Pilgrimage to Hell d-1

by James Axler

  His mind flew back to the scene in War Wag One, her angry face as she argued with him. It all seemed centuries ago.

  "Great memory you've got," he growled. "In any case, it's still true. But when you're in our kind of business, even when you have a fierce rep, doesn't do any harm to take precautions." He muttered, "And all this crap just proves my point." His mind shot back again to the war wag, which triggered off another thought. "How the hell did Strasser manage to get his hands on you, anyway?"

  "I didn't keep taking the tablets. Your medic kept giving me tabs, said they'd calm me. I didn't want to be calmed, so I didn't take them. She kept saying it was crazy to think of heading on for the Darks. How was I going to do it, how was I going to travel? All that. So when she breezed off I snuck out and hitched a lift."

  "You what!"

  "You had two container rigs, arctic. I climbed aboard of one of them. It was getting dark, so no one spotted me. When the convoy parked I slipped off into some bushes. I watched you drive out in the buggy, thought of hitching onto that but there aren't too many hand holds. So I walked to Mocsin. Had to keep in cover because a lot of buggies started passing me, heading out of town, back the way I'd come..."

  Ryan thought, his stomach suddenly souring, Yeah, backup for the guys Strasser already had watching the train, the guys watching us. Probably what she saw was the bunch that actually tranked the Trader.

  "Then I bumped into some kind of patrol on the outskirts. They were all right at first. Oafish, but all right. I could handle them. What they couldn't figure out was where I'd sprung from, so I told them I was with the Trader, with you. I mean, I figured that was okay. But then they started getting heavy, pushing me around. I told 'em that if they didn't quit pissing me off they were going to be in deep with the Trader."

  Ryan heard her voice change, heard a slight catch in it.

  "And that was when it hit me," she said, "that maybe I hadn't been so smart. They started laughing, told me to forget about the Trader. He was finished. Everyone with him was kaput. No more Trader. I got a touch of the horrors then because they seemed so sure of themselves..."

  "They took you to Strasser?"

  "Yeah. He's..." There was a definite change in her voice. Now it was almost a whisper. He had to strain to catch what she said over the truck's engine rumble. "Ryan, he gives me a chill. Maybe I was stupid. I didn't really take in what you said about him, all that shit about getting off on pain, humiliation, perversion. But it's in his eyes. At times they're like, I dunno... No feeling, no emotion. Like pebbles on a beach. He said — well, among a lot of other things he said I'd be a fine taster before the main course." She laughed suddenly. It sounded like a nervous hiccup. "I guess I must've panicked because I didn't feel the presence of Earth Mother right then and there. Not at all. Not for one damned second. He had a bag with him, with... shit, really weird gear in it. Nozzles, rubber tubes, plastic spatulas, shit like that. But before he could really get busy, some guy rushed in and gave him a message. Then he said maybe I'd be more useful for the moment... unblemished."

  "Must've been when they told him I was on the loose somewhere," muttered Ryan.

  "Whatever. After that, it was okay. I got my head together. Sometimes I can cut off. That helps." She said, faint bitterness coloring her voice, "I guess you think that was all pretty dumb..."

  "On the contrary," Ryan replied. "If it wasn't for the fact that we're shackled up like this, it could have been the smartest thing you've ever done."

  "I don't get you."

  It hit Ryan that she really didn't know. Of course she didn't know.

  She didn't know that Strasser had destroyed every single human being on the land wag train. That they were all, without exception, dead meat, and that but for the grace of some god or other — presumably, he thought, her Earth Mother — she'd have been wiped with them.

  Not that that made much difference to their current lousy predicament.

  "Strasser gassed the train. Leastways, that's what he says, and I see no reason to disbelieve him. We're all that's left. You and me for sure. J.B. and the rest, probably. And the Trader and the other guys on the convoy. They've been tranquilized, but I don't know for how long. And their survival is entirely dependent on me getting my blasted hands free, and even then it's gonna be touch and go because..."

  The truck lurched to a halt, engine throbbing.

  Krysty said, "Oh, hell"fiercely, although Ryan couldn't figure out why she said it in quite the tone she did. After maybe a half minute the rear doors of the truck were unhitched and flung open.

  "Out!" said Kelber. Then he guffawed harshly, and this made him cough, and he choked for a while. "C'mon, c'mon!" he managed. "Hurry up outta there!" He erupted in another paroxysm of hoarse, wheezing laughter. Now he couldn't speak properly — it was too hilarious for him, so he jabbed at them with one hand and two sec men vaulted up into the truck and proceeded to roll Ryan and Krysty out.

  Ryan forced himself to relax as much as possible — which wasn't a lot in the time he had, about a half second — and as he hit the ground he managed to shove himself with his boots so that for a second he hopped on them before keeling over sideways. That broke his fall. What terrified him was landing hard on a shoulder or arm and cracking it. That would truly write finis, as the Lost Language said, across any possibility of ultimate survival.

  Talking to Krysty, though bruised and battered and wrench-tied as he was, had had the effect of soothing him, calming him when he needed calm most. Now he felt not too bad. Not too bad at all. At least the idiot who'd been using his brain as an anvil seemed to be tiring of the sport.

  Above him was a pale red moon, not full but nearly so. Up there, so he'd heard and read, somewhere, were orbital stations careering endlessly around the world. Full of old bones now, their crews long, long dead. They might hurtle like that forever, until the universe contracted. Or maybe they were sinking all the time, orbiting lower and lower as each century passed, and at a certain time would all at once be gripped by the planet's gravitational pull and would bucket down through the layers of atmosphere exploding into fireballs, raining death and destruction on a world that was choked already with death and destruction.

  It was chilly. Far away, high and to his right, he caught a glitter of fire in the sky and thought: Look at that! Whatever I think comes to pass!

  But it was only a chem cloud, spontaneously combusting. More clouds gathered, cloaking the moon. An eerie scarlet glow illuminated the land. Green wildfires crackled and hissed high above. A warm rain began to fall.

  Strasser appeared above him, looming tall, a gaunt skeleton in a long coat with skirts flapping in the breeze.

  "Unhobble them."

  Someone leaned down and across and Ryan glimpsed a blade, felt his bonds being tugged at.

  Then his legs were free and he groaned aloud as they straightened out in an automatic jerk and his circulation began to shift into high once more. Hands gripped his arms, his shoulders, heaved him. He staggered to his feet, wincing at the shafts of agony that flared up and down his legs.

  "Pain cleans you, Ryan. Flushes you out. Renews you. That's long been a theory of mine."

  Strasser stared at him from under hooded eyes. Ryan stared back, thinking, the sequence of events will be as follows. First the main train, then the convoy. I can now do nothing whatsoever about the train. Too much time had elapsed. But in my heart of hearts I knew this was how it was going to be, and this was how I wanted it. I knew that whatever happened the train must go. Better this way. Yes. But the convoy is next and that too will go. Or most of it. Because there is no way that I can do what needs to be done all at once. And the time element is so tight, so bloody tight, that there is more than a possibility that we, Krysty and I, will...

  Strasser said, "I still have the box, Ryan, and we can still use what's inside it, right here and now. It makes no difference to me."

  "What the hell do I get out of this, Strasser? My life?"

  Strasser lau
ghed softly.

  "Hardly."

  "So?"

  The gaunt man shrugged.

  "A bullet in the back of the skull is a far more pleasant method of dying than any number of ways that I could think of. A quick and happy release from the cares and worries of this world rather than an extremely slow, extremely lingering and extremely unhappy one."

  "That's not a great deal of choice you're offering."

  "No choice at all," said Strasser, "but still worth a good deal, Ryan, believe me."

  The rain was getting to be slightly heavier, very large water droplets that thudded down on Ryan's unprotected head, though it was not yet a downpour.

  This was scrubby terrain for the most part, although across the road were trees, a sprawling coppice that offered shelter if only he could reach it. But to get there he would have to sprint all out with only a few bushes between it and at least fifteen guys, all weaponed up, all kill ready. It could be done, especially in this light, but not with hands secured behind his back. Not even a charge of adrenaline surging through him could boost him for that length of run while his balance was shot to hell.

  Strasser's truck was parked on the road, near two other trucks and three buggies. Presumably these were the vehicles that had passed Krysty earlier. The convoy was behind him. War Wag One, two container rigs and an armored truck were parked back to back in a circle, facing outward. War Wag One faced the road, which was handy. If all went well.

  Beside the war wag stood another of Strasser's trucks, close to the huge vehicle. Although Ryan couldn't see it, he knew there were men inside peering in at the war wag's cab, watching for any sign of life from those inside, any twitch or jerk that would signal an awakening.

  He glanced to the east. A few klicks up the road was the land wag train. Those on it would never waken.

  He said, "Tell me one thing, Strasser. Where'd you get the nerve gas?"

  The gaunt man gestured irritably.

  "Don't piss around, Ryan. You're in no position."

  "No, really. It's been bothering me. It isn't going to hurt you to tell me."

  "The weirdo with the steel eye," snapped Strasser. "Now move it!"

  The weirdo with the steel eye.

  Oh, yes. Oh, yes, indeed.

  The shadowy figure who was akin to the bogeyman mothers warned their kids about. The guy very few people had ever seen. The guy who sometimes called himself the Warlock, sometimes the Magus. The guy who was said to be able to appear in two places at once. The guy who had a liking, once in a blue moon, for suddenly appearing in far-flung locales, handing out fantastic, sometimes wildly grotesque, trade goods that no one could ever figure out how to use, and then disappearing as mysteriously as he'd come. The guy the Trader said had to be sitting on a major Stockpile, although the way he actually used whatever he was sitting on seemed to be a strong argument for saying he was off his goddamned head.

  So he had nerve gas. It figured. It also figured that he should have presented it to Jordan Teague, probably on a plate. He seemed to take a positive delight in creating mischief, usually of the more malevolent kind.

  "Ryan..." said Strasser dangerously.

  Ryan's eyes took in Krysty, her face set, her long hair flicking at her shoulders in the light wind, both arms gripped by two heavies. There was something odd about her but he couldn't think what it was.

  "What about the girl?"

  "What about her?"

  "What does she get?"

  Strasser frowned, his eyes narrowed to slits.

  He said softly, "Ryan, why are you wasting time like this? Can it be that you know something I don't?"

  Ryan knew that it was time. Now. Only three or four minutes had elapsed since he and Krysty had been rolled out of the truck, but all at once he knew that he had to get free, and fast.

  "Okay," he said resignedly, "let's do it."

  "Well?"

  "My hands," said Ryan pointedly.

  "Just tell us what to press, Ryan," hissed Strasser, his face now uglier than ever in the murky crimson light. "What to pull, what to touch, what not to touch. You just tell us."

  "Not as easy as that. One mistake and you're dead. We're all dead."

  He could see Strasser mentally wrestling with the notion of having him walking loose with his hands free.

  The gaunt man thrust his parchment-colored face close, his eyes blazing. His whisper was malignant.

  "The girl suffers, Ryan, if you do anything stupid. I promise you. I'll keep the bitch alive for a year." He turned, nodded to one of his minions. "Cut 'em."

  Ryan winced as a blade began scraping away at his bound wrists. The guy didn't seem to give a damn where he cut.

  There was a muffled grunt of pain. Ryan jerked his head up as Strasser whipped around an oath. The sec men holding Krysty were holding her no longer. Instead one was on the ground, groaning, the other clutching his groin, his mouth sagging, nothing coming out of it but a prolonged croaking. The thought shot through Ryan's brain that she sure knew where to hurt a guy and then he realized she was free.

  Not only free but deadly. She'd snatched an auto-rifle and was dancing away, firing at sec men who sought to grab her, sec men who jerked backward in sequence as lead hammered them away from her. Three down and her way was clear.

  Strasser snarled an obscenity, dragging out the automatic pistol at his belt. In the bad light it looked to be vintage Colt .454CP. He squeezed off two shots, and the second whanged off the front offside wheel hub of one of the trucks as Krysty dived out of sight around its fender, still firing short bursts.

  "Maim her!" yelled Strasser. "Don't kill her! I want her alive!"

  Ryan couldn't locate her but knew she was on the far side, somewhere, of the line of Strasser's vehicles parked by the road. Then four men running for the rear end of the line were bowled over by a burst of fire at ground level. She was shooting low, from beneath one of the trucks. It was as though the men had been scythed.

  Ryan strained at the cords gripping his wrists as Strasser began to run, and then everything stopped dead as the murky darkness of the east burst apart with a terrible fire, a vast wash of fierce eyeball-searing light, orange cored. Sprays of scarlet jetted high into the sky, great tongues of flame that smeared the dazzling illumination. The dull roar of the explosion, long drawn out, was followed by a thudding reverberation and the distinct sound of rounds popping in a frenzied and continuous stammering rattle. More explosions. More eruptions of scarlet fire boiling up into the night. A kaleidoscope of colors as different kinds of illue rounds rocketed high, spraying the sky green, red, white. The noise went on and on.

  Ryan back-heeled viciously at the guy behind him and his boot cracked bone. The man's cry was lost in the thunder of sound that crashed around their ears. There was a lot of good shit aboard that train, Ryan thought. He felt within him almost a kind of pride.

  He raced for the war wag. Light from afar danced on its side.

  The rain was heavier now, but Ryan knew it would have no effect whatsoever. The land wags and the other vehicles in that rain would continue to self-destruct until all that was left was glowing scrap metal.

  He heard a shriek behind him, a howl of fury, and the crack of shots, three in all, and he began dodging, weaving, as best he could, at the same time desperately trying to keep himself upright. His arms were still wrenched behind him and there seemed no damned give whatever to his wrist cords. Then his boot caught in an animal hole and he was flying through the air, cursing. He rolled as he landed, automatically, and cursed some more as his roll took him onto his back, crushing his arms beneath him. He rolled on, hit the huge near side front wheel of the war wag and struggled to his feet. A round thudded into the ground next to him and he dived around the side of the big MCP.

  The priority was getting into the war wag, and that could only be achieved by canceling the boobies, and that in turn could only be achieved by accomplishing a feat that was damned near impossible in his present state.

  But no
t entirely.

  He scrambled alongside the looming vehicle, now with mud splashing up into his face. The heavy dabs of rain had been transformed into a smashing downpour of water almost at the bat of an eye. Here, at the rear, were heavy caterpillar tracks. At the front of these, under the chassis, was a covered switch. The cutoff. Once thrown, the circuit that commanded the boobies was dead, and he could climb aboard. But first he had to throw the blasted thing, had to ram his shoulders against the side of the MCP and reach backward with twisted-up arms and scrabble blindly for the unseen switch casing, pull it down with fingers that were nearly dead, then grasp the switch, then push it over, then stagger to the main door at the side, do likewise with the hidden lock underneath the war wag's body, then jump inside and slam the door closed, then...

  Not entirely impossible — as long as he had about fifteen spare minutes, in daylight, and no one trying to kill him.

  He backed into the bulk of the war wag and bent over, bowing his back. His arms rose behind him and his fingers thrust through all the mud and muck and filth that had accumulated there, on the vehicle's underside, and finally caught hold of the casing, hearing, as he did so, bursts of fire from Krysty battling it out with the sec men. Keep it up, he thought in anguish, his fingers tearing at hard gobs of dried mud. He unlatched the casing, felt inside every nerve in him screaming, his head to the right, expecting any second to see some kill-crazy guy storming around from the war wag's front, auto-rifle flaming. Instead, all he saw through the now bucketing rain was the sky still flaring up in bursts of shocking light, his ears taking in the almost continual rumble of distant detonations.

  He shoved the switch, cursing fiercely until he grunted in triumph as he felt it smoothly slot into Off. It was a system that worked outside or inside — it didn't matter. That was the simple beauty of it.

  But there was still the problem of getting into the war wag. Still one last switch to be thrown inside... that had to be thrown within minutes. Within five minutes, or maybe less than five — gotta be. Two minutes? Three? No more than three, he thought, and I can fall into all kinds of crap in three lousy minutes.