Partholon

by D Krauss

  John smiled and swung the barrel and jacked rounds and it was glorious because they were running from him and he was Slaughter and Mayhem and Death...

  Something hit him hard, right across the back of the head. Damn, that hurt, hurt like hell. John hated bumping his head, no matter how slight; it always sent him into a paroxysm of cursing and crying and this was the mother of all head bumps.

  He dropped to his knees and dropped the shotgun and grabbed his temples, “Dammit all to hell!” Had he been shot?

  Wham! Something hard whacked across the top of his head and he fell forward, losing all control, face buried in the driveway.

  He was sick, the world roaring in circles and a savage hard light searing his temples and skull. Rough hands were all over him; he felt the .357 stripped away and was yanked over and faces, painted and twisted and hard, were above him, whirling and whirling...

  23

  Light, but not the pure and calming light described in all those near-death experiences. Flickering yellowish light, instead, so probably not Paradise where, for all eternity, he would sing the praises of God and drift in languor and joy through puffy white clouds. Couldn’t be the Lake of Fire, either, unless it’s actually a little colder than advertised.

  So, not dead. How unfortunate. Probably will end up dead, but not before a whole lot of fuss and bother, and quite painful fuss and bother at that.

  Have to focus, have to focus but, oh God, his head. John’d never had migraines, but he was betting this was a reasonable facsimile. A long time ago, he was helping a couple of tech agents install cameras in a drug dealer’s room when one of the techs suddenly went down with a migraine. He was completely out of it.

  John had to lay him down on the floor while the poor sap just gasped from the pain, tears streaming. The ER gave the tech a shot but he was still hors de combat. John now empathized. He could really stand an Anacin. Or a shot of whatever they gave that tech.

  He was on all fours, that much he knew, and was staring at something odd. Couldn’t quite make it out through his blurry and jumbled vision, which a little shake of the head would clear but, oh man, that was the last thing he wanted to do. Why did he feel so heavy?... oh, right, got it, he was being held down. That wasn’t good, not good at all, and John, old boy, you really really need to get hold of yourself and figure out what’s going on. He blinked, which hurt like hell, but he could see a little better.

  The odd thing, glowing in very bright firelight, was a boot.

  Big boot, metal tipped, with some kind of design, a dragon, yeah, that’s it, a Chinese dragon, the kind that winds back on itself and bites its tail. How cute. John wondered if this was a matched set and looked over and, bingo, another boot, another dragon. Now, who made stuff like this, some ate-up martial arts company? John looked hard for edges or spikes but, no, just metal caps with etched grinning dragons eating their own tails. Must taste good. Only the most stylish of characters would wear such stylish boots and John just had to make their acquaintance. That meant looking up but, oh man, he really didn’t want to, not with his head screaming like this. God, where’s that Anacin? John wondered how much time Dragon Boot was going to allow him to recover.

  Apparently not much. One of the dragons moved, grew suddenly larger, and kicked him hard in the mouth. He reeled back and over, flame and moon and stars and faces cartwheeling as he landed on his back, gasping and spitting blood.

  Well, wonderful, those partials installed several years ago were now cracked and his lips had exploded. Add the migraine, and John was suddenly not in the best of moods. There was a cheer, loud and harsh and feral, real loud from a lot of people and John was startled. What the hell?

  Forget the headache and the jaw ache and the general sense of unwellness. John snapped his mouth back together with one hand and looked around. Bright light from all the burning things, all his burning things, illuminated a crowd, a big crowd, a really big crowd. About a hundred and fifty mohawked-painted-face people, eyes, lips and teeth blackened with rouge, were screaming at him while kicking in his ribs.

  Damn, really going to feel that in the morning.

  They leered and mouthed in sheer animal triumph as they danced around him while dancing on top of him.

  Ordinarily, being beaten to death by a mob was distracting, but John noticed something and squinted hard at the faces looming in and out of his vision. There was a feature on all the right cheeks... what was that? It was a little hard to see because everyone’s boots and fists kept getting in the way but John made it out. A symbol, some kind of tattoo, an ankh, yeah, that’s it, reversed, daggers on the points, just like the one spray-painted on the Cassell Center wall, next to the unfortunate Mrs. Alexandria.

  Uh-oh.

  So, what do we have here? Some kind of murder cult, pagans, anarchists, what? All probably applied, since they were bent on stomping him into the earth. Better than what they did to Mrs. A.

  John threw up his elbows to protect his head, almost laughing at the futility of it. He was going into pain overload and could no longer feel the rain of blows. Fine, fine. It was always going to be somewhere and some time when he least expected it, and right here on his front yard, well, that was kind of poetic.

  He’d already lived far past the averages and had done some post-Event good, like taking out a whole bunch of these cretins. Not enough, obviously, but he made a dent and that might slow them down, give MPD a chance to subdue these assholes and then hang Dragon Boot from a tree. So he’d done good. An honorable death. Time to go.

  “Enough!” someone roared out and the kicking and hitting suddenly stopped, although the shouting stayed about the same. Several eagerly evil faces bent down and jerked John rather rudely to his feet as every single inch of his skin screamed in protest. He did a quick inventory of apparent injuries – a few cracked ribs, some pretty good internal bleeding, his bad right shoulder was on fire and that damned headache just wouldn’t go away. Oh yeah, his mouth and teeth. But, considering the circumstances, overall, not too bad.

  “Bring him here.” Hey, that was Command Voice. John was betting he owned the dragon boots.

  There was a lot of pushing and shoving until a couple of people asserted control, grabbed John hard and duckwalked him back through the crowd. John looked at his escorts.

  The guy who had seized his burning right shoulder was white, about 6’4”, rawboned, wearing an open sleeveless vest, large dark circles painted across his eyes and had red-stained teeth, like he’d been drinking blood. Nice effect. He leered at John and yeah, definitely nice effect. Probably one of the lieutenants.

  John glanced to his left and then did a double-take. It was a girl, about 5’10” and built. Must be a weight lifter because her arms and shoulders were bigger than his. Ugly as sin, face painted all white with crimson around the eyes in a teardrop fashion, crimson hair pulled back tight in a bun and held in place with razor wire. Mixed race, hard to tell with all the makeup but heavy features. The green ankh stood out against her white painted cheek and she was wearing a plunging leather vest (must be the uniform) that completely exposed her down to the nipples. Really, really built. She had two huge bowie knives in leather sheaths on either side of her huge breasts and she glared at him with the most hate-filled eyes he’d ever seen. Charming.

  After a few steps, the two goons jerked him to a stop. John blinked to get his focus and stared at the person in front of him. A big, medium-toned black man. Not Schwarzenegger big, but close. Fascinating hair, a bunch of spiked-up dreads with a metal tip on the end of each, a medieval knight’s mace. Quite an effort. Unlined faced, hairless, very pretty, actually – could have been a Pre-Event model. He was wearing a pair of wraparound Oakleys, all for effect; you certainly didn’t need shades in this unstable light. Shirtless, which was kinda macho on a cold night, and several gold chains, each one progressively longer than the one above, cascading down his chest. Mr. T. But, under those chains was something else, a tattoo, a big red one. The ankh, writ larger, very s
tylized, with those reverse dagger points. And, oh yes, the lovely boots.

  This wasn’t good.

  Boots said nothing, just stood there, unmoving, intimidating. John felt a chill down his spine. The man was stanced for effect, preparing for a show with John as the main attraction, on the order of the Cassell Center with hooks and skinning and major organ removal, probably right from a branch of John’s own pin oak, right over Theresa’s grave. Going to take hours and be vastly entertaining to the crowd jostling and shouting behind and beside John.

  Panic welled through him but he ferociously tamped it down. Don’t give the bastard what he wants.

  Because, John ole boy, won’t do any good. You know where this is going – a meet-up with Mr. Bones, the grimmest of the Grim, the universal Reaper himself. John had been prepared for introductions long before now, cop work exposing him to more opportunities than average, so he wasn’t worried. You come to terms early on or you go nuts.

  He was fairly sure he met the basic requirements for salvation and would spend eternity strumming a harp or whatever you did up there. Eat ambrosia, stuff like that. He and God would sit down for a little tête-à-tête over why the Great Big Plan required all this misery. Something to look forward to, so death wasn’t a big deal.

  But dying, well, that was different. Not something to look forward to, especially the method he was currently facing. This was going to hurt like hell and John was not a big fan of pain. He’d watched his dad dissolve from Hodgkins and chemo over the space of a year, burning up from the inside until only a paper shell enveloping a mass of agony and despair remained. He deserved a painful death, the bastard, but John didn’t see why Mrs. Rashkil’s little boy did, so, while watching Dad, he’d resolved never to linger like that.

  If John got news he’d boarded the cancer slow boat, then he was hopping on the Bullet-to-the-Head express. Fast and relatively painless, spare the family all the grief, but, more importantly, spare him a lot of discomfort. Spike Head here wanted John to experience a lot of discomfort, sort of a cancer cell personified.

  No. Freakin’. Way.

  John set his jaw. There’s just no freakin’ way. If John got even the slightest of outside chances, just the hint of an opening, then Dragon Boots and he were going to dance, dance hard. Boot’s minions would kill him but not before John, hopefully, had killed Boots. John stared at the Oakleys.

  Let’s see what happens next, shall we?

  Spike returned the stare, cocking his head a bit, still silent, letting the moment build. Suddenly, he broke into the most disarming smile John had ever seen on a dirtbag. “Hi,” he said.

  John blinked, a little bewildered.

  Spike Head laughed and looked magnanimously around at his followers, then back at John. “You could be polite.”

  What’s the game here? John glared, refusing to play. Spike waited, eyebrows raised, and then shrugged and looked around in amusement. “Okay,” he said, “Cool. You ain’t feeling too good right now. It’s been a rough night.” The Oakleys bore down on John. “For all of us.” He paused for dramatic effect and the cold chill resumed down John’s spine. The fun was about to begin.

  Spike looked quizzically at John. “Do you know who I am?”

  Although John had resolved stoic silence, mainly because his broken teeth and lips made it hard to talk, some openings you just can’t resist, “The artist formerly known as Prince?”

  Spike stared a moment and then reared back, letting out a great big belly laugh without one note of true humor in it. John steeled himself. Spike came back down and looked at him, smiling. John couldn’t help it; he smiled back.

  Wham! John reeled, a savage ripping pain tearing across his cheek, the arc of his own blood flying across his vision. Spike’s open hand was at the end of the arc, the razor embedded in the big gold ring on his third finger glowing in the firelight. Sonofabitch, what kind of prison yard crap is that? Probably opened John’s face up pretty good. The crowd roared its approval and Rawbone and Xena shook him hard.

  “Funny!” Spike screamed, about two inches from John’s face, “real damn funny. You’re just a real funny guy, aren’t you? I’ll bet you kept everyone in stitches, the cops and losers and straights,” he spat that last word out with venom, “and you just can’t stop being funny, huh? Make fun of me, do you? Mock me? Me? I am a god!” And Spike raised both arms skyward, throwing his head back and roaring, just roaring, a soundless maniacal note of hate and evil.

  Blood flowing like a river down his face, John uttered a gasp as his knees grew weak from the sudden rush of horror.

  Good God Almighty. This guy’s insane, completely, irrevocably insane.

  Breathe, breathe hard and deep, get control. John put steel back in his knees and ordered the horror away. His left eye was flooded with blood so he cocked his good one through skewed glasses and stared at the raving Spike. Where in the world did this guy come from? How in the world did such a freakin’ lunatic amass this small army?

  About ten thousand likely answers popped into John’s mind, all running along the same course: imagine about fifty scared, hungry, disorganized and confused uber-lowlifes suddenly left to their own devices when the Event happened. Budding Bundys and Vandals, all, but not quite good enough to join the union.

  At first, they loot and revel and rape and murder, but, after a while, being the goobers they are, run out of resources, can’t find food or good water, fight more and more among themselves. Some get taken by the CDC, some get killed by real Bundys or Vandals. Mostly, though, they rot. Not smart enough to be Raiders, at best low-level Vandal wannabes.

  The lowest of the low, could turn the stomach of Mother Teresa, directionless, frustrated, resourceless canaille and lumpenproletariat mixed into one ugly and hateful mass, squatting in their own feces in some rat-ridden tenement. Lost, mad at everything but not knowing why, fighting to divide the sewage not even a Bundy would touch. Cannibals, probably.

  Then comes this guy, charismatic and beautiful, speaking to their frustrations, their arrogance. He brutalizes a few and organizes a few more and, suddenly, has a gang. He promises them power and control and riches and death to the Straights and the Man and everyone who ever kept them down, terming the event “Divine Retribution.”

  He leads them in small battles among their own until other semi-leaders are vanquished or converted and, before you know it, they’re a hundred. They spread out, organizing and fighting some more, and then they’re two hundred.

  Instinctive strategist, he teaches them how to fight as a group and they have their first successes against some periphery Raiders and they start feeling real good about themselves and he makes a symbol and puts it on them and suddenly they are, for the first time in their pathetic lives, a part of something. They grow stronger, challenging better Raiders, absorbing them, taking control of greater areas, finally busting out of their Northeast or Southeast hellhole, a full-fledged army, straight at MPD.

  And here they are, on John’s front lawn.

  Who knew? Metro said nothing and the first hint John received was Mrs. Alexandria hanging from Cassell’s ceiling. A bit late. All this time, blithely biking back and forth, shooting a random Bundy or two, calling Coll every night, thinking everything’s fine in his self-contained little world of Magnums and pool water and redundant defenses and now, what? John stood before Klebold and his capering Harrises.

  You dumbass. If there is one thing you know, John, old boy, it is the fathomless depths of human evil. Yet, never considered this. Stupid.

  Ankh Man stopped his roaring and dropped his head slowly, looking at John for a moment. He took a step away and made a grand gesture as the crowd stirred, excited. “Here he is, my children!” Ankh called.

  Ah, yes, that Command Voice John had come to admire, deep and sonorous and penetrating, would have made a great game show host. John glanced around to see the effect and, oh man, he had them. A bunch of eager puppies eyeing mom’s teats.

  “Here!” another grand ges
ture swept the front yard and ended as a full-handed point right at John, “the last of them. The murderer, the one who brought death to our brothers and sisters, who hunted us while we were helpless and shivering and cold. You know him, my children, you have seen him! Riding his stupid bicycle, standing on hills, shooting us! Behold, my children, the butcher, the oppressor, the nightmare!”

  The crowd roared, waving angry fists at John, the closest ones spitting and the farther ones hurling some of the debris from his own house at him. Bad throws, only one roof shingle clipped John’s knees. Ankh raised his hands for silence and walked slowly around John, eyeing him.

  I Am Legend.

  “Do you see him now? Do you see him? Living here fat and sleek and rich while we starved, while we froze and cried and ran from him and those cops!” He spat that word, too. “No more! Never again, my children. We will take back what’s ours!”

  He spoke the last like bullets and raised both hands high again and the crowd, on cue, roared again and all John could think was, fat and sleek? More thin and wiry, thank you very much, but facts weren’t at issue here. There’s a myth to propagate.

  Which is, no doubt, how he got to be Chief Maggot, scapegoating Metro and the CDC and just about everyone, including oblivious ole John himself. The gospel according to Ankh: John personally brought the Al-Qaeda Flu to DC then single-handedly drove all the poor innocent guttersnipes underground, sneering and laughing and killing off their mothers and raping their sisters. Spike, only Spike, could defy and defeat him.

  The same old oppression fable – it’s all society’s fault, you are wonderful people held down by a hateful authority, so rise, strike off your chains and, oh, by the way, while you’re at it, rioting and raping and murdering, make me your king.

  John supposed he should be flattered. He was the Right Wing Conspiracy, the Elders of Zion, the Trilateral Commission, pick the cabal. Nothing like being demonized. Which, of course, begged the question how in the world did this group of slobbering morons gather enough Intel on John that Ankh could create this legend?