Swan Song (69 page)

“You were a little too friendly when you came into the shack and… and woke me up that way,” she replied crisply. She could feel her face reddening, and she wanted to go back to the beginning and start the conversation all over again, but it was out of control now, and she was half scared and half angry. “And I wasn’t offering you that apple the other day, either!”

“Oh, I get it. Well, my feet are on solid ground. They’re not up on a pedestal like some people’s are. And maybe I couldn’t help it that I kissed you, and maybe when I saw you standing there with an apple in your hand and your eyes big and wide I couldn’t help but take it, either. When I first saw you, I thought you were okay; I didn’t know you were a stuck-up little princess!”

“I’m not!”

“No? Well, you act like one. Listen, I’ve been around! I’ve met a lot of girls! I know stuck-up when I see it!”

“And-” Stop! she thought. Stop right now! But she couldn’t, because she was scared inside, and she didn’t dare let him know how much. “And I know a crude, loudmouthed… fool when I see one!”

“Yeah, I’m a fool, all right!” He shook his head and laughed without humor. “I’m sure a fool for thinking I might like to get to know the ice princess better, huh?” He stalked away before she could reply.

All she could think to say was, “Don’t bother me again!” Instantly she felt a pang of pain that sliced her open from head to toe. She clenched her teeth to keep from calling him. If he was going to act like a fool, then he was one! He was a baby with a bad temper, and she wanted nothing more to do with him.

But she knew also that a kind word might call him back. One kind word, that was all. And was that so hard? He’d misunderstood her, and maybe she’d misunderstood him as well. She felt Anna and Mr. Polowsky watching her, and she sensed that Anna might be wearing a faint, knowing smile. Mule rumbled and exhaled steam into Swan’s face. Swan pushed aside her swollen pride and started to call Robin, and as she opened her mouth the shack’s door opened and Paul Thorson said excitedly, “Swan! It’s happening!”

She watched Robin walking toward the bonfire. And then she followed Paul into the shack.

Robin stood at the edge of the fire. Slowly, he balled up a fist and placed it against his forehead. “Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb!” he said as he hit himself in the head. He still didn’t know what had happened; he just knew he’d been scared to death even speaking to someone as beautiful as Swan. He’d wanted to impress her, but now he felt like he’d just walked barefoot through a cow pasture. “Dumb, dumb, dumb!” he kept repeating. Of course, he hadn’t met a lot of girls; in fact, he hardly had met any girls. He didn’t know how to act around them. They were like creatures from another planet. How did you talk to them without… yeah, without coming off like a loudmouthed fool-which was exactly what he knew he was.

Well, he told himself, everything’s sure messed up now! He was still shaking inside, and he felt sick down in the pit of his stomach. And when he shut his eyes he could still see Swan standing before him, as radiant as the most wonderful dream he’d ever known. Since the first day he’d seen her, lying asleep on the bed, he hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind.

I love her, he thought. He’d heard about love, but he’d had no idea love made you feel giddy and sick and shaky all at the same time. I love her. And he didn’t know whether to shout or cry, so he just stood staring into the flames and seeing nothing but Swan’s face.

“I believe I just heard two arrows hit a couple of rear ends,” Anna told Mr. Polowsky, and they looked at each other and laughed.

Seventy-Three - [True Faces]

The man with a face like a skull stood up in his Jeep and lifted an electric bullhorn. His jagged teeth parted, and he bellowed, “Kill them! Kill! Kill! Kill!”

Macklin’s roar mingled with the shout of engines firing and was finally drowned out by the thunder of machinery as more than six hundred armored cars, trucks, Jeeps and vans began to move across the parking lot toward the Savior’s fortress. Dawn’s gray light was further dirtied by banners of drifting smoke, and fires burned on the parking lot, consuming the two hundred vehicles that had been wrecked or destroyed during the first two assault waves. The broken bodies of AOE soldiers lay dead or dying on the cracked concrete, and there were new screams of agony as the wheels of the third wave rolled over the wounded.

“Kill them! Kill them all!” Macklin continued to shout through the bullhorn, waving the monster machines on with his black-gloved right hand. The nails protruding from its palm glinted with the fires of destruction.

Hundreds of soldiers, armed with rifles, pistols and Molotov cocktails, moved on foot behind the advancing vehicles. And in a semicircle around the shopping mall, three densely packed rows of American Allegiance trucks, cars and vans awaited the onslaught, just as they’d waited for and repulsed the previous two. But piles of Allegiance dead littered the parking lot as well, and many of their vehicles blazed, still exploding as the gas tanks ruptured.

Flames leaped, and bitter smoke filled the air. But Macklin looked toward the Savior’s fortress and grinned, because he knew the Allegiance could not stand before the might of the Army of Excellence. They would fall-if not in the third attack, then in the fourth, or fifth, or sixth, or seventh. The battle was winnable, Macklin knew. Today he would be the victor, and he would make the Savior kneel and kiss his boot before he smashed the Savior’s face.

“Closer!” Macklin shouted to his driver, and Judd Lawry flinched. Lawry couldn’t stand to look at Macklin’s face, and as he drove the Jeep nearer to the advancing line of vehicles he didn’t know whom he feared most: the leering, ranting thing that Colonel Macklin had become, or the American Allegiance sharpshooters.

“Onward! Onward! Keep moving!” Macklin commanded the soldiers, his eyes sweeping the ranks, watching for any signs of hesitation. “They’re about to break!” he shouted. “Onward! Keep going!”

Macklin heard a horn blare and looked back to see a bright red, rebuilt Cadillac with an armored windshield roaring across the lot, weaving through and around other vehicles to get to the front. The driver had long, curly blond hair, and a dwarf was crouched up in the Cadillac’s roof turret where the snout of a machine gun protruded. “Closer, Lieutenant!” Macklin ordered. “I want a front row seat!”

Oh, Jesus! Lawry thought. His armpits were sweating. It was one thing to attack a bunch of farmers armed with shovels and hoes, and something else entirely to storm a brick fortress where the fuckers had heavy artillery!

But the American Allegiance held their fire as the AOE’s trucks and vans rolled steadily forward.

Macklin knew all his officers were in place, leading their battalions. Roland Croninger was on the right, in his own command Jeep, urging two hundred men and more than fifty armored vehicles into battle. Captains Carr, Wilson and Satterlee, Lieutenants Thatcher and Meyers, Sergeants McCowan, Arnholdt, Benning and Buford-all of his trusted officers were in their places, and all of them had their minds fixed on victory.

Breaking through the Savior’s defenses was a simple matter of discipline and control, Macklin had concluded. It didn’t matter how many AOE soldiers died, or how many AOE vehicles exploded and burned-this was a test of his personal discipline and control. And he swore that he’d fight to the last man before he let the Savior beat him.

He knew that he’d gone a little crazy when that stuff had cracked open, when he’d picked up a lantern and looked into a mirror at himself, but he was all right now.

Because, after his madness had passed, Colonel Macklin had realized he now wore the face of the Shadow Soldier. They were one and the same now. It was a miracle that told Macklin God was on the side of the Army of Excellence.

He grinned and roared, “Keep moving! Discipline and control!” through the bullhorn in the voice of a beast.

Another voice spoke. It was a hollow-sounding boom!, and Macklin saw the flash of orange light by the mall’s barricaded entrance. There was a high shrieking noise that seemed to pass right over Macklin’s head. About seventy yards behind him, an explosion threw up pieces of concrete and the twisted metal of an already-wrecked van. “Onward!” Macklin commanded. The American Allegiance might have tanks, he thought, but they didn’t know shit about shell trajectories. Another round whistled through the air, exploding back in the encampment. And then there was a ripple of fire along the massed defenses of the American Allegiance, and bullets struck sparks from the concrete and ricocheted off the armored vehicles. Some of the soldiers fell, and Macklin shouted, “Attack! Attack! Open fire!”

The order was picked up by other officers, and almost at once the machine guns, pistols and automatic rifles of the Army of Excellence began to stutter and crack, aiming a barrage at the enemy’s defensive line. The AOE’s lead vehicles lunged forward, gathering speed to smash through to the mall. A third tank shell exploded in the parking lot, throwing a plume of smoke and rubble and making the ground tremble. And then some of the Allegiance’s heavy vehicles were gunning forward, their engines screaming, and as the trucks and armored cars of both armies slammed together there was a hideous cacophony of shrieking tires, bending metal and ear-cracking explosions.

“Attack! Kill them all!” Macklin kept shouting at the advancing soldiers as Judd Lawry jinked the wheel back and forth to avoid corpses and wrecked hulks. Lawry’s eyes were about to pop from his head, beads of cold sweat covering his face. A bullet glanced off the edge of the windshield, and Lawry could feel its vibration like the snap of a tuning fork.

Machine gun fire zigzagged across the parking lot, and half a dozen AOE soldiers spun like demented ballet dancers. Macklin threw aside the bullhorn, wrenched his Colt.45 from his waist holster and shot at Allegiance soldiers as they stormed over the defensive line into the maelstrom of bodies, skidding vehicles, explosions and burning wrecks. So many cars and trucks were slamming together, backing up and charging one another again that the parking lot resembled a gargantuan demolition derby.

Two trucks crashed right in front of the Jeep, and Lawry hit the brakes and twisted the wheel at the same time, throwing the Jeep into a sideswiping skid. Two men were struck down beneath its wheels, and whether they were AOE or Allegiance soldiers Lawry didn’t know. Everything was confused and crazy, the air full of blinding smoke and sparks, and over the screaming and shouting Judd Lawry could hear Macklin laughing as the colonel fired at random targets.

A man with a pistol was suddenly framed in the Jeep’s headlights, and Lawry ran him down. Bullets thunked against the Jeep’s side, and to the left an AOE car exploded, sending its driver tumbling through the air, still gripping a fiery steering wheel.

Between the crashing and skidding vehicles, the infantrymen were locked in savage hand-to-hand combat. Lawry swerved to avoid a burning truck. He heard the shrill whistle of an approaching shell, and his groin shriveled. As he screamed, “We gotta get out of here!” he twisted the wheel violently to the right and sank his foot to the floorboard. The Jeep surged forward, running over two soldiers grappling on the concrete. A tracer bullet whacked into the Jeep’s side, and Lawry heard himself whimper.

“Lieutenant!” Macklin shouted. “Turn the Jeep back-”

And that was all he had time to say, because the earth suddenly shook, and there was a blinding, white-hot blast about ten feet in front of the Jeep. The vehicle shuddered and reared up on its back tires like a frightened horse. Macklin heard Lawry’s strangled scream-and then Macklin jumped for his life as the scorching shock wave of the explosion hit him and almost ripped the uniform off his body. He struck the concrete on his shoulder and heard the shriek of tires and the crash of the Jeep as it was flung into another car.

The next thing he knew, Macklin was on his feet, his uniform and coat hanging in tatters around him, and he was looking down at Judd Lawry. The man was sprawled on his back amid the wreckage of the Jeep, and his body was twitching as if he were trying to crawl to safety. Judd Lawry’s head had been smashed into a misshapen mass of gore, and his broken teeth were clicking together like castanets.

Macklin had his gun in his left hand. The false right hand with its palmful of nails was still attached to the wrist by strong adhesive bandages. Blood was streaming down his right arm and dripping down the black-gloved fingers to the concrete. He realized he’d scraped his arm open from shoulder to elbow, but other than that he seemed to be okay. The soldiers swirled around him, fighting and firing, and a bullet dug up a chunk of parking lot about four inches from his right boot. He looked around, trying to figure out how to get back to the AOE’s camp; without transportation, he was as helpless as the lowest infantryman. There was so much screaming, shouting and gunfire that Macklin couldn’t think. He saw a man pinning an AOE soldier to the ground, repeatedly stabbing him with a butcher knife, and Macklin pressed the.45’s barrel against the man’s skull and blew his brains out.

The shock of the recoil thrumming up his arm and the sight of the body keeling over cleared the haze out of Macklin’s head; he knew he had to get moving or he would be just as dead as the Allegiance soldier in front of him. He heard another shell coming down, and terror clutched the back of his neck. Ducking his head, he started running, avoiding the knots of fighting men and leaping over sprawled and bleeding bodies.

The explosion rained pieces of concrete down on him. He tripped, fell, crawled frantically behind the shelter of an overturned AOE armored car. Waiting for nun was a body with most of the face shot away. Macklin thought it might have been Sergeant Arnholdt. Shaken, the colonel took the clip from his.45 and replaced it with a fresh one. Bullets whined off the armored car, and he crouched against the concrete, trying to find enough courage to continue his race back to the encampment.

Over the tumult, the cries of “Retreat! Retreat!” reached him. The third assault had failed.

He didn’t know what had gone wrong. The Allegiance should have broken by now. But they had too many men, too many vehicles, too much firepower. All they had to do was sit tight in that damned mall. There had to be a way to get them out. There had to be!

Trucks and cars started racing across the parking lot, heading away from the mall. Soldiers followed them, many hobbling and wounded, stopping to fire a few shots at their pursuers and then stagger on. Macklin forced himself to get up and run, and as he broke from cover he felt a tug at his coat and knew a bullet had passed through. He squeezed off four wild shots without aiming, and then he fled with the rest of his Army of Excellence as machine gun bullets marched across the concrete and more men died around him.

When Macklin made it back to camp, he found Captain Satterlee already getting reports from the other surviving officers, and Lieutenant Thatcher was assigning scouts to guard the perimeter against an Allegiance counterattack. Macklin climbed on top of an armored car and stared at the parking lot. It looked like a slaughterhouse floor, hundreds of bodies lying in heaps around the burning wreckage. Already the Allegiance scavengers were running amid the corpses, gathering weapons and ammunition. From the direction of the mall he heard cheers of victory.

“It’s not over!” Colonel Macklin roared. “It’s not over yet!” He fired the rest of his bullets at the scavengers, but he was shaking so much he couldn’t aim worth a damn.

“Colonel!” It was Captain Satterlee. “Do we prepare another attack?”

“Yes! Immediately! It’s not over yet! It’s not over until I say it’s over!”

“We can’t take another frontal assault!” another voice contended. “It’s suicide!”

“What?” Macklin snapped, and he looked down at whoever dared to question his orders. It was Roland Croninger, his coat spattered with blood. It was someone else’s blood, though, because Roland was unhurt, the dirty bandages still wrapped around his face. Blood streaked the lenses of his goggles. “What did you say?”

“I said we can’t stand another frontal assault! We’ve probably got less than three thousand men able to fight! If we run head on into those guns again, we’ll lose another five hundred, and we still won’t get anywhere!”

“Are you saying we don’t have the willpower to break through-or are you speaking for yourself?”

Roland drew a deep breath, tried to calm down. He’d never seen such slaughter before, and he’d be dead right now if he hadn’t shot an Allegiance soldier at point-blank range. “I’m saying we’ve got to think of another way into that mall.”

“And I say we attack again. Right now, before they can organize their defenses again!”

“They never were disorganized, damn it!” Roland shouted.

There was silence except for the moaning of the wounded and the crackle of flames. Macklin stared fiercely at Roland. It was the first time Roland had ever dared to shout at him, and there he was, disputing Macklin’s orders in front of the other officers.

“Listen to me,” Roland continued, before the colonel or anyone else could speak. “I think I know a weak spot in that fortress-more than one. The skylights.”