The clans control the rest of us by systematic campaigns of random terrorism. They don’t have a rule book. Probably don’t even know how it works. Sharks don’t go to school. They just troll the depths, and all the fish stay the hell out of their way. Our predators had their origins in the urban street gangs, fraternities, and athletic teams and evolved into two-legged dog packs.
During the latter stages of the collapse, they grabbed the weapons and they organized, ruling with an iron fist, recruiting the best, subjugating the rest. If you had something they wanted—guns, jewelry, food, a pretty woman—they took it. That’s why most indies live hand to mouth. It’s not healthy to appear well off.
When Sarah and I first met in ’39, we each had what we carried. Together it added up to our clothes, three pistols, an M-16, a shotgun, four knives, 432 rounds of ammo, two sleeping bags and some jerky and dried biscuits. By indie standards, we were rich. The weapons and ammo were invaluable. They could provide us with food and defense…and also draw the attention of the clans to us. Double-edged sword. The clans discouraged indies from having weapons.
Two 16 year old kids.
We headed out beyond the clan zones and hid. Low profile.
Sometimes the the clan soldiers will mess with you just for fun. This is why all of us live in fear. The random violence. The clans are havens for psychopaths, sociopaths and mental defectives. The former, with their high intelligence unencumbered by conscience or decency, found their way into leadership; the latter are perfect followers. By yesterday’s standards, indies are probably what you’d call middle class grunts. The clan leaders are politicians or CEO’s or career criminals.
Chems are a big part of clan life. Slammer, Bad Boy, Wicki, Fuck-U-Up, weed, shine—they snort, drink, smoke, swallow, inject whatever they can get. A good chemist or brew master finds himself way up in the clan hierarchy. They are rare. A good batch keeps the men happy and horny, provides a valued commodity for trade. Weapons for chems is a common transaction. The clans with the best chemists are the most powerful. Right now The Babe and Satan’s Messengers had the best chem on our little part of the planet.
Not all the clans are ruled by lunatics. A few are commanded by predictable, fair-minded men. Survivors who are doing what is necessary to get by. I have traded goods and information with these groups. If they trust me and I know their rules and obey them and pay the appropriate tolls and tariffs, I can move freely in their territories.
In the city, I trade most often with the Black Gangster Disciples. Usually I get Lake Michigan fish for pot or information. The BGD’s also let me scavenge the high rises that grace their turf. Closer to our compound, between us and the lake, is the Insane Cobra Nation. I work well with them too. In both cases, all they know is that occasionally a man and a dog will show up, negotiate a scavenging fee, offer to trade for some ammo, brings good weed, coffee, Jordans or Yeezes. Never shows fear; always manifest respect.
But the Disciples and Cobras are unique, solitary meadows of sanity in a forest of aberration. Most of the clans would just as soon shoot me as talk to me if I set foot on their turf.
That was why I needed to know what had transpired in the parking lot behind me and Duke. I had to know who had gone down under The Messenger’s onslaught and what it might mean to our future movements. Were new alliances being formed? Were the The Babe and Satan’s Messengers moving west toward our area as Weasel had been prophesying for years? We were very conscious of turf and borders. Cross the wrong border and it could get you killed. My concern was with what boundaries had been changed by the battle in the parking lot.
Clues to The Babe’s plans, would be valuable information. To learn more, I would enter the slaughterhouse. I put Duke on guard at the parkings lot edge and began to walk among the corpses.
I felt no sorrow. An hour ago each of these men would have killed me as easily as a dog pack. I was looking for nation. After nation, I could figure out clan. Their clothing and tattoos would tell me what I sought.
There are between 50 and 100 clans. The clans fall under two “nations,” Folks and People. Each nation has its own code of conduct, colors, signs, symbols, numerology, and back story.
Over the years we catalogued their identifiers—colors, hand signs, symbols, numerology, key words and “lit” (literature).
The clans’ complex I.D. rituals helped them set borders. If an individual or small group has to journey through several different territories, their survival depends upon knowing the affiliation of those whom they confront. A zebra who could not identify a lion would soon find its genes in the great recycler.
All the clans fall under one of two “Nations.” They are either “Folks” or “People.” Folks didn’t fight Folks, and People didn’t fight People. But each nation passionately hate the opposition. The only excuse Folks need to kill People is a visual sighting. And vice versa. Why? I haven’t figured that out yet. I’m not sure I ever will. It isn’t racial or religious. Clans are often mixed race and formal religion is non-existent.
If you map out old Chicago on a grid, you will a Folks and People checkerboard. So if a small group is twenty territories away from their home ground, it is vital to their existence that they be able to identify everyone they encounter.
Clan members always travel in neutral colors unless they are at military strength. So if you are Folks ten miles from home and run into a group of People, you run like hell or fight. If you run into other Folks, you sign—an elaborate ritual of hand signals—and talk and go through the lit until they believe you are really Folks. Then they will treat you like visiting dignitaries. Since the lit is very complex and secret, it’s generally impossible to “pass.”
For example, in the People lit, fish is not to be eaten because Peter was a fisherman and they detest Peter. Folks won’t eat pork. Nor tomatoes. They believe the British tried to kill George Washington with a tomato, erroneously thinking tomatoes were poisonous, and People like George Washington. Folks like David; People, Goliath. Both will eat chicken, but Folks won’t touch turkey. Snakes are reviled by Folks; practically worshiped by People. The lit for both sides is replete with biblical overtones.
If you are Folks, you are right sided and your number is 6. That means you are identified by a hat cocked right or a bandana with the corner pointed right. Or maybe shoelaces only on the right. Or the right side of your head shaved. Right earrings and rings. Your star has six points; your crown, also six points. If you are People, you are left sided and your number is 5.
No matter where you were in the city or suburbs, if you came across a stranger, or worse yet a group of strangers, your life depended upon your knowledge of signs and lit…or your ability to hide
• • • •
The Messengers had been gone about an hour when I took a deep breath, turned and walked into the middle of the carnage in the parking lot. I stopped and did a slow turn. The brutality, the sheer depravity of the deeds was beyond my dark imaginings. There were thirteen men on the ground. Most of them were in football gear. Helmets with elaborate face guards, white plastic stained in red, were scattered across the ground. There was also a catcher’s face mask and an ice hockey goalie’s mask visible beside two of the corpses.
Flies had begun to gather by the thousands to lay their eggs in the eviscerated corpses and drink from the streams of blood that wound across patches of blacktop. Dandelions, crabgrass and chickweed that had successfully homesteaded in the minuscule cracks in the pavement soaked up the blood. I saw enough internal organs to satisfy the most curious med student, enough brains to delight a neurologist.
I staggered away from the bloodbath and returned to Duke, needing to see something pure and clean. It helped…but not enough. I puked out my breakfast and went back to learn.
The victims were left-sided—earring holes in left ears. The earrings had been ripped out. Left pant legs rolled up. Their tattoos were on the left. If there had been any rings remaining on their fingers, they would have been on the left
hands. Many of the dead men had some of their fingers hacked off to get at their jewelry. Their number was six. Six point star and crown tattoos on arms and chests.
The conclusion was obvious. These were the corpses of People. Folks were completely right-sided. Folks’ honored the number five. Five point tattoos and crowns.
On some of the torsos of the corpses that had not been gutted were carved tridents pointing upward, a classic Folk sign, one that I usually saw on walls and clothing, not carved into flesh. Had the trident been pointing down, it would have been a sign of disrespect to Folks. On other torsos, 5-point crowns were carved upside down, a sign of disrespect to People. On some of the skulls a 6-point crown had been fashioned by cutting away the skin and scalp to form the design. More Folk sign. More indications of the savagery of their opponents. This brutality was far beyond anything I had ever witnessed.
From the colors I identified the dead soldiers as The Gaylords, a relatively sane group by clan standards who had been aligned with People. I also recognized their leader. His face had not been ravaged. Certainly no accident. His killers wanted his clan to know what had happened. There was a Duke Blue Devil cap on the leader’s head, cocked right. Duke was one of the most common and powerful signs used by Folks. The placement of the hat facing right on a dead soldier who was the leader of a People clan was the ultimate insult to a People clan—disrespecting their dead.
A gruesome and graphic message, more powerful than anything I had ever seen, was being sent. Spit in your face. Piss on your grave. Fuck your mother. This was a call to battle.
As I viewed the carnage, pondering whether this was the beginning of the horror that Weasel had been predicting, Duke’s growl snapped me back to reality. I saw him focused east and followed his point.
I don’t know if it was the echoes of my shots at the dog pack or the simple need to view their handiwork one more time that brought them back. Never will. But two of them had returned, standing 150 meters distant, between two apartments, out of rifle shot, looking at me and Duke.
One was a normal size man, made to look small by his proximity to the giant, The Babe. I raised my field glasses for a closer look. The big man’s face jumped into my line of sight. It was expressionless. It appeared that his eyes were looking directly into mine.
Involuntarily, I flinched. He was a mountain of flesh with dead eyes.
He bent his head and spoke to his companion. The other man was a gaunt, stringy haired, fiery eyed Latino. On his left cheek was a brightly colored depiction of a fanged, hooded snake. Green drops of venom dribbled down the man’s cheek beneath the fangs. He was a Cobra, a member of The Insane Cobra Nation, as strong and powerful a clan as the Messengers. The Cobras were one of the two clans I regularly traded with. My other trading partner was a city clan, Folk affiliated, the Black Gangster Disciples.
The clothing on the upper bodies of both men was soaked in blood. Their hands and forearms were blooded from their wet work. They looked like butchers after a hard day.
The thin man listened to The Babe and suddenly broke away at a full run, disappearing behind an apartment building on his right, hoping to get behind me, I knew. I took one last look at The Babe. This was a face I was beginning to know well.
He seemed to sense I was studying him. Smiling fully, revealing stained, uneven teeth, he brought his right hand up to his lips and slowly, deliberately, licked each of his crimson stained fingers, sucking on them like undercooked sausages.
A message for me.
I put the glasses away and faced him, lifting my right hand into the air and extending my middle finger. I doubted he could see the gesture, but, as juvenile as it was, it felt good. I took of at a full run, heading north, away from our compound, Duke by my side.
• • • •
In fifteen minutes, we put two miles behind us, and I darted off the road into a copse of trees. I needed to catch my breath…and think.
A man and a dog. That was all The Babe had seen. He didn’t know me. We never traded with The Messengers. Stayed away from their territory with a religious fervor.
The Cobra was a problem. I didn’t recognize the other man, but it was possible he had seen me before. I frequently traded with the Cobras. Never had a problem. Had met with their leader several times.
The pipe had it that Cobras and Messengers didn’t care for each other. But each clan was too big to mess with the other. Too pricey. This was a first—Cobra nestled up with the Messengers. Was it one man?—a change in the weather. Or a policy change?—a shift in climate.
But one major problem dominated my ruminations about the Cobras and Messengers…The victims of the massacre were The Gaylords—a People clan, butchered and carved with Folk’s sign all over their bodies.
But The Babe and Satan’s Messengers were not Folks.
Nor was The Insane Cobra Nation.
Both clans were left-sided, five-pointed, ever lovin’ People. The Babe and his clan had maimed and mutilated thirteen men, all People Nation, all his own brotherhood, and had signed his savage work with the imprimatur of Folks. And at least one Cobra had joined the Messengers during the massacre.
My last thought before I headed back was of Weasel, of his warnings. This was awfully close to home.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I came home 24 hours early, and according to Sarah, as pale as bleached out concrete. She ushered me into the kitchen and made some herbal tea concoction. It tasted like a combination of dandelion stems and garlic. Duke came up to me and nuzzled my hand, offering succor I supposed. I petted him and tried to slip him the tea. He jerked his head away and retreated. Sarah saw my ruse and raised her right eyebrow. Not good.
Weasel and Stevie joined us and I described the grisly hoax to them. Weasel suggested that we all be alert for any information concerning The Babe and his clan and The Cobras. Weasel and I both had sources on the outside among the clans as well as the indies, and it was through these sources that news of disturbing changes began to trickle in.
Over the next month, nothing alarming came in about The Insane Cobra Nation. For several years they had been focusing their efforts internally, establishing borders, strengthening their armaments, refurbishing living quarters. They appeared to have little interest in events outside their turf. Rumor had it that on the orders of their leader, a giant of a man named Roberto, a man I had spoken with many times, they had established a system for teaching their people to read and write.
There was no news of any communication between the Cobras and Satan’s Messengers. Nor was there any word that Roberto had ordered his soldiers to be looking for a man and a dog traveling together. It was almost as if they didn’t care about us or my knowledge of the events at the parking lot, even though one of their soldiers had been standing with The Babe.
The information that came back about Satan’s Messengers indicated a clan in a state of flux. Unlike the Cobras, they were focusing much of their attention beyond their borders. The Babe was forming alliances with other People clans, using the slaughter of the Gaylords as the basis of his efforts to begin warring with nearby Folks affiliates. It was a war of vengeance. False vengeance, but it was an easy sell.
In the months following the college parking lot massacre, The Babe absorbed the remaining Gaylords into the Messengers and persuaded two nearby clans, the Latin Slashers and Westside Homeboys, to wear the red and black colors of The Messengers. A year ago the monstrosity that that led Satan’s Messengers had been the leader of three hundred men, women and children. He was now the head man for a group of over five hundred—the largest organized military contingent since the collapse.
We learned they were buying weapons for the newly recruited Messenger soldiers. The guns and ammo were acquired through the sale of the new Messenger drug—Bad Boy—the concoction of battery acid, embalming fluid, LSD, speed, Viagra and probably PCP. The drug’s reputation for longevity makes it the hottest pharmaceutical in clan society. The fact that it sometimes caused heart failure or initi
ated permanent psychotic states among its users was largely ignored. Many of its users reported it kept their cocks hard for twelve hours at a time. What’s a little psychosis when compared to a twelve hour hard-on?
Some indies and clan soldiers who were willing to talk to us said that inside the Messenger compound they were quietly looking for a tall man and a gold colored dog, a big dog. Their activity was completely internal. They hadn’t asked any other People clans for help with the search. Over the years, there were hundreds of indies and clan soldiers who had seen me and Duke. None of them knew where we lived.
For two months Duke and I were not allowed to scout. Sarah and Weasel let us hunt, but only west of our compound, never east, never in the direction of the city and suburbs. Weasel scouted east, once weekly. He always took Stevie, Sarah, or Duke. He taught them his craft. He taught Duke that we were all part of the same pack. Duke loved the pack. After six months of isolation, I began scouting east with Weasel.
When we were all together, we fortified the compound. We never saw a soul come within five miles of the compound and began to feel safe.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
JULY 2056
I liked some of Weasel’s music. Some of George Jones was great. Emmylou Harris was a goddess. David Allen Coe definitely had the right attitude. Roger Miller, I could do without. Problem was, Weasel had been playing one of Miller’s inane ditties just before Duke and I departed on our scouting mission and the damn song had stuck in my brain—48 hours later on our way back home.
“Dang me, dang me, oughta take a rope and hang me” kept on rolling through my head. It could have been worse, though. He had another favorite guy, Ray Stevens, who was even more obnoxious than Roger Miller.
The Divide Pinion 18 speed touring bike with three Orlieb panniers that could hold 20 pounds each rolled smoothly beneath me as I pedaled at a comfortable pace about nine miles out of Chicago, heading west and back home along Roosevelt Road. The bike had handlebar shift and was the most durable bike we found in our bike shop tour with Weasel in 2054.
Blood of the Dogs_Book I_Annihilation Page 18