Plaguesville, USA

by Jim LaVigne

  The sun was about an hour from setting and the evening had turned cool, with a hint of low-slung clouds. After covering the hole with debris, they had cleared out a corner of the SA, the less ruined part in the back room, in which to spend the night, but no one seemed overly eager to turn in. Justin was wracking his mind, trying to think of what he hadn’t thought of, so to speak, when Erin Swails gave a little laugh and shook her head. Justin looked over at her.

  “What is it?” he asked gently. “What’s so funny?”

  “Oh, I was just thinking,” said Erin wistfully. “Remember when those guys from the so-called U.S. Government flew over New Atlanta? That dinky little plane and those stupid leaflets, the Official Proclamations?”

  Justin nodded and frowned. “Yes, I remember. What was that, about three years ago? What about them?”

  “Oh, just the futility of it, I guess. I mean, here the whole damn planet is dying and these guys still think they’re in control! Typical, I suppose. But think about it. I mean, does anyone think there’s really still a president in the White House? And if there is, was he elected? And even if he was, does it even matter? Hell, what would he be president of? Don’t you need citizens to have a president? And these guys who survived the Fall, they spent all their time and all that energy in printing leaflets, flying around dropping ‘em on us. I don’t know, for some reason I was just thinking about it and, well, it’s just so ludicrous that it’s funny!”

  Justin smiled crookedly. “I suppose so,” he said. “It did seem sort of futile, at that. I’m sure Mr. Lampert would find it quite amusing! But then, we saw all kinds of futile schemes, didn’t we? I suppose people just did what they thought they had to do. Even us.”

  “Yeah, I know,’ said Erin. “Desperate times and all that.”

  Justin was about to say something more but then came up short when he noticed that Teresa was staring at him. The Kid had settled down into a sort of fetal position ball and Bowler just sat and stared, but Teresa was gazing at Justin, very intently, and with something more than conversational interest. Something a lot more. Suddenly he felt flushed and whatever Erin was saying went in one ear and out the other. Reminiscences, chit-chat, and even planning could wait. Suddenly he wanted nothing more than simply to be alone with Teresa. But where could they be in private? The SA was far too cramped, they had no tent or vehicle, and the others were around.

  Pragmatic as always, though, Teresa solved the problem for him. Rising, she jerked her head in a come-with-me gesture and then turned and walked away, off across an open field toward a stand of willow trees. The way her hips rolled and the perfect round globes of her behind all but jerked him to his feet and suddenly he felt a powerful lust like a physical hunger.

  Lamely, he stammered something to the others about waiting here, that he’d be back, and then, uncaring of their indulgent nods, trotted to catch up. In passing, he noticed that the Kid tried to follow, wont as he was to trail Teresa literally everywhere, but Erin, bless her soul, managed to distract him and keep him from tagging along.

  Teresa led them to the willow trees, a half-mile or so from the SA across open countryside, where they found a small pond, shallow but cool and clear, around which the trees had clustered like a protective wall. Beneath the drooping branches were broad open spaces matted with fallen leaves, like little arbors, and they walked slowly around the pond to a particularly beautiful spot. Here Teresa carefully lay down her shotgun, plus a small pistol and a couple of knives from her pockets, before she turned to him and, with no further ado, flung her arms around him and clamped her mouth to his.

  “Missed you, Case,” she said breathily, the dying rays of the sun reflecting in her perfect eyes. “Missed you a lot!”

  “I missed you, too,” said Justin, melting. “More than you’ll ever know.”

  Teresa beamed, managing to be both sexy and comic at the same time, and started to undress.

  “Shut up, Doc,” she said. “An’ let’s us get busy!”

  An hour later, the sun having set and the heat of their coupling cooling in the night breeze, Justin propped himself on an elbow and simply stared at Teresa. After some time, maybe feeling the gaze, she languidly looked over at him.

  “Yeah?” she said. “Somethin’ on yer bean?”

  “Oh, not really,” sighed Justin, lying back. “It’s just so good to have you here. I can still barely believe it.”

  “Eh,” Teresa said, rolling over to face him, “that Zero’s House giggy weren’t for me. Too many rules an’ doop. An’ beside, how you gonna do yer Mission wit’out me?”

  Justin sat up and smiled at her. “That’s very noble of you. Very altruistic.”

  “Uh huh, you say so,” she said. “Whatever that mean. But I gotta tellya, Case, an’ maybe you don’ want me like that, but I still gotta tellya, I din’t leave Zero’s an’ come all this way for no Old Man or no Mission. Naw, I did that cause o’ one thing—you. Track me?”

  Justin almost broke out crying. “I don’t know what to say,” he managed, his voice tight. “Except that… I love you, Teresa.”

  She looked up at him and smiled strangely. “Is that what this is? I heard all ‘bout love and that gloop, but…” she paused and seemed to think. Then she smiled at him again and nodded. “You know what, Case? I love you, too! Ha! Ain’t that the juiciest?”

  Laughing, happier than he had any right to be, Justin fell back and, for the delightful present at least, lost himself in her arms.

  Once they’d worn themselves out again, they lay in the gathering darkness. Justin wasn’t thinking of anything in particular, but for some reason a question floated up in his mind and he turned to Teresa.

  “I’ve always meant to ask you something,” he said softly, “if it’s not too personal…”

  She looked over at him. “Yeh? What?”

  “Why did you leave the group you were with, back when we met? What did you call them?”

  “Bloodclaws,” said Teresa evenly. “An’ as fer why I left ‘em? Well, they was reasons, but mostly, ‘member the leader greep we had, tall an’ skinny with a mohawk?”

  “Yes, what was his name… Sharp, wasn’t it?”

  “At’s right,” she said. “Well, ol’ Sharpie, he was real skeeked on me. Said I was gonna be his One an’ Only. His baby-momma, hey? An’ I din’t want that, no how. So? I left. Simple.”

  Justin smiled and nodded. “I think I understand. And, truth be told, I’m very glad that you did! But now, I think we’d best get back. Besides, I’m hungry!”

  “OK, Case,” she said easily, rising and reaching for her clothes. “Let’s go see if they any more o’ them Twinkles cakes!”

  She meant Twinkies, of course, a newly-found favorite, but he didn’t bother to correct her. Trying to control the dopey grin on his face, he led the way back to their home for the night.

  Chapter Forty-Five

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  The Hunter had never been tortured before. He’d been beaten up, kicked and punched and smacked with pool cues and baseball bats; he’d been knifed four times and carried the marks of over fifty stitches on his chest and back; he’d had three separate bike accidents, one of which was bad enough to require a new hip and a rebuilt jaw; he’d been shot twice, once superficially and once in the gut, and he’d once had a nasty run-in with an electrified fence. All in all, he was no stranger to hospi
tal emergency rooms. But none of it, not even all of it together, was as bad as this. This made him want to die.

  He’d awakened, groggy, shivering, and naked, in a cave of some kind. It was almost completely dark, just a pinhole of light from under a thick metal door, and smelled horribly of rotten meat and some other nasty, unidentifiable muskiness. He’d scoured every inch of the cave, but there was nothing there except some old bones, some loose rocks, and a lot of rough, sometimes wet, stone walls. Making do, he’d gripped a fist-sized rock and then settled down to wait.

  Naturally, he’d wondered about things. For one, where the hell was he? Was this really a cave? It had the feel of being underground, so maybe. For another, how had he gotten here? Last thing he remembered, he’d been drugged by the nurse, out on the side of the road somewhere. What had happened? Had someone found him and brought him here?

  He’d been sitting there wondering for maybe three hours when the door rattled and then swung open. Light, feeble but nonetheless blinding, had poured into his cave. He’d been ready, poised behind the door with the rock, but no one had come into the cave. Instead, he’d heard a strange, high-pitched voice from without:

  “Come out, come out!” it had called, sing-song and sounding like either a woman or an adolescent male. “We gotcha covered, so don’t try anything stupid! Come out, come out, whoever you are!”

  Warily, his eyes struggling to adjust to the brightness, he’d come forth, still gripping the rock, into a larger cave lit by crude torches. And then he’d dropped the rock and nearly shit his pants (if he’d had any) as he’d looked around.

  Standing, squatting, leaning and even hanging on the walls, were what he could only think of as monsters. About ten in number, some were tall and thin, with grossly elongated limbs and digits and tall thin heads. Some were smaller and wide, with squished-down bodies like flabby pink trash bags. One had three great flipper-like appendages sprouting from his chest, and another had no legs but a great, slug-like pseudopod instead. And while most had what passed for eyes and mouths, comprising vague approximations of faces, the effect was more horrifying than humanizing. Yes, it was a whole crew of flat-out, no shit, dyed-in-the-wool monsters.

  Blinking, horrified and confused and wondering if he wasn’t still asleep, drugged and dreaming, he’d cast about at these… things, but none of them had said anything. One of them had sort of grinned at him, if that was what it was doing, and one had licked its lips, but none of them spoke.

  “Wha…” he’d stammered. “What the fuck is this?”

  Then one of them had spoken up, but this one hadn’t been a monster. From out of their midst instead had come a regular, normal human man. Well, normal in comparison, anyway. Thin and slight, with long blond dreadlocks and a girlish, clean-shaven, paper-colored face, he wore an outlandish costume of some kind, once probably a stage outfit, that of an Elizabethan-era king, tights, doublet, robes and all. It reminded the Hunter of a picture he’d once seen of Henry the Eighth, only this guy was thin and had dreads. And was standing there in a gang of monsters straight out of a fever nightmare.

  Smiling a weird, crooked sort of smile, this bizarre individual had strutted out from among the freaks and eyed the Hunter up and down. For his part, the Hunter had waited and had tried not to laugh at this weirdo, to not make a move by trying to fight or flee, to not go insane from the sheer freakiness of it all, and to not puke at the sight of the misshapen beings and the stink all around him. It hadn’t been easy.

  Finally the skinny dude in the king suit had had enough of eyeballing him.

  “What have we here?” he’d said, his voice like cotton candy covered in syrup. The Hunter had waited and glared back, trying to look as tough as he could, standing there completely nude as he was, until the little weirdo had gone on. “A topsider, for certain, but of what sort? Do you have a name?”

  The Hunter had considered. “Jack,” he’d finally said. “And you are?”

  “Ha ha!” the man had said gleefully. “I thought you’d never ask! I, my good man, am none other than the Emperor Johnson, Lord of the Underground, King of the Mutants, Brother to Jesus Christ and the Savior of the World! Hail Emperor Johnson!”

  Around him, most of the monsters had burbled and croaked, as if in response:

  “Emperor Johnson! Emperor Johnson!”

  But the effect had been nothing less than horrific. Either these things didn’t have vocal cords or the ones they did have were as twisted as they were. The Hunter hadn’t been able to suppress a shudder.

  “Yes, yes,” the man, Johnson, had said, nodding to his companions. “That’s very good, my lovelies. Very nice.” He’d looked at the Hunter and made a conciliatory sort of face. “You’ll have to forgive my friends. They are not yet adept at speaking. So far, that’s all I’ve been able to get them to say, in fact, but no mind! After all, a friend is a friend!”

  “Uh huh,” the Hunter had said. Obviously this guy was nuts, but how nuts? Delicately, he nodded and tried not to scowl. “But, uh, what is this place? Where am I?”

  “This?” Johnson had said, waving his arms like he was showing off the Taj Mahal. “This, my new friend, is the Exalted Realm of Below! Here we live, here we love, and from here we issue forth to bring ever more subjects to the arms of Emperor Johnson!”

  Again the dreadful gurgling, rasping, “Emperor Johnson!” from the peanut gallery of freaks. If he never heard that noise again, it would be too soon for the Hunter.

  He’d been about to put a few more questions to the weird little man in the king suit when suddenly the man had waved grandly at the Hunter and told his “friends” to take him to the Funhouse. This hadn’t sounded so bad, and he’d gone along with the freaks, down some tunnels and up some stairs, but then they’d shoved him into a big chamber filled with things that didn’t look at all like they belonged in a funhouse and he’d begun to worry for real. Tables with restraints at the corners. Sharp things, knives and probes and pointy things. And a floor stained blackish-brown with dried blood.

  “Hey, hold on now,” he’d tried, turning to the Emperor Johnson. “Let’s talk about this, huh? Emperor?”

  But the Emperor had only grinned maniacally and gestured for his minions to bind the Hunter to a table. He’d resisted, of course, with every muscle in his body, but it had been no use; there were too many of the monsters and he was weak from hunger and drug-fatigue. In no time, he’d been strapped down and ready for the crazy bastard in the king outfit. And then things had gone seriously downhill.

  Now, still on the table, almost lost in a haze of pain, anger, and confusion, fading in and out of consciousness, some part of him still had to ask why the lunatic Johnson was doing this. He hadn’t even asked the Hunter any questions! Why torture someone if you didn’t want information? To soften him up? Or just for fun? Yes, that was probably it. The little fucker was just a pain freak, a violent sadist. All he wanted from the Hunter was the thrill of making him hurt. And that wasn’t good. Very likely, his life was in danger.

  Through a reddish fog, he saw Johnson’s face suddenly loom up in his field of vision. Flushed and excited, the man’s eyes were wild and somewhat crossed, making him look even crazier than ever.

  “Well, that’s all for now, my new chum,” he said, stripping off a stained pair of surgical gloves. “I have a lot of important things to do and I’m afraid we can’t spend the whole day having fun. But don’t worry! We’ll have lots of time to play, later on. OK?”

  “Fuck… you,” croaked the Hunter. Mere speaking was painful. “Crazy motherfucker.”

  “Now, now,” the maniac cooed. “There’s no call for harsh language. So uncouth. But now, my friend, I have to go. My associates will see you back to your accommodations.”

  And with that, he left. The monsters unstrapped him and carried him back to his cave cell, where they dumped him to the floor and left him in the dark. He considered trying to move, to even roll over, but then gave it up and let the darkness and pain take him down. Mayb
e if he was lucky, he’d die in his sleep, nice and peaceful-like.

  But no such luck. He’d been asleep for no more than an hour or so (judging by his normally spot-on internal clock) when some loud noise woke him and he came to in a world of pain. Letting out a groan that went right down to his toes, he rolled his aching body over and blearily looked around, but there was nothing to see, just the cool darkness and the horrible stink, and he fell back and wondered what would become of him. It didn’t look too good.

  He was falling back into a painful slumber when a new sound reached his ears and he forced himself to listen. It was him again, Johnson, and he was talking to someone, apparently in an adjacent cell or otherwise nearby.

  “… new friends, don’t you?” the crazy man was saying. “I know I do! Now, don’t you want to be nice and come and play with me and my other friends?”

  “Get bent, ya fuckin’ loony,” said another voice, one that he knew but couldn’t place at the moment. “Just get the fuck bent.”

  “Oh my,” Johnson clucked. “Now that’s not very friendly. Not at all.”

  There was some more, the Emperor lisping and cloying, the other voice gravelly and hoarse and maddeningly familiar, but the Hunter didn’t have the strength to stay awake any longer and finally just gave up and let himself fall back to sleep.

  The next time he woke up, it was to someone coughing. He felt a tiny bit better, not quite so desirous of death anymore, and sat up on the floor of his cell and gave himself a cursory physical inspection and evaluation. Not so bad, really, he found. Oh, he felt like he’d fallen down a flight of stairs into a dumpster full of jagged rocks and he was bruised and sore from neck to feet, but the madman had fairly well dressed his wounds so that there was no bleeding or on-going injury.

  Relieved a bit by this, the Hunter looked around and saw that someone had deposited some things in his cell: a ten-gallon plastic bucket, empty, a dirty old blanket, an ancient, rusted coffee can full of water, and another smaller can, opened, of what appeared to be lima beans. With a grunt, he crawled over to these items and drank some of the water and then made a sort of serape or robe out of the blanket.