Swan Song

by Robert R. McCammon

  “So what is it?” Roland asked. “Something about the drugs?”

  “No, nothing about that.” He smiled again, a fleeting smile. “I want to know about Colonel Macklin.” He leaned forward, and the chair squalled; he rested his forearms on the table and laced his thick fingers together. “I want to know ... what Macklin offers you that I can’t.”

  “What?”

  “Look around,” Kempka said. “Look what I’ve got here: food, drink, candy, guns, bullets—and power, Roland. What does Macklin have? A wretched little tent. And do you know what? That’s all he’ll ever have. I run this community, Roland. I guess you could say I’m the law, the mayor, the judge and the jury all rolled up into one! Right?” He glanced quickly at Lawry, and the other man said, “Right,” with the conviction of a ventriloquist’s dummy.

  “So what does Macklin do for you, Roland?” Kempka lifted his eyebrows. “Or should I ask what you do for him?”

  Roland almost told the Fat Man that Macklin was the King—shorn of his crown and kingdom now, but destined to return to power someday—and that he had pledged himself as a King’s Knight, but he figured Kempka was about as smart as a bug and wouldn’t understand the grand purpose of the game. So Roland said, “We travel together.”

  “And where are you going? To the same garbage dump Macklin is headed toward? No, I think you’re smarter than that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean ... that I have a large and comfortable trailer, Roland. I have a real bed.” He nodded toward a closed door. “It’s right through there. Would you like to see it?”

  It suddenly dawned on Roland what Freddie Kempka had been getting at. “No,” he said, his gut tightening. “I wouldn’t.”

  “Your friend can’t offer you what I can, Roland,” Kempka said in a silken voice. “He has no power. I have it all. Do you think I let you in here just because of the drugs? No. I want you, Roland. I want you here, with me.”

  Roland shook his head. Dark motes seemed to spin before his eyes, and his head felt heavy, as if he couldn’t balance it any longer on his neck.

  “You’re going to find that power rules this world.” Kempka’s voice sounded to Roland like a record played too fast. “It’s the only thing that’s worth a damn anymore. Not beauty, not love—nothing but power. And the man who has it can take anything he wants.”

  “Not me,” Roland said. The words felt like marbles rolling off his tongue. He thought he was about to puke, and there was a needles-and-pins sensation in his legs. The lamplight was hurting his eyes, and when he blinked it took an effort to lift his lids again. He looked down into the plastic glass he held, and he could see grainy things floating at the bottom. He tried to stand up, but his legs gave way and he fell to his knees on the floor. Someone was bending over him, and he felt the .45 being taken from his nerveless fingers. Too late, he tried to grasp it back, but Lawry was grinning and stepping out of reach.

  “I found a use for some of those drugs you brought me.” Now Kempka’s voice was slow and murky, an underwater slur. “I mashed up a few of those pills and made a nice little mixture. I hope you enjoy your trip.” And the Fat Man began to rise ponderously from his chair and stalk across the room toward Roland Croninger while Lawry went outside to smoke a cigarette.

  Roland shivered, though sweat was bursting out on his face, and scurried away from the man on his hands and knees. His brain was doing flip-flops, everything was lurching, speeding up and then slowing to a crawl. The whole trailer wobbled as Kempka went to the door and threw the latches. Roland squeezed himself into a corner like a trapped animal, and when he tried to shout for the King to help him his voice almost blew his eardrums out.

  “Now,” Kempka said, “we’ll get to know each other better, won’t we?”

  Macklin stood in cold water up to the middle of his thighs, the wind whipping into his face and wailing off beyond the encampment. His groin crawled, and his hand gripped the knife so hard his knuckles had gone bone-white. He looked at the infected wound, saw the dark swelling that he needed to probe with the knife’s gleaming tip. Oh, God, he thought; dear God, help me....

  “Discipline and control.” The Shadow Soldier was standing behind him. “That’s what makes a man, Jimmy boy.”

  My father’s voice, Macklin thought. God bless dear old Dad, and I hope the worms have riddled his bones.

  “Do it!” the Shadow Soldier commanded.

  Macklin lifted the knife, took aim, drew in a breath of frigid air and brought the point of the blade down, down, down into the festered swelling.

  The pain was so fierce, so white-hot, so all-consuming that it was almost pleasure.

  Macklin threw back his head and screamed, and as he screamed he dug the blade deeper into the infection, deeper still, and the tears were running down his face and he was on fire between pain and pleasure. He felt his right arm becoming lighter as the infection drained out of it. And as his scream went up into the night where the other screams had gone before his, Macklin threw himself forward into the salt water and immersed the wound.

  “Ah!” The Fat Man stopped a few feet from Roland and cocked his head toward the door. Kempka’s face was flushed, his eyes shining. The scream was just drifting away. “Listen to that music!” he said. “That’s the sound of somebody being reborn.” He began to unbuckle his belt and draw it through the many loops of his huge waistband.

  The images tumbling through Roland’s brain were a mixture of funhouse and haunted house. In his mind he was hacking at the wrist of the King’s right arm, and as the blade severed the hand a spray of blood-red flowers shot from the wound; a chorus line of mangled corpses in top hats and tuxedos kicked their way down the wrecked corridor of Earth House; he and the King were walking on a superhighway under a sullen scarlet sky, and the trees were made of bones and the lakes were steaming blood, and half-rotted remnants of human beings sped past in battered cars and tractor-trailer trucks; he was standing on a mountaintop as the gray clouds boiled above him. Below, armies fought with knives, rocks and broken bottles. A cold hand touched his shoulder and a voice whispered, “It can all be yours, Sir Roland.”

  He was afraid to turn his head and look at the thing that stood behind him, but he knew he must. The power of hideous hallucination forced his head around, and he stared into a pair of eyes that wore Army surplus goggles. The flesh of that face was mottled with brown, leprous growths, the lips all but eaten away to reveal misshapen, fanged teeth. The nose was flat, the nostrils wide and ravaged. The face was his own, but distorted, ugly, reeking evil and bloodlust. And from that face his own voice whispered, “It can all be yours, Sir Roland—and mine, too.”

  Towering over the boy, Freddie Kempka tossed his belt to the floor and began to shimmy out of his polyester trousers. His breathing sounded like the rumbling of a furnace.

  Roland blinked, squinted up at the Fat Man. The hallucinatory visions were tumbling madly away, but he could still hear the thing’s whisper. He was shaking, couldn’t stop. Another vision whirled up from his mind, and he was on the ground, trembling as Mike Armbruster towered over him, about to beat him to a bloody pulp as the other high school kids and football jocks shouted and jeered. He saw Mike Armbruster’s crooked grin, and Roland felt a surge of maniacal hatred more powerful than anything he’d ever known. Mike Armbruster had already beaten him once, had already kicked him and spat on him as he was sobbing in the dust—and now he wanted to do it all over again.

  But Roland knew he was far different—far stronger, far more cunning—than the little pansy-assed wimp who’d let himself be beaten until he’d peed in his pants. He was a King’s Knight now, and he’d seen the underside of Hell. He was about to show Mike Armbruster how a King’s Knight gets even.

  Kempka had one leg out of his pants. He was wearing red silk boxer shorts. The boy was staring up at him, eyes slitted behind those damned goggles, and now the boy began to make a deep, animalish sound down in his throat, a cross between a growl and an une
arthly moan.

  “Stop that,” Kempka told him. That noise gave him the creeps. The boy didn’t stop, and the awful sound was getting louder. “Stop it, you little bastard!” He saw the boy’s face changing, tightening into a mask of utter, brutal hatred, and the sight of it scared the shit out of Freddie Kempka. He realized that the mind-altering drugs were doing something to Roland Croninger that he hadn’t counted on. “Stop it!” he shouted, and he lifted his hand to slap Roland across the face.

  Roland leaped forward, and like a battering ram his head plowed into Kempka’s bulging stomach. The Fat Man cried out and fell backward, his arms windmilling. The trailer rocked back and forth, and before Kempka could recover, Roland plowed into him again with a force that sent Kempka crashing to the floor. Then the boy was all over him, punching and kicking and biting. Kempka shouted, “Lawry! Help me!” but even as he said it he remembered that he had double-bolted the door to keep the boy from escaping. Two fingers jabbed into his left eye and almost ripped it from the socket; a fist crunched into his nose, and Roland’s head came forward in a vicious butting blow that hit Kempka full in the mouth, split his lips and knocked two of his front teeth into his throat. “Help me!” he shrieked, his mouth full of blood. He hit Roland with a flailing forearm and swiped him off, then flopped over on his stomach and began to crawl toward that locked door. “Help me, Lawry!” he yelled through his cracked lips.

  Something went around Kempka’s throat and tightened, catching the blood in the Fat Man’s head and reddening his face like an overripe tomato. He realized, panic-stricken, that the lunatic boy was strangling him with his own belt.

  Roland rode on Kempka’s back like Ahab on the white whale. Kempka gagged, fighting to pry the belt loose. The blood pulsed in his head with a force that he feared would blow his eyeballs out. There was a hammering at the door, and Lawry’s voice shouted, “Mr. Kempka! What is it?”

  The Fat Man reared up, twisted his shuddering body and slammed Roland against the wall, but still the boy held on. Kempka’s lungs strained for air, and again he threw his body to the side. This time he heard the boy’s cry of pain, and the belt loosened. Kempka squalled like a hurt pig, scrabbling wildly toward the door. He reached up to release one of the latches—and a chair smashed him across the back, splintering and shooting agony up his spine. Then the boy was beating at him with a chair leg, hitting him in the head and face, and Kempka screamed, “He’s gone crazy! He’s gone crazy!”

  Lawry pounded at the door. “Let me in!”

  Kempka took a dazing blow to the forehead, felt blood running down his face, and he struck out blindly at Roland. His left fist connected, and he heard the breath whoosh out of the boy. Roland collapsed to his knees.

  Kempka wiped blood out of his eyes, reached up and tried to slide the first bolt back. There was blood on his fingers, and he couldn’t get a good grip. Lawry was pounding on the door, trying to force it open. “He’s crazy!” Kempka wailed. “He’s trying to kill me!”

  “Hey, you dumb fuck!” the boy snarled behind him.

  Kempka looked back and whined with terror.

  Roland had picked up one of the kerosene lamps that illuminated the trailer. He was grinning madly, his goggles streaked with blood. “Here you go, Mike!” he yelled, and he flung the lamp.

  It hit the Fat Man’s skull and shattered, dousing his face and chest with kerosene that rippled into flame, setting his beard, hair and the front of his sport shirt on fire. “Burnin’ me! Burnin’ me!” Kempka squalled, rolling and thrashing.

  The door shuddered as Lawry kicked it, but the Airstream trailer people had built it to be strong.

  As Kempka jitterbugged horizontally and Lawry kicked at the door, Roland turned his attention to the rack of rifles and the handguns on their hooks. He had not finished showing Mike Armbruster how a King’s Knight gets even. Oh, no ... not yet.

  He walked around the table and chose a beautiful .38 Special with a mother-of-pearl handle. He opened the cylinder and found three bullets inside. He smiled.

  On the floor, the Fat Man had beaten the fire out. His face was a mass of scorched flesh, burned hair and blisters, his eyes so swollen he could hardly see. But he could see the boy well enough, approaching him with the gun in his hand. The boy was smiling, and Kempka opened his mouth to scream, but a croak came out.

  Roland knelt in front of him. The boy’s face was covered with sweat, and a pulse beat at his temple. He cocked the .38 and held the barrel about three inches from Kempka’s skull.

  “Please,” Kempka begged. “Please ... Roland ... don’t ...”

  Roland’s smile was rigid, his eyes huge behind the goggles. He said, “Sir Roland. And don’t you forget it.”

  Lawry heard a shot. Then, about ten seconds later, there was a second shot. He gripped the boy’s automatic in his right hand and threw his shoulder against the door. It still wouldn’t give. He kicked at it again, but the damned thing was stubborn. He was about to start shooting through the door when he heard the bolts being thrown back.

  The door opened.

  The boy was standing there, a .38 dangling in his hand, gore splattered across his face and in his hair. He was grinning, and he said in a fast, excited, drugged voice, “It’s over I did it I did it I showed him how a King’s Knight gets even I did it!”

  Lawry lifted the automatic to blow the boy away.

  But the twin barrels of a shotgun probed the back of his neck.

  “Uh-uh,” Sheila Fontana said. She’d heard the commotion and had come over to see what was happening, and other people were coming through the dark as well, carrying lanterns and flashlights. “Drop it or you get dropped.”

  The automatic hit the ground.

  “Don’t kill me,” Lawry whimpered. “Okay? I just worked for Mr. Kempka. That’s all. I just did what he said. Okay?”

  “Want me to kill him?” Sheila asked Roland. The boy just stared and grinned. He’s shitfaced, she thought. He’s either drunk or stoned!

  “Listen, I don’t care what the kid did to Kempka.” Lawry’s voice cracked. “He wasn’t anything to me. I just drove for him. Just followed his orders. Listen, I can do the same for you, if you want. You, the kid and Colonel Macklin. I can take care of things for you—keep everybody around here in line. I’ll do whatever you say to do. You say jump, I’ll ask how high.”

  “I showed him I sure did,” Roland rattled on, beginning to weave on his feet. “I showed him!”

  “Listen, you and the kid and Colonel Macklin are the head honchos around here, as far as I can see,” Lawry told Sheila. “I mean ... if Kempka’s dead.”

  “Let’s go take a look, then.” Sheila poked his neck with the shotgun, and Lawry eased past Roland into the trailer.

  They found the Fat Man crumpled in a bloody heap against one wall. There was the smell of burnt skin in the air. Kempka had been shot through the skull and through the heart at close range.

  “All the guns, the food and everything are yours now,” Lawry said. “I just do what I’m told. You just tell me what to do, I’ll do it. I swear to God.”

  “Drag that fat carcass out of our trailer, then.”

  Startled, Sheila looked toward the door.

  Macklin stood there, leaning against the doorframe, shirtless and dripping. The black overcoat was draped over his shoulders, the stump of his right arm hidden in its folds. His face was pale, his eyes sunken in violet hollows. Roland stood beside him, weaving and swaying, about to collapse. “I don’t know ... what the hell happened here,” Macklin said, speaking with an effort, “but if everything belongs to us now ... we’re moving into the trailer. Get that thing out of here.”

  Lawry looked stricken. “By myself? I mean ... he’s gonna be damned heavy!”

  “Either drag him or join him.”

  Lawry went to work.

  “And clean up this mess when you get through,” Macklin told him, going over to the rack of rifles and handguns. God, what an arsenal! he thought. He had no idea what had
transpired here, but Kempka was dead and somehow they were in control. The trailer was theirs, the food, the water, the arsenal, the whole encampment was theirs! He was stunned, still exhausted by the pain he’d endured—but he felt somehow stronger, too, somehow ... cleaner. He felt like a man again instead of a sniveling, scared dog. Colonel James B. Macklin had been reborn.

  Lawry had almost manhandled the corpse to the door. “I can’t make it!” he protested, trying to catch his breath. “He’s too heavy!”

  Macklin whirled around and walked toward Lawry, stopping only when their faces were about four inches apart. Macklin’s eyes were bloodshot, and they bored into the other man’s with furious intensity. “You listen to me, slime,” Macklin said menacingly. Lawry listened. “I’m in charge here now. Me. What I say goes, without question. I’m going to teach you about discipline and control, mister. I’m going to teach everybody about discipline and control. There will be no questions, no hesitations when I give an order, or there will be ... executions. Public executions. You care to be the first?”

  “No,” Lawry said in a small, scared voice.

  “No ... what?”

  “No ... sir,” was the reply.

  “Good. But you spread the word around, Lawry. I’m going to get these people organized and off their asses. If they don’t like my way of doing things, they can get out.”

  “Organized? Organized for what?”

  “You think there won’t come a time when we’ll have to fight to keep what we’ve got? Mister, there are going to be plenty of times we’ll have to fight—if not to keep what we have, then ... to take what we want.”

  “We’re not any fucking army!” Lawry said.

  “You will be,” Macklin promised, and he motioned toward the arsenal. “You’re going to learn to be, mister. And so is everybody else. Now get that piece of shit out of here ... Corporal.”

  “Huh?”

  “Corporal Lawry. That’s your new rank. And you’ll be living in the tent out there. This trailer is for headquarters staff.”