The cold steel against the back of my neck caused me to shiver and my breath to choke in my lungs. He pushed me hard as the sergeant took my gun from my coat and frisked my clothing. He threw my gun onto his desk as Cooper swiveled me clockwise. Two more bottles spun through the door. A cacophony of hoots followed as their contents spread more flame across the tiled floor and dull lime green walls. The smoke and heat in the reception grew in intensity, the black cloud drifting and thickening throughout the station.
Cooper stepped back, the gun in his hand, motioning me back to the cell. The front window caved in under the pressure from outside and a load of missiles hit the wall of the reception. Cooper flinched, but the gun remained firm at my back. Fires lined the outside of the police station. Youths danced to loud music, cheering the flames devouring the reception.
‘That’s my lot out there,’ I said. ‘They’re coming to get you.’
Cooper pushed me into the cell. A load more bottles shattered on the floor with flaming liquid splashing into the depth of the station. Fire consumed the reception, the chill wind feeding the flames and blowing the smoke into our faces. Rocks and slabs of concrete hit the building and smashed through the broken front window.
‘They’re going to string you guys up,’ I said.
The sergeant followed me to the cell. He gave me a push. I jumped over the thug spread-eagled on the floor. The gate slammed shut and the key turned with a loud click. Outside cheers and hoots increased in volume as another avalanche of objects hit the station and skittered across the floor. The sergeant waddled toward the back door with his jacket in hand. The troubled youth out front beat at the door, the wall and the broken front window. Cooper looked at his three recruits and shook his head before turning to face me, offering me his best sneer.
I had my release form in my hand. ‘So about that bag Marvin gave me, eh?’
The smoke shrouded his reaction. My cellmates looked at me for signs of leadership, but I didn’t do breaking out of cellblocks. I went to the sink and wet my clothes, face and hair holding my shirt to my face to filter the smoke from my lungs.
‘Fuck it, you haven’t got the bag. You can burn,’ Cooper said. His shadow ran from the building.
‘So now you believe me? That’s crazy,’ I called after him. The smoke forced me to the floor in search of fresh air to breathe. Flat cap groaned and eased to a squat. Buzz Cut held his phone in the smoke squinting at the numbers as he pressed buttons. The smoke consumed the building with the odd flicker of flame searching for fuel to devour.
I set the taps on the sink to run full bore and blocked the drain hoping the overflowing water would keep the flames away from the cell. Something exploded out front and a great wall of flame roared, its sheer strength sucking toward the front of the building. I doused my head in the sink trying to dampen the heat. My two cellmates sat at the back of the cell doubled over and hacking with each shallow breath. A shadow stumbled outside the cell hitting the sergeant’s desk and swearing. Objects fell to the floor as he fought the smoke, desperate to find a pocket of air, a door or an exit to escape the thickening cloud of noxious smoke. He fell to his knees, his hand grabbing at his throat, gasping coughing and retching.
I dropped to the floor, my mouth kissing the cement, sucking at the thin layer of oxygen. One of the men screamed for mercy, another man banged on the metal crying and gasping for air. The Project lads crawled on the floor coughing and wheezing as they sought clean air.
We couldn’t see. Smoke filled the room and the lights glowed eerie green as the emergency system kicked into action. The sink overflowing on top of my head, the water cool, but each gulp and inhalation seared my throat.
I crawled across to the bars, pushing the two lads out of my way. A small shadow appeared from the hallway rattling keys.
‘In here,’ I called out.
‘Mr. Jackman,’ a female voice called. A small shadow morphed from the dark, swirling smoke and a key turned in the lock. ‘Quickly.’
Wolf Girl bent to my cellmates and helped them to their feet, dragging them out of the cell and pushing them toward the rear exit.
‘Ben.’ Harry appeared at the gate.
The breeze from the back door ignited the flames but provided much-needed air. Harry helped me drag the unconscious man from the cell. With a foot in each hand we ran for the back door. I dropped the man on the dirt car park. Wolf Girl, Harry and I, with fresh air in our lungs, ran back inside to rescue the other two men.
Flames danced throughout the reception. The lads out front continued to cheer, but they wanted to burn a copper and Wolf Girl didn’t count. Flat Cap man stumbled out under his own steam, retching and falling in the dirt. We exited dragging the man and his broken clavicle by his feet and dumped him against the wall, laying him on his side, the small brick wall at his back. He groaned and fell against the unconscious fat sergeant.
I dropped to the ground with my back to the station. ‘What happened to him?’ I asked pointing at the sergeant.
‘He wouldn’t give up the keys.’ Wolf Girl replied.
She threw my backpack to me. ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I thought I’d lost it to the fire.’
‘It’s all part of Ostere’s finest giving back to the community,’ she said with a large crooked smile.
The fresh chill of the night air stung with each inhalation. Coughing and choking constituted breathing as we kept looking at each other and marveling at our lucky escape.
‘Someone needs to call an ambulance,’ the dark lad from the Projects said.
Wolf Girl, her pale face smudged with black, her dark hair wet to her scalp, lit up a cigarette.
‘Not enough smoke in your lungs?’ I said. She shrugged and took a long drag on the butt. ‘Thanks for your help.’
‘It’s what I do. I couldn’t let you die. Not after the performance you put in. I’ve been waiting a long time to see my sergeant put in his place. And that Cooper is a twat. Anyone’d think he ran that station, the way he swans in and out and he talks to me like he’s paying my wage. Do this, babe. Cup of tea, babe. I hate the prick.
‘Most prisoners I’d have let roast and laughed about it, but it seems to be my lot to keep saving your arse.’ She looked at the sergeant snorting at the dirt, the crippled Black Hat resting by his side. ‘I couldn’t have that fat idiot winning now, could I? And I need you to find that bag.’
‘And thank you, Harry,’ I said. ‘My little hero. When I mentioned help, I hoped you might ask your mother to bail me out, but inciting a riot worked fine, eh?
‘Will you be all right with these guys?’ I said to Wolf Girl.
‘I’m going home,’ she said. ‘I’ve got stuff to do.’ She flicked her butt at the comatose bodies. ‘They can rot.’
Chapter Twenty-Eight
In the land of the living Dead
The two lads from the Projects jogged away from the station, following the path of the wiry man in the flat black cap.
‘I’ll check out their pockets, like and see if they’re minted,’ Harry said.
He jumped on the first body, patting his trousers before moving onto his jacket. The man groaned when Harry rolled him over to filch his back pockets. He threw me a wedge of cash and a phone before attacking the man with the broken collar bone. Another wedge emerged and more phones. Harry stepped away, weighing the currency in his hand and pocketed the two phones.
‘What about the copper,’ he said.
‘Coppers never got nothing,’ I said. ‘The Man don’t pay them much, but then they are crooks, most of them. See what you can find.’
I trawled through the phone’s menu and found Cooper’s number. ‘I’ll hang onto this one,’ I said. ‘You never know when I might need to call my solicitor.’
Harry didn’t laugh at my weak joke. ‘What now, Ben?’
‘Fair question. Getting you back to your mother might be a start.’
‘I’d prefer to stay out with you.’
‘Yeah, but I’m not the man to be fa
cing your mum down if I don’t get you back. I’m looking for vengeance from the cow who stitched me up tonight. Your mum don’t get stuff like vengeance and she don’t need to know I’m off to see Linda. She’ll want you in bed, tucked up in pajamas and sucking your thumb, eh?’
‘Piss off, Ben. I don’t wear PJ’s.’
‘No, well aren’t you the man? Listen, you can’t come with me, Harry. I got to sort this girl out and I don’t think this bloke Cooper will let me alone anytime soon. This is bloke stuff and I don’t know where the girl lives, so I’ll be pissing in the dark all night.’
‘Weismann’s your man. He’s cool. I can introduce you.’
‘Why is Weismann my man? Who is Weismann?’
I made a cigarette and helped myself to a good glug of cognac, gargling to moisten the rough edges to my throat.
‘He runs the camps down by Pitts Ville. He looks out for us.’
‘How?’
Harry paced back and forth in the small car park. He kept looking to the front of the station where the Scarlet Scum caused their havoc. ‘Weismann makes sure we get a meal and there’s always a bed if we need one. And he gives us stuff like my bike. He’s all right is Weismann.’
‘How’s he going to know where Linda lives?’
‘I don’t know. But he will, like.’
Harry waved to someone at the front of the building.
Two kids on bikes swooped into the car park and skidded to a stop. Floppy hoods and scarves shrouded their faces. They threw two petrol bombs through the back door whooping in delight as the fluid ignited and a wave of flame ate at the police station corridor.
‘Come on Ben. We’ve got a lift.’
Our lift involved sitting on the bars of bikes low to the ground as children peddled like maniacs. We traveled busy roads where our dark shapes flitted across headlights and caused pandemonium with tires braking and squealing and horns shouting protests. We hit dirt tracks with a load of up and down and dodging potholes and splashing through muddy puddles. Our hell ended slap up against a sagging wooden fence.
The lads pushed us off their bikes and disappeared through a loose plank in the fence, passing the bikes over the top. I searched for my breath and readjusted my testicles so walking didn’t hurt. Bodies bent by grief and scarred by tragedy appeared out of the dark, licking dry cracked lips and rubbing stick-like fingers together. Trolleys full of crap dotted the lane with specters pushing the wobbling cages from one side of life to the other. A sad mewing noise grew in volume.
Harry grabbed me and pulled me through the gap in the fence.
‘You don’t want to be spending too much time out there,’ he said. ‘They’ll eat anything.’
He led me into a rag-tag tent city smelling of rotten eggs. Small fires burnt with communities of folk gathered around each little flame fighting against the chill of the night. Battered pots hung from hooks brewing water above hot coals. Mongrel hounds curled their emaciated frames close to the heat; their ears pricked and their growls following my progress through the canvas maze.
Tethered goats nibbled at gravel. Chickens pecked at clumps of dirt. Parked trolleys overflowed with plastic bottles and squashed cans, smashed televisions and ‘stuff,’ with pots and pans clinging to the sides. A gang of mangy cats hissed at a rat big enough to take on a dog. Vermin with bright eyes skulked in the shadows. A pack of dogs ran at me, yelping and barking, nipping at my ankles and running circles trying to round me up against a withered tree.
A terraced tenement of cardboard huts sat against the warped fence. Dark shadows hunched before a large fire covered by a bent and blackened metal grate. Rancid meat charred over the flames as they shared a flagon of yellow liquid.
Harry pointed to a shelter of stained canvas stretched over a load of bench seating. ‘Grab a seat and I’ll go find Weismann.’
I weaved through the paddock heading toward the large tent occupying the back left corner. A wooden sign with ‘mess hall’ burnt into its face suggested I might get a feed. I pushed a mosquito net aside and seated myself before a large television screen showing the latest news. The sound whispered, overruled by a soft classical tune coming from two speakers in the kitchen. Lamps hung from gnarled poles. Two girls dressed in rags, their hair covered by scarves worked at a wooden bench, chopping and dicing vegetables. A large pot sat on a barbeque griddle with the fragrant aroma of stewing meat and spices rising in a cloud of steam. A young lad fed the fire with rough chopped logs of wood.
Our troops still fought the good fight in alien worlds according to the news report. Casualties minimal, territory gained and right triumphing over wrong as usual.
‘What a crock of crap,’ I muttered. We’d been winning the war on terror for close on ten years. The army had become our biggest employer of the young and weapons manufacturing grew year on year. Our hospitals bulged, but the Man cuts their budgets. Meanwhile the wounded and the manic, the deranged and the crippled stalk our streets as returned heroes begging for a shekel.
Hark at me giving a damn. Bring me a soap box and rustle up a crowd. Street Boy cares is the newsflash and he’s looking for a barricade to defend. I think not. Jackie talks about revolution, but I don’t feel no wind a changing anytime soon in Ostere. Times were bad, just not bad enough, eh?
A news flash reported another child gone missing. The scout hat sat crooked on the child’s mop of blonde hair and his woggle hung low on the multi-colored scarf. The three-fingered salute added the polish to the image of cute. Tears fell as the mother pleaded for her child’s life.
My demented image filled the screen. My hair needed a cut and my eyes looked crazy. Tommy stood at my side the photo taken as we approached the church for Marvin’s funeral. The dark, grainy picture lacked clarity. Two images of the coppers killed at Tilly’s house replaced my sad photo with a toll free number to call should anyone want to see my sorry arse in prison. I took my flask from my pocket and drank to the fading news report.
Shit and bugger.
A man sitting behind me called out, his crooked bloodied finger pointing at the television. I turned and raised my flask and said ‘cheers.’
‘That you?’ he asked.
The inflection suggested a question, but his guttural slur intimated an accusation. His mottled, scarred skin suffered little red pustules across the cheeks. Tufts of gray growth dotted his skin. His thin greasy hair hung well below his shoulders. A long canvas coat dragged in the dirt beneath his seat.
‘No,’ I replied.
‘Looked like you.’
‘Well it’s not.’
I stood up, stooped back through the mosquito netting and warmed my hands by the burning barrel set between the mess hut and the toilet block.
My poxy-faced man approached, dragging his right leg behind him. He’d brought a plastic chair from the mess hall and flopped before me and smiled. Random blackened teeth complimented the gaps in his mouth.
‘I know you,’ he said. ‘I been watching you standing there with your snotty nose stuck up in the night not wanting to breathe our air. You always been the same. Just like when we was in school, wasn’t you? Don’t remember me do you, but we went to school together, me and you.’
I stepped backward not remembering the juvenile moment we shared behind the shelter sheds in our youth. ‘You got the wrong fella, eh?’ I said. I headed for a larger fire burning dead trees in the center of the compound.
‘Oi!’ he cried. ‘I went to school with this posh twat. Top of the class he was. Voted most likely to succeed and all of that preppy crap schools think we care about. But you didn’t care, did you? Your folks had money. Thought you was smart, didn’t you? Captain bloody marvelous of some prissy wank game, but you didn’t care. Not about nothing.’
He stood to face the audience forming in the shadows. ‘Always wanted to fight, didn’t you? But not for his bloody country like his dad.’
Saliva dribbled and spat from his mouth. ‘Over here everyone,’ he called out. ‘Here’s a classic produc
t of Ostere’s finest education. Brains, money and folks who gave a damn about his precious arse, but when his country demands he give something back, he flees.’
‘Piss off, you mongrel. I don’t see you out there fighting the Man’s war. Don’t see you offering your prissy bloody chest for target practice. What’s the Man ever done for you?’
‘Loser,’ he said. ‘Coward.’ He pulled his crusty canvas coat back to reveal an old army T-shirt with a big silver sphere and a line of colors at its top.
‘I did my time,’ he sneered. ‘You think I was born with this leg? I fought for my country.’ He turned to the bodies cringing in the dark. ‘A load of us were called and we answered.’
A chant of ‘coward’ rang throughout the block. Bodies emerged from cracks in the ground and random holes in the structure of the Camp’s fragile universe. Bodies shuffled behind Zimmer frames and others dragged crippled limbs. Women in rags with scraggy flea-ridden hair squawked abuse and pointed. Bent men struggled on bowed legs and nodded grizzled heads in agreement. Sticks and frames caught on tufts of turf and limbs became entangled. The living dead had risen, circling my sorry arse.
I turned, confident I could out walk my angry mob, to be confronted by a gang of children, not long out of nappies. They carried rocks and threw them at me with varying degrees of success.
‘Harry!’ I yelled into the night.
A rock struck me on the back. I turned to face my attacker and found a line of older children, mounted on low-slung pedal bikes shouting and pointing.
‘Coward.’
The word hung in the dark, the hollow chant carrying the length and width of the paddock. More people crawled from their hovels to witness my humiliation. Another rock crashed into my back. I pulled my knife from my trousers, the sharp steel glinting in the red of the fire. Children flanked me, a cheeky glint to their eyes, the rocks larger and uglier. I stepped back from their advance, but the undead closed off my escape. ‘Jesus,’ I muttered. ‘What is your problem? You guys want to protect this scrap of land. Get a life, eh?’
No More Heroes-#1 Dystopian Thriller Heroes Series Page 19
