by Cedric Nye
He had always undergone a certain amount of change in his physical appearance when he changed personalities, which was normal for people with Dissociative Identity Disorder, or Multiple Personality Disorder as it was more commonly referred to. This was different.
His cheekbones sharpened and swelled until his face looked like a living Kabuki mask, as his killing aspect surged forward, and took hold of the flesh. His thews rippled and swelled like organic steel cables, and his joints popped and cracked under the strain of pent-up muscular potential. He quivered from the strain for a long moment, and then he was still.
44
Coldly and calmly, now with a killer’s grace, he began to work. He pulled three grenades, three jars of gasoline, and a roll of duct-tape from his pack. He taped a grenade to each jar, and then quietly removed the vent cover.
He pulled the shotgun from its scabbard, sighted in on the men closest to the doors, and cut loose with a storm of buckshot. He fired all eight rounds in less than two seconds. At a range of less than one hundred feet, the results were devastating, and he effectively blocked the exits with the bodies of those he had killed.
After he finished firing all of the rounds in the shotgun, he put it in its scabbard, drew his pistols, and continued to pour lead into the room. When the slides locked back, and the pistols were empty, he reloaded them, holstered them calmly, and, while ignoring the return fire that had started punching through the sheet-metal all around him from the occupants of the room, he unleashed hell.
Pulling the pins on the incendiary grenades one at a time, he tossed the improvised fuel bombs into the room below, and then slid back, turned around, and went back the way he had come. The “WHOOMP” of the grenades detonating was immediately followed by hellish screams of mortal agony, and the fried-pork smell of roasting human flesh wafting up into the vent.
As he slithered through the ventilation shaft, he shed his illusions of happiness, and of living any life but a life of violence and bloodshed. He knew the truth of himself, and Vanessa’s death had cemented that truth for him once again. He had killed Sonja, and now he had killed Vanessa. He was death and madness, he was the burning man, and where he walked, only death remained after his passing.
He stopped suddenly at a vent cover, and peered into a room full of weapons. He had spotted it on his way in. The vent was less than ten feet off the ground in this room, so he removed the vent cover, and dropped lightly to the floor.
He took the time to load his shotgun to capacity before examining the contents of the armory. There seemed to be thousands of firearms in the room, as well as explosives, knives, swords, ammunition, and even large cans of gun powder.
Jango found a case of grenades, and filled the remaining space in his pack with them. As an afterthought, he stuck one of the grenades in his pocket. He looked around once more, and then heard the sounds of many feet moving fast toward the very room in which he stood.
He leapt up, grabbed the edge of the vent, and pulled himself into the shaft just as he heard keys jangling, and a lock being turned. Pulling the grenade from his pocket, Jango pulled the pin, and tossed the grenade into the corner with the large cans of gun powder and other explosives.
Moving more quickly than before, he slithered and rushed down the last 60 feet of the ventilation shaft, and had just reached the hatch that led into the wall and down to Bartertown, when he heard the grenade detonate.
The sound of the explosion was muted, as was the shock, but he knew what was coming, so he went through the hatch with haste, locked it behind himself, and shimmied down the mass of pipes at a break-neck pace. Just before he reached bottom, he heard a string of explosions that shook the titanic walls, and the ground beneath them.
He dropped the last eight feet, and his knees buckled when his feet hit the floor. He felt light-headed, and weak. He noticed a warm wetness on his abdomen, and it was then that he smelled the hot-penny smell of his own blood. He felt around, and found where a bullet had entered just below his ribs on the left side. Shrugging out of his pack, he pulled the roll of duct-tape from within, and after pulling up his shirt, he carefully duct-taped the entry wound. He replaced the tape in his bag, slung his pack, and started to rise.
Trying to rise proved fruitless, so he began to drag himself further into the darkness. He did not know when he lost consciousness, but he heard voices, and then, shortly after, he felt rough hands lift him, and bear him away.
45
An indeterminate time later, Jango regained consciousness to the sounds of quiet conversation. He opened his eyes just enough to see, and spotted two men sitting near a small fire. One of the men was wearing what looked like a military harness, and the other was wearing dark blue clothing that looked like something that a janitor would wear.
The man in the harness looked to be in his forties, and even sitting down, he looked tall. He had hard features, and held a rifle across his knees as he sat.
The other man looked about fifty, and average height. He looked fairly average in every way, except he had a huge, sweeping mustache, and a shaven head completely covered in prison tattoos. He also had a rifle.
Feeling for his pistols, and finding them in place, Jango struggled to sit up. The two men noticed his struggles at once, and rose.
“Take it easy, man.” The tall one said, “You need some rest. I got the lead out of your belly, and closed you up, but you need time to heal.”
“Fuck,” Jango muttered darkly. Then he said, “Thank you,” in a softer tone.
“No problem,” the tall one replied. “I’m Shawn, and this is Mark. We heard the ruckus, and hustled ass to see what in the fuck was going down. We came across you down one of the drain-pipes. Good thing, too. You were bleeding out. We brought you here, and patched you up.”
“I’m Jango,” he rumbled.
The man named Mark spoke, “You’re the one they’re lookin’ for, right?” Without waiting for an answer he said, “Yeah, you fucked some shit up, son. Nice work.”
“I ain’t your fuckin’ son,” Jango grated, as he tried to rise again. His fierce and unnatural vitality fought to repair the damage of his wound, and he felt somewhat better for his struggles.
“The blood heals,” Jango whispered. He noticed his pack beside him, and dragged it closer. He opened it, and rooted for his beef jerky. He knew he needed protein to heal, and the jerky had protein aplenty.
When he had retrieved the two one-pound bags of jerky from his pack, he fell to and ate voraciously. After several moments of chewing and swallowing, he noticed the hungry looks on the two men’s lean faces, and asked, “What are you two doing down here, anyway? You look half-starved, but you helped me. And you didn’t steal my shit. What gives?”
Shawn looked at Mark, and nodded. Mark began, “Shawn is a cop, well, was a cop. Anyway, I was a brick-mason up until about a week before the zombies started trashing the place. A friend of mine’s kid got chestered by this cho-mo who had done it before. I ended up going after the guy. Fucked him up good.” Mark smiled, and then continued, “The fucker’s wife called the cops, and Shawn ended up arresting me. When the Z-Virus came to town, shit went wacky with a quickness. Me and Shawn ended up being the only two at Madison County Jail that weren’t turned into zombies. He let me out of my cell, and we fought our way out of there, and ended up here at the Convention Center.” He paused for a few seconds before going on with the story. “Well, man. Those dick-eaters, the Consortium, right? Well, they do fucked up shit, and nobody says a word. Me and Shawn wouldn’t go along with their goddamned gang-rape kidnapper trips. Shawn cut one nasty ass-hole’s throat, and then we shot our way out of there. This was three months ago, and we been living down here ever since. Sometimes people bring us food, but mostly we eat what we can catch. Rats, and sometimes rabbits!” He muttered, “I love rabbit. It is so much better than rat.”
“Jesus,” Jango mumbled, astounded by the courage of the two men who had stood up against the outrages of the Consortium. “Here, eat
this. It’s got to be better than rat.” He tossed one of the bags to the men, and soon all three of them were chewing noisily on the dried beef.
46
“This is delicious!” Mark said around a mouthful of jerky.
Shawn grunted assent, and kept chewing.
Jango finished his bag before the other men finished their shared bag, and rooted in his pack for water. He couldn’t find any.
He looked up to see Mark bringing him a one gallon jug brimming with water, and Jango slurped and swallowed half of the jug, and sighed.
“You know what I miss the most?” Mark asked, “Cigarettes.” He answered. “Good old Marlboros, man.” After a pause, he added, “I would blow a Black Coat for a Marlboro right now.”
Shawn responded, “Don’t be a cheap date, bro. Make it two ciggies!” Both men laughed, and Jango found himself smiling.
He felt a kinship with the two men, as only outsiders can feel, and it felt good. He shook away the thought, and felt in his hip pockets. The packs of cigarettes that he had stashed were still there, albeit slightly crumpled. He slid the two packs out of his pockets, and one at a time, tossed the packs to the man named Mark.
Looking down at the sound of the packs hitting the floor, Mark’s eyes widened, and he said reverently, “Holy fuck,” as he picked the rumpled packs up off the floor, and worked three cigarettes out of the open pack.
He picked up a stick with an ember on the end, and lit all three cigarettes. One, he passed to Shawn, and then he brought one over to Jango, and handed it to him.
Leaning on his elbow, Jango allowed himself the cigarette, his first in a long time. The three men smoked in silence, and for that moment, all was right and sane in the world.
Crushing out the smoke, and summoning his strength, Jango forced himself first to his knees, and then his feet. He swayed drunkenly for a moment, but then steadied himself through an effort of will. “How long was I out?” He asked.
“Maybe two days.” Shawn answered. “We got some soup down your throat, kept you hydrated, like that.” He stared in awe at Jango, and said, “You should be dead. That bullet was in your lung, and shit was all torn up inside you. How in the fuck are you alive and standing?”
Without answering, Jango checked his shotgun, and then his pistols. Satisfied that all was well, he turned to the men, and said, “Look. Thank you for helping me, for saving my life. I have to go.”
Shawn stood up, and asked, “You going to war?”
Grimly, Jango nodded.
“Want some company?” Shawn asked quietly.
Hurt, weak, and alone, Jango felt a weight come off of his shoulders, just a little, at the thought of these two hard men having his back. “Yeah, man, yeah.” He replied softly.
Mark and Shawn high-fived each other, and smiled like children on Christmas morning. Then, after a moment, all three men sat down to work out a plan of attack.
47
Several hours later, Jango stood with Shawn and Mark before several hundred of Bartertown’s residents, and explained their plan.
“You’re fucking cracked, mate,” Jarvis said. “They’ll kill you right off.”
His plan of attack, on its surface, did indeed seem crazy. However, as a consummate student of the nature of twists, he knew that it would work. He probably would not survive, but he would be able to take his enemies with him to the boneyard with the help of these people.
His idea was a simple one; the denizens of Bartertown would radio up to the Black Coats and their masters that they had captured the dangerous fugitive, Jango, and that they wanted to trade him for supplies, and access to the upper levels of the Center. They would insist on meeting in Builder’s Square, rather than the top of the ramp. That demand would make sense to the rich men who controlled topside, because they saw everyone in Bartertown as ignorant savages who wanted nothing more than to have a taste of the good life.
Once in Builder’s Square, the Black Coats and their masters would want to publicly humiliate and torture Jango to balance out the havoc he had wrought upon their enterprise. While their attention was turned to him, the people of Bartertown would surround the enemy, draw their concealed weaponry, and then shoot the Black Coats to doll-rags.
“Remember,” Jango reminded them, “send the message on every radio frequency.” He had an idea that the man, Dan, at The Weapon Shop, would be listening to the radio, and that he would lend a hand when the time came.
He finished up his speech with, “Now remember, I ain’t your balls. If I get dropped, you can’t freeze up. You gotta get on with the killing, you dig? If you don’t, your women and children will pay the price of your cowardice, and you know just what I mean.”
Shawn and Mark nodded agreement, while the crowd stood in silence, and let the truth sink in deeply.
48
After their plans were made, all that was left was to radio in, and wait. Jango used his time productively, and took the time to make his steel stick even more formidable.
Using some heavy, black rope, he painstakingly wove the rope around the steel bar not only to beef it up, but to help save the steel from bending under the force of his blows. The rope-weave would spread the force of the blow across a wider area of the steel. When he finished, he tied and melted the rope-ends, and slid the heavy creation into its scabbard.
As he was finishing up his preparations, Jarvis came up to him. The Englishman held a rag-rapped parcel in his big hands, which he held out to Jango.
He took the parcel, and unwrapped it. Within, he found the knife that he had designed, complete with a sheath and clip for a belt or harness.
He slowly drew the large, blocky blade from its sheath, and stared into the dark glimmer of the steel. He tested the edge with his thumb, and found it sharp as a razor. He nodded his thanks to Jarvis, and then went back to waiting.
“I would blow a Black Coat for an AK-47,” Jango heard Shawn say to Mark.
“Don’t be a cheap date, bro,” Mark responded, “have the motherfuckers throw in some ammo, too!” They both laughed.
Shawn drew a large Khukri from his pack, and began to whet the edge with a stone.
Walking over to the men, Jango said, “Look, I appreciate what you two are willing to do, but I don’t think you should be right up front. They will recognize you, and probably kill your asses without hesitation. Then you don’t do anyone any good.”
Shawn contemplated his words for a moment, and then said, “No, man. I don’t think they will. Mark and me will tell them we grabbed you, and want back in. They will buy that, I guarantee it. Plus, bro, I have a hard-on. A man gets a hard-on, he has to stick it somewhere, you know? I have had a hard-on for those mother-fuckers since the get-go, and now I have somewhere to stick it. No fuckin’ way I get rear guard. I’m up front.”
“Yeah!” Mark said with a smile.
Just then, the radio blared to life. After several minutes of back and forth between Shawn and whoever was on the other end, an agreement was reached, and Shawn set the radio down.
“Well,” he said to Jango, “I guess it’s time, bro.”
Nodding, he stood, and shucked his pack. He kept his harness and stick, but removed the shotgun and pistols. He stowed his pistols in the pack, and closed it.
He handed the pack to Allison, and said, “If I don’t make it, there’s enough in there to buy comfort anywhere there are people. Take care of Promise, okay?”
She nodded mutely as she took the pack, and Jango turned away. He secured the knife that Jarvis had made for him behind his back, half tucked into his waistband, and well hidden beneath his raggedy, loose clothing.
Everyone in the crowd of people who would be a part of this was dressed similarly. Long and raggedy clothing, dirt smeared on their faces, and weapons concealed beneath the long, flowing garb.
He allowed his hands to be bound tightly behind him. He insisted upon the bonds being secure, for he knew that they would be checked. Next, a rope was tied around his neck for effect.
He nodded to Shawn, and the tall man struck him in the face. He struck him several more times, not stopping until Jango’s face was swollen, and covered in blood.
He knew that they needed this to work, and for it to work, it needed to look real. There was no way those men upstairs would believe that he had been captured without a fight.
Spitting blood, he allowed himself to be led by the neck up the ramp, and out of Bartertown.
The corridors of the Convention Center were empty and silent as the ragged procession made its way to the place known as Builder’s Square. They entered, with Jango stumbling as he was pulled along.
As planned, several of the people began to curse, and slap at Jango as they came into view of the remaining Black Coats, and the whole of the Consortium leadership.
Jango was knocked to the ground, and then pulled back up by his neck as they dragged him the final bit of distance to stand in front of the man known as Mr. Elam.
Taking Elam’s measure, Jango noticed the man who Vanessa had called Dr. Copeland standing slightly behind Elam, wearing a smirk on his jowly face.
“Put him on his knees,” Elam drawled, and Jango felt a fist slam into his back. He groaned, and dropped to his knees.
“Check the zombie fucker’s hands,” he ordered one of his men.
The Black Coat jerked roughly on his bound hands, and satisfied that they were secured, he nodded to Elam.
As soon as the man walked away, Jango used his thumbnail to remove the razor blade that he kept glued to the backside of his belt. He immediately began working at the bonds with the razor.
Confident now that he knew his prisoner was secure, Elam swaggered forward, put his soft, thin hand under Jango’s chin, and forced his head up.