Paulie saw Stevie try to hide the carrots. He slapped him again in the exact same spot, still tender from the first blow and much more receptive to pain. Paulie knew that. He was a most accomplished bully. It wasn’t easy to get fat eating clan food. Paulie was the master of getting more than his share.
Stevie hung his head and moved aside, giving access to his plate to corpulent Paulie. Snatching up the plate, The Porker brought it up to his mouth and greedily shoveled its contents down the gaping hole with his fingers, leaving only the carrots behind, little orphaned orange fingers with globules of fat from the stew adhering to them.
“You like these carrots, fuck face?” he asked Stevie.
Stevie knew an answer wasn’t required. Paulie swept the carrots into the dust at Stevie’s feet. “Pick ‘em out, vegetable boy,” Paulie laughed. “A little dirt adds flavor.”
Stevie ignored the bully. A confrontation could mean serious pain, possibly injury. Paulie was a vicious little boy, highly respected in the eight-year-old community and already catching the eye of the clan grown-ups as a potential asset. Stevie kept his head down, avoiding eye contact, anything that could interpreted as further communication. Hunger was a far better choice than a severe beating.
And Stevie would go hungry. He didn’t have the heart to take from the children smaller than he. And no one would offer him their scraps—no adults, no children. In the clan you had to hang on to your property. Either be tough or be low profile.
Paulie casually tossed the empty plate down in the dust. “I think there’s a little gravy left, Scrote,” he said to Stevie and left laughing.
The plate was lying face down in the dust. Stevie didn’t bother to check.
REMEMBRANCES OF STEVIE B.
2048 AGE SEVEN
It wasn’t unusual for Stevie to be awakened in the middle of the night by a fight. Two or more men battling over a hit of Slammer … or a bottle of shine…or the flesh of a woman. Screaming and snarling, the soldiers sometimes battled to the death when their tempers flashed beyond the borders of reason, and they put their lives on the line for the transitory pleasure of sex or drugs. The loser’s carcass would be dragged to the edge of the compound and left for the dogs.
But it was no ordinary fight that awakened Stevie this night, not a battle he could listen to and return to sleep when it finished. This one was coming right at him. If he didn’t move, Stevie suddenly realized, he would be engulfed, swept away in the melee. This was hell.
The sounds of gunshots bounced off the walls of the Messengers’ current home, a several hundred unit apartment complex arranged in a semicircle of three story buildings. In the brief silence between shots, Stevie heard screams of agony, of pain. As he sat up and rubbed his eyes, his brain slipped into gear and interpreted for him what his eyes and ears were registering. Through the flashes of rifle and pistol shots and the flickering flames that were beginning to dance up the sides of the buildings, Stevie saw hundreds of bodies running, falling, dripping black fluid.
Children skittered through the battle. Hands to their ears, eyes wide as an owl’s in terror, mouths open in unheard screams, they were the first to fall, trampled by the fighting or fleeing clan adults, dispatched by stray bullets. No one tried to help the children. They were not valuable. More could be produced…or purchased. Survival was more important.
On his hands and knees, his sleeping bag crumpled beneath him, Stevie snapped his head left and right, frantically searching for a place to hide. Ahead of him, just a few meters away, a microcosm of the huge struggle drifted toward him, threatening to sweep him up in its ferocity. Two fleeing Messenger women had been tackled by four of the attackers. Backlighted by the growing fires, the men began ripping the clothes from the women’s bodies. The women struggled and screamed mightily. The soldiers were laughing. It was much more fun to rape them alive than fuck their corpses.
Stevie knew the women by sight. They were of his clan. But by deed they had done nothing to ingratiate themselves to the boy. To them he was just another kid, high maintenance, low pay out. But Stevie knew it was wrong, what was happening to them, and scrambled towards them, a momentary lapse of reason from a young mind that had not yet turned savage, a futile gesture to help the helpless that luckily did not cost him his life. One of the attacking men jumped up and kicked Stevie in the ribs, knocking him back toward the edge of the action.
Breathless, retching from the blow to his side, Stevie crawled backwards on his hands and knees, away from the carnage, across the grass, over sidewalks, finally encountering a curb that dropped him a few inches to the pavement of the parking lot where he banged his back into a the old rusted hulk of a pick-up truck. The flattened tires raised the vehicle enough for his small body to fit under the truck. He was safe.
As Stevie watched from ground level, the battle, now just five minutes old, was going badly for The Messengers. It was mostly women and children and drugged-out or drunk soldiers who were absorbing the brunt of the attack. Resistance was minimal.
The attackers were a Folks clan, he saw. Right sided jewelry. The tattoos he could make out in the intermittent light were six-point stars. Folks were the natural enemies of People. It was the code.
It was from the other side of the compound, through the flickering flames and pockets of smoke, that Stevie saw The Babe coming. Flanked by six of his lieutenants, armed with an M-16 in one meaty hand and a Colt army issue .45 in the other, The Babe marched across the open area between the buildings barking orders and snapping off shots from his weapons. His lieutenants peeled off left and right to organize defensive forces to repel the invaders. The Babe kept marching, Stevie saw, toward what might be one of the leaders of the attackers, a man who was also screaming orders at his warriors.
A behemoth, a walking receptacle of lard, a monument to the pleasures of the flesh, The Babe was large enough to fill any doorway. Every man woman and child in the Messengers lived in fear of The Babe. He was a primordial force, ruling the Messengers with a savagery that was distinctive in a savage land, more brutal and depraved than the foolish attackers could have imagined.
As Stevie watched in fascinated horror, The Babe cut a path through the battleground, sometimes firing his weapons, sometimes using them as clubs, an eerie smile gracing his fat face. Stevie was familiar with the concept of body armor, but when puffs of dust flew from The Babe’s massive chest, and the enormous man did not falter in his stride, the young boy shivered involuntarily. To his seven-year-old mind he was viewing pure evil, an invincible force incapable of harm from the actions of mere human beings. Many adult Messengers silently shared Stevie’s view.
As The Babe waded through the bloodshed, the Messenger defenses began to coalesce. From the flanks, Messenger soldiers, led by the lieutenants, poured out of buildings, filling their noses with Slammer as they rushed into the action, firing assault rifles and pistols at the invaders, some brandishing bayonets and butcher knives, others machetes and axes, all screaming like demons.
The battle quickly compressed into a circle of action, a tight knot of writhing bodies. Rifles and pistols were discarded in favor of knives, clubs and hands. In the center was The Babe. Stevie saw him pick up two men, bash them together repeatedly until they grew limp and then drop them to the ground. He turned to search for other victims. Seeing two of his own men who were losing their personal battles with the invaders, The Babe poked his pistol into each man’s stomach fired off three rounds…then dispatched their opponents with rib crushing body blows from the baseball bat that had been harnessed to his back.
The Babe suddenly saw two of the leaders of the attackers on the edge of the fray and rushed them, moving his four-hundred-pound bulk with uncanny alacrity. He was upon them before they could react, his huge paws grasping the fronts of their battle jackets and pulling them from their feet, bringing their heads close to his own. As The Babe bit off the ear of one man, the nose of another, spitting out the appendages in a spray of blood and laughter, Stevie shrunk beneath
the truck. He could watch no more.
Soon the sounds of battle diminished, the grunts and groans, the clanks of steel on steel, the screams of the mortally wounded, the high pitched pleas for mercy. The Messengers were too much for the attackers.
There were no prisoners. The wounded were dispatched, often slowly. Stevie heard their cries. Weapons were gathered; clothes and jewelry were stripped; shoes were saved. The Messengers were a People clan, sworn enemy of all Folk clans. Then the corpses, torsos and foreheads, were lovingly carved up with the signs of the People—five point stars, up-side down crosses, five point crowns, the initials S M in curly script—and dumped into the Dupage River, which ran behind their compound.
As the buildings burned and the corpses drifted down the river, bearing the carved symbols of the Messengers’ victory to be read by those who might find the bloated bodies, the victorious clan packed up and began the process of moving to a new location. Stevie went with them. They were all he knew.
They did not bury their dead.
• • • •
In Stevie’s seventh year, when he first witnessed the horrors of clan battle, Satan’s Messengers were getting big. Big meant noticed. Big was bad. It disturbed the balance. Clans the size of a couple hundred or so maintained the balance. Territories were manageable. Battles were brief and not so costly. But a couple of hundred soldiers was not enough for The Babe. His ambition was as mammoth as his body.
They were trying to punish The Messengers, pare them down to a more acceptable size, those clans who disturbed seven-year-old Stevie’s sleep and nearly killed him in the process. But they were just a few months too late and a few I.Q. points too dumb. They hadn’t reckoned on the power of The Messengers, hadn’t calculated for the ferocity and organizational skills of their leader—savage, merciless, mountainous. The Babe was probably the first post-collapse man who wanted to be king.
CHAPTER SEVEN
REMEMBRANCES OF STEVIE B.
2050 AGE NINE
THE MALL
“Eric, Eric,” Stevie gasped, out of breath from his run across the parking lot fronting their current address, “I heard the older boys talking. They found a huge mall. Hundreds of stores. Think about all the boxes we can find. Unopened ones. Maybe we can find some swords or real guns. Let’s go, Eric. It’s only about three miles.”
Eric was Stevie’s first friend, his only friend. Two lanky kids who looked down a lot and had the knack of being part of the background. They shared a love of exploring, scouting burned out and abandoned office buildings, stores and homes, pretending they were a two-man warrior team, escaping the enemy clans. Neither liked hanging around the clan compound. There was too much pain and abuse. In their imaginary warrior world, they did not receive pain; they inflicted it upon their enemies, saved other children from demeaning lives among the clans.
Eric and Stevie could journey near and far from their clan headquarters. No one noticed their comings and goings. No one became concerned when they were gone for long periods. They attracted attention only when they wanted something or got in the way. Being the object of attention was not desirable. Both boys avoided clan adults and teenagers.
They left after lunch, pilfering some jerky of unknown origin, dried fish and bread from the cooking area because they planned a long trip. Spending the night was no problem. They would not be missed. They worked their way to the fattest road they could find running north and took it. When the road north ended and became dense woods, they went straight through, finding two excellent walking sticks within a few minutes.
Stevie and Eric loved the woods and would play in their shadowy coolness for hours, exploring and pretending to hunt deer. But when they came across a herd, they would always watch in awe of the animals’ beauty and agility, breathing very shallowly and making no noise so the magnificent creatures would not discover their presence and bolt. They both ate venison. It was a staple of their diet. They confessed to each other that they were glad they were not the ones to make the kill.
The woods ended and they swung east and then north again, always watchful for other travelers. Strangers were to be avoided, but were seldom seen. Eric spotted two men biking south, toward the boys, on ten speeds.
“Get back,” he said, pushing Stevie off the road and into the woods for cover. They hid just off the road, behind a gnarled oak and watched as the men rode by, their bikes weaving erratically on the road, wild laughter blaring from their mouths. Each was dressed in black and gold. No other color could be seen.
“Slammer freaks,” whispered Stevie. “Insane Deuces love Slammer.”
“Yeah, either that or wicki sticks,” replied Eric in a hushed voice.
Whenever they saw someone on their journeys, the boys always hid. Friendship was as rare as love. Whomever they encountered was the enemy. Stevie and Eric were experts in being secretive and silent. They had to be. Neither was cut out to be a tough guy.
They first spied the mall from about a mile out—a huge, mysterious multilevel complex of connected buildings called Stratford Square. It was surrounded by acres and acres of parking lots dotted with rusted cars and trucks. Neither boy had ever seen a car move, but they both knew the vehicles were born to speed along the abandoned roadways that lined their world.
They played in the cars for two hours before they even made it to the mall. Buttons and knobs and handles and switches and foot pedals—these must have been for launching weapons as the vehicles sped along the roadways, battling enemy raiders. Eric would steer and Stevie would launch rockets and fire machine guns, both supplying sound effects. They were very familiar with the sound of guns.
“Let’s hit the mall,” said Eric. “I’ve had enough of battles.”
They loped across the parking lot, approaching a set of eight doors with all the windows broken out. Located between C PEN EY and K LS, the doors served as one of the main entrances to the mall. To the boys it was like the open mouth of a cave…and they loved exploring.
Inside, broken glass and leaves littered the floor along with yellowing papers, warped cardboard and discarded plastic cups. Skylights, some of them without glass, allowed the afternoon sun to enter the mammoth enclosed world, and as the boys walked down a hallway, they suddenly came to an opening that widened out to the main part of the mall like a gigantic cavern in a cave. Facing the boys were hundreds of stores, opening up invitingly on two levels before them, spreading out right and left and to their front.
“Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!” hollered Eric. “This is unbelievable, Stevie. This has gotta be the biggest mall that ever existed. You ever seen anything like this?”
“There’s gotta be treasure in here,” said Stevie. “I know we’re gonna find something real big. Maybe knives. Swords, Eric. Maybe swords.” Stevie took twenty steps and stopped to inspect his surroundings, noticing several more wide corridors that led to an even greater array of stores. “Holy shit, Eric,” he cried. “It’s even bigger than we thought. There’s more over here.”
The boys stood in the center, back to back, and did a slow turn, taking in their prospects for exploration. They were without limit. Windowless shops as far they could see. Floors littered with boxes and toys and broken electronic gear and articles of clothing. Unmatched shoes were cast about, doomed to be forever without a mate. Mannequins, naked and asexual or partially clothed, lay half in half out of display windows. Unbelievably, no signs of fire scarred the mall. Birds’ nests filled nooks and crannies and light fixtures, and their chirping filled the mall with the sounds of the woods and grasslands. Raccoon droppings littered the floor. The masked scavengers happily nested in cardboard and paper or shredded clothing.
“Jewelry stores first,” said Eric, breaking into a run. They knew jewelry would be valuable in trade. But all the stores were completely bare. No gold on this trip.
“Sporting goods,” cried Stevie, breaking into a run. “Guns, knives, fishing gear and football equipment.”
Another dry hole. But they were undaunted
. Too much to see for discouragement to enter their minds.
An hour later Stevie came upon the door that led to the secret maintenance passageways and the air ducts. Deep in the maintenance hallways they discovered an open grate above their heads large enough to allow access to their thin frames. It beckoned them into the darkness. Eric found a closet. Inside was a step ladder.
“Let’s go,” said Stevie. “This could to something big, Eric.”
Neither boy hesitated. Eric followed Stevie up the ladder and into the passageways that snaked through the mall walls and ceilings. They traveled from store to store on their hands and knees, moving from darkness to dim light and peering into each store through air grates, assessing their prospects from above and moving on until they finally discovered treasure.
On their sixth try, they found an opening through an air duct that gave them access to a bookstore storage room whose door had been sealed off by a roof collapse in the main store. The boys kicked out the grate in the air duct and climbed down into a treasure trove of books and magazines untouched and unseen for over 20 years.
They were amazed.
Eric and Stevie could not read. No one they knew could read. So there was no one to teach them. Reading was not a survival skill in Stevie’s world. But they could look at pictures— beautiful, shiny color pictures of fancy cars and fast motorcycles, powerful trains and fanciful beasts, elegant banquets and luxurious homes, powerful football heroes, graceful basketball stars and willowy, sensual actresses.
“Stevie, Stevie,” yelled Eric. “Check this out. Machines that fly. Guns and bombs everywhere. Wow if we had one of these no one would ever bother us. We’d be kings.”
They had never seen an airplane until Eric found the book entitled, AIR FORCE JET FIREPOWER: 1960-2020. Their imaginations had never conceived of such awesome power. How could such huge machines get up into the air, they wondered.
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