by Vance Huxley
In what had now become a ritual, relatives and friends talked briefly about their lost relatives, friends or those they’d known only briefly, with Harold speaking last. “After the first battle here, when the mob tried to break through the cordon, I had to burn a young man’s body. His mother asked why he stood in the front line, why had her child died? I told his mother, Faith, that her son stood and fought because, despite his age, Toby was a soldier. Uniforms, oaths, all the trappings of an army are just the trimmings, something to help them know friend from foe and bond them together. All that is truly needed to become a soldier, is for a person to place their body between the innocent and the foe. To risk everything so that others might live. When the enemy came again, we found out that Toby had a soldier’s blood in his veins because his mother made the same choice. Faith died fighting, standing between the enemy and his prize. I wish I could give her and every one of our dead soldiers a medal, a funeral cortege, a band, and their own speech, all the pomp and splendour the military do so well. Instead, all I can do is swear to remember them, always.”
A very shaky Hilda, supported by Veronica, passed the torch to Harold. She had already laid Rascal next to Faith, to look after each other. Around the pyre others raised their torches, then as they thrust the flame into the heap Harold gave the traditional Orchard Close “Fare thee well, my friends.” After saluting, he turned from the pyre to face the crowd of mourners. “Atoms reborn into grass.” This time the friends and relatives who helped light the pyre joined the fighters, speaking the second line, “Fire and passion stilled at last.” Different groups joined in with each line of the requiem, until everyone who could make it into the field or onto the wall, including children, ended with, “One day, my friend, this will be you.”
Instead of breaking up slowly the crowd moved back behind the walls straight away. There were plenty of unfriendly eyes to see the rising smoke, and some might come to investigate. Harold, and many of the others, went back to work until sheer exhaustion stopped them. A good proportion of the survivors were finding work the best antidote to lying awake, sleepless, remembering that night.
* * *
The third day, a few wounded Barbie and GOFS visitors brought news of a victory, as the combined gangs swept over the Hot Rods. The two gangs had taken over half of the Murphy’s old territory and a chunk of the original Hot Rods enclave, in just a half-day of ferocious fighting. The likes of Ski and Beetch were busy consolidating their gains, so the only visitors were wounded line troops who didn’t know many details. The GOFS had definitely killed Dodge and captured his big American SUV, but while the Barbies had Chevy’s Silverado, a semi-pickup, they didn’t think they’d killed the man himself.
Some bodies wouldn’t get a burial or a pyre. Once the Hot Rods prisoners had helped with shifting timbers the half-mile to the pyre builders, they went back to shifting dead gangsters. Harold really was marking the new border with dead scroats. Mid-morning Patty took Harold to the gate, because Ru reckoned the prisoners were nearly out of work. “Once this is done they’re bloody useless.” Ru glared at the Hot Rod captives loading bodies into a van, rags tied across their faces. “We may as well leave them on the heap after they’ve unloaded the last lot.” Time wasn’t any sort of healer in this case. There were only thirteen prisoners now, because three had done something their guards construed as threatening. The survivors stripped the boots from the bodies and threw them on the heap.
“They surrendered; they live.” Harold thought hard, but there were only two jobs he could give the men. “They can clear more ground, demolition or salvaging, or work in the fields.”
“In the fields, because once our guards get them out of sight in the ruins they’ll be shot attempting to escape. There again, that might solve your problem.” Patty squinted towards the Hot Rods but didn’t move any nearer. The stench and the flies didn’t encourage closer inspection. Crows and seagulls were still trying to get to the free meal, while at night the guards could hear other scavengers. The combination was why Harold had authorised convoys to shift the bodies. Patty sniffed but not because of the smell. “The scroats can dig new ground over, but we’ll never make real farmers out of them. They won’t even free up much labour because they’ll always need guards.”
“Yes, but it wouldn’t have been right to top them out of hand.” Both Patty and Ru stared at Harold in disbelief, so he clarified. “Understandable and I wanted to do it, but we’ve got to be civilised. We have to be better than they are, or what are we fighting over?”
“It won’t matter eventually, because sooner or later they’ll all make a mistake. Why not make it quick and clean?” The deputy Demon would volunteer to do the job because her friend Wamil still had at least one bullet in her, one that Lenny daren’t try for. Lenny also suspected internal injuries he’d never treat even if he found them. Wamil hadn’t woken up yet, let alone recovered in any appreciable way, so Ru became more bloodthirsty by the day.
“Ru’s got a point. We could hire them to the Barbies as gardeners?” Patty smiled sunnily because she knew the Hot Rods wouldn’t survive for long.
“That’s it! Farmers!” Harold laughed, at least partly in relief because the prisoners were a real problem. He didn’t mind them dying but he didn’t want any residents thinking that cold-blooded murder was acceptable. “We send them to the government farms.”
“What, give them to Sarge with a note pinned to them?” Patty wasn’t sure that would work. She had a suspicion the Army would just throw them back into the city, at a different access point. Ru made a wordless sound of protest, putting her hand on her sabre.
“No. If the Army let them go again at another access they might open their big gobs about us to someone. What happens to shoplifters?” Harold watched Patty smile while even Ru nodded very slightly. Everyone knew that shoplifters were criminals, taken away to be sentenced to the government farms. They were convicts who wouldn’t be released anywhere, so they couldn’t tell anyone in the city about Orchard Close’s defences or weapons.
Though Ru wasn’t completely convinced. “How do we work that?”
“Volunteers. Watch and learn.” Harold turned and beckoned one of the guards over. “Get me one Hot Rod, please, to give a message to the rest.” Within moments one of the men came trotting over.
“Yes, sir.” The man looked at Harold’s feet but flinched from Gemma as he spoke, presumably in case he was transgressing somewhere.
“I’ve got two options for your lot, the prisoners. Three really. The third one is that you take a swing at the young lady.”
“She’ll kill me! Sir.” Total conviction there because it was true.
“They’ll find an excuse anyway, sooner or later, unless you take one of the other options.” Harold paused to let that sink in. “You can be sold to the Barbies?”
“The Barbies?” The reply came out more as a squeak, and for a moment Harold thought the man would go for the punch a guard option. “No sir! Please.”
With a smirk at Patty, Harold let him off the hook. “You could be caught shoplifting instead?”
“What? But how? They’d send us to the prison farms! Sir.” The sir came after a moment, and with a flinch so it wasn’t the man’s idea.
“A government farm where they’ll want you to work, or here where your guards really, really want to kill you, or with the Barbies who will play with you first.” Harold tried very hard to keep the anger and grief from his voice. “Mercedes is dying. You might not want to be here when she does, because I’ll be looking for a way to work it off.” This time the man flinched from Harold, while Patty’s eyes opened very wide for a moment. “Now talk to the rest but you keep working while you do. Let the guards know when you all decide.”
“I’d be quick about it, because if he comes for you I’ll help hold you down.” Gemma meant it, and it showed. The Hot Rod got the hell out, with an odd sort of bow and some more sirs. Ru watched him go, a little smile on her face, possibly the first since she learned
about Wamil. “The Mart might just top them anyway. We don’t have any proof they go to the farms.” She wasn’t too bothered from her tone of voice but was trying to be civilised.
“The surviving Hot Rods might try to rescue them at TesdaMart, which is a blessing for this lot because the security there are utter arseholes. We’ll give them to SainsMorrMart, if that’s what they want.” Two grunts of agreement answered Harold, neither of them too worried about giving Hot Rods to the devil in person.
As Ru went off to help guard the convoy carrying bodies, Patty faced Harold. She looked as worried as she sounded. “How bad? When Mercedes dies, I mean. As bad as when Holly died?”
“Worse, I think. No time-out this time, but Hot Rod extinction is a distinct possibility. Unless I run out of ammo or they get lucky.” Harold knew he should let it lie, that all the attackers were dead or prisoners and the gang badly hurt, but he knew he wouldn’t. At the moment a big black hole waited the other side of Mercedes dying, but he knew how to fill it. Rows of Hot Rod bodies would do the job, eventually. “Those men really are safer a long way away.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure nobody gets lucky. I’ll even carry extra ammo for you.” Patty turned to look the other direction, away from Hot Rod territory. “If we run out of Hot Rods, there’s always Geeks?” Harold couldn’t answer because of the big lump in his throat. He nodded his thanks and headed home, to check on Mercedes again. Harold hadn’t been home long when the answer arrived. All thirteen prisoners volunteered to be shoplifters, which left them with six days to survive supervision.
A second messenger came to let Harold know the relatives and friends had finally finished digging the graves and were ready. Harold hoped nobody saw the funerals in the exclusion zone, because he didn’t want Sarge getting into trouble. He wondered about the drones, but the soldiers didn’t seem worried so maybe they were busy elsewhere. The funerals themselves were poignant, an echo of the past, with everyone attending. When the different groups lowered their dead and prayed, even the non-believers bowed their heads, echoing the “amen” at least. The squaddies stood at attention along the bypass railings and saluted, another sombre moment.
As the residents gathered for the third pyre, a car arrived with a message from Vulcan. The Hot Rods seemed to be digging in along the new border, not counter-attacking or even sniping. A good few residents celebrated because they now had friends among the GOFS and Barbies, but Harold and his friends were worried. If the Hot Rods had reorganised with a new boss, he might be saving his fighters to come after a weakened Orchard Close. As soon as Vulcan left Harold lit the last pyre, the third one, while there was still enough light to see any approaching scroats.
Tonight the rain held off again, despite some clouds, so by the time the residents had filed back in through the gates the heap was well ablaze. Once again, nobody stayed outside because most people still expected trouble. A group of close friends and relatives stood vigil on the walls, watching as the flames created flickering shadows in the gathering gloom. Tomorrow, there’d be one last, sad procession to the edge of the exclusion zone, to spread the ashes. Harold, for one, hoped that would finally let everyone move past their losses and start to look to the future.
3 – Early April
Precinct 19/Dudley Zoo:
Across the city, miles to the west of Orchard Close at the far side of a motorway, a small group of very serious faces pored over an old street map. Some of the streets would be impassable, but the layout would be the same which was the best they’d get. Ex-police officer Fifteen, Sergeant Roos, put his finger onto a junction. “That one is definitely blocked, a proper rubble barricade. Are you sure your people can’t come to meet us?”
The messenger shook his head. He’d come from a gang who were the next targets for Conan and the Barbarians. The potential victims were hoping for a safe refuge, but so far nobody would risk Conan’s wrath. There were enough gangs between Conan and the zoo for them to risk it, but extracting and transporting a whole community wouldn’t be easy. “We won’t run unless we can bring our families as well. The thing is, if we make a gap and break out we’ll have to hold it while everyone gets through. We’ll never get everyone through an active firefight before Conan’s Barbarians come up behind us. Then we’ll be hit from both sides and out of our prepared positions. It would be a complicated way to commit suicide.” A bleak smile touched the speaker’s unshaven face. “Not that Mahaan and his boys will be helpless, but they haven’t got a lot of ammo and their bows can’t hold off firearms for long.” The man looked around at the doubtful faces.
“Mahaan?” The Zoo alliance looked at each other but none of them had heard of a gang leader with that name.
“Ex-Army so he can shoot, but Mahaan’s a Sikh so he’s a lot happier getting in close with sharp steel.”
“Sikhs?” Sergeant Koos suddenly became a lot more interested. He’d spent a few years in the Army, and if these blokes were anything like the Sikhs he’d met they’d be a real asset. For starters they all knew how to handle a knife. It was like a religion to them.
The messenger nodded eagerly. “The core of the gang are, but they’ve collected refugees, people running from Conan like me. You are the nearest civilised enclave that have the fighters and weapons to help. Mahaan took me in so I’m not really neutral, but these people are worth the effort. If nothing else, I doubt you’ve got anything like those Sikhs when it gets to blades.”
“How many?” Teddy, the leader of the Zoo contingent, didn’t want the enclave overrun with too many refugees. They could raise more animals, but not too many or there wouldn’t be enough browse and grazing.
“About thirty-five men fit to fight, maybe fifty with lightly wounded and some boys who are already better fighters than most I’ve seen. Mahaan won’t let them join the front line yet. That’s just the Sikhs. There’s another thirty maybe, recent refugees like me. We’re the usual amateur fighters but Mahaan is training us up to his standard as fast as possible. He’s got high standards so we aren’t what Mahaan considers good enough for a real fight. Their neighbours have been bloodied often enough to back off, but the fighting whittled down the original Sikhs.” The man looked around hopefully, pushing forward a scrap of cardboard covered in figures and writing.
“If they’ve backed the neighbours off, what’s the problem?” Teddy, his tiger-skin cloak and hat discarded for this meeting, frowned at the figures. “Eighty fighters and the wounded, defending how many?”
“There’s just over a hundred non-combatant Sikhs and thirty-plus refugees, depending on which way you count the youths. The eighty aren’t all real fighters, not yet, and the stalemate won’t last much longer. The Barbarians pushed the remnants of two enclaves right into Mahaan, me among them, and attacked while everything was mixed up. The Sikhs stopped the Barbarians, but it cost nineteen fighters and too many badly wounded. Luckily Conan was injured. He’s had his hands full sorting out what he’s captured, but he’s pissed off so eventually he’ll come and finish the job.” The messenger sobered, pulling out a folded piece of odd-looking stiff paper. “Conan sent this message, written on human skin he reckons, to tell the Sikhs he’ll be coming. He’s promised to skin every survivor if Mahaan isn’t trussed up ready for him.”
Sergeant Koos straightened suddenly. “We are interested if only to stop that nasty sod getting at the women and kids, though to be honest it’s not just that. None of us are very good at the hand to hand so we get hurt badly whenever it gets down to machetes. I’ve seen Sikhs sparring with knives and swords. Mahaan’s people are exactly what we need to train our men.”
“Inga knows some martial arts but only bare hands, and despite being Japanese, Takato is no good with a sword.” As Teddy spoke, the Keepers and Precinct 19 cast their votes for getting some real fighters aboard. “There’ll be enough food if we sell less to the neighbours. We’re in.”
“Thank God for that.” Real amusement coloured the messenger’s voice for a moment. “You can really t
hank Him, because there’s four nuns and a priest in among the refugees. Conan ran over their enclave, the Lambs of God, and they’re sick with worry about the rest of the nuns.”
The group moved on to looking at practical ways to reach Mahaan and get back alive. The messenger kept out of it, except for advice about the state of some roads. As the Zookeepers and Precinct 19 worked through their options, he looked puzzled because they kept on about being short of ammo. “I thought you’d got a lot of cows and stuff, real meat and milk.” Teddy agreed. They had plenty of meat even if cow wasn’t really exact. “I’d have thought Dealer would take fresh meat or the fancier skins at least. The asshole takes more or less anything else in return for powder. Or you could sell meat for coupons to the neighbours and just buy his ammo. He even sells bleach and other stuff to make bombs.”
The rescue discussion stopped as the others insisted on a full explanation. This Dealer had never been near either the Zoo or the ex-police, which seemed strange. Unfortunately, that wouldn’t help them right now, but there’d be some serious discussion about getting him to visit once the refugees were safe and sound.
* * *
Sutton Park:
To the north-east of the zoo, someone wasn’t keen on discussing anything. “Another bloody meeting? We used to manage fine without all this crap. Next thing there’ll be tax returns and shit like that.” The muscular black youth with a crewcut, wearing traditional Skinhead clothing including a baseball bat, grumbled as he followed his wife, Chelle, towards the old hotel.
“We also managed without real milk for the kids, fresh meat or fish, and ate Mart crap instead of fresh home-grown veg.” Chelle turned to scowl at Shiner. “If you ever have to fill out a form to keep the good grub coming, it’ll be worth it. Now stop wittering and try to look like you give a shit.”