The Afterblight Chronicles: Death Got No Mercy

by Al Ewing

  A couple of the bullets managed to find their way through the Lieutenant and smack into the Captain - one in the gut, one in the shoulder and a couple in the leg. None of them hit an artery, but the gutshot would have killed him eventually. Of course, he might have gotten medical aid, and Cade couldn't have that. There was no way this son of a bitch was going to stay alive one more second if Cade could help it.

  It wasn't just the artillery. It was all the grabbing of souvenirs from the dead and the dying. It was shouting on open comms about how vulnerable they were whenever they were vulnerable, which was often. Mostly, it was that time he shot a five-year old - accidentally on purpose - and then wouldn't medevac him. Just watched him die with a grin on his face, talking about how mistakes were often made in war.

  The artillery was something of a last straw.

  Cade took another gulp of whiskey and tried to remember what it'd been like before that moment, back when he'd given a damn whether he lived or he died. For the life of him, he couldn't. Maybe he'd never given a damn. Maybe he'd only pretended.

  Maybe he'd only pretended he didn't want to remember this.

  Cade poured more whiskey and thought back, remembering, picturing that look of cold fear in the Captain's eyes, hearing the way the bark in his voice had turned to the whimpering of a kicked dog.

  You can't do this! I'm a Captain! You can't do this! Please! PLEASE!

  All of a sudden, Paul Dollings had seen the elephant. He was staring the damned elephant right in its eyes.

  And the elephant was going to walk right over him without even stopping to blink.

  Cade had brought the butt of his weapon down between Dollings' eyes hard enough to cave the skull in. He figured that was it for him too. Sergeant A had his sidearm drawn and was yelling something. He wasn't calling Cade 'Killer' anymore, and if Sergeant A stopped using a man's nickname it meant he was pretty mad.

  Cade had raised his hands and turned. He saw Sergeant A yelling the words chain of command, over and over again, Fuel-Air behind him staring with his eyes almost popping out, the other men starting to run towards him, weapons drawn.

  And then the strike had hit.

  It was about a hundred and fifty metres off target. In their direction.

  Danger close.

  Cade didn't remember much after that. He remembered reaching with a hand covered in blood and dirt, nothing in his ears but ringing, turning over a body and seeing Fuel-Air with half his face gone and his guts hanging out. No diamond tooth, though, which looking back was a mercy.

  After that, all he remembered was waking up in the hospital. He wasn't the only one out of his unit to survive, but the other survivors hadn't got a good enough look at what had happened with the Captain and Lieutenant Cragg, and the bodies had been torn into pieces by the shelling. Cade had been lucky to escape with shrapnel and broken bones.

  Lucky motherfucker, grinned Fuel-Air. You had guilty written all over you, dog.

  Which accounted for the year in the hole, the dishonourable discharge and the promise - delivered to him through unofficial channels - that if Cade ever showed his face again anywhere, he was a dead man. Which suited Cade fine.

  All he wanted was somewhere quiet to lay his head. A trailer park in the middle of nowhere, near the coast. Somewhere where they didn't investigate violent deaths too good, in case he had any problems. Somewhere he could forget himself until he died.

  You really thought I was gonna let you forget? Shit, you should be so lucky, bitch.

  "Yeah." Cade was tired. He'd had enough memories, and he'd had enough booze, and he hadn't seen a damn soul coming down that street. The sun had sank under the horizon, and all that was left now was the night and the dark. Time he got some sleep. He had a lot to do in the morning.

  Big day tomorrow, dog. Those hippies sound like some Satan-worshipping motherfuckers, into all kinds of sacrifices and shit - least according to the Pastor. You ready for some shit like that, dog? You think you want to put yourself in the jackpot with some crazy acid-head freaks like that?

  Cade shrugged, finishing his whisky and stretching out on the leather of his booth seat.

  "Sure."

  Then he slept.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The Gang

  Cade didn't dream.

  It was after nine when he woke up. Cade was usually a dawn riser - he figured sleeping in like that was his body telling him it needed the rest. That and having something close to a real bed for the first time since he'd driven out from the trailer park.

  Fuel-Air was gone. Cade figured he'd gotten what he wanted - Cade had had a chance to relax for an evening and he'd spent it reliving getting blown half to pieces because a damn fool figured his reputation was worth more than the lives of his men. And feeling bad about it, he realised, which was new. Cade hadn't been someone who felt guilt, or regretted things, in all the time he could remember.

  Guilt was new.

  Cade couldn't help wondering what Fuel-Air was up to.

  There was no sense Cade could see in wasting any more time. He cracked open another bottle of water to wash up, making use of Frank's toothbrush and paste to get some of the taste out of his mouth while he was at it. He made a note of the area - he didn't know what the rest of San Francisco looked like right now, and he'd probably want to come back here, or to another place like it nearby. So far, this looked to be a little oasis, untouched by any of the various factions he'd seen or any other looters who might have happened along - people like him, in other words.

  Of course, he'd not met the hippies yet. Could be they just weren't too hung up on personal possessions, or maybe they had their own water supply fixed up and didn't feel the need to go looking for more. He might be deep in their territory and not know it - so far, he'd only met up with groups that'd been too far into their own craziness to sort out the basics of living, but it could be that they were the exceptions instead of the rule. After all, he didn't exactly know what big city life was like these days. It was something Cade would have to check for himself.

  Cade figured the best thing to do right now would be to get onto Haight Street, by way of Divisadero. Then he'd just keep heading west. By the time he got to Haight-Ashbury, he'd have run into the hippies or they'd have run into him. Simple.

  Nothing's simple in this world, dog. Just ask the Lieutenant.

  Cade cursed under his breath. Fuel-Air was really starting to get on his last nerve now.

  Fuck you, dog. I'm a motherfuckin' calming influence on your raging ass. Last time I left you alone for two minutes you took over a fuckin' cannibal cult and sent them to eat a man of God.

  Cade gave him a stare and then stalked out of the front door of the coffee place and onto the street. The sun was already up - looked like another beautiful day.

  Still, Fuel-Air had a point. He'd have to see how the situation with the Pastor and the cannibals had gone once he was all done with the hippies. It was starting to nag at him. What he was hoping was that the Pastor would deal with the cannibals and lose a lot of his own strength in the process - but if he was really lucky they'd have gotten themselves into a siege situation, something to wear both sides down a little and keep them occupied while he did what he needed to. He'd probably got as much as he could expect to get out of it just by staying alive, but a man could hope.

  Of course, a worst case scenario would be the cannibals wiping the Pastor's people out. Eating the children. Tearing the babies from the wombs of their mothers and ripping them open, eating up the tiny organs like popcorn. And that all being Cade's fault.

  That would be the worst case scenario.

  He wondered why he cared all of a sudden. Still, it was a matter for another day.

  Today was hippies.

  Cade checked the time - about ten. He kept his eyes open crossing the street and heading down Divisadero, looking for anything that might smack of company. He'd heard a hell of a lot about the hippies, and while he doubted any of it was true, he didn't exactly wa
nt them to get the drop on him either.

  He was crossing the intersection with Haight Street when he heard the engine.

  It was a low growl in the distance - rumbling, chugging along. A van, by the sound, probably pretty old, coming from the east - from cannibal country. Cade ducked behind a bus shelter on the corner and drew his knife. Then he waited.

  Eventually, the van trundled into view. It was a VW van - Cade was a little surprised it was still running, but it proved a lot of things. For one thing, the hippies had it together enough to drive, which expanded their territory some, and meant they had enough mechanical skill to keep cars in repair, or at least hot-wire them as needed. Still, that didn't mean much. You could say the same about him, and he was just one man.

  What was interesting was how the van was painted. It was a bright, livid blue with a wide green stripe, dotted with pink and yellow flowers. Scrawled on one side in self-consciously 'psychedelic' writing were the words CONUNDRUM CAR.

  Cade watched the van crawl past him, then stop in the middle of the intersection.

  Looks like they're looking for you, dog.

  Cade nodded. Fuel-Air was sitting cross-legged on top of the bus shelter, wearing a caftan, love beads and long hair. He still had half his face missing, though.

  Fuel-Air was a hell of a comedian now he was dead.

  Cade waited, and watched. He could hear voices from inside the van - young voices, not more than twenty - and then the back door opened and a couple of them got out.

  Cade noticed the kid in the green oversized t-shirt first. Brown hair, scruffy up top, not too long, with a barely-grown goatee hanging off his chin. No muscles to speak of - Cade thought he had a kind of malnourished look to him. Half-starved, lean as a greyhound. He flopped about as he moved, like his arms and legs didn't have the co-ordination to propel him along.

  Along with him, there was a brunette girl, short and dumpy, in an orange pullover that looked too big for her, and a pair of granny glasses with thick lenses. Cade wondered if she'd had a better pair before, but they'd gotten broken and she'd needed to scavenge for new ones. It was possible.

  Neither of the kids looked like any kind of threat. Cade didn't peg them for Satanists, or killers, or the kind of people who'd burn a city to the ground. They just looked like the kind of hipster kids Cade had always seen on any trips he'd made to San Francisco, only a little thinner, a little dirtier, maybe a little bit more thrift-store than they had been. There was something else about them, too.

  A kind of glassy-eyed look.

  Right then, Cade was focussed on the dog. The dog was going to be the problem.

  A Great Dane - a big one, big and brown, maybe half the height of the skinny kid. There wasn't much flab on the dog either, but what there was was muscle. Cade had a feeling that dog could probably cause him some trouble if they told it to attack. It could probably cause him some trouble if they didn't - it was already sniffing the air, catching his scent.

  Cade listened, his knife tight in his grip, working out what his next move was.

  "Are you sure you saw somebody here, Scruffy? I don't see anybody out here now!" The girl rubbed her chin, looking around the intersection.

  "M-m-maybe he was a g-g-ghost!" mewled the boy. He had a voice like a surfer - probably spent most of his time down on the beach before the bad times.

  "Well. Jeepers, this certainly is a way-out mystery!" chirped the girl, scratching the back of her head with a serious look on her face. "I mean, there sure weren't any cannibals over on the east side at all! It's like they've just vanished into thin air!"

  Cade's eyes narrowed. He glanced up at Fuel-Air, who raised his remaining eyebrow.

  Seriously, dog. 'Jeepers?' 'Way out?' What the fuck, man?

  "It's, like, a spooky happening, Thelma! Like, what if they came this way? Or what if they got scared by a really big monster that's, like, waiting for us right now?" The skinny kid's voice trembled as he said it, and then he went into a bizarre pantomime of fear, clattering his teeth together and knocking his knees before finishing up with a theatrical gulp. Cade had never seen anything quite like it - he figured maybe it was some kind of drug paranoia. The kid seemed to be afraid of just about everything, looking at the buildings as though they were about to come to life and start coming for him. Cade figured that was probably why he had the dog.

  If that was why he had the dog, then the dog was going to be trained to kill. Admittedly, the dog didn't look like much - if anything, he looked kind of goofy - but Cade knew better than to judge a book by its cover.

  He just needed to let it get a little closer, and then he could take care of it. He took another look at the van, narrowing his eyes. The van was starting to rock - shifting to and fro in a regular rhythm. That was a little weird.

  Maybe they had some kind of generator ticking over in there.

  Cade shook his head, and concentrated on the two hippies and their dog. That was the important thing.

  The dog looked in his direction, and sniffed the air again.

  Cade held his breath.

  "Like, what do you think, Doob?" said the skinny kid in that stupid-scared surfer voice of his. Cade's eyes narrowed as the dog reared up on his haunches and waggled its paws, giving a kind of shrug, lips pulling back from the jaws in a weird parody of a smile, before it barked twice - rruhhuhh rro - and fell back on all fours.

  Dude, did that fuckin' dog just answer the question?

  Cade doubted it. But that dog was definitely trained to perform a couple of tricks, and if the skinny kid had taught it to get up and do a little dance when it got asked a question, it was probably trained to disarm or disable an opponent. If they were regularly checking on the cannibals, the dog would need to be able to defend them. That was just common sense.

  The dog sniffed the air again, then started padding in his direction.

  "Well, it looks like Doobie's got the scent of something!" said the short girl. The dog was sniffing and walking in Cade's direction. He gripped the knife tight.

  "Yeah, like, he's got the munchies, right Doob? Maybe somebody, like, made a sandwich nearby!" The boy licked his lips, leading with his face, throat exposed. Cade let them get a little closer.

  The girl wagged a finger at them. "Well, don't get too far off, you two! There have been some spooky goings-on around here and -"

  Cade moved. The dog had to go first - that was obvious. He rolled out of cover and grabbed the mutt in a headlock, bringing the blade of the knife down near the base of the skull, between the second and third vertebrae, neatly severing the spine as it buried in the dog's neck. The dog gave a strangled bark and went limp as the skinny kid jerked back.

  "It's a g-g-ghost! Like, run, Doob!" He jumped up like a jack in the box, turning pale, then turned and ran towards the van, hurling himself underneath it. The brunette didn't seem to blink.

  "Don't be silly, Scruffy! That's no ghost - it must be the owner of the Ben & Jerry's! I'll bet he just dressed up as a ghost to warn people away from some buried treasure, that's all!" she smiled, still with the same wide, glassy eyes.

  Cade looked at her for a second, then let the dog drop to the ground, sheathing the knife in his belt. He had a feeling maybe he'd read the situation wrong somewhere. He walked forward slowly, keeping an eye on them. As an afterthought, he hooked a hand through the dog's collar and dragged it behind him.

  "You've got to excuse Scruffy, Mister! He sees ghosts just about everywhere ever since... well, ever since 'you-know-what'!" She did finger-quotes. "Don't worry, though, it's never actually ghosts. It's just people in masks. Scary masks. That's all." She grew thoughtful, looking at the dog's twitching corpse. "See, there's no such thing as ghosts. When you see things that couldn't possibly exist, it's most likely to be a man with a hidden movie projector or someone dressed up to scare people away from hidden treasure. Or a smuggling operation!" She beamed up at him, then looked at him suspiciously. "Is that your real face, or a mask?"

  Cade blinked, then t
ried to get the conversation back on track. "Doc Clearly?"

  The brunette smiled. "He's kind of the king around here. He's the one who gives us mysteries to solve! Well, more little tasks to take care of. Errands that need running, like checking on whether the cannibals are spreading into our territory." She pointed at the dead dog. "That's pretty realistic. Are you doing that with a hidden camera?"

  "Sure." said Cade. He figured it was probably easier to go along with that for the second - at least until he met Doc Clearly. Besides, he kind of regretted killing the dog now - it was pretty clear these kids could barely train themselves to function, never mind a dog. Still, better safe than sorry. He cleared his throat.

  "Got some questions. Hoping Doc Clearly could answer them. I'd be obliged."

  The brunette brightened up. "Oh, Doc Clearly can answer all sorts of questions! You know, I'll bet he'll clear up an awful lot of things for you!" She smiled, brightly, and then opened up the back door of the van.

  Cade blinked.

  There were two more kids in the back - a big blond fella and a red-haired girl. The blond fella had a red neckerchief on, the redhead was wearing a purple hairband. Neither of them were wearing anything else. The girl was bent over, doggy-style, and the fella was slamming into her like there wasn't a complete stranger looking at the pair of them. The brunette smiled brightly.

  "Company, guys! Mister... hey, what's your name?"

  "Cade." said Cade.

  "Mister Cade was wanting a ride to see Doctor Clearly! I thought he could come back with us!" the brunette didn't seem to mind what was happening in front of her. Cade didn't feel right pointing it out.

  "Pleasure - nnf - to meet you, Sir!" said the blond kid with a sunny smile. The girl panted and nodded. Cade was glad they didn't offer to shake hands. He got gingerly into the back of the van as the brunette went around to the driving seat.