No More Heroes-#1 Dystopian Thriller Heroes Series

by Roo I MacLeod

  Marvin squirmed on his seat and wrapped his jacket tight to his body. The big screen went local, transmitting images of vendors prepping their food. Cameras focused on citizens walking the worn tracks between each stall. They nursed drinks as they waited for a feed.

  ‘You’ve changed,’ he said. ‘You’re all cynical and bitter.’

  ‘Piss off I’ve changed. I’ve spent the past two bloody years living rough. How’s your life been?’

  ‘Not good really. As I said—’

  ‘Not good? You married Linda, who was my girlfriend if I remember correctly, eh?’

  ‘You left, didn’t you?’ Marvin said. He reached forward to touch my jacket, stroking my lapel. He’d always been a tactile chap. ‘You abandoned Linda and you left your parents to be arrested just because you didn’t want to get conscripted. We didn’t think you were coming back.’

  ‘Piss off.’

  My loud, sulky tone threatened to draw attention. I still didn’t know why Marvin sat with me in the square. His pale face needed a shave and his hair, already thin on top, hadn’t seen a comb in an age. The dark woolen trousers wore a split across the knees and mud caked the toes and heels of his shoes. The dusty jacket hung loose on his body. His breast pocket was ripped and the frayed collar of his white shirt needed a wash. He appeared to have lost weight, but he’d always been a skinny runt.

  He bumped me and smiled. When I didn’t respond he bumped me again, his smile accompanied by a nod. Marvin owned a good smile and I remembered struggling to stay mad with him when we were younger. He dropped this catch once, a high ball anyone’s granny could’ve caught. As I ran at him to give him a right thump he picked the ball up, gives me the big smile and says ‘oops.’

  Oops. I mean, who says oops.

  But his presence in the square didn’t qualify as a ball game, eh?

  ‘You still haven’t explained why you’re here,’ I said. ‘It’s been two years. You don’t turn up with a bag full of trouble and talk a load of shite without explaining yourself. You need to start talking or I’m gone. I don’t need to be here. I don’t need your big bag of fucking trouble in my life. So start talking or fuck off.’

  ‘My life’s gone to hell,’ he said, but again his attention turned to the blokes outside Bob the Bookie’s. He pulled at the sleeve of my coat until I followed his gaze. ‘Do you know that man with the limp?’

  ‘No, I don’t. They’re gamblers. Old boys.’

  ‘He keeps staring at me. That one with the beret isn’t an old boy. I think I know him.’

  ‘So go and say hello, eh?’

  He shook his head. ‘You don’t understand. There are bad, evil men after me and I think he’s one of them.’ Marvin turned to face me, touching me on the arm, petting an invisible wrinkle. ‘I need you to look after the bag.’

  I leant forward and peered at the large, black canvas bag beneath the seat. Chains and padlocks secured its contents. ‘What’s in it?’

  He shot off the seat and crouched in front of me with his back to the square. ‘They’re here.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Behind me. I knew they’d follow me.’

  ‘Who?’

  I turned to the crowd of folk gathered around Paella Pete’s counter. Two men in black coats and wide brimmed hats hogged the service.

  ‘I need you to get the bag to my mother.’

  Both hands petted my knees and I wasn’t comfortable with the intimacy. ‘Why can’t you get the damn bag to your mother? I don’t like your mother and I know she don’t like me.’

  ‘They’re surrounding me,’ he whispered.

  ‘Who?’ I pushed his hands off my knees.

  ‘The Black Hats. Ben, I can’t talk now, but they’ve got my father. Jesus Ben, they took me bloody father and I fear he’s dead.’

  ‘Slow down.’ I held my hands in a placating gesture, hoping he might soften his tone. The two men in the black suits and wide brimmed black hats had jumped the queue. They argued with all and sundry about rights and the price. Their tone bordered on aggressive and loud. ‘Why do you think your father’s dead?’

  ‘I don’t know for sure, but we haven’t heard from him since we got his finger in the post.’

  I closed my mouth, aware it gaped as I no longer recognized my childhood mate. ‘You got a finger in the post.’ He nodded holding up his right index finger. ‘And it was your dad’s?’

  He nodded again. ‘These men are bad and they threatened to chop him up into little pieces. They threatened me too, so please remember the cane. Remember that time in primary school when I helped you out when you was in trouble.’

  I didn’t get what he meant. I had no memory of a cane or Marvin ever helping me out. I remembered his picture in the society pages when he married Linda, but never him saving my sorry arse.

  ‘The cane Principal Fletcher used for punishment. I was there for you. Please, Ben. Do this for me.’

  He grabbed my arm and squeezed hard, his eyes glistening. I smiled and nodded and he embraced me with a sob. I returned his embrace.

  Without another word he stood and strode toward the crowd waiting for the snake charming. They parted as he approached and grumbled as he pushed a path out of the square. The lid of the large basket opened and the head of a nasty looking black snake appeared. It swayed left and right, its tongue tasting the air.

  Chapter Three

  Should not have lost the damn bag

  I turned into Blacky’s compound to find Pete the Nose, Billy Two Guns and the dog sharing the tatty sofa outside the blacksmith’s shed. Come sundown with the black chill of night chasing our sorry arses, we gravitated toward Blacky’s sofa to keep the furnace burning, cook whatever produce we’d found, guard Blacky’s workshop and pat the dog. Blacky’s furnace-heated sofa attracted an eclectic band of vagrants. Draft dodgers mainly, but the odd criminal and the really odd patient searching for meds and peace from the hell inside their heads enjoyed the heat Blacky’s furnace offered.

  Our mission statement stated that no wino should ever park on Blacky’s sofa: Ever. The wino’s were right old thieves. They skulked in deep shadows by the overpass and warmed their thin wiry fingers over fires burning in battered oil drums. The winos supped on lighter fluid and choked on aerosol. They spent most nights waiting for us lot to fall asleep to attack with murder and theft on their minds.

  The quadrangle lay hidden behind unoccupied buildings of businesses gone sour since the Great Recession took over our lives. A mountainous, craggy slagheap from a long-forgotten mining project dominated the blacksmith’s small wooden shed. Refuse and unwanted clutter littered the steep slopes, but it offered a panoramic view of Ostere if you could be arsed climbing to its peak.

  The overpass lay to its fore, transporting vehicles around Ostere town center. A row of rusting council sheds lined the narrow rutted service road. A wild expanse of land, its boundary marked by a sagging wire fence, occupied the opposite side of the dirt road. A community of caftan-clad, vegan-munching folk I called the Ferals lived in the overgrown forested land. The front contained a mix match of weeds and wild herbs with a tomato bed nestled against the wall of the old brewery. Rumors suggested wild beasts roamed unfettered beyond the jungle of flora. We’d never ventured past the untidy allotments, but cries called on nights when the moon shone pale and full.

  Pete jumped off the sofa with my approach and fetched a plastic chair. ‘How you doing, Ben,’ he said. ‘Look at this.’

  He pulled his right arm out of his thick checked coat and shoved his sleeved bicep in my face. A load of Boy Scout badges lined his arm and shirt front. He kept pointing at the one held with a pin.

  ‘I’ve got the fire badge now,’ he said.

  ‘Well done. First Aid last week and now a fire badge. Next week we could be talking world peace perhaps?’

  ‘Is there a badge for World Peace? Is there Ben?’

  ‘Probably not, but there should be, eh?’

  I picked Pete’s scout hat off the seat a
nd sat next to Billy Two Guns. He wore ear plugs with the sound of music streaming from his ears. I stretched my long legs to the red coals glowing in the furnace and rolled a cigarette. With a twig I made fire from the coals and lit up, puffing and relaxing back on the tatty plastic sofa.

  ‘Scarlet Scum are out early tonight,’ I said.

  Billy ignored me, but Pete brought his chair a little closer and nodded. ‘Bloody Scum,’ he said. He picked at the reddened sore on his nose. I looked away as the puss oozed from the sore. The hound, a tan muscular brute pulled on his chain and flopped his head in my lap.

  ‘The square’s filling up with army ready to flush them out of the High Street.’

  ‘What you doing in the square, Ben?’ Pete asked. He inspected a piece of scab. ‘You seeing that Tilly again, was you?’

  ‘No, I was just filling in time. I like the square and I ran into an old friend who I hadn’t seen in years, which was weird.’

  ‘Does your friend know you’re wanted?’

  ‘I don’t think he was too bothered about me and the army. He wanted me to help him out and take a bag to his mum. Bloody monstrous thing it was.’

  Billy pulled the right ear piece out and turned in his seat. ‘Where’s the bag?’

  ‘You know about the bag?’ I asked.

  Billy shrugged and pulled at his ponytail before flicking it back over his shoulder. He offered his bald crown a quick massage and readjusted his glasses. ‘Heard something about a bag, but it might be a different bag.’

  ‘Well, the bag I’m talking about is stuck under the seat back at the square. I was thinking maybe Tommy could help me bring it back here, eh? Damn thing’s dead heavy.’

  A small white bus pulled off the overpass and followed the rutted road leading to Blacky’s overgrown carpark. Pete stood off the chair and Billy eased upward, sitting his arse on the backrest of the sofa.

  The bus parked next to Blacky’s workshop, the lights cut and the engine coughing before dying. The black dragon painted on the rear door opened upward and bodies jumped to the ground and waited for Jackie John to exit. They wore black combat clothing with their faces blacked. Black berets sat askew on their heads with the dragon emblem front and center.

  Jackie glided toward the furnace slapping his thigh with a riding crop. I didn’t get the need for the riding crop, but my mate Tommy reckoned the crop was cultural as Jackie came from the southern edge of the continent and customs down that part of the world bordered on primitive. I stood up, as sitting in Jackie’s presence bordered on rude and Jackie frowned on bad manners. He stopped by the furnace with his feet spread shoulder width and his back ramrod straight. He stood around five ten with long legs and longer arms and a torso starved of body fat.

  ‘Where’s the bag, Street Boy?’ he asked. His crew spread out behind him all of them searching the ground for the bag.

  ‘What bag?’ I said looking at Billy. I thought my question fair as Jackie had no right knowing about Marvin’s business.

  ‘You met Black Hat and he give you big black bag with lots a chains. I am right?’

  How did he know? Earlier this afternoon I stood inside Smelly Alley checking out the square, watching for danger and inconsistencies before I poked a single toe onto the hallowed earth. I clocked the army getting frisky at the Duck easy and not a single blue uniform walked that square. Apart from Christmas revelers the area stood clean. Had I known of the Projects presence I’d never have entered the square. Trouble followed the Projects and I didn’t need trouble bothering me.

  What I needed to do was up my game. I hadn’t seen Marvin until he grabbed my arm. My obsession with Tilly was making me slack and vulnerable and that could get me in trouble.

  ‘I didn’t meet with any Black Hats or anyone wearing a Black Hat, so no, you’ve got that wrong.’

  Jackie slapped the crop against his leg and took a step toward me. His crew followed with three of his men taking position behind the sofa. Billy turned so he could face the threat standing behind him.

  ‘You met a boy, name of Marvin Cooper, fathers name Cecil Cooper. A good man and worked for Black Hats. He stole from Black Hats for long time, he did. Before Black Hats kill him he gives bag to son. And son gives bag to you. I am right, yes’

  He shuffled closer, kicking at my boot to get my attention. Billy jumped off the seat and backed away from the sofa. I watched him turn and run for the alley leading to Smelly Alley. I looked at Pete. ‘Where’s he off to?’

  ‘Don’t know, Ben. Do you want me to follow him?’

  ‘You do what you like.’

  Pete stood and followed Billy’s path to the alley. I shook my head and turned back to Jackie John. He remained standing at ease, holding the crop in both hands.

  ‘Brave and loyal your friends?’ he said. ‘So where is bag?’

  ‘I left it in the square.’

  Jackie John did scary too well and he’d slapped me before with that damn riding crop. He leant forward, the eyes small and dark and deep creases spread across his forehead.

  I watched the crop, waiting for the slap.

  ‘Go and get bag.’

  Chapter Four

  A Bang and a Whimper, but …

  I walked Church Lane rather than Smelly Alley as it offered me an easier path to the seat Marvin, me and the bag had shared. A solitary street light illuminated a riot van outside the church with a line of coppers leaning against the bright white wall of the Old Poet Public House. I kept to the shadow allowing the early evening dark to camouflage my presence as police radios crackled reports of rioters heading toward the square.

  Bustle and chatter rose and fell in waves and vendors called their wares, competing with the laughter and shouts of their customers. Aromas of curries from the sub-continent complimented spices from the desert and the sweet smell of pork filled the air.

  A group of Toffs bustled and joked, their brash noise filling the narrow street, their date with the Drunken Duck bar set in stone. They liked to drink foreign beers and puff on plastic cigarettes and hope people watched and admired their luck in life. An array of colorful clothing glowed in the gloom and their gelled hair pranced in elaborate quiffs. A giggle of girls dressed in vivid skirts of taffeta trawled in the lads’ wake.

  A group of T-Birds with their lacquered wigs, stilettos and short spangled skirts, pouted and fluttered at the boys, calling their names and hoping for a smile. Every night they attempted to catch a Toffs eye with lust guiding their behavior. The T-Birds lived a patient existence because kegs of beer needed to be consumed before a Toff crossed to the dark side.

  Two Slotvak girls occupied the seat with the bag. Their heads sat pressed together, hair entwined as they hunted their prey. I couldn’t see beneath the seat for thin black-stockinged legs and large black coats. Their minders sat huddled in a darkened corner a short sprint from the Drunken Duck. Stocky, grizzled men built for crouching low, kept their backs to the world so the cameras filming the square couldn’t focus on their faces. Greedy, scheming eyes kept the Toffs under surveillance, salivating at the wealth. Lecherous glances strayed onto the T-Birds hoping for action when the night got late and dark and serious. Their women folk rocked babes in arms, their strollers hiding stolen contraband.

  I joined the pack of street folk chatting with the girls behind the Sisters of Mercy soup stall. The lads were on their best behavior hoping for a feed and a playful grope with the good virginal lasses serving the hearty broth. My mate Tommy stood to the side watching a dark headed girl with a silver cross at her throat. He wore tight off white moleskins with a long leather coat reaching to Cuban heeled boots. On his fair head of curls he wore a straw Stetson with a beer logo at the front. Tommy longed to be a cowboy, to muster cattle and shoot a gun, but one look from Blacky’s donkey caused his skin to redden and itch.

  ‘Howdy, Pilgrim,’ Tommy said. He clenched a half chewed cheroot between his teeth. ‘You looking to chow down with the good sisters?’

  My fellow draft dodgers waved hel
lo. The lads had visited the municipal toilet for a wash and presented faces raw and fresh and bitten nails sucked clean. A hopeful ruse but wasted as God chaperoned the good ladies and frowned on the desires of the homeless lads.

  Me and Tommy moved away from the stall, dodging the nice folk dressed in fine coats and expensive boots two-stepping through the square. They balanced plates piled high with pulses and greens and slices of charred beasts. Designer children skulked in their wake. Noses pointed high, shoulders straight as they mingled with the seedy underworld populating our town square. The odd coin landed in the collection tins of the performers and polite hands clapped, earning a grateful bow.

  We followed in their wake, keeping our heads turned from the many cameras photographing the square. A band played a sweet blue tune to a small crowd and the juggler had collapsed against the town hall, his batons, blades and fire sticks scattered beside his legs with small puffs of smoke exiting his nostrils.

  The Man’s image appeared on the large video screen. He gazed upon me and Tommy, his round bespectacled face stern as he beseeched us to do something extraordinary for our country. Every hour, every day he asked the same question and I always had to ask why. It wasn’t like the Man performed extraordinary for me. Or for the damn country.

  Two large men in black, Marvin’s tormentors, nodded out of synch with the bands tune. One stood tall and broad across the shoulders, the other short and squat with bandy legs. They sported serious thread, but the hats with the wide brims and domed tops convinced me they originated from a part of Old London Town well east of Ostere. The juggler’s child shook the begging hat in their presence, knocking and rattling against the legs and giving them a load of verbal. The taller man grabbed the boy by the shirtfront and gave him a shake. He squawked and kicked and the shekels flew from his hat.

  The band spluttered and lost its rhythm. I grabbed Tommy and pushed him toward the vacant seat between the Gazette and the Undertakers. The bag had gone, but I groveled before the space beneath the wooden planks, felt with my hands and cursed the Slotvaks. Tommy peered beneath the seat, straightened up and asked the question.