Shepard
“Hey! Come on! You’ve been on the ground long enough now.” Slowly and carefully I opened my eyes. From below I heard the barking of dogs fighting over something. The dirty and emaciated face, from which glassy with burst veins interspersed eyes stared at me, meant nothing to me at first. Only when Jan told me that I really had to get up now did I remember him and what had happened. The battle between the degenerates. My escape from the church. Eater. The drunk Deg. And one more thing. I sat up, so hastily that Jan had to pull his head back so that I would not catch his chin with my forehead. In a feverish hurry, I pushed up my sleeve. It was still there, thanks to god, the bloody smear of the vampire doctor was still to be recognized. The formula for Gustav’s antidote, the real reason for my being here, was still visible on my forearm. Not quite as clearly as when she had painted it on my arm with the blood dripping from the holes in her breasts, but it still worked. Nevertheless, I had to make sure that this whole action wouldn’t have been for nothing. I tried to get up. Why was I even on the floor? Why was I ...? Like random, confused flashes, images of the terrible massacre that had taken place down the street appeared before my eyes. Yeah, yeah, I know all that, I said in my mind. But why the hell am I lying on the floor now, letting someone help me up who actually rather needs my help? Am I just weakened? Just done? Or is it something else? “What’s that on your arm? Looks strange.” Jan’s weak voice finally brought me back to reality. When I didn’t give him the answer right away, because I was still busy orienting myself in the living room and at the same time feeling into my body whether something was broken, he shrugged his shoulders. He walked a few steps over to the living room chair and let himself fall into it, heavy and accompanied by a sigh. Slowly, I checked for my balance. When I stood on my own feet again, I swayed for a moment, then I had regained it. I saw that Jan had eaten half of the bowl of oatmeal and canned pineapple I had prepared for him. My stomach was growling. I looked at him questioningly. “Are you gonna eat that?” “No. Go ahead.” I walked around the table in an awkward way, kneeling before the low plate and sloshing Jan’s leftovers around in their bowl. I cursed quietly, but then I saw that much of the stew had already missed anyway. Eating must have been hard for him, I thought. Then I sat down on the couch where I had put Jan down and later amputated his little finger. Shit, is that thing still lying around? That it did, even in the immediate vicinity of the bowl with the food. Under other circumstances this might have spoiled my appetite - if appetite was the right word. Because pleasure or hunger were not the reasons for which I greedily gobbled the stew into myself. I felt empty. Hollowed out. Like a mere shell of myself. I think I had a fever. I don’t know if that’s true or not. Anyway, there was something wrong with me and I wanted to change it. When I was done, I got up. Jan asked me where I was going, and the fear of being left behind by me clearly rang through his voice. Again, I had no free capacity to answer him or to calm him down. Some part far back in my head was sorry, but this thought was only a faint glow in the darkness. The pain in my hands was unlike much more flashy and was still overshadowed by the thought that I had to somehow preserve the formula on my forearm. Backup copy. Mirror. Redundancy. A crazy laugh wanted to rise in me when I had to think of these once modern and now meaningless, outdated words. It gave me trouble to suppress laughter. But I didn’t want to hear it. I didn’t want to hear it because deep down inside I knew it would sound completely insane. I passed the window. Of course I looked. What else was there? The dogs and the rats had come out of the buildings all around and celebrated their feast. How far can those bastards smell blood? They couldn’t possibly all have lived nearby. I imagined how all the dying, all the fighting and all the open wounds had attracted them like a dark magnetism. Birds came, too. Crows and magpies, but also others. A degenerate in whom there was still a spark of life and who had probably refused the final offer of her angels of death, in the erroneous hope that she would somehow make it despite her injuries, tried to crawl away on her stomach. At first she even succeeded. She almost made it to the edge of the battlefield, then one of the smaller animals that hadn’t eaten yet, because in our new world the big ones always have priority, became aware of her and barked briefly. A big animal, some Great Dane crossing, turned its bloody snout, licked its mouth with an obscene long tongue and made its way almost leisurely. The degenerate woman couldn’t see the dog. Concentrated, her eyes directed entirely at a distant target in front of her, she only was able to move centimeter by centimeter. At the last moment she heard the paws coming closer and turned around in panic so that I could see the gaping wound in her belly. She didn’t get to scream. The Great Dane found the neck at the first attempt. Even though no sound came out of her mouth, I could hear the slimy gurgling sound in my head when she drowned in her own blood. I turned away. Should they eat. I don’t know how long it took until I found a crumpled, small checkered writing pad and a ballpoint pen with the advertising print of the local bank branch. They had been in a kitchen drawer, and when I looked at the block like that, I suspected that it had been used to write shopping lists. About two thirds of the pages had been sloppily torn off, not at the intended perforation line, but out of the spiral rings, and there still were many scraps of paper hanging from them, some of which sailed to the ground when I began to carefully paint what the doctor had left on my arm. Well, if it isn’t a last will... I felt Jan’s curious gaze resting on me, but said nothing until I was satisfied with my work. Then I kept silent until I had drawn the formula for the antidote a second time on an empty sheet. Yeah. Redundancy. I carefully placed the two leaves on the low plate of the living room table. One left of the empty oatmeal bowl and one right of it. This image, the symmetry it had, seemed to calm me down somehow. Order. Shopping list. I don’t know how long I stared at the two sheets of paper, but at some point I began to falter to tell Jan what had brought me to Viernheim. I can’t really say how much of it he really understood, whether what I told him really made sense, because for a long time he didn’t say anything, and we just sat there. Maybe I slept, too. I don’t know. At some point, in any case, I felt my energy, or at least an old, weak reflection of it, returning. Outside it was now a bright day, and pale light fell through the dirty window and curtains into the living room. I took the left of the two sheets and folded it four times. Then I pushed it over to Jan. He had watched me, and now he reached for it. At least he made an effort, then he stopped and let himself sink against the back of the armchair again. I also folded the second sheet and put it in my pocket. Then I hoisted myself up and put the other one in Jan’s pocket. He didn’t comment on that. He understood that I wanted to make sure that no matter what might happen, that Gustav would somehow get the information he needed. “Shall we go then?” “Yes, Jan. We’re leaving.” “Good.” In the kitchen I took with me the two biggest knives I could find, and for Jan I found a jacket in a wardrobe in the bedroom to protect him from the weather. It wasn’t easy to get his crippled hand through its sleeve with all the broken fingers without him passing out in pain, but we did. This time it didn’t take that long until we had got the stairwell behind us. Our batteries had probably charged a bit, even though it felt completely different to me and also Jan looked nothing like it. A little less bad maybe. I was sweating even though I didn’t have to support him. He had alternated between stair railing and wall and had climbed down the steps on his own. The effort was obvious to him. But with the sweat and color, something else had returned to his face. Defiance, if I interpreted the look of his eyes correctly. That was good. That was very good. Anything was better than lethargy and devotion to fate. Silently and carefully I opened the front door, after I had assured myself once more with a quick glance that Jan stood firmly and with both feet on the ground. From down here, everything was even more horrible than viewed through the protective window pane. The dogs were bigger, the cracks and cuts in the bodies of the dead deeper and their edges sharper. “This thing will keep the critters off our back?” Jan asked. H
e meant the machete, which I more or less held firmly in my right hand. I had put the two knives from Jan’s kitchen into the side pockets of my jacket, and the handles protruded a bit. I gave him one, not so much so that he could really use it, but just to calm him down a bit. “With a little luck, that won’t be necessary. They should be full by now, and there is enough meat for them that can no longer fight back. But we must go quickly and stay away from the dead. They’re theirs now. We’d better think about how to get out of town without being seen.” Jan answered with a doubting voice: “Maybe we’d better wait until dark, after all? I don’t know... if they see us, we’re screwed.” “We’re even as good as dead when only one of them sees us. But I did explain to you why I’m here, didn’t I? My friend doesn’t have much time. I’m gonna go. Either way. Of course you’re free to...” “No. No, I’m coming with you.” Jan swallowed. “I was already dead anyway,” he added quietly. “Then it doesn’t matter now.” I said nothing and stepped out on the street. Some of the dogs still ate, the small and old and the weak animals, which were now in the turn. The larger and more dangerous animals lay lazy, full and content, or wandered aimlessly between the corpses of the degenerates, like prison guards during the courtyard walk. Instinctively, I was looking for the Great Dane. It wasn’t anywhere near the woman whose neck it broke. It was further back, on the other side of the battlefield. Yeah, look at me, you miserable bitch. Come on over and try your luck with me. You’ll see what you get out of it ... “Man, move on. Didn’t you just tell to get away from their prey as soon as possible? What are you staring at? Come on, you bum!” There was panic in Jan’s words, also fear, but also a subliminal anger. That was the thing that made me react quickly. I don’t like being ordered around, but I was grateful to Jan for those words and did what he asked. We left. Slowly and cautiously, and of course, we kept casting suspicious glances behind us as we gradually moved away from the place of the slaughter. I almost got stuck again at a sight that was offered to me at one of the times when I looked backwards. Three small dogs pulled and tugged intestinal loops from the abdominal cavity of a dead man and squabbled about it as if the bloody tissue were a toy. Then I remembered Jan’s tone of voice earlier and tore myself free again. “First thing we gotta do is get off this road. We have to go through the alleys. Through the backyards and through the houses. Do you have any ideas? You are from here, aren’t you?’, I turned to Jan quietly, so as not to attract anyone’s attention. As he pondered, I remembered the climb that had brought me near the damn church in the first place. In our present state we were not able to pull off something similar, I feared. “Are you? Surely you know a way? One where we can’t be seen,” I asked again, this time with a little more emphasis. Jan seemed to be absent for another two seconds, as if he had not heard me at all. Then he also broke away from the sight of the little dogs and said: “I don’t know. I might. But I don’t think we’re being hunted right now anyway.” “Whether we’re actively hunted or not, it doesn’t matter. I just told you. It’s enough for some degenerate asshole to just see us, just see us and scream, and the hunt is back on track, you know?” “Yeah. I’m not stupid. But I think they have enough to do with themselves right now.” He made a vague gesture backwards, towards the battlefield and then continued. “They’re in the church, aren’t they? I think they went back there to... to finish their business. Whatever this looks like...” He was probably right about that. He went ahead now. The low speed he walked wasted my nerves, but when I started sweating again after perhaps two hundred meters, I understood that he was only acting with foresight and budgeting his energy. We kept close to the walls of the abandoned houses. Where it was possible, we moved through the thicket and small trees that were dominating the small front gardens, even though most of the plants were still bare in winter. Even the measly cover they offered was better than nothing. In places where there was no cover, we hurried ducked across the streets. Yeah, I guess the Degs were busy with themselves. But what if some small group of Benito’s bone people had escaped the newcomers, perhaps because they had been looking for me at the other end of town after the hunt had been opened? A small group, or even a single one? What was that about, anyway? The battle? A usual power struggle? Did this happen often when different Deg groups met? Or maybe a punitive expedition sent out against Benito and his deserters? Once again I had to think of the phalanx, of its methodical approach and of how coldly its leader had fought his way through this screaming chaos towards Benito. Was that that Christiano Benito was talking about? The head behind the attack on the main station in Frankfurt? Was... “Quick, in here!” I didn’t understand what Jan was pointing at. Only when he asked me again to set myself in motion and push a few branches of a low-growing tree aside, paying some attention to using only the healthy hand, did I see the open cellar window. “You go first.” Jan made an apologizing gesture. For a short moment I hesitated, then I decided to trust him and not ask him why we should enter this house of all places. I pushed my feet forward into the cellar. I just fit through. I quickly looked around. It was just an ordinary basement room. One that would have been normal before the war at least. At first sight I recognized some open boxes with children things. Three pairs of skis stored on a shelf. Two big, one small. The corresponding sticks hung on a nail that had been struck into this very board. Then a freezer. One could still see the meanwhile dried edges of the puddle in which it must have stood after the electricity had ceased to exist. Next to the freezer, an unadorned closet. The doors were closed and I couldn’t see what was inside. On another wall, mounted next to some open pipes, a filter for water softening. Then a locked door. That was enough for me at the moment, and I helped Jan to push himself on his belly into the cellar as well. Despite my efforts, he fell the last part more than he actively mastered it. Of course, his left hand got caught somewhere. I had to muffle his scream by putting my own, damaged hand over his mouth. That also hurt damn much, even though I was sure that it was not comparable to the pain Jan had to endure. For about half a minute we remained in this almost intimate posture until he had a grip on himself again. There were tears in his eyes. Tears of pain, but also tears of anger. Anger at what had happened to him and anger at himself and his current shortcomings. Powerlessness. Nobody likes it. “What are we doing here? Why in here of all places?” I asked. Still breathless, he answered: “The freezer. Look in the freezer.” “What’s supposed to be in there but rotten, inedible food?” “Just look inside. Please.” Reluctantly, I did what he asked me to do. The air smelled a bit strange now, when the chest was open, but not so much that I would have shrunk back. Turned out I was only half right. Or two-thirds, for all I care. The larger compartment of the freezer cabinet was actually filled with Tupper containers forced open by decomposition gases. But the smaller of the separated compartments was way more interesting. The first carefully sealed freezer bag I took out and looked at in the twilight contained a large number of smaller plastic containers. They were transparent and I could see the pills in them. Ten in each of about fifteen cans. “Yes. Them. Open one up and give me two of them. I can’t go any further. They’ll help me with the pain. Please.” “They may not be good anymore, may they?” “I don’t believe that, maybe, maybe. But I’ll try it anyway.” I did what he asked me to do a second time. In the meantime he had crouched down against the wall, under the shelf with the skis. First, I just offered him two pills after I freed them from their container. But when he looked at me without reacting, I understood. I dropped them into his mouth from a small distance as he put his head upwards into his neck. Curiosity then took possession of me, and I went back to the freezer. It wasn’t just pills. Next came two big bags of weed. A Tupper can of cash that was now as worthless as the paper it was printed on. Then more pills. Then something of much greater value. A small, compact pistol, almost at the bottom, between two more kilo packs of marijuana. Popeye. Captain Iglo. Spinach commercials. Crazy. “Is all this your stuff, Jan?” Jan’s language was even more blurred than before w
hen he said: “No. No. No, my little brother, my younger, was active in this business. I don’t know if he’s still alive. Sometime during the war, he was just gone. Left his girlfriend sitting here. She didn’t want to have anything to do with the stuff. She didn’t want to throw it away either. Could’ve been possible that he was coming back. That’s why she kept it, down here. Killed later in an air raid. Poor thing. Never stopped waiting for the bum.” “And this?” Demonstratively I raised the pistol. His face turned to a strained smile. “I’d almost forgotten about it. It’s just for blanks, I’m afraid. Elias had them just for fun. Never really thought much of violence. More like the smart guy. That’s probably why he left.” No, I thought he’d been smart if he’d taken all this stuff with him to trade it in, right? Instead of articulating this thought, I let the magazine slide out of the gun. It was true what Jan had said. It was a blank gun, but the bright orange plastic seal on the small cartridges told me it was loaded with tear gas. After all. The sled was a little stuck, I noticed. While Jan kept talking and lost himself in ever new memories, I took the pistol apart. A Toraki. Never heard of the brand. The functional principle was very similar to that of all the other pistols that I had held in my hands so far. Jan laughed quietly, apparently because he remembered a funny anecdote from the past and then continued to babble in his sluggish tone. Quietly and carefully I closed the cellar window, then I looked around again, now that my eyes had completely adapted to the new lighting conditions. In one corner there were even more boxes and crates and a small, not even hip-high cupboard. As I continued to listen to Jan with one ear and from time to time gave him a short comment or even a confirming buzzing to make him feel that I was still interested in what he was telling, I searched the boxes and the cupboard. In the cupboard I found what I had hoped for. A can of WD40. It didn’t have much pressure anymore, but it was enough to spray the insides of the pistol with it. When I was finished, I put it together again, and lo and behold: The sled was no longer stuck. I put the magazine back in its place, and chambered a round. The noise sounded all right. Now I just had to be lucky that neither the feather of the hammer nor that of the magazine that was supposed to feed the gas cartridges was weakened by time and cold. A trial shot didn’t seem like a good idea to me, though. I put the little toy in my pocket. Suddenly it was quiet. Jan had fallen asleep. The pills worked. Opiates or downers, I guess. It was about noon. Hoping to find more useful things from Jan’s younger brother’s criminal past, I searched the large closet I had left unattended so far. Nothing. Nada. Only relics of days long past that had been absurdly both - happier and much more complicated than the simple and brutal reality of the age we now found ourselves in. Decline. Somehow the room started to spin a bit. I leaned against the wall. The mold spores from the freezer? Probably. I’d wake Jan up soon. Maybe half an hour longer I would let him rest, then we really had to move on. I went back to the basement window and opened it. I took a deep breath of the cool air and felt a little better. But apart from oxygen, it was carrying something else. Burn odor and distant screams. In a world that had become so quiet and in which no more exhaust fumes polluted the air, both carried quite far. Jan seemed to have been right in his assessment of the situation. The degenerates tented to their business in the church. I wondered if it was Benito who was burning. His blond face and his disgusting grin, which showed the ruins of his teeth, appeared in my memory. Then the red, always angry face of Ivan. He too had been a drug dealer. Wouldn’t it be a bizarre coincidence if he and Jan’s brother had known each other? Then something changed. Outside. A vague feeling of restlessness, a weak hunch only, which soon condensed before my inner eye into impressions of an escape. Then the picture became clearer. Someone ran. And he came closer. Steps of only one person. Rustle of clothes and twigs. At the same moment the lighting conditions in the cellar and outside changed. Shadows, it got darker. Someone was very close. Then legs. Someone was standing in front of the basement window. Again rustle and movement and I instinctively backed away from the window. Someone came in.
Brenner: The Gospel of Madness (Book 5 of 6) Page 16
