Dead Kelly (The Afterblight Chronicles)

  THE AFTERBLIGHT CHRONICLES

  DEAD

  KELLY

  CB HARVEY

  ABADDONBOOKS.COM

  An Abaddon Books™ Publication

  www.abaddonbooks.com

  abaddon@rebellion.co.uk

  First published 2014 by Abaddon Books™, Rebellion Intellectual Property Limited, Riverside House, Osney Mead, Oxford, OX2 0ES, UK.

  Editor-in Chief: Jonathan Oliver

  Commissioning Editor: David Moore

  Cover Art: Simon Parr

  Design: Simon Parr & Sam Gretton

  Marketing and PR: Michael Molcher

  Publishing Manager: Ben Smith

  Creative Director and CEO: Jason Kingsley

  Chief Technical Officer: Chris Kingsley

  The Afterblight Chronicles™ created by Simon Spurrier & Andy Boot

  Copyright © 2014 Rebellion.

  All rights reserved.

  The Afterblight Chronicles™, Abaddon Books and Abaddon Books logo are trademarks owned or used exclusively by Rebellion Intellectual Property Limited. The trademarks have been registered or protection sought in all member states of the European Union and other countries around the world. All right reserved.

  ISBN (epub): 978-1-84997-680-0

  ISBN (mobi): 978-1-84997-681-7

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  The Afterblight Chronicles Series

  The Culled

  by Simon Spurrier

  Kill Or Cure

  by Rebecca Levene

  Dawn Over Doomsday

  by Jasper Bark

  Death Got No Mercy

  by Al Ewing

  Blood Ocean

  by Weston Ochse

  The Afterblight Chronicles: America

  An Omnibus of Post-Apocalyptic Novels

  Arrowhead

  Broken Arrow

  Arrowland

  by Paul Kane

  School’s Out

  Operation Motherland

  Children’s Crusade

  by Scott K. Andrews

  CHAPTER ONE

  “SAY IT AGAIN.” McGuire’s tone was measured, you might even say good-natured. He didn’t look up, apparently fascinated by a curved scar running the length of his broad hand. Only when a moment had passed without response did he return his attention to the figure before him. The man lay crumpled on the cracked parquet floor, his limbs bent at unlikely angles. A bubble of blood issued from the corner of the man’s swollen mouth, and a shallow, indistinguishable murmur followed.

  McGuire stepped forward and crouched beside the figure. The man’s glassy, wide eyes blinked once, slowly. McGuire very carefully pushed aside a matted lock of the man’s hair and held his lips close to his scabby ear. “I’m sorry,” McGuire whispered sweetly, “I didn’t quite get that.”

  With a cough and a bloody froth, the man spoke again, louder. “Zircnosk,” he hissed, his ruined body trembling.

  McGuire straightened up, his thickset, grizzled features suddenly animated. He whirled around to address the squat bloke who stood propped in the doorway, arms folded, watching.

  “Fuckin’ Zircnosk!” McGuire exclaimed, in his excitement almost tripping over a cable snaking across the floor.

  “Fuckin’ A,” responded Baxter, with practised nonchalance, returning to the stubby roll-up cigarette he’d been nursing for the past hour or so. When he noticed that McGuire was gazing at him he grinned, with yellow, uneven teeth. His eyes darted back and forth between McGuire, the man on the floor, and a fizzing television screen showing fleeting red and black shapes and patterns.

  McGuire bounded up to Baxter and grabbed the smaller man by the face, crushing his pockmarked features together and forcing him to look directly at him.

  “You’ve no fuckin’ idea who Zircnosk is, have you?” McGuire searched his friend’s expression.

  “No,” acknowledged Baxter awkwardly. “Sorry, Boss.”

  McGuire let out a full throated laugh and released the squat little man with a playful slap on the face. “Only Jack fucking Zircnosk.”

  Baxter’s grin remained fixed, brow furrowed.

  “Didn’t you ever read the fuckin’ papers, mate, or watch anything other than porn?” asked McGuire, but Baxter’s expression stayed blank. The bigger man sighed. “The bloke that nailed the Montgomerys?” Still nothing. “He was a copper, mate. A fuckin’ tough nut, too. Makes perfect sense.”

  Now Baxter inclined his head a fraction in apparent recognition. “Oh, yeah. The Montgomerys. Bastards.”

  McGuire stared at him. “Jesus Christ,” he muttered.

  Baxter’s ripped black T-shirt offered glimpses of a striated burn scar that enveloped a substantial portion of the man’s torso, his left shoulder and the lower part of his neck. McGuire found Baxter frustrating in the extreme, but he was loyal and normally reliable in carrying out focussed—you might even say simple—tasks. As he gazed at him, McGuire noted with pleasure a touch of fear entering into those otherwise empty eyes. The poor fucker wasn’t entirely without sentience. Abruptly McGuire clapped Baxter heartily on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, mate. The important point is we’re one step closer. Capiche?”

  Baxter nodded again, more vigorously, presumably at pains to indicate his understanding, “Yeah, I capiche, Boss. You want me to find out if this Zircnosk fella’s still kicking?”

  McGuire licked his dry lips. “You got it, man. And if not him, then one of his underlings. One of ’em has gotta know something.”

  Baxter’s forehead creased again; McGuire could almost hear the intermittent sparking of his synapses. “Um, there was a camera, boss. When we brought this guy in. Nice piece of kit. Wilcox thought we might use it for the, y’know, television station. Y’know, if we can get it running.”

  “Ah, right,” nodded McGuire, suddenly thoughtful. “Good idea. Speak to the masses. I like it. Only...” His eyes alighted on the cable feeding from the back of the television set and disappearing beneath the man on the floor. Baxter’s gaze followed the cable too, before flicking to the television. Across the screen flittered largely indeterminate red and black shapes, and then occasionally something pumping, bloody and oddly familiar.

  “Oh,” said Baxter, unable to contain his disappointment. “So that’s where it went.”

  “Surprisingly good image,” observed McGuire. He moved to a table upon which sat a collection of dented, bowed metal shapes, including a crude helmet. McGuire picked up one of the smaller pieces of iron and began to strap it to his shoulder.

  “Good thing we got that generator running, eh?” said Baxter cheerfully, stepping forward to help. “No telly without that.”

  “Uh-huh,” nodded McGuire distractedly. By now he’d pulled on both of the iron shoulder plates and was affixing a metal breastplate to himself.

  Baxter paused thoughtfully in his attempts to secure a back plate to McGuire. “I guess that screaming was him...”

  “‘Resisting’?” offered McGuire. “Yeah, there was some resistance. I guess it chafed.”

  “It’s a big camera,” reflected Baxter, cigarette still hanging from the corner of his mouth.

  “It’s called a colonoscopy, mate. Standard procedure.”

  “Uh-huh,” nodded Baxter. “Standard procedure. I see, Boss.”

  “Are you fixing this armour to me or are you feel
ing me up, you fucker?”

  Baxter sniffed and stepped back. “Sorry, Boss. All done now. What do you want me to do with Laughing Boy here?”

  By now McGuire had pulled the iron mask over his head and was carefully positioning the letter box slit over his eyes. He could feel the helmet’s history in the sundry dents and bullet holes that scored and ripped its surface. A more recent addition was the stylised skull and crossbones daubed in flaking white paint on the front.

  McGuire strode past Baxter, his words muffled. “I don’t care, mate. Something creative, eh? And make it quick—the fucker’s suffered enough.” Before he exited, he swept up two Uzis from their resting place atop a dust-covered mahogany bureau.

  He heard the door slamming shut in his wake and continued along the carpeted corridor through the crumbling Romanesque grandeur of the building. Simple and focussed. Yep, that was Baxter. As he clunked down a succession of staircases, his iron suit scraping and clanking with each solid footfall on the torn, dusty carpet, a familiar chant from below became gradually audible.

  He emerged amidst the fluted columns atop the building’s front steps. Parliament House had been built some one hundred and fifty years previously, the high, vaulted roof and covered entrance designed to ameliorate the worst effects of the Melbourne heat in days long before air conditioning. Clapped in his armour, he welcomed the marginal cool offered by the shade. The fifty or so people gathered in the space beyond enjoyed no such defence from the midday sun. Some had furnished makeshift cowls from their torn, grimy clothes in an effort to protect their burnt, scabby faces, to little real effect. When the Cull happened, sun block disappeared faster than petrol and almost as quickly as tucker.

  They were chanting his name with an intensity he had come to expect. Initially he’d speculated—absently, and to himself—that starvation, illness and perpetual fatigue might have dampened it, but it wasn’t the case. If anything the mantra had become more resolute, more committed over time. With each utterance of the words they thrust their arms in fist-clenched salute, just like they’d been taught, their features pinched with determination. And there, lurking at the perimeter of the group, were their teachers: muscular, tattooed men and women, hands resting on assault rifles, bandoliers strung across their scarred chests, eyes hidden behind cracked, glinting sunglasses.

  McGuire marched along the top of the steps, as ritual demanded, and then back again, his audience’s gaze following. As he strode, sweat trickling down his body, he reflected that he owed a debt of gratitude to that poor fucker with the camera shoved up his arse. He’d recognised the sharp-jawed, sharp-suited huckster the moment Baxter and Wilcox brought him in; his name was Danny Kline, a TV presenter host Back in the Day, back before the blight that fucked the world. He’d presented a show called Livewire, Tuesday nights on 13th Street. It was a sort of fly-on-the-wall mixture of shitty reconstructions and police helicopter footage, strung together with Kline’s earnest to-the-camera homilies. Armed robberies, murders, the bloodier the better. Any gang member worth their scars watched it avidly. During each show Kline would sit on his desk condemning the sickening offences with a twinkle in his eye, a glimmer that told you all you needed to know about the relationship between the criminal classes and the journo fraternity.

  Baxter and Wilcox had apparently found Kline wandering around town with his camera, videoing all and sundry, gibbering to anyone who’d listen about the importance of what he was doing. His sharp jaw looked like it had been blunted a few dozen times, and his sharp suit had been ripped to buggery, but it was definitely him. Initially McGuire had been a little starstruck, excited to meet a sort of hero. But McGuire had laughed long and hard when he’d realised Kline still spoke in that bizarre patois beloved of local news broadcasters, stringing together disparate subjects to prove some ill-conceived connection. McGuire thought it was probably as much a relief to Kline as it was to him when the torture started and it became increasingly difficult for Kline to talk at all. Ironic that it was only when the gabby fucker had been rendered virtually incapable of speech that McGuire actually extracted the information he needed.

  When the shit hit the proverbial fan and McGuire had to run for the Bush, it was Kline that gave him his name, his brand. Dead Kelly he’d christened him, invoking a title and a legend from another time. The rest of the media had apparently taken it up with drooling enthusiasm; Christ knew it had stuck. Here he was, over two years since Kline had given him the moniker, a full year and a half after the Cull that had eradicated most of humanity. TV, the internet, governance, civil society, that was all gone, but the name endured. So McGuire kinda owed Danny Boy one, and McGuire always returned a favour: that’s why he’d told Baxter to make it quick.

  Anyway. Better concentrate. Sure the ritual was well-established, but he liked to appreciate the sensation. Otherwise it was just going through the motions, and where was the fun in that? The people would continue shouting his name for as long as he let them, and on occasion he had delighted in making them grow hoarse with their adoration. He let rip with both the submachine guns, a short burst of fire into the air to grab their attention. It did the job, silence descending along with the clatter of the spent cartridges. The crowd panted as they looked to him atop the steps, deep-set eyes wide in anticipation. Nancy the Nun, one of his most trusted lieutenants, strode forward and relieved him of the guns, as protocol decreed.

  McGuire turned, reached down and heaved a sack hidden behind one of the columns into view, like some demented fucking Father Christmas. The people seemed to sway together, as though they were one entity, and he noted with delight that some of them were smacking their lips. With a theatrical flourish he reached into the sack and pulled out the first couple of tins. They were dented, and the labels had long since vanished. Christ knew what they contained. A constant feature of life in the post-apocalyptic world was that you never quite knew what each new day would bring, or what was around the next corner. Rarely were the surprises pleasant, it had to be said, and often they were extremely fucking perilous. So somehow it seemed only fitting that the contents of a tin of food be as unpredictable as everything else.

  With a sudden fluid movement, he heaved the first of the cans at the audience, and then the second. The first glanced a floppy-haired bloke in his twenties on the side of his skull, and he collapsed backward, much to the merriment of the armed guards looking on. The people scrabbled around and over the young man’s jerking form, desperate to seize the prize. The second tin hit the cracked, rubble-strewn paving stones and exploded, sending syrup and some sort of orange fruit in all directions. Probably peaches, McGuire mused.

  He launched a third missile. This time a middle-aged woman managed to actually catch the tin. She clutched it defiantly to her bosom, flashing scowls at the encroaching crowd. McGuire watched his soldiers, several of whom were pivoting warily on the spot. They were under instructions to intervene, but only if the situation looked like it might turn nasty. The thing of it was, their judgement couldn’t always be relied upon. He knew, as always, that it was up to him to manage the situation.

  He lofted the next tin in his hand, then lowered it with mock exhaustion, as though the effort of feeding his people had become too much for him. In response, the frenzied crowd grew suddenly subdued, as if they felt shameful, and the guards in their turn visibly relaxed.

  McGuire smiled to himself behind his iron mask. This was what he wanted. It was what they wanted: the people, the guards. To be dominated, to be shown what to do, to be shown how to behave in this strange new world where nothing was certain except danger. That was his role, that was why he had become Dead Kelly. All he asked in return was that they give themselves over to him. Absolutely, and in every facet of their being.

  Before he could lob the next can he became aware, even within the constraints of the mask, of someone near him, hiding behind one of the fluted columns, out of view of the desperate crowd. McGuire turned and saw a red-haired child peering out at him, green eyes wide in
curiosity, stubby hands pressed hard against the edges of the pillar’s base. McGuire felt the curved scar on his hand aching.

  The child was Dead Kelly’s legacy. As he stared at the lad, encased in his iron mask, Kelly McGuire remembered why.

  CHAPTER TWO

  MCGUIRE LOWERED THE binoculars and blinked in the harsh light. He’d identified it as a Cessna the moment it detached itself from the cloudless sky. There was no way this was an intentional landing. The terrain around here was dramatically hilly, and those areas that weren’t dominated by snowy gums tended to be rock-strewn heaths or bogs. McGuire half-wondered if the plane was trying for the Alpine Way, although given its trajectory and the way it had begun to pitch dramatically from side to side, it was more likely to end up smacking into the Thredbo.

  From his vantage point, in a recess in the rock wall, McGuire listened. Only the rustling of the trees and rippling of the river reached him across the surging landscape. Nothing else. By now he should have been able to hear the plane’s engine. It must have stalled. McGuire lifted the binoculars to his eyes and watched as the Cessna’s undercarriage skimmed the tops of the trees before becoming entangled, forcing it into a sudden ungraceful flip. As it landed on its top, the crunch of metal reverberated across the landscape, sending a couple of maggies cawing into the sky.

  McGuire pulled on his backpack, shouldered his ACR and launched himself down the slope. He hurtled across the rocks, nimble despite his muscular frame, occasionally grabbing for the brim of his Akubra. The crash site came into view some way away, the overturned aircraft suspended among the trees, rocking precariously. The closer he got, the more it became evident that the machine had only narrowly avoided smashing into the river, courtesy of the ancient gums. He could see movement up ahead; a figure on the ground, clearly injured, struggling to pull himself through the undergrowth before the aircraft finished its descent and crushed him. McGuire continued his approach, releasing his backpack and priming the assault rifle.