Chronicles of the Albino King

Satyrical Dystopic Novel
Chapter 1 - page 1

A hot wind blew from the south.
It felt good on his translucent skin, after months of polar weather.
Vitamin D absorbing into his bloodstream.
Nuclear winter had been long and harsh. He had lost three sons to its chill.

His third mate brushed up against him, as she always did when wanting his complete attention.
“It’s getting warm” she whispered, as if she did not want the others to hear from inside. He grunted, a low rumble, keeping her tone.
She acknowledged the effort with pleasure, flicking her long brown braid behind her shoulder with feminine glee.
An invitation. A curtain opening to a chamber behind it, to a heaving breast.
He smiled, with the memory of having entered it many times before, yellow eyelashes shining in the reflecting sunlight.
“Time for the hunt” he said…turning his gaze westward. She shivered, but not because of the lingering cold. Her eyes following his gaze, as their limbs once intertwined, beneath the skins.
“Shall I wake the others?” the tone dipping, directing his will towards a negative.
He was stern. In these times he had to be, if he hoped to survive.
“Yes” his thick voice booming off the snow-capes that muffled it to a low rumble, like an alarm.
She obeyed with no question, quickly disappearing behind the tent flaps.
Yes, he thought, it was time to hunt.

Bit crappy, didn’t really hit the spot

By noon they had slaughtered a herd of caribou and a few primate stragglers from another tribe.
Those they boiled in a cauldron of meted ice, and then slowly roasted over a flame of plastics, and sheets they found in one of those old departments stores.
One of them had a Batman logo on it.
The taste had that scent of gasoline he enjoyed.
Things were looking good. Things always do when the stomach is full.
It was not often they had human flesh so early in the season. His mates and his harem were happy.
The caribou they stored away in the ice-car for when times got hard.
The Albino King rubbed the man-blood on his white skin.
It still felt warm - blonde hairs in the hue of pink.
He enjoyed the color it gave him. Almost normal.

He thought about the south-lands and that sun.
Hard times lay ahead.
Sun burns and bullet wounds.
Nothing he hadn’t survived before.

Ziit, his first mate came up along his jeep on a modified ski-doo, guitar strapped on his back, leather made of human skin decorating his vest.
Same old arrogant smirk. Albino King endured it.
He still needed his skills.
“Hey chief” Brian shouted, with a tinge of sarcasm “Let’s call it a day. Head south in the morrow. All this work makes a man hungry.”
Albino nodded. There will be a time for reckoning, after all is said and done. Old debts paid, new one made.
The group turned towards the cliffs where cliffs and what remained of trees, vibrated heat.
Every bit will do, when the sun had been hidden for most of the year, after the great collapse, and the revolution that followed.
His six mates set up the tent, as the entire tribe gathered around, as usual, forming a concentric circle around his family banner.
He, as usual watched from his king’s char on the four-by-four, blood stained bow and arrow on the one side, Kalashnikov on he other.
He preferred to hunt with the primitive weaponry, to maintain his skills. The other weapon was for more clever game.
He watched Ziit setting up his own tent, so close to his own.
Things will change. They always do.

I think it was a mistake to have a character called Brian, especially one of the main characters. You’ve implied that there’s been some kind of nuclear disaster. You don’t say exactly what sort of nuclear disaster it was but I get the sense that it was something on a global scale. I really think that if such a nuclear disaster did happen, then the people with names like Brian would be among it’s first victims, along with the Kevins and Waynes.

and Tim and Todd…

Beneath an overhanging crag, they made camp.
The albino sat, as usual, observing his wenches building his tent.
His dozen children running around in blood-stained caribou parkas, some at play, others helping their mothers.
One broke from the group, and came to him.
It was Sam his favorite, but he could not remember if it was a boy, or a girl.
Didn’t matter anymore.

The child showed courage.
Translucent skin, like his own, shining in the fading sunlight; tiny blue veins on its cheeks
Sidestepping the stones the Albino King threw its way, it advanced.
“Father” it called, panting as it ducked the last one.
“Will we be eating man-flesh tonight?”
Albino smiled, yellow teeth contrasting against his pink lips, surrounded by the milky-white.
“Gather the lords!” he replied, as if he had not heard, his voice child-like in its tenor.
Sam ran-off towards the growing settlement, turquoise plumes wafting at its feet.
The King was tempted to launch another stone.
It seemed to fly on snow gusts, disappearing behind Ziit’s now erect tent.
Too close for comfort. The albino had his eyes on him since Ziit had stolen a potential wife from him.
Echi, a pretty wench from a southern tribe.
They had feasted on her husband before they had their way with her. Next day Echi had taken her things to Ziit’s tent, and joined his other three wives.
Tonight, he thought, there would be a settling.

Too right. They wouldn’t stand a chance in a genuine apocalypse.

By the time the sun was setting over the azure horizon the camp had finished its reconstruction.
Fires were burning, vehicles forming a circle around the tents.
The Albino King sat comfortably in his skins, a hearth blazing in the center center of an octagonal tent.
His wives and children rummaging for food, washing and preparing for sleep in an adjacent section.
There were not many with a a large tent. Most of it additions construction out of the gifts his clan had given him when he rose to the position of leader.
Killing his old friend had been a difficult affair. Ziit had not forgotten his old friend’s defeat, red spilling on white.

First came his shaman Iak, skull head gear, decorated with crow feathers and strange mystical designs he called runes, then Echo the only female in his group to rise in the ranks, and to have her own tent, last, as always making an entrance, Ziit, his first mate - smirking at Echo, to make a point of it.
He had almost killed her when after rejecting the Albino king she had betrayed him.
If not for his intervention her skins would be decorating his jeep, like a flag.

The ritual was repeated.
Nobody spoke until the shaman had rattled his bones, and cast them across the the skins, reading the symbols, and how they predicted failure and success.
Ziit was, as usual, restless. A trait that got him into trouble.
He knew not what trouble his past restlessness had gotten him into.
Echo shifted, drawing attention to her bosom. she had perfected the art of male manipulation, and her talents had helped her rise in the ranks of this group.
Now, she smiled at Nico, the Albino King, knowing he was weak to it.
He flushed, his translucent skin, pink, like a swine’s.
The others had learned not to underestimate him, because of it, or his adolescent voice.
He was insane, and sensitive, and this was dangerous.

“Anyone got a splif” Nico broke the ritual first, as was his right. His teenager voice making Ziit smirk.
Another mistake. Ziit’s lack of control was a threat.
Iak’s superior guile cut through the tension.
“A bit of magic to expand the mind.”
Hand extended, rattling the many teeth he wore as bracelets. Palm open, with a small cigarette in at its center.
An offering to his leader.
Nico smiled, pink gums showing, revealing rotting teeth.
He loved these displays of submission to his power. He needed them.
Had killed a few when they failed at it, or ha made others do it for him, being not the most physically powerful among them.
All he had was the multiplying force of insanity, and the lack of judgment to take the chance.
The others had learned to work around it, exploiting his gullibility and sensitivities.
Shadows behind the king’s throne, each one competing with the other over control of his madness.
One suing sex, the other mystifying magic, and the third using charm.

Ziit, sensing Nico’s nervousness, leaned over, as if to say something, and passed gas loudly.
Nico burst out laughing.
Ziit would be spared another night. He always knew how to tickle the Albino’s juvenile funny-bone.
Had kept him safe all this time, despite the conniving efforts of Echo and Iak.
Nico was a a remnant of that destroyed America. At times it was as if the Rapture never happened.
As if they were a bunch of kids in middle-America enjoying a camping trip.

Purging, is the term Iak gave those times when all changed.
The collapse had been followed by a revolution, which was strange since it had never occurred before, in known history.
Strange events leading to stranger times.
What followed was not so strange. Nuclear Holocaust.
Rumor has it that it was triggered by a bunch of teenagers, when America’s military stockpile was left unsupervised.
Somehow they had started the process of nuclear retaliation, but the missile silo doors had been left closed, leading to the devastation of the American mid-west.
Information was spotty. Some had been collected by the then still running radio and television stations.
The dust plunged the planet into a deep freeze, for a decade.
A nuclear winter they were now beginning to see signs of warming.

Echo frowned at the spectacle of male bonding.
Iak pondered the bone signs. Ziit would make it through another night.
He was not pleased, but he did not show it.
Nico lifted his glass of moonshine, stolen from the last clan they came in contact with.
Some of hem had perfected the art of alcohol distilling, learning it from books found scattered in abandoned libraries.
Things had not turned out as he had expected when he cheered at the coming collapse.
He did not laugh as much, could not relax, as much; was not as carefree as he expected he would be after the Rapture.
Things had acquired a gravitas he had not expected.
Every choice could mean his death; no laughing matter.
Paranoia kept him awake at night - every sound in the dark a possible assassin.
Iak fueled the flames with his way of implying more depth than was present; insinuating what he then held back.
He had mastered the art of seeming profound. His every movement, every word, delivered in a way that insinuated deeper matters.
Drinking a cup of shine followed a ritual the others were supposed to admire.
He did so now, with carefully thought out movements.

“Did you have Caribou for lunch?” Nico asked, sarcastically, waving his hand over his nose.
“With a side-dish of punani!” answered Ziit, reminding Nico of the wenches they had raped when they slaughtered that other clan.
“When will you enjoy it again?” intruded Echo, with her female pragmatism.
Things had gotten sparse, over the months.
Herd numbers were decreasing, clans were harder to find.
The reason had been given to them by the leader of their last victims.
Under duress he told them the warming had opened up new territories south.
All, animals humans, were migrating.
“Maybe we should head south.” Iak offered a leading possibility.

“Yes” said Nico, looking thoughtful “We’ll go south”, his parroting taking over the idea, making it his own.
Iak and Ziit exchanged knowing glances; Echo snickered.
Nico, lost in his own thoughts, took another sip, suddenly feeling good about it all - forgetting why he was worried earlier.
The night progressed, Nico’s wenches replenishing food and drink form the rare plenitude.
All were high, including the dogs, looking for scraps on the periphery of the fire’s flickering.
Orpheus took them, as he had many times in the past.
By daybreak each had returned to their own tent, had loaded up and prepared for another long haul.
The wilderness kept them together, as one.
Day drove them apart, but the night brought them together.

Iak rose in the sunroof of his souped-up Landrover.
He gestured in the air, as if receiving divine messages. Face became grim, still as death.
All waited for the signal.
With a dramatic swing of his baton, he pointed south… and all the engines roared into life, consuming precious gasoline.
If no clan was found along the way, they would have to ditch a few of their own.
Dune over snow drift, mountain slope giving way to tundra, until the sun dipped again.
Polar bear ran off on a a ridge, stopping to look back before it disappeared.
Echo recalled how one of those had taken her only son, before they had mastered their techniques.
It was one of Ziits, but Nico didn’t know of it.
This night they would spend by a waterfall, frozen solid.
The sound of liquid flows below, cracking as small pieces gave way.
It was warm… warmer than it had ever been.
Echo pulled of her parka, exposing her skin to the dying sunlight.
Her current mate kissed her shoulder, pinching her butt.
She would have to rid herself of him soon.
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
Iak had already been hinting. Some great power he possessed - magical like those shapes on the bones he threw around, and those carved on his headgear.
Probably dramatics, but he had self-control, and a guileful mind.
Still, she didn’t want to be a second in man’s harem.
Some accidents had to happen, before she made her move. She needed someone who could exploit the clans superstitions under her thumb.
A wolf howled in the distance, calling to its own.
She could relate.

This night camp had been laid out in the center, vehicles creating a metal enclave around a communal bonfire.
Wood was plentiful. Dead forests everywhere beneath the snow.
Fifty strong gathered.
Ziit with his guitar, and Iak with makeshift battery powered keyboard.
Then there was Git, with his bongos, and Turd with his accordion.
Didn’t really know how to play it, but after he had taken it off one of those city-dwellers, they let him play along, pretending he could hold a tune.
City-dweller is what they called clans that were settled down in permanent encampments, rather than roaming bands, like them.
Hated them with a passion.
Always had more than they deserved.
Most often high walls surrounded their city. Garbage collected and piled up to create a barrier.
Couldn’t keep their clan out. They had acquired an old bazooka, a year back, from a clan they regularly traded with.
Cost them five of their slaves, but it was worth it.
That thing had brought them more booty than all the weapons in their possession.
Pezer had figured it out, and was now their expert of demolition. Iak’s right-hand man.
Nico did not like it, but Echo soothed his paranoia with some carefully places massages. The Albino was easily swayed, almost gullible, if not for his paranoia.

Having him as the front-man was part of the clan dynamics.
Nobody wanted center stage, in such harsh environments, when the ‘leader" could be so easily manipulated, and was so naive.
Only danger was his insanity - that madness that exploded from time to time, when his feelings were hurt, or when his manhood was bruised.
When and if they ever found those fabled warmer territories, things would change.
A new, more competent, and sane, leader would have to take over, from this imbecile.
Echo winked as Nico fro a cross the fire.
He smiled delighted by her attention.
‘Yes,’ she thought ’ that idiot had to go’.
but who could she trust in his place.
Who would be hard enough, and still soft to her presence.
It would have to be decided between Ziit, and Iak.

Nice to see your masculinity is consciously active, beyond a womans natural creativity. Every word, the difference, a gateway of opportunity, who will just pass by the gate? Who will see the gate as bars? Who will fight the gate? Who will just open it and walk in willingly with certainty? Assembling patterns, remembering patterns…

Bonfire raged, music played, dancers raved.
Ziit flirting with anothe’s wife, hiding his exposed penis beneath a cover, the woman smiling at it; Echo lost in the voices in her, head, swaying to a beat not in tune with the music; Iak preaching on the side, small minds gape-mouthed mesmerized with strange words, strange meanings, promising power beyond imagination, worlds to overwhelm this dystopian hell.
His talent with comforting gestures, directing words, patience as the other took him to a direction he then exploited and brought it back to his themes, was inspiring.

Sentries had been set, as always, but the fire kept beast and animal away, in these times, and before Nico had time to take another bottle, the first splatter of blood soiled his jacket - red on milky white, and then the clap of a recoiling rifle.
Nobody noticed in the clamor, until the second burst, striking one of Turd’s wenches on the chest - dead center.
She folded spilling her food and her life, on the snow - smile fading in surprise.
That’s when the panic started.
Concealed weapons revealed, bodies diving for cover, behind one another.
Someone climbed on a pick-up with an old anti-aircraft gun.
All sound diminished… there was only movement, rifle blasts, flashing in the drifts.
Vehicles began to move, but Nico could not hear their engines.
He just stood there, not processing the information coming from his eyes.
Someone bumped into him, another grabbed him from the shoulders screaming into his face.
“What do we do?!!!”
He suddenly felt weightless, ground falling away, lifted as if on the wings of an angel.
When the impact came air vacated his chest, leaving him gasping. He found himself buried in the snow.
A cycles stepped over him as it sped off, pushing him deeper.
His bladder emptied into his snowsuit, the impact pushing everything out of him, and with the momentum he pushed, lifting himself out of the snow.
Crystals on his yellow eyelids, sparkling with orange light from the flashes.
He had no idea what to do.
Lifting himself up onto his legs, we scanned in the fading bonfire light, until he saw Ziit beckoning from his jeep.
One of his own on the top, harnessed to the makeshift gun-tower, made of old VW beetle parts - a yellow turtle shell on the grey four-by-four.
He was moving now, not knowing how.
From the periphery of his right eye, a ragged figure, wearing a suit he had never seen before.
Then another, with goggles on.
He began to run, diving into the Jeep’s open door, onto Ziit’s lap, face in his crotch, smelling ballsack.
“Go!!” he finally heard something intelligible.