5
ATTICUS
Lexington, Kentucky | Capital East-Central Territory
The studio-size room overlooking the city of Lexington fell silent as Overlord William Wolf III slammed his fist down on the massive wooden table. He hadn’t said three sentences in the five minutes the debate had been raging among the other men in the room, who lived in this city under his iron thumb, like the other four thousand eight hundred and forty-one souls. His rough-edged face made him always appear as though he were angry; the dog tags he wore around his neck he stole from a soldier he’d killed when seizing Lexington four years ago. He had been respected and feared since that day by almost everyone—except for me. I stood quietly in the room, wanting nothing more than to feel my hands around the bastard’s throat.
Wolf stood from the table, tall and ominous, his massive hands pressed against the wood. Underneath hooded eyes he looked at the men all sitting and standing around the table staring back at him. The room smelled thickly of cigars and cigarettes and corruption. He shut his eyes for a moment and inhaled deeply as if the burden of the whole world was on his shoulders and he had little patience for it. He walked to one window then, crossed his arms over his chest and looked out over the city he ruled.
“I want control of Cincinnati before the month is over,” he said with his back to his men, some of which were his best men, out of the two thousand-strong-and-growing army he controlled.
Wolf was only one of many tyrant leaders spread out all over New America, Southern Ontario and Southern Alberta, who vied daily for power in the New World. The majority of the rest of the dwindled population followed: desperate and weak, needing a leader to look up to and fight for. Some leaders were like the David Koreshes and the Jim Joneses: deranged madmen who, like their setups, were as fragile as a grenade with a loose pin. But Wolf was different, the most dangerous kind: an intelligent man who knew how to rule and how to rule well; a tyrant, a fascist, an opportunist, the kind of leader who rises to power and then destroys all who helped put him there. How in the hell was I the only man in the room seeing this?
Wolf turned to the room. “I don’t give a shit about the South right now. We keep working our way north toward the Great Lakes because that’s where the fucking water is. Freshwater is power.”
Brown-nosing Edgar, a portly, balding man, lifted his hand as if he were in class seeking his turn to speak. He wasn’t a soldier, but Wolf kept him around because he was the greediest and sneakiest bastard he had probably ever known, and would lick the mud off Wolf’s boots for the sheer pleasure.
Wolf sighed with annoyance and glanced at Overseer Rafe, a giant man with a shaved head standing to Wolf’s left, my right. They shared a brief, knowing grin.
“Yes, Edgar?” Wolf prompted. He motioned a hand at the plump man, palm up, in a bored fashion. “I always look forward to your input.” The comment was laced with mockery.
A few low rumbles of laughter went around the table.
Edgar stood from his chair, puffed out his dough-like chest, rounded his double-chin as if he were important and said, “I think you’re right, sir. We should head north toward the Great Lakes. The South is farther, and, quite frankly, is a waste of time.” His chubby face was lit by the orange glow of a nearby candle. He tugged the bottom of his button-up shirt as if to straighten it and then sat back down.
Overseer Rafe raised a brow at Wolf.
“Yes, Edgar,” Wolf said. “I thank you for that…obvious observation.”
Edgar looked up smugly at the other men, unaware he was being mocked.
Ignoring Edgar, as everyone naturally did, Rafe turned to his leader. “I will lead the attack on the city”—his cold eyes skimmed the other men in the room, daring them to contest—“and I’m the best man for the job not only because I outrank every pussy in this room”—(some men glared back at him, their hands clenched into fists)—“but because I lived in Cincinnati for fifteen years before The Fall, and I know my way around.”
“Then send me to the South,” said another man, the one who had been the most adamant about the South since the meeting began. “Why not spread out and cover more territory instead of focusing on one place at a time?”
Because only an army can seize a city of that size, I thought to myself, shaking my head.
“Because I need as many men that can be spared to take the city,” Wolf spoke. “The enemy’s army is over four thousand strong, if the rumors are true.”
“I was born in Ohio,” said another man from the other end of the table. “I should lead the attack on Cincinnati.” He and Rafe locked eyes from across the room like two bulls ready to charge.
“I led the attack on Frankfort,” the man born in Ohio went on, “and I—”
Rafe made a split-second movement, and the shiny glint of a blade cut through the air across the length of the table and disappeared inside the man’s neck.
The rest of the men froze. I just stood there, unsurprised, unintimidated.
The man from Ohio swayed on his feet; his eyes rolled into the back of his head, and his hands came up, grasping at the knife. Blood poured down his throat, soaked his T-shirt; he choked and gurgled as blood spewed from his lips. The men standing near him all stepped aside as his body fell and hit the floor with an unsettling thud.
“Unless Overlord Wolf has other plans for me,” Rafe said as he made his way over to the twitching body, “then I will be taking Cincinnati.” He leaned over and wrapped his hand around the handle, pulled the blade from the man’s throat; an ominous sucking sound accompanied the movement.
Twenty-two pairs of eyes veered away from Rafe as he wiped the blood from the knife onto his camouflaged pants, swiping it back and forth. Then he sheathed it at his belt. Walking back toward his position beside Wolf, he stopped when he passed the man who wanted to go south and said, “And when we go south, I’ll be leading that attack as well.”
The man sneered, but kept his mouth shut.
“I certainly agree that Rafe should lead the attack,” Edgar chimed in without acknowledgment from anyone, as usual.
Wolf sat down in his tall-back wooden chair at the head of the table and leaned forward, resting his arms on the table in front of him. He fondled a nickel chess pawn between his thick, calloused fingers. “If you go to Cincinnati,” he said to Rafe, not looking at him, “who do you expect to take care of your operations here in your absence?” He looked up at Rafe then. “Security of this city can’t be weakened, and the overseeing of scouting missions can’t be left to just any imbecile desperate to prove his worth.” With implication, his eyes skimmed the man who wanted to go south.
Rafe nodded and then glanced over at me.
“Atticus Hunt,” Rafe said, and I stepped up, back straight, chin level. “You might remember him from—”
“Ah, yes, I remember Atticus,” Wolf said with a small, impressed smile. “He took out an entire camp back in Blacksburg—How many men?” He looked right at me.
“Eighteen, sir,” I answered with no emotion; I stood with my left hand covered by my right, resting against my pelvis.
Rafe nodded at Wolf to verify.
“I can’t even say that I’ve killed eighteen men with my bare hands in one day,” Wolf admitted, and then tapped the edge of his thumb against the table contemplatively.
He turned back to Rafe. “If you trust Atticus to take over until you return, then it’s settled.”
Wolf stood from the table and stepped into Rafe’s personal space. Rafe raised his boxy chin.
“But if he fucks up,” Wolf warned in a lowered voice, “you’ll be held responsible. Now tell me, Rafe: you’ve replaced yourself, but who will replace Derringer over there?” His eyes moved slightly right, indicating the dead man still lying on the floor at the other end of the table.
“Any child, or woman, in the city can replace him. Sir.” Rafe remained solid, his shoulders straight and rigid; a thick vein twitched in his head, making the tiny hairs left on his shaved scalp appear to move.
Wolf’s lips lengthened slowly into a grin. “You’re a bastard,” he said. “Speaking of which, how is your newborn son?”
“Which one?” Rafe said with a grin of his own.
Wolf turned to the other men with expectation, and everyone rose from the massive table in unison, the scraping of wooden legs moved roughly across the floor as they pushed themselves out of their chairs. It was time for Wolf and Rafe to talk privately, as was the routine after every meeting.
I was among the last to approach the exit when Rafe stopped me.
“Report to me first thing in the morning,” he ordered.
“Yes, sir.” I nodded, turned on my black military boots and followed the last man out, which was Edgar.
The door closed, leaving the tyrant and his number one henchman to their devious discussions.
As I made my way down the hall toward the stairwell door, I thought heavily about what Wolf had said: “I can’t even say that I’ve killed eighteen men with my bare hands in one day” and my teeth clenched behind my rigid jaw.
I remembered it like it was yesterday, that brutal, bloodthirsty murdering spree one cold, dark night in November five years ago. But I wasn’t proud of it—it was the second worst day of my life, and I knew I’d always be haunted by it until the day I joined those men in Hell.
“Congratulations,” I heard a voice say from the door of the stairwell.
It was Edgar, holding the door open for me.
I hated the piece of shit—most of the men did, but unlike everybody else, I didn’t pretend to like him.
I said nothing in response, and I stepped through the doorway out ahead of Edgar. The door closed with a bang, echoing down the concrete stairs that descended more than thirty floors. The other men were well ahead of us, their voices carried, followed by shadows moving along the candlelit walls.
“If you need an advisor—”
“I don’t,” I cut in curtly.
Thirty floors was a long way down—I thought I might have to kill Edgar, too, before making it halfway.
Ten floors and Edgar had talked mostly about who he despised among the other men, who were not worthy to be in Wolf’s army, who he thought better to replace them, how he was an asset to Wolf, yet he couldn’t explain why exactly because what he did for Wolf was “private”—what he did was his dirty work, I knew. And so he continued to talk, and I went on wanting to wring his goddamned neck. Instead, I filed every word away in the part of my mind labeled: I Don’t Give a Shit But It Might be Useful Later.
By fifteen floors, Edgar could hardly catch his breath. But somehow, he managed—to my disappointment—to keep up and run his mouth down twenty-five floors where we ran into a few of the other men who had stopped on the stairs to chat.
“Think you can handle it?” one man said as I pushed my way through them; he smiled, revealing the ridicule behind the question.
I stopped on the same step and looked right into his face, challenging him.
The man put up his hands in surrender, and he laughed. “Hey, man, no harm,” he said. “I was just talkin’ about the women.”
“What about them?” I said, indifferently—on the outside I was indifferent, but on the inside, I was raging.
The man dropped his hands back at his sides, but the smile never left his face.
“I’d love to be in your shoes right now, is all,” he clarified.
The other four men standing around, nodded and grinned, expressing their agreement.
“You have any idea where I am on the list?” another man asked.
“I haven’t seen it yet,” I answered flatly.
Another man raised his index finger. “I know I’m high on the list,” he said, and dropped his hand. “I would’ve gotten a wife last week, but the women Marion’s scouting party brought back from Junction City were Rafe’s favorite kind”—he chuckled and shook his head—“so naturally I got left out of the picking.”
“As if Rafe needs anymore wives,” another man chimed in.
“Agreed,” said yet another. “Between Rafe and Overlord Wolf, there might be a lot of accidental inbreeding later on because you won’t know if you’re fuckin’ your sister or not.”
The men laughed. I didn’t. I only pretended to be offended not by their comments toward the women, but by their comments about their superiors.
“You should watch your mouth,” I warned, and they stopped laughing at once.
They weren’t afraid of me, or my upcoming temporary position over them; they were afraid I’d inform Rafe and Overlord Wolf of their disrespectful comments.
“Have a good night, gentlemen,” I said, and then left them on the stairs, rounded the next corner and descended into darkness.