by James Axler
At first, the cats dashed around the towering spider, snapping at its legs, darting forward, only to dodge backward. The insect rushed at them again and again, only to have the guard cat nimbly avoid the rush. Then one cat stood its ground, snarling a challenge. The insect scuttled in for the kill, when the second cougar jumped on its back and started ripping out mouthfuls of hairy hide. Squealing in agony, the spider rose onto its hind legs, easily dumping the cat off its back. Tumbling through the air, the cougar landed upright on its paws and raced under the belly of the beast, while the other slashed for the multifaceted eyes with deadly claws.
But the spider countered both attacks, dropping flat on the ground, avoiding the first cat and catching the second animal underneath. Mewing in pain, the crushed cat squirmed free, one leg dragging limply behind.
"Now," Ryan said, and the companions dashed for the bridge.
With its speed gone, the second cat tried to defend its mate, but the spider rushed upon the wounded beast and caught its body in the powerful mandibles. Screaming in rage, the cat fought for freedom as the black pincers sawed into its flesh. Red blood gushed out, a leg fell off, the cougar thrashed insanely for the vulnerable face of the insect, then the pincers closed with a solid click. The animal fell away in two pieces, blood everywhere.
Both tails lashing, the other cat didn't make the same mistake, and darted among the spider's legs, just nipping here, clawing there. Thick yellow blood flow from the tiny wounds, mixing with the red on the rich soil. Soon the giant insect started to move more slowly, its legs clumsily avoiding the cat as the mandibles snapped with less force.
As the companions reached the bridge, they turned from the bloody combat and J.B. took a full minute to check for traps before waving them onward. The spider squealed and the cougar roared as they started across the ancient roadway. There were potholes everywhere, some of them going all the way through and they could see the bare steel rods set inside the concrete bed, and foamy brine below, jagged rocks and coral filling the blue Cific waters. Worse, every step they took was starting to shake the weakened structure, the vibrations mounting until it was becoming difficult to walk.
"Get off the pavement and onto the girders," Ryan directed them, heading for the side. "Can't trust this asphalt to hold!"
As they rushed to the upright support beams, the shaking bridge pavement shattered into pieces, cracks spreading outward like some terrible disease. Whole sections of asphalt plummeted away to explode into rubble on the coral and outcroppings.
"Move!" Krysty shouted, and clumsily raced along the girder to dive for the imagined safety of the next island. She landed sprawling, and rolled away to clear the area for the others, who followed close behind.
As they painfully stood on the firm ground, the companions watched as the rest of the predark roadway broke loose and dropped into the channel until there was nothing remaining but the steel girders and struts of the trestle. On the other island, the spider triumphantly raised a struggling cougar high in the sky with its serrated mandibles, then dashed the body onto the ground, smashing it to pieces under pounding legs.
"It's going to be a bitch getting back across," Mildred stated, brushing dirt off her clothes. "The steel looks solid enough, but it'll be slick with spray without the road to block the wash from the waves."
"We can tie ropes around each other, and then to the stanchions," Doc suggested, breathing hard. "The way mountain climbers do."
"Yeah, that'll work. Good idea."
"Thank you, madam."
Checking his pockets to make sure he hadn't lost any ammo, Dean started to ask the adults why anybody would want to climb a mountain, but decided this wasn't the time or place.
"Need explosives, or more Molotovs, to handle the spider," J.B. added, adjusting his glasses. "Take most of our ammo to chill it from a distance."
Across the channel, the huge insect looked up from gutting the corpse of the cougar and stared directly at the man. If he didn't know better, J.B. would have sworn it understood what he had said. The mere thought sent a chill along his spine. Humanity's greatest weapon against the muties was their lack of intelligence. Smart muties were a nightmare.
"Keep moving. Somebody may come to check on the noise," Ryan said, and headed off the roadway, plunging into the bushes and trees of the cool green forest.
WITH BOTH of his mouths full of meat, the spider paused in tearing off the strips of flesh, the dying cat whimpering in agony. The two-legs were gone. Had they deliberately set the cats free, to hold it at bay until they could escape? Were they that smart? It was a chilling thought.
The cougar eventually died, while the spider finished his meal. Afterward, the insect started to turn around and around, kicking a shallow depression in the soft loam. Then he nestled into the hole and began to wiggle his huge body back and forth until the loose soil covered him completely, except for a tiny slit in front of his bulging eyes.
He had food and wasn't badly hurt. The wounds would heal quickly with a full belly. So he would wait again for the two-legs to return. And this time, he wouldn't wait for them to fall or try to trap the meat. They were too quick, too clever. No, he would simply leap upon the food the second it came off the iron skeleton, crushing the leader of the pack, then killing the others at his leisure.
But for now, he would wait. The food would return. It always did.
DEEP WITHIN the forest, the companions eased their retreat only after losing sight of the bridge and the terrible thing on the other side.
Slowing to a walk, Ryan reloaded the Steyr and breathed in the cool air sweet with the rich smell of pine. He had grown up in woods like these, and they always felt like home to him. The trees were well spaced, the floor of the forest a soft cushion of needles and leaves. He recognized oak, ash and maple. How could two islands so close to each other geographically be so far apart in temperature and plant life?
"Nice." Jak inhaled, pausing to slip on his jacket. J.B. did the same with his, but Krysty didn't don her bearskin coat, luxuriating in the misty cool of the pines.
Cresting a hill and clambering through a rocky arroyo, the companions reached a small clearing in the woods and Ryan called a halt.
"We'll break here," he decided, sliding off his backpack. "Cold rations and water only. No fire. Don't know if there's anybody around here, and there's no sense advertising our presence."
"I'll take first watch," Krysty offered, and stepped away from the others to put her back to a pine tree where she had a good command of the general area.
Taking the snake from his pocket, Ryan started gutting and cleaning the reptile with a folding pocket-knife. The panga was much too big for such delicate work, reserved for big jobs of hacking through jungles and cutting throats. The curved blade was perfect for that, almost as if it had been designed for just that purpose.
"Still fresh," Ryan announced, laying out slices on a large leaf. "Help yourselves."
Doc took a piece and started chewing the tough meat. "Tastes nothing like chicken," he muttered, taking another slice.
Lowering her canteen, Mildred frowned. "I still can't get over how big that spider was," she said, sounding annoyed. "It's impossible. Just impossible."
"Saw it," Jak stated, as if that settled the discussion. Opening a self-heat can, he waited until the food was warm, then started in with a hand-carved wooden spoon, relaying the soup to his mouth with the care of a surgeon. Not a drop was wasted on the ground.
"Are you referring to the, what was it again?" Doc asked, nibbling the raw snake. The flavor was strong, but no more so than sea bass. "The inverse-square law of biology?"
"Yes!" Mildred snapped. "Muties can be utterly bizarre, any shape or color, but they always obey the laws of science. An invertebrate creature can't grow that large. It would collapse under its own weight."
"Saw a vid once in a redoubt," Dean said, unwrapping the leaves around a roasted condor leg. "Big dinosaur, lot larger than this spider."
"That was just
a story," she chided gently.
He started eating. "Looked real."
"Can't get very big because it only has external bones, is that the idea?" Ryan asked, finishing off the snake.
"Yes. Exactly."
Reaching into another pocket, he unearthed a bundle of leaves and tore it open to start on some condor himself. Raw snake was good, but he preferred the taste of cooked food.
"So what if it had two?" he suggested, chewing and swallowing. "Regular bones inside, as well as that outer shell."
"Chitin," Mildred corrected automatically, then pursed her face. "Two skeletons? God help us, they could get a lot bigger than ten feet tall with two skeletons."
"Big as the vid dinosaur?" Dean queried.
"Larger."
"Hot pipe. I wouldn't want to tangle with one of those, unless we find another APC and a ton of ammo."
"Nature will out," Doc said, removing the plastic wrapper for a predark candy bar, a rare treat they found only occasionally in the military MRE packs.
"Two skeletons," Mildred repeated, pulling a gray chunk of military cheese from her med kit and cutting off slices. "What made you think of that?"
"Seemed reasonable," Ryan replied, cleaning the last of the meat off the bone. He tossed the bone away, belched and started on another.
Mildred and Doc exchanged silent glances. Ryan was the leader of the group because he was the deadliest fighter alive, and not a fool. A thinking man was ten times more dangerous man an army of fools with blasters.
Aching for a cigar, J.B. stuck a stick of minty chewing gum in his mouth and masticated vigorously. Then taking a twig, he lifted the snake skin and inspected it carefully. "Useless," he finally decided, tossing it onto the pile of bones and rubbish. "Too small for anything. Wouldn't even make a decent belt."
A ghostly scream moved among the trees, so low they almost couldn't hear it over the gentle rustling of the leaves.
"Cougar?" Krysty asked, stepping forward, blaster in hand. Nothing was moving amid the trees nearby but a few squirrels. She looked again as one spread its arms, extending the thin membrane between its fore and hind legs, jumped and sailed away. A flying squirrel. The Earth Mother had a strange sense of humor sometimes.
"Killed lots cats," Jak answered, wiping his hands clean on the grass, then a rag. "Never heard that."
"Spider?" Dean asked.
"No vocal cords," Mildred answered, packing away the cheese and drawing her own weapon. "They can't scream. Then again, maybe a mutie can, I don't know."
The cry of anguish came again, louder this time.
"That's human," Ryan said, standing, "and it was coming from the south, not the west."
"Could be the owners of the cats," J.B. said, scooping needles and dirt onto the pile of trash. Exposed food would attract scavengers, and predators would follow.
"Only one way to find out," Ryan replied, gathering his longblaster. "Leave the packs, we'll travel faster. Two yards spread, no talking. Recce only. We find trouble, we back off."
The companions started to gather loose tree branches to toss over the bundles. When the backpacks were safely out of sight, they checked their weapons and started out with Ryan in the lead.
After a few hundred yards, the forest thinned to scrub brush, and the companions heard another cry, female this time, and something else they couldn't quite identify. Angling around a small mesa, they traveled swift and silent through a valley, following the irregular remains of a predark road. The pavement curved around the mesa, disappearing into a collapsed brick tunnel, pieces of trapped cars still sticking out from under the rubble. They could hear several people screaming now, men and women combined, plus some sharp explosions that rolled over the landscape, echoing into the distance.
"Grens?" Jak asked softly.
"Blasters," Dean said, scowling. "Don't know what kind. Odd noise."
"Those are black-powder longblasters," J.B. stated, wrinkling his nose. "I know the stink."
More weapons discharged, closely followed by screams of pain.
"This way," Ryan said, heading into the rosebushes edging the ancient roadway.
Carefully pushing their way through the thorns, the companions exited on the side of a sloping hill overlooking a crescent-shaped lagoon. Palm trees lined the white sand shores, and a large ville of log cabins was surrounded by a stone block wall, made mostly from bricks and sidewalk slabs. A large section of the wall was smashed to pieces, and several of the cabins were on fire, the smoke masking whatever was happening on the shore. Then the wind shifted direction for a moment, exposing the beach and the lagoon.
"Look there, a ship!" Mildred whispered, pointing excitedly.
"More than that, it is a whaling schooner, madam," Doc rumbled. "A windjammer from my own time period. Somebody must have found one intact in a naval museum. By the Three Kennedys, she's a beauty! Look at that rigging. It's in perfect condition."
"Windjammer mean no motor?" Jak asked.
"None. Just sails."
"Smart," the teenager commented. "Wind free."
"And it has cannon," J.B. said, gesturing with the Uzi. "See those hatches along the gunwale? Flip those up and out come the big blasters."
"Artillery?" Dean asked worriedly. "Can they reach us up here?"
"Not black-powder cannon," Ryan answered. "They're short-range weapons, and only fire solid balls of metal. Twenty pounds each or more. We're safe at this distance."
The boy gave a low whistle. "Twenty pounds! That'd chill the spider." J.B. nudged the boy. "Good thinking."
"Ship would need lamps," Mildred offered. "Maybe we could buy some alcohol off them."
"The solution to our problem could be right there," Krysty said, her hair waving uneasily. She wiped sweaty hands on her khaki jumpsuit to dry them.
"More likely it's fish-oil lamps, dear lady," Doc countered, checking the load in the LeMat. "But it can do no harm to ask."
"Worse comes to worst, we could sail back to the continent on a ship that large," Ryan said, rubbing his chin. "If the hull is in good condition. Let's get closer and see why they're fighting. Mebbe we can cut a deal."
"And decide which side we should take," Krysty added.
"If any."
"Winners might be grateful for our help," she reminded.
"Or they may ace us for getting in the way of a private feud," he retorted. "We recce first before doing anything else."
"Safety first, lover," Krysty agreed with a grin.
Slipping and sliding down the red clay of the hillside, the companions crawled through the bushes until reaching the stonework wall. Several bodies lay in pieces on the sandy soil, obvious victims of the blast that opened the wall. Silently they crept to the gaping hole and peeked inside.
Mutilated corpses lay everywhere in bloody disarray. Most had black holes in their chests, some with arms missing, and a few were decapitated, the heads nowhere in sight. The snow-white sand of the beach was crimson in spots from the fresh spilled blood of the bodies hacked into pieces in the shallows. Most wore plain garb of crude tan cloth, the hems only ragged threads. But prominent among the dead were men in good clothing, black boots, pants with patches, white shirts and wide leather belts. Swords lay near the corpses and what looked like crude muskets. One of the sailors had an arrow through his neck, while the other was literally cut in twain from the head down to the ax buried in his groin.
Above the tide marks, laughing men in boots and wide belts were whipping a crowd of men and women whose heavy chains shackled them ankle and neck. Other sailors moved between the prisoners roughly cutting away their clothing, leaving the people stripped naked. One man fought against the treatment and was lashed to the ground by three of the cold-hearts, until his back was a raw mass of bloody flesh hanging loose on his bones.
Oddly the clothing didn't seem to fit these cold-hearts well.
Off to the side, several young women had been stripped and waited weeping in line as the sailors cut the ropes on a woman tied to th
e table and shoved her to the ground. She lay there without moving, her thighs streaked with fresh blood, her face battered and bruised. Krysty muttered a virulent curse as she helplessly watched the next girl dragged to the table and lashed down.
A sailor ran his hands along her flanks and said something the wind carried away. The rest of the men waiting in line laughed at the comment and began to undo their belts.
Only a few dozen yards off the beach was the great wooden ship, the name Constellation masterfully carved into her bow. The ancient ship was fat and wide, the gunwales high above the water. A single titanic mast stood in the middle, supported by a confusing maze of ropes. A squat cabin sat on the rear deck. The vessel was colossal, maybe two hundred feet long by fifty wide. This close they could see that a section of the hull was made of greenwood planks, unlike any other part of the beautiful vessel.
"No," Mildred muttered. "Can't be."
"But it is, madam," Doc growled in barely contained rage, rubbing at the scars on his wrist. "And they're using her as a godforsaken slave galley!"
"The bastards have to die," the physician spit.
A small boat rowed to the ship, a group of the chained prisoners cowering under the watch of the coldhearts armed with huge-bore pistols. The curved hammers of their blasters were set on the side of the barrel and were bigger than a man's thumb.
"Flintlock pistols," J.B. whispered, adjusting the focus on his Navy telescope. "I'd say .75 caliber. Takes thirty seconds to a minute to reload, depending on how good they are."
"Same with the muskets on the ship," Krysty said, squinting into the distance.
Ryan took her word on the matter, knowing that her vision was sharper than most people's.
A well of laughter on the beach caught his attention. A jeering coldheart in fancy clothes was pissing on a chained man being dragged to a roaring fire.
"You can't do this!" the prisoner raged, fighting the chains on his wrists. "We are freeborn!"
The leader of the coldhearts laughed, while another backhanded the skinny man across the face.
"Not anymore," the leader said, sneering. "Hold 'em!"