  "Shall we not rather..."

  "Individually, we are faster."

  I took one of the rifles from my shoulder, held it up to him and stretched out my hand to one of the jute bags.

  "Now take it, and give me a bag. You described those inverters to me well enough."

  I pointed to a point forty meters in front of us, where behind a slightly larger intersection the residential area began, where we had captured most of the solar cells that had already been installed.

  "I'll take the left side of the street, you take the right side, okay?"

  He looked at me for a moment, then shrugged his shoulders resignedly.

  "Suit yourself."

  I watched him disappear into one of the seven-story apartment blocks, then I set to work myself.

  In the dark staircase, into which only few light beams penetrated through colored and partly missing glass bricks, I remembered that there was not "one inverter", but that an inverter was a rather large cluster consisting of several modules. Since we had already scouted out the house the day before, I did not stop myself to check each of the dark corners and doors that had been bashed in by someone. The house had been plundered several times, that was obvious. In some of the doorways, and especially directly in front of the entrance doors of the house, pallets and furniture lay scattered, and in my mind I could see how the barricades they had once formed had been destroyed from the outside and the house had been stormed. I was guessing hungry neighbors or something. We hadn't found any bodies though.

  I leaned the rifle against the wall next to the electrical installations and set to work. It took a while until I had fished out the suitable screwdrivers from the tool collection in the jute bag, but then I succeeded quite fast to detach the four boxes, which should convert the current of the solar cells, from the wall, to cut the cables coming from the ceiling as high as possible over my head and to deposit my prey at my feet.

  Then I stepped out of the house onto the street, looked around briefly and walked over to the building where Gustav had disappeared.

  He was also almost finished, although the installation in this house was somewhat larger. He had noticed me, but he only turned to me after loosening the last inverter from the wall.

  "How's it going?"

  I nodded and said:

  "Listen. We should just unscrew as many of those things until we have enough to power the lab equipment you need to analyze the antidote. If you can produce it yourself, we can move on."

  I took a look at the six inverter-modules that stood neatly lined up at his feet.

  "I have four. Do you think that's enough?"

  He thought for a moment.

  "Maybe. But what about the others? We have to give them something, too. At least enough for a hotplate or some lamps or something."

  "Haven't you given them enough already? Medical help? And hope?"

  "Still."

  "For all I care. Two more pieces?"

  "Yeah, that should do it for now. But we'll get the others, too, hear me?"

  "Yes, yes. Look, you get the next two boxes and I'll figure out how to transport these things."

  "Well, we'll go back and return here with the motorcycles."

  "No, it's taking too long. I'll think of something."

  "You seem so rushed? First you don't even want to get up, and now you're trying to catch up, is that it?"

  Seven days, I thought.

  Have you looked at yourself in the last few days?, I thought.

  You are stretching your life elixir too much, I thought.

  "Come on, let's get going," I said.

  We stepped out of the hallway together. I knew that Gustav would turn right, continue up the road towards the next apartment block, where we had also plundered solar panels.

  I was undecided if I should look for a means of transport in that direction, but then I remembered seeing a small bicycle shop in the other direction. I set off, found what I was looking for and arrived twenty minutes later, pulling two of those t
railers behind me in which one had previously transported ones children, back into our street. Mini tents on wheels, if you will. At a distance of about fifty meters I already saw Gustav standing on the street waiting for me. He had even taken the inverters out of the houses and readied them for transport.

  He discovered me and waved at me, then his waving changed, his mouth opened and fragments of words torn apart by the winter wind reached me.

  I couldn't understand them.

  His waving changed again, he pointed his finger at me and I could hear more incomprehensible sounds. Then he hurried to the side, towards the small tower of inverter-modules next to him, against which he had leaned his rifle.

  Is he … gonna shoot me?, I thought.

  Then: Bullshit!

  Only then did I realize and turn around.

  It was ten.

  They formed a loose chain and took up the whole width of the road behind me. Masked figures in thick jackets, with pistols, bows and clubs in their hands. I couldn't tell men from women, I couldn't tell them apart, I couldn't categorize them. They did not wear the BMX masks of the vampires and they were hardly Degs because of the pistols. One of the figures, it walked in the middle of the chain, right between the tracks of the two kids trailers that I had pulled over the muddy snow behind me, wore a lower leg prosthesis on her left side, the metal of which shone weakly in the sun. It was a prosthesis like the ones made before the great war, quite high-tech, with joints and everything. Most likely the man or woman must not have lost the lower leg just recently. In fact the movements of the figure did not show any signs of impairment as it continued to approach me together with the other nine without noticeable haste.

  Although they didn't seem to be in a hurry, their attitude was undoubtedly threatening. The chain they formed, the way they held their weapons, their tense posture - all this radiated aggression.

  In the time it took me to notice all these impressions, they had perhaps come two steps closer and were now about thirty meters away from me. I imitated Gustav, also slipped the rifle off my shoulder and pulled the safety. I hectically tried to count the exact number of pistols pointed at me as I slowly moved backwards towards Gustav, being about four times as far away.