by James Axler
“Mother Nature would be cruel indeed, if she granted the lowly dung beetle any kind of a taste bud.”
“Amen to that!”
Splashing some shine on a rag, Mildred made crude masks for herself and J.B. to keep back the smell of the decomposing bodies, along with any possible infections. They packed the gaping wounds with handfuls of salt from the desert, then did the same to mouths and noses of the corpses before rearranging the clothing to hide the gaps. Denied their juicy meal, the flies soon left, buzzing loudly in annoyance.
Cutting a blanket into pieces, Jak wrapped two sections around his moccasins to disguise his tracks, then used the rest to sweep the desert clean of any trace of the stickie or the horses for a hundred paces. The teenager couldn’t remove every print, but that should be enough for any cursory inspection.
Finished with the grisly task, J.B. got an empty water skin from his horse and filled it near the base of the waterfall. “Never can tell when this could come in handy,” the man said, corking the sloshing leather sack tight before returning it to a saddlebag.
“Just don’t get it confused with the good water,” Ryan said with a scowl. The man said nothing more, but his dislike of using poison was readily evident. Ryan would do whatever was necessary to stay alive, but if at all possible he preferred a straight fight to ambushing somebody from behind. It had nothing to do with machismo or chivalry or even some outdated code of knightly honor. The feelings went deeper than that. They were primordial, something that came from his very bones, that made attacking an enemy without a warning seem foul and cowardly. There were just some things a man couldn’t do and still consider himself human.
“If we ever find the source, the stuff they put into the water might make an excellent anesthesia for surgery,” Mildred said, removing her mask and stuffing it into a pocket. “But more than likely, the pure version of the compound would kill us faster than a drain-cleaner martini.”
“That useful, too,” Jak said with a grin.
Finished with the tableau around the waterfall and lake, the companions led their horses behind a nearby dune, with Jak wiping out the tracks. Setting up the tent, they covered it with sand as camouflage, then settled in to wait, watch and hope for the best. Unable to risk a campfire, dinner was cold rabbit with dandelion greens and onions. Dessert was half an apple each, primarily to kill the smell of the onions. If they had to do a nightcreep later, it wouldn’t be smart for them to have breath detectable a yard away in the dark.
In gradual stages, the heat of the day faded with the setting of the sun, and the familiar cold of the desert closed around the companions, making them huddle closer together, thankful for the sand dune at their back. Slowly, a full moon rose into the velvety sky, a billion stars twinkling like jewels in the firmament. Mildred had lived in a time when city lights blocked the grandeur of the nighttime sky.
The following day, the companions went hunting in the dunes and returned with only a few lizards. Those were skinned and consumed raw. Hardly appetizing, but the meager food quelled the rumbling in their stomachs. However, the horses wanted more than their small ration of grain and apples, and loudly made their wishes known. With no other choice, the companions gave the animals the rest of the grain. If nothing happened this night, somebody would have to ride back to the forest in the morning to forage for fresh supplies.
The day faded into night, and the companions were huddled under the tent, Doc and Jak snoring softly, when a new sound could be dimly heard in the distance. At first Ryan thought it was a coming rainstorm, then Krysty sat bolt upright and shook everybody awake.
Quickly, the companions grabbed their weapons and scrambled out of the tent to crawl around the dune just in time to see a pair of electric lights bouncing along the ground and coming this way, the mechanical growl slowly increasing in volume. Motorcycles!
Relaying messages with hand signals, Ryan had every body stay low to the ground to reduce their silhouettes against the starry sky. Reaching for the Navy telescope, Ryan frowned and changed the action to scratching his hip. It was difficult to see very clearly, the halogen headlights of the bikes almost blindingly bright in the darkness. However, the moonlight reflected off the waterfall and lake, allowing the one-eyed man to vaguely see a cargo van traveling with them, its headlights turned off to keep it masked in shadows.
A body wag for sleepers, Ryan reasoned, his hands tightening on the flintlock. This had to be Big Joe.
Leaving the bikes running, the riders got off and walked toward the still forms on the shore of the lake. Each was carrying a wooden club and a net for capturing the sleepers alive in case they were starting to come around.
Kneeling, the riders started to turn over the bodies when they cried out in surprise.
“Nuking hell!” a man gasped. “This bitch is cold as snow. These fuckers have been aced for days!”
“Look at these wounds! Now, why would anybody pack the fragging bodies in salt to kill the smell?” the second man asked in a terse whisper, then his voice came back strong. “Nuke me running, this is a trap!”
Instantly, the headlights of the van blazed on, brightly illuminating a swatch of empty desert. “Move!” somebody yelled from inside the wag. “I got your six!”
But at the exact moment the two riders charged for their bikes, there came a couple of soft twangs from the direction of a sand dune and arrows slammed into them. Staggering from the impacts, the men tried to draw blasters, and two more arrows pierced their throats, the shafts fully coming out the other side to dive into the lake.
“Hot damn, it’s them again!” a man cursed from the van, and the engine of the wag surged into life, the tires briefly spinning in the loose sand before finding traction. In a spray of salty particles, the wag shot away from the lake, knocking over one of the purring motorcycles in the driver’s frantic haste to escape.
Standing tall, Jak flipped over the hatchet in his hand and threw it hard. Perfectly aimed, the wooden shaft slammed into the rear of the cargo van, making an enormous bang. Inside the wag, cursing people began firing blasters randomly, lances of flame stabbing into the darkness. Fishtailing the wag to dodge any additional arrows, the driver continued to accelerate until the wag vanished in the distance.
Scrambling out of hiding, the companions converged on the fallen men and the bikes. Going to the first rider, Ryan checked for any sign of life, but the man was still.
“Aced!” Ryan announced.
“Same here!” Krysty replied, kneeling alongside the second figure.
Quickly searching the body for any weapons, Ryan found a police gun belt carrying a regulation S&W .38 revolver, the loops full of live brass, and incredibly, a large blade tucked into a makeshift sheath. It was the panga!
“These are our thieves!” Ryan announced, checking the warm body for anything else before taking the gun belt and knife.
There was something in a pocket that smelled like beef jerky, but in the poor light Ryan decided not to risk a taste. The man had gone this long in life without eating long pig, and Ryan planned to keep it that way.
“Nothing of ours on this one,” Krysty muttered, slinging another police gun belt over a shoulder.
The blaster was huge, a .357 Magnum revolver. Drawing the blaster, she cracked the cylinder to check the brass. They were all reloads, but expertly done.
“I have a .357 Magnum blaster here, lover,” Krysty said. “That’s too big for me. What did you find?”
“Police .38 Special. Want to swap?”
“Please!”
Eagerly, the man and woman made the exchange and inspected their new weapons.
“These bikes are fine!” J.B. grunted, hoisting the fallen machine back on its wheels.
The sidecar clattered as it hit the ground. Warily, J.B. checked inside and a heavy curtain attached to some chains. To drag along behind to mask the tire tracks? Smart. However, there also was a fuel canister and a pair of stained leather gloves. Gloves to handle fuel? Sniffing hard, J.B. co
uldn’t detect any aroma of gas, shine or even juice from the canister. Instead, there was a sweet smell, almost like moss freshly washed by a summer rain.
It was the poison! With a snarl, J.B. gingerly took one of the gloves and hauled the canister out of the sidecar and threw it away. Going to the second bike, the man again found a blanket and chains, along with a heavy canister in the sidecar. However, this container smelled right and proved to be filled with juice for the bikes.
Suddenly, they heard the sound of hoofbeats, and Jak came riding around the sand dune, closely followed by Doc and Mildred.
“Think they have enough of a head start?” Ryan asked, slinging the canvas belt across his chest like a bandolier, then buckling the gun belt around his waist. The weight of the .357 Magnum felt good. Then Ryan grunted at the realization that the coldheart had been left-handed. The holster was on the wrong damn side.
“More than enough distance,” Jak stated, listening for any sound of the vehicle on the evening breeze. “No way hear us coming now.”
“Indeed, Mr. Lauren, but can you follow their trail in the moonlight?” Doc asked, reining in his mount. The animal didn’t like the smell of fresh blood and kept trying to shy away from the warm bodies.
Dismissing that with a snort, Jak shook the reins to trot forward, then slid off the saddle to recover his hatchet. Climbing back onto the stallion, the albino youth kicked his mount into a full gallop and started after the cargo van. Staying close, Doc and Mildred flanked Jak, while Ryan climbed on one of the bikes, and Krysty took the other. Unhappily, J.B. got into a sidecar, cradling the massive pepperbox.
Sliding the longblaster into a gun boot set alongside the front yoke, Ryan kicked the engine alive and tested the throttle and brakes a few times, then studied the dashboard and turned off the headlight before pushing back the kickstand and roaring away. Doing the same, Krysty stayed right alongside the man, and they drove into the night, leaving the moonlit waterfall far behind.
As Ryan bent low in the saddle, the tire tracks of the predark wag were as readily discernable to Jak as footprints on the beach. The van was riding low, the tires making deep depressions in the hard-packed sand, which meant that it was either hauling a lot of folks to a routine check of the trap, which seemed unlikely, or else it was armored, which was much more believable. However, that made the wag that much easier to follow. The first couple of miles were tricky, as the driver clearly knew what he was doing, driving through a shallow creek, then over some rocky soil, and even doubling back on himself once, but those were old tricks to the bayou hunter, and soon he could see the twin halogen headlights of the cargo van bouncing through the night. Then, the lights winked out. Jak grunted. Nice try, but it was far too late for that trick now.
Staying at a safe distance, Jak followed the trail of the wag into a muddy swamp that soon changed into a proper jungle with giant ferns everywhere, and trees festooned with vines and colorful flowers. Soon the tree branches closed overhead, blocking out most of the moonlight, and Jak began to have trouble seeing the ground. However, he was still able to catch sight of a crushed plant here, or some disturbed leaves there, and still follow the wag, although at a much slower rate.
In the darkness around the albino teen, things rustled through the leaves, an owl hooted from a low branch, a creature ran along the treetops and something small briefly screamed in mortal agony, then was abruptly silenced as whatever had aced the creature began to noisily feast.
“Easy, boy, easy,” Jak spoke gently to the horse, rubbing its neck with his good arm and scratching behind its ears. The tense animal whinnied softly in response and relaxed a little, but it was clear the animal didn’t want to be here.
Gradually, the ground became a solid carpet of roots, and Jak drew a knife and kept it ready in his hand. The last time he had seen a jungle like this the companions had encountered a puppetmaster, a horrid mutie that sank tiny roots into the living flesh of a person until they reached the brain. The plant took over the body and used the norm, mutie or even an animal as an unwilling slave until they starved to death, then the rotting corpse would be walked to someplace private to simply lie down and rot to become fertilizer for its hellish master. In his opinion, it was quite literally a fate worse than death. However, Jak knew that puppet-masters hated machines, so the area was probably clear. But the teen kept a good grip on the knife, planning to slit his own throat before becoming a puppet for a nuke-sucking hellflower.
Soon, the vines and roots began to thin, and irregular pieces of a cracked pavement began to appear, along with the crumbling remains of some predark buildings set amid the lush greenery. Relaxing slightly, Jak realized that this was the outskirts of a town, which meant he was dangerously close to their base.
Slowing his mount, Jak waited for the other companions to join him before proceeding. There was safety in numbers, especially when dealing with folks who loved traps and poison. Chuffing softly in the gloom, the three horses moved easily over the tangled roots, but the two bikes had a hard time bouncing over the constant obstructions. Hunkered down in the sidecar, J.B. was hugging the pepperbox as if drawing strength from the weapon, and looked just about ready to explode, or get sick, it could easily go either way.
Unexpectedly, the roots abruptly stopped and there was a paved road ahead of the companions. Staying under the canopy of the trees, they scrutinized the ruins ahead. There were houses, offices, stores and factories, a typical Midwest ville. Except that now everything was heavily overgrown with ivy and weeds. What few windows were still intact were gray from decades of accumulated dirt. Most doors hung from a single hinge; the rest of the doorways gaped open like hungry mouths waiting for innocent explorers to wander inside. There were no wags on any of the streets, the wrecks probably harvested for spare parts. None of the buildings in sight were over five stories tall, several of them obviously sliced off at the height from violent wind shear.
“Gotta be a rad pit somewhere nearby, say fifty miles at the most,” J.B. warned, forcing himself not to glance at the rad counter no longer on his lapel. “And it must be a huge one.”
Proceeding warily along the side of the road, the companions kept a sharp watch out for any traps, but the van hadn’t made any detours along this stretch. It charged straight down the middle of the road until reaching a wide intersection, then it turned left so fast, it was traveling on only two tires for a short stretch.
“Move fast. Scared?” Jak asked with a frown.
“Not of us,” Ryan noted bluntly, throttling down the engine. “But they were triple-scared of whoever the frag they thought attacked them at the waterfall.”
“The enemy of my enemy,” Doc rumbled in offering.
“Is still my fragging enemy,” J.B. retorted, stepping out of the sidecar. The man stretched, his joints creaking and popping. “Okay, let’s recce this place, find those sons of bitches and start some chilling!”
Easing down from her horse, Mildred was taken aback by the harsh tone in the man’s voice, then realized that if somebody had stolen her hands, she would have moved heaven and earth to get them back. J.B. was clearly feeling very vulnerable. That was probably why he seemed somewhat distant to her in the tent the previous night. As a physician, she understood the basic psychology. A man needed to feel important somehow to the woman he was attracted to: physically strong, rich, smart, honest, funny, brave, whatever. If that was taken away, he could suddenly feel vulnerable and retreat within himself. An angry man had no real friends but solitude. She wanted to shake J.B. back to reality but knew it would do no good. The man had no reason to feel inferior. During the fight with the slavers, a nearly blind J.B. had whipped up a bomb out of odds and ends and blown a dozen of the bastards straight to hell. John Barrymore Dix wouldn’t be rendered helpless if you ripped off his arms and legs. Pride swelled in Mildred at the thought, and she started to reach out a comforting hand to the man, but wisely stopped and changed the gesture to pat her horses. The male ego…sheesh!
Adva
ncing slowly, the companions tried to stay in the shadows as protection from snipers. Turning a corner, Ryan found himself looking up a scrupulously clean boulevard. The potholes had been patched, the windblown debris swept away and even the ivy had been neatly chopped off at the curb.
“This is a shatterzone,” J.B. said softly.
Silently, Ryan nodded agreement. The road was a chill zone, an open patch of ground offering nothing for an invader to hide behind as cover. This was a trap for fools. Or was it a diversion to make a wise person avoid the road and keep to the sidewalk? Studying the concrete blocks ahead, Ryan noted that several of them were different colors, and one had a leaf jammed between the edge of the concrete and the curb. Mantraps. One step on those and the fake concrete block would flip over on a pivot, and down you’d go, probably to get impaled on spikes.
“Get razor, people,” Krysty said, her hair flexing and curling nervously. “That has to be their base.”
Situated at the far end of the boulevard was a brick building situated on top of a small hill, the sides completely solid, the windows blocked with multicolored bricks from other buildings. There had once been letters carved into the granite lintel above the bronze front door, but now it was masked by the ever-present ivy. However, flanking the front door was a Roman catapult and Civil War siege cannon. Ryan almost smiled at that. This was some sort of a military museum! That would explain the origin of the flintlocks and pepper-boxes. Fulminating mercury percussion caps for cartridges were a bitch to make these days, but any damn fool could hammer a chunk of flint into a triangle for a black-powder flintlock.
“Big Joe must have busted in to steal the exhibits to equip his crew with blasters,” Mildred muttered in grudging admiration. “Using the past to arm the future. That’s pretty smart.”
“What that?” Jak asked with a scowl.
Some sort of machine had crashed and burned directly before the building, and even in the bright moonlight, it was impossible to tell what the thing had once been.