Deathlands - The Twilight Children

by James Axler

  Ryan was taken totally by surprise. The loom of the oar came sharply up beneath his chin and rattled his teeth. The very next moment he was beneath the surface of Shamplin Lake, his mouth open, inhaling the chill water.

  He felt something brush against his legs, and he instinctively kicked away. His hand pushed at the creature that had turned them over with such effortless ease, and he felt the roughness of scales. The depths around him sucked and swirled as the huge fish whipped its tail back and forth, propelling itself out of sight. There had been a momentary blurred glimpse of a silvery body, narrow and lean, and a head that tapered like an alligator's. Ryan guessed it was the big pike that they'd talked about. But this one was truly enormous, well over twenty feet long.

  With a whoop he broke surface, immediately treading water and looking around to try to get his bearings.

  The gleaming underside of the boat was less than ten yards away from him, but the strong wind was already pushing it in a southerly direction. Ryan counted heads.

  He checked Dean, his hair pasted to his skull, already kicking out toward the overturned dory. Doc, his sword stick between his strong teeth, was doing the breaststroke beside the boy. J.B. and Mildred were a little farther away, nearer the land. The Armorer had his fedora clutched in bis left hand, the Uzi over his shoulder.

  Something moved past Ryan, only a few feet below him, something that reminded him of the hideous power of the Great Whites that they'd encountered before.

  Calvin appeared close by the boat and turned to grin at Ryan. "Must've- " he began.

  Then the giant mutie fish came up directly below him. The tail fin broke the surface almost between Ryan's legs, and he rolled out of the way. The one-eyed man glimpsed the elongated, feral head, with the smiling jaws and the cold, passionless eyes. Rows of jagged teeth clamped shut around Calvin's midriff. Despite the yelling and the splashing, Ryan distinctly heard the splintering of the young man's ribs. Calvin's head jerked back and forth as the pike shook him like a terrier with a rat. Blood gushed from his mouth, and one of his eyes literally burst from its socket with the awesome pressure.

  As suddenly as it had appeared, the pike vanished. Calvin's right arm, fist clenched, was the last thing to disappear beneath the bloodied surface of the lake.

  The killing had taken less than fifteen seconds.

  Ryan trod water, easing the Steyr across his back. He checked that Krysty was also there. She'd reached

  the boat and was managing to hang on to the planking. Her long red sentient hair gripped her skull so tightly that it looked like a bathing cap of crimson silk.

  Jehu was there as well, his ponytail undone, his eyes wide and blank with shock. The other young woman, Nanci, was crying, barely keeping afloat a few yards behind Ryan, farther away from the dubious safety of the wrecked dory.

  "Michael!" Dean shouted.

  The teenager wasn't in sight, though it was possible he'd come up behind the hull of the boat. Dorothy was also missing. They'd been sitting together in the bow, along with the nets. It crossed Ryan's mind to wonder if they might have gotten tangled in them.

  Krysty gave Dean a leg up, so that he was able to perch on the pitching dory, looking all around. "Not there, Dad!" he yelled, his voice cracking.

  Ryan lifted himself as high as he could, but from his position the wavelets were too high and choppy for him to be able to see more than a few yards. For a moment he thought that he saw something, a looping, glistening coil, covered in iridescent scales thicker than a man's waist, breaking the surface and then vanishing again. He remembered that Dorothy had mentioned there were mutie eels in the lake.

  Fighting not to betray too much of his fear, Ryan began to kick his way toward the boat.

  "Everyone try and climb on!" he shouted.

  "What about Michael?" Dean was rocking from side to side, his arms outstretched like a tightrope walker.

  "Can't do a thing."

  "We can turn the boat, if we all get together." Jehu had made a valiant effort to pull himself together. "Safer in than out with Emperor Pike looking for noon meal."

  "There's an eel, Ryan, closing hi behind you!" Krysty was pointing, her green eyes staring in horror.

  With a considerable effort of will, Ryan managed to resist the temptation to look behind him. That single, sinuous coil had been enough.

  "Go, Nanci!" Jehu had drawn a small skinning knife from his belt, as though he were about to plunge into the water to go to the young woman's rescue.

  "No!" Ryan bellowed, now close to the upturned craft.

  J.B. had just managed to clamber up the slippery wood and was sitting astride the keel, checking the Uzi, readying it to open fire.

  "Duck, Ryan," he called, hardly even raising his voice, calm and in control.

  Guessing that he was in the line of fire at the unseen eel, Ryan kicked up his heels and duck-dived, swimming down several feet. He heard the faint impact of bullets above and behind him, conscious, then, of a powerful thrashing turbulence.

  The moment his head broke the surface again he looked around, seeing the white, terrified face of Nanci close to him. A few yards away there was a rolling mass of dark gray-green scales and foaming water.

  Krysty beckoned them both to get out of the lake to a sort of safety.

  There was still no sign of either Michael or the young blond woman.

  Ryan had just reached the boat, dragging Nanci behind him with one hand, when he heard a great whoop of exultation from his son above him.

  "There he is!"

  The turbulence behind him had ceased, and Ryan was able to blink water from his good eye and glimpse the dark head of Michael Brother a good thirty yards to the north. With his sleek black hair, the teenager looked for a moment like a questing seal.

  The boy shouted something, but Ryan didn't catch it first time around, his hearing blurred by the wind and the water slapping against the boat. But Michael called out again and, this time, Ryan heard him.

  "Trapped in the nets. Help me!"

  Without a moment's hesitation, Ryan handed the rifle up to his son and kicked off again. His clothes and heavy combat boots were weighing him down, already making him tired, but there wasn't a moment to be wasted. Dorothy had already been caught and held under water for the best part of a minute, perhaps longer. The passing time was always grossly distorted at moments of extreme action and tension.

  Jehu and Krysty were hauling the exhausted Nanci to the temporary haven of the upturned dory as Ryan swam away again from them.

  He was aware of the corpse of the enormous eel, floating on the surface off to his left, dark blood trickling from a row of bullet holes from the Armorer's Uzi.

  "She's only just below the surface, Ryan!"

  Michael was close to panic, frantically beckoning for Ryan to hurry and help him.

  "Under you?" The rising wind was ruffling the surface of the lake, making it impossible to see anything below the white-capped waves.

  "Yeah."

  "Stay on top."

  Ryan drew the panga, making sure he had a secure grip on the slippery hilt. He took in a deep breath and released it, took in another, deeper, and dived.

  The broken light from above had a dappled effect, but he immediately saw the helpless woman. Dorothy was now unconscious, hanging limply, a tiny stream of bubbles inching from the corner of her open mouth. Her blue eyes were wide open, staring past him with an imbecilic expression of vague surprise. Her arms were spread but her legs were tangled in a pile of netting, keeping her trapped.

  Holding the panga in his right hand, Ryan grabbed at the young woman's left leg, just above the knee. He felt his way down, hanging on to her for purchase, and used the honed blade to slice through the outer layers of the nets that were immovably knotted around her feet and ankles.

  There was a serious risk that he might cut her badly as he hacked away, working with a desperate, choking speed. There was someone at his side, and he glanced sideways, seeing Michael with one of the twin da
ggers that he carried. Ryan pointed down, indicating to the teenager to work lower, so that they wouldn't get in each other's way.

  A great fold of the clinging nets fell away, but there was still more to cut through. Part of Ryan's brain was a ticking clock. It had to be over a minute and a half. He remembered someone on War Wag Two who'd once gone through the thick ice on an ill-planned fishing expedition. It had taken six minutes to break through and free him. Amazingly he'd still been alive. They'd thawed him out and the medics had done everything they could. He breathed and his heart beat, but after twelve hours he hadn't recovered consciousness and obviously never would. Before they moved on, the next morning, Trader had personally put a bullet through the back of his neck in an act of mercy.

  Someone else had joined them, his face and body vanishing behind a wealth of silver bubbles. Ryan carried on with the panga, cutting and cutting, trying to pull away the fronds of the net.

  Now he could see that it was Jehu, the young man diving beneath them all, tearing away at the main tangle of nets, towing them a little distance off to remove the risk of all of them becoming entrapped.

  Ryan could feel the air becoming exhausted, pressure behind his eye, pain in his lungs and chest. But he knew that time had very nearly run out for the young blonde.

  He was cutting blind, slicing, hacking and tearing, aware that he'd almost lost it.

  Ryan almost left it too late.

  Almost.

  There was a sudden steel tightness across his forehead and temples, and a lethal churning blackness. Just for a moment Ryan hallucinated that he was in the middle of a mat-trans jump. Then the last shards of reason cut in and he flailed his way to the surface of the lake.

  For several seconds Ryan could do nothing except float helplessly in the good air, kicking feebly, battling to recover. He could hear someone shouting to him, but the wind and his own exhaustion combined to deafen him to the words.

  There was a great cry beside him and he saw Jehu, long hair streaked across his pale face, gripping his own knife, sucking in harsh breaths.

  "She's dead," he shouted.

  Ryan readied himself to dive once more, knowing that it was too late. But Vader had drilled into everyone who rode the war wags that the only possible excuse for giving up was to be actually, certifiably stone-dead.

  But before he could draw in enough breath for a final effort, Ryan saw Michael's head break the surface, between himself and the overturned boat. And he was holding on to the limp body of Dorothy.

  WITH THE SKILLFUL HELP of Jehu, they all managed to heave the heavy boat the right way up, frantically bailing out the swilling water.

  The deeply unconscious Dorothy was laid between the thwarts in the wet bottom of the dory and Mildred stooped over her, ready to try to bring her back from the brink of the dark chasm.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  "Moses will be seriously pissed." Jehu sat back in the stern, steering a course southeastward toward Quindley. Fortunately the wind was now behind them, speeding the boat across the slate-gray water.

  "Because of Dorothy?" Dean asked, as he sat facing the man.

  "No!" Jehu shook his head violently, the damp blond hair clinging to the side of his face. "No, because he won't be getting the fish he ordered."

  "Surely her health matters more than whether he gets his trout for his supper." Krysty was on the next thwart, beside Ryan, both of them rowing steadily.

  "Why?"

  "Because she's a part of his community. Your community as well, Jehu."

  Doc and Nanci were one seat nearer the bow. The old man looked tired from the rigors of the ill-fated fishing expedition. "No man is an island, Jehu, entire of itself. We're all linked together, is what that means."

  Mildred was kneeling behind him, cradling Dorothy's head in her lap. "Ask not for whom the bells tolls, eh, Doc? Because it might start tolling for you."

  "Least it won't toll for Dorothy. You did well there, Mildred." Ryan glanced over his right shoulder, nearly catching a crab with his oar and sending them all into confusion. "She still recovering?"

  "So far so good."

  As soon as they'd ladled some of the water out of the dory, Mildred had begun mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on the motionless girl, pausing now and again to take a short break and check the slow, fluttering pulse. "Last time I did this sort of thing we had to have on a mask and rubber gloves," she said, explaining that it had been because of the AIDS epidemic of the last years of the twentieth century.

  It was a long, slow process, and they were more than halfway back to Quindley before the first encouraging sign of returning life. They had been rowing fairly close to the shore, and Dean spotted a narrow column of gray smoke, whipped into shreds by the strong wind, rising from among the trees.

  "Stickies, Dad?"

  "Don't know."

  At that moment Dorothy had gone into convulsions, kicking and waving her arms, while Mildred laid on top of her, helped by Michael to hold her still. Then she'd vomited copiously, bringing up half the lake, along with strings of bile and the partly digested remains of her breakfast.

  Her eyes had opened and she'd stared, bewildered, up at the sky. And began to weep.

  "You're fine, girl," Mildred said.

  "I'm alive?"

  " Sure. Very much so. Good for another eighty years or so... Ah, sorry. Forgot your rules."

  "I thought I'd been taken."

  "Pike threw the boat over. You went in deep and got trapped in the nets."

  "How do I Jive?"

  "Michael saved you, Dorothy. Along with Ryan and Jehu. Cut you free."

  " Where's Calvin."

  "Pike got him. Sorry."

  Michael had knelt in the water at the young woman's side, holding her hand in his. "And Mildred gave you the kiss of life and brought you back from the other side."

  "Other side?"

  Doc had interrupted at that point. "That dark bourne from which no traveler returns. Apart from the fact that Dr. Wyeth's professional expertise ensured that you were the exception to the ancient rule. You came back, my dear."

  "We haven't got the fish that Moses wanted," she replied, studiously avoiding thanking Mildred, or any of them, for saving her life. Then she'd turned her face away and refused to speak until they were home again.

  AS THEY NEARED THE CAUSE that supported Quindley, they heard the sounds of a trumpet, announcing their return. Many of the young men and women came running in from the nearby fields, exclaiming in shock and horror at the news of Calvin's brutish death. Jehu leaped from the boat the moment they landed, calling out that he had to go and report to Moses immediately. He waved a hand to acknowledge Ryan's warning that he should mention the fact that they might have seen further evidence of stickles.

  Dorothy was helped out on rubbery legs, supported on one side by Michael, who went with the young woman into the heart of the ville, leaving the other six to wander back to their own quarters.

  An hour later Jehu appeared in their doorway. His face was pale, and he could do nothing to stop his hands from tangling with each other in front of him, a sure sign of his profoundly nervous state. "Moses wants to see you, Ryan. Straight away."

  "And the rest of us?" Krysty asked.

  "No. Just Ryan."

  "You look like your granny just caught your balls in her mangle, son," Doc said, grinning. "Moses come snarling out of his basket in the bulrushes and give you some seriously hard time, did he?"

  "He is not pleased with what's happening in the ville since you outlanders came."

  "His idea to let us stay," Ryan replied.

  "I know, I know." Jehu's voice broke, and he lifted his hands to his face, looking like he was about to burst into tears. "But now... Well, he wants to talk with you, Ryan."

  "You tell him about the smoke from the fire?"

  "Yes. Moses said he believed that it was only a camp of some beaver hunters, that we shouldn't worry at all about the stickies, that he knew that they'd all gone away and that
Calvin had paid the first part of

  the blood price and all would be well after the rest was settled."

  "What's that mean?" Mildred asked.

  "What?"

  "Settled. You said that the rest of the 'blood price* would soon be settled."

  "Tonight. There will be a ceremony. Two will be sent on. The outlander and Heinrich."

  "Chilled?" Krysty asked.

  "You call it that." Jehu shrugged. "Go to Moses now, Ryan. Now."

  THE LUXURIOUS ROOM felt cold, and Ryan was aware that his clothes still held more than a touch of damp. He walked toward the mirror and stared into it, trying to detect some sign of life or movement.