The Afterblight Chronicles: Death Got No Mercy

by Al Ewing

  "You won't be so popular when they find out what you've done. That many dead... it's hard for the community to absorb. I'll need to decide what to do about that - whether you'll be staying. Whether I can trust you with any more of the compound. Punishment... I don't know. I don't think I can let you have any more."

  Cade blinked, looking at Clearly out of the corner of his eye. "More?" Once was enough, he figured. That damned drug had sent him halfway to hell and turned his hand to the murder of maybe fifty men and women. He didn't like to think about what might have happened if there'd been kids and old folks there.

  What it implied that there weren't any.

  Clearly turned to look at him as they approached the livid red façade of the old movie theatre. "People always want more, Cade. But we're back to the 'why' of it." He closed his eyes, shaking his head. Suddenly he looked tired to Cade, bending over as if there was an infinitely heavy weight pressing down on his back, one that he didn't admit he wore for the most part, but one that was there all the same. "Cade... can I ask you a personal question? Tell me, how did you feel when things fell apart? When people were dying?"

  Cade fell silent. After a moment or two, he spoke slowly, like he was admitting to a crime or guessing the answer to a quiz question. His eyes were guarded.

  "Didn't."

  Doc Clearly raised one sad eyebrow. "You didn't feel anything?"

  Cade felt guilty all of a sudden, looking away. "There were things needed doing. Not much time to sit around." He shrugged.

  Clearly smiled humourlessly. "Huh. I've never met a sociopath before." Then he winced, catching himself. "I'm sorry. That's... quite a value judgement, considering the kind of things people have been up to here. Even me, with my special pills, mixing up horror every night... God. I didn't set out to do things this way, Cade. Believe me." He sighed, leading the way inside the building.

  "When you lose everything - everyone - in a matter of days... I know I'm asking a lot, but put yourself in that place. You have a wife and children, a family, or at the very least friends. And if not friends, then structures - institutions, social conventions, things that are fixed. Even the lowest of the low, the loneliest of the lonely, know that when they turn on the television someone will be there. When they leave their hovel, people will be walking the streets. Aeroplanes will fly in the sky. There is a world and they are a part of it, no matter how large a part they might be."

  They walked through the foyer, passing a smiling couple. The man was buttoning his shirt, covering up a criss-cross of scratches, a forest of them, some days old. A girl huddled into him, nuzzling like a cat, looking perfectly content. There was still blood under her nails, and a bruise was developing on her cheek. Doc Clearly half-waved to them, then turned back to Cade.

  "There is a world, and then it goes - and what you're left with is flyblown corpses and filth in the streets and the complete dissolution of any structure or system you relied on. You understand, Cade? You could adapt - you have, for better or worse, a unique outlook that makes you perfectly adapted to these times. I imagine you didn't function all that well in the old world, did you?"

  Cade shook his head. He had to admit that he'd not exactly distinguished himself.

  Doc Clearly smiled. "You picked a good time to arrive yesterday. People had picked themselves up from the night, so you wandered in when things were at their best. You saw how normal everything was - especially in contrast with your ride in with the Gang. Not like anywhere else you've been, is it? The Pastor and his religious fanatics, the cannibals..."

  Cade frowned, then spat. "Bunch of folks following blind after authority. After a fella says he's got the answers."

  It was a long speech, and Cade meant every word.

  Clearly looked at the carpet for a moment. "Well, I deserve that, I guess. Come on, I think your clothes are in here."

  He led the way into the theatre they'd been in, and Cade saw his clothes - the T-shirt with HUG ME on it, the blood-spattered jeans, his chains, his knives, even the knuckledusters - laying in a heap where he'd sat, along with a few other piles of clothing here and there. It looked like everyone had stripped there and then, probably once they'd come out of that vision or whatever the hell it was - something about a bar, Cade remembered. It looked as if most of the clothes had been picked up and put back on by now, though.

  Cade pulled on the T-shirt first, then tugged on the jeans - he'd fallen into the habit of going commando - while the Doc carried on talking behind him.

  "There's a price for that normality, Cade. Trauma like the death of a world full of people... nobody living has ever been through something like that, nobody in history. The Black Death, the Spanish Influenza - chickenfeed." He shook his head. "Nobody's normal after that. Nobody's sane. The hate and the anger and the terror, the trauma, it builds up in you. The compound... well, it's like draining pus from a wound. It's cleansing. People let out their demons. Usually... usually nobody gets hurt, not badly. I try and make sure they're kept in check..."

  Cade nodded, lacing up his boots. "That's your drug. Being in charge. Spiritual guru." He breathed in, disliking the necessity of talk, but some things had to be said. His eyes were cold as steel. "You burn Sausalito?"

  Doc Clearly opened his mouth, then closed it.

  Cade looked him in the eye. "Helter Skelter. That you?"

  The Doc opened his mouth again... then hung his head, turning and walking up to the back of the theatre, away from the people who were trickling in to reclaim their clothes and shoes. There he sat, and waited for Cade to join him.

  Cade took his time, fastening the chains about himself, locking them to biceps and waist, then checking his knives. It was a damned good thing he'd followed everyone else in stripping down - if he'd had his knives with him, he'd have killed everybody in the city.

  Maybe he still would.

  Slowly, he walked up to the Doc, who sat like a man in a confession booth. Cade didn't bother making anything out of that - he just sat, and waited.

  After a minute, Clearly spoke.

  "I developed the compound two months before the end came. Simple to manufacture - all I needed was a large quantity of raw materials and I could cook it up on a camping stove." For a moment he seemed like he was going to laugh. "Almost like it was meant to be. The high... well, you experienced that. Meetings with the divine - all the firing of certain chemicals in the brain, of course, but the experience seems quite real for all that. Then the charging of the libido, the mind becoming lost in a sea of pleasure, love, togetherness... and all completely legal." He chuckled, unable to help himself. "All I had to do was get rid of the after-effect of the black pill. If the light receptors weren't kept stimulated at a certain level - if it got dark - the compound brought on the other symptoms. The blazing anger, the hatred, the neural pain, the violence - barely controllable. In your case it was totally unrestrained..."

  Cade nodded. He figured he knew where this was going, but he had time. Might as well hear it.

  "The end came, and... well, at first there was just chaos. We managed to get a community together, but those were nightmarish days. I don't know why I suggested using the drug - maybe I thought the end would come more easily if we were stupefied." He put his head in his hands, suddenly. "No, no, that isn't it at all, is it? I handed it out at night - at night, you see? I knew what it would do. I knew what it needed to do..."

  He swallowed, and Cade could see the disgust at himself written on his face. "I said it was like draining pus from a wound. But the pus builds up, and the horror builds up, and there was so much of it in us then... you have to understand, they were eating people. Some capitalist TV personality had actually got citizens to eat each other. The Pastor and his men, they took torches to Castro Street, grabbed people and dragged them away, and they were never heard from again. God, I heard those poor kids were crucified - I heard the Pastor actually nailed them up." He was shaking his head, and his whole body was trembling with the effort of remembering. "We were caug
ht between all that. Trapped. We were angry and we were scared. And... well, with my compound in us..."

  He stared ahead, into the middle distance. "I remember my brain was alight, and there were hundreds of us - there were several thousand survivors at that stage, although that number dropped fast - and I'd made so much of the compound we could all have some. And we went on the hunt - it seemed to last days, that first time. The Pastor's territory was to the north of Golden Gate Park -"

  Cade nodded. "The Presidio."

  Doc Clearly shuddered. "He called it the Garden of Eden. We burnt it. We drove him out and we smashed everything we could lay our hands on, and we burnt the ruins. And we weren't done. We ran up the highway, screaming like banshees, and the light of day couldn't dim it then. There was too much pain to be vented, you see? We kept running and running, up Highway 1, smashing the cars, grabbing fuel cans, killing anyone we found on those roads..."

  "Then you hit Sausalito." Cade nodded.

  There was some satisfaction in solving that one at last.

  "We burned Sausalito to the ground. We murdered anyone we found and burned everything we could. Marin City too. We'd have demolished every building and laid it all flat if we could. Dear God, I still remember..." He shook his head, and raised a knuckle to his eye, wiping away the tears that were forming.

  Cade didn't speak.

  Doc Clearly was silent for a minute or two, then spoke, low and soft. "Eventually, the madness faded, enough to come home at least. There were some scavengers on our territory - a few of the Pastor's people, the occasional cannibal, although by then they'd already found their home in the BART tunnels and established their pattern of hunting for people who strayed too far east." He shrugged. "We killed them. We made it clear that Haight Street was ours, and we went to work clearing the bodies and setting it up so we could live there. We'd exorcised our pain, you see? We were refreshed, purified, ready to work. And work we did."

  He sighed. "Eventually, we fell into the pattern - we'd work through the day, then take the pills in the evening, meet God - all very theraputic - have sex, and then... when the sun went down, we'd march, laughing and screaming, to somewhere we didn't own, and we'd put it to the torch. If you go below 17th Street... well, there is no below 17th Street. There are a few spots still standing around 24th, since the cannibals were protecting it, but... we smashed and burned everything we could. It's no Sausalito, but there are very few places left in the south of the city to live in, which had the side effect of mobilising most of the survivors who were living down there to join either us, if we kidnapped them, or the Pastor if we beat them and left them to die."

  Cade looked at him. Clearly looked back.

  "I'm not proud of those times."

  Cade didn't speak. Eventually, Clearly shook his head and continued speaking. "The pain grew less with every use of the drug, until finally we'd exhausted it. The pain, I mean. Not the compound. Never the compound... we were happy, is what I'm trying to say. Content. Where the Pastor's bunch are still shell-shocked from the end of the world, we have shrugged off the culture shock and rebuilt thanks to the power of chemistry. Yes, every night we kick, and we bite, and we pummel each other, and occasionally people still die, but... there wasn't another way to get through it. I'm convinced there wasn't." He bowed his head. "I'm not looking for absolution, Cade. I don't think there's any to be had, and... well, I should know, shouldn't I?" He laughed, another humourless little chuckle. "I met God."

  Cade turned his head, curious. "What'd he say?"

  Doc Clearly smiled, wryly. "He told me I'd turned out a better person than he'd created me to be. Nonsense, of course. My guilty conscience speaking."

  Cade shrugged. "Must count for something." He thought about how the Pastor'd almost broke down that time, begging to be told he was right. He'd believed in something, at least, even if it was crazy as a rattlesnake. Clearly didn't seem to believe in anything except keeping his people going, even if that meant killing a whole bunch of other folks. Cade didn't know if that made him any better than the Pastor. Maybe it made him worse, on account of how the Pastor at least had crazy for an excuse.

  Made him dangerous, though.

  Too dangerous.

  Cade turned, looking Clearly in the eye. "Got some questions. There insulin here?" His eyes narrowed. "Your folks didn't burn it?"

  Clearly shook his head. "No. We looted what we could find. There were things we burned, but I don't think we'd destroy something we're so dependent on. I do have a supply of insulin like that, but... well, I can't let you take any." He swallowed, looking nervous for the first time. "I can't, Cade. People depend on it."

  "You use it to make your pills?"

  "No!" the Doc looked offended. "We use it to treat diabetes! Nothing goes into the pills that we'd need for basic survival, although it could be argued those pills are our survival. Maybe in five or ten years we can cope without them - not now." He looked away, flushing, angry with himself as much as Cade. "We're addicts, I suppose. But the pills keep us alive... anyway, I'm not letting you have the insulin. We need it."

  Cade nodded. He figured there'd be another supply somewhere - buried in a wrecked depot, maybe. He could go find it, if he had to.

  If he had to.

  "Your folks don't burn things any longer?"

  There was a pause. Doc Clearly seemed to be contemplating his shoes. Finally he spoke.

  "They were working out their pain, Mister Cade. That's what the rampages were all about. The better life got in the community, the less pain there was to work through in those night rampages - although there's always some. Life is about pain, even if you do build a paradise. That's what I meant earlier, about balance."

  He lifted his head, still not looking at Cade.

  "You left fifty corpses in that park, Mister Cade. I don't know what's going to happen when people find them. They've probably found them already - my word's only good for so much, it's not a police barricade. These corpses..." He shook his head. "These people are lovers, friends, workmates. People who've come to replace lost loves and lost family - you understand? I imagine for you, death is just part of your day... sorry, that came out wrong..."

  Cade shrugged. Didn't seem so wrong as far as he was concerned.

  "I don't know what kind of impact this is going to have. They're going to want to lynch you, and they're going to feel hurt and betrayed, and then when they take the compound - and they will want and need the compound tonight, Mister Cade, I very much doubt we'll be going through the ritual of performing a pre-pill show when my community needs to mourn fifty dead - when they take the compound, all that will come out."

  He shook his head.

  "And it's my fault. My fault entirely. I can't believe I thought you'd just... fall in line. Not after the dog." He stared straight ahead for a moment. "Perhaps I saw the opportunity to break a stalemate. Maybe we'll go after the Pastor tonight. Or maybe... maybe we'll just rage. Maybe that was what I was looking for." He sighed, his voice bitter. "Maybe that's the sort of spiritual guru I want to be. A Manson."

  He shook his head, his voice breaking as the tears flowed. "Or maybe I just made a mistake. Maybe there isn't any psychology to it. Maybe I'm just a stupid man who let things get out of hand. I'm sorry, Cade. I wish things could have worked out for you here." He put his head in his hands. "I wish they could have worked out for all of us. Get lost, Cade. Go away and don't come back. Please, for your own sake, don't come back here."

  Cade stood, looking down at the weeping man.

  "I won't."

  It was the third lie he told to Doc Clearly.

  And the last.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The Seige

  Cade left the theatre and took the first turning north, up to Oak Street. He figured he had a lot of ground to cover if he wanted to get back to the Pastor's compound by nightfall.

  He didn't look at the people he was walking past, but he could see their faces out of the corner of his eye. Some of them
looked drained, some looked disbelieving. Some were openly weeping, asking over and over again whether it was true, if it could really be true... Cade thought back to what Doc Clearly had said. Lovers, friends, co-workers.

  Damn it to hell.

  Everybody was walking towards the park except him - he was walking against the tide. Running from the scene of the crime, in other words. A couple of folks were starting to put two and two together and they turned towards him, eyes narrowed and stabbing daggers, lips curled to a scowl, the accusation boiling towards the surface even as Cade marched past them and away. Word spread fast in a small community, and it was starting to spread about the massacre in the park.

  His massacre.

  Fifty-odd people, dead from his own two hands. Cade spat. Hell with it, anyway. He wasn't to blame. If that god-damned fool hadn't decided to drug him without even -

  Can't kid a kidder, dog.

  Cade didn't break step, but he turned his head and saw Fuel-Air, as whole and hearty as he'd been in life, marching alongside him like it was a parade ground. Doc Clearly's moustache bristled above his upper lip, looking out of place on his young face. He was grinning.

  You were the one who lied, man. If you'd told the truth, he'd have told it to you. Shit, don't get me wrong, these people are fucked up - I mean, this is some Wicker Man meets fuckin' Age Of Aquarius shit right here, dog - but they were getting their sadomasochistic freak on just fine right up until you showed up. They were the most fuckin' self-regulating motherfuckers in this fuckin' town, dude, and then you blew in and killed them like fuckin' cockroaches because you couldn't handle something they were taking every night. And now, what, you want to cry like a bitch because you were all fucked up on their shit? It ain't the drug, dog, and you know it. If it was, those assholes would've killed each other inside of a day, first time they took it. It's you, dog. All the Doc's super shit did was break out what was already there.