by James Axler
RYAN'S COMBAT INSTINCT was so powerful that he didn't hesitate for a second. He raced back toward the front of the Beacon Multiplex, out onto the main drag of Bear Claw Ridge—to be met at close range by a fountaining arc of bullets from Charlie's Uzi.
The stickie was standing right in the entrance to the movie house, less than fifty feet away. If Ryan had been any closer, the burst would have simply torn him apart. If he'd been any further off, then Charlie would easily have been able to blow him away at his leisure.
But there was just time for the razor-honed reflexes to save Ryan.
He saw the dark figure before the Uzi exploded, threw himself down and to the side, the stream of high-velocity lead slicing inches above his head, ricocheting off the wall in a shower of vivid orange and silver sparks.
Ryan snapped off two shots as he rolled in the dirt, hearing the smashing of glass as one of them hit the main entrance doors.
But the stickie had vanished inside the building, and the blacktop was deserted.
"Fireblast!"
Inside the multiplex Jak Lauren was quite possibly already dead, and Abe, lying partly under cover, still desperately frail from his wound.
If Ryan tried to get in through the front entrance, the Uzi would wipe him away. He turned and sprinted toward the rear of the building and the decrepit fire escape.
THE CORRODED LADDER squeaked under Ryan's weight, but it held safe as he scrambled up onto the roof, where he picked his way between the various heating and ventilation stacks to find the open trapdoor into the projection box.
He dropped through, ignoring the clatter of his boots.
A quick glance through the projection window showed the empty auditorium. Ryan paused for a moment to gather himself, then moved quickly down the iron stairs toward the lobby.
KRYSTY STOOD by J.B., staring toward the buildings. "See anything?"
"Think someone went inside the old movie place, just after firing the Uzi. Think I heard two silenced rounds that must've been Ryan's SIG-Sauer. Nothing since then."
She glanced up at the sky. There was a heavy bank of low cloud moving steadily across from the east, threatening the moon.
"Going to be real dark in about three or four minutes," she said.
"Could be all over by then." They both turned as they heard Dean panting up the trail with Christina, amazingly, right on his heels. There was still no sign of Mildred, Harold or Doc.
IN THE PITCH-DARK WELL at the base of the narrow staircase, Ryan paused again. He pressed his ear against the concealed door that opened into the lobby, but it was insulated and he couldn't hear a thing.
He dropped to his knees and pushed it open a knife-blade crack.
There was a splinter of a second to glimpse the lobby before another burst from the machine pistol tore through the door chest-high, showering him with splinters of wood.
Charlie was crouched near the main doors, which stood wide open behind him. Jak's body lay completely still, where Ryan had last seen him. Abe was invisible under the tumbled display top.
"Come on, you fucking one-eyed bastard! Come see me finish this white-haired little shit right in front of you."
Charlie's voice had the thin, fragile sound of insanity, but that didn't mean he wasn't holding all of the cards.
Ryan, flattened against the bottom of the stairs, couldn't move up or out without being blown away.
Abe was out of it and Jak was done for. Krysty and the rest of the group could be anywhere.
It wasn't even a stand-off. To try to get at Charlie, Ryan had to put his own life into jeopardy. Go out through the door and hope he shot the stickie before being ripped apart himself.
"Come on, norm!" Charlie screeched. "I take out this little… Looks like he's already chilled anyway. Couple rounds should make…"
Ryan braced himself, deciding to come out fast and low, going straight into a slide, hoping to put one in the stickie before the Uzi sent him off on the last train to the coast.
"This is it!"
Ryan kicked the door open and tumbled into the lobby.
Everything happened at a grotesque and unbelievable speed.
And there was pain.
Chapter Forty-Seven
CHARLIE'S LIPS WERE clawed back in a snarl of utter delight. The Uzi spit flame, but the bullets sprayed in a great arc over the ceiling as the blaster fell from the stickie's hands.
A round stone rolled across the floor, after it had smashed into Charlie's elbow.
Out of the corner of his eye Ryan could see a slight figure, capering in the street, ragged clothes flying about its androgynous body, stooping to pick up and hurl another stone at Charlie.
But the stickie was recovering, bending to grab up the Uzi with his other hand.
Ryan realized that Dorina's accuracy might simply have postponed his death, rather than averted it.
"Bastards!" Charlie growled as he straightened.
Face shining white, staggering like the living dead in an old horror vid, Abe lurched toward Charlie with a jagged knife of glass in both hands. He loomed up behind the mutie and lunged at him with the makeshift dagger.
The stickie turned at the last second and pushed at Abe, knocking him off balance. But the thrust struck home, the glass splintering as it drove into Charlie's stomach.
Ryan steadied the blaster, ready for another shot at the stickie, but the moon finally vanished behind the clouds and the old cinema became instantly pitchy dark.
There was the patter of naked feet and a yell from outside, and Charlie was gone into the night.
And none of them saw or heard anything of the yellow-haired stickie from that moment on.
RYAN SAT ON THE PORCH, reminiscing as he sipped a glass of buttermilk.
It had been an odd time.
Mildred had been able to help get Abe back properly onto his feet within a couple of days. Now the two of them were down by the stream, working on fixing the earth dam. J.B. was with them, stripped off to the waist, his body pale in the bright sunlight.
Doc and Dean were helping each other replace a damaged blade on the windmill. From where he sat, Ryan could hear an occasional snatch of conversation, the young boy's light voice overlaid by Doc's resonant tones.
Krysty had felt a little sick after a large lunch and was sleeping it off in their bedroom at the west side of the new homestead. Harold and Dorina Lord had been over in a buckboard to visit and see the baby. Dorina couldn't wait to tell everyone that she, too, was pregnant.
The couple had taken over the neighboring spread that had once belonged to Helga.
Now they'd headed off into the afternoon sunshine, the trail of dust from their rig following them across the open land.
Christina was out back, hanging up some washing. Little baby Jenny was in a crib on the rear porch. Every now and again Ryan heard the tiny gurgling voice and the soft reassurance of her mother.
Christina hadn't forgiven Ryan for what had happened to Jak two months earlier, and he knew that she never would. Which was why it was time to move on.
"Think we'll leave tomorrow morning," he announced.
Lying on the swing seat across from him, the white-haired teenager started awake.
"Broke dream," he said. "Thought was back in bayous. Fishing."
For forty-eight hours after the dramatic climax on the ridge, Mildred had believed that she was going to lose her patient. The knife wound had penetrated one of Jak's lungs, and he had suffered an internal hemorrhage that had left him on the brink of the black river.
But he'd pulled through.
Mildred reckoned that he'd never be quite as fit as before, and would always tend to suffer from breathing problems in cold, wet weather. But he was alive.
"I said that I thought we'd go tomorrow. Stayed long enough. Mebbe too long."
Jak stretched. "Know what you mean. Christina thinks you came and—"
"Yeah, I know. Look, Jak, you know I understand. Her feeling the way she
does." He put down the glass, holding his finger and thumb a quarter inch apart. "You came that close to buying the farm. She'd have been a widow and Jenny would never have known her father. Course she wants me to go."
"Be always welcome here, Ryan."
"Sure."
He could hear Christina talking to the baby in a calm, gentle voice.
"Wish Dean would have stayed while with us."
"His decision. I wanted him to stay. Mebbe a year or so."
Part of him was aware that someone else was talking at the back of the house very quietly, having a measured conversation with Christina.
Jak sighed. "Way of kids, Ryan. Like I said. All of you always welcome."
Ryan started to stand, very slowly, concentrating on what he was almost hearing.
The voice was oddly familiar, but he couldn't quite hear it clearly enough.
"Who is…"he began.
Jak opened his mouth, hands gripping the arms of the seat.
Doc laughed, far off across the meadow, sounding in another world.
Ryan and Jak heard a strange sound from behind the building, like a butcher's cleaver hacking into a hanging carcass.
Then Christina's voice called, "Jak, Ryan, could you come here a minute, please?"
Still as calm and unhurried as ever.
Ryan had his hand on the butt of the SIG-Sauer as he and the teenager stepped onto the back porch. As soon as he saw what was out there, he let go of the blaster.
It wasn't necessary.
Christina was standing facing them, holding the swaddled, gurgling bundle that was her daughter, Jenny. There were speckles of fresh blood on the woman's dress and on her hands.
The corpse lay at her feet.
It was stretched out as though it had decided to take advantage of the fine weather and snatch itself half an hour's sleep. The clothes were ragged and torn, showing pale skin through the holes.
The head was covered in blood, from two gashes in the side of the skull. The weapon, a long-handled ax, was buried in the back of the neck, almost decapitating the man.
Despite all of the blood and the leaking puddle of brains, the matted yellow hair was unmistakable. As were the suckered hands, now relaxing in death. A slim skinning knife lay in the dirt of the yard, by the right hand.
Ryan tucked a foot under a shoulder and rolled the body over, making sure who it was.
"Charlie?" Jak asked.
"Yeah."
His eyes were glazing and the mouth sagged open. The dozens of tiny suckers on the protruding tongue were all slowly closing, like delicate pink flowers in the evening.
"Said he was starving." Christina was shushing the baby by letting it suck at her little finger. "I knew who he was from the hair. I just told him to go away."
"Why not call us?" Ryan asked. "We'd have taken him out."
"I know, Ryan. I know what you do. He was starving." She repeated it as though she were dealing with an obtuse child. "But he drew the knife to threaten Jenny. So I took the ax to him."
"We'll bury him out the other side of the stream," Ryan said.
"Sure."
"We've been talking, Christina. Think we'll be moving on at first light."
She looked at him with her steady blue eyes. "That's good, Ryan," she said. "Yeah, that's good."
Chapter Forty-Eight
THE WALLS OF ARMAGLASS were already beginning to glow, and a faint miasma of gray mist was appearing at the level of the gray ceiling of the gateway chamber.
Everyone was sitting in a circle, backs against the wall, facing inward.
Mildred was close to J.B., holding his hand in hers.
Doc had his knees drawn up, the swallow's-eye neckerchief already in his hand, ready to staunch the nosebleed he so often suffered from at the end of a jump.
He caught Dean looking across at him and smiled at the boy, showing his oddly perfect teeth. "Make sure to keep your dreams as clean as silver, my dear young man," he said.
Krysty leaned her head against Ryan's shoulder as the mist thickened and the disks in the floor began to shimmer and blur.
"Abe looks like he's ready to have kittens," she said.
"I'll be there before you, lady." The lean man grinned, but his voice betrayed his tension at what might be about to happen to him.
Ryan could feel the insides of his brain starting to scramble. The last thing he heard was Krysty, whispering gently to him, her breath soft against his cheek.
"Good time the past few weeks, lover. I envy Christina what she's got. Husband and baby. Nice home. Be good…" The words started to fragment. "One day… You and… Real good… us… lover."
The rest vanished into the blackness.
RYAN OPENED HIS EYE, realizing something had gone appallingly, hideously wrong.