Moon Fate

by James Axler

During the third time around, she had leaned over him and jammed fingers into the corner of his mouth to force it open, deliberately dribbling a thread of frothy saliva between his parted lips. She grinned at his struggle not to throw up.

  "You puke, and the fourth time is with your tongue up me, norm," she growled, eyes narrowing with a vicious delight at the idea, sensing his gut-deep re­pugnance. "In fact, we'll make that one into a real nice promise, Ryan."

  THE STICKIE WENT to a ramshackle cupboard in the corner of the little room, reached in and withdrew an earthenware jug. She brought it to her lips and took a long, noisy swig.

  "Pulque," she explained, licking her lips. "Mebbe I ought to give you some. Keep that pecker of yours up. Though this time it won't be your pecker that sends me to the top and back, will it?"

  Marcie carried the jug back to the bed and strad­dled Ryan, her knees spread wide to show him the glistening, moist lips of her sex. She nearly drained the jug of fiery liquor and kept smiling at him, leaning down and kissing him on the cheeks and mouth, nip­ping him with her needle-sharp teeth, pushing her tongue into his mouth.

  Now she had a knife in her hand.

  The weapon had a wooden shaft, the blade set in at a clumsy angle, and was bound around with frayed cord. The point had been broken and badly resharpened, but the edge looked to be well honed.

  Marcie reached behind her and touched the cold steel against Ryan's groin, giggling at the way his scrotum shrank against the contact.

  He closed his eye and took a slow, long breath, managing, just, to keep control over himself. She shuffled a little higher, toward his head, giving him a coy smile. "No peeking at a lady, One-eye. Not if you want to keep the family jewels."

  The rope around Ryan's neck was taut, keeping his head immobile. Marcie edged a little farther up his body, her breasts quivering with barely contained ex­citement, nipples standing out like desiccated cher­ries.

  He felt bile rising from the depths of his stomach, swelling toward his chest and throat. If the repulsive stickie carried out her threat and forced him to plea­sure her with his tongue, Ryan was suddenly certain that he would vomit. Uncontrollably and violently.

  And then Marcie would use her knife on him and he'd be dead.

  At that second, Ryan didn't find that option too appalling.

  "Now," she breathed, lifting herself for a mo­ment, ready to plunge down onto his face.

  Under the curve of her buttocks Ryan glimpsed the sacking over the doorway, saw it move as though there had been a violent gust of wind.

  Then it was obscured and he was suffocating, about to puke.

  He wriggled his head to try to breathe and felt the woman's body jerk in response.

  Marcie's thighs clamped tight over the sides of his head, shutting out any sound. She convulsed again, her full weight on his face.

  Ryan felt consciousness slipping away, with the last thought of what a stupid and undignified way it was to die.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  AIR.

  Noisome, stinking, smoky air, but it squeezed its way into Ryan's lungs. And light, from the guttering torch on the orange wall.

  The powerful stickie woman above him rose half­way up, the big muscles along the inside of her thighs fluttering, then came down, sideways toppling off him. The knife fell to the floor with a fragile, tinkling sound.

  Ryan blinked, seeing Marcie down on hands and knees, her face only a hand's span from his. She coughed and blood gouted from her open mouth, splattering on the floor.

  "Not fuckin' fair," she gasped, then slid forward onto her stomach, bare feet drumming for a few sec­onds on the stones.

  Ryan glanced from the bullet wound in the center of her naked back, up to the murderous figure that stood poised in the doorway, holding the sacking curtain to one side.

  There was a filthy M-16 in the right hand, pointing toward Ryan. The man wore a shapeless coat over torn and muddied pants. His right hand was missing a couple of fingers, and the left hand seemed to have no fingers at all. Just raw stumps. His face was blank, lacking any expression. His mouth had slipped side­ways, as though something had eaten a part of it away. The nose was missing, revealing a cavernous, snuf­fling, snot-crusted hole.

  Ryan had encountered groups of lepers before. Mostly they had the reputation of being untrustwor­thy and violent outlanders.

  "Sorry to spoil your fucking fun," the apparition said, steadying the carbine with the stubby left hand.

  "Not a stickie," Ryan gasped. "You saved me…" But he realized that the leper wasn't listening to him. He had decided to chill Ryan and that was that. Nothing would stop him.

  Nothing except the musket ball that smashed into the back of his narrow skull.

  It hit at a slightly upward angle, penetrating to the left, splintering the cranial bone, then distorting and tumbling down through the brain. It exited near the top of the nose in a spray of pink, gray and crimson, bringing half of the leper's diseased face with it.

  The corpse dropped to the floor, alongside Marcie, twitched for a moment and then lay still.

  Ryan waited, shifting his position so that the rope around his neck was less painful.

  But no one else appeared.

  Outside there was shouting and a fusillade of fir­ing, sounding like it came from a variety of weapons.

  Ryan took a few moments to steady his breathing, hardly able to believe that his life had been saved twice in less than ten seconds.

  "So it goes," he muttered, concentrating his en­ergy on getting free.

  If Marcie had decided to tie his ankles to the bed, he'd have been utterly helpless. As it was, he could wriggle on his back, careful with the noose around his throat, slide his legs over the edge of the straw mat­tress and fumble with his toes for the dropped knife.

  The stickie's hand was on top of it, but again luck rode with Ryan.

  The suckered fingers hadn't closed on the hilt with the immovable spasm of rigor mortis. He was able to kick Marcie's wrist out of the way and pick up the clumsy blade.

  Then it was some struggling contortions to bring it onto the bed and lay it where his tied hands could reach it.

  Ryan was deathly aware of the noise outside, indi­cating that a large force of lepers was attacking the sleeping camp—and that at any moment one might choose to burst into the lighted room and shoot him down.

  The steel cut through the thongs. Ryan could feel a trickle of warm blood over his wrist, but he was nearly free.

  It only took a moment, then, to slice the hemp apart and tug the loop from his neck.

  As he swung his legs to the floor and reached for the M-16, Ryan trod full on the naked buttocks of the dead woman, producing an eructation of trapped gas.

  "Sorry," he said, grinning mirthlessly.

  First thing was to take the torch and bring it against the bloodied stone floor, bringing a measure of safety with the swooping darkness.

  Ryan hesitated before pulling on his pants, aware of the cloying stickiness around his groin. He grabbed the stickie's shirt and quickly wiped himself with it.

  Ten seconds later he was fully dressed, the carbine in his hands. Ready to go.

  A sudden burst of flame somewhere to his left illu­minated the whole area, and he saw a number of struggling figures, scurrying like disturbed ants. He also spotted a number of bodies draped around the central part of the encampment.

  Ryan licked his lips, grimacing with disgust as he realized that he could still taste Marcie on his tongue.

  He turned back from the doorway and picked up the cool earthenware jug of pulque. Taking a mouth­ful, he swilled it around his mouth and spit it onto the two tangled corpses. Then the one-eyed man took a swallow on the powerful liquor, feeling it ice its way down his gullet, then turn to flame as it reached his stomach.

  "Fireblast! That hit the spot," he said.

  He pushed the sacking drapery aside and stepped cautiously into the vicious maelstrom of close fight­ing.

  Keeping in
the shadows that lay deepest under the overhang of dark rock, Ryan picked his way along the narrow alleys between the old ruined houses. The blaster he'd taken from the dead leper was in appall­ing condition, looking as though it had been used to hew coal and then to stir fish stew in a filthy caldron.

  He'd also stuck Marcie's knife into his belt, as backup.

  Hearing someone running toward him, he'd backed into a storeroom filled with crates of dried fruit. The footfalls darted past with the familiar flapping sound that told him it had been a stickie.

  From a tiny rectangular window, Ryan was able to look out over the main part of the ancient Anasazi mesa township.

  The lepers seemed to have gained a hold on the side of the camp nearest to the river, doubtless infiltrating down the flank of the ravine, then gathering for a concerted attack, sweeping out of the early-morning blackness.

  The stickies were fighting back in scattered pock­ets, but there didn't seem to be much pattern to their efforts.

  There was no sign of Charlie.

  Ryan peered through the smoky gloom to where the rest of the prisoners were being held. Several kivas were aligned through one side of the main plaza area of the site, but Krysty and the others were in the most distant. From where Ryan was hiding, it was impos­sible to see whether the sentries were still there.

  "See a chance, take a chance." The Trader's old saying was rarely wrong.

  Either the lepers would overwhelm the defending stickies and take over the camp, or the muties would hold them off and drive them back into the surround­ing wilderness.

  Whatever way it went, Krysty, Abe, Dorina, Helga, Harold, Bob and Joe-Bob all faced a severely re­stricted future.

  AS RYAN DODGED CLOSER to the row of kivas, a fig­ure loomed at him from a narrow entrance, brandish­ing a long cleaver. The M-16 kicked against his hip as he pulled the trigger, the bullet kicking the shadow backward.

  It was all over so quickly that Ryan never even had time to decide whether it had been a stickie or a leper.

  Not that it made any difference.

  The metal grille was totally unguarded. Ryan paused, glancing around, watching for any move­ment among the ruins. But everyone seemed com­pletely involved in the fighting.

  Away behind him he caught the high, thin sound of Charlie's voice, shouting orders, and there was a tri­ple salvo of explosions that he figured for some sort of fragmentation grens, the bangs followed by the weird noise of stickies cheering.

  It began to seem as if the defenders might be win­ning.

  A ball whined off the cliff a yard above Ryan, showering him in fine dust. There was no way of knowing whether it had just been a stray round, or whether someone was trying to get him fixed in the cross hairs of his musket.

  He dropped to a crouch and jinked to the kiva, kneeling and calling through the bars.

  "Everyone okay?"

  A babble of voices responded, with the sonorous boom of the preacher soaring above them all. "The saints bless you, Ryan!"

  "What's going on, lover!"

  "Lepers attacking. Big firefight. I'll get you out now."

  The bolts had been greased with what smelled like rancid cooking oil, but they slid back easily enough and Ryan was able to heave the heavy iron cover out of the way.

  Helga climbed out, hefted up by Abe. The rest jos­tling after her.

  Krysty was last, taking Ryan's hand, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek. "Thought you were gone."

  "Me, too."

  "Could we get us some blasters?" Abe asked, his eyes darting hungrily in the direction of the heavy gunfire.

  "Want to try and get the ones we had when they took us. Krysty had a Smith & Wesson 640. I had a SIG-Sauer handgun and a bolt-action Steyr rifle. Plus some knives."

  "They'll be where Charlie lives," Bob said. "Took all blasters there."

  "Where?"

  Dorina answered. "Same place they took me for their funning. Follow me."

  They picked their way back toward the center of the action.

  Ryan was second, following the skinny young woman, his carbine ready, the others trailing along behind them.

  Thick smoke drifted across the camp, making visi­bility difficult. And it had begun to rain again.

  The first burst of fire from Charlie's Uzi cut down Helga and Bob.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  THE WOMAN FELL, four bullets stitched across her chest and stomach. She rolled sideways, thrashing, knocking Abe into the dirt with her, screaming in a deep, hoarse voice.

  Bob started to duck away, one arm half raised in a useless gesture to try to hold off the stream of 9 mm bullets. The first two severed his arm at the wrist, the hand dropping, fingers curling as the tendons were

  hacked through. The next two rounds pulped the side of his head, tearing most of his face away, teeth splintering against the wall of rock beyond him.

  Ryan half turned, seeing instantly that both of them were down and done for.

  He spotted Charlie, crouched on a pinnacle of crumbling red rock, his yellow hair streaked with dirt and matted with what looked like somebody's blood. His eyes were stretched wide, and his mouth was rugged open in a soundless scream of triumph and hatred.

  The first round that Ryan snapped off from the M-16 kicked a handful of dirt, inches from the stickie's feet. The second tug on the trigger produced the dry click of an empty mag.

  "Fireblast!" He was furiously angry that he'd omitted to check how many rounds remained in the leper's carbine.

  "You fuckers are all dead!" Charlie howled, steadying the Uzi.

  Little Dorina saved them.

  Stooping and picking up a jagged rock the size of a small apple, she whipped back her wrist and sent the missile hissing toward the stickie.

  It hit Charlie on the right forearm with an audible crack. He nearly dropped the blaster, snatching at it with his left hand as it began to fall. The sudden movement unbalanced him, and he slid backward, vanishing from sight with an almost comical expres­sion of dismay on his sweat-stained face.

  "Come on!" Ryan yelled, dropping the useless blaster and sprinting toward the shelter of another group of semiruined adobe houses.

  "What about Helga?" Harold shouted. "You can't leave her."

  The woman was rolling from side to side, a string of intestine trailing from the gaping stomach wounds. She'd stopped crying out, her face unrecognizably contorted with shock.

  "She's dying." Krysty grabbed Harold by the arm and steered him with her.

  The half-dozen survivors reached a moment of safety, crouching together in pitch darkness.

  "Nice throw, Dorina," Ryan said, fighting to slow his breathing.

  "Used to knock possum out of trees. Yellow-headed fucker was easier."

  "It was the best throw I ever saw, my child," the preacher boomed.

  "Worst," she replied. "I was aiming at his nose."

  Abe had twisted his ankle and was massaging it. "Hurts like a bastard," he said, whistling softly be­tween his teeth. "Always happens. Trader used to say he'd take me out back and put a bullet through my head. Like an old hound dog who got too old."

  "Can you run?"

  "We get out and those lepers and stickies start in after us, Ryan, then you better get clear or I'll run over the top of you."

  OUTSIDE THE COVER of the towering cliff above them, the rain was sheeting down again.

  "How far to Charlie's place?"

  Dorina turned to Ryan, her face only a pale blur.

  "Close."

  Ryan thought about it for a moment. "Fewer of us moving around the better. Dorina'll show me and Krysty where the blasters are hidden. You three stay in here. Safe as it gets."

  "Sure. Two hundred lepers and stickies murdering one another about ten paces away." Abe laughed. "I like what you call safe, Ryan."

  The trio moved away from the others.

  As soon as the young woman had pointed out which of the old dwellings was occupied by Charlie, Ryan sent her scurrying back to
rejoin the others in hiding.

  "I could come with you."

  "No."

  "Want to chill some stickies. Make up for every­thing that—"

  Ryan hushed her. "We know. Before we get clear of this place you'll probably get your chance. Now do like I say."

  She nodded and turned, vanishing out of sight.

  Krysty bit her lip. "She doesn't even seem to realize her husband's been gunned down."

  "Only five rounds in the chamber, that one." Ryan tapped his forehead.

  "Do you blame her, lover?"

  "What she's been through? Course not."

  Ahead of them they saw a leper and a stickie roll­ing over and over in the slippery mud that was al­ready covering the camp. Both had knives, struggling to hack at each other. But the leper was missing fin­gers from both his hands, putting him at a terminal disadvantage. The stickie had his free hand clamped to his enemy's face, sucking off strips of skin. Both of the combatants were dappled with blood, streaming pink in the rain.

  At a gesture from Ryan, Krysty backed off with him behind a low wall, crouching to watch the outcome of the mortal combat.

  Because of their various physical disabilities, lepers were never rated too highly when it came down to hand-to-hand.

  By the time the stickie had given its whooping shriek of victory, the leper's head had been reduced to a hairless, skinless, blood-slick skull, eyeless and fea­tureless.

  The mutie stood up unsteadily, facing away from Ryan and Krysty.

  "Could get you his knife, lover," Ryan said.

  "Get it myself."

  She walked out, the noise of the storm drowning the clicking of her boot heels. The rain immediately soaked her hair, dulling its bright glow, pasting it to her neck and shoulders. It only took her eight strides to reach the exulting stickie.

  Krysty wasted no time, chopping the man across the back of the neck with the edge of her right hand, chilling the mutie with an ease that was almost con­temptuous.

  She stooped, picked the knife from the trembling fingers and rejoined Ryan.

  "Like taking honey from a hive of dead bees," she said.

  "Weren't you ever stung by a dead bee?" Ryan asked her.