Sunspot

by James Axler

  Krysty and Jak grabbed the boys and raced back into the lane. Sweeping aside a sheet of tattered opaque plastic, they ducked into the first doorway, dragging the children up the steps of the ancient Trailways bus. It was dim and dank inside, and it reeked of sour woodsmoke and mildew. The driver’s seat had been torn out, but the steering wheel and pedals were still there. No passenger windows survived; the openings were blocked by plywood or sheet-metal scrap. What light there was came through the doorway’s plastic and through rows of small glass rectangles that decorated the seam between walls and roof.

  As Jak backed away from the lone doorway, dogs scrambled up the steps, fighting one another to be the first to get inside. The albino aimed his Python at the top step, ready to fire.

  Krysty shoved the boys in front of her. All the passenger seats had been pulled out. Except for a narrow path down the middle, the floor was covered with straw-stuffed pallets and plastic bags full of wadded-up clothes. A table had been built-in along one wall. Made from a scavenged interior door, it held a junk-store collection of mismatched plates, cups and steel silverware. Beyond the end of the table was a woodstove fashioned from an oil drum. Its stovepipe angled outside the bus through a hole hacked in a piece of plywood. The back of the bus was the most defensible position. Krysty pushed the boys in the direction of the narrow stainless-steel cubicle that had once housed the Trailways’ walk-in toilet. The toilet door stood ajar.

  When the first dog leaped into the bus, Jak’s Magnum blaster unleashed a deafening roar and its big, bony head exploded, sending hot, wet flesh splattering around the steel room. Jak rode the muzzle climb, bringing the blaster back on target for a second shot. He held his fire.

  Instead of scrambling over their dead packmate, the dogs in the stairwell busied themselves by licking up the cranial splatter that had showered them. Typically, they fought tooth and nail over the last of the juicy bits.

  “Once they get a taste of blood, they won’t never quit,” Meconium shouted up from the lane.

  Something clicked outside the bus. It sounded like a metal latch opening. Then a rusted hinge squeaked.

  A second later, directly beneath them, they heard heavy thuds and the sounds of claws scrabbling on steel.

  Krysty was making tracks for the back of the bus, herding the kids in front of her, when a dog jumped out of the open toilet cubicle. Head lowered, fangs bared, ears back, it slinked toward her.

  “Jak! They’re coming in back here!” Krysty cried. Without taking her eyes off the stalking beast, she guided the boys around her and pushed them toward the unlit oil barrel stove. They scurried into the skinny hiding space behind it.

  Krysty sensed the dog was about to spring and nipped the attack in the bud. She fired her .38 once, hitting the hound between the eyes. In the confined space, the blaster’s report made her wince. The animal’s bony skull held together, but it was instant death. The dog collapsed in a heap and didn’t move again.

  She stepped over the corpse and looked into the toilet cubicle over the sights of her Model 640. There was a big hole in the floor where the toilet fixture had once stood, which created a connecting passage to the luggage compartment underneath. The compartment that Meconium had opened.

  Even as she glanced in, another hound’s head popped up through the hole. She shot it before it could climb out. Blood sprayed the stainless-steel wall and the head disappeared back down the hole. Krysty slammed the door, and as there was no lock on the outside, she threw her back against it and pushed with her legs to hold it shut.

  Jak’s Magnum blaster bellowed from the front of the bus. As Krysty looked up, he fired again. His first shot had debrained another hellhound; his second was fired almost point-blank into the chest of a leaping animal. The albino had no time to get out of the way. One hundred fifty pounds of dead dog hit him head-on. The momentum knocked him to the floor.

  At that instant something rammed the bathroom door against her back, making it jump in the jamb. A dog was throwing itself at the other side over and over, using its body like a battering ram. It took everything she had to keep the door shut and the beast out of the compartment.

  Jak was in an even worse predicament than she was. He had regained his feet, but in the process two more dogs had made it up the steps and into the wag. Though Krysty had bullets left, with the door ramming into her back, she couldn’t trust her aim.

  One hound had grabbed Jak by the pant cuff and was trying to pull him off his feet.

  The other dog had its huge paws on his shoulders, trying to get a solid bite on his neck.

  Yellow fangs tangled in the long white hair.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Ryan ignored the rifle bullets screaming past him and returned aimed rapidfire with his SIG. Downrange, the line of 115-grain slugs sparked off the top of the corrugated culvert pipe, which jutted about ten feet from the side of the berm. The near-miss bullet strikes forced the defenders to cease fire and duck behind the steel culvert, which gave them some cover. Because the culvert stood a couple of feet above the ground, the Haldane sec force was only partially protected by it.

  When J.B. cut loose with his Uzi machine pistol, he aimed low on purpose. With the first withering burst he chopped the legs out from under three of the enemy fighters. Amid clouds of bullet-raised dust, they writhed on the ground beneath the pipe. Ryan and J.B. sprayed the fallen with 9 mm rounds, making sure they didn’t get up.

  The three remaining sec men didn’t stick around for the funeral. Two of them took off for the cover of the berm gate, firing their AKs blindly—and ineffectively—over their hips. The third trooper escaped by climbing into the open end of the pipe, headfirst.

  Mildred’s Czech wheelgun barked three times in rapid succession. She hit one of the running men in the chest, knocking him sideways into the berm. He slid down the slope on his back, limbs limp and rubbery, lower jaw agape. High-kicking, the other sec man reached the safety of the ville’s wag gate, which was a semitrailer parked across the opening. He dived out of sight under the double rear wheels.

  When the SIG’s slide locked back, Ryan dropped the empty mag into his palm, pocketed it and took a fresh clip from his belt, slapping it home. He broke into a trot, heading for the culvert entrance to the westernmost machine-gun post.

  The Haldane sec men who had climbed to the top of the berm to potshot at the cannon fodder now directed their blasterfire into the ville, at the Malosh fighters surging through the breached wall.

  With the defenders’ attention fixed on the main attack, the companions closed on the culvert without drawing fire. They approached it with caution, weapons up.

  Nobody went near the opening.

  At the opposite end of the culvert, on the other side of the berm, the heavy machine gun was raining bloody hell on the Malosh force in the gorge.

  That had to stop. J.B. reared back a leg and booted the side of the pipe.

  Autofire roared like thunder from deep inside it. It was from small arms, not the M-60. A flurry of slugs whined from the end of the culvert, kicking up puffs of dust as they ricocheted wildly across the compound.

  The gunpost’s defenders were ready for them, and determined to hold them out.

  Without grens to chuck up the pipe, the companions had to go to Plan B. Under the culvert three bullet-riddled bodies lay in a bloody tangle. Caught up in the mess were three Soviet-made assault rifles. Ryan pulled one of the AKs out from under a dead man’s arm. J.B. used the toe of his boot to turn over a corpse and then picked up the autorifle that had been under it. Without bothering to wipe the blood off the wooden stocks, they dropped the mags and checked the round counters. After clearing the actions, they snapped the 30-round clips back in place.

  Ryan threw a leg over the pipe and slid over the top to the far side. The scraping sound he made drew more fire. From the increased volume of the racket, and ungodly hail of lead skipping over the hammered ground, there were now two AKs defending the entrance. And they were in position to shred
anyone who stepped in front of the culvert.

  Ryan and J.B. moved beside the mouth of the pipe, just out of the line of fire. Dropping the selector lever to automatic, the one-eyed man flipped the AK around, holding it upside down, magazine and pistol-grip butts toward him. He held on to the end of the clip with his left hand; he held the pistol grip with his right hand with his thumb inside the trigger guard, resting on the trigger.

  When the mad shooting from inside the pipe stopped, Ryan leaned forward. Still out of the line of fire, he poked the muzzle’s flash-hider into the mouth of the culvert and mashed down the trigger. The AK jittered wildly in his hands, spewing lead up the pipe. He didn’t try to control the weapon’s aim point. He emptied the mag in a single horrendous burst, then tossed the blaster to the dirt, making room for J.B.

  The Armorer followed his lead, staying far enough back from the lip of the pipe to avoid return fire. As he was on the opposite side of the culvert, he had reversed Ryan’s hand position on his autorifle. Left hand on the pistol grip. Right hand on the mag. As Ryan withdrew, he stuck the barrel and gas cylinder into the pipe and flattened the AK’s trigger with his thumb. The vibration from the prolonged full-auto burst made his spectacles slip down the bridge of his nose. When the rifle came up empty, he, too, flipped it aside.

  There was smoking brass all over the ground in front of the culvert. They had fired close to sixty rounds of full-metal jackets into the confined space of the converted SUV gun emplacement. It was a straight shot to the steel plate that covered the post’s front windshield.

  And the Haldane fighters caught in between were fish in a barrel.

  Sweet silence came from the machine gun end of the pipe. It had ceased firing into the gorge.

  “What do you think?” Mildred said. “Did we get ’em?”

  “Could be playing possum in there,” J.B. said.

  “Let’s make sure,” Ryan said. He kicked over a sprawled body and scooped up the remaining AK by the buttstock. After giving the assault rifle a quick once-over, he stepped in front of the opening. Making no attempt to conceal himself, he fired into the culvert from the hip. In a matter of seconds, he poured another twenty-five rounds of predark lead into the emplacement. There was no answering autoclatter.

  No answer of any kind.

  The machine-gun post was dead.

  Bullets whined at them from the berm’s wag gate. They whanged into the side of the steel pipe and slammed into rocks at the base of the perimeter wall, sending sparks and splinters flying. The muzzle-flashes came from the shadows under the trailer. The culvert’s lone escapee had summoned others to defend the entrance.

  Farther along the berm on the gorge side, Haldane’s men were abandoning the crest and making for the backside of the Welcome Center.

  The companions ran straight for the gate, returning fire.

  As he sprinted, J.B. fanned his Uzi, stitching across the back of the trailer, blowing out all four tires on the rear axle. The trailer dropped hard onto its rims, sending up a cloud of dust. For a moment the shooting from the shadows stopped.

  Ryan and Mildred cut left, swinging out wide to flank the sec men hiding underneath. As they changed course, blasterfire broadsided them from the corner of the Welcome Center. Bullets skipped and zipped to little effect. The hastily aimed blasts came from troopers who were beginning to panic at the rapid turn of events. But success was just a matter of time. Caught out in the flat, the companions’ only chance was to reach the cover of the wag gate.

  The shooters under the trailer had other ideas about that.

  KRYSTY LINED UP THE SIGHTS of her .38 but as she tightened down on the trigger, the door bucked hard against her back, knocking off her aim. The dog in the Trailways toilet wasn’t running out of steam.

  Jak had his handblaster out, too, but he was too occupied to use it. One of the hellhounds was on his back, its front paws on his shoulders. The other had hold of his pant leg and was dragging him backward, shaking its head, twisting its powerful body as it tried to flip him to the floor of the bus. Jak couldn’t spin around and shoot either one of them without ending up on his face. It took everything he had just to keep his balance and keep the dog from clamping onto his neck.

  Once those long fangs pierced his flesh, the battle was lost. The beast had a prominent sagittal crest, the muscle anchor for its massive jaws. If it couldn’t snap his neck or crush his vertebrae, it would drag him down and strangle him, tiger style, by squeezing off his airway.

  The tall redhead waited for the next slam against her back. Despite the fact that she was leaning back with her full weight, the door jumped open an inch or two, driven by 150 pounds of canine battering arm. Krysty felt the dog bounce off. She immediately turned and, pressing the muzzle against the door, fired through it three times in rapid succession, angling her shots down toward the toilet floor. The door dimpled and burned powder starbursts marred the brushed steel.

  A shrill yelp came from the other side.

  Krysty glanced at the children cowering behind the stove as she braced herself to fire. Then she was looking over the Smith’s sights at Jak sliding helplessly backward.

  She aimed at the dog trying to bite off his head and squeezed off a single shot. The slug smacked into the beast’s spine, at base of its thick neck. The impact made a solid, meaty whack and sent up a puff of dirt, blood and hair. It was a chillshot. The dog’s bowels emptied voluminously onto a cardboard mattress, its jaws relaxed, its rear legs crumpled, and slid off Jak’s back into a twitching heap.

  Partially freed, the albino twisted from his hips, the stringy, slobbery plaits of his hair slapping his shoulder, and fired down into the head of the dog that had hold of his pant leg. The point-blank .357 Magnum round left a smoking crater down to the hinge point of its jaws. Its brains and tongue were blown out through the front of its throat.

  His leg splattered with cranial blowback, Jak swung his Python up to cover the bus entrance. Both he and Krysty waited for long seconds, anticipating another attack, but nothing came up the steps and nothing burst out of the dented toilet door.

  Either that was all the dogs Meconium could gather, or they’d decided to try some easier prey.

  “This is a death trap,” Krysty said, pulling the boys from behind the stove. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Jak didn’t say anything. He was already heading down the steps.

  When Krysty jumped down beside him, she saw the head swampie running down the lane, away from Welcome Center. Maybe he was hoping to link up with his fellow swampies. Safety in numbers.

  The albino had his blaster up, tracking the slow-moving target, but he didn’t shoot.

  Swampies couldn’t run for nukeshit. Their legs were too short and heavy. And male and female, they had monumental lard asses. Meconium’s stumpy arms pumped, his barrel chest heaved, but he was going nowhere fast.

  “Mine,” Jak announced, holstering the Python.

  The wild child took off after the swampie, running in long, loping strides, his white hair flying.

  Krysty ran after him with the children in tow.

  Meconium made it around the first bend before Jak caught up with him. The swampie glanced over his shoulder, hatchet in hand, seemingly weighing the odds if he stopped and fought back.

  Jak dived at his ankles, tackling him from behind, pile driving his bearded face into the dirt.

  Before Meconium could recover, the albino ripped the hatchet from his hand. Jak turned the swampie onto his back and straddled him. He didn’t reach for his holstered Colt Python. When the swampie tried to buck him off, Jak raised the hatchet overhead and the mutie went suddenly still. It was a predark camp ax; the head had an edge on one side and it was flattened on the other for use as a hammer. Jak held the blade side cocked to strike and with his free hand he ripped off the red knit cap.

  Krysty turned the boys’ faces away from what was about to happen. “You don’t need to see,” she told them.

  But she did.

  Me
conium was stubborn and defiant to the last. “This don’t change a fuckin’ thing,” he snarled up at Jak, spitting flecks of white foam over his beard.

  Jak stared down at him with unreadable bloodred eyes.

  “Yer still a mutie…” Meconium howled.

  The hatchet came down in a silver blur.

  Meconium’s skull split from hairline to nose bridge, the hatchet blade half buried in his head. It had to have hurt like all rad blazes. The swampie let loose a piercing scream and arched his back, reaching out for the handle. Even with his short, powerful arms, he couldn’t budge the ax from his skullbone. He screamed louder.

  Jak picked up a heavy chunk of rock from the ground beside him and with a single, two-handed, overhead blow he drove in the wedge-shaped blade to the flare of the head’s hammer end. Blood squirted from the swampie’s ears, nose and mouth. His brain cut in two, Meconium’s fingers slipped lifelessly from the handle.

  “Not mutie,” Jak said, getting the final word on the subject.

  He left the hatchet stuck in the swampie’s head as a drop-forged punctuation mark.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Despite the flurry of explosions on the far side of the berm, and a mad clatter of blasterfire inside the ville’s walls, heavy slugs from the three facing machine-gun posts continued to whipsaw the gorge bottom, chewing rock and flesh alike.

  Bezoar and Young Crad squatted in bloody water up to their waists, pinned down by the fusillade. The elder swineherd shivered uncontrollably from the cold and from shock, but his friend seemed inured to both. Dense layers of body fat and a cross-wired droolie brain protected Young Crad from the totality of the horror and the proximity of death.

  Corpses caked in mud made of sandy dirt mixed with gore lay all around them. More dead floated facedown in the destroyed interstate’s seep pools. Under hellacious fire, the wounded crawled across open ground to reach the cover of shallow ditches and piles of concrete, some dragging twenty-foot-long tails of uncoiled entrails behind them. As the dying cannon fodder curled into tight balls and bled out, they moaned piteously, begging for a mercy bullet.