Dead Kelly (The Afterblight Chronicles)

by C. B. Harvey

  Bennett arched an eyebrow. “Shall I tell you who I think you are?”

  “I reckon you’re going to.”

  “There was a news story, probably seven or eight months back, some time before the Cull. A heist at Melbourne Airport. A gang of bikers attacked a plane with a bulldozer. They were after a haul of gold bullion, I think, that was about to be transported. The thing of it was, someone in the gang had tipped off the cops and they in their turn tipped off the media. The whole thing went wrong, and it was broadcast to the nation.”

  McGuire chuckled, “Aw, yeah, I think I remember that. Bad business. The bulldozer was a fucking stroke of genius, though.”

  “It was a complete and absolute massacre, as I recall.” Bennett’s eyes narrowed. “Of course, the media fucking loved it. They loved it even more when the ringleader scarpered into the Bush, because then they could carry on the story. For fucking months, while the coppers failed to find him.” He blinked hard each time he swore, as though the obscenities were somehow painful.

  “Reality TV. Can’t beat it.”

  “His name was Kelly McGuire. The ringleader.”

  “Clever bastard.”

  Bennett shook his head. “Stop jerkin’ me about, McGuire. I know it’s you. You were all over the TV and internet for months on end.”

  “I think the guy you’re thinking of is dead, actually.”

  “Yeah, well, you wouldn’t be the first to fake their death.”

  McGuire shook his head and sighed impatiently. “What d’you want from me, captain? Or is this what you mean by ‘torture’? Boring the fuckin’ arse off me?”

  Bennett sucked his teeth. “Listen to me, McGuire. The world you’ve stumbled back into has radically altered.”

  “So people keep telling me,” McGuire said.

  “But I have rather a lot of power in this new world, mate. Melbourne’s under martial law, in case you hadn’t guessed. In fact, the whole fuckin’ country is.”

  “You could have fooled me.” McGuire cast a meaningful glance toward the window. “I didn’t see much evidence of law out there.”

  Bennett shifted his stance, evidently eager to explain. “No, you see, that’s the thing. We’re gradually restoring order, but we need people like you. An experienced man. Someone who’s seen some stuff, who knows how to handle himself.”

  “You want me to enlist?” The grin was already creeping across McGuire’s face.

  Bennett nodded enthusiastically. “Why not? Our troops are a ragbag mix of bank tellers, school teachers, bricklayers. A few educated types, some middle classes, rather too many bogans for my liking, but you know, we’re all in this together. Hardly the ingredients for an efficient army, you might think, but we do okay. But if we had you, a real warrior, well, that would be marvellous. For one thing, morale would go through the roof, let me tell you.”

  McGuire viewed Bennett with a look of disbelief. “It’d be marvellous, would it? Really fuckin’ spiffing, what?” He cracked his neck from side to side, his arms still crossed, thoughtful. “But hang on a mo’, Blinky. If I’m who you say I am, then I’m a violent criminal. A murderer and an armed robber.”

  Bennett clicked his tongue. “Well, yes. But these are tough times, McGuire, really they are. I told you, I have power. I could exonerate you of all your crimes, as long as you promise to work for me.”

  McGuire shook his head, incredulous. “You’re off your fuckin’ trolley. You want me to join your tin-pot little army? Fuck me, things must be in a bad way.” He suddenly rose to his feet, his huge bulk bearing down on the gawky Bennett. The two armed guards readied their weapons, and Bennett waved his hand at them impatiently.

  McGuire regarded the guards witheringly, then returned his attention to Bennett. “Do you know who I fuckin’ am, Bennett? I mean, really? Do you know the things I’ve done? Do you know the details of my crimes?”

  Bennett looked up at the bigger man. “I’ve got a fair idea. That’s why I am asking you to join us,” he said with a small smile.

  McGuire continued to shake his head in disbelief, laughing and pacing the room. The guards exchanged uncertain glances, tightening their grips on their weapons. McGuire stopped suddenly, and stared directly at Bennett. “This has been very informative, captain. Thank you very much.”

  A look of confusion creased the captain’s features. “What do you mean?”

  “You’ll find out.”

  Bennett looked genuinely hurt. “Am I take it to mean you’re refusing my offer?”

  McGuire swivelled his head around, clicking the bones. “What do you think, dickwad?”

  Bennett nodded. “Okay.” He turned to his guards and announced, “This man is a looter and probably an arsonist. Take him outside and shoot him.” He leaned in to the male soldier and said in a stage whisper, “Make sure you have an audience.”

  The guards nodded, the man stepping forward to grab McGuire. “It’s okay,” said McGuire, raising his hands, then changing the movement into a punch. The male soldier fell backward into the woman, blood and cartilage exploding from his face, his momentum pulling both him and his comrade to the floor.

  McGuire dodged past the suddenly terrified-looking captain, making for the ill-fitting door. He stepped outside into a forest of gun barrels. The furore inside had clearly attracted some of Bennett’s more alert people.

  “Nice try,” said a relieved-looking Bennett, emerging behind him and clapping a hand on McGuire’s shoulder. The guards followed, the one McGuire had struck trying unsuccessfully to stem the flow of blood from his wrecked nose.

  A WIND HAD got up from nowhere. McGuire closed his eyes and felt the cool air on his face. When he opened them, it was to see a ring of desultory civilians—including some handcuffed prisoners who had travelled into the base alongside him in the lorry—and a similarly motley-looking gathering of soldiers, their pasty faces blinking in the severe sunshine. A few of the bystanders wore other kinds of uniform: a portly woman dressed in chef’s whites, a couple of mechanics, a man in medical fatigues. McGuire noticed that Bennett had emerged from his wooden cabin onto the decking outside. The captain sipped at a delicate porcelain cup of tea perched on a saucer, as though he’d goose-stepped right out of some colonial fucking photo.

  McGuire’s hands were once again bound, this time to a makeshift wooden pole. A soldier—the flabby sergeant from earlier—stepped forward to blindfold him, but McGuire dodged his head out of the way. The man shrugged and stepped back.

  The two guards who had led him away from Bennett’s wooden cabin had been joined by another three soldiers, also equipped with submachine guns. The soldier whose nose McGuire had broken—a bizarre-looking, hastily applied bandage now obscuring much of his face—seemed to be particularly relishing his role in the firing squad. The sergeant stood to one side, a look of resignation etched into his features.

  “Take aim,” he intoned half-heartedly.

  The soldiers inexpertly raised their weapons, their guns buffeted by the wind. McGuire half-wondered whether they would actually hit their target, even from this close range. The idea of being repeatedly wounded but not killed did not appeal to him. He looked down, his fingers working frantically to pull apart the inept knots around his wrists.

  A burst of rapid gunfire made McGuire look up, expecting to see one of the soldiers holding a smoking weapon, but the firing squad were looking to one another in alarm. A second and a third burst of gunfire rang out, followed by a sustained burst of machine gun fire. The portly woman in chef’s whites looked down in surprise at her chest, which had been ripped open like an unbuttoned tunic, and collapsed backward in a juddering, ungainly heap of exposed innards. Suddenly the firing squad and the ring of bystanders were scattering in terror. Bennett’s cup and saucer toppled from his hands.

  The compound was under attack.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THEY NEVER TELL you this about shrapnel, reflected McGuire, as he dropped to the ground, shielding his face with his arms. Shrapnel i
sn’t just spinning fragments of glass or metal or brick or wood, though there was plenty of that. It isn’t just bits of shells or grenades or bullets, though they’re in there too. On the contrary; it’s bits of people, humans turned inside out, wrenched apart or atomised and flung about at speed. That and wedding rings. Wedding rings kill a fuck of a lot of people in battle.

  Once the mass of spinning debris had finished cascading down on him, he pulled himself to his feet. A whizzing noise filled the air and one of the parked lorries exploded, flinging out another wave of twisted, flaming debris, thankfully some way distant. A second mortar erupted in the midst of a squat-looking building that was being used as a canteen, tearing through the roof and sending the windows billowing outwards. Soldiers, civilian workers and prisoners scattered in terror, some clutching burned and bloody injuries, many screaming. The injured sat or lay curled up, sobbing, or trembling and silent in pools of blood.

  The soldier whose nose McGuire had smashed rounded on him, seeing his opportunity to execute the prisoner slipping away. McGuire had used the distraction to finally loose his bonds and was already coming to meet the man. He grabbed the barrel of the soldier’s gun and pushed it under his chin just as the man pulled the trigger. The top of the man’s head erupted in a spout of scarlet, and McGuire pushed the gushing body aside.

  “You’ve got visitors,” he said as he pushed past Bennett into the wooden hut, crunching over the remnants of the delicate porcelain cup and saucer. The captain was barking orders, his voice hoarse, desperately trying to corral his troops into ordered lines of defence.

  McGuire reappeared moments later, clutching his assault rifle and backpack. Bennett whirled around, bringing up his pistol, but before he could loose a bullet McGuire had flipped his rifle butt into the captain’s face, sending him crashing to the ground. McGuire dropped to a crouch beside the moaning figure, flipping open his backpack and pulling out Ned Kelly’s armour. Of course he could have killed Blinky Bill, but somehow he felt he needed an audience for what was about to happen. Bennett watched with dazed incredulity, his puppyish face running with blood, as McGuire proceeded to strap the metal shoulders, back plate and breastplate to his body. Finally he lowered the iron helmet over his head, shifting it so that he could see properly, and turned toward the battle. He would leave Bennett to bear witness.

  McGuire marched through the confusion, assault rifle at the ready. A grenade exploded nearby, flinging out a further wave of shrapnel. This time he walked through it, the debris bouncing harmlessly off his armour. The military largely ignored him, intent on repelling the attackers. Only occasionally did one of Bennett’s soldiers catch sight of him, recoiling in amazement or horror. Inside the helmet, McGuire smiled to himself; he could have been Ned Kelly’s ghost, as far as any of them knew.

  McGuire passed a group of soldiers clustered behind one of the dormant Humvees, struggling to get a bead on their assailants. The same could not be said of the attackers, who seemed able to pick them off with impunity and impressive accuracy. As McGuire passed, one of the soldiers spun around, much of her shoulder missing. McGuire saw the perpetrator, a wiry-looking kid sporting an epic facial scar, swinging his sniper rifle and sprinting to a different vantage point.

  “The fuckers are headed for the food store!” yelled one of Bennett’s soldiers. McGuire watched as a squad of quad-bikes bounced across the compound en route for an anonymous red-bricked building, engines shrieking. The quad-bikes received covering fire from the groups advancing on foot, some with mortars hoist on their shoulders. McGuire observed that the attackers seemed considerably more disciplined than the ‘professionals’ defending the compound.

  A familiar grinding noise rose above the cacophony. McGuire whirled around to see the tank from earlier coming to sluggish life, its turret swivelling toward the quad-bikes. The tank gun erupted, the recoil sending the vehicle lurching backward, and one of the quad-bikes was flung into the air, crashing down on one of its fellows in a miasma of twisted, burning metal. The attackers on foot launched a furious barrage against the Abrams, but their efforts were largely wasted as the bullets and grenades scudded harmlessly off its metal skin. Meanwhile the troops defending the compound took heart and renewed their counter attack, breaking from cover to launch rocket-propelled grenades that sang and zipped through the air into the midst of their assailants.

  McGuire had dropped behind a pile of rubble. The front gates were wide open; presumably the attackers had either stolen a military vehicle and used that to gain access, or simply waited for a genuine army vehicle to enter and followed it. That’d teach the soldier boys to be a bit more careful in future. Either way, this was clearly McGuire’s escape route. But it wasn’t time to leave the party yet. From his vantage point he could see the twisted body of one of the fighters who’d broken into the compound. McGuire dodged out from cover and rolled beside the figure, and then turned the man over. Half his head was missing, but McGuire ignored that and began to remove the homemade belt of hand-grenades from around the dead man’s waist. As he fumbled the belt free, he noticed that the man’s upper torso and part of his right shoulder and lower neck were adorned with an extraordinarily intricate tattoo, like the scales of a lizard.

  The belt released, McGuire scrabbled upright. The air was rife with the smell of cordite and drifting smoke. Keeping low, McGuire dodged from cover to cover, ducking behind industrial-sized refuse bins, overturned vehicles, even piles of bodies as necessary. Eventually he’d executed a tight arc around the back of the slow-moving tank. Judging his moment, he broke cover, running to scrabble up the machine’s rear, bullets bouncing around him as Bennett’s troops realised what he was doing. McGuire turned and let off a few blasts from his rifle, then pulled himself up onto the vehicle’s turret and wrenched up the hatch.

  He ripped one of the pins from the hand-grenades and dropped the entire belt into the hatch then leapt, with all his might. As McGuire fell to the ground and rolled for cover, he heard the first of a rapid succession of dull crumps and saw the tank shuddering ferociously, as though it had swallowed something untoward, which it had. When he looked again, it had come to an abrupt halt, and smoke was belching from the open hatch. Someone was screaming.

  Bennett’s furious soldiers were bearing down on him now, gunfire cracking the ground all around him, occasional pieces of debris pinging off his armour. As he struggled to steady his weapon, a searing pain coursed through his shoulder and down his arm, the cost of his leap from the tank. He was vaguely aware of a buzzing approaching, like that of a gigantic insect.

  “Come on!” yelled a voice close by, strong hands grabbing him by the arms and dragging him upright and into a seat.

  McGuire looked up dazedly to see that he’d been pulled aboard the rear of one of the quad-bikes. “Hold tight!” bellowed a female voice. McGuire wrapped his huge hands around the bike’s frame as it shrieked into life and leapt forward, bouncing across the compound toward the gateway. The driver let rip with a machine gun, tearing into the soldiers bearing down on their position.

  He could see the rest of the quad-bike squad roaring after them, some of them carrying pillion passengers shooting at the advancing soldiers. One of the quad-bikes was suddenly ripped apart by something, probably a bazooka, the machine tumbling in a chaos of flames and metal, the rider and passenger crushed in the bike’s unstoppable momentum. McGuire could see the soldier carrying the bazooka readying for another shot. Wincing from his dislocated shoulder, McGuire pulled his ACR into position and opened fire. The bazooka-wielding soldier’s chest erupted in a fountain of flesh and cartilage, her weapon spinning from her grasp.

  They shot out of the gates of the compound, skidding across the rubble-strewn street before coming to a lurching halt. The pause was momentary; once the rest of the squad caught her, McGuire’s driver twisted the accelerator and the quad-bike shot off again, the squad in chaotic pursuit.

  HE LIFTED THE iron helmet off his head, blinking away the sweat, appreciating the cool
breeze on his sweltering face and matted hair. He took in the sandstone building before him, its spire rendered in silhouette by the midday sun. The Cathedral’s gothic edifice was implacable, dominating, and untouched, which surprised him. Surely angry or reproachful believers would have wanted to take out their feelings on God’s House? After all, He had let them down somewhat. Someone was clearly looking out for it; perhaps the Lord Himself. Or perhaps the high walls fashioned around it from wrecked cars, purloined fences, bricks and barbed wire, guards patrolling the makeshift walls, had something to do with it.

  By now the noise of the quad-bike had subsided. “Thank you,” said McGuire’s saviour, pulling the motorcycle helmet from off her head. McGuire guessed Korean descent. Above the neckline of her singlet he noticed the same lizard-scale tattoo he’d seen on the dead man back at the compound.

  “For what?” replied McGuire warily.

  “For saving us from the tank.”

  McGuire smirked. “That. That was me saving myself. Don’t get too fuckin’ excited.”

  McGuire swayed unexpectedly and she moved to steady him. “Are you hurt? Your armour looks very old...”

  McGuire pushed her away. “The armour protected me.”

  “It’s your shoulder,” said the woman, concerned. “Let me—”

  “I can do this,” said McGuire determinedly. He straightened up, then smashed his armoured left shoulder with his right hand, popping his arm back into place. He gave a grunt of relief.

  By now the other quad-bikes were parking up, riders and passengers disembarking, including the wiry kid with the sniper rifle, who couldn’t have been more than fifteen. A burnt, dented mini-bus followed, presumably transporting the foot soldiers who’d provided support for the quad-bikers. People from inside the barricade—including, McGuire noted, children and teenagers—rushed to push a repurposed military lorry in front of the gap. He was intrigued to see that the vehicle looked to be equipped with flamethrowers. Probably one of the lorries they’d used to dispose of corpses, that the guy from the crashed Cessna had rambled about.