Blood of the Dogs_Book I_Annihilation

by Richard Cosme

  Merlin smiled a devious magician’s smile, pushing back the horrors, recalling the magic of our day together.

  “We had some fun, didn’t we? I was worried that when you got all the bad news, you would want to cut and run. Pack all your bags and all of you leave for a new climate. I wouldn’t blame you, Mac. Would have asked to join you too. But my preference is to stay here. Why should I let those bastards drive me out?”

  “So you wanted to show me some of the good before you told me the bad? Hook me with the art. Show me the city’s good sides. Get me high. Put me in a good mood.”

  I laughed, amused and deeply touched by the lengths to which he had gone to persuade me to stand my ground.

  “Shit, Merlin, we all decided two or three years ago that no one was going to drive us out. We are all going to be buried here. Only question is when.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Merlin, Duke and I returned to the compound at dawn, traveling in darkness, a logical concession to the bounty hunters who sought me. I entered one of the tunnels and disarmed the traps, signaling everyone in the house that someone was in the tunnel. When we were safely inside, I reset.

  Merlin was astounded by the tunnel and threw nonstop questions at me during our eighty meter crawl through its midnight black length. When we reached the entrance to the basement of the compound, I tapped on the door, 2-1-2, indicating it was me. I heard the locks slip, and we entered.

  Weasel was waiting in a shadowy corner, a Galil Sar assault rifle pointed in our direction. “Morning,” he drawled, his voice emanating from the shadows. Merlin hit the floor and crawled behind me, his instincts a second behind his recognition of the voice.

  “Jesus Christ, Weasel,” Merlin exclaimed. “Don’t be hiding in corners like that. Almost crapped my pants.”

  I heard the safety of the Galil snap on. Weasel came into the light. Duke bounded past me to greet him.

  “You boys working late or getting an early start?” he asked.

  “Late night,” I said. “All I want is bed.”

  “Stevie and Sarah are making breakfast upstairs,” he replied. “Can’t have you sleeping on an empty stomach.”

  We climbed the basement stairs and entered the brightly lit kitchen. Merlin was speechless. He knew us from out in the world, bartering. But he had never been to the compound. Never seen working electronics. He just walked around and touched things, the microwave, refrigerator, faucet handle, light switch. Then he wandered to the living room and quietly marveled at the electronics we had racked, CD player, dvd, graphic equalizer, amp, pre-amp, two big screens, LG and Sony.

  Sarah and Stevie watched him, smiles creasing their faces. Merlin continued his exploration. He moved next to the computer table—monitors, printers, CPU’s, piles of paper—stroking the machines gingerly, as if they might crumble to dust at his touch.

  “All this shit work?” he finally asked, looking back over his shoulder at the four of us.

  “We’re not wired for cable yet,” I said.

  “And we can’t seem to get the modems to work,” Stevie added.

  “Other that that,” Sarah said, “everything works just fine.”

  “This,” he said, flapping his arms like a bird and twirling in a circle, “is a fucking wonderment. You live in a goddam functional museum. When you gonna let me see all this shit in action?”

  “After we eat and talk,” Sarah said. “Then you can play to your heart’s content.”

  • • • •

  Merlin sampled the electronics for a couple of hours before exhaustion finally forced him and me to bed. He bounced between vids and computer games, the microwave and ice from the freezer, all the while sampling CD’s at full volume—Lou Reed, Frank Sinatra, Roxy, Ministry, Nine Inch Nails, Pink Floyd, Iggy Pop, David Bowie, Ariana Grande. He skipped from the ’40’s through the 21st in a frenzied rush to hear it all.

  That night we gave him a special gift, a taste of the past, an exhibition of the best of the 20th, a couple of hundred thousand people gathered peacefully at the Berlin Wall in 1990 to hear Roger Waters and assorted 20th cen musical icons perform The Wall. The system was placed in an interior sound-proofed room with blackout curtains on the exterior windows.

  Weasel gave Merlin a joint and Sarah sat him in the middle of the room, encircled by quad surround, facing a 70 inch 1080 Sony monitor. We didn’t tell him what was about to happen. He was only a couple of feet away from a hidden satellite bass system, which at full volume would loosen his teeth.

  When he was comfortable, I punched out the lights and turned on the Blue Ray V, adjusting the sound to nearly full volume. It started with crowd sounds and a helicopter view of the audience, probably as many people gathered in that one place fifty years ago as we had living now in all of old Chicago.

  There were a couple of announcements and then the deep reverberations of road bikes, Harleys, filled the room as the Scorpions rode onto the stage, so massive in its length and breadth that it resembled a landing zone more than a stage. Then the opening chords of In the Flesh, replaced the bass of the Harleys, and the concert began.

  It was such a massive assault on Merlin’s senses, that for the next two hours he forgot to light the joint that we had placed in his hands. He spoke not a word, although we saw him scream several times, particularly during the double guitar solo of Comfortably Numb; his eyes never left the big screen.

  When the concert finished, Merlin slumped on a cushion and threw his hands behind his head. Looking at the ceiling, he asked, “You guys do this shit on a regular basis?”

  “Not so much lately,” Stevie said. “What with people trying to kill us and all. This one was in your honor. It’s no secret you got a thing for Pink Floyd.”

  Merlin noticed the joint in his hand, lit up and passed it. “That was rapture. Epiphany. I’ve heard that album fifty, maybe a hundred times. Hell, I only got ten tapes, and three of ‘em are Floyd. Never really new what it was about until now. I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “It’s a hell of a ride,” Sarah said. “There’s a movie too, you know.”

  “No shit. Let’s watch it. Hey, what about the rest of Floyd? David Gilmour. Mason, Wright. Syd Barrett? How come they weren’t there?”

  “Barrett went nuts. Rest of them broke up in the 80’s. Wright died. Only Waters and Gilmore, and Mason left,” Sarah said.

  “Jesus,” he said, genuinely aghast. “How could such a thing happen? That’s a genuine fucking tragedy.”

  “From what we can tell,” I told him, passing the joint back, “20th was a rough place.”

  He took a deep hit and held it, talking while he held the smoke in his lungs. “Goddam… tragedy …what …it…was… Can’t… imagine…anything…worse…”

  • • • •

  The most important lesson we learned from Merlin’s visit to the compound was that it isn’t always easy to live with your friends. He stayed with us a week first time, departing just before the moment one of us, pick any of the four, Duke excepted, threw him and all of his weed out a second story window.

  His presence drove us crazy but did nothing to decrease our affection for him, nor his for us. But by the third day, all of us, Merlin included, realized he wasn’t cut out for group living. He tried for four more days to make the necessary adaptations, but he was too internally focused, too much caught up in the wonder of each moment, to be a contributing member of a group.

  He stayed up most of each night, slept through lunch and smoked incessantly. Whenever we asked for help, he was always there. But we always had to ask, prying him away from computers or vids. He was seriously depressed when he realized that the generator was used sparingly.

  When he left, taking with him our pleas for caution, he promised to take care of some business and move out of the city, closer to us. “That way I can visit more often,” he explained.

  We smiled and waved.

  • • • •

  In the two weeks since I had returned home with M
erlin and his information on the celebrity/bounty hunter status Duke and I had achieved, we continued making defensive modifications, fortifying the tunnels and booby traps during the days and discussing further changes—including building a bunker—when the sun set.

  Unlike the natural world, where the top of the food chain was generally free from harm, our world was one of constant threat. And the source of danger was our own species. We were used to it, expecting that at some time another human would accidentally stumble upon our hideaway. But now our concerns were heightened by the fact that The Babe had put out a contract on me for erasing the group of Cobras on Roosevelt Road, a deed that all of us and several hundred Folks clans perceived as an act of civic improvement. It was a small part of the Cobras, and we didn’t know how the main body, led by Roberto, viewed Satan’s Messengers or us. The Babe did not give a shit about the Cobras, but it was bad for recruiting to admit it out loud…yet.

  Before the incidents with the slaughter of the Gaylords at the college parking lot and my skirmish on Roosevelt Road with the Insane Cobras, very few of our citizenry were even aware of our existence. And no one wished us harm. They were too busy with the business of survival to worry about us. But now thousands of clan freaks were out there looking for me and Duke, eager to cash in on The Babe’s lavish bounty on my head, be a hero, live the good life, buy some new friends. In the 20th, they had something called lotteries, where a person could win a lifetime wealth with a small wager. The bounty on my head was our equivalent of such riches.

  A much discussed option was taking The Babe out first, before he could get to us. “Time to go on the offensive,” Weasel said. “As long as that man lives, our lives will be nothing but a state of red alert. We gotta take it to him.”

  Stevie was silent on the issue. Any mention of the name of the beast would visibly affect him. The conditioning was too strong, the incidents of terror in his life that had been associated with The Babe were too frequent. But it wasn’t fear that rendered Stevie silent; it was dread. Haunted by his past, Stevie was more concerned with how his future would be affected if The Babe entered his life once again.

  Weasel, Sarah and I had spoken of the probable scenario in whispers. We were united in our determination that The Babe would never again have the opportunity to torture Stevie. The three of us had never verbalized it before the bounty was placed upon my head; but The Babe’s death, by one of our hands, was an inevitability. If he came to us before we got to him, so be it. But our plan now was to get to him first.

  • • • •

  The day after Merlin left us to return to the city to find new living quarters, Stevie and Weasel, the two tinkerers, began a pattern of disappearing at dawn and returning after sunset. They smiled their silly smiles, the grins of people who have a big surprise in store, in response to each inquiry Sarah and I made of their whereabouts and arcane purpose. We resolved ourselves to wait and see, confident our patience would be rewarded, our only clue, the dirt and grease that covered the two of them whenever they returned.

  “Some kind of machine,” I said.

  “No duh,” replied Sarah.

  “Well, Einstein,” I said, “knowing these two, that doesn’t really narrow it down a whole bunch. Got any guesses?”

  “Could be anything but an airplane.”

  “Why not an airplane?”

  “Good point,” she said. “Never place any limits on the imagination and capabilities of Weasel. Particularly now that he’s got Stevie helping him. It wouldn’t surprise me if the two of them showed with a moon rocket.”

  I laughed. “And converted it to run on compost. But actually, the fuel problem limits their options a great deal.”

  • • • •

  Duke and I were outside doing a security sweep. Actually, I just wanted to be outside on a beautiful summer day and he always preferred out to in. Beyond the thistle, raspberry, buckthorn, razor wire barrier, we could see the compound and it was truly unexceptional. Our fortress looked no different than the thousands of abandoned houses that nestled in forests throughout the landscape. We had also added grape vine, which was growing enthusiastically.

  Most deadly was a minefield, out newest defensive weapon. Weasel had locations of many armories and had scavenged an U.S. Army depot north of O’Hare Airport. He taught us how to install the mines. They were placed along several strips of land, running out from the hub of the barrier like spokes in a wagon wheel. These strips contained hundreds of land mines. The safe zones were marked by Queen Anne’s Lace, a beautiful drought resistant weed.

  Duke and I were walking a safe zone in the meadow between the compound barrier and the forested area when Duke’s ears perked up and he looked to the woods. “What do you hear, boy?” I asked, bringing the Mauser from back to front. I hit the “on” switch my right earlobe. It opened Sarah’s line. Sarah stepped on to the porch, shotgun in hand.

  “What’ve you got?” she asked.

  “He hears something.” We never ignored a warning from Duke. “Wait for me. Grab your weapons. Duke and I are coming back in,” I said to her departing back.

  Our new communicators were the ones I salvaged from the electronic store, I Spy, You Spy. The little personal communicators worked like walkie talkies, but the receiver looked like an earring or ear cuff and your transmitter was a throat derm, a little skin colored adhesive patch wired for voice transmission. We practiced with them and the battery life was amazing and distance was over two miles. The devices were voice activated and operated on a different frequency than traditional hand-held boxy walkie talkies, meaning we were on a different frequency than the clans.

  Duke and I sprinted toward the compound and negotiated the mini-tunnel underneath our barrier. I reset the grenade booby trap and rushed into the house. Stevie and Weasel were gone. I grabbed a Kevlar. “You got your vest?” I asked Sarah. We each hit our stations—me on the front windows, Sarah up top with a sniper rifle. Stevie and Weasel would normally take the side windows. Putting the Kevlar on Duke, I said, “Duke. Go see Sarah.”

  He launched up the stairs. From the small cupola in the center of the roof, Sarah covered the back. “I got nothing,” she said. She sounded like she was right next to me.

  I couldn’t see anything from my front vantage point. Beyond our walls, stretching for one or two hundred meters in all directions, the compound was surrounded by grass cover. No trees or bushes to hide behind. Gullies or depressions that could conceal an enemy had been back-filled with tunnel dirt.

  At the peak of a very small rise in the landscape, the compound did not offer the most advantageous view from a military standpoint, but from the rooftop post, we had the ability to observe at least a mile in every direction, taking in woods, two ponds, a small stream and several houses. In darkness, military issue binoculars, designed to suck up all available light, allowed us to survey the surrounding terrain.

  Sarah’s voice entered my ear, crisp and clear as if she were standing by my side. “Ten four, oh fearless leader. How’s the weather down there?”

  I waited for further communication and then instructed. “You’re supposed to say `Over and out’ when you’re done.” Silence. “Well,” I asked, “what are you waiting for?”

  “You forgot to say `over and out’, general. Over and out.”

  “I think its best to maintain radio silence,” I responded. “Over and out.”

  Then I heard the sound, the strange rumble emanating from beyond the fences, Sarah’s voice came back on. “I see something, Mac. Hold on a minute. Can’t tell what it is. But I’ll tell you this much, whatever it is, it’s big. And moving fast. Hold on…Hold on…Look to your left. In those trees about 200 meters out. Duke’s freaking out,” she said. “I don’t know what the hell is riling him up.”

  She was silent for about 20 seconds. I strained to see something in the direction she had indicated, but she had a much better vantage point. “Holy shit, Mac,” she came back, excitement growing in her voice, “I can see part of
it now. It better be Weasel and Stevie. If it isn’t, we’re in big trouble. Another twenty or thirty seconds and it’ll be out. Man, this is unbelievable. You thought the microwave and tunnel auger was a big deal, wait’ll you see this mother. You’re gonna have fuckin’ apoplexy.”

  The sound was louder now, and I recognized it from the vids. I had heard it many times, but never in real time. The only people in our world that had ever heard this sound were adult survivors of the collapse. Not many of those left.

  The trees were shaking now a few yards into the wooded area, but I still couldn’t see anything. The noise—definitely an automotive engine, a big one—increased as the trees thinned out. Suddenly, I saw color, blue and white, and the saplings were swept away by a huge machine, a truck bigger than anything I could imagine moving under its own power in our time. It burst through the last of the trees, through the meadow area in perfect alignment to avoid the mines. The massive vehicle obliterated the barbed wire and vine barrier as if it were dental floss and tinker toys and the engine was the roar of dragon.

  I opened the front door and stepped onto the porch. The Mauser was a piece of shit at this distance, but I held it up anyway, wishing I had the SP66 instead, a sniper rifle that fired the heavier 7.62mm rounds and a had a far greater range. As I sighted on the truck, Sarah’s voice blared, “Don’t shoot, Mac. Don’t shoot. It’s Weasel. I can see Stevie on the passenger side, grinning like a fool. His mouth keeps on opening. I think he’s screaming like a kid on a roller coaster.”

  “Jesus Christ, Sarah,” I said in normal conversational tone, “whatever you do, don’t ever yell when you’re wearing these things. My eardrum’s throbbing.”

  “Sorry, hon. Got a little carried away. It’s unbelievable.”

  In just a few seconds the truck roared across the 100 meters to the compound and skidded to a halt three meters from the gate. A huge cloud of dust surrounded the vehicle. When it settled, I saw Weasel on one side of the giant vehicle and Stevie on the other, doors open, standing on the running boards, grinning like idiots.