by James Axler
A frown crossed his features as he checked the gren supplies. “Dark night, Millie, how many did you use on those bastard muties?”
“If you’d seen them, John, you’d understand,” she answered wryly. “Now stop moaning. We’ve got some ground to cover.”
The three of them left the labs, keeping alert as they ascended the stairs to the ground-floor level of the offices and then out onto the sidewalk of the deserted city.
J.B. whistled as he got his first look at the ruins. Mildred stopped, momentarily wondering if anything was wrong, until she realized with a start that this was the first time he’d actually seen the landscape through which he’d been carried the previous day.
“It’s pretty awesome—and pretty damned quiet,” he whispered.
“I figure that the bats scared everything else away.”
They set off across the ruins, heading toward the walls of Pleasantville and going back through the areas they had traversed the previous day. They took the same route as it was convenient, but—aware that they may have been followed—they were strung out in a line, with Michaela nervously sandwiched between Mildred and J.B., who was on point.
It was deathly silent. The only sounds were those made as they walked the old streets and sidewalks, the occasional clang of kicked or disturbed debris all that broke the silence. It would be easy to fall into complacency in such circumstances, but J.B. was determined that this wouldn’t happen, and he made a habit of checking the storefronts of ruined buildings before allowing the other two to follow in his wake.
“Why is he bothering?” Michaela asked eventually. “There’s no one there.”
“But there might be—that’s what matters,” Mildred explained patiently.
THE TRIO WAS only five hundred yards from the no-man’s-land between the walls of Pleasantville and the city ruins when J.B.’s caution paid off. He had gone ahead to scout a section of crumbling brownstones when he heard the noises from within the farthest shopfront. Diving into cover, he was just in time to avoid detection as three sec men walked out of the open building.
“I tell ya, there ain’t no way that we’re gonna find them if they’re in here,” one of the sec men complained. “I dunno why we’re doing this.”
“Because I say so, stupe,” a tattooed sec man replied, hitting his companion with a backhand slap across the head. J.B. didn’t know it, but this was Tracey, the man who had taken J.B.’s companions to their fate. Perhaps it was just as well, for if he had known, it may have been difficult to stay his hand and listen.
The third sec man was now out of the building. He was a huge, bald man, whose H&K looked like a toy in his giant fist. “Look,” he said, sighing wearily, “what difference does it make anyway? You were told to chill the poor bastard, and he’ll probably buy the farm anyway. There’s nowhere for the black woman to go. And as for poor little Michaela…Can you blame her for running? Would you want to be handed over to Horse as a toy?”
J.B. narrowed his eyes. Dissension in the ranks. This could be good for him, in the long run. The Armorer also noticed the look of disbelief on the tattooed man’s face.
“Fuck! I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say so much in your life,” he muttered, astonished, to the bald man. “You’re not gonna go soft on us, are you?”
“Soft?” the bald man spit. “The way we live now isn’t soft? Using these poor bastards and only making jack for Ethan?”
“Shit, you’d better stop talking like that,” the third sec man said, pulling his mane of black hair back from his face, his coat falling open to reveal a Glock and an M-4000 underneath. “That ain’t gonna go down too well.”
J.B. didn’t wait to hear any more. It was enough that there was dissent, and it was enough that three men—all heavily armed, if his glimpses were any indication—were moving toward them.
The Armorer pulled back to where Mildred and Michaela were waiting in cover, and explained the situation. He hesitated slightly before mentioning what had been said about the spiky-haired healer.
Michaela winced. “Yeah, I’d say that was about right. You got a better reason to go down fighting?”
“Don’t reckon so,” J.B. replied. “But we’ll have to be careful with these bastards. They’ve got a lot of hardware.”
He began to outline his plan. When he had finished, he checked to see if Mildred—and particularly Michaela—understood what he had said. The young healer had a grim face, and he could tell from her brief nod of assent that she knew this was no longer about hiding. It was about taking the offensive.
“Okay, let’s take them down, then,” he said simply.
TRACEY LED HIS SEC TEAM to the junction of three streets. They were walking easily, with no sense of danger. The bald man was still moaning.
“I don’t see why we can’t just leave them to it.”
“Because Horse wouldn’t want that. Ethan wouldn’t want that. Besides,” Tracey added, “Horse wanted you on the wall. It wouldn’t be too impressive if he knew you let them slip by, would it?”
“You know as well as I do that you didn’t send me to the sec post until after they’d gone,” the bald man replied angrily.
“Yeah, I know that and you know that,” Tracey replied slyly, “but would Horse know that, or Ethan?”
“You little prick, you’ll pay for that one day,” the bald man muttered.
“Yeah, sure,” the tattooed man replied in a mocking tone.
Their long-haired companion had stayed silent. Truth to tell, he didn’t want to upset Tracey, who seemed to be in charge right now while Horse was gone, and he didn’t want to upset the bald guy as he was terrified of him. Best thing to do was to keep quiet. Beside which, he was nervous out here. He frowned suddenly as the morning sun caught a reflection that gleamed from one of the buildings across the way. Must be an old piece of window…except all the glass had been blown out of the storefronts opposite.
“Fuck! Down!” he yelled, realizing that they were out in the open with no cover. He was torn between reaching into his coat for the M-4000 or using the H&K he already had to hand.
It was a fatal moment of indecision, for in the fraction of a second it took him to opt for the H&K, Mildred was able to sight and fire from her own separate position. Her Czech-made ZKR was a precision instrument and it was in the hands of an expert. An Olympic silver medalist in her predark life, Mildred wasn’t one to make mistakes when it mattered. Her aim was true and the bullet drove straight into the long-haired sec man’s forehead, chilling him instantly. He went down, the exit wound in the back of his head messier than the neat hole in his forehead, spilling brain and blood with fragments of bone onto the dusty road. As he fell, a reflex tightened his finger on the H&K, which was dropping in an arc. The fire sprayed around him, almost taking out Tracey, who leaped for cover, bringing up his own Glock to fire several rounds in the direction of the shot that had taken out his man.
But Mildred had already moved into deep cover. She was out of range of the answering H&K fire from the bald sec man and Tracey had no chance to sight and fore before his own battle was ended.
J.B. had moved across the area between Michaela—whose Glock had caused the reflection—and Mildred, and had circled behind the healer, so that he could come at the two sec men from a third position, just to their rear.
He had the back of the tattooed sec man as a perfect target. The M-4000 roared as a load of barbed-metal fléchettes was propelled through the air. He was close enough for the load not to spread in the air, and almost the full complement hit him in the small of the back, ripping flesh and splintering bone. It almost pulverized his spine and severed his body in two with a shower of blood and viscera. He was chilled and hitting the ground before his brain had a chance to register that he was no more.
Which only left the bald sec man, who had loosed one burst of covering fire before retreating.
J.B. was surprised when the bald man’s H&K was thrown out onto the road, followed by a hunting knife and a B
rowning Hi-Power.
“Listen to me,” the bald man yelled. “I figure you want Ethan down and your friends back. What happened to them sucked. I’m not the only one thinks that. Neither are you, Michaela. I’m coming out. Chill me if you want, but if not then I’m with you.”
The bald man walked out into the center of the street, arms raised above his head, stepping over the corpses of his erstwhile comrades in arms.
There was a pause while the three people in cover considered that action. Then J.B. stepped out into the open, blaster pointed down. Mildred and Michaela followed.
“Well? My arms are starting to ache,” the bald man yelled.
J.B. exchanged glances with the two women.
“Looks like there’s four of us now,” he yelled back.
* * *
Chapter Fourteen
It was a simple enough plan, although not as easy in execution as it may have sounded. To separate Krysty from her mounted shadows, so that Jak and Doc could have time alone with the Titian-haired woman, they had to take her past the den where the mutie raccoons were sleeping and loose the vicious beasts upon the armed men.
As Jak outlined his idea to make it happen, Doc gazed doubtfully from a treetop across to where he could see Krysty and her three horsemen making a line for the copse where they hid. Below them, Horse, the baron and the trader were still blundering around, looking for the two hidden men.
“You got it?” Jak asked finally.
“By the Three Kennedys, it seems simple enough, but I only hope I am agile enough to move at the speed you want. Remember, dear boy, Krysty is younger and fitter than I am.”
“Yeah, but she still fucked up in mind, you’re not. Edge is off her.”
Doc was doubtful but resigned. “There is only one way for us to find out if this is so, dear boy. Let’s do it.”
Jak clapped Doc on the shoulder. It was a strangely reassuring gesture, despite the fact that the old man felt his balance wobble in the upper reaches at the force of the friendly blow. Both men shinned silently down the tree until they were on the forest floor and Jak made one final gesture at the direction of the path they would take. Doc nodded, his face set firm with determination.
Jak set off at an angle that would take his path across Krysty’s, and Doc counted three before hitting the trail hot on Jak’s heels.
The two men made a lot of noise crashing through the undergrowth, making sure that they trod on branches that cracked, ferns that rustled. Doc kept an ear cocked for sounds from the rear of their trail, and was gratified to hear that Horse, the baron and the trader had picked up on their direction and were following. Although he wanted to keep them at a distance, Jak had been adamant that they have the mounted shadows following them. That way, he and Doc would know exactly where they were.
Jak hit the open sward of ground that bisected the copse of trees and took off across it like a hare with hounds at his tail. Doc felt his chest tighten with exertion, his lungs seem to decrease in capacity with every breath as he sped after the albino, keeping him in sight as Jak veered toward the area where Krysty was on the prowl.
The albino was making a lot of noise, trying to attract attention to himself. Doc could follow his trail easily when they were back in the cover of foliage, and for a moment the old man wondered if Krysty would find this a little suspicious. But then he remembered the way he had felt before the hypnotic spell had cracked and he knew that the lust for Jak’s blood would overcome all other senses.
Thus it was that, when he came across the woman, he was more than a little shocked. Especially as she appeared out of the undergrowth clutching her .38-caliber Smith & Wesson blaster and angling it in his direction.
“Hold it right there,” she yelled, bringing up the blaster. Doc whirled to face her and the shock of being directly in line of the barrel made him freeze. “Doc!” she yelled, dropping the weapon to a safer angle.
“Madam, I thought it was the albino we were supposed to be hunting,” he said.
“I heard the crashing, followed it and I thought—”
“Well, you thought wrong. He’s already passed through,” Doc commented, indicating Jak’s direction with a gesture from the swordstick, “and unless we hurry ourselves, we will lose ground on him. I have already had a couple of good shots at him, but he is as slippery as ever. I think I may have caught him with some shot, though, so he may be slowed a little,” Doc added, improvising to try to put her in a frame of mind where she could be more easily suckered.
Krysty smiled a cold, evil smile, with none of the humanity he knew was in the woman. Doc had to suppress a shudder at what he saw, not just for Krysty, but because he could see that until very recently, he had been the same himself. Ethan would pay for this.
It was a train of thought interrupted by the sound of approaching horsemen from two directions. They had to move now or get caught.
“Come, we are letting him gain ground,” Doc yelled urgently, moving toward the path Jak had forged.
Krysty followed him without hesitation and together they plunged into a thick part of the undergrowth. Jak had deliberately chosen this path, knowing that the density of the undergrowth would slow the riders following in their wake.
Doc led the way, with Krysty hot at his heels. He knew what waited up ahead, but was a little unsure as to what form it took. He was apprehensive, to say the least, but had to trust to Jak’s judgment.
While Doc and Krysty cut a swathe through the forest, Jak was already at the burrows where the raccoons had their warrens and dens. It was hardly identifiable as such, unless you knew what you were looking for. Jak could see the disguised holes in the ground that led to the underground nesting places and he noted that they had built these dens near water, a stagnant pond lying nearby.
A humorless grin crossed his scarred and otherwise impassive face as he heard Doc and Krysty approach. Behind them, and losing ground in the restrictive environment, were the horsemen.
Timing was now everything.
Jak waited until Doc and Krysty were coming into view, then took out his .357 Magnum Colt Python. But he had no intention of using it on the approaching hunters. He had a more obtuse use in mind.
The sun was beginning to sink and he could see that only about a half hour of daylight remained, which meant that the mutie beasts, who were basically nocturnal, were beginning to stir for their night’s hunting. This was just the right time to stir some shit. They would be awake enough to emerge, yet not awake enough to move at their full speed, which should enable Jak the ability to expedite an escape.
Jak crouched in front of one of the closely set holes and thrust the barrel of the Colt Python into the darkness before squeezing the trigger. The booming of the large-caliber handblaster was subdued by the enclosed space, which acted as a baffle, and yet the shock wave from the shot seemed to make the ground ripple beneath his feet.
Moving swiftly, Jak took three steps to his right so that he could put the barrel down another hole, ignoring the yowling of pain, anger and fright that was already beginning to emanate from beneath the ground. He squeezed off another shot, with another muffled boom and a shock wave beneath him. The sounds of the raccoons grew louder as more of the colony responded in confusion to the intrusion, and some of those not damaged by the two shots began to make their way to the surface, to attack whatever had launched this assault on them. Jak intended to be well out of the way when this happened.
But first he also had to avoid being shot by Krysty, who had her Smith & Wesson leveled at him. Jak was already holstering the Colt Python as he turned to run and he trusted to Doc to give him cover.
The old man didn’t let him down. Knowing that they would have to move quickly to avoid being trapped by the beasts, and that he couldn’t let Jak fall into danger, the old man had been keeping an eye on Krysty. He saw her draw and take a bead on Jak, and chose that moment to make his own diversion.
Doc raised the LeMat, making sure that he would fire the ball chamber, and sq
ueezed off a rapid shot before Krysty had a chance to fire. He contrived so that the ball would go well wide and high of the mark, and also that he was able to convincingly essay a slip on the greasy surface underfoot, where the edges of the pond had turned the otherwise dry earth into a mudball. With a surprised yell, Doc flung out an arm, ostensibly to balance himself. In fact, it was cunningly contrived so that he would catch Krysty as she took aim and thus ruin her shot.
The woman swore heavily as her shot went wide and low, digging up a clod of earth some twenty feet from the rapidly retreating albino.
“Doc, for fuck’s sake!” she exclaimed.
“Mea culpa, my dear, but let’s not waste time in recriminations,” the old man replied hurriedly. “We have to move quickly.”
He knew that Krysty would have to wait to berate him, as there was no way she could argue with his summation. Even as he spoke, the first of the giant mutie raccoons was starting to nose its way out of the burrow.
The two hunters skirted quickly around the area, intent on following the albino—although each for a different reason. They were quick enough to avoid the anger of the wild muties.
The half-dozen horsemen following in their wake weren’t as lucky. Slowed by the density of the undergrowth, Horse, Riley and the four hunt customers they were protecting weren’t able to catch up with Doc and Krysty before they were once more out of view. They did, however, come up against an army of mutie raccoons who were hungry for blood, hungry for revenge against those they thought had attacked them in their lair.
“Fuck, what are those?” one of the barons yelled, drawing his blaster.
“Trouble,” Horse snapped shortly. “They’re strong fuckers, don’t let them get too close. Riley, defensive formation and back away,” he ordered.
The blond sec man assented, his blaster ready. Like Horse, he was carrying an SMG, which he set to rapid fire. The two sec men got in front of the four riders they were supposed to be protecting and began to fire random blasts into the wave of attacking animals. The muties would normally have turned and hared back into their warrens at the onset of such a barrage, but they had a blind anger and terror that just drove them to attack.