Radio Hope (Toxic World Book 1) (9 page)

He heard his father’s voice chide him
.
We have to keep up the fight, son, like your grandfather did and his grandfather before him, until the Revolution finally brings equality to mankind.

Ah, the Revolution. T
here had been plenty of revolutions in his grandfather’s day and his great-grandfather’s day. Even his father was around for the last of the organized class struggles, dwarfed as they were by the plagues and the rich men’s wars. And now what? Back to barbarism. Back to the first phase of human development, but with all the old sins of the capitalist times remaining—social inequality, centralized power, workers not owning the means of production and earning less than the value of their labor, and of course the opiate of the people in the form of crazed religion.

That’s what
had convinced him to go on this trip, that and getting Olivia safe. This new cult was a threat to everybody. You couldn’t strive for equality if you were a slave to some self-styled messiah.

“Was that a warship?” Mitch asked.

Jackson jabbed his chin in the direction of the rusting hulk in the port. “You mean that? No, that was an old cruise ship.”

“A cruise ship?
” Annette asked.

“I’ve heard of those,” Ha-Ram said, his voice coming out choked.
“They were pleasure craft. They used to sail around the world and people had parties on them.”

“Nobody’s having a party on it now,” Annette said, looking at the capsized hulk of rusted metal.

“Actually there’s a party there all the time,” Jackson said. “A bunch of tweakers live on it, the worst of the worst. This whole bay is infested with them. The villagers have to hunt them when they get too bold. Those on the cruise ship tend to keep to themselves, though. Must be a good supply of chemicals to snort on board. Sometimes I see lights shining there at night.”

Mitch looked around. “We’
re too damn exposed out here.”

Jackson looked at the ruined city sprawling along the opposite shore and k
new they were being watched. When the villagers came here to scavenge, they always came in large numbers. Jackson studied the cracked concrete facades, empty windows, and exposed steel girders. There would be tweakers looking at them right now, and you could never tell how those burnt-out minds would react.

“Annette,” Jackson said softly. “You have three guns and I have none.”

Annette studied him for a moment before drawing her revolver and handing it to him butt first. Jackson nodded and took it.

“You’re giving a criminal a gun?” Ha-Ram exclaimed.

“You want four guns on our side or only three?” Annette asked, pulling some bullets off her belt and handing them to Jackson.

“Only six extra bullets?
” Jackson asked.

Annette gave him a look. “Don’t push it, Blamer. I got a lot of experience dealing with troublemakers like you.”

Jackson met her gaze. “I’m not the real problem.”

The boat drew close to the opposit
e shore now, and everyone kept a sharp eye out. Nothing moved amid all the empty streets and darkened buildings. It was as silent in the city as it was on the bay.

The villagers steered their dugout to a broad esplanade tha
t ran along the shore. Jackson imagined how it must have been a hundred years before, with laughing families strolling along a bay that still harbored life, back when people could fool themselves into thinking the toxins wouldn’t poison the water and that wars were something that only happened somewhere else.

The dugout bumped against the concrete wall. The surface of the esplanade was at chest height with a rusted old railing running along it.
Jackson got off first, hauling himself onto the walkway and standing with Annette’s revolver in his hand, scanning the old shop fronts and apartment buildings for movement.

Mitch came up next and crouch
ed with his AK-47 at the ready. Annette came third with Ha-Ram just behind. Annette cradled her shotgun and Ha-Ram had a 9mm automatic that he held uncertainly. The young man’s eyes were wide with fear and he was unsteady on his feet after being sick.

Without a word the villagers turned their dugout around and made haste for the other shore. All four of those left behind watched them go.

“How do we get back over there?” Mitch asked.

“We can signal,” Jackson said. “They’ll be keeping watch.”

“How the hell are they going to see us?” Mitch demanded.

“They have a good pair of binoculars. You can scavenge all sorts of things in the city if you’re willing to look.”

Mitch snorted. “They can have it. Whoever uses them will probably get eye cancer.”

“Let’s get moving
,” Annette urged.

Jackson turned and pointed. “All we have to
do is go straight over this ridge. The city continues on the other side for a time but we can be well out of it by nightfall. It wasn’t very big even at its height. My father said only 200,000 people lived here.”

Annette gaped. “That was
what they called a small city?”

Jackson shrugged and led them up a road head
ing straight up the side of the ridge. A few cars sat like the husks of dead beetles by a sidewalk heaped with rubble. Telephone poles and streetlights lay across the way in a few places, but the path was relatively clear.

“Let’s keep to the center of the road,” Jackson said. “Sometime tweakers drop things from the upper stories.
”

“Nice,” Ha-Ram whispered.

They walked up the street, peering through empty storefronts and shattered windows. The stench from the bay was still strong, and as they walked a new, even more powerful stench mixed with it.

“Damn, what is that?”
Ha-Ram asked.

“Somebody died,” Mitch said.

Jackson nodded. Yeah, he knew that smell too.

They found the body another block up, lying halfway inside a doorw
ay. There was little left. It had been a tweaker judging from the filthy skin, at least the skin that remained for him to see. The fleshy parts of the torso and limbs had been cut away.

Ha-Ram gagged again but didn’t vomit. He’d left the contents of his stomach back in the bay.

“Jesus Christ,” Ha-Ram groaned. “They ate him!”

“Sick fucks,” Mitch growled.

“Let’s go,” Jackson said. “It’s not safe to stay around here.”

They hurried on. At one point they found the road blocked with a heap of rubble from a collapsed building. Instead of climbing over the twisted mass of concrete and jagged metal, they took another, narrow
er lane a block over.

They’d made it another block when Mitch stopped.

“Did you hear that?” he asked. He looked around with his Kalashnikov leveled.

“What?
” Jackson said, looking around.

“I heard movement,” Mitch whispered.

A soft patter of pebbles falling down a slope sounded from somewhere behind and to their left.

“The wind?” Ha-Ram asked.

“That would be nice to believe,” Jackson said. “Let’s get moving. Keep an eye on those windows.”

They crept forward, looking in all directions. Ja
ckson gritted his teeth. The stillness of this place oppressed him. They were almost to the top of the ridge, and from there they’d get a better view and find the shortest way out to the countryside.

“Ha.”

They stopped, looked around.

“Ha. Ha. HA! Ha.”

The sound had come from behind them.

“Ha.”

They spun around. That had been from in front of them.

“HA HA HA!”

They turned again. That had come from the darkened interior of the building just to their right.

“Shit,” Jackson said
. “Tweakers.”

CHAPTER TEN

Annette snapped the safety off her shotgun and scanned the buildings that stood to either side.

“Ha!”

Annette spun to her right just in time to see a dark figure dart across a doorway.

“Stay calm,” Jackson said. “If you stay calm sometimes you can pass right by them.”

“That works in the wildlands or the edge of the Burbs,” Ha-Ram said, his voice shaking. “We’re in the city. They’re probably pissed off we’re on their turf.”

Annette bit her lip. The kid was probably right.

“Fuck ‘em,” Mitch said, “We’ll mow the motherfuckers down.”

“Let’s just keep moving forward slowly and calmly and we might get out of this without having to,” Jackson said.

“I knew you liked fisheaters, didn’t know you tumbled with tweakers too,” Mitch said.

“Shut up,” Annette snapped. “Let’s do as he says. He’s got more experience in these parts than any of us.”

To her surprise Mitch complied. Maybe it was easier taking a suggestion from her than from a branded criminal.

It brought up a question, though. W
ho was in charge of this mission?

A motion out of the corne
r of her eye made her look up. Someone was in one of the upper stories.

“Hoooooooo.”

The long, hollow call sounded like it came from the roof of the building where Annette had seen the movement.

The group picked up their pace. They were almost to the crest of the ridge now, huffing up a steep hi
ll, the cracked pavement tripping them up as they looked everywhere except their own feet.

A cross street ran along the top of the ridge, a
forlorn traffic light still hanging from a cable strung across the intersection, its three lights forever extinguished. A figure staggered into view, looking almost like a silhouette it was so filthy. It held a plastic bag up to its face and sniffed. It stumbled to one side, righted itself, and stared at them.

“Keep calm,” Jackson said. “Don’t show fear.”

Easier said than done
,
Annette thought.

“Hoooooooo HO!
”

More tweakers stumbled into the intersection. With a sense of dread Annette looked over her shoulder. More closed in behind them
, blocking the last intersection.

Without saying anything to each other the four of them stopped
and stood back to back.

“Now what?” Ha-Ram asked in a voice raw with panic.

“Steady,” Annette said.

A chunk of concrete arched down from a nearby rooftop and shattered on the street not five feet away. Ha-Ram bolted for the shelter of the opposite building.

“No! Don’t run!” Jackson cried out.

“HA! Ha ha ha hoooooooo!”

In an instant the tweakers transformed. Their shambling, uncoordinated movements disappeared and they raced forward, their once-slack faces now twisted in mad rage.

Annette gave the surging crowd in front of them both barrels
of her shotgun and saw three tweakers go down. Another spun around, his arm shredded. He landed hard on one foot, steadied himself, and moved forward again.

“Ha!”

Mitch laid into the tweakers in front with three-round bursts, knocking at least one down with each pull of the trigger. They flew backwards, arms cartwheeling. Wounded tweakers toppled over one another, blackened rags now soaked in blood.

“Move forward, we gotta move forward!” Mitch said.

He yanked out his clip, slapped the backup into his weapon, and let off another burst. Annette cracked open her shotgun, tore the spent shells out of the barrels and fumbled for another pair. Beside her Jackson was taking steady aim and dropping the tweakers behind them one by one. Another slab of concrete crashed onto the pavement not a foot from where he stood. Bits of rock hit him on the face and torso, but he barely flinched.

He’s seen a few firefights in his time
,
she thought
.
I wonder where?

Annette shoved two shells into her shotgun, snapped the piece closed, and bla
sted at the crowd. Between her shots and two full clips from Mitch’s AK-47, virtually all the tweakers in front of them went down.

“Let’s go!” he shouted.

Mitch charged forward, giving one of the few tweakers left standing the butt of his weapon full in its face. The thing toppled backwards, its head hitting pavement with an audible crack. Another grabbed him. Mitch spun around and threw the tweaker onto the ground. Annette stomped on its face.

“I’m out!” Jackson called, holding up her revolver. The tweakers behind them were closing in.
“No time to reload. We gotta run for it.”

A half dozen bricks landing all around them emphasized his point. Annette gave thanks that the tweakers had terrible aim. One brick even hit one of the wounded as he moaned on his hands and knees, blood pouring from a gut shot. The brick smacked him on the back of the head and knocked him flat.

Annette looked around. “Where’s Ha-Ram?”

A series of shots from one of the building
s gave her the answer.

The crowd of
tweakers coming up behind them shifted direction and moved for the building in a filthy, cawing mass.

“Fuck!” Mitch said. “We gotta get him.”

Annette did a double take. She didn’t expect Mitch to actually stick up for anybody.

Mitch must have seen the look on her face because he said, “We need him.”

Need him for what, exactly?

No time to discuss that. Ha-Ram had a nine-round clip and probably didn’t have the foresight to put an extra
round in the chamber. Plus Abe had said he wasn’t a good shot. They needed to get to him fast.

“Wait!” Jackson said. He was loading more rounds into the revolver.

“We don’t have time!” Annette shouted. She was reloading too, but she’d get done a hell of a lot faster.

Mitch looked at his AK helplessly. He’d burned through two clips and definitel
y didn’t have time to reload. He drew a bayonet out of a sheath on his belt and slipped the guard loop over the barrel of his weapon, snapping it into place. He looked at the other two.

“Done?”

“Yeah,” Annette said.

“Wait a minute,” Jackson said. He had two more rounds to put in. One. He snapped the cylinder into place. “Hold it!”

“Now what?” Mitch demanded.

No more shots
came from inside.

Jackson fished into his bag and pulled out a meat cleaver.

“Should have had this out before. Let’s go!”

They hustled
toward the building as the last of the tweakers crowded through the front door. No more missiles came from above. Whoever had been up there seemed to have lost interest.

The place was a five-story apartment building with
a large shop on the ground floor. All the windows had been smashed years ago and nothing remained inside but rows of empty shelving.

They stopped by one of the large
windows and saw the crowd heading down one of the aisles away from them.

“They’ve forgotten
all about us,” Annette said in wonder.

“They’re easily distracted. They’re focused on him now,” Jackson said.

He stepped through the window, careful not to cut himself on the few slivers of dusty class that still clung to the bottom of the frame. Annette and Mitch followed.

“I don’t hear any fighting,” Mitch whispered.

“Maybe he’s hiding,” Annette whispered back. She didn’t want to think of the other possibilities. Visions of that half-eaten corpse came back to her.

The last of the tweakers rounded the corner of the aisle at the far end of the store. Enough daylight filtered in that they could see the landing of a stairway there.

Annette peeked down the next aisle. Nothing. They hurried to follow the crowd, trying to make as little sound as possible. Annette gritted her teeth as their boots crunched glass and bits of drywall. She winced as Mitch accidentally kicked a rusty can and sent it clanging against a metal shelf.

They came to the landing and saw three tweakers huddled over something in the hallway. Annette’s heart pounded as they approached. It couldn’t be. . .

She left out a gasp of relief to see it wasn’t Ha-Ram’s corpse.

It was his backpack
.

That was
only slightly less ominous.

The tweakers
pawing at the backpack looked up. Their eyes were unfocused again, their jaws slack. One brought a plastic bag partly filled with some sort of clear fluid to his face and breathed in deeply.

He took the bag away and smiled at them.

“Godd frwt ailsyanope?”

Jackson leapt forward and swung his meat cleaver down, lodging it in his skull with a crack. Mitch lunged at the tweaker next to him and stuck his bayonet through the addict’s throat. Annette hesitated, not having anything lethal to kill quietly with. She was just bringing up her shotgun as a club when Mitch gutted the third one.

Mitch looked over at Jackson with new respect.

“That wasn’t half bad,” he smiled.

“Thanks,” Jackson grunted, putting his foot on the dead tweaker’s head and yanking his meat cleaver out of his skull.

A series of shots rang out upstairs.

“Let’s go!” Annette said.

They hustled up the steps
, Annette taking point and Mitch and Jackson two steps behind. They came to the first floor and looked around. No one.

Another shot rang out.
Annette pointed up the stairs with her gun.

“
Next floor!”

They continued their ascent
. Rounding the landing, a dark figure leapt from the shadows. Annette gave it a barrel in the chest.

She cried out, realizing she
had fired without seeing who it was. A wave of relief washed over her to see the filthy form of a chem addict jerking its death throes on the floor.

They hurried up the next flight of steps to the second floor.
A long hallway stretched out ahead of them with open doorways to either side, the doors having long since been used up as firewood. A couple of tweakers wandered about the hallway, staring into doorways. They’d lost sight of their quarry and their miswired minds had forgotten the hunt.

A shout from the ot
her end of the hallway made the tweakers turn and head away from Annette and her companions. They didn’t even notice them sneaking up behind until they were getting clubbed and stabbed in the back.

The tweakers in the hall dealt with, the three crept forward, poking their heads in each of the doors. Another shout told them where Ha-Ram was.

They sprinted to the end of the hall and saw him backed into a corner, fending off half a dozen tweakers with a metal table leg. His pistol lay on the floor.

Mitch charged forward with a roar. The
chem sniffers turned. Ha-Ram used the opportunity to smack one upside the head. Mitch lunged, planting his bayonet its full length into one’s stomach. Jackson slashed another across the throat with his cleaver, the tweaker going down with a wet choke, grimy fingers clutching its spurting neck. Annette, frustrated she couldn’t use her shotgun in such an enclosed space without hitting her companions, swung it as a club instead, hitting first one, then another of the addicts.

Just as she knocked the second one down, another barre
led into her, scrawny arms grabbing her around her middle with incredible strength and hurling her to the floor.

In an instant it was upon her, raking her face with its nails, bring a hand up to strike.

Its head burst into a fountain of blood and it fell to one side.

Jackson stood above her, the smoking revolver in his hand.

“Let’s get going,” he said.

“One minute,” Mitch said, stabbing each twea
ker in turn. “Got to double tap these motherfuckers to make sure they don’t come back.”

“Thanks guys,” Ha-Ram said as he scooped up his pistol.

Annette staggered to her feet, heart pounding. She wiped the blood off of her stinging face the best she could, and wondered how much of it was her own.

She looked at Jackson, “How bad is it?”

His mouth made a grim line.

“You got some open scratches.”

Annette’s stomach clenched. “What if its blood got into mine?”

Mitch gave her a concerned look. “I have some iodine in my pack. Once we clear out of here we’ll put some on it.”

“Give it to me now!” Annette demanded.

“We don’t have time,” the baker said.

“I don’t have time. Give it to me!”

Mitch stripped off his backpack and rummaged around inside. Ha-Ram took the opportunity to reload. As he did he glanced out the window.