Chapter Twenty-One

 

Downtown Winston-Salem, North Carolina, was a morass of skyscrapers and smaller buildings aligned in a boxy grid network. During the boom years, it was known as the city that tobacco built, and locals wore the label with prideuntil smoking became a habit less and less tolerated by the general public. Harvested crops went unsold, and advertising avenues continued to dry up, until finally the use of tobacco in the United States became an almost underground movement.

 

The tobacco companies found their salvation in overseas sales. Asian companies, as well as the former Soviet bloc countries, had always had a lustful gleam in their respective eyes for the various brands of American cigarettes. When the big business of tobacco found their own country was more than willing to cast them out, and the special interests and bought-and-paid-for friendships had evaporated with the prevailing political climate, there was no looking back.

 

And Winston-Salem was never the same again.

 

That part of North Carolina hadn't been struck with the explosive force and precision of the mighty earth-shaker bombs during that cold January in the year 2001, nor had nuclear devices been detonated anywhere nearby. Some chem warfare had been launched farther down at the base of the Triad area, but of a form and fashion that only killed off the surviving humans in rapid fashion while leaving the buildings and machinery and other nonliving constructs intact. The primary stickie base in that part of Carolina was located way downtown in a ramshackle old tobacco warehouse on Liberty Street. The large double doors were padlocked shut, but there was a private back entrance that allowed full access to open space within, a wide-open space that housed an entire community of the freakish mutants.

 

Many of the muties were quiet, half-sleeping from inactivity and boredom, loath to step outside into the sunlight. A more active splinter group was seated in a semicircle made of old recliner chairs and sofas.

 

"Norms," one of the stickies said in a thick, halting voice.

 

A period of time passed while damaged, rad-altered and inbred brain cells tried to shake themselves into providing enough energy to fire the necessary pinprick burst of electricity for another coherent thought. Five minutes passed, maybe six. There were no complaints. Many stickies had no concept of time. Sunup and sundown was the extent of how their own internal biological clocks ticked. Stickies needed very little sleep due to their higher body metabolisms. The only thing fast about them were the killing rages they could be induced into by high stress and fireworks and explosions.

 

The same stickie spoke again. "Normssuck," he declared.

 

"Yeah, Howie," a second mutant agreed, his words articulated with more care and speed . "You said it. Took you long enough, but you said it for all of us."

 

Other stickies now began to speak, their comments overlapping and interrupting.

 

"Drove the norms out of the city, but they still want to stay in the mall."

 

"I hear the mall's nice."

 

"Norms like it. Norms like nice things. Nice soft things."

 

"Mmm. Norms are soft."

 

"Norms are pussies."

 

"Could go for some norm pussy." Stickie laughter rang out in the warehouse. Rough sex with a norm was always a treat, and they knew the mall was full of succulent norm flesh. More discussion created a sexually charged atmosphere, and one or two of the slower stickies were aroused and turned their attention to more immediate fulfillment. "Yeah. Yeah," one of the pair breathed as his right arm worked. He looked at himself with approval as he tugged and pulled to create the enjoyable feelings. The second stickie involved in self-gratification wasn't paying heed. He was involved with his own pleasure, preferring a softer, gentler touch that left him unaware of his surroundings.

 

"I don't believe this," a new voice said. Unlike the others in the room, this voice was hurried, with the words almost rushing out and stepping on top of one another to get what was needed said as quickly as possible. "Playing with yourselves again? If you're horny, go find a mutie slut. Just spare me the sight of you guys flogging your logs for the amusement of your fellow muties."

 

Norm and Budd came out of the small office near the semicircle of furniture. Once the office had been used for the dispatcher to check in and send out truckloads of tobacco, but now it was a base of operations for the new leaders of the stickie horde.

 

The pair had been living in Winston for many weeks now, and as the scarred human had predicted, the two had managed to align the stickie population into more of a coherent fighting force than ever before, even raiding convoys for weapons. Any qualms about Norm's ancestry had been dismissed by his sheer ugliness and by the long-haired Budd's willingness to back his friend up to the table.

 

Politics weren't a stickie pastime. As long as they got to spend time burning and chilling, they were content to take Norm's lead.

 

"See, Budd?" Norm said, his voice dripping with disgust. "This is why stickies are the joke of Deathlands. When you could be plotting to take over, you're too damn busy holding jack-off contests."

 

"Got someone for you to talk with," one of the members of the half circle said slowly as he zipped up his pants. "Show you."

 

Norm and Budd followed the stickie to a corner room in the warehouse.

 

"Who is it?" Norm asked.

 

"A scavie. Has information to sell."

 

"Never heard tell of that, a man willing to rat out his kind to a mutie," Norm said. "Could be a trick."

 

"Perhapshe wants to live." Budd said. "Man wants to livemight do anything. You should know."

 

Norm's lidless eye glared at the stickie. "He should still know better."

 

Budd stopped before exiting the room. "What about you, Norm? How do you fit in?"

 

Norm's face became even uglier. "Shut your hole, Budd, before I shut it for you."

 

The disfigured man walked into the dimly lit room, where Alton Adrian was tied to a rickety kitchen chair. The man had been stripped naked, his long hair and beard the only covering on his entire body. A dirty gag was wadded into his mouth. The areas of exposed skin showed evidence of the loving touches laid upon him by his stickie captors.

 

Norm began walking around the terrified bound man in a slow, lazy circle. "Most of the problems I've ever had to deal with in Deathlands come from people trespassing," he said. "Going where they don't belong. There's ways of making jack doing thisif you find them on your land or using your stuff, you charge them a fee. Make them pay. Used to get my joint sucked two or three times a week when I was a mercie running a toll road. See, if they didn't have the jack, well, I made those going on through pay in different ways."

 

"Who are you?" the scavie asked in a weak voice muffled by the gag.

 

From behind Adrian, his captor spoke softly, in a near whisper "No questions. I'm talking now. You were over at the old hospital, my friend. Round in the same area where six of my men disappeared a few days back. Now, I'm sure you'll agree that stickies are not the most brilliant of the many noble creatures roaming Deathlands, and perhaps they got lost or ran off or even found a room and ended up locking themselves in. I don't know. All I have is the evidence in front of me, and that's you."

 

Norm reached down and cupped Adrian's chin with a hand covered in scars. His fingernails were long and sharp, jagged and uneven. He moved his hand up and ripped the gag out of his prisoner's mouth.

 

Adrian inhaled deeply, the smell of rotting flesh flowing into his lungs as he breathed. He gagged, but kept his composure as best he could.

 

"One of my friends says you have information to barter for your own miserable life," Norm said.

 

 

"Y-yeah."

 

"What is that information?"

 

 

The scavenger paused, wondering if he could talk his way through being chilled on the spot. "I know what happened to those six stickies."

 

Norm's one bulging eye seemed to grow larger in the broken socket of his face. "Do you, now?"

 

"They're chilled. All of them."

 

"How?"

 

"They were chilled by a man named Ryan Cawdor."

 

The utterance of the name had a most curious and unexpected effect on the scarred man standing before the helpless Alton Adrian. The mention of Cawdor caused Norm to twist his once burned fingers into a bony fist and strike out, catching Adrian full in the mouth. The skin on his knuckles peeled back from the gap where the scavenger's front teeth were missing, making Norm bleed freely. The force from the surprise blow caused the chair to tip over on one side.

 

"You stinkin' liar!" Norm cried, kicking Adrian in the ribs. "No fucking way is One-eye here! No fucking way!"

 

All of the control, all of the posing, all of the attempts to pass himself off as something more than man or mutie had been erased the moment Ryan's name came into the picture. Norm was gone, and in his place was Johnson Lester, the cowardly sec man who'd encountered Ryan twice before.

 

Lester, who blamed Ryan for the downfall of Willie ville, and for his own miserable luck in being forced to work the wheel, and being caught when the ville was blown apart.

 

Lester, who'd been saved by a stickie and traveled to Winston in hopes to staking his own claim to power.

 

Lester, who was now undeniably insane.

 

"Sure," Adrian replied, speaking through his split upper lip. "Sure, he's here. Ryan Cawdor, or One-eye, with the eye patch, and J. B. Dix, and the albino, and the old fart they call Doc, and the woman with red hair"

 

"Mutie!" Lester screamed, cutting Adrian off. "She's a mutie bitch whore!"

 

"All of them killed those stickies," the scavie said. "Now they're in Freedom. Working sec. Mall's been getting ripped by stickie attacks. Got them to help. Heard about that right before leaving Freedom yesterday."

 

Adrian was talking faster now, hoping he'd be freed. He spoke of frozen heads and hidden loot, but quickly went back to Ryan when his captor demanded to know more. He'd switched the man's attention to another object of hate. He'd given him information. Perhaps he'd managed to talk his way clear, and if so, he was getting the hell out of North Carolina as fast as he could run, and going all the way back to Georgia, and to his family, and his home.

 

And when Adrian finally fell silent, his throat raw and aching, Lester had crawled back into whatever mental cubby hole the scarred man kept his former persona tucked away in and the much cooler Norm had come back out and was driving the wag.

 

"You were correct, Mr. Adrian," Norm said, cool, calm, collected. "Your information has proved most valuable."

 

Alton dared another question. "Can I have my clothes?"

 

"Why? Of what use are they to you now?" Adrian's stomach turned to ice, as cold and hard as any of the men frozen solid in the cryo laboratory he'd seen before.

 

"Need my clothes to leave," he stammered. "I I'm leaving this hole and never coming back."

 

"Well, you're right about one thing. I do indeed doubt you are ever coming back," Norm said, smiling cruelly as he opened the door to the earthen cell and waved in the two waiting stickies. The muties effortlessly lifted the scavenger and the chair he was bound to between them and followed Norm out of the door. And then it was Adrian's turn to scream, cry and curse as his own inner demons and fears came scuttling out, unleashed and gibbering as he was carried into the center of the cavernous tobacco warehouse and dropped painfully to the floor. The wooden chair splintered and broke, and he was free, his arms and legs tangled in strands of wire. He rolled in the dust, struggling in the dimly lit area to stand erect.

 

How could his big score have gone so badly? He'd only wanted a second look at the cryo chambers for himself and now he'd succeeded in chilling himself.

 

He got to his feet and saw the circle of the stickies closing around him.

 

"Please," he begged, weeping, tears running down his cheeks and into his beard. His cut lips started to bleed from Norm's sucker punch once more. "Please!"

 

The smell of the blood from the injured human made the circle of stickies anxious. Norm stepped forward from the circle, carrying a small metal canister painted in deep green.

 

"Do you know what is inside this container?" he asked to a chorus of oohs and aahs.

 

Two stickies hesitantly raised their hands, like obedient pupils in a classroom.

 

"Not you, dammit," Norm growled. "I was talking to our guest."

 

Adrian didn't answer.

 

"Come now, you're a scavie!" Norm needled him, holding out the canister like the eager host of a pre-dark game show. "You've seen this before! Inform us!"

 

The naked man continued to cry.

 

"I take it back," Norm snorted, raking his gaze over his brethren. "As bad as you stickies get, at least you don't shit yourself and start sniveling when your number is up."

 

Norm stepped up to the weeping Adrian and grabbed him by the hair, pulling hard, making the man crane his neck and fall back as he looked up into the horribly disfigured man's eyes, which seemed to be glowing with a malevolent evil. Adrian looked up and knew in his heart he was viewing the devil himself.

 

"This, friend Alton, is a container filled with black powder. As I'm sure you've heard, what with your thriving career in information exchange, that stickies have developed most unusual ways of using this substance for their own amusement. A cut here, a stab there, and fill the hole with powder. Or if one doesn't want to make a hole, one can use some of the other orifices of the human body. Eye sockets, ears, the nose, mouth. A particular favorite is ramming a heaping helping of powder up a man's ass and lighting a fuse. Boom! Blows his cock clear across the room!" The gathered stickies began to gibber and talk among themselves, waiting for the word. Norm turned to them to grin and wallow in the sensation of power, still keeping his grip on the scavie's hair.

 

"If the powder disturbs you, we can try some other stickie game. Perhaps tie you down spread-eagle, and push thumbtacks in your eyes. Push straight pins under your fingernails, into your balls. Take a knife and cut you to pieces, a bit at a time. There are always alternatives."

 

Adrian was listening and decided Norm was right. He reached up, grabbing the scarred man's hand that gripped his hair. He grabbed the hand with both of his own, and pulled with all of his fading strength. Norm fell flat, dropping the powder and losing his hold on his prisoner's hair. Adrian rolled over on his captor and began to throttle him with both hands.

 

"If I die, you're going with me!" he screamed as he squeezed as hard as he could, willing all of his own hate and fear into the man below him.

 

His last, desperate ploy never stood a chance.

 

The stickies fell upon him from all sides, their terrible clinging hands adhering and lifting, tearing his body and flesh in all directions in a massive display of carnage. Red blood and white bone; tan skin shredded and burst purple internal organs, all on display as the man was disemboweled and eviscerated like a fleshy pinata by the mutie pack's horrible abilities.

 

Budd helped Norm to his feet as the other stickies paraded the various body parts of Alton Adrian around the warehouse.

 

"Tonight," Norm stated. "We go tonight."

 

"Not ready," Budd tried to protest. "We need time."

 

"Cawdor is in there, laughing at me. We go tonight. I'm chilling him personally! We go tonight!"