by Jon Land
In the years of the hellfire and beyond, Johnny Wareagle had never felt a strength like that of the man over him. Impact on the thankfully soft ground hammered the Indian’s insides, enough of the brunt taken on his side to be absorbed by what were now severely bruised ribs. He rolled, trying to seize the advantage from Early before the man-monster could bring the full force of his strength to bear. For an instant Johnny was actually on top, until a pair of meat-claw hands found the soft flesh of his throat, thumbs maneuvering into killing position. Johnny twisted with all his force and tore free of the grasp. He rolled away gasping and turned back.
Early was gone. Wareagle lunged to his feet and swung to the right.
Eariy stood there, head cocked slightly forward like a stalking predator. Waiting, only the broad outline of his bulk clearly visible in the thin light from above. But Johnny’s sharp eyes recorded the bearded, mangled countenance dominated by his one bulging eye and recalled the tale of Early’s encounter with a motorcycle gang’s pit bulls. The bandages upon his arms had unraveled and dangled in the dark air to the ground, revealing thick, oozing sores that seemed to pulsate. His breathing sounded labored, hissing when it passed through his hideously swollen upper lip.
The monster carried the feel of recent death on him, fresh blood from the kill worn over his person like a pelt. It showed in his one functioning eye as well. The twins, Wareagle realized. Early must have found them well before they had finished laying their explosives, the charges they had managed to set sure to be deactivated by now. The kingdom would no longer be falling; escape was all Johnny could hope for. But escape—saving Blainey and Karen Raymond—meant getting past Early.
The man-monster exploded forward, a rusty knife in his hand glinting faintly in the dim light. Johnny managed to deflect the blow at the last, and the blade clanged against the frame of the giant payloader. Wareagle slammed his free hand twice into the side of the decaying face even with his own, but Early grunted away the pain and slashed sideways with his blade.
The swipe caught Johnny across the chest and pushed a thick streak of blood through his clothes. Johnny backpedaled and arched his spine to avoid the next slash. Earvin Early’s mad, rotten-toothed grin widened as he kept advancing, the knife swiping ahead of him. Wareagle moved in perfect rhythm, a mongoose to Early’s cobra. His feet struck a shallow depression in the earth, which began to drop off suddenly. Turning slightly, Johnny could see he was nearing the foundation frame for the soon-to-be storage depot. Earvin Early loomed over him as he neared the churning shape of a cement truck that had been ready to drain its contents when the power failure sent the crew manning it, as well as all other construction workers, scurrying to find the source of the blackout.
Johnny slid under the spout, heels precariously close to the edge of the foundation’s forms. Early slowed slightly. The rotten-toothed grin flashed again. He pounced, knife surging inches ahead of him.
Wareagle pulled the handle that opened the cement spigot. The gray flow captured Early and swallowed him. Johnny saw his open mouth, gasping for air, before the thick river took him with it down into the form, settling and piling in rapid fashion. He gazed down into the muck trying to see Early captured within it.
A gray-coated hand grasped his ankle and tugged. Johnny’s balance was stripped away in the same instant he saw Early’s other hand clinging to the top. He fell over the side of the forming foundation and into the leveled pit that would become this building’s basement. He staggered to his feet and watched as the cement-encrusted shape of Earvin Early crashed through a section of the wood and steel foundation forms, and freed the gray flow to spill out in his wake. The man-monster swiped his face free of the coating that slid down the rest of his frame.
Wareagle had started toward him when Early reached back and pulled an exposed steel support form from the ruined section. The remnants of the wood buckled. Early held the steel rod effortlessly overhead and lunged toward Johnny. A stack of similar supports were laid on the ground near the Indian’s feet and he managed to get one up just in time to block Early’s wild strike.
Early whirled in again, and this time Wareagle stepped inside the blow’s force and dropped his rod into a vertical position. There was a furious clang as steel met steel. A numbing vibration surged up Johnny’s right arm. Immediately Early brought his support up overhead and sliced down with it. Wareagle twisted from its path and brought his steel form down hard atop it. Before Early could react, Wareagle. jerked his weapon on an upward angle. Early managed to turn enough to take the brunt of the blow on his shoulder, but staggered backward, wincing briefly before the rotten-toothed grin returned to his face.
Johnny felt the steel rod’s bulk starting to tell on him. He knew another blow wielded now would be too weak to bother with, so he backpedaled instead. Early held his own steel rod as if it were made of wood, looking no weaker for the effort, as blood from his mangled arms began to mix with the cement coating them, turning the color from gray to light brown.
The man-monster lashed out wildly with his support again. Wareagle ducked under the blow this time, and it slammed through a section of wooden forms on his right. Early came at him with another overhead strike that whistled by Johnny’s ear and crashed through the top of the same forms. The pooling concrete began to bulge out from this second gap as well.
Early brought his rod down to waist level and began to poke it at Wareagle, toying with him and smiling through the sores festering over his face.
“One thing is certain and the rest is lies,” he rasped through the saliva frothing from his mouth, quoting the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, “The Flower that once has blown forever dies.”
Johnny managed to deflect each of the thrusts, but the muscles in his arms were beginning to seize up. When Early mounted a quick lunge forward next, Wareagle was late with his block. The front edge of Early’s support rammed him in the stomach and drove him backward. The weakened wood shattered on impact and the cement flow grabbed Johnny, parting to make a place for him. His hands lost their grasp on his support rod and it clamored to the flattened dirt surface beneath them.
When Early thrust his support savagely forward to shove him all the way into the oozing gray wall, Wareagle twisted sideways. The steel cut the air adjacent to him and sank deep into the wet concrete. Early tried to extract it, and Johnny locked both hands on the rod’s shaft in what he wanted the man-monster to think was simply an effort to restrain him. Actually he was seeking to gain leverage for his legs. With that leverage gained, he kicked upward, feet scissoring together, and caught Early square in the chest. The man-monster gasped and flew backward.
His steel rod lost to the cement, he lashed out toward the advancing Wareagle with a wild flurry of blows, using both hands and feet that Johnny just managed to stay ahead of. His blocks and deflections came with the same blinding motion that Early’s attacks did.
Wareagle mistimed a block and his cheek exploded in agony. Early went for the same spot again, but Johnny ducked under the blow, which shattered the top portion of another section of forms. Behind Early now, he slammed an elbow in his ribs and then threw all his force against him. Impact drove Early through the remnants of the wood and into the heightening cement, which parted to accept and then engulf him.
Johnny could feel the viscous cement pouring over his arms and face as well, but he held fast to the pressure, holding Earvin Early in the thickening flow. He took a deep breath when it reached his own face, his grip never slackening on the desperately struggling shape lost before him. Wareagle maintained his hold even after the man-monster’s movement stopped and he began to sink. Johnny kept it up until his own lungs could take no more and he had to lurch away in order to clear the tumbling cement from his nose and mouth.
Woozy and dizzy, Wareagle dropped to his knees. But his eyes never left the section of forms where Earvin Early had been entombed. He waited for several moments just to be sure, and then rose to his feet as the monster’s grave began to harden.
/> The rooms on the third sublevel were unfinished, all lacking doors and many having not been wired. McCracken and Karen had finally taken refuge in one at the midway point, equidistant between exit doors on either side of the hall.
“I’ve got to tell you what we found!” Karen insisted, heaving for breath when they finally came to a halt along a corridor in the darkness. “I’ve got to tell you what was up there in the lab!”
“Time for that later, Karen.”
“What’s wrong with now?”
“Now we get moving again.” He paused. “Back to the first floor and the door where the Indian and I parted company.”
“Why?”
Blaine looked at his watch. “Because that’s where Johnny will be coming back for us.”
The lights had just come on again in Harlan Frye’s private office when Major Osborne Vandal reappeared in the doorway. Memories of Vietnam had been awakened in him again, this time the bad ones. Memories of frustration, loss, and ultimately capture. The darkness of the kingdom was too much like that of the prison camp where he had spent seven years of his life. Strangely, his bad hand had begun to throb and stiffen again.
“Sir, the repair crew dispatched to the power station reports some commotion in the area of the supply depot.”
“Commotion … That’s how they described it?”
Before Vandal could respond, his walkie-talkie began to squawk and he raised it to his ear. His eyes widened as he listened intently.
“What is it, Major? … Major? …”
“Suspend all search of the grounds!” Vandal barked into the mouthpiece. “Concentrate all troops back at central. Do you hear me? Do you hear me? … Send squads one and three to the Reverend’s office. Now!”
“Major!” Harlan Frye demanded. “What happened out there?”
The major took a deep swallow of air before he spoke. “Early has been found, sir … .”
McCracken and Karen’s climb had brought them one level directly beneath the exit door Johnny Wareagle would be returning to when the lighting snapped back on.
“Stay behind me,” he ordered when they turned onto the final staircase.
Blaine ran swiftly up the staircase, holding the Sterling poised before him. Just over half his last clip remained. Karen followed a few steps behind.
“Down!” he screamed when a burst of footsteps stormed their way.
Blaine never stopped, firing the last of his bullets on the move. A half dozen men were cut down in the rush that left him only a single grenade to fight back with.
“Let’s go,” he said to Karen, and tossed the Sterling away.
She didn’t hesitate, trusting his judgment and sidestepping the bodies without a second thought. They reached the ground floor, to be greeted by a barrage from an ambush team stationed just down the corridor. Blaine shoved Karen behind the cover of his body and hurled his last grenade in the direction of the gunfire. They reached the exit door in the wake of the deafening explosion and pressed against its steel. Blaine had bought the two of them some time, but there was no more to be had at any price and nowhere to go in any event.
“Blaine,” Karen Raymond started. “I think I hear some—”
McCracken pushed himself back against the door, hearing it too. He peered out through the glass plate in the exit door that had been shattered by one of the grenade blasts.
And saw the giant John Deere loader steaming their way, its sharp-toothed shovel extended straight out before it.
Wareagle slammed the 744E through the wall to the right of the door where he had left McCracken, teeth slicing through the frame effortlessly. The loader’s unique electric downshift allowed him to shift instantly from second to first to attain the traction he needed. Blaine anticipated Wareagle’s strategy in time to yank Karen safely away from the expected shower of rubble. The shovel continued its neat slice across the body of the main building of the kingdom, Johnny working the wheel to bring the cab up even with the exact spot he expected McCracken to be. For the last stretch the 744E ran half in and half out of the building. Its shovel tore aside everything in its path. Its massive tires rolled over whatever dropped before them. The loader ground to a halt, engine still revving, and Wareagle leaned across the front seat to throw open the door on the passenger side.
Blaine boosted Karen up the ladder and lunged after her as quickly as possible, shoving her rigid frame through the open side door. Bullets trailed them the last stretch of the way, clanging off the steel rungs and drawing dangerously close in the final moments that saw Karen Raymond reach cramped safety behind the operator’s seat, where Wareagle was.
The loader’s windshield exploded, forcing Johnny to duck beneath the dashboard as Blaine closed the passenger door behind him and squeezed into the cab next to the Indian. The interior smelled mustily of damp cement, and Blaine gazed up to see Johnny’s frame encased in a crackling layer of gray, making him look like a statue that had broken free of its bonds.
The passenger-side window exploded into shards as automatic rounds burned into it. Johnny instantly banked the loader to the left, tearing out another huge chunk of the wall as it made its break. Gunfire continued to pepper its frame and tires, to no avail. The 744E pulled away from the building and thumped onto the unpaved street.
“What now, Indian?” Blaine asked, still squeezed next to him in a crouch beside the shot-out passenger-side window.
“We complete our escape.”
With that, Wareagle flipped a switch marked POWER BOOST into the on position. Almost immediately 250 horsepower kicked in, and Johnny shifted from second into third, working the floor pedals madly.
“The twins?” Blaine raised.
Johnny shook his head somberly. “Early,” was the Indian’s only spoken reply.
McCracken felt honest regret. “I assume the favor’s been returned.”
“That circle is complete, Blainey.”
“And the explosives?”
“Early found the charges; I’m sure of it.”
“So how do we get out?”
“I’ll show you.”
McCracken saw the dark alcove in the mine wall just before Wareagle barreled the John Deere 744E right into the line of vehicles jammed before it. He had lowered the shovel to slightly above ground level, and it swept them into each other with barely any resistance as it cleared a path for itself. The ride ended when Johnny wedged the shovel’s teeth tight into the far tunnel wall. The result was to place the loader diagonally across the only entrance to the secret tunnel, effectively blocking any other vehicles from entering it in their wake. McCracken watched Johnny strip the ignition wires free, rendering the 744E inoperable until time-consuming repairs were carried out.
“Must be a long walk back to the surface, Indian,” Blaine realized.
“I pulled one of the supply trucks parked in the entrance farther down into the tunnel for us, Blainey.”
McCracken smiled at Johnny, no more amazed than usual. “Then let’s get the hell out of here, Indian.”
CHAPTER 36
The drive up the darkened ramp was broken only by the spread of the truck’s headlights. Blaine had taken the wheel. Johnny’s eyes never left the truck’s rear on the chance that Frye’s guards had somehow managed to follow them into the tunnel. Karen Raymond, breathing somewhat easier, was wedged between them in the cab, far more comfortable than squeezed behind the operator’s station in the John Deere.
The tunnel banked into its steepest rise yet and McCracken saw the blackened end of it opening like a huge mouth. An electronic eye must have triggered the mechanism automatically, saving them the trouble of ramming their way through or tripping the wires.
“I’ve figured out what happened in Beaver Falls,” Karen said, after the truck had thumped onto a hardened dirt roadbed. Their hope was that somewhere up ahead it would join Route 287 through the plains of the Panhandle. “I think I know everything now.”
McCracken turned and looked at her.
“It�
��s worse than I thought,” she continued, “worse than I could have imagined. Frye’s test subjects weren’t the only ones infected by AIDS in Beaver Falls; the whole town was infected!”
McCracken’s gaze tightened.
Karen stole a swift look at Wareagle. “We saw what was left of the town in an isolation ward above the kingdom’s laboratory. There were beds full of residents who’ll be dead in a matter of days, if not hours.”
“Of AIDS?” Blaine asked, knowing that ran counter to everything known of the disease.
Karen nodded slowly. “When Frye’s scientists tampered with the disease’s genetic makeup, they laid the foundation for its mutation beyond a strictly blood-bome virus, into one that is water-borne or droplet-spread.”
“As in air?”
“Air, touching, breathing, mucous membranes—almost anything.”
Blaine slowed the truck. “The AIDS virus being spread like the yearly strain of flu … But it’s not the AIDS virus as we know it now.”
“Not at all. The residents of Beaver Falls didn’t just begin showing signs of AIDS prematurely; they began showing advanced symptoms of the disease within a matter of days after being evacuated. Three or four years of immune system breakdown in barely that many days.”
“That explains it.”
“Explains what?”
“The Reverend Frye is planning to poison the city of San Antonio’s water supply, Dr. Raymond. And all the people who visit the city in the month or so after are going to leave with the disease in their systems. Infected by drinking the water.”
“His scientists must have used what happened in Beaver Falls to create an extremely concentrated version of his ‘vaccine,’” Karen responded, trying very hard still to sound professional.