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

by Georg Bruckmann

  Also Mariam did not seem to get out of amazement so soon. Oh, not that they never passed any churches in their time with the degenerates. But back then one had other things in mind than to marvel. To stay alive, for example.

  On the other side of the church there was another square, much larger than the first one, and not quite so narrowly enclosed by the mostly three-to-four-story buildings. Over there, relatively close to the church, also was a fountain, which somehow looked like a shrine, or like those things in which the Russians had placed their icons. For a moment she had to think of Ivan. On this side there was also a wide but not too high staircase that led to a large, heavy door and from there apparently directly into the tower.

  About in the middle of the church there were two smaller towers on the north and south side. But in them Wanda was not interested.

  Suddenly Dr. Mahler began to wriggle and sounds came out of his gagged mouth that would have been funny had it not been for his completely horrified facial expression. Wanda, who had thoughtfully contemplated on the large building that majestically stretched in front of her, and Mariam, who had stepped impatiently from one foot to the other, both turned around at the same time to find out what their prisoner's problem was.

  They recognized this problem immediately.

  It was located on the other side of the square in front of another, much larger ornamental fountain, guarded by a stone statue, whose water had long since dried up.

  Actually, there were three problems. Three problems with bows, spears and clubs. One of the figures, a woman with long, shaggy, black hair, even seemed to carry something like a sword. Doctor Mahler's desperate utterances were dampened by the gag, but the world had become quiet since the war had come to an end, and the degenerates had heard him across the square immediately despite the distance. Only now Wanda noticed the carts that they had left a few meters behind them, just before the square again turned into a road bending to the side. It was about one meter wide and two meters long. Were those naked arms hanging limply down between the wooden bars?

  Didn't matter. Now they had to react quickly. They couldn't let them get away. Under no circumstances should the degenerates be able to call for reinforcements. Of course, if there were others, they would hear shots echoing through the dead city, but with any luck they wouldn't be able to locate them. At least not right away. Wanda cursed herself for having kept her sub-machine pistol ready the whole time, and not her rifle, which at that distance would have been much better suited to kill the degenerates. Wanda let herself sink to her knees and put on the MP. She set the selector switch with her thumb to salvo fire and put her finger on the trigger. In the split second it took her brain to tell her finger to bend and move back, several things happened simultaneously.

  From the right next to her, from Mariam's direction, four shots were fired in close succession, deafeningly loud in the preceding silence, followed by a cry of pain, there was movement in the three degenerates in front of the fountain, and behind them, behind the cart that they had pulled and then left standing, when they had heard Mahler's idiotic bleating, there appeared other ragged and armed figures who stormed the square. But that's not all.

  Spying over rear sight and grain, Wanda had expected to see at least one of the figures fall in front of the fountain. But that didn't happen. When Wanda had understood this, and also that the cry of pain had come from the right behind her, she tore the head around. Even more of these disgusting creatures! They came from the church. Wanda counted five, with one of them lying lifeless on the ground and another broken to his knees and holding his stomach. Blood sputtered out between his fingers. That must have been the one who screamed. One of the three figures still standing on his feet had stopped at the top of the stairs and pulled out for an axe throw, which was meant for Mariam. The other two stormed down the stairs, keeping as far away from each other as to make aiming as difficult as possible for Mariam. Mahler, this damn idiot, had dropped to the ground between Wanda and Mariam and trembled and waved his eyes wide open in panic. Wanda had not taken long to perceive all this, but when she turned her head again to stare over the square, in the direction in which the barrel of the sub-machine gun was still pointing, she was shocked to find that the degenerates on this side had already half crossed the square and roared forward. Finally Wanda was able to act. She didn't bother to aim, that would take too long, but turned the selector switch of the sub-machine gun one position further and pulled the trigger. The magazine was emptied faster than she had expected, and the hail of small-caliber bullets had less effect on the approaching enemies than she had wished. Only two of them she saw fall as she let go the sub-machine gun and, the moment Mariam shot again, let her rifle slide from her shoulder. The decision was not difficult. On one side it was a dozen, and on the other side it was three in the worst case. When she whirled around, she saw that there were only two left. One of the degenerates who had run down the stairs was lying in embryonic position, crouched on the gray cobblestones of the square. Under him, red spread. Mariam stood now somewhere else, one meter further to the right, towards the church. The axe throw. Sure she´s had to dodge it. Wanda hadn't noticed it. Where was the axe? The other degenerate, the one who had also advanced, would have reached Mariam in a second. The axe thrower now held a second projectile in his hands and swung out, but Wanda could not tell which of them he was targeting. Mariam already had the other one in sight, as it looked, and Wanda cocked the rifle and put it on the axe thrower. The rifle and Mariam's pistol barked almost simultaneously. Wanda saw a growing red spot on the chest of the axe guy, which however did not go to the ground yet, but stared down his body in disbelief. The moment his second axe had slipped out of his powerless hands and hit the stairwell in front of the church door, Mariam screamed.

  Had she missed her opponent?

  Intertwined, they rolled two meters over the ground towards Mahler. The deg's hands were wrapped around Mariam's neck and the gun had slipped away. Wanda saw the girl desperately trying to pull her knife, but soon she would run out of air.

  A spear rushed past Wanda. The others had now approached. They didn't have much time left. Again Wanda repeated her weapon and fired an undirected shot behind her to keep the attackers at a distance. Then she grabbed her rifle by the barrel, pulled it out far above her head and jumped forward to knock down Mariam's degenerate, but that wasn't necessary at all. Just in time she broke off her attack, because otherwise she would have hit Doctor Mahler, who had somehow managed to kick the son of a bitch sideways against his head from lying down. With one sweep, the grip around Mariam's neck loosened, she reared up, gained some freedom of movement, crawled out under her attacker. Her panic-stricken eyes looked for Wanda's face. Wanda nodded to her. Then she violently dragged Mahler, who was still tied up and had trouble getting up, to his feet and gave him a push.

  "To church! We must go into the church!"

  Before Mariam ran off, she took three quick steps to pick up the lost pistol. Then finally all three of them rushed towards the heavy wooden door. Before they closed it behind them, Wanda, standing in the arch of the door, laid on the degenerate who had attacked Mariam and was still dazed by Mahler's kick as fast she could. She burst his head.

  Then she pushed the foot of the dead axe thrower out of the way and closed the wooden church door.

  "Mariam, are you okay?"

  "Yes," said the girl curtly and her voice was rough and broken when she spoke. That fucking asshole had paid for that.

  "We must barricade the doors! Quick!"

  The entrance area of the church did not offer them many possibilities as far as this was concerned, and to make matters worse, there was another door opposite the door through which they had entered the large building. God damn it! Knowing it wouldn't do much good, Wanda tore Doctor Mahler’s gag from his head and used the saliva wet cloth to connect the two handles of the door through which they had entered the church, thus gaining a few precious seconds, perhaps even a minute.

&nbs
p; The first time since they had captured him, Mahler said a complete sentence. And he wasn't very nice.

  "You really did a great job, you stupid crazy bitch."

  "Shut your mouth, Doctor! We need to get up to the tower, you hear? Up in the tower, we don't have another chance."

  Shepard

  We were sitting in a rickety VW Passat, meaning a VW Passat it once had been, this crazy conglomerate of plundered individual parts, in which we sneaked along the A5 towards Weinheim.

  We were Sonja in the passenger seat, Mr. Paul, the guy I had been hiding from on the roof, and three other men from Sonja's patrol in the back seat. I had squeezed myself into the trunk of the old combi and was busy checking out the wild collection of weapons that we had been able to organize in a hurry. The vehicle had been parked near the Tower of the High People, in a small backyard garage. As far as the security of this vehicle was concerned, they had completely relied on camouflage and left it unguarded. Only the garage door had emitted a groaning squeak, which must have been heard from afar. Maybe Mr. Mack would also watch us through one of his hidden cameras, but that didn't matter. If this were the case, he would be able to see that Sonja and Mr. Paul were with me.

  An obsolete thought anyway, because I did not believe that the leader couple had already left the polyclinic. This vehicle had been meant as a last resort for at least a few of the residents of the tower, in case of emergencies, as I had understood Sonja, and the trunk was stuffed with backpacks. In two of them was food and water. In a third tools and two more held ammunition of all kinds that I was just trying to sort apart.

  Mr. Paul steered the station wagon around the broken down and partly destroyed vehicles on the motorway with only a little more than walking speed. I had been running after Sonja, shouting and screaming and gesticulating like a lunatic, not caring if this behaviour would draw unwanted attention to me or not. I had convinced her to follow my idea.

  Sonja just turned to me.

  "And again, so that everyone can hear it: Once you get the antidote or at least the recipe, we'll kill them all, yeah? You're not going to try to lenience me or anything like that?"

  "Why do you think I'm checking the guns right now? The only thing I'm asking is that you don't start too soon. Not until we get what Gustav needs. Besides, we gotta find those damn bastards first."

  Mr. Paul, who had just increased the speed of the car a little during these short sentences, had to hit the brakes again, when behind a broken down convoy of four large, olive-green transport vehicles of the Bundeswehr, which was led by a light Armour infantry fighting vehicle and whose armor had several small holes and a larger, frayed hole on the right below the turret, a pack of wild pigs appeared and crossed the motorway with leisurely speed. The sudden stop of the car made me hit the headrest of the rear seat with my right cheek. My brain was about to start formulating a tirade of insults, then I thought of something better and went on:

  "I really believe that we are on the right track. The dialyses, the hospitals - where else would they go?"

  That I was no longer so sure that we were on the right track, I concealed. When Gustav had told of his experiences, of his time on the vampire ward, had he not mentioned that all other dialyses were useless to them? Either destroyed or already completely plundered? Or had it been someone else? But that didn't matter, because even if that was right, weren't these places still the most attractive destination for the bloodthirsty, blonde doctor and her people? Just for the sake of habit? And even if that wasn't true, we couldn't find them if we didn't at least try. In the meantime Sonja had answered something confirming that I had only half noticed. The wild boar rotting had moved on and disappeared towards the west in the thicket, and Mr. Paul accelerated the car again.

  "Sonja, are you sure you won't get in trouble because you took the only vehicle without asking Mrs. Simon and Mr. Mack for permission?"

  "That's the least of my worries right now. That fuel tank's giving me a lot more headaches. He's only a quarter full. I really hope you're right and we can find these cowardly murderers soon."

  That's what she said while staring forward. Now she turned to me and added:

  "Sure, there'll be trouble. But it'll stay within limits. At least if we're successful."

  Then in a lower tone:

  "For us, children are the most important thing. For us, children are the solution. The way out. How could we not try to punish those who killed them? The ones they just took? If the two of them..."

  She had to mean Mrs. Simon and Mr. Mack with that.

  "… should really be too cowardly or weak for it, or punish us for trying to do just that - well, then it would be time for a change of leadership."

  The three men in the back seat nodded and muttered supportingly, confirming these strong words and in this way encouraging themselves a little. Sonja compressed her jaws as the pain of her loss tried to penetrate her consciousness again. Then she turned away. I had never asked her who had actually been the father of her dead child, I noticed.

  Five minutes later, the highway still seemed to be frozen in the middle of movement - somehow similar to the pictures I had seen of the excavations in Pompeii in one of Gustav's books in the camp in Frankfurt, when I had tried to teach Mariam some history - Mr. Paul drove the car to the exit. He took the S-curve carefully because still not all the snow had melted and the car we were sitting in was an extremely precious possession. He drove around a large bomb crater or grenade impact, now covered with dry bushes, in any case a hole in the asphalt with a diameter of about three meters, and then followed the large road sign that pointed the way to the hospital and thus to the dialysis and was still in a surprisingly good condition. Another three minutes later we turned left into Röntgenstreet. Mr. Paul turned off the engine and let the car roll out. The Röntgenstreet made another bend to the left and there, on our right side was the Weinheim district hospital. A building further back was our destination and to our left was a large parking lot. There were still about twenty vehicles there. The vampire van wasn't among them. Here the relatives of the patients had been pulled a few bucks out of their pockets before the war when they wanted to visit their sick. One of the electrical barriers was even still lowered, while the others had either been bent or, as it looked, had simply been knocked over at some point. At that time these barriers had been something quite common, something that had been a quite normal part of life, and today the concept of money seemed absurd, and the mental obstacles that the formerly red and white striped boards represented, because they were nothing more than that, seemed simply ridiculous. A hollow, empty gesture. Currencies and stakes had changed.

  An access road about twenty meters long led to the main entrance of the hospital and I felt as if I had noticed a movement somewhere behind the open, glass sliding doors. As if on command, the five of them got out of the High People´s car and, even before I could open the trunk from the inside, Mr. Paul had already done it from the outside. Five hands reached out to me and demanded to be armed. That was quickly done, and shortly afterwards I had also gotten out and let my absent-minded fingers glide over my rifle, while I stared further along the driveway to see if anything would move over there again.

  Nothing. Nothing. I must have made a mistake.

  It didn't matter, because the hospital wasn't our goal. We couldn't afford to be overly cautious. We had to find those fuckers fast. How many hours had passed since I left Gustav in the polyclinic? And how many would he have left? Four, maybe? Or five? Or maybe even a day or two? I didn't know, but every minute that passed, his chances faded a little more.

  Paul waved two of the shaved men to him and they and Sonja and the rest of them covered their shaven skulls and their faces. Not really necessary, but it was their habit. Maybe they just froze. Sonja could be identified with her lower leg prosthesis without any doubt at any time. Mr. Paul announced that he wanted to take the main entrance and that we, the other three, should circle the building and enter from the back. The buildin
g was not very large, only three storys high, and it did not seem to have been destroyed in the war, nor taken possession of and fortified afterwards. Seen from our current position even all windows and glass doors seemed to be intact. As we approached, tense and weapons raised ready to fire and nervously stroking the building, I realized that the glass doors were electric sliding doors. I didn't think they'd open up on their own. No power - no sliding door. It was that simple. We talked briefly and agreed that Mr. Paul and his people should wait about thirty seconds. As long as it would take Sonja, the other one and me to take the prone driveway, which led down from the small forecourt of the building and then around a corner to the right, to get to the back, and then simply shoot the entire glass front to shreds to get access to the building.

  I strongly assumed that my team would be forced to behave similarly. No problem. No problem, I told myself. We had enough bullets for now. Sonja and I sneaked down the paved driveway, which snuggled close to the building, and turned right around the corner. The moment we saw the two ambulances parked there, untroubled by snow under a kind of canopy directly attached to the building, as if there had never been a great war, the salvos sounded from above. They must have counted pretty fast. Sonja seemed to be in a great hurry all of a sudden, because she increased her speed, and as soon as the rear entrance, also equipped with a glass sliding door, came into view, she fired three shots in quick succession and the thick, transparent panes clang together.