Radio Hope (Toxic World Book 1) (17 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY

Marcus stood on the wall in the cold dawn, feeling the unfamiliar weight of a rifle in his hands. Clyde had sent a guard to rouse him at first light because he had spotted a large group of people approaching from the eastern fields.

Clyde had arranged the best shots from among the citizens along the walls
. He walked back and forth along the catwalk wearing an old army helmet, a Kevlar vest from some city police force whose name Marcus didn’t recognize, and an M16A8 assault rifle sloped at a cocky angle over his shoulder. The wall was crenellated like an old castle, with gun loops in the raised portions so that no one had to expose themselves. He’d also brought out the city’s two machine guns—a Chinese-made DShK-4 with far too little ammunition and an ancient, battered, and constantly jamming M60.

Marcus and The Doctor were there too, not for their dubious fighting ability, but to show leadership.
The scavenger with the wounded arm, the one who had been with the Righteous Horde and had managed to escape, stood by them.

Marcus kept giving The Doctor nervou
s glances. His friend’s face looked pale and sunken. He’d forgotten to put on more makeup and the sarcoma on his face showed through. Despite that he stood with an air of determination and barked out commands to the men and women guarding his city.

In the distance, they could just make out a black line on the horizon. Peering
through Clyde’s telescope, the line resolved into countless tiny black dots, heading toward them. Every time the horde passed a farmhouse some of the dots veered off and entered it.

“They won’t find shit,” one of the riflemen said. Marcus recognized him as a farmer. “We cleared out everything.”

No columns of smoke marked the horde’s passing. There had been a time, decades ago, when marching armies left destruction in their wake. No more. Houses were too valuable to burn, fields too precious to sow with salt. Nowadays armies wanted to own property, not destroy it.

The Doctor kept glancing back inside the city. The
Merchants Association remained barricaded inside their new compound. Each house had a sniper on the roof. It wasn’t just the residents there either, but many of the merchants’ employees. The Doctor had sent word that if they didn’t send men to the wall they’d risk expulsion. No reply came back.

Just behind the wall stood a large group of scavengers, waiting next to the fortified and heavily guarded building where their guns were being kept. The Doctor hadn’t yet given the word to distribute them. They wo
uld have to wait for an attack before they got their guns.

Marcus wasn’t kidding himself. That moment would come
soon enough. He wished he had time to drop by home to check on Rosie and the kids. She had the family’s other gun and the walls were thick, so Marcus had to just hope for the best.

New City remained strangely silent except for the odd cough or nervous shuffle of feet. Nobody talked. Everyone stood silent, waiting.

Roy wheeled a cart with a large barrel to the bottom of the stairs. His bouncer Frank followed with another cart rattling with a load of empty bottles, heaps of rags, and a pile of short poles each with a plastic triangular head strung with netting.

“Sorry I’m late for the party,” he called up
, his voice sounding startlingly loud in the quiet dawn. “I had to distill this special brew.”

“What is it?” Marcus called down.

“Pure grain alcohol. We’re going to make Molotov cocktails, a specialty of the house!” Roy laughed.

Marcus pointed
at the strange poles with the nets on the end.

“And what are those?” he asked.

Roy turned and swept out his arm toward them in a grandiose gesture. “A blast from the past! Lacrosse sticks. Remember those? A scavenger brought in a bunch of them. Not sure why he thought they were worth hauling across the wildlands. I took them anyway figuring I’d form a league. They’ll do as Molotov cocktail launchers just as well.”

“Good job!” Clyde said. “Assemble some of the citizens who don’t have guns and get them up here.”

“They’re getting closer,” one of the guards said.

Everyone turned to look.

A trick of the landscape made the horde look like they’d leapt forward a mile. They’d dipped into a low spot in the land that obscured the crowd’s size. Now they were cresting the near rise and everyone on the wall could plainly see their numbers.

“My God,” Marcus gasped.

The word “horde” was appropriate. Marcus hadn’t seen so many people in one spot since the Old Times. The fields were black with them, and more and more appeared marching with a constant, steady tramp that came over the fields to Marcus’ ears like a steady crunching.

“Ants.” The Doctor said.

Marcus looked at him.

“They sound like wood ants eating through a tree.”

“That ain’t all of them,” the scavenger said, cradling his wounded arm.

“What?” Marcus said, turning to him.

“That ain’t all of them. It’s only half, maybe two-thirds.”

“Then where are the rest?” The Doctor asked.

The scavenger shrugged.

Clyde scanned the crowd with a pair of binoculars.

“I’m seeing lots of blade weapons. . .spears. . .clubs. . .and guns too. Plenty of guns. A bunch of them are carrying ladders. Well, they don’t waste any time.”

“They don’t have time,” the scavenger said. “They’ve always had to move, live off the land. If they can’t bust in her
e in a couple of days they’ll run out of food.”

Clyde leaned over the parapet, jaw dropping. “Oh, shit.”

Marcus was standing next to him. Clyde handed him the binoculars.

“Right next to the banner,” the Head of the Watch told him.

Marcus focused in and saw a crimson banner fluttering in the wind with a golden fist emblazoned on it. Right next to the standard bearer, three men in helmets and Kevlar hauled an immense machine gun. Several others, similarly armored, had long belts of bullets draped over their shoulders.

“That thing’s huge!” Marcus gasped, handing the binoculars to The Doctor.

“A Gau-18/E, really late model,” Clyde said, voice hushed with awe. “Never seen one in real life before. Where the hell did they get that thing?”

“Sweeping the countryside of everything worth
scavenging,” The Doctor replied.

As they approached the edge of the Burbs
the tramp of feet grew louder. From a shifting in the crowd of scavengers behind him, Marcus could tell they were hearing it now too. When the Righteous Horde came to the first buildings they fanned out. Groups went to each house as the rest poured down the streets toward the wall. As with the farms, nothing was harmed. Locked doors were kicked in, but otherwise the structures were left intact. The invaders obviously meant to stay.

Marcus licked his lips and got a tighter grip on his rifle. The Burbs were filling up with people. The reports of their numbers that he
had thought exaggerated were in fact low.

He could get a closer look at them now. They were a ragged bunch, and thin. Most carried homemade weapons such as
crudely forged machetes or spears, while others had clubs with nails stuck through them. They plodded along listlessly, hardly even looking at their goal.

“Most look ready to keel over if they don’t get a square meal pretty soon,” Marcus said.

Most, but not all. Among the crowd he could discern groups of men who stood tall and looked well fed. They carried rifles and shotguns and wore identical red bandannas, some with the golden fist on the front. These, Marcus realized, were the true cultists. The others were followers, or slaves forced to fight and left half-starving.

But
Clyde was right; starving people get desperate. That’s why there are so many fights in the Burbs.

At the promise of a good week’s eating these people would tear New City apart.

A movement beside him made Marcus look. The Doctor had shifted his weight and was now leaning against the parapet.

Damn, getting tired already.

“Where are the women?” Clyde asked. On the New City wall there were as many female fighters as male.

“There,” The Doctor said, pointing to the back of the crowd, which was just cresting the rise more than a mile away.

Marcus squinted. A vast throng of women, children, and a few older men came staggering up behind the army, a ring of guards around them. They were all loaded down with heavy bundles.

“Pack mules,” Marcus said, pity heavy in his voice.

The vanguard was drawing close now. A bugle sounded from somewhere in that mass of humanity. The whole army came to a halt, the foremost of the Righteous Horde stopping a little short of the dead zone between the wall and the Burbs.

Marcus look
ed out over all those facing looking right back at him and his friends. The crimson banner fluttered in the breeze, its folds catching the rising sun. Spear points and gun barrels gleamed in the dawn.

A long, high call came from near the back. They all raised their weapons and pumped them in the air.

“Purity! Purity! Purity!”

The thousands of voices thundered at Marcus’ ears. The very wall on which he stood seemed to shake.

A man dressed in a patched woolen white robe detached himself from the crowd and walked forward. He held his arms akimbo, hands open to reveal that he carried no weapons.

Nothing visible, anyway
,
Marcus thought.

“That
the leader?” The Doctor asked.

“Nope, that’s another priest, his second in command,” the scavenger said. He pointed with his good arm. “See that othe
r white-robed guy, next to the banner? That’s him.”

“Staying well out of range, the coward,” one of the guards laughed.

“Wish Annette was here,” Clyde said. “She’s got a sniper’s rifle that could take him out and end this right now.”

The priest
walked to within a few yards of the wall and looked up at the men and women standing guard along its top. He raised his hands to them in supplication and spoke.

“Brothers and siste
rs! I bring you good news. The Righteous Horde is heralding a new dawn. Too long we have breathed in the stench of the old impurities. Too long we have rubbed shoulders with those who are unclean. Why, not an hour’s walk from your front gate there is a pestilential place called Toxic Bay, a breeding ground of tweakers and other unclean creatures. We even found a village of the poisoned on one of its shores. We have wiped them out, my friends. Wiped out these abominations in the eye of a vengeful Lord. We have done this to please Him and also as a gift to you.

“And we are not done giving gifts. We want you to join us, my friends. You are not like the scavenger scum that prowl around the wildlands, living off the old world like crows live off carrion. You have rebuilt. You have moved forward. Yet from what I hear you harbor the unclean among you. The diseased. The poisoned. Those in whose blood the sins of the Old Times still flow. . .”

Marcus glanced at The Doctor. He was gripping the parapet, glaring down at the priest as he went on in a smug voice.

“We have no such in our ranks. In the Righteous Horde march only the pure. The Lord does not abide sinners in his host, and raises up those who fight for purity. Open the gates, brothers and sisters, open the gates and we will make New City truly new. We will make it into a tabernacle of purity that will shine
forth and transform the world.

“
What say you, brothers and sisters? What say you to the good news of purification?”

The Doctor stopped leaning against the rampart and stood to his full height. He looked down at the priest with contempt.

Marcus marveled as he watched his friend. This was the man he admired, the one who could carve a city out of a toxic wilderness.

“Go fuck yourself!” The Doctor shouted
.

The men and women on the wa
ll broke out into a cheer, picked up a moment later by the scavengers standing behind the gate.

If the priest had anything to say to that remark, it was drowned out by the roar from the defenders of New City.

But it looked like he had nothing to say. With a satisfied smile he turned and walked back to the Burbs.

This is what he wants
,
Marcus realized
.
He’d rather plunder New City than have us join them. Fewer mouths to feed through the winter.

Marcus looked out at the bedraggled rearguard of women and children who had thrown themselves down on the ground by their packs and lay exhau
sted, not even caring to watch the approaching battle.

What will happen to them come winter?

The Doctor turned to the scavengers assembled below him.

“Men and women of the Burbs and the wildlands. We were wrong to
mistrust you. We must stand united against these barbarians. You can’t see what I am seeing, so let me tell you that all the rumors are true. There are thousands of them, and they have enslaved hundreds more. We are backed into a corner and we need to stand together to survive. Will you fight for New City, fight for the only civilization in the wildlands, or kneel down to the worst elements from the Old Times?”