Fall of the Cities: Putting Down Roots

by Vance Huxley

  “We’ve got crossbows.” Harold had enough so anyone willing to use one could have that or a rifle, and a handgun as well. He was hoping Patty could actually do what she wanted, and stick a sharp something into another human, because shooters were scarcer than crossbows. The quote about knives being messy seemed promising.

  “I want one of those posh ones that wind, the ones with lots of power so the bastard really feels it.” There wasn’t any give at all in those sentiments.

  “Righto. So where do I get this wool? Most shops have been looted.” Harold knew he was wrong from the big smile.

  “No, the morons take all the ready knitted stuff, or some of it anyway. I’ve slept in two wool shops, tucked up nice and warm in a pile of skeins that have been ignored. I can tell you where the nearest is?” Patty looked around, apparently for a map to appear. Harold winced because as one of the morons he’d taken this jumper from a wrecked shop and left any skeins, whatever they were.

  “It’ll have to be quick because in four days that meeting will set out boundaries. After that we’ll get shot.” Harold grinned. “We might get shot at before that.”

  “So go at night, and use that sneaky stuff the Army taught you. Have you got a map?” Harold directed her to Hilda in the library, and went to see Sharyn and check out this knitting business. It made sense, sort of, but he needed a sanity check.

  “Children grow out of clothes overnight. If she’ll knit new clothes for Daisy and Wills I’ll go out and sneak around myself.” Harold got similar answers from Liz, Casper, and even Barry and Suzie, the opposite ends of the Orchard Close spectrum. Knitting would be very good especially since now they’d apparently got someone who knew how, to teach others. Harold braced himself and sorted out a raiding squad.

  Chapter 4:

  Rules for Kissing and Killing

  Casper smiled sunnily. “Try not to yawn, they’ll be insulted.”

  “Sod off. I was crawling around half the bloody city while you were getting your beauty sleep. The woman’s a slave driver.” Harold smirked. “Though I get the first jumper, a big thick winter job.”

  “Not a balaclava?” Casper gestured up the road. “That lot would be impressed.”

  “Enough. Just remember that if you make gay jokes, so can they.” Harold would bet that Casper, Emmy, Alfie and Holly were all as nervous as he was. Just up the road fifteen gangsters, nutters or yobs waited to meet them, and they’d all be heavily armed. This was a recipe for disaster.

  That feeling wasn’t allayed as the minibus drew up because each group stood in front of their parked vehicles, each still on the approach road from their own enclave. The empty traffic island in the middle made that look more like a standoff than a meeting. “Holly, Emmy, have you unloaded your crossbows? They all have, just as promised.” Casper pulled up just before the roundabout and the five of them lined up just as the others had. As they did the rest moved forward, and soon all four groups were closer, stood in the road around the central island about twelve feet apart.

  “Hi there Kabir. Did the convoys work out?”

  “I went with Ogou as a name and we’ll be talking to Cadillac about the next convoys. Thanks for the name, Emmy.” He turned to the tall well-muscled man next to him. “I told you about Emmy.”

  The man nodded and put his hand on the hilt of what looked a lot like a long heavy sword on his belt, a real one, opposite a pistol and a knife. “I’m Gofannon, and this is Vulcan.” The smaller man, still well built, had short dark red hair and a small, neat pointed red beard. “The other two are soldiers.” Two men with crossbows and machetes nodded. Both had small metal Stop signs on one arm as a shield.

  Harold turned to the Hot Rods. “Hi Cadillac. I know most of your lot already. Cooper, Kev, and I do believe that is Bugatti.” Harold smiled. “Risky.”

  “I thought Bugatti could do to learn how much better it goes if he doesn’t shoot first. The other one is Porsche and just a bit annoyed about the car fire.” The fifth man had a machete, crossbow and a definite scowl. Only Kev didn’t wear the mechanic style overalls. Cadillac nodded towards the fourth group. “Those are the Geek Freeks.”

  “I’m Hawkins.” The thin youth wore what looked like a shop assistant’s smock over a suit, and tapped a name badge as he spoke. Harold kept the smile off his face because the others were dressed the same so they also had a uniform. “Darwin, Marconi, Einstein and Tell. William Tell.” The Geek indicated each one as he spoke and Tell carried one of the complicated bows with pulleys and cables.

  “I thought William Tell was the crossbow type?” Kabir frowned. “Shouldn’t he be Robin Hood?”

  Hawkins laughed. “There’s already too many Hoods.” His wave indicated everyone there, then paused at Harold’s group. “Though I don’t know who your lot are. You are the Soldier Boy, but the rest?”

  “Casper, Holly, Emmy and Alfie.”

  Einstein, a short fat man with thinning hair eyed Emmy. “I’ll trade you a chink for that big black. We’ve got two chinks but no blacks yet. Christ, I’d break out a new mattress for her welcoming party.”

  Harold ignored Einstein for a moment, looking at Cadillac. “Did you explain about rules?”

  “I told them that you expected everyone to be polite to women, and no foul language.” Cadillac tensed because Emmy had started moving. “Though I didn’t expect women at the meeting.”

  Emmy walked behind Alfie and the sound as her hands were momentarily hidden was distinctive. Emmy still used a child’s crossbow because she had the strength to cock it without bracing, and she had fitted a bolt by the time the weapon reappeared. The point centred on a startled Einstein as Harold spoke. “Emmy?”

  “He offered to buy and then rape me Harold. We haven’t tested the latest points.” Most eyes went to the point on the crossbow bolt and hands went to weapons all around the roundabout.

  “I didn’t say rape.” Einstein had gone pale because at this range the intricate concoction of spines and barbs would fillet him. Darwin started to pull his pistol but stopped because Casper’s shotgun swung to cover him.

  “Everyone stay calm, because shooting would be a bad idea. I had intended this to be a demonstration later, but now might be good.” Harold’s rifle barrel wandered a little towards the Geeks. “Give me time to persuade you, because this will go through two and Emmy won’t miss. Casper, watch the others.”

  “Staying calm sounds a good idea and I’d been hoping for a demonstration anyway.” Cadillac definitely stood ready for anything, with his hand on his pistol butt. “Soldier Boy’s demonstrations are usually instructive, Hawkins. Aren’t they, Bugatti?” Bugatti didn’t answer and Cadillac smiled.

  “Everyone look back down the road behind me.” Harold raised his voice. “Bernie!”

  “Here.”

  “Demonstration, please.”

  Harold didn’t look back, but fourteen of the fifteen men facing his way did and they were seeing Bernie come out of a house three doors down. Then they were seeing a puff of smoke, followed by something trailing smoke over the garden wall and in through the broken front window of the house four doors down. If it hadn’t gone through the window Bernie would be legging it across the gardens and yelling for people to duck. The bang was louder than Harold expected, though Barry warned the confined space would increase the effect.

  “Show them the real thing, Bernie, then get back in cover.” All the men’s faces showed varying degrees of shock and Darwin had moved his hand off his pistol.

  “Real thing? What the f… What was the first one?” Gofannon glanced at Holly with a wry smile, then back at Harold.

  “That was a pipe bomb, a demonstration since we don’t want shrapnel whizzing about. The second one is wrapped in all sorts of nasty stuff. I don’t want to be dodging that even if it hasn’t actually landed next to me.” Harold waited, watching faces to see if any of them would give a hint. Barry had been certain that gangster types and certain sorts of youths especially would know how to make bombs. />
  “They’re a lot more impressive in real life than in a computer game.” Cadillac had lost his urbane pose for a moment as the bomb went off, but came quickly back on balance. “There you are, Bugatti, you were actually very lucky. If he’d tossed one of those in wherever you were hiding, a fine wouldn’t have really bothered you.”

  “We all got the message, but is she really going to kill Einstein? He didn’t say rape.” Hawkins’ hand drifted towards his gun again. “I can’t just let her kill him, not at what’s supposed to be a peaceful meeting.”

  “Technically he didn’t, though it was definitely implied.” Vulcan smirked. “Is there a penalty short of death?” His voice and language were more cultured than expected, though Vulcan seemed amused rather than horrified at the possibility of Einstein being spiked.

  “He offered to trade me for another woman, and then said he was going to put me on a mattress for a party. I didn’t hear may I or please.” Emmy’s crossbow hadn’t wavered, and Einstein hadn’t looked towards the explosion. “That’s slavery and rape.” She sighed. “Not the words, but it’s at least the same as asshole said to Holly.”

  “This gets more and more instructive. What did asshole say to Holly?” Cadillac chuckled. “More to the point, what did Holly do, because Einstein might prefer shooting.”

  “He said he’d come back and overrun Orchard Close, and told Holly he was claiming her.” Harold’s smile had no humour. “She tied him to a lamp post and gelded him. We had to kill his friends first, but we saved him specially.”

  “We didn’t waste them, their heads made a great border marker.” Alfie still covered the GOFS and Casper had let his shotgun drift back towards the Hot Rods.

  “Three bodies and nine heads as a marker. I remember that bit.” Cadillac actually looked happy about finding out the details.

  “F...Hell, that was you!” Darwin glared at Einstein. “You stupid er, prat. Didn’t it cross your tiny mind it might have been this lot?”

  “No, nor mine so zip it.” Hawkins spread his hands, palms up. He had a sort of smile though Harold could see that the Geek boss’s eyes were furious. “We saw the bodies and heads after the birds and rats got to them, and the, er, big mess where his jeans were pulled down. That’s why we never pushed this way but we thought whoever did that got run over by the riots.” His gaze fixed on Cadillac. “The warnings of rules and penalties were a bit short on detail. There’s got to be a way short of gelding if there’s going to be peace between us all, because we couldn’t let that ride. How about a fine? Cadillac mentioned fines.”

  “It’ll be a hell of a fine to compensate her for a set of nuts.” A big smile broke over Gofannon’s face. “How about that chink, the one he offered?”

  “It’s a reasonable exchange for his nuts.” Cooper chortled. “Maybe it is, we don’t know how big his nuts are.” He calmed down a bit. “Come on, what’s one girl? There’s plenty more and we’ve got more serious shit to sort out than that.” His eyes narrowed. “I want to see the result of Cadillac’s test.”

  “Yeah, though I think we’ve answered my question.” Cadillac curled a lip and sneered at Einstein. “Come on, make your mind up. After all, if she sticks that thing in your guts or takes your nuts the chink is no good to you anyway.”

  Einstein looked at Hawkins, who nodded, then he turned back to Emmy. “All right, you get the chink. Just point that damn thing away from me.”

  Even as Emmy’s crossbow drifted fractionally off-target, Cadillac spoke up. “Good. Now I want my question answered. How well can you really shoot, Soldier Boy?”

  “How well can your man shoot, Cadillac? How far away can he shoot a man through the eyes, or through the head?” The gang boss opened his mouth to answer but Harold kept going. “Without a telescopic sight.” Harold grinned as Cadillac frowned.

  “He can kill a man at oh, three or four hundred yards? Can you?” Cadillac’s little smile reappeared.

  Harold’s smile was completely genuine. “Alfie, take the targets out please. Twelve, three hundred and three fifty paces in that direction.” Harold pointed directly downwind. The wind wasn’t strong but it wasn’t quite steady either and he wanted all the help he could get. If Cadillac was saying three to four hundred, the gang leader would be egging it a bit and meaning body shots which was a relief. The bastard hadn’t found a decent shooter.

  While Alfie fastened up the thin plywood panels with figures painted on them Harold collected his own two-two rifle from the minibus. He went into a nearby garden, to one of several stacks of bricks arranged so Harold could always shoot up or downwind. Harold needed that edge because he wasn’t a hunter, an outdoor marksman. He could shoot, especially on a range, but hadn’t the experience for dealing with varying wind conditions.

  Harold laid a folded jacket on top of the bricks and waited until Alfie raised an arm and moved back into cover. There were doors already waiting in various directions, and timbers to prop them upright and now black man-shaped figures were clearly visible fastened to three of them.

  Hawkins raised a pair of stubby binoculars to his eyes and a light blinked. “Eleven metres, two seventy five metres, and three twenty metres. Now let’s see you hit them without sights.”

  Harold felt happy, and contented, because he was in his favourite place. A rifle, a target, and his head shut out all the other nonsense. The wind would make him shoot a bit high, but as long as it didn’t veer he could do this with iron sights. He heard someone speaking but that sounded sort of distant, and he waited as a gust settled and then let the shot go. He flipped the bolt and slid another little round in, then did the same.

  “This next bit is what I want to see.” Cadillac’s voice seemed far away and not even a bit annoying. Harold tucked the big brass plate of the 303 into his shoulder and breathed gently and steadily. He concentrated on the old notch sights and carefully lined up the post on the front of the barrel. The sights settled, his elbows were nicely braced on the rest built into the bricks, and the rifle nestled into the folded jacket.

  “One,” he breathed as he let the shot go and worked the bolt, moving the sights onto the nearer target and firing with less hesitation. Four times Harold worked the bolt in a steady rhythm, then dropped the clip and slid another in, just in case. The world crashed back in and Harold looked at a mixture of curious and definitely impressed eyes and faces.

  “If those hit anything like accurately, I’m a believer.” Gofannon looked towards the targets as the centre one twisted and fell. “Well you hit that at least once.”

  Alfie came out of cover and walked back collecting the three sheets of thin ply. As he approached Alfie had a huge grin and Harold started to relax. “Prop them against the end of that garage, Alfie, so everyone can see.” Harold did his best to sound off-hand, even if he might be more curious than anyone.

  “I’m a believer.” Gofannon turned with a smile. “Though I reckon that was just being flash, an eye shot at, what was it, three twenty metres?”

  “You missed the eye though.” Hawkins tried to sound unimpressed. “Why didn’t you use a proper scope or those tube sight things?”

  “Peep sights?” Harold had those on his two-two, and would have loved them for the 303. “We haven’t time for Alfie to walk out to a half mile.” Harold walked a bit closer because he was truly curious now. Then he breathed a silent thanks to the Gods of shooters, gamblers and possibly fools. The head shot at the far target had drifted, and gone through above the painted eye where an eyebrow would be instead of just under the nose.

  Cadillac nodded at the nearer one. “I expected the eye shots on that, and possibly through the body on those.” He smiled ruefully. “Not that fast though, and not through the far one’s head. Fair enough, you’re a real Soldier Boy and one item is off the agenda for this meeting.”

  “Which is?” Harold could see the gleam in Cadillac’s eye and Hawkins had tensed.

  “Whether we should combine to run over your place with crossbows and machetes, and div
vi up the people and weapons.” Cadillac nodded at the target with a hole above the eye. “Relax Soldier Boy. Orchard Close is too expensive, especially after your other little surprise.” The Hot Rod boss smiled. “I’ll have to buy my beer.”

  Harold hoped he kept the shock from his face. “Hell, closer in I’ve taught others to do that so you’ve made a really smart decision. Now let’s get the borders and rules sorted.”

  “That’s another thing settled, your rules stand on your territory.” Gofannon didn’t sound too bothered about that while Kabir tried not to outright laugh at the Geeks. “Now the posing is over let’s get the maps out and talk properly. Which house, Soldier Boy?”

  “Beer, table and chairs in there, as promised. Just us four.”

  “Yes, the rest can stay out here and be polite.” Cadillac looked at Hawkins, definitely tweaking him. “Polite will be cheaper. Einstein can compare fines with Bugatti.”

  A bruising half hour of debate later Harold actually had a larger territory, because of how the roads ran. Each border now ran along a succession of roads, and the gaps between the territories were gone. Better yet, if any one gang attacked any of the others, the other two would join in and slap them down. Harold hoped self-interest would ensure that really happened.

  The gangs would all have a clear run up to the bypass to allow their people to use it for shopping. Harold didn’t think most of them would do that, but agreed to the actual roadway being neutral territory. Being near the road onto the bypass also meant that Orchard Close would get a steady trickle of refugees turning up, and now there would be rules about those. All four of them agreed they wouldn’t accept refugees from the other three gangs. Runners, as they were referred to.

  The neutral road also meant Orchard Close would have visitors from all three gangs to buy beer at least. After some more enquiries, Harold had the impression that skills outside of fighting were in short supply elsewhere. The four of them started discussing safeguards for plumber and electrician visits. “I’ll want one of your top people as the hostage for a plumber.”