by John Gregory
I will escape!”
“Do you no longer believe in what we’re doing here?”
“I never did! You people are insane! Barbaric! Insane! I won’t fight for you! Not any more!”
“I suppose that much is true.” With inhuman speed Saint Julian punched the man once in the chest, crushing his ribcage and sending him flailing back into a pair of guards. He collapsed to the ground, dead.
“Take him, put him on a pike where all can see. Hang the sign on him.”
“Yes, your grace.”
“You, private. Go back to the TOC, get my security detachment. Tell them to meet me on the front line.”
“Yes, your grace.”
In Drum City Hall, Mayor Orange talked with his security advisers.
“Do you think we can beat them off?” he asked.
“We did last time, we’ll do it again,” Officer Tillway replied. Tillway was Drum City’s Officer of the Guard, in charge of the defense of the outpost.
“This is different. Have you seen the force out there? This isn’t a bunch of half-starved hillbillies with guns, it’s an army out there!”
“And it’s an army in here. No one has ever breached our walls, and we have plenty of ammo for the machine guns. I assure you, we are safe.”
Mayor Orange didn’t respond, but looked less than confident about taking on the NSA.
“Even if you’re right, even if we don’t stand a chance, what do you propose we do? Just let them in?” Tillway continued. “The city is surrounded; there is nowhere to run if we wanted to. And I for one am not willing to give up this place.”
Mayor Orange was about to counter when one of the tower guards entered.
“Excuse me, Mayor, there is someone who wants to talk to you.”
“Well, send him in.”
“No, sir, he’s outside the wall. I think it’s one of those Saints.”
“What? How can you tell?”
“Well, you’d have to see for your self. He’s… big, sir.”
“Big?”
“Yes, sir, very.”
“Tell him I have nothing to say to him. No—Tell him I want his forces away from my city.”
“I tried, sir. He insists. He says he wants to talk to you about a peaceful solution.”
The mayor held his head, then looked at Tillway.
“What do you think? Is it worth bothering about?”
“If there is a way to resolve this peacefully, we should look into it.”
Mayor Orange stood up and collected his jacket of the coat rack.
“Very well. But if I get shot out there, I’m blaming you,” the official said, and followed the messenger to the city wall.
Mayor Orange looked down over the embrasure and saw an up-armor humvee without a gun, flying a white flag. Next to it stood Saint Julian.
“What do you want?” the mayor asked defiantly.
“I am Saint Julian, and I am here to discuss the terms of your surrender.”
“Surrender? Are you insane? I could have you shot where you stand.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. I want to avoid any unnecessary killing. You will agree there are few enough people left on this Earth as it is.”
“You want to avoid killing? Go home, then. Leave us in peace.”
“You have no need to fear assassination. I assure your safety in our negotiations. If they fail, then I will meet you honorably on the field of battle.”
“Didn’t you hear me? Get the hell out of here, because I sure as hell don’t assure your safety!”
“If you are not comfortable meeting me in a traditional setting, I am willing to discuss terms here and now.”
“For the last time, get lost or I’ll open fire!”
Saint Julian paused for a moment, then continued.
“It pains me to see that you are so blind and unyielding. May God have mercy on your soul, for the deaths that are to follow shall be on your head.”
With that Saint Julian got into his truck and was driven back towards his troops. Mayor Orange breathed a sigh of relief.
“Well, I think that went rather well. You?”
Tillway smiled.
Saint Julian walked into the TOC and immediately got on the radio.
“Guidons Guidons Guidons, this is Saint Julian. Attack will commence in fifteen minutes. Ensure your forces understand that we are not fighting robots today. Those are men and women, lost souls who have not yet heard the Word of God. Show resolve; use restraint. Respond in sequence.” He gave the hand mic to the radio operator and turned to Colonel Barry.
“I take it, your grace, negotiations did not go well,” the colonel said.
“We will bring order and holy sanctity to this city, and we will do it by force. Ensure the artillery is ready to fire. I am going to the front to lead the charge.”
“Will you take your weapon, your grace?”
Saint Julian had an old 240B machine gun as his personal weapon. It sat in the corner of the tent, clean and oiled.
“No, I will use my sword this time. The men’s morale will benefit for it.”
“If I may say so, your grace, you men’s health may benefit from your full lethality.”
The Saint’s eyes narrowed and he replied in a stern tone, “Do not question my lethality, old friend, or you will find yourself on the end of it.”
Out on the field, the artillery guns loaded their first salvo. The companies surrounding the fortified city loaded their weapons and prepared for the charge. Facing the front gates of the city, Saint Julian stood tall over his men. High above him hung the dead man, John Towers, wearing a sign,
“Such is the fate of all who turn from the word of God.”
…….
- Junior and Pinto-
A BOY AND HIS CAR
By Clancy Smith
“God damn it, shit kicker, can’t you keep this thing straight?”
“If I hear one more mother fucking word out of that aborted fetus you call a face I’m going to tear your balls off and bury them up your ass.”
There was a painfully loud grinding sound as the car bounced and shimmied through the endless wasteland. Here and there the landscape was dotted with bits of debris, shredded rubber, cracked slabs of concrete, but by and large the years of harsh sandstorms had washed the area clean. Dead ahead, a dark shape began to loom low on the horizon.
Suddenly there was a painfully loud crack and Junior skittered wildly off the makeshift road, the car correcting itself shakily.
“Jesus mother fuck you worthless load of shit! What was that?” Junior said.
“My serpentine belt, you worthless bitch. I told you to take care of that at the last outpost.”
“Fuck it all to hell.”
“That’s about where we’re headed...”
The guards along the outpost’s watchtower heard the approaching car long before they saw it, a painfully loud cacophony of sputtering and spitting, squealing tires and explosions from the exhaust. A massive plume of thick, black smoke was the first thing visible on the winding road leading towards the portcullis.
“Christ, take a look at this,” said the first guard to his companion, passing him the binoculars. His friend pressed a button on the side of the visor and the view started zooming in: x5, x10, x20…until the car hurtling toward them could be seen in detail.
“What a piece of shit. What is that?”
“I’d say it's one of those Pinto S-1 models if I didn’t know any better,” said the first guard, taking the binoculars back and having another look. “They were all recalled. Bad circuitry, weird shit in the mainframe, all sorts of nonsense coming out everywhere. Suspension left a little to be desired, too.”
“God, it must be a hundred years old if a day.”
“Nobody driving something like that can have shit to trade. Let’s give him a proper welcome when he reaches the gate,” the first guard said, casting a vindictive grin over to his buddy on the watch.
Junior stopped the car along the wall of the outpost
, underneath the very station occupied by the two look-outs. Junior paused for a minute in his sun-cracked upholstered seat, finally reaching into his weathered old trench coat and pulling out a battered, dented iron flask and drinking deep.
“You got a plan other than getting sloshed?”
“Just a little liquid courage to get me goin’,” Junior muttered before opening the door and stepping out into the bright sunlit morning.
The urine hit him dead in the face just as he looked up. His mouth had dropped open to feign a kind greeting to the two men atop the watchtower: most unfortunate timing. The two guardsmen must have been saving up all day after a long night of boozing; the two streams of piss didn’t stop for an absurd amount of minutes. The only thing that could be heard aside from the pitter-patter of urine on leather was something resembling laughter filtered through several inches of metal grating.
Junior cast an irritated glance over toward his car before looking back up at the guardsmen.
“Good morning to you, too,” he shouted.
“Piss off, wanker!” the first guard yelled back.
“I have trade.”
“You got shit,” said the guard. “If that piece of crap Pinto is any indication.”
The car revved its engine ever so softly, lurching forward an inch before expelling a plume of black gas out its tail-end. The machine sputtered horribly. The guards let loose a long peel of laughter.
“Is that fucking tape holding it together?”
“Tape and gum!” said the second. “I can’t believe that thing still runs.”
Junior took off his wide-brimmed brown leather fedora and wiped at some of the urine, looking back up at the guards, grimacing into the sunlight.
“I have trade,” he said again.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“Most people call me ‘Junior,’” he replied.
“You’re old enough to be my grandfather, ‘Junior,’” the first guard yelled back.
“Nah. You’d be prettier,” Junior replied. His thinning hair was speckled with gray, just like the spots of beard stubble below it. Crow’s feet highlighted the sides of his old silver eyes as he squinted up at the guards.
“What ‘trade’ could you possibly have?”
“Old world tech. Radio, cerebral net wiring, hologram insertion chips...”
“Shit you picked up on the roadside hoping to swap out for some food, water and gas for that crap-heap there, you mean?” the first guard cut him off.
Junior looked up and grinned.
“Vodka, gin, flot, coke, ex, meth and a couple warm beers.”
Silence came from the tower as the two guards blinked, their smiles shrinking.
“You got all that?” said the first guard, his voice dropping low, throwing a cautionary look over his shoulder down at the outpost within.
“Not a lot, but enough for you two to get fucked off your asses for a good long while,” he slid his urine soaked hat back on his head.
The two guards whispered to each other for a moment, before turning back to Junior.
“Alright, old timer. I’ll give you a little gas cred, food cred and enough water to last you a week.”
“If you’re not greedy with it!” the other guard joined in.
“And repairs to the car.”
“What the fuck for?” the first guard shouted back incredulously. “Trade that piece of shit for scrap and grab a glider. It doesn’t even fucking work anymore, does it?”
“It drives okay.”
“It just drives? Are you serious? Junk it!”
“Can’t,” Junior said. “It’s a piece of shit but it’s my piece of shit. I got it when I was fifteen, had it ever since.”
“Jesus, it is old as fuck then, by the looks of you.”
The second guard elbowed his companion in the ribs sharply.
“Just you down there? No one else in that car?”
Junior cast a quick look at the car before correcting himself, hoping the guards hadn’t noticed the slight movement from way up on the watchtower.
“No. No one else.”
“Alright, alright. We’ll get it looked at. No promises, though. And if it fucking dies in here it’s ours, you hear me?”
Junior spit on the ground again.
“Deal.”
“That your piece of shit car outside?” the bartender grinned, wiping down a mug with an oily rag as Junior slid