Doomsday Warrior 16 - American Overthrow (15 page)

The sky was nearly as white as the wasteland that flashed beneath the hybrids’ pounding hooves—once the ’brids got up a good head of steam. Small funnels of the white sand rose above the salt-plain as they headed inexorably north.

They camped on a rise full of scrub pines when it grew dark, and were again surrounded by countless eyes, staring, glaring out of the darkness wanting a leg or an arm. Rock posted three-hour guard shifts; the usual routine. But found himself unable to sleep. The events of the underground city and the lovemaking with Shi’sa seemed to have hypnotized him. He was coming out of it now.

“Wow!” Rockson said, as he zipped himself into his sleeping bag, “never thought we’d get out of there.”

“Out of where?” asked Detroit. “You were dozing in the saddle even since before the volcano. Did you
dream
something?”

No one remembered about Hell, or the naked stone woman, they claimed. And they all claimed one ’brid had broken its leg in a hole and that Rock shot it!

Rock decided they
must
be putting him on, but they stuck to their story.

Archer shot and skinned a jackrabbit at dawn. Chen threw it in a frying pan and added spices and egg powder. They had rabbit and egg souffle, and started the day brimming with energy.

They rode for another eight hours straight north, through valleys and prairie land, through stunted trees that extended for miles. Fortunately the weather was with them. There was no indication of acid rain, or black snow or any of that stuff. The sky was bland, overcast with purplish haze high in the stratosphere where the radioactive rings kept circling, circling eternally over the earth. Schecter had said it was like a beacon to all the galaxy that we had fucked up.

They stopped twice for food and some rest, but Rockson pushed them hard. There was no time. He could feel it. Things were coming to a head fast. If whoever was running the sick gas show at Pattonville started taking over large numbers of cities, fast, in a kind of blitzkrieg, he could win before they had time to fight back!

Rockson was starting to wonder just where the hell Pattonville was. On his map it should have been almost dead ahead, but there were so many large mounds of debris mixed in with half rusted and disintegrated junk from a century ago that it was hard to get a good sighting. They plodded along a furrowed dirt road that had had some traffic recently. Tire tracks not a day old.

Suddenly a figure appeared ahead, stumbling along. The Freefighters pulled to a nervous halt, taking out their various weapons. They didn’t trust anyone these days. But it was just a single filthy looking man. No guns, or much of anything for that matter. His shirt was torn, his pants as well.

He wore only one shoe which he dragged along behind him in a twisted manner of walking. He reminded Rock of nothing more than one of the wide-eyed horror-film zombies he’d seen in C.C.’s film archives from the old days. The man’s face was frozen, the eyes staring straight ahead with a red rim around them like the blood might burst through. The man’s right arm was held straight out and it looked like such a caricature of an extra from Night of the Living Dead. Rockson had to grin, even as he raised his shotpistol just in case. He
must
be putting them on. It
had
to be an act!

“Hey, this cat for real?” Detroit laughed, ripped up his Liberator as he sat on the front of the ’brid, Chen behind him. A couple of shuriken were slipping out from under Chen’s sleeve into his hands, nevertheless.

“He’s for real, all right,” Rock replied as the stumbling dazed man came right up close to Rock’s ’brid and then started past them all like he didn’t even see them standing there.

“Whoa, whoa, slow down there just a minute, fellow,” Rockson said as he slid down from the saddle and got in front of the man, gently bringing him to a stop. “What’s up, old man?” Rock asked. “If you keep walking in that direction like you’re going you’ll be dead in a few hours.”

“Dead,”
the man replied with a glint of understanding. “Dead,” he repeated it almost happily like a child reciting its first words. “I
am
dead,” the man went on.

The Freefighters looked at each other a little nervously. The guy sure as hell acted like a real zombie.

“I think this sucker
might be
dead,” Chen said with a look of concern on his face. “There’s things about his skin, the green tinge—the way his eyes are so distended and bloodshot. You see what I mean?” Rock held his hand against the man’s chest. The fellow stood there, and didn’t seem to mind being talked to or touched. More like a lost dog that was vaguely happy someone had found it, or at least resigned to accept whatever happened.

“He’s got a heart beat, but not a hell of a lot,” Rock said. “One thump every few seconds.”

“Gaass,” the man croaked. “Hanover gas us.” He held his hands up around his throat and gasped hard showing them a charade of the event. “Now, can’t think good,” the man said. “Can’t, can’t.”

“What’s your name pal?” Rock asked with a smile, trying to be gentle with the mindless fellow. He could now see that the guy was telling the truth. His mind must be mostly gone. There was just something missing in the man’s eyes; the something of life.

“Name 787,” he said with a look of pride. Reddish drool leaked down the side of his mouth as he spoke. Rockson tried not to look.

“Hanover gives you all numbers?” Rock asked.

“Yes, numbers,” 787 replied. He lost all the balance on one leg suddenly and nearly tumbled over. But Rock caught him and helped him to his feet. He was
light,
as if most of the flesh had been worked off him. And cold to the touch. The poor bastard even felt like a corpse.

“Before that number,” Chen asked angrily. “Your real name pal, try to remember.” He knew it was important if the dude had the slightest chance of regaining his mind to take him back before whatever hideous brainwashing had been done.

“Before,” the man mumbled looking up at the sky, licking his dry white lips with a bloated gray tongue. “Before. Was, was Ralph. Yes, remember. Ralph and wife, Eldeline, and son . . . Michael.”

“Good
man,
good,”
Rockson said slapping him on the back. Which he realized instantly he shouldn’t have done as 787 nearly tumbled forward again. A coating of yellow dust seemed to float up off his skin. They all coughed and stepped back.

“Hanover,” the zombie-man gritted his teeth hard and said the name over and over with real hatred in his eyes. “Hanover! Me kill General Hanover.”

“How many are there like you?” Rockson asked as he saw the man’s eyes slowly taking on a fractional look of intelligence. Like he at least knew he was talking.

“Are many,” the zombie gashead replied. “Thous—thous—thous,” he couldn’t say it.

“Thousands,” Detroit said mercifully. The man nodded.

“The President, Charles Langford, or his daughter—have you seen or heard anything about them?”

The man just stared straight ahead. Rock’s words seemed without meaning for him.

“I think that’s too complex an idea for him,” Chen butted in. “This bastard Hanover’s really done a number on this guy. He’s probably not gonna be good for anything the rest of his life, even though he escaped.”

“Do you know the way to Pattonville?” Rockson asked, shaking him by the arms so more of the rusty spittle dribbled out. The man’s eyes shook around inside the pasty head like cherries in a slot machine.

“Pat-ton-ville. Know way.” He shook his head with a kind of zombie pride, a goofy smile freezing on his face in demonic exaggeration. “Me take— Not far.” With that, he turned and began walking back the other way. The Freefighters looked at Rockson quizzically. Like—were they really going to take directions from Frankenstein?

“Let’s move, men,” the Doomsday Warrior said mounting. Looking skeptical as the day is long, the others followed, their ’brids moving at a slow gait. Four grizzled Freefighters loaded down with supplies atop three primeval beasts of burden, following behind a lurching groaning zombie who could barely stand up, let alone walk.

Rock wondered: Was this a dream too? Or was
everything
a dream of the Deity; a dream as real as you decide to let it be?
Or
was—
Oh, hell!
The
important
thing was to keep dreaming interesting dreams!

Seventeen

T
hough the zombie-man lurched and flailed around like a mummy on qualudes, the bastard knew his directions. They had gone for about twenty minutes back and forth through the mound fields of rotting and rusting 20th Century town debris when ahead they saw it: Pattonville. Rockson halted them all halfway down a hill shaded by thick branched trees as he scanned the place. He’d been shown maps of the little free-city from Rath’s intel unit back at C.C. It looked like the right place.

Pattonville was mostly underground, as were most of the Freefighting cities. C.C. had over twenty-five levels, and Pattonville just five. But it was long, over two miles, and oddly narrow, from fifty to a hundred feet most of the way. It had been a series of army storage depots—the overgrown sheds could still be seen. Back in the good old days it hadn’t been much. But it left Hanover with still usable army machinery, some old ammunitions, equipment of all kinds that had been stockpiled. In short all the things that a good military overthrow and conquest of other cities a planner would need. Rusty bullets kill too. Plus he had
gas.

There were clearly marked a number of hidden entrances on the map he carried. Rockson was able to spot two—the odd shaped boulders. But a dozen guards were in front of both. He knew they’d need some kind of ace in the hole to make their way inside—without creating a whole battle scene.

“Listen, pal,” he said, addressing the zombie brain who stood by a tree staring at the bark. “Is there a good way to get in? Somewhere where there aren’t so many guards?”

The deadhead looked confused for a good ten seconds. Which was something terrible to see as his face got all scrunched up like he’d swallowed a lemon, the eyes grew even more bloodshot and numerous other unappealing expressions. He racked his minimal brain, and Rock and the others half expected to see gunk come out of his ears.

But at last the eyes lit up slightly, from vacuum black to dull gray. He looked at Rockson with that same ingratiating puppydog look that he got whenever he was able to accomplish anything.

“Me take out corpses in—in back of flat boards; roof of city,” he said, his bloated tongue slipping on the puffed cracked lips as he tried to speak.

“Doing good pal, keep going,” the Doomsday Warrior said, trying to encourage him on.

“One guard only, leave door o—, o—pen. Take dead out to swamp. Many dead.”

“Sounds like our kind of place,” Detroit said, butting in.

“Me take. Me know way,” Ralph said with pride on the cadaverous face.

“I want to sight the place up,” Rockson said, “before we do any combat ops. Chen, you’re coming with me. No offense, gang, he said looking at the disappointed Detroit and the equally frustrated Archer who was banging one huge fist into another. “But I gotta be able to move fast and through the shadows.”

“Brother, I’ll move through the shadows better than any white-face man,” Detroit laughed, rubbing his sweat-coated ebony face.

“I need you two to stay back, ready to troubleshoot,” Rockson replied, resting a hand on Detroit’s broad shoulder. “And keep an eye on our tree-crusher over here,” he said, eyeing Archer, who grunted and seemed to look around for food.

“Will do, cap’,” Detroit said as he adjusted the remaining grenades on his twin belts. “But not happily.”

“We’ll leave the ’brids, rip up our outfits, try to look like zombie-man.”

They had already taken off the white jump suits and restowed them in the hybrid’s packs. Now Rockson reached down with his Bowie knife and cut up his sweatshirt and khaki pants, rubbed dirt all over himself as Chen did the same. Archer looked on like they were both mad, scratching his head so hard that strands of hair came out over by the crystal-patch in his skull. Ralph looked mystified himself but kept it to himself. He hadn’t quite re-mastered the art of laughing with his half-rotted mouth. But he did make some squirrel-like noises that were tries.

“Let’s go, Mr. Ralphy boy, 787,” Rock said after he and Chen passed muster. They looked like shit, almost as good as their zombie friend.

Ralph turned and started lurching off up a slope of barbed bushes that ripped at his skin though he hardly noticed. They didn’t see a soul for the first hundred yards or so that Ralph led them through the woods. They got to within about fifty feet from what was clearly the roof complexes of the city below poking out of the earth. Just several feet of the roofs had been built above ground, extending up not more than two or three feet. Above it was camouflage brush and netting. But standing at ground level adjacent to it Rock could see the raised squares that formed the roofs of the long depot.

Just as they were turning around a sharp base of a hill that shaded one end of the city, Rockson caught sight of a whole line of zombies. They all looked like Ralph’s brothers, lurching around, arms jerking up and down, faces twisted and into pained expressions. They carried the dead and the garbage of the city. There was a lot of both.

They dragged them, and carried them on their shoulders, stumbling even further under the weight of the death-debris.

“Come,” Zombie-Ralph said. “This way.”

They walked down a path that meandered several hundred feet and ended at a manmade pond about seventy-five feet across. Here the “waste materials” were thrown into the lye pit, a bubbling acid pool of white foam. It no doubt rotted all that was thrown into it. Body parts floated here and there on the surface bubbling up from below. Even the vultures stayed away. They probably couldn’t eat the diseased waste rotting in the caustic waters without burning their own beaks and innards. A swamp of death.

Rock felt his stomach gurgle and Chen turned to give him a sickened look as well. Ralph kept bumbling on, joining the line of waste-haulers returning into the city. Rock and Chen hopped out of some bushes and did the same thing, out of the line of sight of the only guard.