Axler, James - Deathlands 66 - Separation

by Separation [lit]

  "The people you fought back there were from a ville called Broadmead, and they're not bad people. They were always fair to us when we traded with them, and we came back to them a few times. But when we were on our way back this time, I couldn't stop thinking about my son."

  Sharona looked up into the night sky, finding it hard now to express what was inside.

  "Dean was always on my mind, and I used to dream about him all the time. I hadn't done that since the days when the sickness was really bad. I figured that mebbe it was welling up again…but after a few nights I knew it wasn't about that. I knew that the most stupe, impossible thing was happening. That somehow, in a way I couldn't explain even if I wanted to, I knew that Dean was coming near to me and that if I followed my instincts, then I would find him."

  "Hot pipe!" Dean exclaimed. "That's what it was." He explained, when faced with questioning glances, "Since we did the last jump, I've had dreams about Rona, and all the while we were on Pilatu, I kind of envied Mildred that thing about family and belonging that she was getting. It was like there was something that I was missing and it wasn't anything I'd thought about, but it was just there."

  Sharona nodded. "I stayed behind the last time we hit Broadmead. I knew that I had to, that if I just waited long enough you'd be brought to me. All I had to do was have patience and wait till it got really strong. And I could see you, I knew you were near. Then when the sec patrol got ambushed, and they wanted a raiding party, I volunteered to go on it. They didn't want me, but they were always too scared of Nyland's crew to say no to us. And the rest…" Sharona trailed off with a shrug. There was nothing more to say.

  But plenty for them to think about.

  THE PILATAN CARAVAN spent the next two days journeying across the plain until they came upon the remains of an old highway that stretched, in jagged and broken line, into the distance. The growth of vegetation around the highway was considerably less than farther back through the plains they had just traversed, making their progress easier. There were little signs of any villes nearby, and after some consultation with the companions, who had traveled these kind of routes many times before, Sineta and Markos decided to strike out ahead. They had put a considerable distance between themselves and the ville of Broadmead. Whoever they encountered now would find them willing to take matters on different terms.

  During the long trek, Sharona took the chance to be with her son as much as possible, and Dean was also eager to spend time with his mother. The rest of the companions, knowing that they had spent so much time apart, and that the youth was still in shock at the sudden and unexpected reappearance of his mother, let them be. Krysty couldn't shake the notion at the back of her mind that there was something amiss with Sharona, and this wasn't to be a glorious reunion. Was this some kind of residual jealousy because Ryan's ex-lover had reappeared? Was it because she had, almost without realizing, slipped into the role of being a surrogate mother to Dean when he needed it? She didn't know and didn't feel inclined to delve too deeply in case she didn't like what she may find.

  But the alarm bells didn't stop ringing.

  Sharona made the most of the time she had with Dean to catch up on what he had been doing since she had last seen him, but when he talked of what they would be doing in the future, he noticed that she seemed uneasy and gave him pat answers that suggested she wasn't comfortable with the idea of traveling with them. He broached the matter with his customary lack of subtlety as they rested by the side of the blacktop one late afternoon.

  "Rona, why don't you want to come with us? Are you going to sneak off and leave me again?"

  Sharona leveled him with a stare, pausing to pick her words before answering. There were things about the question that hurt. She said, "I never left you willingly, you know that. And I came looking for you, waited to find you, so I don't think it's likely that I'm going to turn around and sneak off, as you put it—"

  "I'm sorry," Dean cut in with a small voice. "I didn't mean…"

  Sharona sighed. "I don't blame you, Dean. You were young, and you wanted to stay, and I wouldn't let you. And I'm not going to let you go this time."

  "Then why do you sound so distant when I start to talk about the others and where we'll be going or what we'll be doing next?"

  Sharona paused. "Because I don't know if it'll be the right thing for me to go with them…or you, either."

  At first Dean could say nothing. He was too shocked by what Sharona had said. The companions were his life and now that his mother was back, he wanted her to be part of that, so he could have that sense of family that he had spent his time on Pilatu yearning for. Why didn't she want that?

  Sharona looked at him with a sad smile, as though she had read his mind. "They're your people, not mine," she whispered. "I don't know them and I don't see how I can fit in."

  "But they're really good—been really good to me. I mean. I know Doc's a bit crazy, but he's got courage. Jak takes a long time to know, but he's the best hunter you'll ever see, and an amazing fighter. I've learned so much from him. Mildred is great, and J.B.'s so cool with all the shit he knows, and Krysty has been like a mom to me, and then there's Dad…" Dean suddenly trailed off, as it began to make more sense to him. Something clicked in his head.

  "Yeah, exactly," Sharona answered. "Your dad is really thrown by me turning up. I can tell because he's said nothing to me about it since that night when I tried to explain it all. And Krysty can't be too happy about me being here, either. Can't say that I blame her. So it'll be hard for us all to get along. But why do we have to?"

  "I don't follow," Dean said, although he had the nastiest feeling that he knew what was coming.

  Sharona grabbed him by the shoulders and her deep-set eyes lit up as she said, "Why don't we just go off by ourselves? Mebbe we could try to find Nyland's convoy again, or find a ville where we could settle and make a life for ourselves. Somewhere that we won't have to face shitloads of danger every day, where we can just live in peace and get back the time we've lost."

  "Why do we have to do that?"

  Tears filled her eyes, trickling down her cheeks. "Because I don't want to share you with anyone. Why should I? I've lost so much time with you. I sent you away thinking I was about to buy the farm! I can't see myself sharing you and risking you every day in some insane search for…for what?"

  Dean shook his head. "I don't know. I don't know if I can leave them all behind. Please don't make me."

  Sharona could see the real hurt in his face and she looked away.

  "I truly don't know if I can do that, Dean. But I'll think about it. It's all I can promise you."

  Chapter Fifteen

  The Pilatan caravan traveled across the new lands for several days, covering a rapidly changing terrain. Some sections were arid, the land scorched and barren, where others were lushly vegetated with overhanging woodlands that provided cover for the shrubs and grasses to propagate. There was little wildlife to bother the caravan. Most of the mammals were small and the birds weren't of a predatory variety.

  There was, however, one moment when the Pilatans came face-to-face with a facet of mainland life with which the companions were all too familiar.

  It was on the third day, as they crossed a stretch of land that was so sunblasted and rad damaged that little could grow. The only thing that linked this to any of the other areas they had passed was the ubiquitous two-lane blacktop that still wove its broken-backed way across the land. A scout party reported that they had located a source of water. The Pilatans were plentifully supplied with food as Jak had taught them supplementary hunting skills that they had practiced with great aplomb on the small mammals and birds. But water was always a problem. They only had a certain amount of water that they could store as they journeyed, so the search for water was always of paramount importance.

  The scouting party had reported that they had found a spring about three miles to the northeast. Markos led the caravan in that direction. It was on the way that Krysty turned to Ryan.<
br />
  "Something bad's about to happen, lover. I'm not sure what, but it doesn't feel good," she commented.

  Ryan looked at her. Her hair was waving in the breeze, curling around her head. It wasn't tight and defensive, but it was alarmed. He turned to the other companions.

  "Triple-red—keep your blasters ready."

  "Shouldn't we tell the others?" Sharona asked, readying her own Vortak precision pistol, which she had kept hidden about her person.

  Ryan shook his head. "They've got to learn these things the hard way. Besides, what am I going to tell them? They don't really know much about Krysty being able to sense trouble."

  Sharona shrugged. "Have it your own way, Ryan."

  The one-eyed man shot her a glance. "I will," he said harshly.

  Dean was about to respond when they were distracted by a shout from the front of the caravan.

  "Water ahead—and what the hell is that?"

  Looking to where the spring lay, the companions could see a mass of naked people…no, not people, for there was something animalistic about the group, who acted more like a pack of wild dogs.

  "Stickies!" J.B. exclaimed.

  Markos turned. "What are stickies?"

  Ryan shook his head. "Time for explanations later. Just know that they're vicious and they need chilling!"

  His words came not a moment too soon, as the pack by the spring sighted the caravan and turned to charge toward them. From the manner in which they had been greedily consuming from the spring, they had probably not seen water for some time…by which token, they had probably not seen food for as long. And the Pilatans would look like good food to them.

  "Don't let them get near. Just blast the bastards!" Ryan yelled.

  He mentally weighed the odds. At a rough glance, it seemed as though there were as many stickies as there were Pilatans, and the caravan was armed. Against that, many of the Pilatans were children, or old, and none of them had experience of what a stickie was capable of. With their sharp teeth, their bloodlust frenzy, and the flattened, rubbery suckers on their fingers that could grip and crush a victim, it would be a close-run thing. And which way it would run, he didn't want to predict.

  The companions, under Ryan's direction stepped away from the main body of the caravan and began to fire on the stickies. There was still enough distance between the blasters and the intended victims for a lot of the shooting to be random rather than aimed, but several of the creatures went down either chilled or fatally wounded as the slugs from the handblasters and the charges from Doc's LeMat percussion pistol, J.B.'s M-4000 and Ryan's SIG-Sauer ripped through them. J.B.'s load of barbed metal flechettes were particularly effective, as the spiked and white-hot metal ripped through the mass of flesh that was the crowd of charging stickies, mangling bone and filling the air with a fine mist of blood.

  However, even though some of their number hit the dirt, the promise of food and the fear caused by the carnage among them spurred the stickies on even more and they continued their charge toward the Pilatan caravan.

  "What manner of creatures are these?" Sineta whispered in awe. As most of the Pilatans, she hadn't yet started to fire, frozen in surprise and horror as she watched the mutie horde cover the distance between the spring and the caravan with a deceptively fast, loping strides. They were gaining ground quickly—too quickly for Markos, one of the only Pilatans with the presence of mind to fire on the approaching danger, and he turned and yelled at his people.

  "They're dangerous and deadly if you don't start firing," Mildred screamed in the baron's ear as she ran to her side, still snapping off shots from her ZKR, and reloading on the run. "Now start shooting, for God's sakes, and aim for their heads!"

  Galvanized into action by Mildred and Markos, the baron and the rest of the Pilatans began to fire. But some of the stickies had made enough ground to now be on top of the caravan. One grabbed at a sec man, frozen in fear, and wrestled him to the ground, the suckers tearing the flesh on his face as the sharp rows of teeth made to rip at his throat and shoulder. His scream was high, built on fear and pain.

  Mildred moved across swiftly and placed her ZKR on the side of the creature's head, firing and blowing its skull open, splattering the terrified sec man with brain and bone. The chilled stickie fell from him, but where the skull had been cracked like an eggshell, the teeth from the bottom jaw stayed imbedded in his face.

  Another scream from behind made Mildred whirl, cursing herself for leaving Sineta's side. A stickie had made it as far as the baron and had jumped her, dragging her to the ground. They were rolling wildly in the dust, the baron vainly fighting to throw the mutie off her, just holding its head away from her face by keeping the heel of her hand firmly under the creature's chin, pushing it up. But the stickie's strong arms—a deceptive strength given the seemingly pale flabbiness of the creature's flesh—were pulling her arms down, the suckers biting into the skin through her clothes, deadening the muscles as the iron grip cut off the blood supply.

  Mildred tried to take aim, but they were moving too much. She stood too much risk of hitting Sineta if she fired.

  Jak saw what was happening and before Mildred even had a chance to register what he was doing, the albino hunter had sped past her toward the struggling couple. Holstering his .357 Magnum Colt Python and panning one of his razor sharp, leaf-bladed knives, he took the stickie at a run, a swift arm movement slicing across the front of the creature's head, opening up its face from the top lip to the forehead, slicing through the nose and puncturing one eyeball along the way. As the creature's fetid breath mixed with the blood and eyeball mucus that dripped onto her face, Sineta found herself gagging, fighting to hold down the bile that rose in her throat and would choke her if she gave in to the urge to vomit while she was still pinned down.

  The stickie screamed in a high, keening voice, loosening its grip as it registered pain. Sineta responded immediately, throwing the mutie off her. Even before it had landed, Jak followed up to finish the job, pinning it down and slicing across its throat with one swift, efficient motion, cutting through the neck to the spinal column at the rear.

  Sineta didn't have a chance to thank him. Instead, she showed her appreciation by blasting the stickie that was making for Jak's exposed back.

  Gradually, as the firepower of the caravan decimated the stickie horde and thinned it out, the stunned Pilatans began to gain the upper hand, forcing the remaining stickies to run in fear and terror. When the retreating muties were out of range, and the Pilatans were safe, Markos turned to Ryan, having assessed that the caravan had sustained only minimal casualties.

  "Now are you going to tell me all about those creatures, and any other hazards we may need warning about?" He grinned, flushed from the success of battle.

  Ryan returned the smile. "When we've cleaned up."

  WITH REPLENISHED STOCKS, the caravan once more went on its way. Ryan and the other companions had outlined some of the dangers that the Pilatans may face from the likes of stickies, but despite the increased vigilance of the sec patrols, there was nothing more to report as they made their way out of the rad infected section of country.

  As the land became more verdant once more, they found themselves climbing an incline. The land around was rolling plains and they seemed to be taking one of these on the ascent as they followed the blacktop. It was a shallow incline, but a long one—at least a day's march—and it would finally take them away from the old predark route they had been following for the blacktop curved away from the incline and came to a sudden halt where a chasm had been cut into the land by an earth movement. A sec party including Ryan and Markos had made its way along the remnants of the road until it came to the sudden dip of the chasm. It was about sixty feet wide and stretched like a scar on the land as far as they could see in either direction. Looking down, the chasm seemed to be at least a hundred feet deep, with trees and shrubs growing down sides that were too steep to countenance a descent.

  "It would appear, friend Ryan, that this
is the end of the road, if you'll excuse the appalling word play," Markos said ruefully. "From our discussions, I gather that many villes and trade routes are built along these old roads and that would have been our surest chance of hitting something approaching civilization."

  "Yeah, apart from the fact that civilization is just a word that I've seen in some old predark books," Ryan said quietly.

  "Point taken, my friend. Let us just say that it would bring us into contact with other people. But now…"

  "Well, it's not that great a disaster. There's more than one old blacktop left across the land. If we keep going, we'll come to something sooner or later—some place where you can settle."

  "But not you?"

  Ryan smiled wryly. "I doubt it."

  The sec party returned to the main body of the caravan and reported their findings before carrying on with the trek up the long incline.

  It was an easy trek after the past few days. There was a plentiful supply of animals, fruits for food and water in streams that flowed down and across the downs at strange angles. It was such a peaceful procession, that actually reaching the peak of the plain was somewhat of a surprise. The pinnacle stretched out before them for a hundred yards, before beginning the descent into a valley below.

  "Wow, just look at that," Dean whispered softly as the caravan came to a halt and they all surveyed the territory in front of them. The far side of the valley was a much shallower incline, leading on to lands beyond. They could see the remains of old roads in the distance and the marked-out remnants of arable fields and pasture. At one time, before the nukecaust, this land had been prime farming acreage and had road contacts to villes that may lay beyond, which were still possibly extant and served by trade convoys.

  "Now that looks good to me," Mildred said to Sineta. "What do you think?"