Deathlands 074: Strontium Swamp

by James Axler

  Chapter Two

  Ryan Cawdor shuddered and groaned as he raised himself slowly, painfully, from the tomb of sand he had made for himself. Every part of his body was in pain, and parts of his skin felt as though they would slither from his flesh at the slightest touch. He was thankful that there had been no open wounds for the rain to run into, which would have been too painful to contemplate.

  He looked around, trying to locate the others, there was no sign of them. No sign of any other life at all. And no sign of the storm, which had blown over as quickly as it had arrived. The sky above was clear, the stars illuminating the dark, the crescent moon casting a pale light over the sands, which now seemed as calm as they had before the storm hit, as flat and undulating, and showed no relation to the whirling clouds of flaying grit that had battered him just a short time before.

  They were also completely unrecognizable as the sands on which he had stood before the storm. Although there had been no real landmarks by which to judge, the shape of the dunes had become familiar as they had recced the area. Now, the landscape was unrecognizable, the sands whipped into new contours by the currents of the mistrals and gales of the chem storm. Ryan could be in the same place as before, or he could have been swept along in the tide of the sand, landing miles from where he began. He had no way of knowing. He hadn’t felt as though he had been moving, and yet the sands had been shifting around him. Where would his movement begin and the sands end? Or vice versa?

  “Fireblast and fuck it,” he murmured to himself, sinking to his haunches. He was tired beyond belief, every muscle ached, and his head felt as though it had been pounded by a thousand hammers: a legacy of dehydration and salt loss as much as the storm.

  He was alone, with no sign of his companions. The quiet of the night was eerie and unearthly. If he could get past the pounding in his skull, the sound of blood hammering in his ears, then there was nothing beyond. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard the sounds of silence…if ever.

  It meant that the slightest sound would register, however, so Ryan’s body tensed, and he whirled around as quickly as his protesting muscles would allow when he heard the whispering of shifting sands from somewhere over his left shoulder.

  WHEN THE STORM HIT, Mildred’s first thought was not for herself, but for Doc Tanner. For all that she would argue with, and insult the older man, she was aware that he was the most vulnerable of them at this moment. And more than that, she shared with Doc something that none of the others could ever truly understand. Neither of them belonged to this time; they had been thrown into the Deathlands by freaks of chance and designs of evil, both taken from their own times in differing ways and made exiles against their wills. It wasn’t something they ever spoke of, but Mildred knew that if Doc bought the farm, she would feel just that bit more alone in a way that could never be truly explained.

  Doc had been raised on one elbow when the storm hit, and before the first heavy drops of rain hit him, Mildred had thrown herself down to cover him.

  “Madam, contain yourself,” Doc yelled in bewildered tones. “I am not that much of an invalid that I need to be treated this way.”

  “Shut up and dig, you old fool, as deep as you can,” Mildred replied, her eyes flashing at him.

  “That’s more like it,” he countered in a milder tone, as he turned to join her in digging into the sand. “I fail to see that this will be of much practical use to us, but I suppose it is all we can do,” he continued, raising his voice above the rapidly growing winds.

  “Save your breath for when you need it,” Mildred snapped back.

  J.B. stumbled on them by chance. Blinded by the flying sand, trying to shield his face from the rain as it suddenly roared from the heavens, he turned and stumbled over the backpacks they had earlier set up to act as a sun-break for Doc, falling into the hollow trench that Mildred and Doc were digging for themselves.

  “Nice of you to drop in, John,” Mildred yelled, unable to prevent herself cracking the gag despite the situation.

  “No time to be funny,” J.B. snapped sourly. “Lost the others. Dig and use these to cover us,” he yelled as tersely as possibly, pulling one of his canvas bags over the top of them as they scrabbled in the sand.

  It was hard to tell exactly what was happening in the narrow trench, but all three of them used their backs to try to reinforce a sand wall, giving themselves a small, clear area of breathing space in the middle. The bags were dragged over the top of them to form a makeshift roof, not as stable as any of them would like, but nonetheless temporarily effective. At least it prevented the sand overhead from burying them, as they became aware of the weight increasing with the buildup of sand on top of their makeshift shelter. It was stiflingly hot, and sand still moved around their bodies. No one would say, but it occurred to all of them that they could possibly be making their own burial ground.

  As they seemed to fall deeper into the sand, it became difficult to tell when—or if—the storm subsided.

  KRYSTY AND JAK HAD stumbled blindly into each other as the storm began to hit, each searching for the other, and for the rest of their companions. With no place to hide, and no time to move, the storm had taken all of them unaware. Jak cursed himself for not realizing the changes in the air before the others. His instincts dulled just that little too far by the rigors of the day.

  Wordlessly, unwilling to waste energy in the middle of such a crisis, and unable to make herself heard above the roar of the storm, Krysty clutched at Jak, pulling him to her as they stumbled and fell. Feeling the acid rain hit her skin, her air coiled tightly to her neck and scalp as the danger increased, Krysty shrugged out of her long fur coat and draped it over herself and Jak, hoping that the chem rain would pass over before enough had fallen to eat through the fur and hide of the coat. They dug themselves into the sands, constantly fighting the shifts that threatened to overwhelm and bury them, rather than provide protection. The coat, just about covering the pair of them where it had been spread out, acted as a buffer between their prone bodies and the raging wind, sand and rain above. It grew heavier as the shifting surface began to cover them, and their arms ached from trying to hold it up just enough to give them some kind of cover without it smothering them.

  It was a question of playing odds. Would the storm subside before their muscles finally gave out under the strain?

  THE WHISPERING SANDS came from over his shoulder. Ryan whirled and scanned the dunes behind him, the light just good enough for him to be able to see any movement, the sand acting as a reflector to the crescent moon.

  About 150 yards away there was a shifting on the surface, as though a bank of sand was rising up out of the mass. Ryan began to walk toward it, unable to move at a faster pace because of the way his feet sank into the loose sand, up to and beyond his ankles.

  The sand wall dissolved in a cloud of scattering grains as two figures emerged from behind a blanket of fur, shaking off the sand that had sought to entomb them.

  “Krysty, Jak,” Ryan yelled, his voice sounding strangely alien and harsh in the silence of the night.

  “Ryan, what fuck that?” Jak grinned, relieved to see at least one other of their companions was still alive—come to that, glad that he had managed to survive the storm.

  “Weirdest shit I’ve seen for a long time,” Ryan replied, shaking his head. “Come and gone, just like that.”

  “Just like us, almost,” Krysty put in, pulling the coat around herself to keep out the chill of the desert night. “Gaia, you look like shit, lover,” she continued, noting how Ryan’s exposed areas of skin had been blasted raw by the sand and the chem rain.

  “Thanks for pointing that out,” he said wryly. “Feels like it, too. Just about managed to keep covered long enough to stop the worst, I guess. Lucky to make it out.”

  “Yeah. Mebbe only ones,” Jak mused, looking around and flexing his aching limbs, trying to get the cramp out of them.

  “If we did it, Mildred and J.B. must have. Mebbe they’re with
Doc,” Krysty suggested, hardly daring to voice the opinion that Doc was the least likely to have made it on his own.

  “Bastard thing of it is, where would they be?” Ryan asked, scanning the bland and unremitting wastes of the desert.

  “You end up there,” Jak mused, indicating the disturbed sands where Ryan had dug himself out, “And us here,” he continued, indicating their own patch of desert. “Figure same radius others. Mebbe spread out, search.”

  Ryan agreed. “It’s all we can do, I guess.”

  The friends began to spread out and search in an arc, moving in wider spirals from their beginning. In truth, no one knew exactly what they were looking for. The lanes of the desert had been altered then smoothed by the storm, so unless their friends were attempting to dig out—assuming even that they were alive—then there was no way of knowing where they lay. Or even if they were together, or had been separated.

  Tired and aching, the search was a struggle. Tired legs tried to deal with the sucking sands that made each step a chore; eyes stung by wind, rain and sand, aching from the same tiredness that beset their limbs, tried to focus on the flat landscape, searching for something…anything.

  It was Jak who stumbled on them. His left combat boot hit the harder surface of the backpacks that were being used as a roof for the trench. Expecting his foot to sink into the sand as before, he was surprised when he hit a harder surface, and an uneven one that made his ankle buckle beneath him.

  “Ryan, Krysty…” he yelled, waving and beckoning to them in the wan light of the moon.

  As they made their way over, battling the sapping desert floor to move as swiftly as possible, Jak began to dig. Eighteen inches of sand had gathered in some places, but only six or seven in others, as the bags revealed themselves to have been steepled on either side of the trench. As he burrowed into the sand, clearing as much as possible on his own, he became aware of some movement beneath the makeshift roof. The angle of the steepling changed as someone stirred beneath the cover.

  Relieved that whoever was under there was still alive, Jak redoubled his efforts, and he had made good headway by the time he was joined by Krysty and Ryan, who immediately fell to their knees and helped him to dig. They cleared the backpacks of the sand that had buried them, and made an indent into the area around it.

  “Think they’re okay under there?” Krysty asked anxiously as they continued to dig.

  “Mebbe. Whoever it is, at least they’re moving,” Ryan grunted as he worked.

  The makeshift roof was cleared, and the three companions hurried to clear it away from the trench beneath, making room for whoever was underneath to come out.

  “Thank Gaia,” Krysty breathed as the last piece was removed and she saw J.B., Mildred and Doc lying huddled together. Doc was unconscious once more, but still breathing. Mildred was struggling to stay awake, her breathing labored and her eyes flickering, trying hard to focus. J.B. was the most aware, and it was the Armorer who had been trying to move the roofing from beneath as he heard the others dig and felt the weight upon them decrease.

  “Thought you’d never get here,” he croaked hoarsely, barely able to speak.

  A hot, fetid air had escaped from the narrow trench as they had uncovered it. The air within was almost all that the trio had been able to breathe, the thick layers of sand gathering on top of the roofing making it hard for any other air to filter through. As a result, the heat had been unbearable, and the air had quickly grown foul. On top of their earlier problems with bad air in the redoubt, this had a bad effect on Doc, and the old man had passed out quickly. Mildred and J.B. had tried to keep their breathing as shallow as possible, but had still used the air quickly. If they hadn’t been found, it would have been time for them all to buy the farm. The lack of oxygen combined with the weight of the sand pressing on them would have made it impossible for them to dig themselves out.

  Ryan held out an arm, which J.B. took, helping to haul himself out of the trench. He collapsed on the sand beside the one-eyed warrior, gasping for breath as he fought to get some relatively fresh air back into his lungs. Jak plunged into the trench, into the gap that the Armorer had left, and lifted Mildred. As the fresher air of the desert night hit her, she began to stir, and Krysty was able to help her out. Mildred fell to the sands as the Armorer had, doubled over as she began to retch and puke.

  Doc was harder to lift out. He was a deadweight, and the companions were exhausted from what they had already endured. It took some time for Krysty and Jak, assisted by Ryan, to lift the old man out and lay him on the sands.

  Mildred came over to check him almost immediately.

  “You okay to do this?” Krysty asked her.

  Mildred fixed her with a stare, then shook her head to clear it as the stare became glassy. “I’m not totally there yet, but it’s enough to see this old buzzard is okay,” she replied.

  Doc’s vital signs were good. He had passed out from the continuing lack of oxygen. Mildred hoped that the combined effects of the past few hours hadn’t caused any lasting damage. Hell, right then she felt as though she’d lost a few brain cells herself, let alone someone like Doc, who acted occasionally as if he didn’t have any to spare.

  Muttering to himself, lost in some private dream or nightmare, Doc began to surface. He opened his eyes and took in what was around. Remarkably, and with that facility that only Doc had to buck the odds, he seemed to be completely lucid almost immediately.

  “By the Three Kennedys, what a day this has been,” he remarked mildly. “Any more like that in a hurry, and I fear it shall see the last of me.”

  “That’s not the first time you’ve said that, Doc,” Ryan stated.

  “And I fear it shall not be that last,” Doc mused. “But we carry on, my dear Ryan, because we have to… The option is too fearful to contemplate.”

  “Yeah, talk shit, you okay,” Jak commented.

  Krysty had been surveying the surrounding desert while Mildred tended to Doc, and Ryan joined her.

  “Not good, is it?” he murmured to her. “Nothing for as far as the eye can see, and nothing we can use as shelter. The only good thing, as far I can reckon, is that we’re completely alone.”

  She shook her head slowly, and he noticed that her hair was waving independently of her sway, the sentient red tresses flicking like an irritated cat’s tail, gathering close to her head instead of flowing free. “There’s something, lover. I dunno what it is, and I dunno where it comes from, but there’s something out there that we really need to beware of.”

  “But what? It’s like a vast fucking graveyard out there, a killing field with nothing left alive, everything chilled…” Ryan was bewildered. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her mutie sense. How much trouble had it saved them in the past? How many imminent dangers had it alerted them to? But what could be out there in this emptiness was something that was beyond him.

  “Wish I could tell you,” she muttered, drawing closer to him. “All I know is that it’s there, whatever it is…”

  CHECKING THAT DOC WAS returning to normal, Ryan organized a camp for the night, setting watches and putting himself and Jak on first watch. They had no materials with which to build a fire, so those that were sleeping huddled together for warmth in the freezing desert night, warming themselves with some of the self-heats they had taken from the redoubt. The cans, with their thermal reactions that were triggered by the act of opening, always tasted foul. But taste wasn’t an issue. It was nutrition, and it was warming. That was all that mattered. They had no time or option to be fussy about the additive-soaked flavors of the ancient food.

  Despite the cold and the foul food, the four who were able to sleep soon found themselves falling into slumber, the rigors of the day and night catching up with them.

  It left Ryan and Jak alone with the darkness and the void of the desert.

  “What chances getting past this?” Jak asked softly, after some time. He had been squatting on his haunches, still and silent, surveying the night
around him. Ryan had kept his peace, unwilling to break the incredible concentration of the albino mutie. Now he pondered an answer.

  “You tell me,” he said finally. “No way to make a jump, no telling how far this stretches, and which direction to take.”

  “Tell you one thing…no, two… We now in southeast, and not alone.”

  Ryan looked at Jak, puzzled. “How the fireblasted hell do you know that?”

  Jak pointed up at the stars. “Know sky. Not quite same, but not that different. We head out for west in morning, then sooner or later hit swamps and water.”

  “How far?” Ryan asked. He trusted Jak implicitly, and felt a sense of relief that was soon quashed.

  “Dunno. Not seen this desert before.” Jak shrugged. “Mebbe a day, mebbe two, mebbe more.”

  “Have we got enough water and food to last?” Ryan asked. They had used a lot of the water to counter the effects of dehydration after their ordeal leaving the redoubt. There were few bottles left, and already he had known that it would be necessary to ration them. But now? Then something else occurred to him, and he continued. “What do you mean, we’re not on our own?”

  Jak grinned. In the moonlight his red eyes glowed and his teeth glinted, the predator in him becoming all too clear.

  “Never alone in desert. Come out at night, but driven down by storm. Can hear them, getting nearer. Just wait.”

  Ryan frowned, but didn’t push Jak for further explanation. Instead he hunkered down next to the albino and decided to wait. He didn’t have to wait for long.

  As the two men crouched, still and silent, their breathing slow and moving into sync with each other, the silence only broken by the snufflings of those sleeping behind them, Ryan became aware of another sound that began to creep into his head, from beyond the limits of normal hearing. At first he thought it was nothing more than the sound of his own nervous system, amplified by the intense silence, then he realized that this was what Jak had been hearing for a long time with his sharpened sense, heightened by years of hunting.