Deathlands 074: Strontium Swamp

by James Axler

  Krysty opened her mouth, tried to speak. She was surprised that the others had remained silent, then discovered why: no sound would issue from vocal cords that were still paralysed by the toxin from the dart. She tried to move her fingers and toes and found that they wouldn’t respond. So feeling was returning, but only gradually.

  Meanwhile, Erik continued. He hadn’t even bothered to tell them his name, or where they were. He didn’t have to, he had other matters on his mind.

  “We’re a fishing village, and you can’t fish much when you’ve got some nuke-shittin’ big bastards eating all your catch. So we need to lure them up near the surface where we can chill them, and let things get back to normal. Best way that I can figure to do that is give them some bait. Give them something good and big to feed on, and make sure you get some blood in the water to give them the scent. But what could we use?

  “Seems to me that you’ve given us the answer. All we’ve got to do is get you ready, then haul you out. This way those who loved the lost get to extract some personal vengeance and make you suffer, then see you get chilled while we solve the problem that’s starving us.

  “It’s perfect. Oh, by the way, don’t try to struggle, because you can’t. Shit on those darts is real good. Comes off the bark of one of those trees out there, and a dart usually paralyzes for three hours. You’ve had just over one and a half, so you should be ready to thrash about and spread that blood in the spume just about the time we’re making bait of you.

  “See, it works out just fine…”

  So they were to be used as bait for whatever was out in the bay. That was bad enough. Maybe they would have a chance if the toxin wore off, maybe they could try to get free of their bonds before the predators had a chance to take a chunk of them, maybe… But what was this about those who had lost getting a chance to take revenge?

  “Okay, you can have at them—but don’t do too much damage. We want them alive, remember,” Erik said in an offhand manner.

  Krysty twisted her head and wished she hadn’t been able to see the sight that greeted her. A clutch of villagers was moving toward the immobile and helpless companions. Each of them carried something that gleamed in the sunlight of late afternoon.

  Each of the villagers carried a sharpened paring knife, of the kind used for gutting their catch.

  Only this time their catch was human.

  * * *

  Chapter Five

  An old childhood ditty ran through Mildred’s head repeatedly, and she wondered at the capacity for the human mind to try to find distraction at times of distress. It was an old couplet, a song from when she was still an intern. Something that guy Rob who was in her path class used to play in his car all the time. Some kind of long-hair shit when she was listening to Rick James. She hadn’t thought of it in years, except that it made a lot of sense all of a sudden, some piece of junk hidden in the recess of her memory and coming out now that it was appropriate—now that it had some kind of function to fulfill.

  Part of her mind was rambling through this, and the other part was that silent scream itself, pain and terror with no outlet as her paralyzed voice could not give vent.

  It was the same for all of them. Lying prone and defenseless, they had been unable to do anything to prevent the villagers taking revenge on them whilst preparing them for the fishing expedition. The inhabitants of Ewelltown had clustered around the six poles, using the paring knives to slice through their clothes. Not reducing them to ribbons, but making small cuts and tears, almost with an air of precision. The cuts were designed to break the skin, slicing across the surface to open wide cuts that were shallow, and gently ooze blood in small trickles that began to stain the cut material, soaking into it before starting to leak out.

  The cuts were maddeningly painful. Taking the very nerve endings at the surface of the skin, they were sharp and insistent pains that wouldn’t have been disabling, but were halfway between the pain of a deep cut and an itch, doing little more but inspire the desire to scratch—something they were unable to do, leaving them half insane with the insistent torture of the cuts.

  While the villagers worked on them, the old man Leroy and the woman Collette, who had been among the villagers bringing in the companions, had gathered together their outer clothes, backpacks and the bag in which J.B. carried their ammo and explosives. They hadn’t bothered to check the contents, not caring what the bags contained. They had another concern.

  “Erik, a word,” Leroy murmured, pulling his chief away from the area where the cutting—almost ritual in nature, so calm were the villagers in taking their revenge—was occurring. As the hatchet-faced elder of Ewelltown walked away, anyone stumbling upon the scene would have assumed that another catch was being calmly gutted, so perfunctory was the way in which the cutting was taking place. The companions were obscured to outside view by the crowd clustered around them, their invisibility lending the scene an everyday air.

  Leroy said nothing as he led the elder to the collection of outer clothes and bags. “Their things,” he said. “What shall we do with them?”

  “Does it matter?”

  Collette shrugged. “Not sure. Me ‘n’ Leroy been talking about it. They seemed to come from out of nowhere, and they ain’t part of no convoy that’s trying to get past the desert. But mebbe there are others looking for them, and mebbe those others wouldn’t take too kindly to our chilling them in such a manner—never mind that they took some of ours.”

  Erik chewed that over and nodded slowly. “Good point. Guess you’re right about that. We should get rid of them where they can’t be found. Weight them down and dump them overboard after we’ve got rid of these fuckers and the big fish.”

  Leroy and Collette assented, and Erik walked back to where the companions were being bloodied for bait.

  “They ready yet?” he asked in an almost offhand manner.

  One of the villagers turned to him. “Hard to tell when they can’t scream.”

  Erik screwed up his face in thought. “Tell you what. Leave them be about now. We don’t want them so far gone that they don’t move about in the water. The more they thrash, the more they’ll churn up that blood smell and attract our little problem.”

  The villagers grinned crookedly. “That’ll be good to see.”

  Under the direction of the village elder, the villagers stepped back, their knives disappearing as soon as they’d appeared. The companions were left lying on their poles, breathing as heavily as the paralyzing effects of the toxin would allow, still unable to utter any sound.

  Twelve of the villagers, two per pole, took hold of them and removed them from the perch, walking down the dock to where a fishing boat lay at anchor. There were several such boats moored around the bay, but this one had been tied up for a specific purpose. There were six lines running from it, made of a thickly woven hemp.

  The poles, with their bloody cargo, were dropped roughly onto the dock, and six metal rings were driven into the head of each pole with sledgehammers. The insistent ringing impact of the hammering made the heads of each one of the companions ring, aching until it felt as if each blow was directly into their cortex. Not that the villagers cared. They couldn’t see if it was causing discomfort, and would only welcome it if they knew.

  Once this was done, and the rings tested for strength, the ropes from the fishing boat were passed, one through each ring, and securely tied.

  Now the boat was ready to cast off. The crew made ready, and within ten minutes had untied the vessel, ready to sail out into the bay, watched by the silent villagers.

  The rope payed out as the boat pulled away from the dock, taking up the slack. Each of the companions was aware of this, could see the coil of each rope as it decreased until the lines were pulled tight, and yet none could say a word or move a muscle. All they could do was try to brace themselves for the moment when the ropes would pull tight and the poles would begin to move.

  When it happened, it wasn’t a sudden jerk, as might have been expecte
d. Instead, as the boat was still building up a head of sail, the combined weight of the poles stopped them moving suddenly. The ropes stretched and creaked as the momentum of the vessel started to overcome their inertia. Slowly, they began to move, scraping across the dock, banging over the uneven boards, shaking every bone in their bodies. And then they reached the point where there was no wood beneath them.

  For one moment each of them seemed to hang in the air, free of the dock but not yet falling. To those villagers watching from on the dock, it seemed to be only a blink of the eye before they fell into the waters of the bay, but for each of the companions as they hung helplessly in the void, it was a moment that stretched forever as they prepared themselves as best as they could for hitting the water below.

  There was barely time to tense muscles that moved, ignoring the pain that slithered across their cut skins like a living creature, and to draw a deep breath, filling their lungs as best as possible, before the warmth of the day and the lightness of air was replaced by the cold of the water and the heaviness of the liquid around them. The sudden cold and the hard impact of hitting the surface at speed was almost enough to drive the conserved air from their lungs, allowing the cold water of the bay to seep in. It moved around their bodies, making the cuts neither better nor worse, the pain merely different.

  Doc spluttered, losing air and trying to replace it, his body working independently of his brain, drawing water into his lungs that made him cough, the cold fluid in his throat and nostrils. Ryan and J.B. held it together better, losing some air with the impact, but restraining the urge to suck in more when it would only be water.

  Krysty and Mildred both felt the strength begin to return to their limbs, feeling seeping back, in some strange way spurred by the sudden shock of cold. They managed to keep most of the air in their lungs, both controlling their respiration, starting to flex and move muscles that were cramped by the sudden cold but nonetheless beginning to respond.

  Jak fared best of them all. The albino was wiry and tough, and had spent many years learning the arts of hunting, including the ability to stay immobile, almost without breathing, for hours on end while waiting for his prey to come into view. Right now, that ability to keep breathing contained, and to conserve oxygen, was the most useful. Perhaps because he had absorbed less toxin, plucking the dart quickly from him; or perhaps because his constitution was better able to cope with its effects, Jak was now beginning to regain full use of his muscles and limbs.

  The poles didn’t remain under the water for the whole time. They broke surface then dipped again, giving the companions a brief snatch of time in which to gasp in air before the water closed over them once more. The fishing boat began to gather speed as the wind took its sails, and the pilot guided it out of the bay and into the salt waters beyond.

  The poles on which the six companions were trussed twisted and turned with the movement of the boat and the flow of the current as the sea met the fresh water of the bay, which in itself was at the mouth of a river. The poles turned in spirals as they bobbed up and down on the surface.

  The salt water hit them, increasing as they moved out from the bay, the salt seeping into the cuts, mingling with the blood and irritating nerve ends that were already ragged and sore from the fresh water.

  And yet, in some way, the pain galvanized them, made them fight harder. Independently of one another, the same thought went through each of their minds—there was no way that they were going to have come this far to be chilled by a bunch of fish, fish that were now beginning to mill around them. There was no indication that the big game for which they were bait was anywhere near, but in the waters where the salt and fresh mixed uneasily, small schools of other predatory fish were attracted by the trail of blood that mixed in the spume of their wake and floated down into the depths as the waters settled. Following this trail, the small fish were catching up with them, nibbling at their flesh, the sharp pains of razor-teeth contrasting with the irritation of the cuts, the attacks opening up the cuts so that there was a larger trail of blood in their wake. Each of them bucked against the fish, trying to shake them off, but it was almost impossible as they were so securely tied to the poles.

  They were saved by the fact that the boat hauled them rapidly out beyond the range of the fresh water, driving the small fish back into their own environment.

  As they moved through the water, and the use of their muscles and limbs began to return, they each fought to loosen themselves from their bonds. It was far from easy, as the knots on the ropes securing them were tight and the rope itself was made slick from the water. Fingers with feeling just returning to them were slow, clumsy, and felt twice their usual size.

  Jak was the first to free himself. He used his control over his own muscles, and the water swelling the fibers of the rope, to flex and expand the space he took up within the confines of his bonds, forcing the sodden rope to pull tighter against him until it reached the point where it felt as though he had taken the bonds to their limit and they were threatening to cut into his already sore and bloody skin. Then he relaxed, breathed out, and his body became smaller—almost unnoticeably so, but just enough to give him the fraction of an inch he needed to slip one arm free. With this done, there was more space within the bonds for him to move. He was able to free his other arm. From there, it was a relatively easy task to maneuver his body in such a way that he was able to pick at the bonds that bound his legs and feet to the pole, loosening them enough to slip free. Not that this was as simple as it sounded. The boat had picked up pace as it moved into the sea, the winds outside the confines of the bay catching the carefully drawn sails so that the vessel was speeding toward its destination. That meant that the poles in tow were moving at a rapid rate, taking a bruising buffeting from the currents in which they moved.

  Once he was free, Jak’s main problem was to keep hold of the pole. The force of the water was such that every twist, turn and bump threatened to throw him off, making it hard for him to make any more progress once he had freed himself.

  Ryan and J.B. were also using similar tactics to free themselves. The Armorer struck lucky in that the rope binding him was frayed in one small portion, and the action of the water combined with his attempts to free himself caused it to give way. The rope, its tension now broken, fell away behind him into the water, and the sudden freedom and its subsequent momentum nearly pitched him out behind the pole. He swore heavily to himself and managed to keep a grip, turning himself around so that he was able to grasp the slippery pole and work his way up toward the hook and the length of rope that was holding it to the boat.

  Soon, Ryan, J.B. and Jak were in a position where they were able to see one another over the ride of the surf. Looking up at the boat, they could see that the crew was paying little attention to the progress of their captives, They had taken it as an absolute that the six people tied to the poles would be unable to move, and so concentrated their attention on piloting the vessel to the area where their target predators were known to swim.

  This gave the companions a chance. It was going to be hard, but it was all they had. Each would have to climb the slippery, flailing rope that linked them to the boat, hoping that they wouldn’t be spotted during their progress—if they were, then they were easy targets—and that they would then be able to overpower the crew. However many may be aboard.

  The ropes and poles were close enough for them to be able to see one another clearly, but not enough to exchange words—even in a shout—over the roar of the water.

  Krysty and Mildred had also freed themselves in a similar manner, and they could be seen. But there was no sign of Doc. A feeling of unease spread among the five. Ryan, Jak and J.B. indicated with hand signals that they would try to scale the ropes connecting them to the boat. Mildred and Krysty, who were the closest to the pole on which Doc was still secured, signaled their intent to try to free the old man.

  It was a close call as to which of the groups had the harder task. The ropes were pulled tigh
t to the boat as they towed the poles, but with the changes in weight as the companions moved off the staves, this tautness may alter. To be thrown from the rope if it bucked too heavily would almost certainly mean buying the farm. That was if the crew didn’t spot them and fire on them.

  But Mildred and Krysty had to leap from their own ropes to the one attaching Doc to the boat—in Mildred’s case, that meant crossing two ropes, as she was farther away from Doc than the redhead. Each jump would mean risking falling short and crashing into the sea, with the chance of the poles following behind slamming into her and knocking her unconscious…something that would almost certainly mean buying the farm.

  What else could they do? If Doc had come around and was having trouble freeing himself from his bonds, then he needed assistance. Even more so if the toxin had been more effective on him than the others, and he was still paralyzed. The longer he remained at the mercy of the sea, the greater the chances of him breathing in salt water and drowning, the greater the chances of the predators for which they were intended as bait attacking him as they neared the target area.

  The thought that Doc may already be nothing more than fish food had crossed the minds of both women, but neither would give it any countenance. They hadn’t come this far to just leave Doc to his fate on the chance that it may already be too late.

  Not while there was still hope. It was the same reason that Ryan, Jak and J.B. were risking climbing up to the boat. Not until the last breath had been dragged screaming from their lungs would any of them consider giving in to fate.

  Krysty and Mildred exchanged glances, and the physician gave the briefest of nods. Her companion nodded back and turned to face the rope and pole carrying Doc. It was moving at speed, and also veering from left to right in an erratic pattern dictated by the currents it crossed. Kirsty pulled herself up to the top of her own pole, wrapping the rope around her hand to anchor herself as she tried to gain a foothold on the slippery wood, hauling herself up from a lying position until she was on one knee, then planting her feet on the wood. Her muscles protested at the strain of keeping balance and adjusting to an uncomfortable crouch as she settled into a stance where she had both feet on the pole, and could still keep her hand secured.