1987 - Swan Song v4

by Robert McCammon

  “Mighty late for you to be up,” Anna McClay said. She was sitting on the porch steps next to an ex-Pittsburgh steelworker named Polowsky, and both of them were wearing heavy coats, caps and gloves and armed with rifles. At dawn, another pair of guards would take over for a few hours, and the rotating shifts continued all day and night. “How’s Sister doin’?”

  “No change yet.” Swan looked at the bonfire that burned in the middle of the road. The wind whipped through it, and a shower of red sparks wheeled into the sky. About twenty people were sleeping around the bonfire, and several more were sitting up, staring into the flames or talking to one another to pass the night. Until she knew where the man with the scarlet eye was, Sister had demanded that the shack be guarded at all times, a demand to which Josh and the others had readily agreed. The volunteers also stayed around the bonfires in the field all night, watching the cornstalks and the new area where the apple cores had been planted.

  Swan had told Josh and Sister about facing the man with the scarlet eye in the crowd that day, and she thought that maybe—just a little bit—she understood why he struck out to cause such suffering in human beings. She knew also that he’d almost taken the apple, but at the last second his unthinking rage and pride had won. And she’d seen that he hated her and hated himself for wanting to take a step beyond what he was; but he’d been afraid of her, too, and as she’d watched him stagger away Swan had realized that forgiveness crippled evil, drew the poison from it like lancing a boil. What might have happened if he’d taken the apple she didn’t know, but the moment was gone. Still, she didn’t fear the man with the scarlet eye as she had before, and since that day she hadn’t been looking over her shoulder to see who was coming up from behind.

  She walked to the corner of the porch, where Mule was hitched to the support post. The horse was kept warm by several blankets, and there was a pail of spring water for him to drink from. Finding food for him was a problem, but Swan had saved him a dozen apple cores and was feeding him those, as well as roots and some straw that had been stuffed inside Mr. Polowsky’s mattress. He liked horses and had offered to help feed and water Mule. The horse didn’t generally take to strangers, but he seemed to accept Mr. Polowsky’s attention with a minimum of crankiness.

  Mule’s head had been drooping, but his nose twitched as he caught Swan’s aroma, and instantly his head came up, his eyes open and alert. She scratched between his eyes and then down at the soft, velvety skin of his muzzle, and Mule nibbled at her fingers with unabashed delight.

  Swan suddenly looked over toward the fire and saw him standing there, silhouetted by flames and sparks. She couldn’t see his face, but she could feel him staring at her. Her skin broke out in goose bumps under her patchwork coat, and she quickly looked away, concentrating only on rubbing Mule’s muzzle. But her eyes slid back toward Robin, who had come a few feet closer to the porch’s edge. Her heart boomed like a kettle drum, and again she looked away. From the corner of her eye, she watched him approach, then stop and pretend to be examining something on the ground with the toe of his boot.

  It’s time to go back in now, she told herself. Time to check on Sister again.

  But her legs didn’t want to move. Robin was coming nearer, and then he stopped again and peered out beyond the fire as if something else had taken his attention. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat, seemed to be trying to decide whether to return to the bonfire’s warmth or not. Swan didn’t know if she wanted him to come closer or go away, and she felt as jumpy as a grasshopper on a hot rock.

  Then he took another step forward. His mind was made up.

  But Swan’s nerve broke, and she started to turn away and go back inside.

  Mule decided the issue by choosing that instant to playfully clamp his teeth on Swan’s fingers, holding her prisoner for the few seconds it took Robin to reach her.

  “I think your horse must be hungry,” he said.

  Swan pulled her fingers free. She started to turn away again, her heart pounding so strongly that she was certain he must hear it, like distant thunder over the horizon.

  “Don’t go.” Robin’s voice softened. “Please.”

  Swan stopped. She thought he didn’t resemble at all the movie stars in the magazines her mother used to read, because there was nothing clean-cut and Hollywood-handsome about him; he looked nothing like the well-scrubbed teenage boys in the soap operas Darleen Prescott had watched. His face, for all its hard lines and angles, was young, but his eyes were old. They were the color of ashes but looked capable of fire. She met his gaze, saw that he’d loosened his mask of toughness. His eyes were soft—maybe even tender—as he stared up at her.

  “Hey!” Anna McClay said. “You go on about your business. Swan doesn’t have time for you.”

  His tough mask tightened again. “Who made you her keeper?”

  “Not keeper, smartass. Protector. Now, why don’t you just be a good little boy and go on—”

  “No,” Swan interrupted. “I don’t need a keeper, or a protector. Thank you for being concerned about me, Anna, but I can take care of myself.”

  “Oh. Sorry. I just thought he was botherin’ you again.”

  “He’s not bothering me. It’s all right. Really.”

  “You sure? I used to see his type strollin’ the midway, lookin’ for pockets to pick.”

  “I’m sure,” Swan replied. Anna gave Robin another warning glare, then returned to her conversation with Mr. Polowsky.

  “That’s telling her,” Robin said, smiling gratefully. “It’s about time she got her butt kicked.”

  “No, it’s not. You might not like Anna, and she sure doesn’t like you, but she’s doing what she thinks is best for me, and I appreciate that. If you were bothering me, I would let her run you off.”

  Robin’s smile faded. “So you think you’re better than everybody else?”

  “No, I didn’t mean it like that.” Swan felt flustered and nervous, and her tongue was getting tangled between her thoughts and her words. “I just meant… Anna is right to be careful.”

  “Uh-huh. So am I bothering you by being friendly?”

  “You were a little too friendly when you came into the shack and… and woke me up that way,” she replied crisply. She could feel her face reddening, and she wanted to go back to the beginning and start the conversation all over again, but it was out of control now, and she was half scared and half angry. “And I wasn’t offering you that apple the other day, either!”

  “Oh, I get it. Well, my feet are on solid ground. They’re not up on a pedestal like some people’s are. And maybe I couldn’t help it that I kissed you, and maybe when I saw you standing there with an apple in your hand and your eyes big and wide I couldn’t help but take it, either. When I first saw you, I thought you were okay; I didn’t know you were a stuck-up little princess!”

  “I’m not!”

  “No? Well, you act like one. Listen, I’ve been around! I’ve met a lot of girls! I know stuck-up when I see it!”

  “And—” Stop! she thought. Stop right now! But she couldn’t, because she was scared inside, and she didn’t dare let him know how much. “And I know a crude, loudmouthed… fool when I see one!”

  “Yeah, I’m a fool, all right!” He shook his head and laughed without humor. “I’m sure a fool for thinking I might like to get to know the ice princess better, huh?” He stalked away before she could reply.

  All she could think to say was, “Don’t bother me again!” Instantly she felt a pang of pain that sliced her open from head to toe. She clenched her teeth to keep from calling him. If he was going to act like a fool, then he was one! He was a baby with a bad temper, and she wanted nothing more to do with him.

  But she knew also that a kind word might call him back. One kind word, that was all. And was that so hard? He’d misunderstood her, and maybe she’d misunderstood him as well. She felt Anna and Mr. Polowsky watching her, and she sensed that Anna might be wearing a faint, knowing smile. Mule rum
bled and exhaled steam into Swan’s face. Swan pushed aside her swollen pride and started to call Robin, and as she opened her mouth the shack’s door opened and Paul Thorson said excitedly, “Swan! It’s happening!”

  She watched Robin walking toward the bonfire. And then she followed Paul into the shack.

  Robin stood at the edge of the fire. Slowly, he balled up a fist and placed it against his forehead. “Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb!” he said as he hit himself in the head. He still didn’t know what had happened; he just knew he’d been scared to death even speaking to someone as beautiful as Swan. He’d wanted to impress her, but now he felt like he’d just walked barefoot through a cow pasture. “Dumb, dumb, dumb!” he kept repeating. Of course, he hadn’t met a lot of girls; in fact, he hardly had met any girls. He didn’t know how to act around them. They were like creatures from another planet. How did you talk to them without… yeah, without coming off like a loudmouthed fool—which was exactly what he knew he was.

  Well, he told himself, everything’s sure messed up now! He was still shaking inside, and he felt sick down in the pit of his stomach. And when he shut his eyes he could still see Swan standing before him, as radiant as the most wonderful dream he’d ever known. Since the first day he’d seen her, lying asleep on the bed, he hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind.

  I love her, he thought. He’d heard about love, but he’d had no idea love made you feel giddy and sick and shaky all at the same time. I love her. And he didn’t know whether to shout or cry, so he just stood staring into the flames and seeing nothing but Swan’s face.

  “I believe I just heard two arrows hit a couple of rear ends,” Anna told Mr. Polowsky, and they looked at each other and laughed.

  Seventy-three

  Storming the fortress

  The man with a face like a skull stood up in his Jeep and lifted an electric bullhorn. His jagged teeth parted, and he bellowed, “Kill them! Kill! Kill! Kill!”

  Macklin’s roar mingled with the shout of engines firing and was finally drowned out by the thunder of machinery as more than six hundred armored cars, trucks, Jeeps and vans began to move across the parking lot toward the Savior’s fortress. Dawn’s gray light was further dirtied by banners of drifting smoke, and fires burned on the parking lot, consuming the two hundred vehicles that had been wrecked or destroyed during the first two assault waves. The broken bodies of AOE soldiers lay dead or dying on the cracked concrete, and there were new screams of agony as the wheels of the third wave rolled over the wounded.

  “Kill them! Kill them all!” Macklin continued to shout through the bullhorn, waving the monster machines on with his black-gloved right hand. The nails protruding from its palm glinted with the fires of destruction.

  Hundreds of soldiers, armed with rifles, pistols and Molotov cocktails, moved on foot behind the advancing vehicles. And in a semicircle around the shopping mall, three densely packed rows of American Allegiance trucks, cars and vans awaited the onslaught, just as they’d waited for and repulsed the previous two. But piles of Allegiance dead littered the parking lot as well, and many of their vehicles blazed, still exploding as the gas tanks ruptured.

  Flames leaped, and bitter smoke filled the air. But Macklin looked toward the Savior’s fortress and grinned, because he knew the Allegiance could not stand before the might of the Army of Excellence. They would fall—if not in the third attack, then in the fourth, or fifth, or sixth, or seventh. The battle was winnable, Macklin knew. Today he would be the victor, and he would make the Savior kneel and kiss his boot before he smashed the Savior’s face.

  “Closer!” Macklin shouted to his driver, and Judd Lawry flinched. Lawry couldn’t stand to look at Macklin’s face, and as he drove the Jeep nearer to the advancing line of vehicles he didn’t know whom he feared most: the leering, ranting thing that Colonel Macklin had become, or the American Allegiance sharpshooters.

  “Onward! Onward! Keep moving!” Macklin commanded the soldiers, his eyes sweeping the ranks, watching for any signs of hesitation. “They’re about to break!” he shouted. “Onward! Keep going!”

  Macklin heard a horn blare and looked back to see a bright red, rebuilt Cadillac with an armored windshield roaring across the lot, weaving through and around other vehicles to get to the front. The driver had long, curly blond hair, and a dwarf was crouched up in the Cadillac’s roof turret where the snout of a machine gun protruded. “Closer, Lieutenant!” Macklin ordered. “I want a front row seat!”

  Oh, Jesus! Lawry thought. His armpits were sweating. It was one thing to attack a bunch of farmers armed with shovels and hoes, and something else entirely to storm a brick fortress where the fuckers had heavy artillery!

  But the American Allegiance held their fire as the AOE’s trucks and vans rolled steadily forward.

  Macklin knew all his officers were in place, leading their battalions. Roland Croninger was on the right, in his own command Jeep, urging two hundred men and more than fifty armored vehicles into battle. Captains Carr, Wilson and Satterlee, Lieutenants Thatcher and Meyers, Sergeants McCowan, Arnholdt, Benning and Buford—all of his trusted officers were in their places, and all of them had their minds fixed on victory.

  Breaking through the Savior’s defenses was a simple matter of discipline and control, Macklin had concluded. It didn’t matter how many AOE soldiers died, or how many AOE vehicles exploded and burned—this was a test of his personal discipline and control. And he swore that he’d fight to the last man before he let the Savior beat him.

  He knew that he’d gone a little crazy when that stuff had cracked open, when he’d picked up a lantern and looked into a mirror at himself, but he was all right now.

  Because, after his madness had passed, Colonel Macklin had realized he now wore the face of the Shadow Soldier. They were one and the same now. It was a miracle that told Macklin God was on the side of the Army of Excellence.

  He grinned and roared, “Keep moving! Discipline and control!” through the bullhorn in the voice of a beast.

  Another voice spoke. It was a hollow-sounding boom!, and Macklin saw the flash of orange light by the mall’s barricaded entrance. There was a high shrieking noise that seemed to pass right over Macklin’s head. About seventy yards behind him, an explosion threw up pieces of concrete and the twisted metal of an already-wrecked van. “Onward!” Macklin commanded. The American Allegiance might have tanks, he thought, but they didn’t know shit about shell trajectories. Another round whistled through the air, exploding back in the encampment. And then there was a ripple of fire along the massed defenses of the American Allegiance, and bullets struck sparks from the concrete and ricocheted off the armored vehicles. Some of the soldiers fell, and Macklin shouted, “Attack! Attack! Open fire!”

  The order was picked up by other officers, and almost at once the machine guns, pistols and automatic rifles of the Army of Excellence began to stutter and crack, aiming a barrage at the enemy’s defensive line. The AOE’s lead vehicles lunged forward, gathering speed to smash through to the mall. A third tank shell exploded in the parking lot, throwing a plume of smoke and rubble and making the ground tremble. And then some of the Allegiance’s heavy vehicles were gunning forward, their engines screaming, and as the trucks and armored cars of both armies slammed together there was a hideous cacophony of shrieking tires, bending metal and ear-cracking explosions.

  “Attack! Kill them all!” Macklin kept shouting at the advancing soldiers as Judd Lawry jinked the wheel back and forth to avoid corpses and wrecked hulks. Lawry’s eyes were about to pop from his head, beads of cold sweat covering his face. A bullet glanced off the edge of the windshield, and Lawry could feel its vibration like the snap of a tuning fork.

  Machine gun fire zigzagged across the parking lot, and half a dozen AOE soldiers spun like demented ballet dancers. Macklin threw aside the bullhorn, wrenched his Colt .45 from his waist holster and shot at Allegiance soldiers as they stormed over the defensive line into the maelstrom of bodies, skidding vehicles, expl
osions and burning wrecks. So many cars and trucks were slamming together, backing up and charging one another again that the parking lot resembled a gargantuan demolition derby.

  Two trucks crashed right in front of the Jeep, and Lawry hit the brakes and twisted the wheel at the same time, throwing the Jeep into a sideswiping skid. Two men were struck down beneath its wheels, and whether they were AOE or Allegiance soldiers Lawry didn’t know. Everything was confused and crazy, the air full of blinding smoke and sparks, and over the screaming and shouting Judd Lawry could hear Macklin laughing as the colonel fired at random targets.

  A man with a pistol was suddenly framed in the Jeep’s headlights, and Lawry ran him down. Bullets thunked against the Jeep’s side, and to the left an AOE car exploded, sending its driver tumbling through the air, still gripping a fiery steering wheel.

  Between the crashing and skidding vehicles, the infantrymen were locked in savage hand-to-hand combat. Lawry swerved to avoid a burning truck. He heard the shrill whistle of an approaching shell, and his groin shriveled. As he screamed, “We gotta get out of here!” he twisted the wheel violently to the right and sank his foot to the floorboard. The Jeep surged forward, running over two soldiers grappling on the concrete. A tracer bullet whacked into the Jeep’s side, and Lawry heard himself whimper.

  “Lieutenant!” Macklin shouted. “Turn the Jeep back—”

  And that was all he had time to say, because the earth suddenly shook, and there was a blinding, white-hot blast about ten feet in front of the Jeep. The vehicle shuddered and reared up on its back tires like a frightened horse. Macklin heard Lawry’s strangled scream—and then Macklin jumped for his life as the scorching shock wave of the explosion hit him and almost ripped the uniform off his body. He struck the concrete on his shoulder and heard the shriek of tires and the crash of the Jeep as it was flung into another car.