The Wastelanders

by K. S. Merbeth

  I flip over another card over and collect his when I win.

  “Can I ask you something else?” He continues shuffling his cards without looking at me. “Do you think Jedediah is a good man?”

  He pauses, his hand resting on a card. He taps one finger against it, considers for several long seconds.

  “Doesn’t matter,” he says, finally.

  “Hmm,” I say.

  “Hmm,” Tiny agrees, and we continue our game.

  At the end of the night, I find myself back in Jedediah’s room. I expected him to be at his party until dawn, but instead he slips in a few minutes after me, and flops facedown on the bed.

  “You’re not going to convince me you’re drunk,” I say. He laughs, the sound muffled by the bedding, and turns his head to face me.

  “So, you’re still here,” he says.

  “Yeah.”

  “For how long?”

  I shrug. He rolls over onto his side, propping his chin up with one hand.

  “Does this mean you’re back on my side?”

  “Was I ever on your side?” I ask, raising my eyebrows.

  “Sure you were. You saved my life more than a couple of times, I seem to remember.”

  I want to say That was different, but really, is it? If someone walked in right now and came at Jedediah with a knife, I have the feeling I’d still leap to defend him, even if I willed myself not to.

  I lean back against the headboard, sighing, well aware that I still haven’t answered his question.

  “You honestly believe that you’re going to make this place better,” I say.

  “I wouldn’t be doing this otherwise.”

  “And you honestly think you can pull it off.”

  He shrugs.

  “Nobody here can stand up to my crew,” he says. “They’re the best.” As usual, his confidence is at an absolutely ludicrous level. But this time, I believe he may be right. Jedediah has only a few dozen men and women at his disposal, but they’re the best of the best. Even if that raider army held together as a unified group—which they didn’t, in the end—I don’t think even they could have fought Jedediah’s crew. And who else could possibly stand up to him? “You still think I’m wrong,” he says, watching me think.

  “No,” I say, and am surprised at how confidently my answer comes out. “I think … I think you’re right. I think this place needs guidance. I think it needs a ruler.”

  His eyebrows rise in clear disbelief.

  “Well, this is an awfully convenient time for you to change your mind,” he says.

  “I’ve been thinking about it a lot,” I say. “About how you were with all the townies, and with the raiders, and with me …” I trail off, not sure how to put it into words. “You’re the kind of man that people can believe in.”

  As he searches my face, his eyebrows gradually lower.

  “Huh,” he says. “You really mean it.”

  In response, I reach over and squeeze his arm. The touch feels strange, almost taboo, after the events of the last few days, but I let it linger for several seconds before pulling back. Jed smiles at me, and contentedly curls up in bed, making no move to get closer to me.

  As he starts to snore, I grab the radio and slip out of the room.

  I stop in the hallway with it clutched tightly in my hands, listening for any approaching footsteps, but none come. It’s just me, and this radio. An awful lot of people listened to Saint’s broadcast not too long ago. I wonder how many wastelanders are still tuning in, waiting for news about him … or someone else like him.

  Me, a radio, and a decision I have to make.

  Jedediah Johnson is a liar, a shark, a tyrant, and certainly out of his damn mind. Yet still, people love him. Follow him. Trust him. Does he deserve that trust? Does he deserve the loyalty of men like Tiny, or women like me? I think it’s time to find out.

  I click the radio on and raise it to my mouth.

  XXVI

  It All Comes Tumbling Down

  The morning begins with a bang.

  Several bangs, actually, along with a very loud thud. My eyes fly open at the noise, but I remain still, staring at the ceiling. An explosion shakes the building, and some dust and bits of plaster rain down from the ceiling and onto the bed. Beside me, Jedediah finally sits up, clutching the blanket to his chest.

  “What?” he asks the air, not awake enough to form a complete sentence. When the air doesn’t answer, he scrambles out of bed. Feet still bare, hair sticking up in tufts, he crosses to the door and yanks it open, looking up and down the hallway outside. “Tiny?” he calls out.

  I sit up, but stay where I am. A burst of gunfire comes from outside, followed by a yelp from Jedediah, and another burst of gunfire. I scramble to my feet, rushing for the door—but a moment later, Tiny bursts inside and slams it closed behind him. Jedediah is clutched in his arms like a child’s toy, looking rattled but unharmed. Tiny sets him down, and he sways on his feet. He gathers himself after a moment, gives Tiny a cursory fist-bump, and turns to me.

  “People are here,” he says, rubbing at one of his eyes. “Angry people. Lots of angry people. Raiders, and townies, and … fuck. Everyone. All these westerners.” He crosses the room to the window, looks outside. When he turns back, his face is very pale and confused. “Why are so many angry people here?”

  “Broadcast,” Tiny says.

  “A broadcast?” Jedediah says, and seems to finally realize. “They heard I’m here, and taking over. They … shit. Shit. This isn’t how we do things. We’re supposed to take it slow. Divide and conquer. How did this happen?”

  Tiny says nothing, but his eyes quickly find the radio sitting on the dresser. Jedediah’s gaze follows, and pauses there. He opens his mouth, hesitates, and whirls to Tiny again. “Frank,” he says, his voice very serious. “Go make sure everyone is together. It’s gonna be a fight.”

  Without a word, Tiny is out the door, slamming it shut behind him and leaving us alone. Jedediah, meanwhile, rushes over to the bed and rummages under it. He grabs a bag I never saw him stash, and his shoes. I turn away from him and walk to the window. I can’t see anything from here, but I can hear the noise—a lot of gunshots, and a lot of yelling. I don’t need to see it to guess what’s happening. That broadcast I sent out last night must have reached a lot of people and pissed them all off, raiders and townies alike.

  “You called them here,” Jedediah says from behind me. I turn to find him staring at me with naked confusion and hurt on his face. “After everything you said yesterday?” He pauses, searching my face. “I didn’t think you were that good of a liar,” he says, sounding almost impressed. “Damn.”

  “It wasn’t a lie,” I say. I take a deep breath. Words aren’t my strong point, but I want to say this right. “I think the wastes need a leader. Whether you’re the right man or not, I’m not too sure, and I don’t think I’m the right person to choose anyway. So, I’m going to leave it up to you.” Jedediah stares at me wordlessly, and I continue after a brief pause. “If you deserve to rule the wastes, then prove it. No crew to do your dirty work, just you and your damn words. Start from scratch and make your way to the top again, if you can.”

  “How exactly am I supposed to do that with no crew?” he asks, searching my face.

  “Do what you’ve been doing,” I say. “Make people love you.” I grit my teeth, wrestling with the next words, but they tumble out of my mouth anyway. “You’re way too damn good at it. Don’t force your way in with a crew. You have to do this on your own. If you let the people choose for themselves, they might just choose you.”

  He scrutinizes my face. Whatever he finds there makes his expression soften. He opens his mouth, shuts it, opens it again—as if, for once, he’s the one struggling to find the right words to express himself. He takes a step toward me.

  “Clementine,” he says. “You should probably know—”

  At that moment, something huge slams into the door—once, and then again. We both turn toward it,
and Jed steps in front of me. A moment later, a man bursts through the door, ripping it off its hinges. He’s big, dark-skinned, scarred, and … familiar. He pauses, looking at us.

  “Oh,” Tank says. “It’s you two.”

  “Hi there,” Jedediah says, sounding as casual as ever, though I can see the tension in his body. I’m tense myself. Nobody was supposed to make it to this room so quickly. Now we’re trapped, and I’m unarmed and unprepared.

  But here’s Tank, and standing in the doorway is Kid and the rest of the crew.

  “Well, well,” Wolf says behind her, “if it isn’t our old friends.” He steps into the room, an assault rifle aimed at me—clearly prioritizing me as the threat. “You fucking piece-of-shit liars.”

  “Seriously? This is the guy?” Kid asks, jerking the barrel of her shotgun in Jed’s direction. She eyes him up and down, looking thoroughly unimpressed. “A lot smaller than Saint.”

  “And this scrawny fucker thinks he can come along and attempt the same damn thing right after we kill Saint,” Wolf says, shaking his head. “But you know what really pisses me off? This fucker had the gall to talk himself up in the third person while he was with us. What kind of crazy asshole—”

  “Yeah, he’s a crazy bastard,” I say, cutting him off. They all look at me, and I take a deep breath. I’d much rather fight my way out of this situation, but right now talking is my only option. “But maybe that’s exactly the kind of leader the wastelands need.”

  Wolf turns to me, surprised.

  “Wait,” he says. “Aren’t you the one who sent out that broadcast in the first place? Bringing everyone here to take this guy down?”

  “Yeah … well … it’s a complicated situation.”

  “Listen,” Jedediah says, and I relax. He’ll take charge now; he’ll convince them, like he convinced me. “I’m going to do things differently around here. I’m not going to be a second Saint—”

  Bang.

  I don’t even have time to react. My eyes stay on the raiders in the doorway, who mostly look as surprised as I am—aside from Kid, who has stumbled back a few steps from the recoil on her shotgun. Slowly, very slowly, I turn my eyes to Jed.

  I missed him stumbling back. I missed him hitting the floor. He’s sprawled there now, facedown, surrounded by a metric fuck-ton of blood. It’s pooled around him, splattered on the walls, on the bed. On me too, I realize, looking down at myself in stupefaction.

  “Kid,” Wolf is yelling, though it sounds very distant to my ears, “are you fucking serious? I told you we were gonna do it right this time. I had this whole fucking speech planned out—”

  I feel numb. Distant, like I’m watching this scene unfold in a dream, like I’m not really here. This can’t possibly be happening. This isn’t how things were supposed to be. Jed wasn’t supposed to die. I wish that I had a gun, that I could mow down each and every one of these raiders. I can vividly imagine it: slicing Tank’s throat, planting a bullet in Wolf’s forehead, ripping Kid limb from limb. If I only had a weapon—but I don’t. I can’t. And what would be the point?

  I guess I should’ve expected this. I’m the one who brought them here.

  I thought it was the right decision—to give Jed a chance to prove himself. I was so sure he could do it too. I thought I was giving a choice to myself, to him, to the people. Now, that choice has been snuffed out. Was it the right thing to do? Was it best for the wastes, or will people be better off with him in the ground? Jed could’ve almost certainly led the wastes to a new age … but would it have been an improvement? I’m not sure. We all know he was a good leader, but whether he was a good man, and whether that matters, is something I don’t think I’ll ever be sure of.

  Dolly watches me from across the room as the rest of her crew bickers. I meet her eyes for a moment. I picture myself walking over and knocking her out, taking her gun, killing each and every member of her crew while she watches. I could make her feel the way I feel—like some vital part of her was just ripped out of her and thrown away forever.

  I savor the mental image for a moment, and then walk past Dolly and into the hallway outside. Nobody stops me.

  XXVII

  Afterward

  A fight rages in the rest of the Queen’s mansion, westerners embroiled in a bloody tussle with Jedediah’s men. There are western raiders with their brutal weapons, townies with their makeshift tools, some who are difficult to tell apart but working together—mostly. I see five of them surrounding Eyepatch, who still manages to kill two men before finally going limp.

  I walk past the scene in a half daze, ignored by all. My mind keeps flashing back to that gunshot, to the sight of Jed’s body surrounded by blood. Somewhere inside of me is a violent rage, and a sickening sadness, but both are smothered by numbness. I walk, barely aware of the danger around me until a knife flies right past my face, hits the wall, and clatters to the floor.

  I stop, and my wits finally return, the sound of the fight wiping away my haze. I grab the knife and gut the man nearest me before he knows what hit him. It feels good, doing what I’m best at, and so I keep doing it, hacking and slashing my way through the fight, cutting down townies and western raiders and Jedediah’s crew members alike. For a while, it’s enough to keep me numb. I embrace the violence, lose myself in it.

  No rules, not anymore. They’ve gotten me nowhere.

  But gradually, the rush of it fades away and leaves behind … nothing. I pause over the body of my latest victim, breathing hard as I watch the life bleed out of the man. He was one of Jedediah’s men—I’m sure I’d know his name if I committed enough thought to it, but right now looking at his face just sickens me. I wipe my knife on my pants and step back. So now I do … what?

  I don’t know. I feel like all desire and purpose have drained out of me, so I turn to the next possible thing: logic. I can’t stay here. Step one is to get out of this bloodbath. And then … And then figure out what’s next, I guess.

  Of course, there are a few people who try to stop me on my way, mostly western raiders who are eager to fight regardless of the reason why. I take them out easily. Fighting feels mechanical, instinctual, mindless. As my body goes through the motions, my mind is still back in that room, staring at Jed’s body facedown on the floor.

  More than angry or sad, I am tired, and lost, and afraid to find out what comes next.

  It takes a familiar face to jolt me out of my haze again. An unexpected face, waiting around a corner: Cat, the poacher. The bounty hunter freezes, but I waste no time in holding my knife to her throat.

  “Wait,” she yells, before I can cut her open.

  Surprising both of us, I do. I’m not sure what initially gives me pause, but upon getting a better look at her, that pause stretches out further. She’s in bad shape—out of breath and covered in blood, and the wound on her leg seems to have reopened. Her face is ashen, and she sways on her feet.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” I ask, still itching to slice her throat, but holding myself back.

  “Looking for you,” she says. “And Jedediah.” I stare at her. “I know you’re with him now, and listen, I’ve seen the goddamn light or whatever too. I’m sick of these crazy-ass western wastes. I want Jedediah’s ass back on that throne, and my ass back in the east. That work for you?”

  “Jed is … Jedediah’s dead,” I say, my voice deadly calm. Letting any hint of emotion out could start a flood of it, and I can’t afford that right now.

  “Well, shit,” Cat says. “Fuck it all then. I just wanna get the fuck out of here.”

  I lower my knife.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Me too.”

  Regardless of everything that’s happened between us, I’m not eager to go back to being alone—especially not now, when I’m stranded in the middle of the torn-apart western wastes and surrounded by warring raiders. And as far as allies go, Cat seems like my best bet. At least she’s not a raider.

  “Thank fucking Jesus,” she says.

  “The c
losest exit is—”

  “Well, hold up, first we need to find Bird.”

  Of course, it has to be complicated. I sigh, already regretting my decision to be civil.

  “I didn’t realize I was signing up for a rescue mission,” I say.

  “Well, I’m not leaving her behind,” Cat snaps. I open my mouth, about to argue, ready to explain to her how impossible it will be for us to get out of here alive without the side mission to rescue her insane companion, but I stop myself. I would have done it for Jed, I realize.

  “Fine,” I say, mentally cursing at myself even as I agree. “I’ll find her. You wait outside.”

  “It’ll be faster if we both look.”

  “It’ll be slower if I have to rescue you too.”

  I can see that her pride wants her to argue, but she glances down at her injured leg and shuts her mouth. She nods curtly.

  “We have a spot where we were supposed to meet,” she says. “I’ll be waiting there.”

  I nod at her, and she leaves. More than anything, I want to follow her out, get myself free of this situation. But instead, I plunge back into the fray.

  I go to the place where I’d go in Bird’s position: the worst of the battle, the spots where the fighting is thickest. Filled with a renewed vigor, I punch and slash and shoot my way through the fight, picking up weapons when I can find them, using my fists when I can’t. It would be easy to let myself go here, to give myself over to violence, but purpose keeps me going. It helps me stay aware. Maybe that’s what I’ve been lacking, all this time.

  But my purpose proves a lot more difficult than I initially thought it would be. Bird isn’t anywhere to be found. I consider the problem in between taking out raiders and townies. Bird is tough, and dedicated to her partner. She would find her way to Cat if she could. And she should be able to. She may not be as good as me, but she’s still pretty damn good, and these westerners should be easy enough to take out. So if she can’t, that means she’s hurt. Or dead.

  For now, I have to ignore that second possibility. Instead I focus on the former idea. So maybe she’s hurt. If she’s hurt … then I’m looking in exactly the wrong kinds of places.