by D Krauss
Speeding down the slope had worked double duty, giving him a good old-fashioned thrill while panicking the tail. They’d have to catch up, which meant they’d hurry and get sloppy and they’d silhouette against the night sky, just for a moment, but that’s all he needed. Sure, it was too far away for an accurate shot, but, at the very least, he’d scare the bejesus out of them.
Enough stars showed through the clouds to power the goggles and he was feeling very confident. This should be fun. Idly, he glanced at the pickup’s cab. Nope, no skulls grinning at him. They must have got out, frustrated with the traffic jam, and taken their chances walking, ending up in the skeleton pile at the Woodbridge rest stop. But, then again, could be Survivors. Could even be the guys following him. Laws of Irony held primacy here, so why not?
He traced the line of cars down the hill and back up the other crest. Every one of them was jammed bumper to bumper with doors thrown open at paced intervals, like an Escher drawing, pulling you to the distance.
Seen in green, it was almost aesthetic. Even the wrecks had symmetry, nine to ten cars piled together at pleasing angles, burnt down to the frames and forming a rather stark sculpture. Civilization in Death Throes #9. He grinned. Be a shame if the government came in here and cleaned up all this art.
Government. Hah.
John shook his head. Let’s not dignify the thugs and idiots currently running the country with that title, shall we? The first president was, what, some third or fourth level Department of Agriculture manager, who was examining grain silos or some such nonsense in Indiana when everybody else back here died? Number 9324, or thereabouts, down the succession list, and that’s all well and good for continuity of government crap but John didn’t buy an agronomist as the leader of the Free World. Apparently, no one else did either, because there’d been how many presidents since?
“Who’s the president this week?”
“You are!” he chuckled.
Now General Whatshisname, the Chief of Staff, some kickass NORAD guy from Cheyenne Mountain, that’s a leader. Somebody ruthless enough to blow up the part of the world needing it. Somebody power-mad enough to consolidate the military under him and browbeat Sam Drucker and his myriad successors into launching a worldwide revenge-fest. Funny, he remained Chief of Staff through all the revolving door administrations.
Or, not funny, testament. A martinet with his hands on the weapons while the milksop-of-the-week gave him legal cover, not the most ideal of situations but at least things were gettin’ done. And that was good.
Or not. John was ambivalent. He was all for the ongoing retaliation, the beating-the-bejesus out of the towelheads, the wholesale burying of the Middle East, the slaughtering of populations, the lamentations of the women.
Good deal. But that’s all supposed to happen over there. You’re not supposed to use those same tactics here, General. Draft Gangs and military courts and martial law and rumors of concentration camps... a bit overboard, don’cha think?
Granted, widespread anarchy required strong measures but, hey, General, you seem to have things under control, well at least Outside. Couldn’t really say that about here, where the only government was accurate rifle fire. Still, you should count your blessings, General. And tone down the sadism.
Like the way the General abandoned DC. A month, two, After, sending in the military Hazmat teams, packing everything up, taking it all away. Had to admit, very efficient.
John happened to be at CDC’s Mall lab when the teams first hit the area. He was still driving the Pathfinder up there; that’s how early it was. He watched helicopters land on the White House lawn and a heavy-weapons platoon deploy. Several OD trucks roared up Pennsylvania Avenue and their crews went inside and carted out bodies.
John followed them around the rest of the day, curious. They loaded up the Archives and the files from the Federal Reserve, some bodies from the Capitol, piled up the things they didn’t want, including a lot of anonymous dead clerks, and burned them. They left the Smithsonians alone. John wondered about that but figured the General had no need for treasures, just legitimacy.
Some other Survivors gathered near the Supreme Court and made moves as though they wanted to get in those trucks. The platoon rifle-clubbed a few of them. They shot a few more. A helicopter came in from some other job and strafed the ones who wouldn’t go away. John was aghast. That was back when things made him aghast.
Over the next three days, John, staying far out of range, watched the wholesale dismantling of the entire city. Everything that made DC, DC, they hauled off. The teams killed anyone who got in the way, even ones who didn’t. They seemed to enjoy that.
John stood at the Washington Monument and watched until the last truck convoyed out, and then he went home. That was that – except for the Pentagon this morning, which was probably an afterthought.
A stake through the heart. They were already Off Limits. Even before John recovered, the army had armed patrols from Winchester to the New York border, shooting anybody attempting to cross in or out. Lead poisoning, one popular joke went, after beating the Al-Qaeda Flu!
John smirked. We Americans are a humorous people.
He figured the restrictions would, eventually, be lifted and he could go to see Collier. But the Big Bugout pretty much killed that idea – if they were taking away all the symbols, then no one was planning to come back here. Or let anybody out. Ever.
Just as well. The CDC thought they were all carriers. The last thing John wanted was to hug Collier and then nurse him over the next three to five days as he drowned in his own fluids. He’d already done that with his mom.
The Gates came a little bit later, more proof of General Whoozit’s sadism. John heard about them from the CDC. One of the techs told him the Army was organizing a big refugee camp somewhere out on the DMZ, the strip of land running about a mile on either side of 81 from Winchester down.
That didn’t make any sense. “Why are they putting it way the hell out there? Everybody left alive is here,” he said.
“Yeah,” the tech agreed, carefully handling a hypodermic so he wouldn’t puncture his suit, “but they’re afraid of the Flu.”
Really? Weren’t too afraid to come in here and ransack the place, ya know. More likely, the CDC wheedled the General into it. Self-interest, of course, a huge pool of lab rats conveniently located where teams could get in and out with relative safety. So, General, build the Gates, please, pretty please. Might get a cool new bioweapon out of it.
John hunkered down so he wouldn’t appear as some weird hood ornament, should the stalkers also have NVGs.
Ah, the CDC. They were nice in the beginning. John had been driving to Home Depot when one of their vans came off the Mixing Bowl and pulled up next to him, which was quite the surprise. John had just started moving around and hadn’t seen anybody yet.
They were really happy to find him because they thought the Flu was 100% mortal and here was a genuine Survivor. They looked like aliens in their Hazmat suits, and John had a sense of the surreal as he submitted to their proddings and fluid-draws and questionnaires. But, hey, anything to help and they seemed so good, so interested. John supposed that, initially, they were.
But didn’t take long for things to get nasty, his first clue being the Colonel Storm episode. Turned out there were about 15,000 Survivors, give or take, in the immediate Metro area. Some of those never even got the sniffles, and they became of primary interest. But the Immunes didn’t want to be turned into laboratory specimens and the CDC didn’t react well to that. They started kidnapping Immunes and shipping them, kicking and screaming in locked plastic tubes, out of the area.
Gate rumors put the Immunes in Atlanta, slowly being dissected, alive. John didn’t know if that was true, but it was a measure of how bad things were that he couldn’t afford to disbelieve it. You want to stay alive, you avoid the CDC.
Which was hard to do, since they pretty much ran the Gates. When those first got organized, CDC spokesmen went on the radio an
d TV and urged everyone to show up. They had supplies and medicine and food and, most importantly, doctors and communication, so, please, fellow citizens of these damaged lands, come.
John went, although it was somewhat pointless since he had most of what they were promising. He and Collier had already spoken a couple of times by then and he was setting up the house so he had no real reason to go. Reason didn’t have much to do with it. The nation’s wounded were being called and in a very hopeful tone. Who could resist?
His Gate was on the Route 50 bridge southeast of Winchester, spanning the Shenandoah, pretty convenient for the Army, because the river formed a natural barrier between Outside and the Zone, but not so convenient for him because, man, quite the drive. Bill told him the Army had put up confinement walls pretty much along the river’s whole meandering course.
John didn’t go and look because ZeeGees shoot on general principle, more opportunities for lead poisoning. They had remote-controlled mines, too, and quick-reaction forces ready to swoop down on any man-sized motion alarm anywhere along the river... well, according to Bill, anyway. John took his word for it.
ZeeGees were ruthless. The poor bastards at Middletown found that out. The Gate’s site wasn’t fixed at first, could have been anywhere from Winchester to Front Royal and Middletown, appropriately enough, seemed the middle course. The townsfolk, good Americans all, opened their streets to the first wave of refugees, built shelters, housed them in parlors, provided food and medicine.
When the engineers finally settled on the Route 50 Bridge, everyone was driven in at the point of a ZeeGee bayonet, including the Middletowners, who were just too exposed to too many Survivors to make the General comfortable. All of them died. That’s what you bastards get for being good neighbors.
That’s what you other bastards get for being the victims of a terrorist attack. We, the new government, have arbitrarily decided no one’s leaving and no one’s coming in. You damn people are too damn infected, a bunch of pus bags. Some of you bastards got out before anyone knew what was happening and managed to kill off a lot of nice little Midwest towns, no doubt including the General’s. So shut up. We’ll bring you food and movies and let the Lizards wave at you from the opposite bank, but that’s it. The CDC is here to help, hardy har-har. Stay away from the perimeter and be grateful we don’t napalm your asses.
Yeah, grateful.
John had been staring at the rise for a good ten minutes now and his eyes were hurting. That was the problem with NVGs; they were really hard on you. He wondered how army patrols could wear them all night long. Strength of youth, he supposed. Bet they developed severe eye problems down the road, although he’d never heard of a study. Doubt he ever would, since there were so many more pressing issues. Point was, he couldn’t stay here much longer. Ten minutes more, then go. He glanced at his watch to mark it.
Waiting in ambush. John shook his head. This was getting to be a habit. Man at his worst: ugly, murderous, craven. The pathetic stayed at the Gate and the ugly, murderous and craven drifted back, with an almost immediate effect – the looting changed from the collection of necessary supplies to wholesale smashing and burning.
That time, that period, God, it was unbelievable. John had drifted back too, in front of the murderous vanguard, with as little hope as they, but at least he had a house needing work. He’d been parked near the Springfield interchange musing over what else to collect, when a gang of Vandals suddenly burst into the Springfield Mall parking lot and started burning it down, store by store.
What the hell? John was astonished. “There’s stuff we need in there, you idiots!” He’d jumped out of the truck, completely enraged. “What’s wrong with you?” he’d screamed from the corner.
Seemed a pertinent question, then. There was still a modicum of reason, then. But he knew the answer even before he asked it – because. Just because. Because this wasn’t life but a movie, Escape from New York, and there ain’t no gettin’ out and no rules and screw you, man. Screw everything.
That was his first real firefight, The Mall Apocalypse. There were about fifteen of them, a pretty large group for Vandals (maybe they were a budding gang, who knew?) and they were scattered around the Target entrance. They’d turned after he screamed, startled, but then one of them laughed at him.
Big mistake.
John whipped up the 14 and dropped six before they reacted and dropped five more as they ran like hell. Only two of them made any show of resistance, firing wildly back with pathetic little 9 mils, but he was far out of range for those POS and John just blew them apart.
Then the rage took him.
While the Mall burned and smoke blew out the daylight and turned it into Judgment Day, John strung up the bodies at various points around the parking lot.
Medieval, but it felt right. Right. So he moved across the landscape and, all day and all night, shots and screams and explosions and demonic laughter on the wind, wherever he went.
He sought Bundys and Vandals, and if they did anything, smashed one bottle, slapped one woman, he gunned them down and hoisted them up on streetlamps after pinning a handwritten warning notice – “Get out of Springfield!”– to their chests with whatever sharp instrument he could find.
It was Biblical. It was insane.
The rage was a fire, white-hot and searing. John could not get his hands on Al-Qaeda but could damn sure find their offspring, the robbing, murdering Bundys and Vandals and gangs, ever-present lowlife trailer-trash scum buckets, getting their kicks out of cruelty and evil.
He was Moloch and Valkyrie and the Four Horsemen, spreading death and vengeance in a swathe of blood and justice and all he remembered was the white-hot rage.
He came to himself at some point about three days later. He was in Alexandria wiping out the remnants of some Mohawk-haired pieces of crap, who had dragged out some kid from a hiding place and spent a few hours raping him in the street and then cutting off various limbs for sport.
John’d shot the kid to put him out of his misery and then, one by one, caught the Mohawks and burned them alive. He just sat in the street over the ashes of the last two, not moving, not doing anything, just sitting.
He was spent, used up, the rage gone. He could die now, his three-day frenzy nothing more than another murder tally on a sheet so vast, motive and intent no longer mattered.
Or, he could do something else. The dying was very attractive but then what would happen to Collier? They hadn’t met at the Gate yet because travel was still impossible for him. So, abandon your son to this New Order and just put a bullet through the skull and go look for Theresa? She would never forgive him for that. Even more, she would never forgive him for leaving a job undone.
A job undone. You are a law enforcement officer in a land of anarchy. You are commissioned to patrol a specific location and defend it.
So, let’s defend it. He’d brushed off the human ashes that still clung to him and went home and finished up the last petty details of the house and the neighborhood and then got up at 0600 on a Monday and went to the campus.
He dusted off his desk, set up some generators and battery-powered lights, turned on a computer, got papers and pens and folders, and started patrolling. They hadn’t set up the Key Bridge checkpoint yet, he hadn’t found the Alexandrias yet, it was all still pretty early, in the beginning of things. And here he was, years later, still at it.
Why?
Mission. Simply, mission.
The ratio of decent to craven seemed to be 1 to 100, taking into account the Families and Metro and the few Loners who evinced some level of civilized behavior. Given the numbers and applying the proper formula, let’s see, we have 1500 decent people living here. That left 13,500 assholes (ignoring attrition and wildly inaccurate population counts).
Not good odds. So, General, you bastard, you heartless bastard, maybe you’re right to keep us locked in. We are murderous in here, we are savages, and we carry the germ of total destruction in our blood. Everything you fear is he
re. Keep us contained. Keep the pestilence in. Let us kill and rape each other, until the last shreds of anything good turn to a rotted corpse. John set his jaw.
Not if he could help it.
“That makes me one of the decent, huh?” John whispered to himself and smiled. Here he was, hunched behind a pickup truck in ambush. How decent was that?
Pretty.
By Outside standards, he was just a vigilante, but John rejected that. First, he was a duly constituted authority. He had a badge, after all. Second, he never thought vigilantism odious. In a frontier situation, the decent sometimes had to get medieval on your ass, just to maintain some decency. Lynch mobs, while a bit uncontrolled, had good instincts. And you couldn’t get much more frontier than the present situation, so he wasn’t a lone wolf rabid avenger, meting out arbitrary punishment. He was just bypassing a host of middlemen, like courts and judges and appeals. Efficient.
And, thanks to the General, Outside standards didn’t even apply anymore. No doubt, the hippie ghosts would tell John his actions perpetuated the state of lawlessness and that he should be spending his considerable energies reestablishing structure and the Rule of Law.
He chuckled. Love to. The crapheads seem to have different ideas, though.
“Then you must talk to them,” the hippie ghost hunching next to him muttered.
“What are you doing way out here?” John asked.
“I go where needed,” the hippie ghost nodded.
John snorted. “You’re not needed here.”
“I am more needed here than anywhere.”
“How do you figure?”
The hippie ghost pointed down the road, “You are about to kill your fellow man.”
“My fellow man is about to kill me.”
“You do not know that.”
“It’s a pretty good guess.”
