Two dozen men in red emerged from a front side room and created space around the stage by manhandling everybody back. Anyone familiar to Jeff was lost in a sea of heads, all apart from Rodriguez, who was using a rail for support, squinting and dragging a hand through damp black hair.
And then, as one, the hall fell silent, more Red Blazers entered and people began lowering to their knees. Not everyone though. There was a scuffle and as Jeff went down to his knees, forcing him to unsteadily adjust his equilibrium and sending a shot of pain up his back, two men still standing at the edges were jerked violently out the hall. An awful sound similar to a steak being pounded by a giant meat tenderizer was returned. Around the room, there were still more men not on their knees. Stott beckoned to his ruffians, who joined several Red Blazers in dragging them out, one by one, and their screams echoed from down the corridor whilst the pack of bodyguards down front bodily concealed a single slender man who was standing somewhere within, slowly moving up the steps, onto the stage, and then there were only a thousand men kneeling, their heads lowered.
The whole world seemed to pause.
“Children of the People’s Republic of California, you may rise.” It was the voice everybody recognized, that silky, smooth voice that could persuade, rouse, galvanize, electrify or strike fear in equal measure.
When everybody stood, Jeff could only see Supreme Leader Jacob Weiner’s face which, of course, he already knew well. There is something about those few men who rise to become dictators, how they each seem to possess that one unique physical characteristic that makes them stand out above most all others, that one thing that makes them instantly recognizable the world over, a trademark by which they are forever remembered. For Lenin, it was his bald head. Mao likewise was bald but for that ridiculous side quiff. Mussolini, too, was bald, but more than that he possessed a monumental jaw to match a general overall arrogance. Stalin and Hitler had their unique mustaches, Castro a scruffy beard, cap and cigar, while Amin went about decked in so many self-bestowed medals you could hear him ringing from down the street.
Weiner had gone for the monobrow, which gave extra prominence to those cold gray eyes. In addition, He had a thick, yet well-trimmed black beard, giving Him the look of a man you’d be more likely to find tending your garden shrubbery than pulling your state out of the greatest union that ever existed, yet His nose was slender, almost feminine, somewhat in contradiction to the rest of His aspect. He was, as now, nearly always seen in His unique blue jodhpuri suit of an East Indian style, with large buttons running up the torso at an angle before cutting across sideways below the neck. It was believed, though never confirmed, that He’d developed His beliefs whilst visiting the slums of those far off destitute countries, and had returned home intent on making the American people just as impoverished. After failing with that, He’d conceded to settle for a single state, California, His place of birth and a known Marxist hotbed, and after being elected governor, He’d immediately set about conspiring to separate the Executive, Legislature and Judicial branches of the state from that of the United States. It had culminated in a rush to arrive, a rush to leave, and a stand-off between a quarter-million troops that lasted sixty days and only ended when the United States, under domestic and international pressure, blinked first.
Three days later, in a heavily choreographed ceremony outside the Californian State Capitol building in Sacramento, Governor Jacob Weiner announced to a worldwide audience numbering in the many billions that He was naming himself Supreme Leader of the People’s Republic of California, that the government was now in control of the banking, education, health and transport systems, that religion was now outlawed, ergo thus implying that there was no afterlife and that the People were no longer under any obligation to a God, and should therefore take out their restitution from the oppressors in this lifetime, that all private business and property was to be confiscated, and that all inheritance rights had been abolished.
Jeff’s view at the back was made all the more difficult for nearly everyone in front rising on their toes. Unlike most others, Jeff had no strong views about the man either way, or His politics, even after he’d seen living standards plummet for all but the very elite in the republic, though even he could not deny it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to get a glimpse of the man who, love Him or loathe Him, had made history.
The Supreme Leader waited for the sound of men coming to their feet to abate. There could be no denying the man had stage presence.
“Friends, to witness your unending devotion, your struggle for our people makes me proud to call myself a Californian. Your perpetual efforts to provide for our women and children, while at times thankless and even painful, will not go without reward. In only the short life of our beautiful republic, your efforts have provided free healthcare for all of our elderly…”
“Pretty easy to provide pain killers and send them to sleep forever after coming in with a fucking cold.” Someone near Jeff dared mutter under his breath. “What good’s a consumer if he can no longer produce?”
“Your efforts have provided free childcare to every mother in the republic…”
“Nobody’s having kids, you stupid bastard, not even the fucking wetbacks. What does that tell you?” A space emerged around the man as nervous inmates began shuffling away.
“Your efforts have provided free education…”
“Free indoctrination, more like, and we had that long before you came along.”
“Your efforts have all but eliminated crime…”
“I’ll grant you that one, you stupid cunt, a one-way ticket to the fucking gulag for looking at a cop wrong.”
They noticed it now and three Blazers began shoving their way through the mass as the Supreme Leader continued as though the assembly was entirely captivated and even when Jeff got shunted aside and the heckler sustained a bludgeoning with a baton, Weiner persisted in happy oblivion, speaking of the People having all their needs met, like the irresponsible children they were obviously viewed to be, and that soon, very soon California would have its utopia. The unconscious man was dragged out, probably never to be seen again.
“But, my friends, building a utopia does not come without cost, and our enemies, being envious of our staggering progress, have instigated a war against us.” He waved his arms about in animation. “You may have already heard of the biological weapons deployed against our People, weapons which, and I am deadly serious, make the dead rise again, though not as once they were but as monsters intent only on devouring us.” He’d regained his audience’s attention now because here was the top man confirming the recent mad gossip without so much as hitching a breath. It had to be true. “Yes, you heard me. And even now, as I stand here, there are untold hundreds of thousands of these demons rampaging across our fine young republic.” He paused for effect and clenched his fists. “My friends, San Francisco has been lost, as has Oakland, Berkeley, Richmond, San Jose. Oh, Stockton holds, for now, as does Sacramento, our beloved capital and beating heart of the republic, and mark my words, we will defend these places, as we shall retake the others, as we will wreak a terrible vengeance upon the United States for deploying such monstrous weapons against such a peaceful nation as ours. However, before we can do that we must first have men. Men, men, men.” Each time He spoke the word, He brought a clenched fist down into an opened palm, emphasizing how much His audience was needed, how much He loved them, puffing them up, and now it was their turn to die for Him, for His cause that treated them so poorly. The point struck about as well as one might expect and then another man dared speak up.
“How arrogant can you get, thinking you can come here, make some little speech to all those you’ve imprisoned and that we’d all sign up to fight and die for you. All I fucking did was run a red light. Two years, I’ve been here. Barely any food and no visitation. Nothing.”
This time the Supreme Leader raised a hand to stop His goons moving and addressed the man directly, and Jeff could see now that He was fa
r weaker than the image He’d always portrayed, that there was genuine fear in His eyes.
“My friend, you are right to be bitter, but there is more at stake here than the feelings of but one man.” He turned away to address a different section of the crowd. “Many of you may feel you are here without justification but you should not feel this way, because it is the republic’s labor you do and what could be more personally gratifying than that?” Now, the Red Blazers moved in with such stealth that most of the audience remained unaware when the second interrupter was silenced, Jeff thought with chloroform, before being dragged away. “With all that said, however, right now we need men not to serve in our utopian productivity centers, but the ranks.”
There was an outburst of incredulity at that, of men staring at their friends with looks of utter shock, that the Supreme Leader would personally visit the very men He’d imprisoned and beg they risk their lives in defense of Him and an ideology that most had absolutely no say in, and had not been permitted to peacefully withdraw from by relocating.
“The nerve of the bastard.”
“The brass neck of the cunt.”
Weiner held out His palms for silence. “My friends, there might be one or two of you who believe me not to be a fair man, though you should view my personal visit as a gesture of how sincere I am, and I extend this gesture by offering each and every one of you a choice.” He paused long enough for the commotion to fade. He had their attention again. “Every man who agrees to join the ranks, to fight for his beloved mother country, shall receive, should he survive, forgiveness for his crimes, no matter how small or large.”
That caused a mixture of reactions. There were inmates who’d been in the camp from the very start and who had no idea when they were due to be released, if ever, such as one former Republican congressman who’d opposed Weiner back in the early days, a man Jeff had twice noticed cleaning the urinals with a scrubbing brush. And while most could probably expect to leave eventually, the fact Labor Camp 87 were supplying timber to build so many more camps told a different story, that perhaps most here were prisoners for life. That they were now shifting focus from building more slave camps to recruiting for the army had to mean the regime was hurting. But Weiner wasn’t finished…
“And as for those who refuse to take up arms, to fight for their beloved mother country … well, you have already shamed the republic once, and after having been offered a chance at redemption, to once again become respectable members of society, to then shame the republic for a second time, is to condemn yourself and your immediate family, as well as two generations of descendants, to imprisonment in one of our utopian productivity centers where you will spend the rest of your long lives lugging trees, tilling the land and harvesting grain.”
There was an outcry, the Red Blazers nearest the Supreme Leader bristled, moved hands toward firearms or otherwise tightened grips around batons. Men were jostling now. Cursing. But there were also many who’d already made the obvious choice and when the front doors opened, they were beckoned to step outside by grinning Blazers holding clipboards ready to take names.
The Supreme Leader pointed in that direction. “Come this way, my friends, it’s but a two day march to the buses, from when you’ll be given uniforms, training, a comfy berth and a wholesome meal. Sacramento awaits you fine men, heroes of the republic, your names shall be forever carved in stone.”
Jeff stayed back, as did many others, and had no intention of moving. Enslaving his family was one threat they could not blackmail him with. He could also imagine the look on the face of the drill sergeant if he was to turn up after another long journey, vomit staining his new uniform before being told to keep up with the rest as they did early morning laps around the training field, heavy backpack crippling his already deformed spine. It would be his death.
Space began opening up down front as men began shoving their way outside. Some of the Blazers were going with them whilst barking orders to stand in a line, and then Weiner nodded, smiled, turned to leave, His circle of guards began closing around Him and then He was heading off the stage, one step at a time and a shot rang out, deathly loud and terrible within the confined hall, men instinctively hitched shoulders against ears, disorientation, somebody was on the ground, bleeding, someone else was charging through the pack, yelling to get out of the way, his arm outstretched, something in his hand, nobody saw the third man leap upon the stage, thrust out an arm, six feet from the Supreme Leader, a flash, fire, his arm was blown off, the Supreme Leader clasped a hand against His neck, red oozed out from between His fingers, the man in the crowd was still moving, Red Blazers, guards, ran to intercept, the gun fired, a bodyguard shielding Weiner went limp and fell heavy to the ground, more of them were piling on the man who’d had his arm blown off, screams, three blasts from a semi-automatic were fired into the ceiling.
The hall silenced.
Jeff tried to take stock.
It was Stott who’d fired and now he looked like he was about to be sick. He managed to find his wits enough to direct his charges to get the inmates shoved back and Jeff thought he heard him tell his men to pen everybody into the corner.
Two Red Blazers were on the ground, probably dead and for now forgotten whilst the rest of them were crowding what had to be the Supreme Leader, though Jeff couldn’t see from his position as more and more inmates began edging back against him.
Jeff stood on his toes, squinted, tried to see who’d been the shooters. Shooters? How could that be?
Even now, one of them was on the stage being restrained, all color drained from his face whilst he gritted his teeth, sinews and blood dripping from the horrifying elbow stump. Another was struggling with a half-dozen bodyguards while the other, Jeff thought the first one who’d fired, was getting kicked to death where he lay.
“It’s that carpenter guy … on the stage there … fuck, that’s gotta hurt.” The inmate said, shaking his head. “Talk about abusing your privileges. We’re all in for it now.”
It was Shithouse?
Jeff was astonished.
And that almost certainly meant his two companions were also involved. As soon as Jeff thought it, the man who the day before had taken the pipe beneath the table was scooped up from the floor and laid out on the stage, though the truth was, his face was so badly mashed that it might have been anyone.
Fuck!
The pipe.
“Where the fuck did they get three guns?” Somebody muttered.
“Luke says he thought he saw a zip gun.” Another inmate added. “He was that carpenter, wasn’t he? All you need is a spring, rubber bands, block of wood, plenty of that around here, and nails to fire. Oh, and a length of pipe’ll do the trick. How hard could it be, really?”
Jeff felt a stab of pain shoot through his heart. They’d surely find out how the gun or guns were made and where the pipe came from. They must. He wanted to run. Hide. Disappear.
A large huddle of Blazers edged out through a side door, the Supreme Leader almost certainly somewhere in the middle of it all, though there was no way of knowing in what state. The bespectacled suit from the other day was holding one of the makeshift firearms that from a distance almost looked like some toy a seven-year-old might make. Yet, apparently, there were three that had each fired at least one projectile, possibly a nail. The administrator inspected the weapon, held it up to his eye, gave it a slow turn. It definitely could be the pipe Jeff had supplied, perhaps cut into three smaller sections, one for each gun, it might have been long enough, just, but it was too appalling a notion to consider, and yet…
The suit stamped over to the man who’d fired the final shot, the one who it now appeared had hit a bodyguard in an eyeball, and slapped him across the face. “You will pay for this, you will die a very slow death, you may be sure of that.” He slapped him again whilst his arms were being pinioned behind his body at an angle that looked too painful to contemplate.
And then, astonishingly, the shooter’s upper body convulsed obscen
ely, his face turned blue, seemed to stiffen, and then his head slumped. The suit took a large step away as he and nearly everyone else glanced across to Tom, who was losing so much blood from his arm that surely his life must be in danger. The suit noticed the first shooter, who was sprawled dead like a sack of wood pulp on the stage, then to the guards who were holding Tom.
“Keep that one alive! Whatever you do, keep that fucking man alive, I want to know everything about this plot and thanks to you incompetents we’ve already lost two of these terrorists.” He stamped his foot. “Hold him still.” He began hurrying over, shouting as he crossed the floor. “He’s got something, you fools. Stick your fingers down his throat.”
There was nobody willing to do that fast enough to stop Tom from biting down on whatever it was he had stashed in his gums, and immediately he began convulsing so hard that suddenly, it was like he’d regained all his lost blood and now had an excess, as it began spurting out from the stump with renewed vigor. He managed to lift his head and in his final few seconds, it almost seemed like he was smiling before his skin turned blue and then finally, his chin sagged against his chest.
The suit grabbed ahold of the hair at the sides of his head and tugged. “The Supreme Leader … someone must answer for this.”
There were men packing around Jeff who were struggling to hold in their laughter and if it weren’t for the guns pointing straight at them, there might well have been celebrations, perhaps even a spontaneous mutiny carried through off the back of the momentum. Almost all the Red Blazers had rushed out with their charge, though they’d be back, that was certain, but in the meantime there were a dozen camp guards, nearly all of whom had descended into a state of shock, their faces pale, eyes wide and frightened, which probably meant they were capable of anything.
The suit spoke with Stott, words Jeff couldn’t hear, gave him the zip gun and then slipped from the room, leaving the madman facing the crowd.
The Day After: A Zombie Apocalypse Thriller Page 11