Circle of Wagons: The Gospel of Madness (Book 4 of 6) (The Gospel of Madness - (A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller Series))

by Georg Bruckmann

  She shouldn't have resisted. She had been warned.

  Where was her gun? He couldn't see it anywhere. The three of them turned away and went on.

  Did they want to leave her lying there?

  Just like that?

  No, they would certainly take care of the dead in daylight, and the weapon had certainly been taken away by the storm team. Yeah, that's how it had to be. He had to sneak past the body and it gave him goose bumps. He would stick to the left wall, so he could be reasonably sure that he would not come into contact with the dead if he followed the men further inside the building. Strictly speaking, it was better for him to set himself in motion right now, because the light that surrounded Mahler and his companions was already fading again. As he walked past the dead woman, he noticed that they hadn't said a word while they were looking at her corpse. Not a word of mourning, not an expression of helpless rage that one of their own had been killed.

  He thought it was strange. From the next landing he could see that the three ... wait ... had there been a noise?

  The echoes in the stairwell prevented his brain from assigning any direction to the soft sound. It had also only been very quiet and faded away the moment he thought he had perceived it. He stood still, held his breath and listened into the darkness.

  It did not repeat itself and further back, at the end of the corridor, his prey turned right. He remained motionless for a second, just to be certain, then he went on. Another second later the light in front of him was abruptly cut off and Robby could hear a door being closed. Suddenly blackness surrounded him. At first he was surprised by this circumstance, felt a tiny stab of primal fear, but then told himself that now that they had closed the door he could safely use his own flashlight.

  He grabbed it and flipped the switch. Yeah, that was better. The corridor had the same ugly design as the one on the ground floor. The walls were also painted yellow, and every few meters there were cupboards and lockers on the right and left. He let the ray of light glide over the small panels next to the doors. Principal's office. Teacher's room. WC. 5A. 5B across the corridor, on the other side. 5C. Break room. Geography teaching material. Projector room. 5D. He remembered his own school. Very similar.

  It was still about fifteen meters to the room at the end of the corridor where he had seen the three men disappear. He made sure that there was nothing on the floor between him and the door that he could accidentally knock against and thereby reveal his presence, then turned his flashlight off again and walked down the corridor, protected by the surrounding darkness.

  Light seeped under the door, and after a second his eyes had become so accustomed to the changed lighting conditions that he could at least see the diagrams of the cupboards and lockers.

  So far, so good.

  He heard muffled voices coming out of the classroom. A new voice, that of a woman, could be heard. Carefully Robby put his ear to the door. Damn it. Damn it. Again, he couldn't understand what was being said.

  Four it is. Must be about four in there.

  What was he supposed to do? Mahler most likely wouldn't come voluntarily. If this man had a sense of responsibility, he wouldn't have left Heilbronn in the first place, would he? If this man had a sense of responsibility, he would not have left the NPP in this condition. Then he would have known that few people were able to minimize the threat posed by the plant. That it was his duty at least to try. But he was here, had settled down in a school in some small town and pretended it was none of his business. As if he wasn't affected as much as anyone else. It was this attitude, this ignorance that was to blame for the fact that everything had come to this point. Robby felt anger rising inside him, anger at this man who had earned his living before the war by putting them all in danger, who - despite better knowledge - had helped to ensure that in a thousand years' time endless square kilometers would still be contaminated. That in a thousand years, people would still fall ill and die.

  Then he fought down his anger. He needed him alive. Alive and able to work. He couldn't be angry. He had to be smart now. Somehow he had to manage to catch Doctor Mahler alone.

  Should he wait?

  Where would these people go to follow nature´s call? Would they leave the classroom in which they had obviously settled? Had they stashed supplies in another room that they would fetch from there if they were hungry or thirsty?

  Robby decided to wait and see. His prisoners, the girl and the woman were halfway safe in the apartment opposite the school, even though they were not exactly comfortable.

  I'm sure they'd be able to hold out for a few more hours.

  He had closed the door, and no wandering around dog by chance would pose a danger to them. And no one else knew they were there. They were safe, yes.

  He walked a few meters back to one of the closets and hid behind it.

  ***

  Doctor Walter Mahler examined his friends. Well, he thought friends were too strong of a word. They were a community of convenience. The war and its aftermath had brought them together. He had known Reinhold longer than Linda and Roman. They were all in shock, and he probably was too. The attack had come so suddenly and unexpectedly - and above all, it had been so incredibly pointless. None of them could explain this level of armed violence. My goodness, they've had enough supplies. They would have been willing to give it up voluntarily, but the attackers in their vehicles had left them no choice. What did they want? Linda was still as white as a sheet. She had been close friends with Ivy. Ivy, whose body now lay in the stairwell and began to decompose slowly. Bastards. And why had they stolen the chemicals, but left them their supplies? Mahler just didn't understand it. They had chosen the school building because they had hoped to be able to build a community here, because they had hoped that over time more and more people would come, people like themselves, in search of a normal life, or at least one that was as normal as possible.

  A fresh start.

  It had come differently, although it had started quite well. At the best time about sixty people had lived here together. But then there was more and more friction. Frictions resulting in deaths. The community had disintegrated again, and more and more moved on and tried their luck elsewhere. Mahler had thought a lot about it, about the reason for it. A single reason hadn't been there. It was more like a critical mass had been reached. After exceeding them, the atmosphere in the school was visibly poisoned, and everything had gone down the drain. And now this. Of course, there had been robberies from time to time, but never from such a superiority. It had always been desperate people shortly before starvation who had wanted to make use of their food.

  Some they had had to kill or make them flee, but had also been able to calm some of them down and persuade them to stay. Roman was one of them. He lived here for about nine months. And now he was sitting here facing him and he was nervous. They all were, Mahler admitted to himself. Linda stood up and used a lighter to light the oil lamps distributed throughout the classroom. Then she went out to pee. When she had left the classroom, Roman grumbled:

  "I hope she doesn't see Ivy."

  "She already has. But we should have covered her up anyway," replied Reinhold, who had looked at his hands folded in his lap all the time. Mahler cleared his throat.

  "Yes, we should. But we still can."

  He got up and walked around the room. He stopped at a table. He cleared some plastic bottles of water and an old, cut-open tin can, which they sometimes used for cooking, from the table to the floor and pulled down the tablecloth with an energetic movement. He stalled it to Roman.

  "Would you do that, please? Tomorrow morning, we'll bury her together."

  Roman nodded, took the tablecloth and got up.

  "Sure thing."

  He went out and closed the door behind him. It slowly got warmer in the room, the oil lamps took care of that. Walter Mahler took off his jacket and dropped it carelessly to the ground. Reinhold looked up.

  "We should get used to carrying guns again, don't you think, Wa
lter?"

  "I don't know. Ivy had one, and what happened?"

  "Yeah, I see, but tell me, aren't you mad at these guys?"

  "Yes, very much so, but still... we're still alive. She's not."

  Reinhold stood up and went over to an old grayish backpack leaning against the wall. While he was digging around, he said:

  "I think I'll start again, though."

  He pulled out a small, short-barelled revolver, stuck it in the back of his waistband, and shortly afterwards brought out a slightly larger pistol and a handful of loose cartridges of various sizes.

  "Just to be safe, you know, Walter?"

  "Yes, of course I understand. You don't have to bother, I'm not trying to talk you out of it. But be careful with those things."

  While Reinhold set about sorting the cartridges apart and loading the two weapons, Doctor Mahler dropped himself heavily on a chair.

  Then he immediately jumped back up.

  "Say, shouldn't they be here by now?"

  "Maybe they're still talking outside? Linda was pretty upset. Think about it, maybe she's crying a little on Roman´s shoulder or something."

  "And there's every reason for it. Nevertheless...", Walter Mahler went over to Reinhold and took the revolver,

  "... let's have a look. Come on!

  "What's the matter with you? They sure don't come twice in a row. I know I voted for the guns, but..."

  "Remember what that guy yelled into that megaphone? We need this building, he said."

  "Yeah, but then they took off anyway, didn't they?"

  "Yeah, all right, I'll go alone."

  Walter Mahler moved towards the door. When his hand touched the handle, Reinhold relented.

  "No, all right, I'll go with you."

  He let the magazine slide into the handle of the pistol and loaded the gun. Then he grabbed his flashlight.

  "Well, let's do it then."

  The moment Walter Mahler opened the door to the outside, a man-sized, dark shadow rammed him. The force of the impact threw him and the shadow several meters into the room. Reinhold just stood there with his eyes ripped open in disbelief and stared. Mahler's revolver slipped over the ground out of range. The doctor himself had come to lie on his back and tried to get back on his feet with dizzying movements. The shadow was a man. A man with a sub-machine gun pointed at Reinhold. Burning hot, Reinhold realized that he was holding a weapon in his hands. He thought of Ivy in the stairwell. She, too, had had a gun. She was dead now. Killed by people she didn't know and never did anything bad to. From people like the one who was aiming at him.

  Anger. Fear. Ivy's destroyed head. All this fought in him as he tried to decide whether to use his weapon or not. Then a short burst of fire took the decision away from him and extinguished his consciousness.

  "No!" screamed Mahler.

  He reached out to his friend in a helpless gesture. Reinhold's legs broke away under him, his mouth opened, his eyes twisted in different directions, and his jaw opened and closed slowly as his hands slid over the red holes in his chest.

  Then he fell over.

  Walter Mahler hadn't quite got up at that moment, and when he saw Reinhold fall, all the tension disappeared from his body. All blood disappeared from his face and every thought of resistance from his brain. He just looked at the man with the sub-machine gun from his half-erect position.

  "Doctor Mahler? Doctor Mahler, stretch out your hands!"

  The strange man made a gesture with his gun. He now held it with one hand, while pulling an already plugged cable tie out of a bag with the others and holding it towards him.

  "Don't try any tricks, Mahler!"

  Doctor Walter Mahler did not try tricks. He was far too perplexed. When the man with the MP lashed the cable tie and then roughly pulled him to his feet, it was as if there was nothing but emptiness in his brain. But it wasn't a void. It was a deluge of impressions, fears, questions and emotions that raged in him in such a multitude that he could not grasp or order them.

  How did this guy know his name?

  What did he want from him?

  Why did he shoot Reinhold?

  His gaze fell on the pistol lying on the floor next to Reinhold's lifeless arm.

  That's why the intruder killed Reinhold.

  Fucking hell.

  What had befallen him?

  What about Roman and Linda?

  Were they dead too?

  "Come on. Come on. You go first."

  Mahler jerked as the man pushed him ahead into the corridor. Roman was lying on his stomach about twenty meters further down the stairs.

  Doctor Mahler had to use all the willpower he had left to prevent his legs from buckling as they approached Roman's motionless body. The son of a bitch behind him killed Roman, too. But why did he let him live if he wanted to kill them all?

  Oh, yeah, right, because he knew his name.

  And why didn't he hear the shots?

  Only when they had almost passed Roman did Dr. Mahler see that the man's wrists had also been tied with cable ties.

  You don't tie up dead people, do you?

  He was alive, Roman was still alive.

  Mahler's brain flooded with childlike joy.

  "Thank God," he whispered. He started gathering courage. When they reached the stairs and had passed Ivy's body, he had gathered enough to ask his kidnapper:

  "What about Linda? Is she still alive?"

  "Yes, she is. In one of the closets. I'm sorry about your friend, by the way. He gave me no choice, though."

  Walter Mahler slowly understood that the man behind him was not a faceless death-bringer, but a person like him.

  You could talk to a person, couldn't you?

  You could negotiate with a human being. A man could be killed. You could take revenge on a human being.

  "It ... nobody asked you to come here. Why are you doing this? Were you here yesterday? Did you... did you kill Ivy? Did you ..."

  "Shut up, Doctor Mahler. We need you, and that's why you're coming with me."

  "What? We? Who are we? I ... how can you dare to do that? Who are you, Sir? Do you think you're God?"

  The voice of the man behind him now sounded angry. Once again Walter Mahler felt how he was pushed forward.

  They had reached the schoolyard.

  "How I can dare? What did you do, fuckface? You've helped poison the planet and harm it forever, you asshole, and now you're going to help contain the damage a little. Go on now."

  "What? What are you talking about? I have done nothing of the sort, I ..."

  "You were the technical director in Heilbronn, weren't you?"

  "Yes, of course, but I've done the opposite of what you're saying here..."

  "I'm not arguing with you. You come with us and you'll help us. If you don't shut up, I'm gonna gag you, do you understand?"

  ***

  Wanda and Mariam watched from the window as Robby came out of the school with Doctor Mahler. They had begun to work on their shackles as soon as Robby had left them alone. It had taken a while, but they had made it. And after they had freed themselves, they waited.

  Nothing had happened for a long time, very long. Then shots were heard, shots from a sub-machine gun.

  "Shit!" Wanda had cursed quietly. "I hope Robby didn't kill that Mahler. I would have helped him if he'd asked."

  Mariam said nothing about it.

  She didn't really understand why all of this had suddenly become so important for Wanda. And why wasn't Wanda worried about Robby? But she didn't have to understand everything, did she?

  The two men had now crossed half the schoolyard.

  "Mariam, they'll be here soon. You go to the back."

  Wanda nodded towards the bathroom, and grabbed her gun.

  "Do you... do you want to kill him when he comes in?"

  "No, of course not. But I want to make sure we don't get tied up anymore. And scare him. Show him what I am capable of."

  Wanda smiled at Mariam.

  "No
body's gonna tie us both up and get away with it, you know?"

  Mariam did not smile back, but she understood very well what Wanda meant. She liked that.

  Wanda had just smiled, then a shot crashed from down at the school - and the smile froze on her face.

  Quickly she turned her head.

  Robby crawled across the floor.

  Mahler ran back towards the building again.