by James Axler
When Doc inquired as to the nature of the sausage, Cheetah Luis said, “That’s possum blood. Boudin noir don’t get no better than that. Okra and greens come from a garden we got hid out in the meadow.”
The companions ate ravenously until they could hold no more. Soon afterward exhaustion kicked in. Conversation ended. Eyelids drooped. Doc actually nodded off sitting up, and began to snore like a hibernating bear.
“Time for you folks to take your rest,” the Cajun said. He directed the companions toward one of the cave’s communal sleeping chambers. “Plenty of room. Make yourselves comfortable.”
As Mildred walked past, Cheetah Luis pulled her aside and whispered huskily in her ear, “I like my women nice and thick in the behind, just like you. Got me a big soft straw pallet way back in the cave. No one hear us going at it, if you’re fussy about that. You gonna love playing with my balls. They’re big as duck eggs.” He reached over and gave her right breast a pinch through her T-shirt.
J.B., who was watching the attempted seduction from the sleeping quarter’s entrance, unshouldered his pump gun.
Mildred shook her head at him. This was something she could handle herself.
She took hold of Cheetah Luis’s hand and gently lifted it off her breast. With her thumb against his palm, she pressed her fingertips into the back of the hand, pinning nerves against unyielding bone.
As if he were lightning struck, the Cajun dropped to his knees. He let out a piercing yelp.
Mildred kept the pressure on, not letting him break free of the grappling hold, twisting away as he tried to grab her, making him do a little pain dance on his knees. Around and around they went. The doctor hurting, the Cajun knee-dancing.
J.B. looked on uneasily as she reached to her belt for the handle of her sheathed knife. His expression of surprise and dismay snapped her back to reality. Despite the adrenaline coursing through her veins, she stopped herself before drawing the blade.
“What I’m fussy about is getting mauled,” Mildred informed Cheetah Luis. “You mess with me again and I’ll wear your duck-egg balls for earrings.”
She flung his hand aside.
Chapter Fourteen
Curled up in the brush, Junior Tibideau recognized the Cajun talk, too. Few things had the power to frighten the scar-faced cannie. The sound of that accent was one of them.
Cajuns had been waging guerrilla war in the cannie homeland for weeks. When they took cannie prisoners, they didn’t just hand out leech enemas. The black bloodsuckers were a warmup act for the live skinnings, the amputation of limbs with ax blows, the water torture smotherings, the slow burning to ash of the tenderest of body parts.
Junior stood no chance if he fell into their hands.
The companions couldn’t protect him as they had from the ville folk and Sprue’s crew.
The Cajuns would chill them all to get at him.
Junior and his hungry packmates had pillaged southern Louisiana, weeding out the weak Cajuns. They had spread out over predark roadways, tracking down and chilling the ones who had fled the bayous. The Cajuns who managed to remain and survive the genocide were the meanest, the smartest and the most determined of the lot.
When Junior saw the albino stand, he realized his opportunity might be close at hand. As soon as the other norms rose in surrender, he took off on all fours through the bush. Even though he was in mortal danger, Junior found it hard to keep from laughing as he crawled.
It tickled him how easy it was to escape.
Over the sound of his own breathing and the rasp of tree branches against his torso, arms and legs, he couldn’t make out any more of the Cajun talk. He slithered over the low limbs, heading downslope as fast as he could. After a minute or two, when no one shot at him, he stopped crawling. He knew even the slightest movement of the upper branches could give away his position. And he wanted to keep his bearings and stay as close to the road as possible. The road was his lifeline.
When Junior heard the rumble of the wag convoy as it stopped on the highway, he knew help was on the way. Cannie help. When he pushed his head up through the canopy for a quick recce, he saw the Cajuns and the companions hauling ass away from him on a dead run. They knew they were in big trouble.
Busting across the swathe of stunted trees, Junior sprinted after them, confident they wouldn’t hear him in their haste and that they wouldn’t waste time looking back his way. His path intersected the hidden foot trail, which he turned onto, pouring on the speed.
Tibideau wasn’t angry about his kidnapping and subsequent rough treatment by the companions. They had done him no permanent harm. He wasn’t driven by a need for revenge on his captors, but by much stronger forces—a bottomless hunger and an insatiable bloodlust. The human brain, even one clogged and shortcircuited by infiltrating patches of oozie plaque, had the unique ability to rationalize the basest, the most bestial of acts. In Junior’s oozie-distorted reality, the urge to chill and eat his fellow human beings was connected to a sense of entitlement, and a liberation from the few moral and social prohibitions that had survived the nukecaust. With entitlement and liberation came a sense of great personal power, of every mundane burden having been lifted from his shoulders. Junior Tibideau, the cannibal, believed he was more than human, not less.
When he reached the concealed entrance to the tunnel in the brambles the Cajuns had disappeared into, he snapped off some branches to mark the trail for his fellow cannies to follow. This was their chance to mop up the last of the guerrillas, to remove a stubborn thorn from their sides. The famished Junior had another reason for pursuit. The Cajuns and the companions were the closest hot meal.
He slipped into the bush and crawled down the tunnel. Hunger was like a burning spear thrust into his gut and twisted. The pain of starvation animated him. He moved light, quick and as quiet as a spider. Even when the tunnel grew taller, when he stood and started running, he made no noise. Unburdened by weaponry or supplies, he rapidly gained ground on his prey.
Before long he was close enough to hear their muffled footfalls down the path ahead. Slowing to a fast walk, again he stifled the urge to laugh out loud. He not only caught their lingering aroma in the tunnel of trees, he picked out the scent of the one he’d infected, the one called Mildred. He thought he could smell the fever building in her blood. It smelled like sour milk.
Junior moved in short spurts from trunk to trunk, keeping to the edge of the clearing. He maintained a safe distance, making sure he didn’t blunder into any rear guard the Cajuns might have posted.
Looking around on the forest floor, he found a sharply pointed rock. He used it to scratch a wide X into the bark of a tree, this to keep reinforcements on the trail.
When he heard splashing ahead, he broke into a run. He didn’t want to lose his prey in the swamp. By the time he reached the edge of the water, the Cajuns were gone, but the bubbles from their passing were still visible here and there on the murky surface.
As Junior drew an arrow in the mud with the rock, he kicked himself for overlooking something important. His brothers and sister cannies didn’t know who was marking the path for them; they might think they were being led into a trap. They had plenty of reason to think that. Cajuns loved constructing ambushes, deadfalls and spiked-lined pits.
The cannie drew the point of the rock across his palm, opening a shallow, superficial wound. He squeezed his hand, letting his blood drip and splatter on the mud beside the arrow. The cannies would recognize who was marking the path by the taste and smell of it. And they would know it was safe for them to follow.
Junior slipped into the water, careful not to splash, but advancing quickly to keep up with the bubble trail before it disappeared. Soon he was lost in a maze of mangrove-lined canals and tiny, marshy islands that were little more than high points on the mudflat. He didn’t know where he was, or where he was going, but he knew he was close behind the Cajuns. He marked the twists and turns in their route by dragging the edge of the rock along trailing branches, stri
pping loose long curlicues of bark.
As he rounded one of the islands, he saw a small animal swimming toward him, its head out of the water. It looked to be about twenty pounds, with densely packed, four-inch whiskers and a long, hairless tail. It was a nutria.
Before the Apocalypse, the aquatic, vegetarian rodent had been hunted and trapped for its pelt to the tune of two million critters a year. Post-Apocalypse, with no limit on their population, the Louisiana nutria had made a big comeback. So had the gators and cottonmouths who preyed on them.
If the gigantic gator hunkered down in a spot of sun on the far bank hadn’t shifted its head to follow the overgrown rat as it swam by, Junior might have missed it. The cannie was wading in water over his hips, completely vulnerable to attack.
The nutria looked at the gator. The gator looked at Junior, its nostrils pointing at him.
A little blood was still seeping from Junior’s palm.
The gator forgot all about the nutria. It lunged into the water with a monstrous splash.
Junior turned and swam for the nearest high ground. He wasn’t alone. Both he and the nutria scrambled onto the same tiny island, over the mangrove roots and up into the limbs as high as they could get.
From its precarious perch, the dripping rodent blinked and sniffed at him. Though it was terrified of Junior, it was more terrified of what lay below.
Unable to reach them, the gator slapped its tail in frustration.
Junior took aim and threw his rock as hard as he could. The stone thudded against the top of the gator’s head. The blow didn’t dissuade it in the least. The gator opened its yard-long mouth and hissed from deep in its throat.
Having gotten its attention, Junior reared back with his right boot and kicked the nutria out of the branches.
The rodent squealed as it hit the water, it squealed louder as it tried desperately to climb back to safety.
The gator surged forward and snapped its jaws shut. For a moment the nutria’s head protruded from between interlocking, dagger-like teeth. The gator flipped the limp body around in its maw, then with its snout straight up in the air, gulped and swallowed it whole.
Junior seized the opportunity to take his leave. He slipped away from the far side of the little island, dog-paddling with grim determination.
Chapter Fifteen
Troubled, ominous dreams haunted Mildred’s sleep. She ran down dark, winding hospital corridors, through slicks of congealed blood and piles of soiled, septic bandages, past overturned gurneys and mounds of decaying, white-gowned bodies. All of the dead had been operated upon. Bristling rows of black stitches ringed their shaved heads, or zippered their loins from hip to hip, or divided their torsos, goobers to gullet. From the hall’s doorways, wide-eyed, puffy-faced children Mildred couldn’t save pleaded for their lives. Even lost in the nightmare, the symbolism was obvious to her. Failed medicine. Failed science. Failed civilization.
The end of all hope.
For the third time in what seemed like seconds, Mildred jerked wide awake, gasping and drenched with sweat. Her head throbbed as if it was going to burst. Her stomach felt queasy and there was an awful, bitter taste in her mouth. When she put the back of her hand to her forehead, it was on fire.
With difficulty Mildred forced herself to sit up on the lumpy, rag-stuffed mattress. A single torch lit the low-ceilinged, Cajun sleeping chamber. On the other side of the dim, smoky room, she could just make out Ryan and Krysty cuddled in each other’s arms on a stone bench. Six feet apart, Doc and Sprue lay on their backs on the floor, playing a snore duet. J.B. was curled up on a straw pallet at her feet.
Unwell in the midst of her trusted, oblivious companions, Mildred felt suddenly, utterly alone. The first stirrings of panic tickled deep in the back of her throat.
Was this how the oozies started? she thought. Was it all downhill from here?
Gritting her teeth, she forced her mind to clear. She made herself think like the trained physician she was. She followed that deeply ingrained, scientific regimen. From the data at hand, she drew a set of objective, logical conclusions. That she had a fever was obvious; the cause was not. It could have come from any number of possible sources. A few drops of polluted swamp water could have gotten into her mouth. Some of the food the Cajuns had served could have been spoiled. It could have been an allergic reaction to all the insect bites she’d suffered. It could even have been the effect of head trauma—after all, she had been knocked unconscious twice in the space of a day.
Could have been.
How will I know when it’s the oozies and not just a bad case of swamp fever or ptomaine poisoning? she asked herself. How will I know when it’s too late?
These were questions she wished could have asked Junior Tibideau. Not that she could have completely trusted his answers. But any information was better than what she had now.
She leaned her forehead on her knees, trying to block out the stabbing pain behind her eyes. The cave walls and ceiling seemed to close in on her, first pressing against her skin, then compressing her rib cage, making it hard to breathe. She had to get some fresh air or she was going to pass out.
Mildred stepped around J.B. without waking him. Her knees felt rubbery and loose, as though they were about to give way under her. She staggered out of the cave entrance into the sweltering night.
She leaned back against the hillside’s vine-draped bedrock, inhaling deeply, trying to slow her thudding heart.
A soft crunch came from her left.
Adrenaline flooded Mildred’s veins and as she whirled toward the sound, her hand closed on her pistol butt.
A pale, white-haired figure stepped closer.
“Dammit, Jak, you scared me.”
The albino didn’t apologize, which was not unusual.
“You’re not sleeping, either?” Mildred said. “Aren’t you tired?”
The albino didn’t answer. He either wasn’t going to respond or he was collecting his thoughts. Mildred sagged against the bedrock, too exhausted to repeat the question.
“Not want come back after last time,” Jak said at last, in that telegraphic, stripped-down patois of his. “Not want see this place again.”
“Bad memories fade, sooner or later,” Mildred assured him. “Scars heal.”
“Not here,” the albino told her. “Nothing left here but bad. Good folks chilled or chased off by cannies. Farms burned. Levees busted. Swamp taking over…”
All Mildred could manage was a sympathetic grunt. She was remembering in great detail her full-color nightmare. Her helplessness. The weight of her despair. Suddenly she felt much, much worse. Hotter. Weaker. Jak’s mane of white hair shimmered in front of her eyes and she thought she was going to black out. “Water,” she said. “You got water?”
Jak passed her a plastic bottle and she drank deep, trying to put out the fire in her chest. Then she splashed it inside her T-shirt and on top of her head. It cooled her and revived her.
Was it her imagination or was Jak looking at her strangely? It was hard to read those eyes of his, even in broad daylight. Perhaps he had noticed something odd in the way she moved or talked. Perhaps he was looking for early signs of the onset of the Gray Death. She couldn’t bring herself to tell him how terrible she felt.
“Hot night,” she said as she passed the bottle back.
It was also humid and deathly still. She could hear the drops of her own sweat pelting the ground at her feet. From the south, in the direction of the Gulf of Mexico, chain lightning crackled across the night sky. In the wake of the flash, Mildred noticed something odd. The dark belly of cloud was underlit by a subtle flickering. Orange. Erratic. Distant.
She blinked her eyes, and it was still there. Worried that it might be an hallucination, a symptom of her advancing delirium, Mildred pointed it out to Jak. “What’s going on over there?” she said as thunder rumbled on and on.
“Sea on fire.”
“What?”
“Leaks gas wells in Gulf. Fifty, hundr
ed miles out. Fireballs all day and…”
Jak stopped himself in midsentence.
Mildred immediately sensed his tension. A chill rippled up her sweaty spine. Those ruby-red eyes of his could penetrate deep into the darkness, just like a cat’s. Mildred’s pulse began to pound.
“What’s wrong?” she said.
Jak didn’t answer.
Then she saw the Cajun sentries sprinting back through the trees as if the devil was on their heels.
KRYSTY LAY CURLED UP in her lover’s arms. Nuzzling into the side of his neck, she breathed in his familiar, masculine scent. She drifted in and out of sleep, unable to slip off for long because of the intermittent bursts of snoring from the floor beside her. Though she was bone-tired, Krysty didn’t mind the disturbance that much. Moments of security and peace for her and the companions were few and far between; recuperation time measured in minutes or hours, rarely days.
As sweet as it was for her to doze warm and protected in the eye of the storm, in the back of her mind she couldn’t help but think about the mission at hand. Like all natural-born Deathlanders, the idea of sickness alarmed her. It was something that couldn’t be fought with main strength, with blaster or blade. Its threat was invisible and often lethal. It struck down even the strongest, and when struck, they died like dogs.
Post-nukecaust, the whitecoat arsenal of vaccinations and antibiotics that had kept epidemics at bay for three-quarters of a century were no more. Cholera, typhus and small pox had reemerged as cyclic decimators the remnants of humanity. The fall of civilization had reopened what Doc Tanner called a “Pandora’s box” of evils. By Mildred’s guess, medical science had been turned back to 150 years before the Apocalypse. To even before Doc’s time. Hard-won facts about sanitation, hygiene and disease vectors had been forgotten or discarded, in part because of the desperation of the survivors.
Resurgent illnesses followed the hellscape’s trade routes, wiping out entire villes in a matter of weeks. That was another reason Deathlanders constructed perimeter berms. Newcomers were inspected before they were allowed inside to mingle with ville folk. The obviously sick were kept out. Sometimes they were chilled on sight and their bodies burned downwind.