Cannibal Reign (19 page)

“This doesn’t taste too bad,” Marty said.

“I don’t know what
you’ve
been eating these past few months,” she said, “but this shit’s fucking fantastic. That bastard made me eat a can of Alpo last night.”

“What bastard?” Sullivan asked.

“The Mongols had her,” Marty said.

“Who the fuck are they?”

“Those bikers you were talking about.”

“You were with those animals? They’ve been kidnapping people all over town. They’re
eating
them!”

“That’s a fact,” Emory said. “So what’s your plan?”

Sullivan shrugged. “Keep stealing from the Air Force as long as I can. It’s all about the food now.”

Emory looked at Marty. “What do you want to do?”

He shrugged dolefully. “I hadn’t really thought past getting you to safety.”

“Well, I’m safe now,” she said with a grin. “So what’s Marty want for himself?”

“Nothing. I’ll help you two steal from the Air Force. If anything ever happens, I can stay behind and cover your retreat.”

“No, Marty. You’re not a sacrificial lamb. You’re an intelligent guy. You have to have an idea or two rolling around in your head.”

“Well, I would like to see the impact crater before I die.”

“See what?” Sullivan blurted. “Are you nuts?”

“He’s an astronomer,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“See the fucking impact crater,” Sullivan said. “That’s the craziest thing I’ve heard yet.”

“It’s a hell of a lot less crazy than people eating people,” Marty said. “Which is all that you’ve got to look forward to—whether it’s eating or being eaten. And that crater’s going to make the Grand Canyon look like a crack in the sidewalk.”

Sullivan looked at Emory. “Where did you find this dude?”

“Look, I’m just talking here,” Marty went on. “But there isn’t too much of a future in stealing from the Air Force. Why not see the greatest sight of all time?”

“All right, suppose we find a truck,” Sullivan said. “Something that can handle rough terrain. And suppose we swipe enough food from the Air Force to get us there. What are we gonna do after that? Sit down and starve?”

Marty shook his head, saying, “Everybody left alive is headed south. They think it’s going to be warmer down there, but it won’t be enough to make a difference. You were exactly right. It’s all about the food now . . . and the food is
north
.”

“You’re crazy.”

“No, I’m not,” Marty insisted. “Everyone’s dead up there. Killed by the blast wave or burned alive. But the canned food—at least a percentage of it—is still edible. Scorched and without labels, but edible, buried in the rubble, hidden in basements. You want food? Head north.”

“Bullshit,” Sullivan said. “You just want to see the crater.”

“No,” Emory said, “he’s serious.”

“And I’ve already got our transportation problem solved,” Marty added. “It’s even on the way.”

Thirty-Three

E
arly the next morning, Vasquez glanced up from his book, movement on one of the monitors having caught his eye. “
Puta madre!
Where did that ugly bastard come from?”

Danzig looked up from his
Game and Wildlife
magazine to see a burly looking man with a thick black beard and grubby parka wandering around in the kitchen above. He had a shotgun slung over his shoulder and he was rifling through the cupboards, tossing things about. This was the first sign of life they had seen aboveground since the impact three months earlier. “Better get Jack in here.”

Vasquez pressed the button for the P.A.: “Forrest to Launch Control. Forrest to the L.C.”

Danzig was busy checking the different camera feeds around the upper compound to see if there was anyone else wandering around up there. “Look at this shit.”

A different man in a camouflaged coat stood on the porch, holding a shotgun on two women and a third man. All three of the captives were equally disheveled and filthy, their hands tied behind their backs.

Forrest entered Launch Control tailed by Ulrich and Kane. Many of the others, Veronica and Michael among them, gathered outside the door waiting to learn what had put the urgency into Oscar Vasquez’s voice. In addition to being the first sign of life from above, it was also the first excitement there had been since the impact.

Forrest watched the burly man kicking around the kitchen without comment, waiting to see what was going to happen with the prisoners on the porch. The man in the kitchen checked the stove to find that the gas burners still worked and moved quickly out of the room.

Ulrich glanced at Forrest. “That was an oversight. I’ll go and remedy that right now.” He slipped out the opposite door and went to shut off the gas supply to the house.

“Stay with Black Beard,” Forrest said to Vasquez.

Vasquez changed feeds to show that Black Beard was now standing on the porch talking to the man in camouflage. The man in camouflage beckoned to their male captive, apparently ordering him into the house. The captive stepped back, shaking his head, and Black Beard stepped after him. The captive then dove over the porch railing and landed on his back, rolling to his feet as Black Beard ran down the stairs into the yard and tackled him, taking some sort of truncheon from beneath his parka and beating him with it until he stopped fighting. Then he hauled him to his feet by the hair, kicking him in the butt to get him moving toward the stairs.

Forrest noticed the man on the porch covertly snatching the pack of cigarettes he’d forgotten on the windowsill months earlier, jamming them into his pocket before Black Beard came back up the stairs. “Sumbitch took my smokes,” he muttered, stepping into the hall to brief the others on what was happening. “Okay, ladies, we’ve got a couple of scavengers upstairs, but they’re no threat to this installation. They haven’t found the blast door, and even if they do, there’s no possible way for them to open it.”

“What are they doing?” Veronica asked.

“Searching the house for food.”

“Can we see?”

Forrest looked at her, wishing she wouldn’t put him on the spot. “They’re pretty ragged and they’ve got a few prisoners. It might be a little disturbing. We’re taping everything and everybody will be able to view it later if they want to.”

He was fine about letting Veronica in to watch, but if he showed her any favoritism, it might cause hard feelings within the group and he didn’t need that. Things were going too well . . . or at least, as far as he knew.

“Why don’t you let Ronny in to act as our representative?” suggested Joann, the tall black woman. She had a strong personality and she knew the other women would probably not object to her suggestion. Besides, Veronica’s relationship with Forrest was easily now the worst kept secret in the silo.

Forrest agreed. “Mike, it may not be a bad idea for you to watch too.”

They went inside, and the first thing Veronica saw on the monitor was Black Beard using a steel baton to bash in the skull of his captive, who was now sprawled facedown on the kitchen floor with his hands still tied behind his back.

“Oh, my God!” she said, turning away.

Black Beard then picked the dead man up and laid him across the kitchen table on his belly, cutting his hands free and slitting his coat up the back with a large Bowie knife. He wasted no time slicing into the man’s lower back.

“Excuse me,” Veronica said, pulling open the door and leaving the room. The moment she came out, the other women could see that she had just witnessed something ghastly.

“What did you see?” Tonya wanted to know.

Veronica looked at the children now gathered about, leaning to whisper into Erin’s ear:
“Cannibals.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Erin muttered. “Okay, kids, come on. Let’s get back to school before Andie comes looking for us.”

She took the kids back to class, and Veronica went on to tell the rest of the women in the hall what she had seen. Back in Launch Control the men were still watching as Black Beard stood carving out the dead man’s liver, dropping it black and greasy-looking onto the countertop, where he cut it into portions and set them aside. When he was finished, he retrieved the frying pan from the floor and put it on the stove, laying parts of the liver into it and turning on the gas.

“He’s about to get pissed,” Ulrich said.

The flame burned for almost a full minute before going out. Then Black Beard fiddled with the knobs, realizing there was no more gas in the line. He smashed the chairs into pieces and left the kitchen.

Kane looked across at Forrest. “Captain, I request permission to go up there and blow this asshole’s brains out.”

“I wish we could,” Forrest said, leaving it at that.

By now the man wearing the camouflage jacket had moved the women into the living room and made them sit on the couch, where they huddled together for warmth. They looked alike, sisters perhaps, appearing to be in their early thirties, but with the grime on their faces, it was hard to tell. Black Beard spoke with his comrade, then went back into the kitchen, where he began building a fire in the sink with wood from the broken chairs.

“Those two women aren’t for food, you know. What are we going to do if these assholes rape them on camera?”

“Feel bad for them,” Forrest said. “If we go up and kill those two assholes, we may as well kill the women too. We sure as hell can’t bring them down here. God knows how sick they might be.”

Black Beard got a fire going and stood holding the frying pan over the flames.

“That’s gotta smell like holy hell,” Danzig said, seeing the smoke rising up from the pan.

They all watched as Black Beard stood cooking up the liver, taking a piece for himself. When he was finished, he piled the pieces onto a plate and carried it into the living room, where he sat down on the couch beside the women. His comrade grabbed a handful of the meat and stood eating ravenously. Black Beard then offered a piece to one of the women and she took a bite.

“Oh, Christ, she’s eating it!”

“What do you expect her to do? If she doesn’t, that bastard will torture her. They want those women alive, dude.”

“Let’s go up there and waste these dudes, man!”

“Look, we all knew this kind of thing was going to happen,” Forrest said peremptorily. “So soldier up!”

“What do
you
think about this shit, Doc?”

“I don’t know,” Michael said in amazement. “Though I guess it is fascinating in a horrifying kind of way.”

“I wonder how long before those women end up as food.”

“Well, I can tell you this much,” Michael said. “One of those two men is likely to end up as food before either of the women.”

They watched as the meal was ghoulishly devoured.

Black Beard left the room and dragged the dead man out into the backyard, butchering him much the way one would butcher a game animal, dumping the intestines and other organs in a pile. He then spent the next couple of hours cooking up the rest of the dead man’s flesh on the grill, using the bag of charcoal from the back porch. As he cooked the meat, he dropped it into a black trash bag he had taken from beneath the sink. When he was finished he came back into the house and took a container of salt from the bottom cupboard and poured all of it into the meat bag, shaking it around.

“Who left that salt up there?”

“Must’ve been up there when we bought the place.”

“Oh, shit. Look!”

Black Beard was grabbing one of the women by her hair and dragging her from the room.

“That’s caveman foreplay.”

“You’re sick.”

“There’s no use letting it get to you, man.”

Black Beard took the woman upstairs into one of the bedrooms, pulled down her ski pants and pushed her forward onto the bed with her hands still tied, her pale bottom showing. She made no attempt to escape or to resist as he unbuckled his pants and knelt on the bed behind her. He pumped for two minutes and then it was over.

“ ’Least he didn’t beat her.”

“Check out your man, Doc. He’s making his move!”

The camouflage man was sneaking up the stairs with his shotgun lowered. Riveted, Michael stood watching as Vasquez switched the camera feed to keep up with the man now creeping into the bedroom. Black Beard saw him and grabbed for the shotgun lying beside him on the bed but he wasn’t fast enough. His comrade blasted him in the face at close range, and most of his head vanished from the beard up.

The gore-spattered woman rolled off the edge of the bed to avoid being hit by the body as it fell over onto the mattress.

“Hooah!” Danzig blurted, and everyone laughed, everyone except Michael, who was simply shocked.

The camouflaged man got the woman to her feet and pulled her pants up, taking her downstairs where he pulled her pants right back down, along with those of the other woman, and over the next half hour he smoked Forrest’s cigarettes and took turns at the women on the couch, seemingly in hillbilly heaven. When he was done, he divided the man meat up between four different trash bags, tying them together in pairs and draping them around the women’s necks. Once he had satisfied himself that his idea was superior to that of his dead associate, he put the meat bags on the floor and took a dog chain from his rucksack, chaining the women together at the neck and locking it with a combination padlock. The other end of the chain he used to bind their ankles together, locking it in the same fashion with a separate padlock.

“Ain’t takin’ any chances, is he?”

Next, the man unbound their wrists, presumably to restore the circulation to their hands. He then went up upstairs to take the shells from Black Beard’s shotgun, along with the Bowie knife, collapsible baton, and some other items from the dead man’s pockets too small to identify. Shoving Black Beard’s body onto the floor, he stripped the bloodstained blankets from the bed and went back downstairs, where he curled up on the couch and went to sleep, leaving the women to shiver on the floor. Within thirty minutes it was too dark to see what was happening in the house, and ten minutes after that it was too dark to see anything outside of the house. The time was six
P.M.

“I guess that’s it for today,” Forrest said, looking grim.

“Come on, Captain,” Kane said. “I could slip in there and cut that dude’s throat so easy it wouldn’t even be a trick.”

“No,” Forrest said, “and I’ll show you why. Oscar, run it back to where they were feeding the women. Linus, call West in here.”

When Dr. West showed up, Forrest asked him to watch the woman seated on the end of the couch. “She how she’s hacking her ass off?”

West stood nodding. “She’s sicker than a dog. That could very easily be tuberculosis, which I would expect to see up there by now among so much starvation and deprivation, breathing all that crap in the air.”

“But the NBC suits would protect us from—”

“No,” Forrest said with finality. “We soldier up and soldier on. Hooah?”

“Hooah!”

A
bit later Forrest found Veronica sitting with Erin and Taylor in the cafeteria. There were some children about and a couple of other women, but everybody was growing accustomed to the close quarters, learning to block out conversations that didn’t involve them in order to allow one another a sense of privacy.

“That sure took a while,” Veronica said. “Are they gone?”

He shook his head. “One of the cannibals killed the other and took the women for himself. Now they’re sleeping and it’s too dark to see anything. It’s total darkness up there at night now.”

“What if they don’t leave?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, shrugging. “They’re no threat to us.”

“Can we still see the tape?” Erin wanted to know.

“If you really want to, Erin, but it’s nothing but raw brutality from start to finish. I don’t think it’s anything you want in your dreams.”

“Believe me,” Veronica said. “I wish I’d never gone in there.”

“But we are allowed to see if we want to, right?” Erin was making sure.

“Yes, the Freedom of Information Act still applies. Should I go and have Oscar cue it up for you?”

“No,” she said with a pleasant smile. “I was merely making sure.”

“Christ, I’ve got the ACLU up my ass,” he said with a chuckle, glancing toward the counter to see that the coffeepot was empty once again. “I wonder who I have to fuck in this place to get a cup of coffee.”

“Is that your manly way of asking for someone to make you some coffee, King Jack?” Taylor asked.

“No,” he said affably. “It’s my way of finding out who I have to fuck in this place to get a cup of coffee.”

Taylor rolled her eyes and got up from the table.

“Taylor, he can make his own goddamn coffee,” Veronica said. “Sit back down.”

“No, I’ve indulged him all these years . . . it wouldn’t be fair to turn on him now.”

Forrest stuck his tongue out at Veronica.

“Keep it up,” she said, less than entirely pleased that Forrest held so much sway with these two women.

“Oooooh,” he kidded.

She got up and walked out of the cafeteria.