Eventually he could no longer hear the hum of the slaves talking. The large tent lay ahead, ringed by scattered torches on tall stakes. Wodan knelt and looked around. The outer ring of torch-bearing guards were still very distant; Wodan was grateful that even though the Ugly thought the demons were some kind of gods, it was a fact that the flesh demons were not their friends and would raid them in an instant if they had the opportunity to do so. Wodan reasoned that the outer ring must be spread out so that aggressive demons could be shot before they came near the camp so that the slaves could not take advantage of the distraction and turn on any guards nearby.
He could just barely make out the truck in the distance, for only one torch stood with it. Though it was isolated, he reasoned that it would be securely locked, and so he pushed it to the background of his thoughts. He could not see or hear the horses, but reasoned that they were in the far north of the camp, as usual. To his left, some distance away, he saw a great fire, and it winked as bodies passed around it, dancing and chanting for the Feast. He closed his eyes and listened, and heard a voice, far away, above the din. The speaker read from some kind of ancient text. Wodan could hear the pride in the voice of the speaker.
So Barkus can read, thought Wodan. Quite a feat out here in the wasteland.
“In the beginning,” read the voice, “the Demon dreamed of the hells and of the earth. The field of earth was without substance, was void, and unbroken light was on the face of the deep. The flesh of the Demon trudged through the sludge of the waters. The perfect light was hostile, and burned His flesh. So the Demon plucked out his eye, said, ‘Fiat Noctis,’ and then there was night.”
A group of shadows staggered about the light near the tent and Wodan withdrew deeper into the night, heart racing, mouth dry. There were five of them guarding the tent. Like the other group of guards they were each speaking and none listening, a jukebox full of quarters and no one in the bar to listen. They had rifles slung on their shoulders. Unsure of what to do, Wodan crossed to the far side of the tent.
Wodan could still hear the voice of Barkus reading.
“On the sixth day the Demon said, ‘Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness. Let him try to count the grains of sand on the earth, let him build his castles in the sky. Let him have suffering on the one shoulder, nothingness on the other, and a crown of boredom to rule the hours.’ So the Demon shaped his excretions into a hunch-backed idol in his own image; Seed and Egg he formed them.”
At that moment a group of Ugly chanted for someone to drink, drink, drink, then guns were fired in the air.
Drunks and religious fanatics, thought Wodan. Do they really think that demonkind made man? We’ll never be free if people believe they’re nothing more than food for monsters!
There was a slow, uneven scraping that vibrated along the tent. Wodan figured that a man was walking and leaning against it. He ran further into the dark.
The Ugly rounded a corner, and Wodan could see that his entire body was pressed against the tent, which buckled against him and helped him travel in a strange, bouncing motion. He had an arm laid against his head to block the torchlight from his eyes, and a thick string of mucus hung from his mouth and jiggled like diamond jelly as he moved.
The man stopped, then used his free hand to work at the laces of his pants for one minute, then two. Finally a torrent of piss splashed against the tent. The Ugly sighed with relief.
He’s alone. This is my chance. I have to do it. I have to kill him!
Wodan crept forward slowly. The knife in his hand was heavy, reassuring. He nervously ran a finger along the cool metal to assure himself. His heart beat a thousand gallons of rushing fear. He tried to swallow but his mouth and tongue were sandpaper.
Wodan stopped and crouched for a moment because he felt like he would soon pass out. A full minute passed and the Ugly’s stream of urine only gushed harder. He moved his hand to adjust the rifle on his shoulder and urine sprayed onto his crusted jeans. The Ugly was small, perhaps Wodan’s size, a rock worn thin by the cruel desert wind.
I can take him! Wodan thought. I have to!
He lifted the knife and felt it shaking uncontrollably.
At that moment the man stopped urinating, then the arm about his face tightened. The man shuddered violently, then bent forward and planted his knees into the ground. His body was racked by sobs.
He’s crying, thought Wodan. My God, he’s a human being.
Wodan dropped the knife and shook his head.
This is madness. How much of the demon’s rule depends on man killing man?
Wodan knew that he could not do it. He simply could not kill another human being.
Just then the Ugly lurched and puked in a raging gush. He uncovered his face and dug his hands into the sand as another wave of puke rolled out of him.
Wodan saw the face of the Ugly. It was Adem, one of Barkus’s lieutenants.
“When we caught you, you were stumbling around like a madman...” Adem said so long ago.
“Your friend tried to stop you…”
Lightning coursed through Wodan’s veins.
“… so we took turns kicking the guts out of him.”
Wodan picked up the knife. It felt like a part of him.
“We killed him,” said the voice in his mind, smiling. “We killed him.”
***
Adem breathed deep. He felt like a king now that the poison was out. The world wobbled and he took great care to squat and lean his head back in such a way that everything would remain perfectly still. He didn’t care if the others came and saw him sitting in a pile of his own puke. He knew he could whoop any of them! After puking, he was a king, a god of ass-whipping! Hell, after he got his bearings, he could even go to the Feast and see what was being done to the slave girls. Those dumb sluts had no idea what was in store for them…
The wind shifted. He heard a jackrabbit.
Cold laid against his throat. There was a kiss and a bite, something icy and hard parting flesh and vital tubing. He raised a hand to his throat and felt hot liquid gushing out. He opened his mouth to mimic breathing, but he was drowning.
He looked down at the sand. Black rain. He thought blood was coming up from the earth, the devil pissing red all over him. He looked up and saw the child. His face was like marble, diamond, unmoving, a mask of cruelty. He had a rifle in one hand and a short, red-spotted knife in the other. Adem felt about for his own rifle. It was gone! He felt weak and soon his hands were caked with thick, black wads of sand. He laid down.
Black spots gelled in his vision. The world grew distant. He heard soft footsteps. He blinked. The boy stood directly over him, looking down. He slung the rifle onto his back. Adem hated him, hated himself, hated everything. He was dying, but instead of the wonderful world he was promised, all he saw was an awful killer angel staring down at him, unblinking, needing nothing from him but waiting for him to fall into that final darkness.
***
Wodan grabbed the ankle of the dead man and dragged him to darker places. The ankle flexed and spasmed in his grip.
I’ve done it now, he thought. I’ve killed someone. There’s no going back now.
His doubts were gone. He stripped the dead man naked, then took off his own filthy, tattered clothes. The crusty jeans fit him well. He removed the old bandage from his shoulder, noting the vivid red scar as he donned the stinking shirt. The denim jacket was covered in dark blood and vomit, but he barely noticed. He felt as if he were donning armor for a great battle.
The dead man’s boots were boxy and ill-made, but felt wonderful once he stuffed his old clothes into them for makeshift socks. The new clothes sent a rush through him. Fully dressed, he felt less like a slave or an animal and more like a human being.
There was a bulky walkie-talkie radio attached to the man’s belt. Wodan listened to it, heard occasional check-ins from the perimeter ring, then turned it off and fastened it to his side. He found keys in the pockets, as well as a grea
sy rabbit-skin condom, which he threw onto the man’s body so that he might use it in his afterlife. He weighed the rifle in his hands. It was well-worn, and the letters WIDOMAKR were etched into its side. He took a few moments to look at the thing and figure out how to release the clip and work the safety. He checked that there were bullets in the clip, then messed around until he figured out how to chamber a round. Once he’d done that, the rifle felt like coiled lightning in his hand, death and justice ready to be released whenever he commanded. He strapped the weapon to his back, wiped his knife on the dead man’s chest hair, then lifted part of the tent and crawled inside.
A single oil lamp cast a greasy light on boxes, a handful of guns and clips, and a table with a map laid out like a tablecloth, as if its owners were preparing to devour the world. Wodan studied it. The encampments of primitives and dogmen were marked on the mountains surrounding the valley. Pontius lay to the west, a whore with her legs spread to the river that ran through her; the purple skull-and-scar flag of the Ugly flew above it, and below it flew the green standard of the Coil, the black and gold standard of the Smiths, and the blue standard of the Law. He glanced at Sunport, far from Pontius, in the north. A nail was tacked into the desert closer to the port city than to the valley from which he had come. He laid his hand on the map, dug his nails into it, and clenched his hand, tearing the world apart.
Wodan could hear the other four guards rambling outside. As he gathered up a handful of guns and kept his eyes on the entrance, he could hear Barkus reading far away. “In the evening they heard the Ghost walking in the garden, so they hid themselves among the trees. The Ghost called to the man, ‘Where are you?’ He replied, ‘I heard you coming, so I hid. I was afraid because I was naked.’ ‘How did you know that you were naked?’ the Ghost asked. ‘Have you eaten the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge that I commanded you not to take?’ When the Ghost questioned them, the man blamed the woman, and the woman blamed the trickery of the Worm.
“So the Ghost cursed them, saying to the woman, ‘You will bear children with intense pain and suffering. Since you have lusted after knowledge, your children will have large skulls full of trivia; their heads will tear your hole as you squeeze their bones into the world. Further, you will desire for nothing but the love of your man, but he will love only his dreams, and the possibility of more, and so he will be your master, now and forever.’ And to the man he said, ‘Because you listened to your wife and ate the fruit I told you not to eat, I have placed a curse on your world. You will be blind to the world, the sky will be gray compared to the light of your dreams, and your dreams will torture you just as you have hurt me. All your life you will struggle to squeeze a living from the dying earth. The dirt will grow thorns and weeds for you, and you will eat it. All your life you will sweat to produce food, planting seed every day until the final harvest when you plant your own dead bones in the field. For you were made from dust, and to dust you will return.’
“Then the Ghost returned to its kin, and said, ‘The people have become as We are, knowing everything, both good and evil. Now what if they eat the fruit from the Tree of Life? If they do that, they will live forever.’ So the Ghost banished the man and his wife from the garden, and sent them out to cultivate the ground from which they had been made. And so was woman made a slave of man, and man a slave of his dreams. The fruit of the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge make war upon one another even to this day. The human puppet, subject to whims beyond reason, will dance in darkness for all eternity.”
Suddenly the four Ugly guards just outside the entrance fired their guns into the air, laughing and screaming. Wodan shook his head in disgust. He had a pile of rifles and handguns and a few small boxes of ammunition gathered. As he prepared to tie a rag about them to take them to the others, he wondered what would happen. Would they stand up and fight? Would fear get the best of them? Would the Ugly realize that Adem was dead and sound the alarm?
Suddenly the four Ugly outside the entrance went silent. Wodan quickly crouched behind a large box, then saw that they were staring off to the side. One of the Ugly, with cross-bones carved into his face, shouted, “Hey! What are you doin’ walkin’ around, slut?”
Wodan’s heart raced. He craned his neck and saw Rachek approach the guards.
“Sorry to bother you boys,” she said, smiling. She held her arms behind her back and pushed her breasts out, smiling shyly. “I just had something that I wanted to tell you.”
The guards gathered around her. Wodan could see that she had tightened her shirt to accentuate her breasts, hiked her skirt up so that her legs were exposed, and rolled her waistband down so that the curve of her belly was visible.
“Tell us?” said one of the Ugly, chuckling. “Mmm, I remember this one. Fight like a kitty, she do!”
“Sorry about that!” said Rachek, eyes fluttering as the goons towered over her. “Sometimes I get shy when the other girls are around, you know? But I thought maybe I could give you some news, and maybe you could get me some food in exchange, you know? And of course… you can do whatever else you want with me.”
News? Wodan thought. His heart hammered uncontrollably. She wouldn’t! She can’t!
“Aaaaaw boah,” said another goon. “Yeah, I got somethin’ to feed ya, don’t worry ’bout that!”
Wodan’s eyes narrowed and he raised the rifle, jamming the butt into his shoulder.
The Ugly nearest her, a fat pig carved up with the names of the souls he had snuffed out, grabbed the back of her head and whipped out his belt in one swift motion. His pants dropped. “Alright, sweetie,” he said. “We listenin’. What’s this news you reckon’s so important?”
Wodan’s rifle drifted from the Ugly to Rachek’s neck.
Just then he heard the sound of feet pounding the ground. Rachek brought one up arm, fast and hard – and Wodan saw her twisting the handle of a long knife that was jammed into the base of the man’s skull, grinding it under his jaw and into his brains.
“You’re dead!” she screamed.
The other three cried out and, as they moved to clasp their pants shut and lift their guns, a crowd of tribals crashed into them, a torrent of brown fists and flashing teeth. Two Ugly fell immediately, crushed under the weight of stomping feet; one crawled away and a primitive leaped on him, biting his face like a wild animal. The last Ugly stumbled away, cursing and crying. With his pants around his ankles he raised his rifle and prepared to fire into the crowd. Wodan dashed through the door flap, moving faster than he ever thought possible, and fired his rifle from the hip. In a flash of sparks and smoke the Ugly spun, clutching his gut. Wodan ran straight for him and when the man’s eyes locked onto him for a moment, body bent over awkwardly, Wodan fired once more and sent a trail of destruction through the man’s jaw, neck, torso. The dead man sat down heavily, legs out straight and body slumped over and bouncing.
Wodan turned and saw the primitives standing before him, covered in blood, eyes shining, a terrifying sight. Rachek pushed herself to the forefront, adjusting her clothes. “We couldn’t let you do everything yourself!” she said. Wodan was so jacked up on adrenaline that he could not speak, only nod.
Brad ran up to Wodan, his face and hair slick with blood. “You shoulda seen it, buddy!” he said. “Some of the old heads were causing so much trouble, everyone was arguing. Then the dicks watching us decided they were gonna have some fun with our girls, and everyone was already heated as it was. They came right up to us and were pissin’ us off, so we jumped up and beat the shit out of ’em proper! They didn’t even fire a shot! I mean, that was it. The ones ready to get out just got up and left right then. I guess Hari convinced most of the others to stay put.”
Wodan guessed that they were about forty in number. The Ugly outnumbered them, but he knew that the ones who stood before him had laid their lives on the line and were willing to fight to the death. “Don’t think about the others from here on out,” said Wodan. “Your families are dead. Even if you went back to them now,
you would only be separated once they sold you on the market. Don’t ever look back!”
The mob nodded grimly.
Wodan turned to Brad, said, “You took the guns from the ones guarding you?”
Brad nodded, tilting his head toward the mob.
“Why didn’t you use them?” said Wodan.
Agmar came to the front. “Rachek told them not to. Said we might hit you.” He smiled, said, “She was confident that you were in the area, hiding and just waiting to strike.”
Wodan grabbed her arm, then said, “Listen everyone! There’s a few guns in the tent, go and grab them! The end point is the horses, if we get split up, make for them. I’ve got keys that might go to the truck, we’ll hit it next. After that, we hit their feast and kill ’em all and save those girls!”
The mob grabbed the weapons on the ground and filled the tent and looted what guns they could find. Wodan turned and ran toward the torch that lit the truck. The desert wind raked across his skin, waking up his soul. The revolution had begun!
The heavy truck loomed over him. He yanked the staked torch from the ground and propped it against the truck so he could see the lock that shut the rear. As he fumbled with the keys, Brad ran to the truck and leaped on something. Wodan saw that he was strangling a man who laid on the ground. Brad looked up, said, “Bitch was passed out like a li’l ho.” The body flailed weakly and Wodan knew that he could have been killed by the unseen man if he had been fighting alone.
Wodan unlocked the rear door of the truck and it raised loudly. A mass of men and women ran up to him. He grabbed the torch and leaped inside.
Guns!
Wodan sighed with relief. He kicked and tore open boxes of ammunition and threw them at the mob below, laughing with bloodthirsty glee, and others poured inside and armed themselves. Wodan saw a few of the tribals giving impromptu lessons on how to load and shoot and he laughed, teetering on the brink of mania. He noticed Agmar hanging on the periphery. He carried a dour expression, a witness to madness with no will to take part.
“What are you doing, Ag?” said Wodan. “Come to stack up some bodies and earn your freedom?”
Demonworld Page 25
