The Culled ac-1

by Simon Spurrier

  "It's all been seen. It's all been dreamed."

  Enigmatic Bullshit.

  Listen: I believe in moving fast, taking opportunities, focusing on what's ahead and getting the job done. I believe that anyone who gets in my way is dead. I believe in my own ability to deal resourcefully with any situation, and kill the fuck out of any stupid wanker who tries to stop me.

  I believe in:

  Don't you fucking give up, soldier!

  I believe in:

  Know everything.

  Cover the angles.

  What I don't believe in is Thunderbirds and dream-quests and voices on the wind and patterns in the sky, which is the sort of stuff Hiawatha talk/recited about right after he'd smoked one of his spliffs. Outside a town called Mifflin, as the afternoon wore on, Malice lost her temper and shouted at him to quit murdering her baby with his second-hand cancer gas. He smiled, shrugged, and blinked once or twice at the baby, like he was about to deliver some quasi-wise rebuttal.

  Instead he just looked somehow… sad.

  "Yeah," said the real-life-insecure-boy lost behind all that mystical arsebilge. "Yeah."

  He climbed up to smoke on the roof, after that, and every time he went Nate watched him go, muttering and rolling his eyes, groaning in pleasure.

  I caught him shooting-up, once or twice – sat in the dark corner at the back of what had once been the Inferno's pump-housing. Hey, I told myself, as long as he's happy.

  But still. But still.

  Lamar.

  Boggs.

  Lawrence.

  Pine Creek.

  Place names harder and harder to read with every mile. Eventually the sun slid like an old turd behind the hazy west and even the road signs – decorated variously in graffiti, dangling bodies and hungry looking crows – vanished into the ocean of dark beyond the Inferno's lights. At some unspecified moment, ducking and weaving between the mangled remains of some long-gone pileup, Spuggsy declared out loud the road was "covered in more shit than a nuthouse wall," and declined to go any further until it was light.

  We pulled up and ate again, in silence.

  Up in the hills, and across the landscape to either side, tiny embers of light shivered away, like fireflies. Families, maybe. Cannibals, psychotic mountain-men, diseased brain-dead mutants or whatever. But most probably just families – normal people, or as good as – trying to stay warm and stay together.

  Poor fuckers.

  I chewed rat and didn't think about it.

  Somewhere nearby, Nate was singing a song to himself and laughing after every verse. Totally wasted, totally out of his tree. It would have been funny – would have been endearing – if he didn't glance up every now and again, all casual, and stare at Malice's kid. I was noticing it now. The little hint of… what? Intensity, that visited his face in those moments.

  I shivered again.

  The crew slept in shifts. Two on watch at all times. Malice volunteered to take the last shift alone and I offered to accompany her. She shrugged, like:

  Do what you want, asshole. It's your lack of sleep.

  I dreamed of seagulls wearing robes, man-sized spliffs running up and down along the George Washington Bridge on little stubby feet, and of a great wound in the heart of New York; bleeding a fine mist of QuickSmog up into the air, where it separated into colossal blood cells that floated and wobbled like lava-lamp clouds.

  I dreamed of Bella saying:

  "Doesn't matter. Not your problem. But that's why I'm going."

  Then she flopped over in my arms, gave me a look of bored disinterest, and poked me in the rigs.

  "Hey," she said. "Hey, Patchwork…"

  Malice, waking me up for the watch. I tried to conceal my hard-on.

  "So."

  "So."

  "What's this all about?"

  I scratched my manky ear through its equally-as-manky dressing. "Which 'this', specifically?"

  She nodded out into the dark.

  "Going west. Highway 80. Lake Erie. What's there, patchwork man?"

  I smiled.

  "Probably nothing."

  She thought about that for a moment. "That's a long way to go. Lot of trouble, for probably nothing."

  We sat in silence for a minute or two, listening to the deafening silence of the world. It wasn't a cold night, exactly, but there was something… shivery, yeah, about such profound darkness. Like living in oil.

  Yeah, we had a rifle each. And yeah, we could scramble inside and be manning Tora's collection of hardcore artillery within a second or two. But still, we were tiny. We were nothing. There were stars and sky and road and hills, and nothing else, and we were just parasites. Fucking fleas on the back of an elephant.

  I told you already, I get abstract when I'm bored.

  "Okay," I said to Malice, suddenly feeling talkative, catching her eye. "Long way to go. You're right. You mind if I ask you something?"

  She shrugged.

  "It might piss you off."

  "Would that stop you?"

  "Probably not."

  "Then shoot."

  I fiddled with the rifle, keeping my eyes fixed – uselessly – on the night. Somewhere far, far away I thought I could hear engines, a muted throb that died away almost instantly, and left me doubting my own senses.

  "Let's say there's something you want," I said. "Let's say you… you had it once. Lost it. Want it back."

  Her eyes narrowed, just a fraction. I wondered if she knew Tora told me about her other kid, and if she'd blow my head off for raking the past. She didn't look the type to enjoy in-depth discussion about personal tragedies long bygone.

  I know the feeling.

  "Let's say," she said, cold.

  "Right. Now let's say you find out there's a chance. This thing, getting it back, it's… It's the world. It'll make everything better. It's important – and, shit… not just to you. To everyone."

  She didn't move. I blundered on, forcing myself not to jump when a bird launched from some perch out in the dark, cawing noisily.

  "Far as you know, it's gone. For good. And okay, that's a shitter, and you'd pay money for it to be otherwise, but what's done is done. You're a realist. You bottle it up, you put it away, you get on. You get by."

  I could see it in her eyes, and in that quiet little instant we were so the same I could have reached out and touched her and felt my own fingers against my own arm.

  The silence got a little thicker.

  I stared at her. "And now suddenly there's a chance. One in a million. Defies all logic, as far as you know. No reason to believe it, no reason to give it headroom. But still…

  "Just in case."

  She swallowed, lips tight.

  "How far," I finished, "would you go?"

  Her jaw rocked back and forth once or twice.

  "Long way," she whispered.

  I nodded.

  We sat.

  We waited.

  I smiled.

  "You should go inside." I said.

  She glared. "Pardon me?"

  "You should go inside." I drew the knife from my belt and passed her the rifle.

  "And why the fuck would I do that?"

  "Because there are two men approaching the truck from two different directions, and we're sitting ducks up here."

  Even in the gloom, I could see her eyes go big. Disbelief, maybe. Surprise.

  "They pulled up a mile out on motorbikes. Probably from that crew that passed by earlier on. Listen."

  "But I don't h…"

  "There. A twig. And another bird. Fucking amateurs."

  She just stared.

  "Don't worry." I said, and I smiled again because I couldn't help it, and I couldn't be bothered to stop. "I won't be long."

  And I slipped off the edge of the truck and onto the concrete, panther quiet, and went out into the shadows with a savage joy.

  Don't you fucking give up, soldier!

  It snarled. It burned.

  Sir, no sir! Etc etc.

&n
bsp; When I got back Hiawatha was sitting on the roof, waiting, fiddling with something small and silver.

  "You get 'em?" He said.

  I wiped blood off the knife and stared.

  Letting the humanity come back into me. Slowly.

  Reluctantly.

  First rule of stealth combat. Advanced training, third year:

  Don't fear the predator in the dark.

  Be it.

  "I can see you," Hiawatha said, conversationally. "Properly, I mean. All that… conditioning. All those changes. You're a wolf, mister Englishman. You know that? Inside your head. They made you a wolf."

  The adrenaline was still up. Heart still going. Beast still just below the surface.

  I spat on the ground. Couldn't be fucked with any more mystical bollocks.

  Hiawatha smiled and said nothing.

  "Who were they?" I said, not bothering to sound impressed or spooked-out or anything but bored. My hands were shaking with the desire to hunt and hurt, and this snotty little idiot was getting on my tits.

  "Collectors," he said, after a pause.

  "And they are?"

  "They're… I mean…" He stopped and scowled, and I could see again the person coming through, the scared kid chipping-away at the 'Know-it-all Straight Jacket'. Then it was gone.

  "They're scouts." He said, voice rising and falling in that same lilting chant. "Men of money and misery. Mercenary filth. Cells of aggression, unfaithful, unloyal, sent ahead of the crucified god and his robed horde to…"

  "Cut the crap, yeah? Just tell me who they are."

  He blinked.

  And slowly, boyishly, smiled.

  "Fuckheads." He said.

  "Fuckheads. Right. And what do these fuckheads want with us?"

  He shrugged.

  "Clergy sends them, mostly. Or at least, that's where they get their shit. Trading with the Clergy. They… roam round. Outside of cities. Finding things the Church'll pay for."

  "Things like what?"

  "Like guns. Food. And… mostly… mostly kids." He looked away. Jaw tightening.

  "Kids."

  "Yep. No Klans out here, see? No loyal fucking scavs to hand over their own kin. Only the Clergy and the scum they pay, helping themselves. That's… that's what this is all about. You being here."

  "I don't follow."

  "I know. But you will."

  I huffed and shook my head, too tired to push it. "Whatever. Doesn't explain what they want with us."

  "No… But they came from behind, on the road. From the city, probably."

  "And?"

  And then the boy was gone, and fucking Hiawatha was back, smiling and staring and rolling his eyes.

  "And perhaps this holy man, this John-Paul, this withered thing… Perhaps he knows where you're headed. Perhaps he sent word to slow you down."

  "How the fuck would he know?"

  I remembered the personnel file. The name. The photo.

  Cy, staring over my shoulder.

  Hiawatha ignored the question and stared off into the night.

  "Tomorrow," he said. "We'll find the rest tomorrow. They sent out these two to take us in the dark. Explosives, yes?"

  I grunted, patting the pockets of my coat. There'd been four sticks of C4 on each corpse, with some surprisingly sophisticated remote detonators. Out in the dark, when the fat fucks had stopped shivering and bleeding and trying to shout with their windpipes torn-through, I'd helped myself.

  "So if we're lucky the rest won't know we survived."

  Hiawatha smiled and nodded.

  We weren't lucky.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  We hit Ohio first thing, and they were waiting for us.

  Outside a town called Hubbard, rammed up against the edge of the I-80 like a gaudy reminder of a long lost time, was Truck World. Truck World did exactly what it said on the tin.

  There must have been twenty or so vehicles. Vast things, these fuckers; like whales built for the road, basking outside a long derelict burgers-n-barf joint and a once snazzy truck wash. And not the poky little beasts we used to get in the UK either, but monsters. Bloody great behemoths with bulging engines and recurved exhausts, chrome snouts and brightly painted bodies. And yeah, they'd been grafitied and smashed up – what hadn't? – but they were still awesome to see, lined-up like that. Like hibernating ogres, waiting for a wake-up call.

  I was still staring at them through the window when Malice hit the brakes.

  Still staring when Hiawatha – who had his eyes closed – shouted: "Fuck! Fuck, they're waiti…"

  Still staring when Tora – bless her cotton socks – opened fire with the Mk19 and everything went nuts.

  The Collectors weren't stupid. Their two boys didn't come home to them with the dawn. They'd taken precautions – obvious, really – and big dumb precaution one was to block the road.

  Truck World, when all was said and done, had represented one big sodding barricade on wheels. They'd strung them out across the interstate, those road-whales, two deep and three across, with no room to edge the Inferno past and no hopes of ramming through.

  And the Collectors – leather junkies with artfully matted hair and once-expensive sunglasses, silver jackets patched and frayed, bowler hats arrayed like a long line of tits, lounging back on purring choppers like middleclass morons who'd watched Easy Rider once or twice too often – they swarmed.

  The day before, when the little gang went zipping by, there'd been maybe six or seven. Lightly armed. All mouth and no trousers.

  Now there were twenty, easy, and as the Inferno squealed to a halt and Malice wrestled to reverse, swearing inventively as she went, the windshield blew in like a metaphysical fart, glass frothed through the air, bullets rattled like drumbeats on the firetruck's skin, and everything shook.

  Bikes. Engines growling in every direction. Smoke-bombs and sound overkill. Voices whooping and shouting, closing in. Someone with a fucking boom-box, playing Metallica at double speed.

  Thump-thump. The Mk19.

  Thump-thump, then – distantly – the hard-edged crack of a detonation, tarmac spewing and smoke gushing. One of the bikes fell apart, lifting up and out on the rim of a fireball, and Tora shrieked like a joyful psycho, chugging-out lead with the autos whilst re-sighting with the grenades.

  Nike and Moto opened fire, which meant the arseholes had surrounded us. Heavy things thumped against the walls of our dark little cell, and I found myself torn between the frustration of sightlessness to the rear, and confronting the ugly situation through the windows at the fore. The Inferno twisted and flexed on the road, three-point-turning under a withering storm, and every whirligig impression through the flying glass and shifting landscape was a scene of spinning rubber, gun flare and snarling faces with too many piercings. Nate started screaming – fucking junkie probably didn't even realise what was happening – and outside Tora found another target. Another shuddering clash of sparks and steel, and a scream lost to the rolling thunder.

  But it wasn't enough, wasn't enough, wasn't enough…

  One of the tyres exploded.

  The Inferno pitched to one side, wobbled. Malice shouted. A deeper growl came out of the tumult and Spuggsy was yelling like a kid – "No! Oh no, no! No!" – staring through his window, eyes wide.

  Then he was just…

  Paste.

  It was another juggernaut – though I didn't figure it out until the world stopped rushing backwards and the Inferno went back to standing still. They'd taken the opportunity as we crept sluggishly away from the blockade, firing-up the nearest HGV and ploughing directly into the cockpit; an acute angle that left the ramming truck speared on the Inferno's jagged nosecone – driver chuckling insanely through shattered glass and bloody teeth, his ride mashed all to fuck and venting radiator steam into our cab – but it'd done its job. Spuggsy was crushed, with barely time to scream, and as the impact shunted us away he was a thing of fractured angles and limp bones, head lolling, skull slack, porn mags fluttering useless
ly amidst broken glass.

  And then footsteps. Heavy thumps on the roof. Collectors scrambling off the cab of their own truck onto the Inferno's back. One hopped down onto the hood, sleek black auto ready to fill the interior with lead, but Malice calmly shot him in the forehead and watched him sag out of view.

  Not enough. Not enough.

  The baby started to cry.

  Moto and Nike were firing continuously now, screams and shouts intermingled with stamps and boot falls on the ceiling, and Tora's dangling rig swivelled round and round like a drunken ballerina, spitting grenades and bullets at whatever target she fancied. She was shouting too, high voice clearly discernible above the racket – "Too many! Too many!" – and a world away Malice was fighting to restart the truck, its engine coughing uselessly.

  "We're screwed," she said, quietly, calming the baby in a maternal little bubble of her own.

  "Fuck that!" Tora wailed. "Fuck thaaaat!"

  Thump-thump, thump-thump.

  Bikes detonating. Men screaming.

  Didn't matter.

  Faces leering at windows, batons crashing against reinforced glass. I leaned out the window and emptied the last clip of the mini-Uzi into the fuel tanks of a dirty red Harley, smirking as the rider was shredded, his whooping comrades doused in burning gas, his bike reduced to a rubberised shrapnel-bomb.

  But it wasn't enough.

  Then Tora was just gone. Vanished upwards through her circular lookout, feet thrashing, screaming and spitting and calling for help. The voice was carried off, away from the truck, dwindling to an echo of a scream on the smoky air.

  And then they came in.

  Three of them. Bullet-vests under leather, hockey-masks over heads. A knife and a pistol each. Shock troops.

  Repelling assault-squads. Kill the last one first.

  Advanced training, year two.

  He's the best. He'll send cannon-fodder ahead. Useless rookies.

  He'll come last, wait 'til you're tied up.

  So you kill him first.

  Nice thought. But the Inferno wasn't a big space, and by the time bastard-number-three slid down the chute, I was up to my elbows in the first two goons.

  Savage again. Reacting without thinking.

  "They made you a wolf…"

  Well woof-the-fuck-woof.

  I killed Number 1 pretty quick. Only fired once – back on the M16 again – but the startled motherfucker grew a hole in his forehead and another in his cheek, knocking out his lower jaw and spraying us all, so I figured Malice was playing along too over my shoulder.