Dead Kelly (The Afterblight Chronicles) Read online

  The SUV was well-suited to the uneven terrain, but being around the quad-bikes had made McGuire pine for his beloved Harley. He’d ridden three different Harleys over the past twenty years, maintaining them with care and attention, delighting in seeing his reflection in the polished chrome. They’d been more important to him than anything else—at least until Lindsay came along. He remembered her riding pillion, the feel of her breath on the back of his neck, her loving hands gripping his waist. Melbourne to Sydney, the Snowy Mountains, the Victoria High Country, the Great Ocean Road. McGuire and Lindsay at the apex of the gang, and Trex, Baxter and the others trailing behind.

  He remembered the mayhem of that day. The bulldozer smashing into the newly-loaded airliner, just like they’d planned. McGuire, Big Foot and the Kendall twins gleefully pulling out those chests of bullion, loading them on the back of the wagon, while Trex and the others dealt with airport security. McGuire’s sudden misgivings about the lack of police sirens or airport alarms, wondering why everything was so fucking quiet. The sudden dryness in his mouth as he spotted the glint of sunglasses and saw the snipers on top of the control tower. Suddenly seeing sharp-shooters all around them, hidden in the airport terminal, ensconced in the hangar, behind the fucking catering wagon.

  The shouted warnings to drop their weapons, McGuire and Trex exchanging glances, the words they didn’t need to say. Turning to rake the coppers with bullets, the buzzing torrent of their reply. His gang members ripped apart by snipers, blasts of automatic fire, grenades—the quicker ones, the cleverer ones, running for their bikes, returning fire all the while. Trex being hit in the legs but carrying on regardless, whirling his treasured hand scythe in the air like a nutjob, Meg Kendall loosing one lethal shot after another from her crossbow, Baxter dashing for the exit with an animalistic shriek of fury, Ritzo atop the mobile stairway, pistol in one hand, Uzi in the other, laughing.

  McGuire remembered leaping aboard his bike, making for the exit, the police wagon coming from nowhere and side-swiping him, he and his Harley parting ways. The bike slaloming under its own momentum until it flipped spectacularly and skittered to a standstill, sparks cascading in its wake. McGuire himself flung through the air, crashing down and rolling over and over until he too came to a halt, exposed flesh ripped to fuck, his ACR still gripped tight in his hand. Lying face-up as the cops bore down on him, biding his time like a clever boxer riding out the count. Then rolling over at the last possible moment, ACR blaring, blowing apart legs and abdomens and chests. Trudging over bones and body parts and the half-alive, past the remnants of his beautiful bike, the cacophony of battle dying behind him. Tearing through a wire fence like a wild beast, and then out into the open.

  He remembered the blood in his mouth, the scraping of his bones. Lindsay being led away by police, the fleeting, pained look she threw in his direction. The barking of police dogs, the shouts and the gunfire, the car he stole and later abandoned. He remembered running, hiding and surviving amidst the rocks and the gum trees and the bushes. That fuckin’ helicopter. Jesus. But most of all he remembered the realisation he’d been betrayed, and a thirst for revenge that grew in him like Japanese knotweed, its gnarled, reaching tendrils choking everything in its path, until it became him. Just like before, like that time with his parents—

  McGuire snapped from his reverie to see the overgrown mayhem of Darling Gardens flashing past, Baxter bringing the vehicle to a rumbling halt on Alexandria Avenue. He planted a boot onto the rubble-strewn bitumen, and Baxter led him across the bicycle lane down toward the Yarra. The sky had become a dull grey mantle, threatening rain. They pushed their way through the tree line and down the grassy, overrun embankment, coming to an arched opening into a tunnel. Immediately adjacent was Church Street Bridge, its concrete supports festooned with the usual cryptic graffiti, including the word ‘Eternal,’ executed in giant, curving scarlet and black letters.

  “What is this place?” said McGuire suspiciously as they approached. “You’re taking me down a fuckin’ sewer?”

  “Not a sewer, Boss,” corrected Baxter. “It’s a storm drain. There’s a whole network of ’em beneath the city. Not many people know they’re here.” He immediately corrected himself: “Not many people knew they were here.”

  “And the fucker’s down here, is he?” replied McGuire sceptically.

  “Yeah, Boss. But listen, we have to be quick.” He gestured a stubby hand toward the menacing grey sky. “Storm’s coming. We get caught in there when the river’s up and we’re liable to have a big problem.”

  McGuire nodded; it was already specking with rain. “Why here?” he asked warily.

  Baxter had resumed his dreamy grinning as his booted feet clanged over a metal grille and into the tunnel. He switched on a torch, its beam playing off the curved red brickwork. “I guess they figured the streets are too dangerous. All sorts of things up there.” He waved his torch beam at the ceiling.

  All sorts of things. McGuire thought of the polar bear. “Fair fuckin’ point,” he acknowledged, following Baxter in. They advanced down the tunnel, accompanied by a steady drip-drip of water and the intermittent chirrup of crickets. McGuire turned his own torch on and picked out scuttling forms on the walls and floor: cockroaches.

  “How’d you end up with Trex’s gang?” said McGuire abruptly, as they walked.

  Baxter turned back to him, his brow corrugating. “You disappeared, Boss. After the heist. Then the Cull happened. Loads of us died. Those of us that were left, well, we sort of got mixed up, y’know. Stuck with whoever we could find.” He struggled to articulate himself. “People came together in different ways...”

  McGuire stopped. Baxter did the same, turning toward him. “You okay, Boss?” he asked anxiously.

  “Someone betrayed me,” McGuire said simply.

  McGuire’s beam played on the squat man’s face. Baxter’s illuminated his in turn.

  “It wasn’t me,” said Baxter contritely. “I swear, Boss.”

  McGuire let the sound of the dripping water and scuttling of cockies dominate for a moment. “Of course,” he said eventually, letting a broad grin creep over his features. “I know it wasn’t you, mate. Guess how I know.”

  “I, uh, dunno, Boss.” Again with the stupid grin.

  McGuire tapped his forehead. “You’re too fuckin’ smart, mate.” He clapped Baxter affectionately on the shoulder. “Let’s carry on, you fucker.”

  Baxter laugh nervously, flashing his yellow teeth. “Thanks, Boss.”

  They resumed walking, this time in silence, passing occasional daubs of graffiti. Overblown tags, cryptic names and messages, some of the most striking in red and black. Most of them looked far more than a few months old, as though people had been coming down here for some considerable time. McGuire noticed that the older red brick was left alone; only the newer concrete elements of the tunnel were considered fair game for scribbling on. Down here, at least, the past was evidently still respected.

  “The problem is,” said McGuire suddenly, apropos nothing, “when there’s no fuckin’ society, who the fuck do you rebel against?”

  “Up here, look.” Baxter gestured to a piece of graffiti indicating that ‘The Chamber’ was thirty-eight metres distant. Then he turned back to McGuire. “That’s what Trex said. That’s why we’re trying to build a new society.” Again the furrowed brow. “Maybe that’s why we need a new society?”

  McGuire let out a low laugh that echoed off the brickwork. “So now we’re society? And Trex is God? What the fuck?” He’d stopped walking, and placed a restraining hand on Baxter’s arm. “How come you know the way? They just let you in, do they?”

  Baxter sighed. “It’s just the way it is, Boss. Like Trex said, it’s like it always was. I move around, y’know, between the different factions. Our man on the ground, remember?”

  McGuire let go of Baxter’s arm. “Our man underground.”

  Baxter nodded. “That’s it, Boss.” They walked on, and very soon it became apparent tha
t the tunnel was opening out. McGuire could see natural light through cracks in the Chamber’s wall, and wondered what was above them.

  A sudden noise made them both halt. The figure of a woman was just visible in the darkness beyond, fleetingly visible in a dancing pool of light. “Hold it there,” she said. They heard her footsteps closing in and she emerged into the light, a gas lantern clutched in her hand.

  “Baxter,” she said, face taut and scowling against the beam from his torch. She was a statuesque woman: a blonde pony tail, gaunt, high cheeks, into which crosses had been scored. Late forties, probably. An extraordinary bow-shaped meat cleaver hung from her belt. “You’re late,” she said through a mouthful of gum, reaching out a hand to lower Baxter’s torch. “Spider doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

  “Sorry, Nancy,” replied Baxter. “We came as quick as we could.”

  “Either of you carrying?”

  “We’re visitors here, Nancy,” said Baxter emphatically. “We know the rules.”

  The woman moved toward McGuire, the lantern swinging in close to his face until he felt the heat on his cheek. “Is that him, then? The one they’ve all been talking about?”

  “Yeah, that’s him.” Baxter nodded.

  The woman cocked her head to one side. “Dead Kelly, eh? I remember you from way back. I don’t fuckin’ buy it myself. I think you’re a fuckin’ charlatan.”

  “Pays to be suspicious,” McGuire said, returning her hostile gaze.

  Baxter intervened hurriedly. “Uh, Kelly McGuire, meet Nancy the Nun.”

  “I remember you too,” said McGuire. With her height and the scars on her cheeks, she was hard to forget. As was the meat cleaver. The story went that she’d been an orphan in one of the church-run homes around Sydney, forced to work in the kitchens. When she tried to protect some of the younger orphans from the advances of a kiddie-fiddling priest, he’d held her down and ‘crucified’ her face, in order—apparently—that he might cleanse her soul. Nancy’s response was to bring to bear the nearest thing to hand, which turned out to be the meat cleaver. Figuring he was clearly experiencing difficulty with his vow of celibacy, she generously removed the offending appendage.

  McGuire’s eyes played on the meat cleaver glinting in the torch light. “You used to run with Lenny and his lot. What happened?”

  “The fuckin’ plague,” snapped Nancy. “What do you think happened?” She gestured with the blade. “After you. And mate, I don’t give a fuck if you are gangster royalty—if you fuck about, I’ll slice you in half. Get it?”

  Exonerated by the courts by dint of her age, Nancy slipped easily into gang life, finding increasing use for her skills with the blade, the meat cleaver having become her signature weapon. She kept herself to herself and most gang members afforded her a wide, respectful berth. That, with the crosses either side of her face, earned her the ‘Nun’ appellation.

  “Yeah, I think we got it,” said McGuire, following Baxter and Nancy into the Chamber. They had to be careful to avoid the recessed path bisecting the room, through which flowed a steady stream of bubbling water. The cracks of daylight reflected off the water and cast jittering patterns on the ceiling, and the walls were adorned with vast murals depicting animals and people. Clearly this space had been known about a long time prior to the Cull, although Spider’s gang must have adopted it only in the last few months.

  Crowds of people broke around them as they entered, their whispers fading to nothing. McGuire saw some reaching for their weapons or just staring suspiciously, their faces caught in the glow of manifold candles and gas lanterns. People were sitting on raised platforms either side of the gully. He was surprised to see a few kids amongst them, and could even hear a baby mewling, its sporadic cries bouncing off the walls and ceiling.

  “What is this place, Baxter?” hissed McGuire.

  “I told you, Boss. Storm drain. There’s dozen of ’em under the city. This is just one of the more accessible ones.”

  McGuire grunted. It wasn’t the answer he’d been looking for.

  The crowd in the centre of the Chamber had begun to join their fellows on the makeshift seating, subdued, almost reverent. McGuire looked to the men and women, a few of them hardened gang-members he recognised from Back in the Day, but mostly civilians who had had to learn brutality in order to survive. Their eyes glittered in the candlelight.

  At a sound behind him, McGuire went for his rifle, before remembering he didn’t have it with him. After a moment, he realised someone was clapping, albeit weakly. He turned to see a figure slumped in a wheelchair, wizened face caught in a rictus grin, slowly and inexpertly applauding. The candles near him cast a shifting, elongated shadow, altogether more animated than the emaciated man in the chair.

  “McGuire,” rasped the newcomer. “I mean, Dead Kelly. What a performance.”

  “Spider,” said McGuire, incredulous and amused. “The virile, square-jawed Spider. The bloke that banged every woman he ever met. Isn’t that what you always reckoned? Not looking so well, mate. What’s eating you?”

  “Laugh it up, mate,” Spider said, sneering. He coughed, spattering his collar with yellowy spittle. “It ain’t got me yet, though.”

  McGuire regarded the slumped figure with smiling disdain. “Spider, mate. I think that may only be a matter of time...” He trailed off as he picked out another figure in the gloom, a short way behind Spider. It was a woman in another wheelchair, clearly unconscious, wrapped in a tartan blanket. She was greying at the temples, but there was no mistaking her auburn hair.

  “Lindsay,” McGuire breathed, moving toward her.

  “No,” said a severe voice behind him. He felt the cool blade of Nancy’s meat cleaver caressing his ear and the back of his neck, and froze.

  Spider exhaled a guttural laugh. “You. You fucker. Seems like you’ve been making waves, Kelly. Ritzo, the army compound. I heard you paid Trex a visit, too. How’s the, uh, God business working out for him?”

  McGuire grinned ruefully, casting a glance around the Chamber. Sure, his audience was suspicious, but there was something else, too. It was as though they were expecting something. Spider, like most of the old gang, enjoyed theatrics, so he could have planned a show of some kind, prior to McGuire’s inevitable execution. Although given Nancy the Nun’s evident distaste for him, the performance might well be a whole lot shorter than intended.

  “What is this?” said McGuire mockingly. “Amateur dramatics down the sewer?”

  “It’s a storm drain,” muttered Baxter churlishly, but McGuire flashed him a warning look.

  “We’re survivors,” snapped the figure in the wheelchair venomously.

  “Survivors?” echoed McGuire. “Barely.”

  Spider paused before replying. “You know, when Baxter sent word you wanted a meeting, I thought to myself, ‘I know what this is about.’”

  “Yeah?”

  “You want revenge, and you want Lindsay. Am I right?”

  McGuire sniffed. “Correct on both counts.”

  Spider snorted derisively. “Right. You think someone in the old gang dobbed you into the coppers. Yes?”

  McGuire nodded. “You pretty much got it. You don’t get fuckin’ police snipers turning up accidentally. The heist was blown because someone squealed.”

  “And you think it was me? Having exhausted all other possibilities?”

  McGuire chuckled. “I’ve yet to exhaust all other possibilities. You just happen to be next on my list.”

  “Let’s get this straight,” said Spider, shaking his head. “You killed Ritzo ’cause you could, ’cause he was weak? But you let Trex off the hook ’cause you couldn’t beat him? How very selective of you. Some might say cowardly.”

  McGuire shook his head. “It’s all about timing, mate. Everything comes to he who waits.”

  Spider’s bloodshot eyes played across the audience opposite him. “And so I’m next in line for a good talking to?”

  McGuire absently rubbed the scar on his hand. �
�You know, man, that would make some sorta sense.” As he spoke, he noticed the audience’s weapons becoming altogether more prominent. Some had pulled pistols, others hefted submachine guns or blades of various descriptions. Clearly audience participation was part of the show.

  Spider chuckled. “So that’s the plan, is it? Kill all the old gang members? Fuck me, mate. I was expecting something a bit more fuckin’ intellectual from you, McGuire. Very disappointing, mate.”

  McGuire kept his gaze locked on the emaciated figure in the chair. “As my old Papa was fond of saying, you’ll get what you’re given.”

  Spider grinned lopsidedly. “Is that what you said to him before you chopped his head off?”

  McGuire could feel Nancy’s cool breath, felt the blade flat against the nape of his neck. “I’m here for Lindsay.”

  Spider’s grin remained fixed as he turned to face the woman slumped in the wheelchair beside him. “Oh, you mean my Queen?”

  McGuire shook his head. “What the fuck?”

  Spider nodded, as vigorously as he could manage. “Yeah, that’s right, mate. I’m King and she’s Queen. Cool, eh?”

  McGuire ignored that. “What’s wrong with her?”

  Spider waved his hand dismissively. “Oh, I don’t know. The birth, I guess. Really took it out of her.”

  McGuire’s eyes flashed. “What the fuck d’you mean?” he growled, clenching and unclenching his fists. He felt the curved scar on his hand opening up, warm blood in the palm of his hand.

  Spider squeezed his eyes shut, his body quivering. At first McGuire figured he was in pain, but then he realised the cunt was laughing. “Fuck me,” he said eventually. “You’re in for a treat, mate. You really are. Frieda!”