The Blastlands Saga

by DK Williamson

  Clyde dug into his backpack and retrieved some flashlights, connecting the black cords that ran from the tail of the lights to lead acid battery packs that would clip onto a belt or pocket. He passed out the lights to his companions and they made their way inside the building.

  The flashlights revealed that much of the interior was occupied with bookshelves while along the far wall there were stacks of boxes.

  Dando pointed to the right and the Cates brothers moved that way.

  “You know what you’re looking for?” Clyde said to Jack.

  “Sure do,” Jack said with a nod.

  “Let’s get to it then. You got this half of the room, Ned’s doing the other half,” Clyde said pointing to the left and right.

  Jack walked slowly down each aisle, using the flashlight to illuminate the titles on the spines of the books. Occasionally he would look to his list to check it against a particular book.

  A short time later Jack rounded the corner to the last aisle and he felt foolish carrying a nearly empty rucksack since he had found only one book from Marian’s list, Country Puff Jamboree, a popular children’s book.

  “I’m through up here,” Ned relayed to Clyde.

  “Okay. Start checking the boxes,” Clyde said. “Ain’t much here. Looks like household items. Clothes, bedding, that kind of stuff.”

  Jack knelt as he checked the last row of books along the bottom of the shelf. In the middle of the shelf were two copies of Able Baker’s Frontier Projects, part of the Able Baker series of information and guide books by Russ Winger.

  Jack smiled as he pulled the books from the shelf. He’d spent many hours of his youth reading the series.

  He looked at the cover. Under the title he read:

  Revised and Expanded Fifth edition, 1939. Times are tough, darn tough, but that’s no reason to despair. With the Able Baker series, you can live, thrive, and survive no matter where you go, no matter what kind of curve life throws at you.

  Jack flipped through the book, stopping when he saw the entry for the blast box stove, one of the first projects he ever completed in the book. “Maximizes the heat from a minimum of fuel,” the book read. It does, too, Jack thought.

  Jack sighed and slipped the books into his rucksack. Enough musing.

  He stood and saw that Clyde was looking at boxes near the back wall of the room.

  “Need any help?” he asked.

  “Sure. Pop that one open and see what’s in there,” Clyde said with a gesture of his hand.

  Jack opened the top and shined his flashlight inside. “Looks like shoes and VHS tapes,” he said.

  “Video tapes?” Clyde said as he stepped over to look. “The last box we search and we finally find something salvageable. Let’s see what we got.”

  Clyde began sifting through them. “Movies, movies, and movies,” he said. “Hey! a couple of pornos.”

  He waved them in the air beside his head.

  “You know what these fetch in some places? A lot. There are places around that’ll pay top coin for stuff like that. Trading posts, salvager camps, Hellwithit has some places, Deva State. Yeah, Deva State. Pretty wild place over there. Got a nephew named Jeffrey works over there, in one of the skin joints. I bet you get a collection of VCR tapes and bawdy books together and run’em over there, you’d do all right.”

  Clyde shoved all of the tapes, porn or not, into his backpack.

  “You ever been over to Deva State?” he asked.

  “Once,” Jack said. “They have a lot of trout and very good mulberry pie there.”

  Clyde did a double take and burst into laughter. “You’re the funniest guy I’ve met in awhile, Jack.”

  Rifle shots rang out, coming from outside. Jack unslung his AKM and moved to the open window.

  Four men in black were on the street, running east. They passed out of sight around the edge of the building. Bandits, maybe raiders, he thought. As Jack observed out the window, the other three men in his group moved near him.

  About a quarter of a minute later, three bipeds came into view. Jack was sure they were in pursuit of the four men. In seconds they disappeared from sight as the bandits had.

  Jack climbed onto the edge of the window and looked at his three companions.

  “We have bipeds and raiders or bandits out there. You might want to stay here. I’m going to keep an eye on them.”

  Jack dropped to the ground and moved to the left toward the street. As he moved he called Debby Hays on the radio and advised her of the situation and told her the men and aliens were headed in their direction.

  Jack heard a noise and looked to see Clyde and the Cates brothers jumping from the building. He gave them a questioning look.

  “You said we ‘might’ want to stay in the building,” Clyde whispered when he got near.

  “You might want to stay here,” Jack said. “But if you don’t, be sure you stay quiet and out of sight.”

  Jack didn’t wait for a reply. He peeked around the corner and saw the bipeds were a couple hundred yards to the east. He stood and followed at a trot, the trio of salvagers following.

  Jack stayed to the left of the street, trying to keep buildings between himself and the bandits and aliens ahead in case the men fired again.

  Five blocks east, three of the bandits stopped and fired at the aliens while the fourth began kicking at a door.

  The speakers on the TROG buzzed with static for a second, then the voice of Debby Hays came through. “Jack, we have someone trying to break into the building we took shelter in. It looks like they’re doing a good job of it too.”

  Jack was looking around the side of a dilapidated house and could see the building two hundred and fifty yards ahead.

  “I’m just up the block and moving your way,” Jack said into the microphone on the TROG.

  He looked behind him and saw that his three companions were still with him.

  “Stay here. No might this time,” he said.

  Jack ran to the east, a couple of bullets from the men firing at the bipeds buzzed by close enough to be audible. Fifty yards up the street he took cover behind a moss-covered concrete wall that edged a stairway leading into a collapsed house.

  He braced his left arm against the edge of the wall and sighted on the nearest alien and fired, sending a round into its back. The alien dropped.

  One of the other aliens fell to the black-clad men, then it struggled to regain its feet. Jack fired at it, and two rounds to the back put the creature down for good.

  The other alien was dangerously close to the men when Debby came over the radio once again.

  “The door is giving way,” she said calmly. In the background Jack could hear James say, “Damn it.”

  The sole remaining alien went down and the men stopped firing. A moment later a single shot rang out as the TROG sounded with Debby’s voice, “He had to fire. The man at the door tried to kill James!” Jack thought he could hear the lever working on James’ rifle in the background.

  The man at the door fell backwards. His companions turned and fired at the building as the alien regained its feet and staggered toward the three remaining men.

  Jack fired on the leftmost bandit, dropping him with a single round. An adjustment right brought the next man into his sight picture and Jack shot him as well. The man fell and tried to rise. Jack fired again and the man ceased his actions.

  The alien was next. A pair of rounds stopped the biped and it fell forward in a heap.

  The remaining bandit noticed Jack and he fired, his shot gouging out a cloud of concrete on the opposite side of the wall from Jack.

  Jack was hesitant to return fire because the building where Amanda’s parents were hiding was directly behind the man.

  The bandit fired again, the bullet passing just to Jack’s right a split second later.

  Jack took aim at the man’s left foot, hoping that if he missed the bullet would bore into the dirt, or would deflect at a shallow enough angle to hit the concrete foundation o
f the building and not enter the interior.

  As Jack took up the slack in the trigger, he vaguely noticed the bandit pulling the charging handle on his rifle. Jack fired.

  A brown puff of dirt kicked up behind and just to the right of the man. He fired again and another puff of dirt could be seen from the bullet’s impact behind the bandit just before the man fell. He rolled onto his side and grasped his lower leg.

  Jack stood and moved up the street. Ahead he could see the downed man rolling back and forth in pain.

  The man looked up and saw Jack closing on him. He sat up, facing Jack and grabbed for the rifle on the ground near him.

  “Don’t do it!” Jack yelled, stopping and bringing his rifle to his shoulder.

  The bandit dragged his rifle across the ground and lifted it in front of him.

  Jack aimed low once again and fired.

  The man recoiled in pain and fell to his side, his rifle dropping near him.

  Jack closed at a trot, watchful of the downed bandits.

  As he neared the building he pulled the TROG around to his side by its strap with his left hand.

  “Are you guys okay?” Jack sent over the radio.

  There was no reply.

  Jack’s brow furrowed as he repeated the broadcast, this time with concern audible in his voice.

  “We’re fine,” Debby answered after a moment.

  Jack breathed a sigh of relief. “I think it’s clear,” he said. “Stay put till I make sure.”

  He moved forward and watched the downed men and aliens for any sign of hostility. As he got close he saw the last man he had downed was still moving.

  The man rolled onto his side and glared at him. “You gonna kill me now?” he asked in a pained tone.

  “Not unless you give me a reason.”

  James looked out of the doorway and saw Jack. “We’re coming out.”

  He pushed the remains of the broken door out of the way and stepped outside with Debby close behind.

  The surviving bandit sat up, grasping his left leg above the ankle.

  “Don’t make a try for that rifle,” Jack said.

  The man continued to glare at Jack. “Wouldn’t do me no good. You shot it, you bastard.”

  Jack drew his pistol and threw the sling on his rifle over his left shoulder. Covering the man with his pistol he approached and knelt. He flipped the AR15 rifle over and saw where his bullet had struck the side of the aluminum receiver and ricocheted off when it struck the steel bolt.

  The bandit eyed Jack’s Ranger star. “Shoulda known. A lawdog. You taking me in?”

  Jack shook his head.

  “Then I’m going.”

  Jack dug into the pocket on his left thigh and pulled out a field dressing. He tossed it to the bandit. “Bandage your leg.”

  The man glared. He picked the dressing from the ground and hurled it at Jack. “Fuck you. I ain’t taking nothing from you.”

  He struggled to stand, and once he was upright he stepped gingerly on his wounded leg. Jack could see the bullet had passed through his leg several inches above the ankle, but apparently didn’t strike the bone.

  The man glared at Jack one last time, then turned and limped away to the south, muttering under his breath and trailing blood.

  Jack shook his head as he watched the man in dismay.

  “Jack, you do most of this?” Debby asked gesturing at the dead bandits and aliens scattered across the area.

  “Part of it,” Jack said. He looked to the west and saw Clyde and the Cates brothers headed toward him.

  Debby canted her head and sighed. “Which means most of it.”

  “Damndest, most rotten luck I ever had,” James said as he looked around. “I am so glad you can shoot, sure as you were born, Jack, I am.”

  An hour later, the group was on its way back to Geneva, having confirmed the presence of propane in several tanks and forgoing more exploration. The salvagers planned to return soon and recover the books from the museum and the propane.

  When they returned to Geneva, Jack left the books he recovered with Marian, then went to the Ranger HQ and checked in with Lieutenant Geiger. The lieutenant had a new assignment for him.

  Demon Station, a settlement southwest of Seneca, had an alien problem, a new alien problem.

  Dan explained. “There is a group of fanatics, apparently religious, that live somewhere to the west of Demon Station. This group somehow thinks that because the word ‘demon’ is in the settlement’s name, they are somehow evil.” He paused when he saw Jack’s confused look. “No joke. These folks have learned how to trap aliens and are using them as attack dogs to sic on the settlement. In the past it’s been cockroaches and bipeds, but it seems they have a new alien to use, the ogre, as it is called by the locals.”

  “The ogre?” Jack said with arched eyebrows. “Sounds delightful, LT, but why am I going down there? I’m not an expert on these things.”

  “True, but after Art and I, you have the most experience with them, and I need Art for the trainees.”

  “I see. Am I going to be the only Ranger there?”

  “No. There will be several. Most of the other Ranger posts in the area are sending a Ranger. I considered sending Sean so he could gain some experience, but he’s still recovering from his heroics. Besides, you know the route down there.”

  “Got it, Lieutenant. When do I leave?”

  “In the morning. I don’t have much information on this new alien, but...”

  “I know, assume it’s nasty.”

  Jack left early the following morning, and with the new rails running east all the way to Girard from the junction south of Chanute, the travel time became much shorter than before.

  Jack was joined in Girard by Ranger Cal Grant, from the Pittsburg Ranger post, and by early evening they made it into the Demon Station settlement.

  Sergeant McCaffrey from Pea Ridge was in Demon Station to oversee the operation, and greeted Jack and Ranger Grant after they disembarked from the train.

  “Ho, Rangers! Good to see you guys. Did you get briefed on what we are dealing with here?”

  “I was told there is a newly discovered type of alien being used by religious crazies to attack the settlement. No description of the alien,” Jack replied.

  Cal Grant smiled and glanced at Jack as he said, “Yeah, what he said goes for me too.”

  “I haven’t seen the thing they are talking about yet, but they describe it as being a few feet taller than a biped, but built like a barrel. A big hulking thing it sounds like. I guess those things soak up gunfire like mad. Shooting the maw won’t bring it down, and nobody has found a sweet spot that’ll drop one yet, so they just have to shoot them to pieces,” Sergeant McCaffrey said.

  “So what’s the plan?” Cal asked.

  “If the rest of the Rangers get here early enough tomorrow, we are going to run a team of Rangers and militiamen out west and try and interdict the zealots. Maybe we can convince them to go away.”

  “Who are these zealots? Do we know anything about them?” Jack asked.

  “Not a hell of a lot,” McCaffrey answered. “They come from somewhere well west of here, but we don’t know where exactly. They are pretty crazy. Look at this,” he said handing Jack a folded paper.

  Jack opened the paper and read

  We will strike you down with righteous fury and intense anger, using the alien curse to smite your demonic hold on the land! Our Lord commands it be so!

  Repent and close the gates to Hell.

  Stop fomenting the demons.

  Jack raised his eyebrows and said, “Yeah... that’s crazy all right. Fomenting? Is it true they think that because this place is called Demon Station, there are demons here?”

  “Yup,” McCaffrey said with a nod and a crooked smile. “Crazy. You know how this place got named Demon Station?”

  “No, I always wondered,” Cal answered. “I assume there ain’t no demons.”

  McCaffey chuckled. “This place had another nam
e before the Calamity, don’t know what it was. The place ended up abandoned, like a lot of other places. Some years later, when folks looked to set up a trading post and salvage camp here, they saw a sign outside town and used what was on it for the name.”

  “What was on it?” Cal asked.

  “It’s still out there, to the north,” McCaffrey said pointing. “It’s a sign for a farm implement demonstration that took place a week or so before the Calamity. Sometime between then and when the settlers showed up, the sign got damaged and some letters got removed, so the word demonstration read DEMONST ATION. I guess somebody thought it might be funny or something, but that’s what they went with and it stuck. Similar thing happened with Hell down south.

  “In any case, we got food and bunks over there,” McCaffrey said, pointing at a nearby building. “Get yourselves settled in.”

  The remaining Rangers arrived before mid morning, so Sergeant McCaffrey decided to lead a patrol west as soon as possible.

  He left Jack and Cal Grant in Demon Station to work with the militia in case aliens showed up while the patrol was out.

  McCaffrey led five Rangers and seven militiamen out of the settlement. They maintained radio contact via TROG with Jack and Cal who also had a TROG with them on the wall-walk behind the parapet on the defensive wall.

  When the patrol was less than a mile out, they detected movement in a wooded area to the west and moved to investigate. As they moved into the tree line they could see a group of men near a large horse-drawn wagon in a low draw ahead. McCaffrey yelled to the men, trying to get them to talk, but the men immediately opened fire.

  The exchange of gunfire was a one-sided affair, with the Rangers and militiamen quickly dispatching the men near the wagon, but not quite fast enough. The last man standing in the group managed to open the doors at the back of the wagon before he went down, releasing an ogre. As intimidating as the description made the ogre seem, those that had not seen one before found it to be woefully insufficient. The creature was frightening.

  The Rangers and militiamen began firing at the monstrosity, but as they did so, a second ogre stomped into view from the trees behind the wagon. Sergeant McCaffrey yelled to the patrol, commanding them to follow him through the trees back toward Demon Station.