1987 - Swan Song v4

by Robert McCammon

  “Lester? I’ve brought you a bowl of—”

  There was a crash of breaking pottery and a gasp of horror.

  He let his eyes resurface again. At the shed’s door stood the woman who’d taken him in three weeks ago as a handyman; she was still very pretty, and it was too bad that a wild animal had chewed up her little girl in the woods one evening two weeks ago, because the child had looked just like her. The woman had dropped his bowl of soup. She was a clumsy bitch, he thought. Anybody with two fingers on each hand was bound to be clumsy.

  The claw of her left hand held a lantern, and by its light she’d seen the rippling, fly-swarmed face of Lester the handyman.

  “Howdy, Miz Sperry,” he whispered, and the fly-things whirled around his head.

  The woman took a backward step toward the open door. Her face was frozen into a horrified rictus, and he wondered why he’d ever thought she was pretty.

  “You’re not afraid, are you, Miz Sperry?” he asked her; he reached out his arms, dug his fingers into the dirt floor and drew himself forward. The wheels squeaked, badly in need of oil.

  “I… I…” She tried to speak, but she couldn’t. Her legs had seized up, too, and he knew that she knew there was nowhere to run except the woods.

  “Surely you’re not afraid of me,” he said softly. “I’m not much of a man, am I? I do ’preciate you havin’ pity on a poor man like me, I surely do.” The wheels squeaked, squeaked.

  “Stay… away from me…”

  “This is ol’ Lester you’re talkin’ to, Miz Sperry. Just ol’ Lester, that’s all. You can tell me anything.”

  She almost broke away then, almost ran, but he said, “Ol’ Lester makes the pain go away, don’t he?” and she settled back into his grip like warm putty. “Why don’t you put that lamp down, Miz Sperry? Let’s have us a nice talk. I can fix thangs.”

  The lantern was slowly put on the floor.

  So easy, he thought. This one particularly, because she was already walking dead.

  He was bored with her. “I believe I need to fix that there gun,” he said, and he nodded silkily toward the rifle in the corner. “Will you fetch it for me?”

  She picked it up.

  “Miz Sperry?” he said. “I want you to put the barrel in your mouth and your finger on the trigger. Yes’m, go ahead. Just like that. Oh, doin’ just fine!”

  Her eyes were bright and shining, and there were tears rolling down her cheeks.

  “Now… I need you to test that there gun for me. I want you to pull the trigger and tell me if it works. Okay?”

  She resisted him, just a second of the will to live that she probably didn’t even know she had anymore.

  “Lester’s gon’ fix thangs,” he said. “Little tiny pull, now.”

  The rifle went off.

  He pulled himself forward, and the wheels squeaked over her body. The Bucket of Blood! he thought. Got to get over there!

  But then—no, no. Wait. Just wait.

  He knew Sister was on her way to Mary’s Rest. It wouldn’t take him as long to walk cross-country as it would take her to drive over what was left of the road. He could beat her there and be waiting. There were a lot of people in Mary’s Rest, a lot of opportunities; he’d been thinking of traveling down that way in the next few days, anyway. She might already have left the tavern and be on the road right now. This time I won’t lose you, he vowed. I’ll get to Mary’s Rest before you. Ol’ Lester’s gon’ fix thangs for you, too, bitch!

  This was a good disguise, he decided. Some modifications were needed if he was going to walk the distance, but it would do. And by the time the bitch got to Mary’s Rest, he’d be set up and ready to Watusi on her bones until she was dust for the pot.

  The rest of the flies were sucked into his face, but they brought information that was of no use to him. He stretched his torso, and after a minute or two he was able to stand.

  Then he rolled down the legs of his trousers, picked up his little red wagon and began walking, his feet bare, through the snow toward the forest. He began to sing, very quietly: “Here we go ’round the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush…”

  The darkness took him.

  Fifty-three

  A new right hand

  A tall figure in a long black overcoat with polished silver buttons stalked through the burning ruins of Broken Bow, Nebraska. Corpses lay scattered across what had been Broken Bow’s main street, and the tanklike trucks of the Army of Excellence ran over those that were in the way. Other soldiers were loading trucks with salvaged sacks of corn, flour, beans and drums of oil and gasoline. A pile of rifles and pistols awaited pickup by the Weapons Brigade. Bodies were being stripped by the Clothing Brigade, and members of the Shelter Brigade were gathering together tents that the dead would no longer need. The Mechanics Brigade was going over a wealth of cars, trailers and trucks that had fallen to the victors; those that could be made to run would become recon and transport vehicles, and the others would be stripped of tires, engines and everything else that could possibly be used.

  But the man in the black overcoat, his polished ebony boots crunching over scorched earth, was only intent on one thing. He stopped before a pile of corpses that were being stripped, their coats and clothes thrown into cardboard boxes, and examined their faces by the light of a nearby bonfire. The soldiers around him stopped their work to salute; he quickly returned the salute and continued his examination, then went on to the next scatter of bodies.

  “Colonel Macklin!” a voice called over the rumble of passing trucks, and the man in the black overcoat turned around. Firelight fell on the black leather mask that covered James B. Macklin’s face; the right eyehole had been crudely stitched up, but through the other Macklin’s cold blue eye peered at the approaching figure. Under his coat, Macklin wore a gray-green uniform and a pearl-handled .45 in a holster at his waist. Over his breast pocket was a black circular patch with the letters AOE sewn into it in silver thread. A dark green woolen cap was pulled over the colonel’s head.

  Judd Lawry, wearing a similar uniform under a fleece-lined coat, emerged from the smoke. An M-16 was slung over his shoulder, and bandoliers of ammunition crisscrossed his chest. Judd Lawry’s gray-streaked red beard was closely cropped, and his hair had been clipped almost to the scalp. Across his forehead was a deep scar that ran diagonally from his left temple up through his hair. In seven years of following Macklin, Lawry had lost twenty-five pounds of fat and flab, and now his body was hard and muscular; his face had taken on cruel angles, and his eyes had retreated into their sockets.

  “Any word, Lieutenant Lawry?” Macklin’s voice was distorted, the words slurred, as if something was not right with his mouth.

  “No, sir. Nobody’s found him. I checked with Sergeant McCowan over on the northern perimeter, but he can’t produce a body either. Sergeant Ulrich took a detail through the southern segment of their defensive trench, but no luck.”

  “What about the reports from the pursuit parties?”

  “Corporal Winslow’s group found six of them about a mile to the east. They tried to fight it out. Sergeant Oldfield’s group found four to the north, but they’d already killed themselves. I haven’t gotten word yet from the southern patrol.”

  “He can’t have gotten away, Lawry,” Macklin said forcefully. “We’ve got to find the sonofabitch—or his corpse. I want him—dead or alive—in my tent within two hours. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll do my best.”

  “Do more than your best. Find Captain Pogue and tell him he’s in charge of bringing me the corpse of Franklin Hayes; he’s a good tracker, he’ll get the job done. And I want to see the casualty counts and captured weapons list by dawn. I don’t want the same kind of fuckup that happened last time. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. I’ll be in my tent.” Macklin started to move off, then turned back. “Where’s Roland?”

  “I don’t know. I saw him about an hour ago,
over on the south edge of town.”

  “If you see him, have him report to me. Carry on.” Macklin stalked away toward his headquarters tent.

  Judd Lawry watched him go, and he couldn’t suppress a shudder. It had been more than two years since he’d last seen Colonel Macklin’s face; the colonel had started wearing that leather mask to protect his skin against “radiation and pollution”—but it seemed to Lawry that Macklin’s face was actually changing shape, from the way the mask buckled and strained against the bones. Lawry knew what it was: that damned disease that a lot of others in the Army of Excellence had gotten as well—the growths that got on your face and grew together, covering everything but a hole at your mouth. Everyone knew Macklin had it, and Captain Croninger was afflicted with it, too, and that was why the boy wore bandages on his face. The worst cases were rounded up and executed, and to Lawry it was a whole hell of a lot worse than the most sickening keloid he’d ever seen. Thank God, he thought, that he’d never gotten it, because he liked his face just the way it was. But if Colonel Macklin’s condition was getting worse, then he wasn’t going to be able to lead the AOE very much longer. Which led to a lot of interesting possibilities…

  Lawry grunted, got his mind back on his duties and went off through the ruins.

  On the other side of Broken Bow, Colonel Macklin saluted the two armed sentries who stood in front of his large headquarters tent and went in through the flap. It was dark inside, and Macklin thought he remembered leaving a lantern lit on his desk. But there was so much in his mind, so much to remember, that he couldn’t be sure. He walked to the desk, reached out with his single hand and found the lantern. The glass was still warm. It blew out somehow, he thought, and he took the glass chimney off, took a lighter from his overcoat pocket and flicked the flame on. Then he lit the lamp, let the flame grow and returned the glass chimney. Dim light began to spread through the tent—and it was only then that Colonel Macklin realized he was not alone.

  Behind Macklin’s desk sat a slim man with curly, unkempt, shoulder-length blond hair and a blond beard. His muddy boots were propped up on the various maps, charts and reports that covered the desktop. He’d been cleaning his long fingernails with a knife in the dark, and at the sight of the weapon Macklin instantly drew the .45 from his holster and aimed the gun at the intruder’s head.

  “Hi,” the blond-haired man said, and he smiled. He had a pale, cadaverous face—and at the center of it, where his nose had been, was a hole rimmed with scar tissue. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  “Put the knife down. Now.”

  The knife’s blade thunked through a map of Nebraska and stood upright, quivering. “No sweat,” the man said. He lifted his hands to show they were empty.

  Macklin saw that the intruder wore a blood-spattered AOE uniform, but he didn’t appear to have any fresh injuries. That grisly wound at the center of his face—through which Macklin could see the sinus passages and gray cartilage—had healed as much as it ever would. “Who are you and how did you get past the sentries?”

  “I came in through the servants’ entrance.” He motioned toward the rear of the tent, and Macklin saw where the fabric had been slashed enough for the man to crawl through. “My name’s Alvin.” His muddy green eyes fixed on Colonel Macklin, and his teeth showed when he grinned. “Alvin Mangrim. You ought to have better security, Colonel. Somebody crazy could get in here and kill you if they wanted to.”

  “Like you, maybe?”

  “Naw, not me.” He laughed, and air made a shrill whistling sound through the hole where his nose had been. “I’ve brought you a couple of presents.”

  “I could have you executed for breaking into my headquarters.”

  Alvin Mangrim’s grin didn’t waver. “I didn’t break in, man. I cut in. See, I’m real good with knives. Oh, yes—knives know my name. They speak to me, and I do what they say to do.”

  Macklin was about a half ounce of trigger pressure away from blowing the man’s head off, but he didn’t want to get blood and brains all over his papers.

  “Well? Don’t you want to see your presents?”

  “No. I want you to stand up, very carefully, and start walking—” But suddenly Alvin Mangrim leaned over beside the chair to pick up something from the floor. “Easy!” Macklin warned him, and he was about to call for the sentries when Alvin Mangrim straightened up and set the severed head of Franklin Hayes on the desktop.

  The face had turned blue, and the eyes had rolled back to show the whites. “There you go,” Mangrim said. “Ain’t he pretty?” He leaned forward and rapped his knuckles on the skull. “Knock, knock!” He laughed, the air whistling through the crater at the center of his face. “Uh-oh, nobody’s home!”

  “Where’d you get that?” Macklin asked him.

  “Off the fucker’s neck, Colonel! Where’d you think I got it from? I came across that wall and there was old Franklin himself, standing right in front of me—and me with my axe, too. That’s what I call Fate. So I just chopped his head off and brought it here to you. I would’ve been here sooner, but I wanted him to finish bleeding so he wouldn’t mess up your tent. You’ve got a real nice, neat place here.”

  Colonel Macklin approached the head, reached out and touched it with the .45’s barrel. “You killed him?”

  “Naw. I tickled him to death. Colonel Macklin, for such a smart man you sure are slow to figure things out.”

  Macklin lifted the upper lip with the gun barrel. The teeth were white and even.

  “You want to knock those out?” Mangrim asked. “They’d make a nice necklace for that black-haired woman I’ve seen you with.”

  He let the lip fall back into place. “Who the hell are you? How come I haven’t seen you before?”

  “I’ve been around. Been following the AOE for about two months, I guess. Me and some friends of mine have our own camp. I got this uniform off a dead soldier. Fits me pretty good, don’t you think?”

  Macklin sensed motion to his left and turned to see Roland Croninger coming into the tent. The young man was wearing a long gray coat with a hood pulled up over his head; at barely twenty years of age, Captain Roland Croninger, at six foot one, stood an inch shorter than Macklin, and he was scarecrow-thin, his AOE uniform and coat hanging off his bony frame. His wrists jutted from the sleeves, his hands like white spiders. He’d been in charge of the attack that had crushed Broken Bow’s defenses, and it had been his suggestion to pursue Franklin Hayes to the death. Now he stopped abruptly, and beneath the hood he squinted through his thick-lensed goggles at the head that adorned Colonel Macklin’s desk.

  “You’re Captain Croninger, aren’t you?” Mangrim asked. “I’ve seen you around, too.”

  “What’s going on here?” Roland’s voice was still high-pitched. He looked at Macklin, the lamplight glinting off his goggles.

  “This man brought me a present. He killed Franklin Hayes, or so he says.”

  “Sure I did. Whack! Whack!” Mangrim pounded the table with the edge of his hand. “Off went his head!”

  “This tent is off limits,” Roland said coldly. “You could be shot for coming in here.”

  “I wanted to surprise the colonel.”

  Macklin lowered his pistol. Alvin Mangrim hadn’t come to do him harm, he decided. The man had violated one of the strictest rules of the AOE, but the severed head was indeed a good present. Now that the mission was accomplished—Hayes was dead, the AOE had captured a bounty of vehicles, weapons and gasoline and had taken about a hundred more soldiers into the ranks—Macklin felt a letdown, just as he did after every battle. It was like wanting a woman so bad your balls ached for release, and once you’d taken her and could do with her what you pleased, she was tiresome. It was not having the woman that counted; it was the taking—of women, land or life—that stirred Macklin’s blood to a boil.

  “I can’t breathe,” he said suddenly. “I can’t get my breath.” He drew in air, couldn’t seem to get enough of it. He thought he saw the Shadow Soldie
r standing just behind Alvin Mangrim, but then he blinked and the ghostly image was gone. “I can’t breathe,” he repeated, and he took off his cap.

  He had no hair; his scalp was a ravaged dome of growths, like barnacles clinging to rotten pilings. He reached behind his head and found the mask’s zipper. The mask fell away, and Macklin inhaled through what was left of his nose.

  His face was a misshapen mass of thick, scablike growths that completely enclosed his features except for the single staring blue eye, a nostril hole and a slit over his mouth. Beneath the growths, Macklin’s face burned and itched fiercely, and the bones ached as if they were being bent into new shapes. He couldn’t bear to look at himself in the mirror anymore, and when he rutted with Sheila Fontana, she—like any number of other women who followed the AOE—squeezed her eyes shut and turned her head away. But Sheila Fontana was out of her mind anyway, Macklin knew; all she was good for was screwing, and she was always screaming in the night about somebody named Rudy crawling into her bed with a dead baby in his arms.

  Alvin Mangrim was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Well, whatever it is, you’ve got a bad dose of it.”

  “You’ve brought your present,” Macklin told him. “Now get the hell out of my tent.”

  “I said I brought you two presents. Don’t you want the other one?”

  “Colonel Macklin said he wants you to leave.” Roland didn’t like this blond-haired sonofabitch, and he wouldn’t mind killing him. He was still high on killing, the smell of blood in his nostrils like a delicious perfume. Over the past seven years, Roland Croninger had become a scholar of killing, mutilation and torture; when the King wanted information from a prisoner, he knew to summon Sir Roland, who had a black-painted trailer where many songs had been sung to the accompaniment of chains, grindstones, hammers and saws.

  Alvin Mangrim leaned down to the floor again. Macklin aimed his .45—but the blond-haired man brought up a small box, tied with a bright blue ribbon. “Here,” Mangrim said, offering the box. “Take it. It’s just for you.”