by M C Rooney
Craig Cheng nodded his head at that. His parents had been some of the first to help with the supposed plague that broke out at the school. Their skeletons were lying on the street as well, with a bullet in each of their heads. “We have or had a small population, and we barely survived,” Craig said. “If we leave for more populated areas there will surely be even more of the dead out there.”
“Listen to your brother,” Freda said, nodding her head. “The Martins may treat his head as a punching bag, and he is an idiot, but he still speaks sense.”
“Ah, thank you, Freda,” Craig murmured. Stupid bitch, he added in his head.
“So we just have to sit here and take it?” said Karen, who had finished bandaging up her brother … again.
“Unless the Martins are dealt with, yes,” replied John.
“Unless we get someone to take their place,” replied Ben.
“What do you mean?” asked Craig.
“The Martins are only three people, right?” said Ben.
“Yes, but they have five thugs under their wings,” replied Karen, as she sat back down with the rest of her friends … and Freda.
“And the five thugs only back up Ken Martin because they all get to live in that bloody mansion,” Craig said thoughtfully.
“Fucking hell,” interjected Freda, “who would have thought those fucking Christian twats would have had such a nice home.”
The place was empty, though. Apparently, their leader had other mansions in both Hobart and Launceston.
“Christian Brotherhood of Tasmania, dearest,” John replied with a smile.
“Fucking kiddy fiddlers, the lot of them,” Freda replied.
“Of course they are, my love,” said John mildly.
Holy shit, Craig thought in amazement, she must be an absolute ball-buster in the sack for John to put up with that every day.
He looked over at his brother and sister and could tell they were thinking exactly the same thing.
“I know who you are suggesting,” John said as he turned to Ben Cheng, “but you have to understand that his own mother lives in that mansion with her brother. And the man is still his uncle after all.”
“But he is the only one strong enough to defeat them,” Ben replied. “People look up to him, especially the young ones.”
“And he hates his cousins,” Karen added, “and his mother hates him.”
“But you don’t know him like your brother and I do,” John replied in his usual calm manner. “He still thinks of himself as the fat boy from his youth.”
“He is huge, but he is nothing but muscle now,” Ben protested.
“Nevertheless, Ben,” John replied, “he will never turn on his family, no matter how much we need him to.”
Unless, of course, he found out the truth about Veronica, Craig thought with sadness and a touch of anger. Maurice loved Veronica, he always had, and if he knew what had happened to her, blood and violence would be the only result. The question was whether or not to tell him.
“Did you see Cheng when I punched him?” Scott Martin laughed. “It’s so much fun beating the shit out of that guy.”
“He deserved it. Bloody traitor,” added Warren in disgust.
Ken Martin lounged on the expensive chair that came with this decadent mansion, his mansion now. He was so proud of his boys, he thought with a smile, so patriotic they were, great Australians.
After that crazy day six years ago, he had led his sons out of the town and thought all hope had gone, but by some miracle, days later, they had found this empty mansion and made it theirs. Of course, he had come to an arrangement with some of his old drinking buddies to ensure it was theirs for the keeping, but Ken intended for this house to be a permanent home for the Martins.
“We have to keep them working though, boys,” Rebecca Roberts said to her nephews as she cradled Warren’s son, Brett, in her arms. God only knew where Brett’s mother was. Nobody had seen her since the child’s birth. “They need to provide us with a sizeable portion of what they grow and hunt,” Rebecca continued.
“Otherwise we will starve,” added the slimy Barry Smith, “or worse, have to work for things ourselves,” he finished with an even slimier grin.
Ken could never understand what his sister saw in Barry. Sure, her first husband was a weak, pathetic type of man, but Barry Smith was an ugly creep. Maybe it was because he had been the richest man in town. But that had all changed now.
“Dobson,” Ken said to his oldest mate, “have you heard any rumblings from the peasants?”
“Nah, mate” Dobson, who was a tall, lanky fellow who had enjoyed years and years of barroom brawls, replied. “Everybody knows that it is dangerous to leave these lands.”
“Any rebellious talk?” asked Barry with a scared look. “It only takes a spark, and someone might just decide to use violence against us.”
Dobson shared a look with the other four men who were loyal to the Martins.
“Well, actually, there is,” said a huge tattooed man by the name of Brooks, who had only just returned to his hometown from serving ten years in jail for armed robbery when the plague happened. Brooks was the real muscle of the group; he had beaten so many people up over the last six years that there was no way to even keep count.
“Who?” said Scott, who was no longer laughing. “Who the fuck could stand up against us?” There was nobody, as far as Scott could tell. All of the leaders from the old days were dead or had continued travelling inland. The people who were left were broken and easily controlled.
“Well, you may or may not find this funny,” replied Brooks, “but the name we keep hearing as their saviour is your Maurice Roberts.”
The room was silent for a long moment, until Scott broke out into a massive, wheezing laugh.
“You’re fucking kidding me?” he finally said breathlessly.
“He is a massive man,” replied the third thug, by the name of Wells, who was also a professional pub brawler. “I wouldn’t like to fight him.”
“He’s a coward,” Scott replied, still laughing.
“He’s a dickhead,” said Warren in contempt.
“He’s a bumbling idiot,” added his mother with disdain. “He was always useless, and still is.”
Ken looked at his sister. Why does she hate her son so much? Her son had been a fat slob for so many years, granted, but since the plague, everybody was eating what humans had been eating for millennia, and suddenly, there were no longer fat people around. And due to the work that kid did—and he did work hard—he had become a very strong man indeed. He was even bigger than Brooks.
“Well, Scott,” Ken finally said, “I want you and your brother to keep an eye on your cousin.”
“Oh, why?” Scott moaned. “He’s such a wanker.”
“He’s a fuckwit,” Warren complained, moaning equally.
“Wanker, fuckwit or not,” his father replied as he looked at all the people in the room, “we are on a good wicket here, and I don’t want it to end; unless, of course, you all want to live in tents like the rest of the scum?”
“We are in a precarious position,” said Rebecca. “My son may be a failure, but he has the size to beat any of you to a pulp. Even you, Ken,” she said as she turned to her brother.
Ken looked at the protective way Rebecca was holding his grandson. He had the thick black hair of the Martins. Perhaps his sister hoped Brett would become more of a man than Maurice turned out to be.
“We must be mindful, then,” replied her brother.
Everybody nodded their heads in agreement. They really were living in the best premises in the west, and perhaps all of Tasmania. Even since the electricity had stopped it was still a beautiful house to live in. And if they had to keep a watch over their dumb relative, Maurice Roberts, to keep it, then so be it.
Maurice walked slowly into the camp with Veronica at his side. The two-day walk had been excruciatingly painful for both of them. For Veronica, it was painful due to the lateness of her pregnancy
and the long distance, but for Maurice, it was because Veronica had insisted on sleeping next to him when they camped for the night. The closeness of her body drove him crazy, and when she rolled on her side, she would wrap her arm across his chest and snuggle her face into his neck and shoulder. Maurice woke up the next morning exhausted, as he had spent most of the night trying to ignore her and the feelings that were creeping into his loins.
Maurice was twenty-four years of age and had never kissed a girl, let alone slept with one, and here was the woman he adored snuggled up close to him in bed, and he couldn’t do anything about it.
“Home, sweet home,” he murmured as they entered the large clearing that was the home to maybe two hundred people. Well, excluding the nearly dozen who lived in the mansion.
Maurice thought that the amount of pregnancies happening due to the loss of birth control would see a massive increase in their numbers in the coming years. He wondered where everybody would live.
Three young teenage males, who were carrying bows on their backs, walked past them and nodded their heads in greeting. Veronica thought Maurice wasn’t truly aware of how much the younger men looked up to him.
“Why did they have such a large amount of land in the middle of nowhere?” Veronica asked as she surveyed the lush, green pasture.
“I think they expected a lot of people to attend their gatherings,” Maurice replied. “It was a fundamentalist type of religion, I think.”
“Lots of money, lots of vengeance,” she replied.
“Yes, that’s it,” Maurice replied with a smile.
“Humans always fall for the trap of believing other humans are a pathway to God,” Veronica said thoughtfully.
“Slow learners,” Maurice replied. “Now it’s time to get you back to your tent.”
“But I am staying with you,” she replied.
“What!” Maurice replied in shock.
“You made a promise to me, Maurice.” She looked at him pleadingly. “Remember, you swore to look after me.”
“Yes, I did,” Maurice said in a nervous voice. “But how am I ever going to get a good night’s sleep with you lying next to me?”
Veronica’s face lit up with a big smile.
God, I love that smile, Maurice thought as he looked at her lovely face. She had the sweetest smile he had ever seen. But he knew she was only using him, as she needed someone to look after her and the baby. Didn’t he? Or perhaps she did actually love him back. He didn’t know; his experience with women was basically zero.
“Vonnie,” he had to ask, “who is the father of your child?”
She was saved a response when Maurice heard an ugly voice call out,
“So you’re finally back, fatarse.”
Maurice turned and looked at his rat-faced cousin Scott and wanted to punch his face in. School bullies! What bastards they are. They make your life a misery because they are, in fact, miserable themselves. They just won’t let you go either, until you stand up to them or school breaks for the summer holidays.
“What do you want, Scott?” Maurice asked in a flat voice and unconsciously put a hand on the knife at his waist. “I have work to do.” He always said that to his cousins. He was hoping to get a rise from them, as they never worked themselves, but maybe they were too thick to pick up on the insult.
“Oh, just checking on you,” Scott sneered back. “Your mother was worried about you.”
Maurice went red in the face. He knew his mother didn’t like him. Everybody knew. “Tell Mother I am fine,” he said through gritted teeth.
Scott laughed at his embarrassment and turned to look at Veronica, who had gone completely white in the face.
“And how are you, lovely lady?” he said as he looked up and down her body.
“She is fine,” Maurice replied as he placed a protective arm around her shoulder. “In fact, she is moving in with me now.”
Scott laughed in that wheezy sound of his. “Keeping it in the family, are we?” he said softly as he walked away.
What did he mean by that?
Maurice turned to Veronica and saw she was shaking badly. “What’s wrong, Vonnie?” he asked worriedly.
“Take me home,” Veronica said in a trembling voice. “Our home; take me there, now.”
“Of course,” he replied.
And he did take her to his small tent, which was situated as far away from the mansion as he could make it. Maurice did intend to get back to work. Nobody had seen a horse in years, and he was given the task of doing most of a horses’ work in the fields. But Veronica was shaking so badly that he decided to lie beside her when she went to his bedroll to sleep.
He would look after her. It was his job now. A job he loved.
Harvest Time
Two months later, all the citizens of the Martin-led community stood outside their tents late in the day and watched as Ken Martin and his entourage inspected the food. A thug called Wells had just slapped a woman’s face for a supposed slur against the mansion residents’ laziness. Brooks had actually knocked a man out for no apparent reason. Fear they ruled by, fear and violence.
“Here they come,” Craig Cheng said with a frown on his face. “The local harvest has been collected, and the hierarchy has come to take their share. A large share.”
“Why do we stand for this?” Karen said in a tight voice.
“They do fuck all, and we just stand here like sheep and feed them,” Ben Cheng said in frustrated anger.
“Quiet, all of you,” said John in his usual placid manner. “Don’t draw the attention of the thugs.”
“Listen to my husband, you Chongs,” Freda grated out, as she held her arms around her son and her newly pregnant belly.
“It’s Cheng,” Craig replied with a sigh. Wasn’t being a mother supposed to soften you a little? he wondered.
“Cheng, Cheech, Chong. It doesn’t matter,” she replied. “I know violence when I see it, and those boys are about to let rip on anyone who causes trouble today.”
Craig sighed. She was right. She was horrible, but she was right. He looked over again at Ken, Scott, and Warren Martin as they inspected this year’s crop. Behind them were Dobson, Brooks, Wells, Harris, and Frampton, all burly men, who happened to be carrying every weapon they could lay their hands on. They were not looking at the food but seemed to be watching everybody who was not in their group. One of them seemed to be paying extra attention to his family. Or maybe it was the huge man who stood behind him.
“Where is Veronica?” Craig asked.
“She is too big to come out of the tent now,” Maurice replied with a smile.
He really did love her, Craig thought for the thousandth time. He once more felt the urge to tell him who the father of her baby was, but releasing such deadly information seemed to be too cruel an act.
“What happened to Brett Martin’s mother?” Maurice asked thoughtfully as he watched his own mother cradle a baby in her arms.
“Warren’s wife?” asked Karen.
“Nobody knows,” Craig replied. “She just disappeared after giving birth.”
“It all seems a bit strange,” John said, who seemed very good at obtaining information from the community.
Maurice wondered if his mother had ever held him in her arms like that when he was a baby. Or did she believe he was going to be a failure, even then?
“This isn’t right,” someone suddenly cried out from the crowd in front of the Martins. “This is our food, not yours.”
“Shit, who was that?” Ben said in shock.
“An old man,” Maurice replied as he saw him dragged out from amongst the crowd.
“He is an idiot, that’s what he is,” Freda said as she scowled.
“Perhaps he is retired,” murmured Maurice as he watched Scott punch the old man in the face.
“What do you mean?” asked John.
“Oh, nothing,” he replied, and before he could think about what he was doing, he strode forward towards Scott, who was now beating the old
man badly.
“Maurice, no,” John called out.
“Leave him,” Craig replied and held John back from intervening.
“You’re his friend, too,” John said desperately to Craig.
“I know, but this is something that needs to happen.” At least, I think it does, he thought as he turned to watch the big fight.
Scott was enjoying beating the old man’s head in so much that he barely noticed when Dobson suddenly cried out, “Watch it!” What did he mean, watch it? But before he could ask, he saw a hand come out of nowhere and stop his fist from landing another punch.
“Enough,” his cousin growled at him.
Scott looked at his cousin in shock. For the first time, he truly took in the fact that his cousin was almost twice his size in height and weight and was a mass of pure muscle. He also looked angry, immensely angry.
“I’ll not stop, you fat bastard,” Scott snapped back.
But Maurice’s hand squeezed his own fist until Scott cried out in pain. “Do something,” he whimpered as he fell to his knees.
Dobson and his men looked towards Ken Martin for a decision. They knew they should beat this man, but he was their boss’s nephew after all. Plus, Dobson had to admit that the size of Maurice made him a tad nervous.
“Hit him,” Maurice’s mother cried out, and Dobson saw Maurice look back at his mother in dismay. It must hurt knowing that your own mother despised you like that.
Scott then took the decision away from everybody when his hand was finally let go, by punching Maurice hard in the groin. As Maurice cried out in pain, Ken Martin gave the nod for this man to be beaten, and judging by Warren’s and Scott’s angry faces, it would be as bad a beating as you could get. Weapons out, Dobson and his men did their job.
“Never again,” John Carter cried out as he and Craig dragged their friend to his tent. “It’s war now,” he said, as tears welled in his eyes.
Good news, Craig thought; with John on their side they may be able to come up with a good plan. He also noticed the way some of the male youths were glaring at the Martins.
“I just stood there,” John continued. “Like a dumb sheep, I just stood there and watched him get beaten.”
