“Because these men who are going to take up residence in that Trust Tower have the old law behind them. Documents that prove that they own it all. Verified by those who came before. Paid by coin of the realm that fell.” He sighed. “And more, they have the force of arms to back them up. That’s the worst of it. These men they’ve brought along are professional soldiers.”
“We can fight them. We outnumber them.” They had begun walking again. Overhead, the sun continued to shine, the sky was still clear and blue, and air was blowing cool and clean.
“No. These men are cold and efficient, utterly ruthless. And they’re devoted to their masters. They’re going to be subservient to the new ruling class, but they’re going to be high above people like you.”
Cutter felt his heart skip. He stopped and stared hard at Dale.
“And what about you? Which one are you?”
“We talked about this, Ron. I’m one of them. This is why they trust me. This is why I’m going to be able to do what needs to be done, but only if you help me the way I asked you to help me.”
“That’s something I don’t quite understand. Are you like them? Were you a billionaire? Dealing in stocks and land and oil and insurance?”
The Colonel laughed. Far ahead of the two, Jean and Oliver were pulling away. “No. Oh, I was wealthy, by most standards. But compared to this lot I was working class. My millions wouldn’t have bought the houses some of those people owned. But what I do have is title.”
“Title? You mean…your lordship?”
Dale nodded. “That’s right. The rest of them are all dead. As far as we know. Queen. Princes. Dukes. Duchesses. Near as we can tell the lot of them perished in the worst of it. One way or the other. I’m the top of the heap, they say. And as close as I’ve been able to figure things, I really do have dibs on a vast territory.” He laughed. “As if I’d ever be able to reclaim it.
“But I let them think that I believe them when they say I’m entitled.” He moved on then, taking Ron’s arm and nudging him forward. “So. What we discussed. It’s all going to happen fast, and I can’t do it alone. And I chose you, because I can’t trust anyone else to follow through.”
They were closing in on Ron’s building, his final redoubt. “It has to be me. I understand. You picked me out of the bunch because I don’t trust organization. I’m a loner. Well…I was until Jean and Oliver came along.”
“I look upon that as strength,” the Colonel admitted. “You don’t believe in lies, but you are not without compassion. You are an individual the way everyone else I know is not. If I were to go to someone at the hospital with what I plan, they would balk. Or they would go straight to these new masters and tell them everything. And I’d last maybe ten minutes.”
“I know,” Ron said. “It has to be me. Because I’m out here, at the edge of everything. Part of it and not part of it. Friendly and not quite trusted. A citizen but not a soldier.”
They stopped.
“That’s right, Mr. Cutter. That’s exactly right.”
Dale reached into his pocket and handed the device to him. It was small, bagged and weighing less than a pound.
“The battery is not in it. Just insert the battery tomorrow. We wouldn’t want the signal to go out before everything was in place. Tomorrow at ten a.m. they will arrive. What you would once have called ‘the two percent’. The richest of the rich. The most powerful who live. I’ve been making sure that the Trust Tower would be suitable for them when they got here, and I did that.
“But I also made sure that it would be specifically ready for them. As you know, I was trained a sapper in Her Majesty’s Army. If it can be blown to smithereens, I know how to do it. And I have spent the past year seeing to it that the Trust Tower will go down into a pile of smoky rubble at noon tomorrow.” He stared hard into Ron’s face. There was no smile there. “That is, if you do your part. All you have to do is push that button.” He nodded to the thing in the bag that he’d handed over the Cutter.
“Will you do it?”
There was silence. They could hear the wind blowing.
“If you do not, I swear to you that slavery is waiting. Worse than the workday slavery you faced in the past. It’s all going back to something feudal. This is something new. Maybe something far worse.”
Ron thought of those professional soldiers standing atop that APC, drooling over his wife, hooting and thinking of what they would like to do to her. He’d be outnumbered, outgunned, and at their mercy.
“I’ll do it,” he said.
“Tomorrow. Noon. You have to be less than a block away. If I were you, I’d make sure that Oliver and Jean are at a safe distance, waiting for you in a secure location.”
Cutter nodded. The Colonel nodded back, turned on his heel, and marched back toward the Tower.
**
Alone, in the little blockhouse on the rooftop, Ron sat with his family and told them what was going on. He hid nothing and informed them of everything.
“What about the others?” Oliver asked. “The school. All of those kids. Their parents.” Childhood had been steadily creeping back into the boy’s personality and it was rising to the top.
“We can’t help them,” Ron said. “When the Colonel and I do what has to be done… Well, then things will settle down. None of these people are weak, son. None of them would be around now unless they were strong and resilient.”
“But if the soldiers are so bad, they’ll take advantage. You said that the soldiers will still be here…after.” The boy was confused.
“The soldiers will still be here, yes. Soldiers were here before and they’re here now, and they’ll be here probably forever.” Ron put his arm around Oliver’s shoulders and drew him close. “But we’re all going to leave and we won’t be a part of this anymore. Maybe…maybe we can come back some day. It’s hard to say.” He sighed. “I don’t want to leave this place any more than you do. It’s home.” He looked up at the ceiling, at the walls, the shelves of books, the kitchen. He thought of how much time and effort he had plowed into this place. “I’ll miss it,” he admitted. “But we can’t stay here.”
Oliver sat and said nothing. But they could see the confusion in his eyes.
“Ron is right,” Jean told him. She sat on his left, and ran her fingers through his hair. “I know you didn’t notice the way I did. But these men are bad news for us. They’re going to tell us what to do, and force us to do things that we don’t want. They’ll end up hurting us all. Your father. Me. And you.”
No one said anything. There was just the silence around them and the low light of battery-powered bulbs casting a dim yellow glow upon them.
“I believe you,” the boy finally said. “We have to stick together.” He tensed, thinking of the future. “Where will we go?”
“I’m not sure,” Ron admitted. “But we’ll figure it out. We always do.”
**
Before daylight, Ron was on his way. As he had suspected there were soldiers on the streets. Both on foot and in Hummers that cruised past from time to time. The Colonel’s crews had already been at work and most of the zombie corpses had been gathered up and taken to deep pits where they would be burned. Alone, Cutter slipped silently through the darkness, hoping that he was not being targeted through some sniper’s night scope.
He and the Colonel had discussed this. He would not be considered much out of the ordinary. Everyone carried weapons. Everyone moved carefully and in a measured way through the world. All he had to do was find a good spot and wait for noon.
Earlier, he had already seen to it that Oliver and Jean were in the garage. They had finished loading the SUV, stocking it with the things they would need to get them out of the city and with the basics that would carry them through to wherever they ended up. All that mattered for Ron was survival and the safety of his family.
Cutter stayed close to the buildings and crept as quietly as possible through alleys and past old loading docks and abandoned doorways. Once, he heard th
e groan of a deader, but did not pause to seek it out and eliminate it. He needed to find one special place and he knew where it would be, where the Colonel had suggested.
The door opened easily when he used the familiar code to unlock it. The Colonel kept it simple and easy to remember, using it only because zombies couldn’t think even on those simple terms. Ron was reminded of the old safe houses he had kept, leaving them for others to be able to use if they found themselves in desperate straits. He slipped into the building and closed the door behind him. The dark swallowed him.
He took a couple of steps up the stairway beyond the door, and stopped. There were voices, coming from outside the building. Had someone been following him? Would they also use the code to enter? Cutter pulled his .45 and hustled up the stairs, aiming the pistol at the doorway, or where he supposed it to be in the vast oblong of black in which he was pitted.
Cutter could hear two voices through the steel barrier. Muffled but distinct. They were marching toward it from the street, passing by. He could even hear their footsteps on the gravel, crushing grit beneath their soles. He gripped the pistol and waited.
The voices went on, became dim, and then vanished.
He let out a sigh of relief, climbed up to the next level of the stairwell and decided to use his LED penlight. Flipping it on, he aimed the tight little beam at the stairs and at the doorway to his right. He was alone with the darkness. Firing the light upwards, he surveyed the stairs, spotted no threat, and continued to climb. At the seventh level, he came to a door and pushed it open, emerging into a hallway.
Unlike the Trust Tower, this office building had been left to languish, to suffer under the seeking fingers of humidity and temperature extremes; of dissolution and rot. The stench came to him of rotting wood and moldy carpet, of buckled paneling and soggy laminate. There was nothing, he had found, that could resist the constant onslaught of moisture. He stood and waited, breathing softly. The deaders were everywhere. Sometimes he knew they could sit motionlessly for weeks—maybe months—and move into murderous action, breathlessly attacking you at the first offer of opportunity. You could never be sure, and you could never feel safe.
After a moment, he stabbed the light down the hallway. Nothing moved. Nothing made a sound. He took his first step down the corridor, his boot squelching in the soggy carpet. Cutter wondered how long these buildings would last. Once the water got in, it was just a matter of time before rust and rot and the weight of it all would pull the structures down. In a few more years, he had realized, most of these buildings would just be enormous death traps for anyone who ventured into them.
After a few minutes, Ron chose a door. He wouldn’t be able to use the penlight once he entered it. The room would be an office facing the Trust Tower and he knew that the folk who were getting ready to move in were careful to the point of paranoia. All kings were paranoid. He knew enough history to realize that fact, at least.
Carefully, he tested the door. It was unlocked. Ron knew that this building had been swept at least once, Dale and his crews having moved through it to clear it of the zombies who might have been there. But you just never knew. This was a moment when he’d just have to take his chances. He holstered his pistol and instead untied his trusty ball-peen hammer. When in doubt, bash its brains out. The door opened at his touch.
Ron stepped quickly in and shut the door behind him. There was an overturned desk almost directly in front of him and he ducked behind it. The Trust Tower was bright, many of its floors illuminated. Although the carpeted floor was damp, Ron had no choice to lie on it, feeling that dampness creeping through the fabric of his pants and shirt. But he was able to peer up and out of the window fogged with mildew and look directly across at the Tower. He could see men over there, walking down hallways over there. They were oblivious to his presence and arrogant in their security. The armed soldiers in their perfect uniforms marched along, pausing from time to time to converse, but moving past one another, tasked with serving their immediate masters.
Damn the lot of them, he thought.
With nothing to do now but wait, Ron relaxed. He sat motionlessly behind the flimsy cover of the desk and listened to the building being silent, wondering what exactly would happen once he powered up the little radio transmitter and pushed the button.
And he wondered if he’d be able to run fast enough to get out of the way.
**
Morning came. The sun rose above the horizon, painting the city of Charlotte with gold. The wind was cold and no longer hinted of winter, but promised it. This would be a cold one. The Lord smiled. Yes, soon the winters would return to the way they had once been. The days would be long and cold. Snows would fall where they had always fallen before the atmosphere had been pumped full of carbon. The glaciers would stop melting. Likely, they’d advance again, return to their former glory.
And humans would look up at night skies brilliant gleaming like jewels against an ebony cloth.
It all depended on him. On the last Lord of the British realm.
“To Hell with that bullshit,” he muttered.
“Sir?” one of the soldiers he brought along glanced his way.
“Oh, don’t mind me, Jennings. I’m just talking to myself.”
“Yes, sir,” the man said.
Dale smiled at him. The fellow had once been a soldier. Fifteen years or so before the shit hit the fan. He hoped to leave his folk at the foot of the building, watching the vehicle. And he hoped they’d get away, of course. But he’d never know that. Not if Cutter did his job. At that thought, the Colonel turned and looked around, wondering not only where his choice independent man was hiding, but if he was hiding at all. Maybe the fellow had decided at the last moment not to honor their agreement. He wouldn’t know that until precisely noon. He wondered if there would be time for tea, or even if these crude oafs who now thought of themselves as the rulers of the Earth would even have tea.
He looked down at his watch. They were supposed to arrive at exactly nine. It was two minute until.
The rumble of nearby motors told him that these people were, at least, punctual. He stood his ground and watched the new and smaller convoy cruise down the street, heading toward them. In due course it arrived, halting in front the building where some enterprising workers they’d sent the previous day had repaired the gaping hole torn in the building by the bull elephant.
A contingent of guards emerged from two Humvees and spread out. Then men with automatic weapons and fine body armor. The barrels of their rifles were at attention, fingers at the ready to repel any and all threats. There was a murmur of conversation among two of the men that Dale had grown to know over the months of conversations. Security men, good at their jobs—the new Praetorian Guard, he had long ago realized. Well, he’d see an end to that by the last hour of morning. You can’t have a Praetorian Guard with no one to protect.
Behind the cover of the military vehicles was the plush diesel bus. With a pneumatic hiss, the door opened wide and people began to emerge. There were fifty of them inside, the Colonel knew. Forty of them were important. The cream of the cream. The remains of those who had built the finest privileged class the world had yet known. They’d won the toss of Fate’s dice and now they had arrived to reap the big jackpot: Mother Earth.
The first person out was that clown with his pathetic comb-over. Dale stepped forward and offered his hand in greeting. The guards eyed him suspiciously, but they’d been assured that he was part of the elite and to be treated with respect, if not quite trust.
“Lord Dale,” the slimy fellow said, looking scrubbed and coifed and perfectly fine in a suit that had once cost more than most people made in a month of labor.
“Ronald. So good to see you in person after all of this time.” He offered his hand and felt the soft clutches of his pasty, pink digits.
“And so good to finally be able to thank you for all of your efforts. I know that it hasn’t been easy.” The Ronald turned and looked up at the building. “S
o,” he said. “I suppose we should all go in and survey our new home.” His face split into a white grin. “Lead the way,” the billionaire insisted.
This, Dale knew, was their weakness. Despite all that he had done for them, they remained suspicious of his intentions. As if he might steal the world out from under them. As if he might conspire to keep them from their righteous reward for being at the top of the food chain. If he was with them, in their sight, among their number, then they could trust him that far.
The idea of self-sacrifice was beyond their comprehension, Dale knew. And he’d use it now to destroy them.
The doorway to the lobby was open. Here, as everywhere they went, they were met with security. The soldiers who had arrived the day before were in place. Dale’s companion stopped and peered to their left.
“So, this is where that elephant came through? I can barely tell there had been any repairs made. Very impressive,” he said.
“Your men found glass to replace the damaged panels. I didn’t even know it was available and I’ve lived here for years.” He chuckled.
“Well, our people are resourceful. The best,” he added.
The others followed almost soundlessly. They talked among themselves, but not one of the elite had bothered to greet him. He knew that they didn’t even consider Ronald one of their numbers—that he was just a clown of modest wealth who had been in the right place at the right time when things had fallen down. So they used him now as a mouthpiece, allowing him to pretend he was one of them. In truth, the Colonel knew more of them by sight than the clown ever had. Such people were constantly in awe of royal titles and all who held them. Even lowly Lords who barely had enough cash to hold on to their ancestral homes and lands.
“By the way…where are those beasts, now?” One of the pampered ladies in the group had obviously been listening to them speak. “We won’t have to deal with anything like that, will we?”
“The last time we checked, they were well out of town and headed south,” the Colonel told her. This seemed to make her happy and she was quiet again.
The Coalition: Part III 2% Solution Of The Dead (COALITON OF THE LIVING Book 3) Page 11
