by T. K. Malone
“Command?”
“Just what I heard. Heard that the few who escaped were the lucky ones. Heard the psychos took over fairly quick. Hear you can hear the guards screaming from over a mile away.”
“Jesus…”
“Heard he won’t help. Heck, boy, the baddest always float to the top.”
“Any clue who’s in charge?” and Zac noticed Billy Flynn’s attention perk up.
“Haven’t heard that.”
“What about the army?”
“Not seen much of them. Heard a helicopter buzzing around down the valley, but it never strayed up here. More like it never made it.”
“When was that?”
“Just afore the nukes. Probably hunting for you and overstayed his welcome. I take it they didn’t just open the doors and let you out.”
“Hardly,” Billy Flynn grunted.
“Then that’s probably it. Whatever’s going on, it’s high time to circle your wagons, or whatever it is you circle nowadays, and start protecting the things you’ve got.” He flicked his smoke into the yard. “My guess is that you boys are in for a bloody time.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because it’s going to become a land of dogs and masters, and I can’t see you all barking no one’s tune.”
Zac tamped out his own smoke. Anarchy, low key apart from the prison, much as he’d expected. What he would have expected was more army. This was one big valley. Control could be grabbed just by taking over this little town, then nothing could come in or out.
“Why’re they staying holed up in that prison?” he wondered out loud.
“Probably because that’s what you’re going to need now. Before, you couldn’t get out—goes both ways. The psychos have got their castle, Zac, and if the army’s going to get them out, it’s gonna cost ’em dear.”
Zac nodded. “Maybe we could reason with them.”
“Doubt it,” Gerald muttered then gave a burst of laughter. “Rumor has it that either side of the road there’s a guard crucified on crossed timbers. Rumor has it that they’re naked, that their eyelids are slit, and that up until yesterday they were still alive.”
“Jesus,” whispered Spritzer, but Zac was looking at Billy, at a Billy who was now staring right back at him.
“Did anyone say which psycho’s in charge?”
“Oh, they did that, and your club should know him. Heard it was your old MC. Heard it was Cornelius Clay—The Drone Slayer.
12
Zac’s Story
Strike time: plus 3 days
Location: Black City Correctional
“Poor bastard’s still alive,” Loser whispered, looking through the telescopic sight of his rifle. “The one on the left—the one on the right’s as dead as a gridder in a burger bar.”
“Why a burger bar?” Noodle asked, crawling up to be level with Loser and Zac as they looked down through the last of the trees.
“Thought I told you to stay back on the trail with Billy and Spritzer.”
“Got bored…boss,” and he nudged Loser. “Give us a look.”
Loser let out a long sigh, but handed over the rifle. Noodle looked it up and down, whistling. At first he sat up, then switched to a kneeling position. “Not the kind of rifle normally seen in the hands of a club member, and not a bad vantage point—something you’re not telling us, Loser?” he said, looking down the valley through the scope. “What is it, three hundred yards?”
“Five-fifty-five.”
Noodle swung the rifle around. “Patrols on the walls, two in each tower. Gates are closed, pillboxes manned. Not bad organization for a couple of days. Jesus, Zac, we could use your old man out here.”
Zac punched Noodle on his shoulder, but laughed all the same. “He’d know exactly what to do, trouble is, there’s a few who’d pay a price.”
“Like those poor bastards,” and Noodle handed the rifle back. “Well, there’s no way we’re getting in there in a hurry, not without a small army.”
“Agreed, Loser you may as well put the screw out of his misery.”
Loser pulled a silencer out of his bag. “Don’t want to give away our position.”
Both Zac and Noodle gave him a curious look. Loser settled back down. The gun hardly jerked as it spat out a single round with barely a whisper. The man’s head sagged.
“Good sleep, man,” Loser muttered, and crawled away.
Zac scrambled up to the trail, Noodle by his side.
“Some shot for a biker; more a sniper’s type of shot, I’d say.”
“If you’ve got something to say, Noodle,” Loser shouted up, “say it.”
Noodle turned to Loser, his grin wider than the valley was broad. “You ex-army?” and he held his arms out, but Zac couldn’t tell whether it was as a challenge or a welcome.
Loser stopped. “You might want to be putting those hands up.”
Laughing, Noodle beckoned him forward. “Come on, then…” but Loser’s expression was set. Zac began to feel uneasy. He slowly raised his hands. “Noodle, do as the man says.”
“Wise choice,” came a voice from behind Zac. “Now, Sniper…Loser…whatever you want to call yourself, don’t think we’ve met, but if you don’t drop that beautiful weapon of yours, I’ll drop you. And Noodle—it was Noodle, wasn’t it? Best you do the same with your piece of crap.”
Noodle’s jaw dropped open. Zac turned.
Billy and Spritzer were lying face down on the trail, their hands zip tied behind their backs, blood staining Billy’s blonde hair. Either side of them, two men in orange jumpsuits were pointing their guns down at them. Behind, dead center, stood Gerald, his shotgun pointing straight at Zac. “I take it you’ve never fished, Zac, Zac Clay, but if you had, you’d know the basic principle. You dangle a bright, normally shiny thing right in front of your prey, and when they bite, you reel them in, bit by bit.”
“Gerald?” Zac felt confusion run through him.
“What? Can’t understand what an old git like me is doing in cahoots with your daddy, eh, boy?” He waved them forward with the gun. “You of all folk should know how it works. Everyone needs a smuggler to get them through the day, and us old folks, well, we’re near enough invisible, aren’t we Martha?”
“Sure are,” shouted Martha from behind Loser. “Now, get yer hands behind yer backs; you don’t want to be keeping Cornelius a-waitin' else he’ll get cross, and the Lord knows what a temper he gets into when he’s kept hanging around.” Loser lurched forward, tipping onto his stomach. Zac heard zip ties being fastened, then fell to his knees, turning to face Noodle.
“How in hell did we get caught by these two?”
Noodle smiled, his eyes crazed. “Don’t know, but I’m sure as hell looking forward to killing them,” but Martha brought the butt of her gun down on his head. Zac tensed and waited his turn, but nothing came his way.
“You think we’re going to mess up your head, Zac?” Martha said. “Nope, you’re just going to have to hoof it. These boys can stay up here. He wants to talk to you, Zac, and you alone.”
Pulling him up, she shoved the muzzle of her gun into his back and barked “Move”.
Billy Flynn, Loser, Spritzer, and Noodle lay still on the forest floor, their hands and feet tied. Zac had no doubt they’d wake with sore heads and equally sore attitudes. From the back of the truck in which he’d soon sat, he watched them dwindle into the distance behind it, diminishing into the emerald light slanting through the trees onto the brown of the dirt track.
One of the orange-clad convicts sat at his side, the other opposite and smiling, humorlessly. He had that perma-grin only the truly psychotic could master. His eyes, although almost shut, matched that grin, leaving no doubt in Zac’s mind that he was enjoying his newfound freedom, no doubt at all. Zac supposed there was always going to be winners and losers when it came to the end of civilization, and somehow it seemed inevitable that chance would spread opportunity without any care for prejudice.
Leaving the forested r
idge, the trail wound down through fallow fields and toward the road, offering the occasional glimpse of the jail, of its tall grey walls and its silver razor-wire fences glinting in the sunlight. It took up about half the valley’s floor, in a bend of the river, as though it had squeezed the river’s flow out of the way. Like Gerald had said, it was a castle. From the ridge it had looked no more than a flat mass of concrete, but from ground level it was clearly so much more.
A central block, of at least five floors plus, judging by the lines of its windows, the main part of the jail sat masterfully in the center of the beast, spanning half its width. Lower, less imposing flanks stepped down radiating from its base. As the truck turned onto the road that led up the to it, Zac had to crane his head past the convict beside him to get a better view of its solid surrounding boundary wall—like a huge, great, sea wall buttress fending off the might of a huge swell. Along its entire length, only a small black speck betrayed its entrance and so the sheer scale of those defenses. Zac took a deep breath, wondering if once inside he’d ever get to see the outside world again. Yet he couldn’t keep his eyes from it as its bulk progressively obscured the view, and until the truck finally slowed and drew to a halt between the crucified bodies. Gerald jumped down from the cab and into the back of the truck, shotgun in hand, finger on the trigger. He sat down opposite Zac.
“They’re mighty jumpy about security at the minute, understandably. This is a slice of freedom they don’t intend to give up easily.” He shifted to get comfortable. “You like the truck? When we were told you were on your way up,” he crowed, “we hid it in with the old farm stuff. Missed that, didn’t you? Ain’t got no farm. Cornelius said you were fixing to be a bit slow, even before he was captured.”
“What does he want?”
Gerald shrugged. “Martha’s the boss, not me. I prefer it that way. Eh? Much better.” He looked at the crucified body Loser had finished off. The shot had hit him right between the eyes. “Definitely army, that boy; definitely army.” Martha hooted twice, and they moved forward again. “Now, your old man—he’s got a bit grouchy since you lost contact. I’d treat him with kid gloves.”
“You met him?”
“Cornelius? Not me. Strictly a foot soldier, me. Martha fancies a bit more liberation—that’s what this will bring: liberation. Me, I haven’t been oppressed enough to cherish freedom like the chalice it’s s’posed to be. Martha, well, I guess living with me wasn’t quite the holiday she thought it was.” He chuckled at that. “Can’t think why.” Then his happy expression clouded over. “Now, these folk in here, Zac, they’re taking to freedom like a crow to a corpse. My advice: don’t cross ‘em,” and he leaned in, “not if you wanna live, that is.”
“I’ll bear that in mind,” Zac said. Grouchy? It had been what, fifteen years or thereabouts since he’d seen his father? and the only clue he now had to the man was that he was a bit grouchy. He remembered him being a big man, but then whose dad wasn’t, and he remembered he’d rarely smiled, but then few did in Christmas. It was hard outside Black City, unless you had something they wanted. Grain, ore, timber, any consumable could be ferried in under license, but that was controlled, profit margins monitored ruthlessly. No, his father had found another way, him and his club. They’d supplied what couldn’t be sold with a permit, what wasn’t allowed, and that had given his father the leeway he needed to carry on with his hobby. And up until a few days ago, that had been exactly what Zac’s club had continued to do, except their victims had chosen their own fate.
The truck carried them through an archway in the wall; Zac guessed it must have been all of twenty feet thick. After it, they came to a razor-wire, fenced-off walkway patrolled by dogs, then the watchtowers rose up from a muddy yard like masonry giants, ready to wreak vengeance on whoever dared taunt them. When they soon passed out of the sun and into cool shade, the truck finally stopped. The click of safeties being released greeted Zac. They may have their freedom, he thought, but they were still nervous, too nervous, and that made them dangerous. He slid off the back of the truck when instructed, hands still zip tied behind his back, and stood dead still beside it.
“Far as I go, Zac,” said Gerald. “No hard feelings, eh? Just doing what I’m told.”
“It’s a new world, old man; you gotta do what you think’s right.”
“Amen to that,” and he hopped into the cab. Martha had never bothered to get out.
There were six vics, two from the truck and four new ones. Five had shaved heads, but one had long black hair and an impressive beard. He stared at Zac for a while, until a smile cracked his face. “You see these around me, with their shorn hair?”
Zac nodded.
“They complied, they let their hair be cropped. Now,” and he ran his fingers through his own hair, “me? I wasn’t allowed anywhere near a pair of scissors, nor a razor, nor anything sharp, so mine just grew and grew. Why, Zac? Maybe you’re wondering why.” He about turned and walked off through an open doorway and into the building beyond. The vics waved their gun barrels at Zac, prompting him forward, no doubt nervous fingers on hair-triggers. Zac marched in after him. “So, come on,” said the long-haired man, slowing for Zac to catch up, “walk with me.”
They entered a long, grey corridor, a parade of doors on either side—part glazed—to what looked like offices. Here and there, smudges and smears of red decorated the walls, below which the nearly black stains of dried pools lay as a patchwork on the floor, all telling the tale of a violent takeover.
“Thing is,” long-hair said, “what do you do with all the bodies?” Looking around, he turned his palms up. “They’re going to start kicking up soon. Wesley, by the way; my name: Wesley Alexander. Wes, if you want.”
“You gotta yard?” Zac asked. “Bury them in that.”
“Bury them in that. Cornelius said you were slow. Yard’s only a foot deep before you get to concrete—they discouraged digging it up until a few days ago. No, what the true nutcases can’t eat, we’re going to have to drive on outside and bury proper. Now, we can’t do that with folk taking potshots from up in the valley—you understand that—so I’d be obliged if you’d stop.”
“Obliged?”
Wesley walked on. “Obliged, Zac; we’re criminals, not animals.”
“We just put the guard out of his misery.”
“Our guard, Zac, ours. Not yours. Not your place to interfere. Now, as to your father, he’s…” Wesley stopped at a set of elevator doors and pressed a button to one side. “He’s fairly—”
“Moody; I heard he was moody.”
Wesley shrugged. “Some say that. I prefer to think of him as a bear coming out of hibernation and stretching to welcome a new day—moody? We’re all a bit moody in the morning, Zac—but I’d have said ‘reflective’. Cornelius Clay is drawing on his experience to forge a new path.” The doors slid open with a whoosh, and as Zac hesitated to step forward, so his nerves rose in his stomach. It wasn’t so much fear as an age-old dread returning.
Cutting the zip tie binding Zac’s hands, Wesley stood back against the side of the elevator. “No funny business, you understand? Sure, you can beat on me if you wish, but I’d advise against it. One: I fight back and I fight dirty. Two: you don’t yet know what’s waiting for you at the end of this little ride, but there is a third and more important reason.”
“What’s that?”
“That? Now, why would I spoil the surprise when you’re so close to it?”
Zac held the man’s gaze for a moment before stepping into the elevator, the doors sliding silently together, hiding Wesley’s grin before the elevator ascended. It soon bumped to a halt, the doors reopening to reveal a small grey-walled lobby, a vacant reception desk sitting in front and corridors leading away to either side. He stepped out.
“The admin area—used to dread getting a call up here,” Wesley explained. “Two reasons you’d get one, either you’d done somethin’ wrong or they wanted you to finger someone who had—neither had a happy endin’.
”
He walked across the lobby and down one of the corridors, and Zac followed like a bemused dog. It fitted, he thought, as he saw an ornate wooden door at the end of the corridor, somehow in keeping with the memories he had of his father. He’d never been able to envision Cornelius Clay in a cell, never been able to see him trapped by four walls. His memories of his father were so much more: of a silhouette blocking out the sun, of a giant’s arms sweeping him up after a fall, of tender eyes looking down upon him. No, it was fitting that he was behind such a door.
“Has he changed?” Zac asked, pulling at Wesley’s arm, urging the man to stop, to give Zac some time to steel himself for the imminent meeting with his father.
Wesley smiled. “You mean: ‘Has he seen the light and repented?’ No, your father makes no apology for what he did to those gridders, and nor should he. The man is the man he’s always been, Zac. He’s a colossus, like a giant boulder in a rain-swollen river, where the feeble must flow around him. You were young when it all happened; you’ve no idea of his motives, no clue as to his intent, all you’ve ever had is the judgment of others to fall in with. Why didn’t you ever visit him, Zac?”
“I thought he was dead.”
“Was that so? In which case, those who knew he wasn’t chose not to tell you. Why d’you think that should be?”
Zac stared along the corridor, directly at the door, straining to see through it, to catch a glimpse of his father unawares, before any mask could be put in place.
“Because…” Zac said, bringing his eyes back to bear on Wesley. “Because he didn’t want me to see him like this.”
Wesley laughed—a chill, hollow laugh, and pulled Zac into his embrace before aiming him at the door. “Oh, Zac, like you’re that important,” and again he laughed. “It suited his plans—that was all. He reasoned you would take more responsibility if you thought him dead.”
