Judge Dredd

TWENTY-TWO

Fergie knew he was alive. Everything hurt too much to be dead. His mother had been a closet Churcher. She told him when you died all you did was go to sleep for a while. When you woke up again, you were somewhere real nice. This wasn’t it. This wasn’t nice at all. This was like really, really bad and bound to get worse. You could tell by the ugly-looking goons who were squatting by the fire. Fergie didn’t think they looked right. People you wouldn’t want to know. That, and the hoods. The other thing his mother had told him was don’t ever talk to a man who wears a hood.

What the hell were they doing over there? Snorting and sniffing, rooting through the junk they’d salvaged from the shuttle. Whatever that might be—whatever had come down in one piece.

His hands and arms were numb. They were up above his shoulders somewhere but he didn’t look to see. If he didn’t move—ever—the groons might think he was asleep or maybe dead. Dead would be good. You’re not going to kill a guy, you think he’s maybe already dead.

“Herman Ferguson…”

It was only a whisper, but Fergie nearly jumped out of his skin.

“Don’t talk to me, Dredd. I’m not here. You want to talk, talk to somebody else.”

“You’re not making sense, Ferguson. There isn’t anybody else. Get control of yourself.”

Fergie risked a look without moving his head. Dredd was half a meter to his right, hanging from his hands, his legs dangling free. Glancing up a little farther, he could see the crossbar where their hands were tied. The building around them was a ruin, incredibly old. The ceiling above was caved in. The night was unbelievably dark. The stars were colder and brighter than Fergie had ever imagined they could be. You didn’t see a black sky and stars in the Mega-Cities. In the Cities, it was never really night.

“Listen,” Fergie whispered, “don’t you tell me to get control of myself, Dredd. Don’t you tell me a thing. It’s your fault I’m in this mess. If I ever get out of here—”

“You won’t.”

“What?”

“It’s against my nature to give up, Ferguson. Understand that. Given the chance, I will give a good accounting of myself. If at all possible, I will take several of these lawbreakers with me. Aside from that, it’s pretty reasonable to assume we have little or no chance of escape. Especially if they are who I think they are.”

Fergie felt his throat go dry. “And who—who would that be?”

“Angels,” Dredd said.

“Angels? Like in—”

“No. Like in Angels of Death. God’s Maggots. Painers. Dirt Chokers.”

“God’s Maggots?” Fergie looked at the fire. “What the hell is this, Dredd—no, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know, I don’t want to hear this. I don’t want to—”

Someone screamed. It was a high-pitched, terrible sound that echoed through the ruins and seemed to last forever.

“Oh shit, oh shit,” Fergie moaned.

“They’ve got somebody else,” Dredd said. “There were other survivors of the crash.”

“I don’t care about anyone else. Screw ’em. I care about me.”

“That’s a bad attitude. That’s a typical lawbreaker outlook on life, Ferguson.”

“Yeah? Well, that’s normal, see? I’m a career criminal, Dredd. Not a really big-time criminal, but that’s what I do. I wire robots, I rob public droids. I can get inside nearly any electronic device. I did time for that, okay? I am not supposed to be here now. You got me into this mess!”

“You said that.”

“I said it again. What are you going to do about that? Arrest me? Good. Please do.”

The scream cut through the night again, then abruptly stopped. Fergie closed his eyes.

“Hey, Pa! We got wakies over here!”

Someone else laughed. “We b-b-better. Pa’s flat runnin’ out of sinners.”

Fergie opened his eyes, sucked in a breath and didn’t let it out. There were three of them. Ugly. Tall. Short. Skinny. Fat. Their hoods were thrown back across their crooked shoulders. One had a face like a toad. His nose was sewn shut with leather thread. He was scarcely wider than a stick. He had enormous green eyes. The hair on his face and head was scorched black and his skin was burned raw. This one still had a nose, but his ears were sewn shut.

It was the third one that made Fergie want to throw up his lunch. If he’d had any lunch that’s exactly what he’d have done. The groon had a patchwork face, alternating squares of copper and flesh like a nightmare checkerboard. One arm was real. The other was a dull metal stub. There was something mechanical protruding from his head, but Fergie couldn’t make it out.

“Hey, how ’bout you?” The creature caught Fergie looking and grinned. “I kinda like you, man. I surely do.” Something blurred, something hummed, something silver and gold sprang out of the metal stub. Something long and sharp touched Fergie’s crotch. It trailed up to Fergie’s belly and traced a narrow line. Fergie had to look. Why did I do that, he thought, why did I have to look? It was the longest blade Fergie had ever seen. They didn’t make any blades longer than that.

“I think I’m going to like you good,” the man with yellow eyes said. “Real, real good. What you think of that?”

“Whatever you do, don’t show them fear,” Dredd said.

“Yeah, right.” Fergie felt something roll over and die in his belly. “Thanks, I’ll remember that, Dredd.”

“Dredd. Did you say Dredd?”

Yellow Eyes cocked his head and studied Dredd. His eyes went bright when he spotted the Judge tattoo.

“Blessed be, Pa!” He turned and called into the shadows. “We got us Judge Dredd hisself!”

The two other freakos jumped up and down. Something walked out of the dark. Something tall and gaunt in bug-eaten rags, something that smelled before it even got near. It shuffled past the fire, tapping its stick on the ground. The others stepped out of his way. He stopped, sniffed the air, then turned his head up to Dredd. His features were masked by the filth-encrusted hood.

“Id id twoo? We gaht uds duh gwead bed up the log hidseph?”

Yellow Eyes winked at Dredd. “Pa wants to know it it’s true we got us the great man of the Law himself. Well, is it, Dredd? That be who you are?”

“I’m Dredd.”

“Hagga-lulla!” the man in the hood said.

“I know who you are,” Dredd said. “You’re the self-styled Reverend Billy Joe Angel. Wanted on a Six-Oh-Three, Crimes Against Humanity. A Five-Two-Niner, Murder in Every Degree. You and your offspring are under arrest.”

Pa Angel howled. “Oh, be are plessid, Lort! All we brayed vor was vood and sus-nance. Bud thou has de-livert our gweat enemee undo our hans!”

“Pa says—”

“I heard him,” Dredd said. “You’re still all under arrest.”

“Dredd…” Fergie shook his head. “You keep saying that, you’re going to piss this guy off.” He looked at the hooded horror. “Listen, friend, there’s been a little mistake. Him and me, we’re not together. I mean, I was in the shuttle, he was in the shuttle. You’re in the same place with somebody, that doesn’t mean you know each other, you’re even acquainted, you know? Doesn’t mean you’ve even seen each other before, you—yahh!”

Yellow Eyes poked Fergie sharply in the ribs. “Told you I liked you, man. I didn’t mean I liked you talking. I like you when you don’t.”

“Hey, I can live without the—”

“Shut up!”

Yellow Eyes squinted at Dredd and Fergie, then nodded at the horror in the hood. “That’s Pa. You already know that. You better be real nice. He’s a au-thentic babbatized avenger of the Lord.” He stabbed the air with his knife. “You mess with him, you messin’ with the fiery hand of God himself!”

“Amen!”

“Amen!”

Yellow Eyes grinned. “They call me Mean Machine. That’s ’cause I am.” He pointed a dirty finger at his head. “Pa’s got me set on One. I had a kinda accident when I was a’born. Shit. Bein’ alive’s a pure accident out here. Pa fixed me up best he could. He can turn me all the way up to Four. That’s ber-serkin’ dog-frothin’ psycho-maniac is what it is. You don’t want to never see that.

“The dumb-lookin’ one’s Junior Head-Dead. You can likely figure why. The other one’s Link-Link. He ain’t as dumb, but he can’t get his bodily functions workin’ right. If the wind was right you could tell.”

Mean Machine stepped up closer to Fergie. He pricked Fergie’s foot with his blade, turned the edge around and around in the light of the flame. When he looked at Dredd, his half-smile faded away.

“We are mighty proud to have you here, Dredd. Mighty proud, indeed.” His blade swept out faster than any eye could see. A thin line of red appeared on Dredd’s chest. “You’re hard to hurt, I bet. Pa’s going to like that.”

“Let me—snuk-snuk!—kill it, Pa!”

“Huh-uh!” Link-Link’s face screwed up in a mask. “You said I could have one, Pa!”

“Hallelujah, brother!” Fergie cried out. “Right on. Glory to the Lord! May His mighty sword smite sinners from the face of the earth! May His wrath stomp down on the unbeliever, may He damn the rich and raise up the poor!”

Mean Machine’s eyes went wide. He gave Fergie a puzzled look.

“What you doing? Why you sayin’ stuff like that?”

“Lo, the wicked shall eat the dust of thy path, O Lord. E-ternal damnation to him who follows the false law of the Cities and curses the one true Lord of this dry and forgotten land!”

Pa Angel took a step forward. He turned his shrouded face up to Fergie. “Cud id be? Frum duh Cidy ub duh fallen, a fate-ful wud has a-beered?”

“Amen,” Fergie shouted. “The sheep’s come home, man, that’s me!”

“Ferguson…” Dredd shook his head in disgust. “You don’t want to do this. Believe me, you don’t.”

“Yeah? Think again, unbeliever.”

Mean Machine turned to his brothers. “Cut him down. If Pa says this’n is a Believer, why I reckon he is.”

Fergie laughed as Link-Link and Junior Head-Dead scrambled up the post to cut him free.

“The Law doesn’t make mistakes, Dredd, right? But I’m free and you’re toast. Go figure, man!”

“Wrong. I’m toast, Ferguson. You’re meat.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“These are the Angels, dope-head. They’re Cursed Earth scavengers. Scumbags. They’re also cannibals.”

Fergie stared. “Hey, no way. Don’t go telling me shit like that, Dredd. Don’t even joke about it, man.” He turned to Mean Machine. “Right, pal? Tell him, brother.”

“Hagga-lulla!” Pa Angel shouted.

“Snuk-snuk-snuk!” said Junior Head-Dead.