Under Ivans Knout: The Gospel of Madness (Book 2 of 6) (The Gospel of Madness - (A Post-Apocalyptic Thriller Series))

by Georg Bruckmann

  “Of course. At the beginning we also tried to recruit people from the hurters for the patrols, but most of them are quite happy that they can be down here and do normal work. It’s just not for everyone to handle a gun. Many of the protees, who might be physically fit enough, are that traumatized that almost nothing can be achieved by employing them. But at least they can still be useful in one way or another. Some of them could theoretically lead a different life despite an injury or any ulcers, but they want to stay because maybe a relative who just can’t go on anymore lives down here and needs their attention. When we take in new hurters, there are always some who only stay a few weeks to recover and then move on somewhere else. Unfortunately, only a few of the healthier ones stay here. Those who stay for good are usually the ones who really need help.”

  He shrugged his shoulders and then added:

  “That’s the way it is. But we’re not here because of them, are we?”

  Meanwhile we had advanced into the tunnel area, where I had been locked up in a cell, which aroused some bad feelings in me.

  Soon we had passed my prison and turned another corner. The weak lamps hung here at a greater distance and I could not see the end of the tunnel. After we had put another hundred meters behind us, Rolf gave the command to stop.

  “Go on ahead, boys. I have ...”, he pointed at me, “... to discuss something else with this one. Wait for us outside the door.”

  The men cast doubtful glances at each other, but then followed the blond’s command with apparent equanimity. As they left, Rolf faced me with his arms crossed in front of his chest and looked at me.

  He had given a fire order two nights earlier that almost had cost me my life.

  And now he sent away the witnesses.

  I looked around for possible weapons, or something I could throw, but either there was nothing useful or I couldn’t see it in the twilight. The knife in my boot was of no use to me at the moment too. I’d never be able to pull it fast enough. Rolf had just to draw his gun, shoot me and then claim that I attacked him. The sweat was on my forehead, even though it was freezing cold down here.

  I was more than tense.

  Ready to jump.

  Ready to use violence.

  But Rolf didn’t move, just kept looking me in the face with his blue stone eyes.

  Was he waiting for me to attack first?

  I was almost ready to do him the favor, for I would not be able to stand this tension much longer. The moment I clenched my hands in fists and wanted to go at him and start a preventive attack, Rolf turned his back on me.

  I took a step forward, had already started the movement process.

  I barely managed to stop and think.

  He had somehow registered my movement, but, still turned away from me, he said:

  “Relax. The boys are far enough away now.”

  I wasn’t relaxing. I didn’t want to get lulled. How stupid did he think I was? The way he was standing, I couldn’t possibly see if he was holding anything. When I had pushed myself as silently as possible another step towards him, again ready to strike at the very moment when I could even imagine the smallest hint of a drawn gun, it turned out that ... there was nothing.

  Ivan’s blond captain turned to me, and his hands were not only empty, but also soothingly stretched out in my direction.

  “Take it easy,” he said.

  Was that a tiny smile in the corners of his mouth?

  He didn’t change his open stance, but I still kept my fists up.

  “Why did you send the men away?”

  “Because I wanted to talk to you.”

  “Why?”

  “About the day before yesterday.”

  “And why can’t the boys hear that?”

  “This has to do with Ivan. So what is it? Are you listening?”

  I meant to him to talk further. He thought for a few seconds, then he started.

  “Look. I see it this way: I am convinced that Ivan is the best that can be offered to the people here and that is why I support him as best I can. But for some situations he is simply not the right man. For example, for espionage and counterintelligence or, to be honest, for everything that cannot be solved in one fell swoop - the man is definitely unsuitable for this. I’ve known for quite some time that those three men were removing weapons and supplies from the camp. Me and a couple of others I trust did exactly what you did and found out what you found out. With one difference: We managed to follow them unnoticed for several nights without provoking a firefight right away, like you did. The guys have dumped guns and supplies in a lot more places in town than just the car dealership. It would have been necessary for us to find out why and for whom they are doing this in order to ensure the security of us all. We know they brought weapons to the people at the mall, but there was nothing to be seen around the other depots they had set up except a few of the damn dogs. I followed this whole matter without telling Ivan because...”

  He hesitated for a moment.

  “... I think you know quite well why, namely...”

  “... because Ivan would only have seen: They steal from me, hence I have to kill them,” I inserted, following his reasoning.

  Slowly I began to understand what he was getting at.

  “Yeah, something like that. He would have lacked patience, especially lately, when he was a bit much...”

  He made a clear gesture with his index finger under his nose.

  “... I don’t even want to know what will be going on if he runs out of dust and can’t find a replacement.”

  Now I was a little surprised, for Ivan had never seemed like an addict to me. Everything I had seen of his consumerism so far seemed somehow fitting to me. When I made a corresponding remark, Rolf just shrugged his shoulders.

  “Wasn’t from the beginning. Has evolved over time.”

  Since he didn’t say anything else at the moment, I continued to speak for him.

  “Okay, so you were already on it. And then, all of a sudden, Ivan had that Stumptooth give me the order to take care of it, right? He must have noticed somehow that things are disappearing from the camp.”

  Rolf nodded and grinned briefly. I’m sure he didn’t know Stumptooth by that name. Well, now he did.

  “So, let’s get on with it. So you knew I was chasing the three thieves that night and you stayed with me. And when the renegades started shooting, you gave the fire order.”

  Rolf nodded again.

  “Yeah, I was mad because you fucked up all my work, and I wanted to give you a little scare.”

  “I see,” I said. He was almost smiling now. And I did that too, because I knew one thing: The man had just served me a huge pile of shit.

  If he had really been so interested in more information, he would not, never, under any circumstances, have accepted that his only sources of information were shot to shreds by a dozen assault rifles. Unless ...

  “There are others, aren’t there?”

  He looked at me in astonishment, and his poker face started to crumble.

  “There are more thefts. Many more thieves, and you don’t want Ivan to get wind of it, do you?”

  I guess he realized there was no point in denying it.

  “Yeah, shit, you’re right. Ivan would organize a hell of a witch hunt if he knew how much material disappears here every day. If you hadn’t discovered the assault rifles in the tunnel, we would have been officially defenseless in two weeks time. I know most of the thieves by now, but before I have them all arrested and cause a gigantic disturbance in the camp, I wanted to wait for the interrogation of this one-hand guy. It’s just better if Ivan learns the truth from an outsider, you know, for his temper. And yes, before you ask, my joy wasn’t that great when I found you alive at the dealership. I would clearly have preferred Ivan not to know anything about any thefts yet. He has stipulated an example here before. At that time it was also all about a theft and in the end twenty-three protees and seven of Ivan’s boys were dead, until we realized th
at the culprit had already been up and away for three days. You want to know what he stole? Ivan’s compass. Ivan’s fucking compass. I just preferred some annoying newcomer dead rather than two dozen of our own people. But well, you were lucky, and now we’re here.”

  I asked Rolf to give me a moment to process the new information.

  He nodded.

  Of course, from his point of view, it would have been convenient if I had died in that dealership. He could have sold it as an accident or framed the thieves for my death. There would certainly have been no such thing as an autopsy, and no one would have been interested what weapon the bullet that would have killed me had been fired from. Well, at least Rolf hadn’t been as cold-blooded to murder me later. With great reservations, I decided to trust the man for the time being.

  A little bit.

  No, not to trust, but to give him a chance. At least right now he seemed to be honest. If it was really him – and that’s exactly how it appeared to be - who actually kept the place going and made sure that Ivan’s temper didn’t cause unnecessary death, then I could live with what Rolf had done. He had weighed the numbers against each other and had come to the conclusion that he would rather see one troublemaker and three thieves dead than accept that an Ivan-style investigation killed five times as many people.

  “Okay, I´ll get over it, Rolf. But I have two more questions. You reinforced the barricades this morning?”

  “Yes, I’m sure we’ll need them sometime soon. These thefts - there is simply too much system behind them. Believe me, the guys responsible are being controlled from somewhere outside. I’m sure of it.”

  “Maybe the interrogation can bring insight,” I said and Rolf nodded in agreement.

  “We’ll see.”

  As if at an unspoken command, we started moving again. For a few seconds we remained silent. Then Rolf suddenly asked:

  “What’s your second question?”

  I thought for a moment, first I had to remember.

  “Oh, it’s very simple. Why don’t you overthrow Ivan and become chief yourself?”

  Rolf’s stone eyes looked at me, then he said:

  “Because he’s someone people like to follow. They’re afraid of him, but they feel safe. It’s his charisma. If his own people are afraid of him, how will his enemies feel? That’s the way it works, you know? A change of power or another leader would lead to divisions, grouping and struggles for the goods and privileges. The whole structure would fall apart, believe me. Sure, I also have some people who would acknowledge me and probably stand by me, but we really can’t afford that the current system – flawed or not - is falling apart. This place is so safe because there are so many of us and everybody’s doing their job. You can’t run the station with just a handful of men. You should see that, shouldn’t you? It takes a lot more than that, and that’s what Ivan does. He’s the glue.”

  I thought about what he had said as we were approaching our goal and our conversation was over for now. Even if Rolf hadn’t said it directly, it had become clear what he was actually asking me to do. The point was to keep Ivan from being stupid if he should make preparations in any way to give hasty, anger-born instructions. And Rolf seemed to foresee a reaction like this, if he found it necessary to involve me in his thoughts as he just did.

  The four men he had sent ahead were waiting for us outside a rusty metal door as they had been ordered to. Rolf stepped forward without a word, ignored the curious looks of his guys and knocked twice loudly and booming. Another man with a red armband opened after a few seconds and then stepped aside to let us through.

  They were all there.

  Gustav stood with his back to the door in front of a long table that had been pushed against the wall. Fires had been lit in several old barrels and other oil lamps and battery-powered spotlights added to the lighting of the room. The doctor didn’t turn around when we entered and seemed busy making preparations. The guards spread out along the walls, took up posture and tried to look uninvolved. Stumptooth was here, too. He was tampering with one of the barrel fires. And of course there was Ivan. He sat on the only chair in the room with his legs apart and looked impatiently at us.

  “I almost started without you. It’s time you came.”

  Rolf apologized for both of us and said something about a problem with some of the hurters.

  The star guest of this event dangled naked from the ceiling. Ivan had him hung up by his arms so that his toes could just touch the ground. It was weird seeing him like that. He was much skinnier than I had remembered, but despite his injuries, the old gunshot wound, the torn cheek and the shot through hand after which I had named him, he still seemed threatening to me. His eyes were filled with pure hatred when he saw me and he shook angrily at the chains until Stumptooth turned from the barrel fire to him and held out a glowing piece of metal to him with pliers and threatened to press it into his armpit if he did not want to be quiet.

  “In a hurry, huh?”, Ivan addressed the prisoner with his grumpy, strong accent.

  “Don’t worry. We’ve planned a lot of time for you. We start slowly, and then increase, I would suggest. Or maybe you want to talk right away? Won’t help you, you know? You’re gonna die anyway. The question is in how many pieces.”

  Ivan looked around waiting for applause and Rolf grinned crookedly. Before we talked, I would have thought that grin was sneering. Now I felt rather guilty. However, Ivan’s words had not had a discernible effect on Onehand. Except for a damp whistling sound and some saliva dripping from the fringed hole in his cheek, there was no reaction from him. Ivan got up and took off his fur coat. He stepped up close to Onehand. It was almost as if he wanted to whisper something into his ear, whereby he had to bend down a little, although one hand stood practically on his toes. He kept asking questions like:

  Who sent you?

  Why did my people help you?

  What do you want with my weapons?

  How many of you motherfuckers are there?

  And so on.

  Each of these questions was accompanied by a punch in the face, the kidneys or the abdomen. The incredible force of Ivan’s blows made Onehand swing back and forth, but except for an occasional, involuntary wheeze and the sound of someone forcefully sucking air into his lungs to be able to breathe somehow, Ivan could not force any reaction out of Onehand.

  Not that way.

  It was also obvious that Ivan hadn’t expected to get the desired result with just a few punches, because when Gustav stepped away from the table where he had been gripping, I could see a multitude of blades, pliers and drills. In contrast to Stumptooth, who supervised the fire and the metal parts that were heated in it with a tense and expectant cheerfulness, it was very obvious that the whole thing here went right against Gustav’s grain.

  The clapping of fist on flesh broke off and Ivan sat down on his chair breathing heavily and grabbed a bottle of Grasovska.

  “We’ll have to try something different, don’t we? Tighten the screws a little harder, huh?”

  The eyes of the Eastern European shone maliciously. Gustav, who, like all of us, knew what was to come, retreated into a corner and looked to the ground. Ivan had deformed Onehands nose more than slightly, but apart from reddish marks on the skin, the other blows had done no visible damage so far.

  One could have done anatomical studies on Onehands body. Every muscle twitch, every vein throb and every heartbeat of this man could be observed. The skin was covered with old scars. One hand must have fought countless battles in his life, even though he didn’t seem to be much older than me. I wondered if he had always been as I had met him.

  Degenerate? Is that how the world made him? Or Da Silva? Or was it a question of predisposition? Now Ivan approached him.

  Sometimes it is amazing how easily one can distract the own mind from what one would rather not see.

  Things like Ivan rising from his chair.

  Things like Ivan, who steps to the table and picks up a scalpel.

&
nbsp; Things like Ivan, who cuts a piece of skin the size of an envelope from Onehands thigh and spits vodka into the wound.

  Mariam

  Of course, there were several reasons why Mariam felt drawn to the very platform on which the boy had shouted. Even though she actually knew that her little thefts would inevitably attract attention at some point, she always landed there again and again, as if magically magnetized.

  Certainly it was also because the way to there was lined with very good hiding places and cover possibilities, because she knew the rhythm of the patrols down there by heart and also because she had learned that night that, should she be discovered, she most likely would not be considered a common thief, but simply a little girl.

  For this last reason, and out of childlike carelessness, she began to move relatively freely as soon as she sneaked onto the platform. She was careful not always to steal from the same sleeping hurters, but soon she had picked the most worthwhile victims. Since her secret mission was not mainly about food, but also about equipment, tools and raw materials, Mariam soon found out that there was also a small trading system inside the platform that somehow resembled that of the rough and noisy people above. An infrastructure of services and craftsmen, if you like, with people who were practically inclined, such as seamstresses, carvers, metal benders, and people who could cook well or cared for the sick.

  There were old men who, for an extra portion of stew, told the children exciting stories, people who voluntarily made sure that the chamber pots were emptied as far away from the platform as possible - which, however, only partially helped against the omnipresent smell of human excrements, ulcers and decay - and then there were the runners who set off to the storage depots above several times a day and at fixed times received the daily rations from the redsleeves. Each of the hurters had his own tasks and talents. His place in a society of the sick.

  Mariam had built the habit that every time she noticed that she was looked at by sleepy eyes, either because she had woken someone or because the person simply had still been awake, just to smile briefly, then lower her eyes and put an index finger over her lips. Most of the time they smiled back and nodded, sometimes even put an index finger over their own lips.