Dead Kelly (The Afterblight Chronicles) Read online

  Now McGuire was on his feet, rubbing his wrists. None of the youths offered any opposition.

  “You fuckin’ idiot!” rasped Ritzo, grabbing up his pistol from where he’d dropped it. A single shot rent the air, and the youth who’d released McGuire was thrown across the room by the force of the bullet, crashing into a reading desk. His wrecked form convulsed a few times before falling still.

  McGuire wheeled on his feet, smashing his booted foot down on Ritzo’s wrist with an audible snap. The bearded man shrieked in pain, the gun toppling from his grasp, and McGuire brought his foot down on Ritzo’s ankle, resulting in a second sharp crack that reverberated around the hall. Stepping away from the writhing thug, McGuire bent and scooped the pistol up, pushing it into his belt.

  He walked away from Ritzo, the gang members parting around him as he went to address them.

  “Listen to me,” he announced. “The world you knew has gone forever. The new world is a hard world, full of horror and misery. Don’t be misled.” He thrust a finger at Ritzo, who was rolling around in agony on the floor. “I know this man. He is a fool and a coward. People like him will lead you to destruction. But if you follow me, if you do as I instruct, I’ll take care of you. I’ll make sure you have food and shelter, and that you have security. Walk away from this place and tell everyone I am your leader now. Tell them I am Dead Kelly, and I have returned to save you.”

  Without waiting for a response, he grabbed one of the cans of petrol, up-ended it and started emptying the contents around the hall. The gang-members looked to each other, then broke as one for the door, pushing past each other in their efforts to escape. McGuire threw the now empty petrol can into the still blazing pyre, where it immediately started melting, then picked up another full can and began to slop it across the floor, pausing briefly to grab his discarded backpack and rifle. This time he made sure the fuel led to the prostrate form of Ritzo, and scattered the remnants across his former friend’s whimpering body.

  “Please, mate,” begged Ritzo. “We’ve been through so much together. Don’t do this.”

  McGuire crouched beside him. “You’re right, man. We went through a hell of a lot.” McGuire rubbed his bristly chin with mock thoughtfulness. “How about this for a deal? You tell me some stuff and I’ll help you out. How’s that sound?”

  “Yeah, anything,” panted Ritzo. “Thank you. Anything you want. I’ll tell you anything.”

  “My first question is this,” said McGuire, casting a look back at the pyre, embers of which were starting to spark onto the floor. “Did you betray me, Ritzo? Honestly?”

  “No, mate,” said Ritzo desperately. “I swear on my life. It wasn’t me.”

  McGuire nodded slowly. “Okay. I believe you. Next question. Where are the others?”

  Ritzo stammered, “Wh-who? Who do you mean?”

  McGuire snarled, “Who the fuck d’you think I mean? Big Foot? The Kendalls? Lenny? Trex, Baxter, Tosca, Spider; those guys. Any of ’em.”

  Ritzo looked in terror to the spreading flames, his reply burbling. “Big Foot’s dead, Lenny’s dead. Tosca too. Dunno about Spider. The Kendalls left town, I think. But Trex, yeah, I heard about him. He’s gone a bit... I dunno. Religious. Please, Kelly—”

  “Where would I find him?”

  “You can’t miss ’im. If you go searchin’, you’ll find him, I swear.” Ritzo’s gaze flitted to the flames, then imploringly back to McGuire. Shining globules of perspiration chased across his wretched features.

  “Good, that’s excellent.” McGuire licked his lips. “And what about Lindsay? What about her?”

  “Oh, mate, I told you, I don’t know. I don’t even know if she survived the fuckin’ Cull, mate.”

  “She survived,” said McGuire firmly. “I need to know where she is.”

  “The thing is...”

  “What?”

  Again the words tumbled from him. “Oh, man, you don’t wanna know. They said... Well, maybe it was her. Y’know. That dobbed you in.”

  McGuire’s eyes narrowed. “No way.”

  Ritzo’s eyes were full of panic. “I’m just tellin’ you, man, that’s what some of ’em were sayin’.”

  “No fuckin’ way.”

  “Listen, mate...” said Ritzo, his words coming in bursts as he began to hyperventilate, “I’ve done what you said... I’ve given you the answers, everything I know... I’ve done my part of the bargain...You said you’d help me out, mate... For old time’s sake.”

  “Old time’s sake?” mused McGuire, half-smiling, eyes playing on the collapsing pyre. The encyclopaedias were little more than ash now. He reached for his belt. “Yeah, you’re right. I did say I’d help you out.” He closed Ritzo’s hands around something and straightened up, before turning on his heel and walking away.

  Ritzo looked down in horror. He was clasping his own pistol in his violently shaking hand. “What’re you doin’?” he shrieked in terror. “You said you’d help me!”

  “I have,” said McGuire, as he strode out the door.

  THE GUNSHOT CAME sooner than he expected. He paid it no mind, gathering pace as he passed through the foyer towards the exit, feeling the heat chasing him. McGuire came to an abrupt, inexplicable halt, his attention caught by a room leading off the foyer via a short passageway. Despite the urgent need to escape the building, McGuire found himself padding along the corridor. The room itself contained various display cases, their contents intact, seemingly untouched by Ritzo’s gang or any other looters. One display case in particular caught his attention, the glass cracked, perhaps by the sudden heat. It contained a crudely constructed iron suit of armour, including a helmet, shoulder plates, back plate and breastplate.

  He reached out a tentative hand and pushed the glass, cracking it further until a section of it fell away. He reached in and pulled out the iron helmet. He held it reverently in his hands, tracing his fingers along the single, long eye slit, turning it over to examine the dents. It was only the roar of the heat that brought him back to the moment, and he suddenly tipped the tattered, dirty contents of his backpack—soiled laundry, decaying food—onto the floor. Then he thrust first the helmet and then the rest of the armour into the backpack, before turning and sprinting from the burning library.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  HE EMERGED INTO the midst of thunderous shaking, as though his theft had angered the gods themselves. Something was coming. McGuire spilled down the library steps, tucking into a roll as he reached the bottom and coming to a crouching halt behind the carcass of a wrecked camper van. Instinctively he pulled his assault rifle from over his shoulder, watching as the pavement, already cracked, began to striate further under the rising vibration. McGuire concentrated on his breathing, centring himself for what was about to happen. He pushed himself to one side, bringing the assault rifle to bear as he peeked out from behind the van.

  He’d guessed right. A tank was making it way down the main thoroughfare, debris exploding under its immense caterpillar tracks. Soldiers clad in gasmasks and clutching submachine guns jogged either side of the metal behemoth, a couple of army lorries forming the rear of the convoy. He watched the turret swivelling rhythmically back and forth in its efforts to locate potential threats. One of the soldiers suddenly motioned to his fellow troops and the rest of the squad scattered haphazardly for cover; McGuire realised with horror that the turret had stopped moving and fixed its cyclopic stare on him. Turned out his hastily chosen hiding place wasn’t as all-concealing as he might have hoped. Effective though his assault rifle was, it was no match for a tank. He looked wildly around for some alternative cover, and seeing nothing, simply leapt.

  The shell smacked into the camper van and blossomed, the explosion flinging wreckage up and out in a fiery arc that blew the fleeing McGuire off his feet. He lay dazed, aching and deafened on the ground, his vision a swirl of dancing embers. He was aware of being very quickly surrounded by soldiers, who pitched him to his feet and propped him against the remnants of a brick wall. Be
hind him, the fire was catching hold of the museum. Acrid smoke flowed around them. He could feel the vibration of the tank fading as it continued its inexorable progress up Swanson.

  The ground dipped and swayed, and McGuire struggled against the nausea that threatened to consume him. A uniformed figure had stepped forward, pulling off his gas mask. He was barking something at him. McGuire’s vision muzzily focused on him.

  “I said, what the fuck are you playing at, you fuckwit?”

  McGuire, face dripping with blood and oil, looked up at him with amused eyes. The soldier—a captain, he’d guess—was probably in his late twenties, thin apart from some puppy fat around the jowls, privately educated, judging by his accent. Despite his injuries, McGuire couldn’t help but laugh. Ritzo’s people weren’t the only kids trying to assert their authority. This one just happened to be a lot posher than the ones McGuire had sent packing from the museum, and wearing a soldier’s uniform.

  “Did you torch the museum?”

  “Fuck you, Blinky Bill,” McGuire growled.

  “Search him,” instructed the captain.

  “He’s carrying a lot of ammo,” said a sergeant, unzipping magazines from the side pockets of the backpack. McGuire regarded his actions with a disdainful, raised eyebrow. This bloke looked way too flabby to be a soldier, his face flushed and sweaty with exertion. In fact, quite a few of the troops looked quite different from what you’d expect of professional soldiers. Uniforms, fearsome weapons and gas masks could only disguise the fact so far. “Plus this.”

  He’d pulled out the helmet McGuire had taken from the museum. A look of amazement crossed the sergeant’s face. “I recognise this,” he said incredulously, “it’s only Ned Kelly’s fuckin’ armour.”

  “Souvenir hunter, eh?” snapped the boy-captain, leaning into McGuire. “Well, let me tell you something. Ned Kelly wouldn’t have gotten himself caught so fuckin’ easily. No way. What you are, mate, is an old-fashioned fucking looter, and probably an arsonist to boot. And in case you didn’t realise, it’s our job to deal with you.”

  “Fat chance,” smirked McGuire. “You’re a bunch of fuckin’ amateurs.”

  “Yeah, well,” sneered the boy-captain. An awkward pause ensued, while the kid reddened in his efforts to conjure a suitably pithy response, his troops looking to him expectantly. At a loss for anything to say, the captain suddenly slammed his knee into McGuire’s groin. McGuire gasped, trying to keel over but prevented from doing so by the troops supporting him. He puked on the kid’s boots.

  “You fucking dickwad,” snarled the captain, stumbling backward in disgust. “Ordinarily I’d have you shot on sight. But I’m not gonna, not yet, as there’s an outside chance you might have some, uh, intelligence we could use.” He thrust a quivering, accusatory finger at McGuire. “But I wouldn’t get too fucking excited, fuckwit. Unless you happen to like torture.”

  And with that the boy-captain walked off, motioning to his troops. “Put the fucker in the back of the wagon.”

  MCGUIRE WAS THRUST inside the lorry alongside a collection of mute fellow prisoners, presumably picked up by the patrol for various petty crimes. Like McGuire, many of them exhibited minor injuries, including what looked like shrapnel wounds, probably following an encounter with the tank, or perhaps the bazookas McGuire had seen some of the troops carrying. Most were emaciated, all of them looked exhausted. A woman, probably in her sixties but looking much older thanks to sunburn and innumerable sores, was clutching her arm and muttering. A couple of gas-masked soldiers sat at the far extent of the lorry, their Uzis prominently displayed.

  McGuire took the opportunity to examine his own wound. He unwrapped the filthy bandage to reveal the curved scar. It was scabbing up nicely and, thanks to his own careful ministrations, it looked like he’d avoided infection.

  “I know you,” said a monotone voice. “From before it all happened. I remember.”

  McGuire looked up, replacing the bandage, to see a middle-aged man with rheumy eyes blinking at him. “Perhaps you do,” McGuire acknowledged.

  “But you’re dead.”

  McGuire laughed, long and hard, and the wraith-like occupants of the lorry looked to him uncomprehendingly. One of the masked soldiers thrust a gloved hand at him. “Fucking shut up.”

  McGuire guessed the troops were continuing on their patrol. His hunch was confirmed when the lorry stopped and the noise of shouting reached him. The two guards were sufficiently preoccupied to enable McGuire to peek through a crack in the canvas side of the lorry. The junction of Bourke and Spring Street. Two men and a woman were being forced out from their hiding place behind the skeletal wreck of a tram. Of considerably more interest to McGuire, however, was Parliament House, which stood at the intersection of the two roads. McGuire noted with curiosity that the building was largely unscathed, except for some sprawling red and black coloured graffiti, but that it also looked derelict. He thought it odd that this building, this former site of governance, should have been abandoned. It was as though no-one had the chutzpah to claim it for themselves, not the military nor any of the gangs evidently roving the city. Not anyone.

  One of the new prisoners was herded into their lorry, the other two presumably joining the other wagon, and the convoy started up again.

  The pattern repeated itself another four times in the subsequent hour: individuals were challenged, apprehended and forced into the lorries. On the fifth occasion, the shouting was followed by a short exchange of gunfire, the whistle of another tank shell and a cacophonous explosion. This time, no new prisoners joined them. After another ten minutes, McGuire became aware of the lorry turning, of shouts of greeting and instruction, and of metal gates being lifted aside.

  Soon after the lorry shuddered to a halt, the canvas doors were wrenched back to reveal fierce sunshine, and the prisoners were roughly extracted. As soldiers barked instructions, McGuire looked around him. In a previous incarnation, this had been the Southern Cross station on the edge of the Central Business District. Not so long ago, it had been the terminus for Victoria’s regional rail network and one of the stations on Melbourne’s City Loop underground system. Three or four months ago, it had been a bustling metropolitan transport hub. Now it was a military compound.

  A large area of the bus terminal had been fenced off, and the fence surrounded by a barricade. There were several wooden huts, clearly intended as temporary but which looked liable to become permanent fixtures. Some of the larger huts looked like dormitories or storage facilities. There was also a pile of canisters, each about a metre long, half-covered in tarpaulin, the skull-and-crossbones decals obscured, but unmistakable nevertheless. He saw lines of army lorries of the kind he’d been brought in on, and a number of civilian buses that had been repainted in khaki colours. There were two more Abrams tanks, along with four Humvees, all of the latter in various states of disrepair. Other armoured carriers were being attended to by mechanics. Presumably the military were only sending out the heavy armour one at a time to conserve fuel and spare the hardware.

  He saw troops drilling. Some looked like they knew what they were doing, but most were amateurish and ill-disciplined. He supposed that the military, like the rest of the world, had lost the majority of their people in the epidemic. When the soldiers from his patrol pulled their gas masks from their faces, they proved to be a mix of young and old, only a few of them carrying themselves like professional military. A largely volunteer army, presumably enticed by the promise of food, shelter, and the modicum of authority that a military uniform might afford them. Enticed, too, by the desire for order and instruction, for certainty in an uncertain world. Useful to know.

  “Oi, daydream believer,” said a sudden, vaguely familiar voice in his ear. The child captain who’d kneed him in the bollocks. McGuire detected a change in the commanding officer’s tone, as though he were trying to ingratiate himself. “You’re with me. We’re gonna have a chat.”

  The captain was accompanied by an armed escort, a young man an
d a young woman, carrying submachine guns, with gas masks slung around their necks. Like the other soldiers, they looked distinctly ill, whey-faced and tired. He guessed that the gas masks served not only for intimidation, but as an alternative to sun block. Many of these soldiers were probably suffering from vitamin D deficiency.

  McGuire was pushed toward a temporary-looking wooden cabin with blacked-out windows. He mounted the decking and was shoved through a misaligned door. The building—a single room, really—contained a desk, a hat stand, a round meeting table surrounded by mismatching chairs, a chest of drawers and a couple of dented filing cabinets. The walls were adorned with maps of Melbourne and its environs, and the states of Victoria and NSW. A tatty Australian flag was pinned to a propped-up corkboard at the far end of the room. McGuire noticed an old-fashioned kettle, camping stove and porcelain tea-set. He could also see his assault rifle and battered canvas backpack in the corner of the room. It looked as though the armour was still inside.

  “Have a seat,” offered the young captain. McGuire shrugged and took up the invitation, although the captain chose to perch on the edge of the desk, his hands spread on his thighs. “My name is Captain Bennett. I’d like very much to know who you are.”

  “Would you now?” McGuire crossed his arms and viewed his captor with disdain.

  A pause ensued while the captain marshalled his thoughts. “A few of my people say they recognise you. In fact, they’ve stirred a few memories of my own.”

  “Is that so?”

  McGuire examined the captain more closely. He seemed better fed, more rested, than his troops. There was a faint lustre to his skin, and a smell McGuire struggled to identify. A flowery, vaguely perfumey whiff. Moisturiser.