This Dark Earth (34 page)

“There’s not much time, Luce. We’ve got to go. You won’t take the boat?”

“No. I’ll be there for Gus, at least, and the injured.”

“The wounded will get treatment. From themselves or their company.”

Suicide is mandatory. Take a bullet in the chest, you take yourself out or someone else will. Arm, leg, it’s a drumhead court-martial. Head . . . then there’s not much to worry about.

They remain quiet for a long time while Gus limits his breathing. He feels like a thief, stealing these moments from them.

“Luce, you’ve got to be there for Ellie. Go to the dock.”

Her voice is bitter. “No. Goddamn me to hell for leaving her to Barb and Joblo, but—”

Wracking sobs, and for an instant, Gus wants to call out to her.

“It’s not just about us. If you can wear that thing . . . and make that . . . I don’t know . . . sacrifice—”

He shushes her like a baby. The sound travels in the air, loud, until a chatter of gunfire comes from the south.

“I’ve got to go.”

Silence. The wind ruffles the fabric of the tent.

“I’ll be there at the Wall, at least until—”

“The end.”

The sky grows lighter, dawn coloring the dark blue of night. Gus, wiping his tears, reaches out to open the tent flap and realizes, for the thousandth time, that he’s lost his hand.

“You never told me.”

“What?”

“Knock-Out. You never told me how you got that absurd name.”

Her tears are dry, if Gus is any judge of his mother, and she’s back to business.

“It’s a long story.” His voice is thick and wounded. “We don’t have time . . . and it’s not a good one anyway.”

“You can’t . . . leave me with just that—”

Silence. Again. Silence so long Gus considers interrupting. “My father. He called me that after the first time he . . . knocked me unconscious.”

She’s breathing heavy, and he’s quiet.

“I can’t believe you kept it.”

“A reminder. Of who he was. Of who I wasn’t.”

The bells ring again. Shadows in the tent join, part.

Gus clears his throat and scratches at the tent opening.

“The slavers. They’re here. You’ve got to get to the docks. Mom. Knock-Out.”

Lucy throws back the flap, steps into the dim morning light.

“We aren’t going to do that.”

Behind her, Knock-Out emerges.

“No, Gus,” he says. “We’re going to the Wall.”

On his head, fashioned from blunt, black iron, is a circlet.

A crown.

There’s muttering and
soft exclamations as Gus, Lucy, and Knock-Out approach the Wall. A smattering of applause, then silence, then a nervous laugh. One man curses.

Knock-Out walks slowly but shrugs off Gus when he tries to take his arm and steady him.

He’s proud.

The cancer has withered him to a skeleton, and the chemo has denuded his skull of hair. But dressed in a white shirt and linen pants—surely a considered move, Gus thinks—he looks royal. He wears the crown well.

Slowly, the withered giant climbs the battlements above the Wall and turns to look out. He looks out not toward the Dead Mile but to the people of Bridge City, men ready to die in its defense. He holds up his arms.

“You all know me. You know me. In a moment, these slavers, this man, Konstantin . . . this man who took Gus’s hand . . . this man and his followers, the slavers we’ve all been talking about for the last year . . . they are going to come over that ridge. Before they make war on us, they’ll demand things.”

His voice, at first weak, has gained power and now is rumbling, audible over the rattle and sputter of the Bradley in
front of the gates, audible above the men, the gennies turning below, the hiss and pop of the halogens now fighting the dawn that has arrived.

“I’m no fool. I’m not your king, just someone who sat on councils and bounced a baby on his knee.”

Wallis shakes his head. Gus says, “More than that.” His voice catches in his throat. “So much more than that.”

Knock-Out touches his shoulders but keeps his gaze fixed on the people at the Wall.

Gus glances at Wallis standing near, but not next to, Knock-Out. His face is tense, but no more than earlier.

In the distance, a sporadic chatter of rifles echoes over the Dead Mile. Then dies. There’s a murmur from the gathered men.

Knock-Out says loud, so it carries, “They want us. This bridge. They don’t want to kill us. They want to enslave us! How is that different from being one of them?” He jabs a finger down at the remaining shamblers at the gate. “He’ll keep you alive, keep you breathing, but you’ll be no better than those walkers. The dead! Slaves to hunger.”

He paused and coughed hard into his sleeve. For a moment it seemed he’d topple over, the coughs wracked his body so violently, but with a great show of will, he stopped, and straightened, setting his shoulders and grinding his teeth. “Look, look there, at Wendy. You all know her. Her story. Look at her face and see what kind of
true
beasts those people are!”

All eyes go to the short, stout woman in mismatched men’s garb with a .30-06 clutched in her hands. She looks embarrassed.

“They’re coming, and they’ll ask for the prince. The one he tortured before.” He points a long thin arm directly at Gus’s chest. “I plan to give them a king!”

The silence that follows is broken by a cough. Wallis.

He walks over to Knock-Out and smiles sadly. Then he kneels, bowing his head.

Knock-Out blushes and looks uncomfortable.

The men laugh, and Keb yells, “Long live the king, motherfuckers!”

Lucy sobs.

Knock-Out tugs at Wallis’s arms. “Get up, man. No need for that.”

Someone takes up the chant. “Long live the king!”

Others follow, pumping their fists.

“Long live the king!”

Beyond the Wall, past the Dead Mile, the black, thick silhouettes of war machines top the ridge.

It’s full light
now. A Humvee with a white banner ruffling from its passenger side rumbles over the ridge, down the hill, and across the Dead Mile. It approaches the Wall, keeping its distance from the waiting Bradley.

It stops equidistant from the slavers and the people of Bridge City. Two men get out, keeping the body of the vehicle between them and the Bridge’s sharpshooters.

Wallis barks from his place on the Wall, “Smetana!”

Smetana and his men, crouching behind sandbags, take aim with deer rifles.

There’s a squelch, and then one of the intruding men holds up a megaphone.

“Good morning. I am Captain Konstantin.” The voice is calm, reasonable. “Please send out the little prince so that we might discuss your surrender.”

The megaphone squelches again, an eerie sound that echoes off Bridge City and back across the expanse to where the man stands.

“You don’t know it yet, but your city is already destroyed! Do not entertain ideas of fighting back. Look behind me.”

Hundreds of men top the ridge, far beyond rifle range. They scurry about in clusters of three or four, setting up equipment.

There’s another chatter of gunfire, longer this time.

Wallis yells, “They’re taking heat from the zeds on their flank! Do not fire! Do not fire!”

The clusters of men on the ridge stop movement. Another burst of gunfire and then silence.

The man behind the Humvee, Konstantin, lifts the megaphone. “You have no hope of resistance. Send out the prince so that we might negotiate surrender. And just so you know we aren’t playing, here’s a little object lesson.”

The second man pulls the flag from the Humvee and waves it in the air, and a corresponding puff of white shows from one of the groups of men on the ridge.

There comes a whistling in the air and then, thirty yards to the east of the Wall, an explosion.

Wallis blisters the air with curses. “Mortars.”

The flag is replaced. The voice returns.

“You have ten minutes.”

Knock-Out turns and descends from the Wall. At the bottom, Lucy clutches him, and they kiss. He disengages, turns, and looks up at Gus standing near Wallis on the Wall.

“Gus. I’m sorry you weren’t my son. I tried to love you like you were. Lead these people.”

He sighs and looks out at the men awaiting orders. “You could do worse than have him as a king.” He looks at the gateman. “Open the doors.”

The winch sounds, the doors roll back, and Knock-Out, dressed in white and wearing a crown, walks away from Bridge City, from the Wall, and into the Dead Mile.

All eyes follow
him trudging up the slope, through the denuded land, small puffs of dust exploding from his footfalls and floating away.

He walks around the Humvee and is hidden from view.

Firearms sound again, this time for minutes at a time.

Howe looks over his glasses at Wallis. “They’re going through shitloads of ammunition for their rearguard, sir.”

Rector spits. “Good, the bastards.”

“Idiots. Should’ve known they’d have a horde on their ass.”

Gus frowns. “I don’t think so. When Keb, Jazz, and I took it to them, we had to roll slow, so slow it was almost painful, in order to deliver the . . . payload. They didn’t march up here. They’ve got fuel. All the military vehicles they could want. They could move fast. Fast enough to leave behind shamblers . . .”

“Maybe they’re drawing them locally,” Howe offers.

“Right,” Rector says, his voice sarcastic. “And all the time I’ve spent on the Wall these last few years has been for nothing.”

They fall silent, each in his own thoughts.

The skies darken
with low, oppressive clouds tinged yellow. It is early October, a prelude to nuclear winter. The temperature drops, and men shift in their boots and rub their arms.

Hours pass, and the gunfire beyond the ridge grows almost constant.

It is afternoon
when Knock-Out emerges from behind the Humvee, no longer wearing the crown.

The megaphone squelches again, and Konstantin says, “Sorry for the delay. We may now resume your surrender.”

Crouching at a sandbag on top of the Wall, Lucy gasps, a little exclamation of joy, as Knock-Out begins to walk back to Bridge City.

Konstantin lowers the megaphone, extends his arm, and shoots Knock-Out in the back. He takes a long time to fall forward into the dust. They leave him where he lies.

The pistol’s report reaches the Wall long after Knock-Out goes down.

“No!” Lucy screams and runs to the gates.

Wallis wheels. “Take him!”

Smetana gives the signal, and his men fire.

It’s too late.

When the voice
returns, it has an excited timbre. From the Wall, snipers search the Humvee for Konstantin’s crowned head, looking for a shot. But he remains hidden.

“Once again, sorry for the delay.” A chuckle. “Now, if you will all just look to the west, you’ll see two very strong reasons for you to drop your weapons, put your hands on your heads, and exit your city.”

All eyes turn west, to the river. Two barges, sitting low in the water from their cargo—one holds gravel, one shipping containers—float sideways down the river, toward Bridge City.

“The bridge might stand, but not for long.” He laughs, a dry, humorless sound. “This is what we’ve been waiting on. Courtesy of your little prince and his big ideas for how to destroy things.”

Gunfire sounds on the horizon, over the ridge. An armored Jeep races down the hill, brakes dramatically, and slews to a stop near the Humvee. A man seems to shout frantically as he points back over the ridge.

“If you get a clear shot of that motherfucker, take it,” Wallis says in a harsh voice to Smetana. His shoulders are tight and there’s a fury upon him that none in Bridge City had ever seen.

Gus leans in close to Smetana. “Keep Knock-Out down. Don’t let him rise. Don’t let him come back to the Wall as one of those.”

His mother, listening, gasps and says, “No!” but then stands stock still, eyes streaming as Smetana sights, holds his
breath, and then squeezes his trigger. The sound of the shot echoes across the Dead Mile. Knock-Out’s body twitches once with the impact and goes still once again.

“It’s done.” His voice hitches, and he bows his head before resighting his rifle.

Lucy wails, a high-pitched keening. Gus grabs binoculars from Howe and looks at the Humvee.

Konstantin’s head bobs into view and then out again. He’s wearing the iron crown.

Smetana and his men are too slow. The rifle fire riddles the vehicle but nothing more.

Gus turns to Wallis. “Something is wrong. Listen.”

The gunfire beyond the ridge has grown wild, accompanied by the booms of grenades.

Wallis looks from the barges, caroming downriver, to the Dead Mile.

“This isn’t good, Gus.”

Then, over the far ridge, down the slope, come running men.

Konstantin yells into the megaphone. “Hold your positions! No! Hold your positions!”

The men ignore him. A Bradley trundles into view with men riding on its back, firing to the south, away from the Wall. Humvees and Jeeps roll over the hill. A running battle.

“Hold your positions!” Konstantin, his voice once calm and emotionless, sounds desperate now.

Hundreds of men run down the slope, some firing behind them, some firing at the Wall. Behind them, the ridgeline ripples and darkens, as if discolored by a spreading oil spill.

The dead. Thousands of them. Tens of thousands.

Bullets rip into sandbags and brick and the steel plates of the Wall gates.

Wallis falls, grasping his leg. Rector’s head blossoms with gore, and he topples. One of Smetana’s snipers groans, then screams.

“Open fire!” Gus bellows, taking cover behind a parapet.

From the Dead Mile, Konstantin screams in rage into the megaphone. “Hold your positions!”

Then there’s a final squelch. Konstantin steps from behind the Humvee, hoisting a long black tube.

“RPG!” Howe’s voice pitches toward the inaudible.

“Cover!”

Gus throws himself into the murderhole as the Wall explodes.

There’s smoke pouring
from the gates and fire and screaming, and as Gus levers himself up, he sees his mother, ever the doctor, bending over a man of the Wall, touching his head and coming away with blood. He has time to yell, “Mom! Behind you!” as a zed rises from rubble, blood caking its face. It’s indistinct from all the other shamblers, the thousands coming down the hill, the ones among them. Slavers pour through the breach in the Wall, driving shackled men before them—the expendables, the slave shields—who are yelling “Don’t fire! Don’t fire!” but the desperate men and women of Bridge City are beyond caring and they fire wildly, indiscriminately at slave and slaver alike, only to meet the remaining defending force. And on their heels, more ravenous dead.