Tainted Cascade

by James Axler

  “Shut the frag up!” Rose yelled, waving the Uzi around, the stream of 9-mm rounds randomly slapping into wags, horses, the aced droid and numerous vehicles. A military tire deflated, only to automatically seal the hole and reinflate itself with quick-hardening foam.

  Trying for Petrov, Jak fired his two blasters but only caught a stickie, the mutie doubling over to expel the ghastly contents of its stomach onto the drying retardant. The smell of the two was beyond description, and Jak gagged, trying not to vomit.

  Unexpectedly, the sideview mirror on a nearby Corvette exploded, one of the coldhearts mistakenly shooting at the reflection of the teenager. Returning to the attack, Jak felt a surge of adrenaline and such minor considerations as nauseating smells were temporarily banished from his mind.

  Leaping on top of a wag, a stickie crouched as if to jump on Ryan, and the one-eyed man fired both blasters, the combined discharges sending the mutie flying away to smack into the side of the APC, its bones audibly breaking.

  Firing his scattergun one barrel at a time, J.B. chilled two more stickies, then knelt to reload when he saw a section of the empty access tunnel move.

  J.B. squinted hard and fired a single barrel. Something bellowed in pain, and piss-yellow blood hit the wall to reveal a familiar outline. Dark night, he thought.

  “Wendigo in the tunnel!” J.B. shouted, firing again, trying for the head. But against the smooth monotone walls of the redoubt, the creature was virtually invisible, and the spray hit nothing this time but empty air.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Reloading even faster than before, J.B. wondered if the wendigo could have herded the stickies along like advance troops to weaken the enemy. He hoped not, because if the mutie was that smart they were chilled already.

  Just then, the bedraggled Walker droid limped into the garage, propelled by a single working leg. The mystery of how the stickies got inside the redoubt solved, Ryan carefully aimed the longblaster and put the last Magnum round into the machine. The titanic bullet punched completely through the crippled droid, sending out a spray of wires and gears. Once more, the droid went still, and hydraulic fluid dribbled from a score of cracks in the deformed chassis.

  Triggering his rapid-fire in single shots, Doc maintained a steady discharge, while Mildred reloaded. Then she started shooting while Doc reloaded. Moving and fighting in tight unison as if they had been doing it for a hundred years, the former school teacher and the physician began to slaughter the remaining stickies.

  Closely watching the dirt floor, Jak saw some of the retardant move, and he promptly triggered both of his blasters, aiming high. Hit both times, the wendigo roared, its fur rippling with colors and corporate logos as it ran along the line of cars and trucks.

  “Did…did they say a wendigo?” Charlie asked in a tight whisper, frantically shoving fresh rounds into the Czech ZKR.

  “Yeah, they did,” Petrov growled, casting away a spent rotary clip for the Steyr. “Okay, new plan. Let’s get the frag out of here.”

  “Are you crazy?” Charlie demanded, closing the cylinder. “We’ll never get past these people. Not to mention the stickies and wendy!”

  “Not even gonna try,” Petrov replied, glancing sideways. “They can dance with the muties forever for all I care. We’ll take the stairs and leave by the back door. Thal found it on the map, fifth floor, little room with six walls. That’s the secret exit.”

  Tucking the hammerless S&W revolver into his gun belt, Charlie grinned widely. “Now you’re talking!” Sprinting low and fast around the tank, the coldheart snapped off a couple of shots from the Czech ZKR at the companions while passing by the elevator bank. Krysty cried out as her rapid-fire was torn from her grip, and Doc jerked from the passing of lead so close to his cheek that he briefly felt the heat.

  Putting two more rounds into a stickie that was blocking his way, Charlie grabbed the handle to the stairwell door, then foolishly paused to yell for his friends to follow. A longblaster cut loose, and the coldheart jerked from the passage of the 7.62-mm round through his body, his lifeblood splashing on the wall. With a gurgling sigh, Charlie slumped to the floor, the Czech blaster tumbling from his limp fingers.

  Happily lunging for the body, another stickie began to messily feed, when Rose stepped out from behind a military wag and chilled the mutie with a tight burst from the Uzi.

  Putting two more 12-gauge cartridges into the wendigo, J.B. dived over a chilled stickie and landed in a mad scramble, his boots slipping on the foamy floor. Bellowing loudly, the furry mutie chased after the two-legs, backhanding a civilian wag out of the way.

  As the wendigo strode forward, J.B. reached the fuel pump in the corner. Hoping it was primed, the man yanked off the nozzle and squeezed the release lever just as he thumbed a butane lighter into action. The rush of gasoline ignited into a column of flame, and J.B. swept the makeshift flamethrower over the wendigo.

  Engulfed in flames, the creature howled in agony, its tentacles lashing about to smash the hood of a wag and rip the light fixtures from the ceiling. Grimly, J.B. maintained the stream of fire, even though his hand was already beginning to feel uncomfortably warm on the metal nozzle.

  Grabbing a detached car hood, the wendigo raised it as a shield, and J.B. simply shifted the stream of fire onto its exposed legs, the thick fur instantly catching on fire.

  As the snarling wendigo raised the shield to throw at the man, Ryan stepped into view and sent five thundering rounds from his handblaster into the beast.

  As the howling wendigo fell to the floor, every stickie in the garage started to hoot insanely as they converged on the area, eagerly trying to reach the stream of pretty, pretty fire.

  Trapped in a corner, J.B. desperately switched hands again, trying to hose both the onrushing stickies and the wendigo.

  Seeing this as the perfect chance to escape, Petrov rummaged in the munitions bag for any more pipe bombs, but only found a couple of road flares. Twisting off the top, he scratched them alive, then tossed the flares inside a nearby stack of spare tires, the rubber old and rotting. At first, the material simply melted a little, then the softened tires burst into flames, issuing an amazing amount of thick, black smoke. Instantly, the remaining coldhearts broke cover and charged for the stairwell door.

  Finished reloading, Ryan took aim and blew a chunk out of the groin of a stickie, then kneecapped the wendigo. But the huge beast had slithered to the corpse of a horse and it didn’t stop eating, its clawed hands dripping gore as it ripped the horse apart. Already it seemed larger and more heavily muscled, the missing patches of fur coming back with astonishing speed.

  Just then, the rest of the companions arrived from amid the rows of vehicles, their blasters unleashing a withering hail of death. Caught between the fire and the blasters, the stickies were ruthlessly slaughtered, torn asunder and roasted alive.

  When the last hooting mutie fell, Ryan and the others turned their full attention to the wendigo. As their bullets tore away chunks of its hide, the creature stood and bellowed with new strength, then J.B. set it ablaze once more.

  By now sweat was pouring off his face, and J.B. held the nozzle with both hands, the tendons in his neck protruding from the awful strain of keeping the agonizing grip. There was a faint smell in the air of roasting pork, and J.B. knew that was him starting to cook.

  Appearing out of nowhere, Jak grabbed the hot nozzle, his hands wrapped in the deerskin jacket. Thankfully, J.B. relinquished control to the albino teen and stepped back from the fiery torrent, carefully flexing his blistered palms in a mound of cool retardant.

  Standing, the wendigo roared with renewed life, and Doc swung up his rapid-fire to jam the stock against the armored side of the APC, gritted his teeth and pulled the trigger. The strident boom of the shotgun blast torn the mutie apart, and it slumped to the floor.

  Stepping in close, Ryan kicked the head free, and Mildred shot it twice, then Jak covered the creature with fire, sweeping the stream back and forth, until the wendigo
was a blazing inferno. Sluggishly, the mutie tried to rise, but Krysty emptied the clip of her AK-47 into its tattered chest, and the wendigo dropped to the floor, unmoving.

  Jak released the nozzle with obvious pleasure. The teen was drenched with sweat, the deerskin jacket giving off the appetizing aroma of a venison roast.

  “Well, I don’t trust this tricky bastard as far as I can throw an APC,” J.B. growled, pulling out the WP gren. “Start running, people! It’s going to get mighty hot in here!”

  Hopping over the aced stickies, the companions charged through the rows of battered cars. When they were far enough away, J.B. yanked the safety pin, released the arming lever and tossed the canister on top of the burning wendigo. Then he turned and raced through the maze of wags as fast as he could.

  Circling the tank, J.B. found the rest of the companions waiting there. He started to say something when an incandescent light grew from the other side of the armored machine, and a searing wave of unbelievable heat filled the air of the garage. The fire alarm clanged for only a moment before cutting off, overwhelmed by the volcanic heat of the military gren. Then the ceiling cut loose with a fresh deluge of retardant foam, but it seemed to have no effect whatsoever on the hellish corona of the white phosphorous.

  However, over by the door to the stairwell, the burning stack of tires went out, the thick cloud of dirty smoke washed clean from the atmosphere.

  Staying on the lee side of the tank, the sopping-wet companions sloshed through the descending foam to reach the body of the coldheart. Moving fast, they stripped the corpse of its possessions, returning everything he carried to the original owners.

  “Where did the rest of them go?” Krysty growled, her hair flexing wildly. The woman was disgusted at the filthy condition of her bearskin coat and hammerless S&W Model 640 revolver, but was delighted to have the items back.

  “Took stairs,” Jak stated, indicating the footprints disappearing in the downpour of retardant. There were only three of his leaf-blade throwing knives on the coldheart, but it felt good to him to have some familiar steel in his belt again.

  Across the garage, some of the fiberglass wags were beginning to melt, then the fuel pump exploded into a geyser of flame, that cut off instantly as the safety valve engaged. Slowly, the glare of the white phosphorous died away, and as the heat diminished, the foam cut off.

  “Where do you think they went?” Mildred asked, checking over the Czech ZKR blaster before tucking it into a pocket. The Brazilian Taurus was a good gun, but nothing beat the perfect balance of the ZKR. To the physician it was like the difference between an ax and a scalpel.

  “They’re probably going down,” J.B. said, vigorously cleaning his glasses on a shirttail, looking for an exit. Sliding his glasses on, the man blinked, then smiled broadly.

  “Now, let’s get back the rest of our stuff,” the Armorer declared, slapping Ryan on the back.

  “SHITFIRE, BEAR, there’s no exit tunnel in here,” Rose snarled, looking around the antechamber of the mat-trans unit. “There’s nothing here but something that looks like somebody’s idea of a shitter!”

  “Sadly, you seem to be correct,” Thal muttered, curiously stepping into the unit and glancing around. There was a keypad on the wall, but he knew better than to fool with one of those, especially in a mil base, and quickly stepped out of the unit.

  Oddly, the big coldheart thought he had heard a thumping noise come from the floor just before he did, but as he listened intently, the sound didn’t come again. Bad plumbing?

  “You’re right, this is a waste,” Petrov said, turning around and heading for the door. “Let’s head for the basement.”

  “And if there’s nothing there?” Rose demanded, starting across the antechamber.

  “Well, then we go back to the garage and finish off those bastard outlanders!”

  “Now you’re talking,” Thal grumbled, touching his bloody cheek.

  Stepping through the door, the coldhearts stopped talking as they crossed the room full of comps. The blinking lights on the complex control panels frightened them quite a lot, although nobody would admit it.

  Back in the outer hallway, Petrov took the lead and marched directly for the stairwell, when they heard a musical ding. At the far end of the hall, the elevator doors opened and out rolled a thick cloud of smoke, then blasters started firing nonstop.

  Diving for the floor, the coldhearts returned fire, crawling forward to find cover inside some of the offices along the way. Then the elevator doors closed, and it began moving again.

  “Guess we scared them off,” Petrov said, not really believing it himself. Then he caught a whiff of the smoke. Rubber. The elevator had been full of burning wag tires. But that didn’t make any sense…unless the blasterfire had actually just been some spare brass stuffed into the rubber before it was set ablaze. It was a diversion!

  Spinning, the leader of the Pig Iron Gang started to shout a warning to the others, when the door to the stairwell slammed open and out poured the companions with every weapon firing. Snarling in rage, Petrov got off a single shot from the scattergun, then something slammed into his chest and pain filled his world, but not for very long.

  Epilogue

  Arriving at the ruins of Modine, Dunbar and Fenton parked their motorcycles near a wild tangle of jungle that had once been a public park, then took a moment to top up their gas tanks from their jerricans.

  “Where do we start looking for Ryan and his gang?” Dunbar asked, flexing his aching hands. Riding a hog always looked like fun, much better than a horse, but it was hard work. A man could rest on a horse, even sleep a little, and trust that the animal would stay alert and not ride off a cliff. That wasn’t true for a machine, and his entire body ached from the rough ride through the rocky terrain of the badlands. They had been chased by barbs for almost an entire day, those triple-cursed spears coming uncomfortably close, before finally leaving them behind in the dust.

  Not bothering to answer, Fenton dismounted his bike, dragged out the canteen marked with a strip of duct tape and took a long drink.

  “Careful now, that’s potent stuff,” Dunbar warned, stretching his back muscles.

  But the words weren’t heeded, and Fenton continued to swallow mouthful after mouthful of the jolt-laced shine until he dropped the empty container to clatter on the street.

  “Blind NORAD, I needed that,” the lieutenant said in a perfectly normal voice. “That was fragging wonderful! The baron’s healer was right. I don’t feel any pain now! None at all! Nuking hell, I don’t…” Trembling slightly, Fenton sighed deeply, the sound fading away until there was only silence. He dropped to the ground.

  “Lieutenant?” Dunbar asked, climbing off the hog to rush over and check the motionless man. But it was as he expected. Fenton was gone, chilled by his uncontrollable need for revenge, for honor, for…everything.

  “Goodbye, old friend,” Dunbar whispered, bending to gently close the one eye staring out of the bandages.

  After burying the body in a patch of daisies, Dunbar transferred the extra fuel and brass to his sidecar and drove off toward the east. Hunting for the companions alone in the ruins would be madness, and there was no way he could go back to Delta without proof of their deaths, which left only a single option. On the ride from the Boneyard, Ryan had mentioned his home ville of Front Royal back east. That sounded like as good a place as any for the teenager to begin again. Everybody needed sec men these days, and if the hog held together that long, it would buy him a house and a horse to start a new life.

  Kicking the Harley alive, Dunbar drove out of the ruins, heading toward the unknown.

  RECLAIMING THEIR belongings from the aced coldhearts, the companions did a fast recce of the redoubt to make sure there were no stickies, droids or wendigos hiding anywhere. But the base was deserted. Hoping for the best, the companions checked the armory, but as usual, that was completely empty, the shelves covered with a thin layer of dust.

  After Mildred used her med b
ag to patch their wounds, the companions went directly to the jump chamber and sat on the floor. After a few seconds, there was a thumping noise from below, the strange electronic mist swirled up to engulf the friends and the universe fell away as they were instantly transferred to another redoubt somewhere.

  Moments later, the exhausted people awoke, gasping and wheezing. But after a few minutes, they struggled erect, left the chamber and did a recce of the new redoubt. This one was also deserted, but the armory had a few weapons and ammo left. Other stores revealed food, medicine and clothing. A bonanza of supplies!

  Enjoying a hot meal for the first time in weeks, the companions then settled in separate rooms for some sleep after a hot shower. The next day, they would check outside to see where they had arrived, but tonight, they would rest.

  Pretending to fall asleep, Mildred waited until J.B. was softly snoring before easing out of the bed to pad into the bathroom for some privacy. Cutting out the first few pages of the journal, which she had recovered from Thal, she ripped the sheets into tiny pieces, then flushed them down the toilet. At last, all evidence of her mistake was destroyed.

  Certain aspects of life in Deathlands just shouldn’t be committed to paper, she realized.

  Sleep was a long time in coming, but when it finally did, her dreams were pleasant and untroubled.

  ISBN: 978-1-4592-0229-0

  TAINTED CASCADE

  Copyright © 2011 by Worldwide Library

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