Prospero's Half-Life (30 page)

The deadline
passed at the end of the week without a visit from the Republic’s
ambassador. The white robes crowed and preened about their prowess
and the cowardice of the enemy. Bentley berated them for their
arrogance, reminding them viciously that pride was a deadlier sin
than any of the others. Chastened, they turned to Richard and
demanded that he set their plan into motion. Richard, leaning
against the wall by the lounge’s dirty window, plastered on his
sarcastic grin for what he hoped would be the final time and agreed
to get everything moving. As he left the room one of the white
robes muttered something derisive about him – at least, he assumed
it was derisive from the tone of the man’s voice. He did not bother
to respond. If anything, his grin grew even wider.

That night he
found himself on Colborne Street once again, flanked on each side
by what seemed like a massive crowd of dangerous-seeming men in
thick black robes. All of them carried weapons of some sort; there
were hunting implements, baseball bats, machetes looted from
outdoor-life emporiums, handguns taken from the collections of
plague victims, and assault weaponry taken from the deserted police
station nestled away in the core of the city. Richard himself
carried the .40 calibre police-issue he’d been forced to execute
Chris with; Bentley had given it to him with great pomp and
ceremony, claiming that God Himself had come down to the man in a
dream and foretold great victory coming from the barrel of the gun.
Richard didn’t particularly care if it was anointed in the blood of
every deity in the known universe; he felt much better leading this
group with a gun in his hand.

Behind them,
the vast majority of the community spread out, walking in
near-unison with stragglers forming a rough border around the area.
All of them looked scared, and Richard admitted that they had every
right to feel that way. He felt it himself, right down into the
very core of his being. It took every ounce of effort he had not to
shake uncontrollably as he walked.

He also
resisted the urge to turn his head continuously and check the sea
of people behind them for Carolyn. She had convinced the white
robes that she needed to accompany the community on this endeavour;
with no small amount of glee she had related to Richard the
silver-tongued lies that she’d spun to convince them that they
needed a person in the rear army to keep an eye on Richard.

“
They don’t trust each other,” she had giggled, “but
they
really
don’t
trust you. I think they’re scared of how highly Bentley thinks of
you. A lot of them think you’re aiming to replace all of them. None
of them tried to argue with me when I suggested spying on you for
them”. She had found it inordinately funny but it had added to his
unease, and his unrest. Now that he could not see here – she was at
least a block behind him on the street – that unease tripled. He
felt closed in, trapped; they had a plan but in the moment it felt
as though they had been play-acting.

The late
August night was redolent of the jungle of weeds that had sprung up
in the uninhabited parts of the city. There was a bit of a breeze
that was multiplied by the speed of their march. It caressed
Richard’s face, cooling the heat that was rising there from the
fury of his thoughts. They passed the last few decaying stores that
lined the street and emerged into open territory. The Lorne Bridge
lay ahead of them, silent and deserted in the shadows. Richard
tugged at his white robe, adjusting it uncomfortably. He considered
his appearance amongst all of the black robes, and his skin crawled
when he realized how much of a target that made him.

As they drew
closer to the edge of the bridge he peered into the darkness,
trying to spot movement.

“
Advance the men slowly across the bridge,” he said to the
black-robe to his left, a grizzled-looking middle-aged man named
Hodges who had informed Richard that he would be acting just under
him and would carry out his commands. Hodges nodded and began
barking orders to the men around him. The black robes picked up the
pace and Richard slowed his; they seemed to flow around him like
water, and he soon emerged from the rear of them alone. He watched
them cross the bridge in a slow, steady rhythm, and crossed the
street to one of the large posts that stood at the rightmost corner
of the bridge. The mass of grey-robed men and women were still a
block or so to his rear, slowly making their way up the street, but
there was already a group of four crouched near this corner post.
He grimaced as he approached. He had hoped to see Carolyn there,
but it was four men.

“
Gentlemen,” Richard greeted them with an urbanity he did not
feel, “is the trigger in place?”

One of the
men, a grinning fox named Dupriss, handed him a small aluminum box
with the lid flipped open. Several thick cables ran out of the
bewildering panel inside the box; there was a black switch marked
“Armed/Off” and a red button marked “Fire”. Richard looked at
Dupriss with a quizzical expression on his face. Dupriss
laughed.

“
Just throw the switch, wait a minute, and press the button. It
should detonate the explosives under the bridge starting with the
closest and working its way out”.

Richard
nodded, setting the box on a nearby cement railing. He watched the
last of the black-robes cross onto the other side of the river. His
finger hovered over the arming switch but he made himself wait.
Everything was riding on correct timing. He curled his finger back
into his fist and forced himself to listen to the sounds of the
night.

They would be
coming to meet them at the Lorne Bridge. They would have to; one of
the preparations for this plan had been to blow up every other
bridge across the river, no matter how small, for a few miles along
the river in either direction. Richard knew that the men from the
Republic would have to know that they were being funnelled into a
trap; the idea was so obvious it was painful, no matter how clever
the apostles thought they were being. The unfortunate part of it
was that it put the ball in the court of the Republic; Richard was
waiting for them to come to him, and they had the luxury of timing
out their own response. Even knowing that he was planning to
double-cross the men across the river and abscond with as much of
the community as he could, he felt nervous and twitchy over the
enemy. They were out there, somewhere, plotting something that
Richard could not see. The severed head that the ambassador had
deposited on the apostle’s council table ensured that they would be
there somewhere. Such people did not make idle threats.

Fifteen
minutes passed; the grey-robed mass had caught up to them and were
waiting patiently several feet away from the bridge. Carolyn had
not appeared from the crowd, and Richard hoped feverishly that
there was a good explanation for it. He couldn’t think of one, and
it was driving him mad. Surely she wasn’t staying behind for
appearances sake? What would that matter at this late a
juncture?

He stared
across the bridge and subconsciously began to bite at his
fingernails; it was a habit he’d forcibly broken in himself in his
university days. He caught himself doing and realized that the
stress was eating at him. He wanted to scream, to jump up and down
in rage. The black robes were doing something across the river; he
could hear loud movements and the dragging of what sounded like
heavy objects. In the pre-lunar gloom, he couldn’t make out
details. His heart began to pound. Something was wrong.

Dupriss
grinned at him, and Richard amended his previous thoughts on the
man. The man’s grin was not fox-like at all. It was sharper than
that, a razor-edge grin like a ferret. Or a weasel.

“
Can you stop smiling like that?” Richard asked peevishly.
“You’re making it difficult to concentrate”.

“
Oh, you’ll want to pay attention in a second,” Dupriss
replied, his grin getting somehow even wider. Richard stared at him
heatedly and then froze. He felt the muzzle of a gun being pressed
into his back.

“
You’ll want to pay very close attention to me indeed,” Dupriss
continued. “You’re not in charge here anymore. The apostles know
all about your little plan and they’ve put a stop to
it”.

Richard
gritted his teeth and stole a glance around. There was a man behind
him, and Dupriss in front of him. The fourth, a young-looking man
with a youthful, patchy beard, stood against the cement railing
near the box with a look of shock on his face. He wasn’t armed,
which Richard cursed, but it let him know that not everyone was in
on this new situation. He swallowed hard and tried to think very
fast.

“
Your little whore is across the river,” Dupriss continued, and
Richard went cold. His first instinct was to lunge forward and
punch Dupriss in the jaw, on an upward angle. Dupriss, caught by
surprise, went flying backwards. The man behind Richard froze and
uttered a useless
fuck
. He heard a scuffle and when he whirled around he saw that
the scared-looking kid had tackled the man with the gun. They were
wrestling around using the gun as leverage between them. The kid
had gotten an initial advantage through surprise but was rapidly
being outclassed by the other man’s greater height and weight.
Richard nimbly stepped forward and kicked the gun out of their
hands. Without pausing, he then drove his boot heel into the bigger
man’s nose. The kid wrestled him down easily after that; the fight
had been completely driven out of the other man.

He stopped to
catch his breath and then quickly remembered Dupriss. He pulled out
the .40 police issue from his holster and aimed it at the man as he
was getting to his feet. Dupriss raised his hands into the air and
scowled.

“
All right, all right, don’t shoot me,” he rasped. “You’ve got
me covered, I’m unarmed”.

“
I’m not going to shoot you,” Richard replied flatly, “although
I should. I’m sure you deserve it”. Dupriss shrugged and rolled his
eyes skyward. Richard nearly shot him in that moment, out of
spite.

“
What did you mean when you said that...where is
she?”

“
Across the river, like I said”.

“
Tell me what’s been done!” Richard raged.

“
They kidnapped her and put her in black robes. She was
marching with you the entire time. She’s across the river and if
you blow the bridge you’ll kill her, or worse”.

Richard
pointed the gun at the dead center of Dupriss’ face. Dupriss
blanched in alarm, wincing away from the gun. Richard felt a wave
of contempt for him.

“
How many other people are in on this?” he seethed. When
Dupriss’ didn’t answer he strode forward and placed the muzzle
directly on the tip of the man’s nose. “HOW MANY?” he screamed, and
there was a faint flutter in the night behind them. Dupriss shook
his head, trying to shy away from the gun.

“
I don’t know,” he sobbed, “not many. There can’t be many. It
was Mort n’ me, I don’t know about anyone else. There could be
others. I don’t know. Please don’t shoot me”.

Richard
responded to this by squeezing the trigger. The shot rang off and
Dupriss sprawled backwards, the top half of his head splattering
off in an arc through the air. His corpse hit the ground with a
meaty thud and Richard spun around, stepped forward, and put a
round in the other man’s head. The kid gaped at him, his lips
trembling. Richard reholstered the gun and nodded at the kid.

“
Once you hear fighting start on the other side, blow the
bridge”.

The kid
blinked at him, not understanding. Richard leaned forward and
stared at him. The kid winced away, and Richard put his hands up
soothingly.

“
Hey,” he cooed at the young man. “I’m not here to hurt you.
You’re still on our side, right?” The kid nodded. “Good. You still
want to get everyone out of here and away from all of this?” The
kid nodded again. “Then when you hear the fighting start on the
other side, blow the bridge”.

The kid shook
his head slowly, seeming dazed.

“
You’ll be trapped on the other side,” he protested. Richard
shrugged.

“
There are other ways across,” he remarked casually. “There has
to be, somewhere along the river”. Without waiting for the kid to
respond, Richard pointed at him and mouthed
blow it
with exaggerated gestures.
The kid nodded morosely and Richard turned away to leave. He walked
across the bridge with a speed he’d never dreamed of, his feet
pounding heavily on the cracked pavement. He never once looked
back.

THIRTEEN

He crossed the
bridge alone, the hem of his light white robe fluttering out behind
him. Up ahead, the sound of heavy dragging and other work noises
continued. It was too dark to see anything except shapes moving in
shadows; he found himself longing for a flashlight and cursed
himself for not bringing one along. Overhead the stars were
beginning to poke through the night-haze, glittering like diamonds
but shedding only the most minimal of light.

On the other
side of the bridge he was immediately accosted by a pair of
black-robes. They handled him roughly, and he had to wrestle them
to prevent them from holding him by the elbows. He shoved away
their hands and drew himself up, summoning every ounce of his
largely imaginary authority.

“
Make way!” he cried, “make way! I am Brother Isaiah and I must
see my lieutenant, Hodges!”

The pair of black-robes chuckled throatily and ceased in their
efforts to manhandle him. They did not leave his side, however, and
despite his best efforts Richard found himself with a hostile
escort through the mass of black-robes on west bank of the Grand
River. He saw with diminishing surprise that the cult’s army was
actually digging in. The dragging sounds had been the rusted hulks
of old cars, hauled into position to act as barricades and
positions of cover. They were placed in an arc around the end of
the bridge, like sandbags in an old World War II movie.
They were never planning on detonating the bridge
at all
he thought, and then something about
that thought rang false. He had seen them constructing the
explosives apparatus under the bridge; he had actually inspected it
on several occasions. Why would they be digging in when they were
just going to blow the bridge anyway?