Swan Song by Robert R. McCammon
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 him 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 n
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 slaugh-terhouse 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.”
Macklin didn’t answer for a moment. His gaze burned balefully at Roland. “The skylights,” he repeated. “The skylights. They’re on the roof. How do we get to the fucking roof? Fly?”
Laughter interrupted their argument. Alvin Mangrim was leaning against the crumpled hood of the red Cadillac. Steam hissed from the cracked radiator. Bullet holes pocked the metal, and rivulets of blood had leaked from the turret’s view slit. Mangrim grinned, his forehead gashed by metal splinters. “You want to get to that roof, Colonel? I can put you there.”
“How?”
He held up his hands and wiggled his fingers. “I used to be a carpenter,” he said. “Jesus was a carpenter. Jesus knew a lot about knives, too. That’s why they crucified him. When I was a carpenter, I used to build dog houses. Only they weren’t just ordinary old dog houses—oh, no! They were castles, like the knights used to live in. See, I used to read books about castles and shit like that, ‘cause I wanted those dog houses to be real special. Some of those books said interesting things.”
“Like what?” Roland asked impatiently.
“Oh ... like how to get to roofs.” He turned his attention to Colonel Macklin. “You get me some telephone poles, barbed wire and good sturdy lumber, and let me take a few of these wrecked cars apart. I’ll put you on that roof.”
“What are you planning on building?”
“Creating,” Mangrim corrected. “Only it’ll take me a while. I’ll need help—as many men as you can spare. If I can get the right parts, I can finish it in three or four days.”
“I asked you what you were planning on building.”
Mangrim shrugged and dug his hands into his pockets. “Why don’t we go to your trailer, and I’ll draw you a picture. Might be some spies hanging around here.”
Macklin’s gaze ran the length of the Savior’s fortress. He watched the scavengers shooting some of the wounded AOE soldiers, then stripping the bodies. He almost screamed with frustration.
“It’s not over,” he vowed. “It’s not over until I say it is.” And then he climbed down from the armored car and said to Alvin Mangrim, “Show me what you want to build.”
74
“YES.” JOSH SAID. “I think we can build it back.” He felt Glory’s arm clinging to him, and she leaned her head against his shoulder.
He put his arm around her, and they stood together next to the burned-out ruins of the church. “We can do it,” he said. “Sure we can. I mean ... it won’t be tomorrow, or next week ... but we can do it. It probably won’t look like it used to, and it might be worse than it was—but it might be better, too.” He squeezed her gently. “Okay?”
She nodded. “Okay,” she said, without looking at him, and her voice was choked with emotion. Then she lifted her tear-streaked face. Her hand came up, and her fingers slowly moved across the surface of his Job’s Mask. “You’re ... a beautiful man, Josh,” she said softly. “Even now. Even like this. Even if it never cracked open, you’d still be the most beautiful man I’ve ever known.”
“Oh, I’m not so hot. I never was. You should’ve seen me when I used to wrestle. Know what my name was? Black Frankenstein. I’d sure fit the bill now, wouldn’t I?”
“No. And I don’t think you ever did.” Her fingers traced the hard ridges and ravines, and then she let her hand drift down again. “I love you, Josh,” she said, and her voice trembled, but her copper-colored eyes were steady and true.
He started to reply, but he thought of Rose and the boys. It had been so long. So long. Were they wandering somewhere, searching for food and shelter, or were they ghosts that only lived in his memories? It was torture not knowing whether they were dead or alive, and as he looked into Glory’s face he realized he would probably never know. Would it be heartless and disloyal to cut out the hope that Rose and his sons might be alive—or was it just being realistic? But he was sure of one thing: He wanted to stay in the land of the living, instead of roaming the vaults of the dead.
He put his arms around Glory and held her tight. He could feel the sharpness of her bones through her coat, and he longed for the day when the harvest would be gathered.
He longed also to be able to see through both eyes, and to be able to breathe deeply again. He hoped his Job’s Mask would crack soon, like Sister’s had last night, but he was afraid as well. What would he look like? he wondered. What if it was the face of someone he didn’t even know? But for now he felt fine, not even a trace of fever. It was the only time in his life he’d ever wanted to be laid low.
Josh saw something lying on the ground in a frozen puddle about four feet away. His stomach clenched, and he said quietly, “Glory? Why don’t you go on back home now? I’ll be along in a few minutes.”
She pulled back, puzzled. “What is it?”
“Nothing. You just go on. I’m going to walk around for a little while and try to figure out how we can put this place back together.”
“No,” he said firmly. “Go home. I want to be by myself for a while. All right?”
“All right,” she agreed. She started back to the road, then turned to him again. “You don’t have to say you love me,” she told him. “It’s okay if you don’t. I just wanted you to know what I was feelin’.”
“I do,” he said, his voice strained and tight. Glory’s gaze lingered on him for a few more seconds, and then she started home.
When she was gone, Josh bent down and grasped what was lying in the puddle. The ice cracked as he pulled it free.
It was a piece of plaid wool, blotched with dark brown stains.
Josh knew what it was from.
Gene Scully’s coat.
He gripped the bloody cloth in his hand and straightened up. Tilting his head to one side, he searched the ground around him. Another fragment of plaid cloth lay a few feet away, deeper into the alley that ran alongside the ruins. He picked that one up, too, and then he saw a third and a fourth fragment, both bloodstained, ahead of him. Little pieces of Gene Scully’s coat lay scattered like plaid snow all over the ground.
An animal got him, Josh thought. Whatever it was must have torn him to shreds.
But he knew no animal had gotten Gene Scully. It had been a different kind of beast, maybe masquerading as a cripple in a child’s red wagon, or as a black man with a silver tooth in the front of his mouth. Scully had either found the man with the scarlet eye—or had been found.
Go get help, Josh told himself. Go get Paul and Sister, and for God’s sake find a rifle! But he kept following the little bits of plaid coat as his heart pumped violently and his throat went dry. There was other trash on the ground, and as Josh went deeper into the alley a rat the size of a Persian cat waddled in front of him, gave him a beady-eyed glare and then squeezed into a hole. Josh heard little squeakings and rustlings all around him, and he knew this part of Mary’s Rest was infested with vermin.