by D Krauss
The smell of violence.
He listened and stared, looking for even the slightest twitch. Violence begat violence, and whatever had happened here might attract an encore, someone waiting in a shadow for him to move first. That’s what comes from not doing your job, idiot.
John hadn’t been out here in a week or so. Let them gain a toehold, had he?
He was against the wall in the narrow hallway that opened into the weird foyer with the even weirder winding stairs that went up to the inappropriately placed bathrooms. Halls shot out from the foyer in three directions and he could be picked off at leisure should he step out in the wrong direction, so he hesitated, squinting at the gloom.
The odor was overpowering so it was not coming from the halls or wafting from the evil basement or even from some depth of the building. It was close. Upstairs.
He closed his eyes and ratcheted his hearing. Need to adjust sight so, ears, take over. If there was just one creak, he was going to cut loose, but, no, nothing and, counting down two minutes, he opened his eyes.
Okay, better. He could see a way down the halls now. Anyone who popped out of a side room would be silhouetted and he could blast and roll and shelter and blast again. Could be fun. He crouched and took a decisive step into the foyer. And slipped.
What the hell? He caught himself, dropped to his knees and bobbed back into the doorway, putting a lot of strain on the hamstrings but nothing that some Ben Gay wouldn’t fix. He focused on the hallways, ready to shoot. No movement. There was something slippery on the bottom of his Rockports and he reached a finger, bringing it back to his face. Immediately he gasped and rubbed his finger vigorously on the wall.
Shit. He had stepped in shit.
Dogs? Nervously, he cocked the Ruger and peered hard in the gloom. That would be odd. Dogs stayed in the open now and besides, would have rushed him the moment he came blinking in. Wolves? Silly thought and no, for the same reasons. So, what...
Grimly, John reached into his pocket and pulled out the penlight. If there was an ambush, this would spring it. He snapped on the beam, holding it low and ready to return fire, but no one shot. He gave one last hard look at the hallways and then swept the beam along the ground.
Feces. Piles of feces. Human feces. A lot of them.
John stared. They were arranged rather well, not haphazard, like one or two guys moving as nature called them, but like lots of people had decided, collectively, to drop their drawers and do a mass dump right here in the middle of the foyer. A shit minefield. Was that the purpose, make him step in it, have a good laugh at his expense?
He didn’t think so.
The piles were maybe a week old, and it seemed like they were all done at the same time. How extraordinarily weird. John played the light toward the staircase, noting the piles were clear of it, like a trail inviting someone to step this way. He wondered if they’d found one of his Claymore traps and set it on the stairs, then used the feces to guide him into it. Boom. No more John. He examined the stairs but didn’t see any trip wires. Silly. They could have done that at the door. No, they weren’t inviting him up the stairs.
They were letting someone come down.
Slowly, he played the light up, stopping at the first twisted landing, then following it. Almost to the top, his beam caught something. Suspended in the air; something hanging from the ceiling above the top landing.
A foot. A rotted, bloody foot. John moved the light up.
It was a girl, he thought, but she was too torn up and bloated for him to be absolutely sure. Knowing Bundys, it could have been a boy. Strung up by barbed wire to a girder overhang, the wire running around its waist and under the arms and tied off to the doorknob of the men’s bathroom. Its back was to him and it hung there, motionless. Shreds of skin hung loosely down to her feet.
Not from rot, from cutting. She had been skinned alive. John gritted his teeth. Must have taken her hours to die. The screams must have been horrific.
God damn Bundys.
Raging, John stepped past the shit field and ran up to the first landing. Hardly procedure, but he didn’t care. He hoped the giggling bastards came at him now, all thirty or forty of them, ’cause he’d kill ’em all.
He stared up at the girl and shone the light full on her. He didn’t have the right angle but he could see that her lips had been carved away, leaving a perpetual death’s-head grin against the swollen, rotting flesh. The odor was overwhelming and he sucked it in to make a memory. When he found these bastards, it would spur him.
He walked up, keeping his light on the stairs for any tripwires, lifting the beam as he cleared the landing. He stopped, stared, then widened the light to take in the wall between the bathrooms. Someone had spray-painted a purple symbol there, like an ankh, but with daggers on the points. Something familiar...
Yeah. He’d seen that tag before. On the remaining wall of Kay Chapel.
He smiled grimly. Got your signature now, jackass.
He examined the barbed wire wrapped around the knob and contemplated untying it, but he’d get cut and the bastards had probably wiped some of their shit on it, so instant blood poisoning. What a way to go, worse than the Flu, although maybe his immunity also affected that. Better not chance it. He’d have to cut the wire, but he didn’t have the tools with him and the idea of the girl exploding into rotten meat when she dropped was sickening.
He turned to her and put the beam full on her torn, green blob of an almost unrecognizable face. I will find them, he thought at her fiercely, I will find them and do ten times worse—
Wait.
He stared. Then gasped, stumbling back almost into the wire, catching himself, leaving the beam full on that one remaining blue eye shrouded by bloody lanks of red hair.
Mrs. Alexandria.
10
“You knew her?”
The old cop was laconic, unmoved. He had walked in, observed the shit field, walked up and observed Mrs. Alexandria, then walked back out, silent. His teenage partner had been vomiting in the bushes out front for a good five minutes now. John wondered at the capacity of the stomach to hold so much bile.
“Yes. Mrs. Alexandria.”
“Friend?”
“Yep. She was Family.”
“Role?”
“Wife.”
“Hmm,” the old cop gazed off, “I haven’t heard of the Alexandrias.”
“They’re down on Jefferson Highway, centered on the Target. They don’t come out here.” He paused. “They’ve heard of you.”
The old cop just glanced at him and then looked off in the distance. “You didn’t hear anything?”
John didn’t like the accusatory tone and he narrowed a look at the cop. “No. Didn’t you?”
The cop liked that even less and they both stared at each other. “Tough guy,” the cop smiled and it wasn’t a challenge, so John relaxed. “What do you make of the ankh?” he asked the cop.
“Seen it around.”
John waited for the explanation but none came and the cop became interested in his partner. “You done?” he asked sardonically and the punk got to his feet shakily and headed off without a word to the patrol car. “Where you guys getting gas?” John asked.
The cop turned. “Stay in touch,” he said, and got in the car.
There was an urgency in the request John didn’t like. Something was going on, and it wasn’t good. “Give me a radio, then,” John said.
The old cop started the car and shook his head. “Just do the same thing, walk out to Mass. Avenue and fire off some rounds. We’ll hear it.”
“I haven’t got the ammo for that,” John said but the old cop ignored him and drove away. A lie, but the ammo was for use against Bundys, not as distress calls. And besides, there was so much random shooting going on out here, jackass, how do you know I’m calling you?
You didn’t hear Mrs. Alexandria calling.
Neither did you, John.
He sat down on Cassel’s porch. God. Mrs. Alexandria. He met her
when he’d gone over to Target looking for jeans after the Springfield Mall burned down. He’d been driving the Pathfinder and stopped at the long parking lot entrance that graced the front of the store like an invitation. Two guys stood there armed with rifles, eyeing him. He got out and opened his hands, empty. “Okay if I approach?” he called.
“Waddya want?” the one with the long blond beard responded.
“Trade?”
“Waddya got?”
“Grenades.”
They both stared at him. “You got grenades?” Beard said something to beardless, who hustled inside. Beard stood easy, watching John, who remained passive. The new protocol.
People poured out of the store, a lot of people. John was amazed. Two sets of riflemen came around the side and set up flanking positions to cover the approaches to the parking lot. John was impressed. A tall man, also bearded, conferred with First Beard, who gestured at John. Mrs. Alexandria was standing with them. Second Beard nodded, removed a pistol, and approached with the Missus. John waited. The next few moments would determine whether he got his jeans or a shroud.
“You have grenades?” Second Beard asked as he stepped up.
“Yep.”
“Can I ask where you got them?”
“Nope.”
Second Beard chuckled and Mrs. Alexandria smiled and the ice broke. John immediately liked them both. “Let’s see,” Beard said.
He showed them. Then, with permission, threw one off to the side. They were impressed by the explosion. So were the onlookers.
He got a crate of Levis and work shirts, as well as some work gloves thrown in, for five grenades. He got an invitation to come back anytime he felt like it, trade or no.
“We’re the Alexandrias,” Beard had said.
John chuckled. “I mighta known.”
They all laughed at that, even Missus, the lights dancing in her blue eyes as she placed a possessive hand on Beard’s shoulder, a red, wavy ocean of hair dancing around her face. Lovely.
There were six in the core group, Beard and Missus, two teenagers, two kids. There were twenty cousins, ranging from the sweetest little four-year-old girl (Baby, they called her) to an old grumpy guy who said he fought in World War II and, by God, ain’t never seen nothin’ like this in all his born days, yessir. None of us have, Gramps. They all took the same name. They were Family.
“How long’d you guys stay at the Gate?” he asked her once.
“About six months,” she had a voice like a harp in the wind. She looked right at him. “You?”
“Less.” They stopped talking about it. Little explanation was needed.
They were about the closest thing to friends he had. He went to a barbecue, Baby’s fifth birthday, or what they had decided was her fifth birthday. No one really knew her true age and Baby kept saying, “I’m ten! I’m ten!”
Cute, but obviously not right. “Found her wandering the streets down near the Potomac,” Beard told him.
Lucky a Bundy didn’t find her first.
Lots of people were there. The Alexandrias had formed blocs with the Old Towners and the Huntingtons, and the Huntingtons had a particularly large core, twelve kids, five of the boys having formed Families of their own, so there were grandkids, although none by birth, yet. With their cousins, they were practically a company.
“You a Vernon?” one of them, who was munching on some venison, asked John.
“No,” John was surprised. “There are Vernons?”
“Yep,” the guy nodded, “they’ve turned it into quite the farming enterprise. Even have cows.”
“Really?” John licked his lips. “Are they trading milk?”
“Not yet. They’re not sure it’s safe. They gave some samples to the CDC but, well,” and he shrugged his sauce-covered deer strip.
“Yeah,” John agreed, “I’d sure like to get some fresh milk. Are you guys in touch? Can you let me know when they start?”
The Huntington shook his head. “We’re not in touch. We heard about them through the Mason Necks, who are a real bunch of cowboys, by the way. The Vernons are standoffish, like they’re Raiders or something. Can’t blame ’em,” another deer strip shrug, “they’ve got probably the best set up around.”
“Hmm,” John responded, non-committal. Yeah. Mt Vernon was ideal if you had the manpower to run it. John preferred Lonerism.
It was night and there was a bonfire; some of the cousins were playing guitars and banjos, a mixture of bluegrass and sixties rock, if that was possible. People were dancing and drinking and if you closed your eyes for just a moment, it was Before. John danced with Baby, whirling her around as she shrieked with delight, then he pleaded a sore back and sat next to Beard and Missus.
“You’re good with kids,” she observed.
“You should join us,” Beard said and it was an invitation.
John shook his head. “I’m not much for company.”
Beard and Missus nodded. Some people were Family, some weren’t.
There was a weird group sitting across from them, all dressed in black and painted up like Vandals. One of the boys reached over and kissed one of the other boys.
“Jesus,” John said.
Beard and Missus laughed. “You haven’t met the Ballstons?” she asked.
“Ballstons? Aptly named.” That got a chuckle. “They’re up on the Mall?”
“Um-hmm,” she set her Sam Adams down. “What we don’t have, they have, so might be good to butter them up. Go give their dad a hug, why don’t you?”
“Great,” John shook his head. “Gay. How fashionable. Which one’s the missus?”
They both pointed at a thin guy snuggled into the broad, butch shoulders of a real tough lookin’ man. A couple of tough lookin’ lesbians, next to Dad and Mom, eyed John balefully, no doubt reading the conversation. They looked like they could kick his ass. He said so.
“Probably could,” Beard agreed, “they’re real good fighters, the whole family. Took on some Raiders and just royally kicked their butts. And then probably had sex with their butts when they were done,” he snorted contemptuously and that sent Missus into gales of laughter that caught Butch Shoulders’ interest and he frowned, correctly surmising he was the object of that laughter.
Hard looks between the two families. John understood that. The Alexandrias, the Huntingtons, all of the traditional groups were traditional all the way and held to a philosophy that much of the deviance characterizing the Pre-Event world, had a lot to do with the Event itself.
John believed pretty much the same thing. That made the Ballstons blameworthy. That meant some kind of conflict between them and the trads was inevitable. Once the Raiders were destroyed, the CDC driven off, some kind of authority established, then it would happen. For now, they all needed each other. For now.
“CDC is talking about a deal,” Beard said, when the moment passed and everyone backed off their weapons.
“You’re kidding. What kind of deal?”
“Give them a few people, they’ll stop attacking.”
“You’re not seriously entertaining it.”
“They said they’d give them back.”
“You’re not seriously believing them.”
“Hell, no. Can you imagine what we’d get back? If we actually got anyone back?” Beard’s eyes blazed.
For a moment, they stared at the dark beyond the bonfire, expecting to hear the sudden roar of helicopters, moonsuited troops pouring out and shooting half of them, while sealing the other half, screaming, into the tubes. Bound for Atlanta. Never to be seen again.
“Why do they want a deal?”
“Guess we’re killing too many of them,” Missus stretched luxuriously and John savored the form of her under the sweater. She caught it and grinned, appreciating the compliment, “Can’t get good help these days.”
They all chuckled at that. There couldn’t be an inexhaustible supply of combat-ready biologists, could there?
He had stayed the night, sleeping with a
blonde, middle-aged cousin, who was very, very horny. Sleep didn’t really have that much to do with it and John was more exhausted in the morning than when he’d slipped into her futon the night before, safely hidden in a corner of Target, where lawn equipment was gathering rust. She kissed him, told him to come back often.
He did, maybe once, twice a month. Missus, appraising his trysts with Cousin Barb, was amused. Proxy.
They traded ammunition, John bringing grenades each time. “Where you gettin’ these?” Beard had asked. He just shrugged.
“Ft. Belvoir?”
John had not reacted. “Fort Belvoir is heavily mined,” he lied.
“Yeah, right,” Beard had snorted and John half feared the Alexandrias would mount their own expedition to see. That would certainly cut into his stash.
“Why d’you need so many?” John asked.
“Come see,” and he’d joined them on a punitive attack on some Vandals who had crossed the bridge and tried to snatch Baby. They chased them down to the Arlington Bridge itself, and Beard lined the survivors up right under the lions and beheaded them, one by one. Except for the last one.
“All right, fucker,” Missus had snarled, “let’s give your buddies a good show,” and she skinned the last Vandal alive, right there, his screams carrying across the water. Warning. John had watched and been very impressed.
She was tough. She was hard. She was a fighter. And she was hanging from the ceiling of Cassell, skinned alive.
They wouldn’t have taken her without a fight. Beard would have burned DC to the ground to get her back. Which must mean the Alexandrias, to a man, Baby and Cousin Barb included, had lost, and were rotting in some back alley. Or were hanging skinned somewhere, just like Missus. How was that possible?
John was, suddenly, very afraid.
11
