Watersleep

by James Axler

  Half of Ryan still dangled down into the cabin, but from the waist up he was exposed to the four walls of the elevator shaft. As inside the car, the lighting out there was also nonexistent, but he was surprised to see glowing fluorescence extending vertically up the far back wall. As he gazed at the glow, Ryan realized he was looking at a pattern.

  With a grunt, he pulled himself completely through the hatch and managed to brace himself along one of the sturdy upper beams of the elevator, not wanting to test the strength of the ceiling with his weight. He reached up and gripped the steel frame of the car as he swung one leg to the opposite side of the roof, then the other and squatted on the beam.

  He looked at the glow-in-the-dark shapes stretching up along the wall of the shaft.

  What he was seeing were the rungs of an emergency ladder, no doubt designed for just this kind of happenstance. The rungs were evenly spaced about two feet apart, one after the other, and bolted into place. They snaked up as far as Ryan could see.

  "What's the situation?" J.B. called.

  "There's an emergency ladder in place along the front wall of the shaft," Ryan said. "We'll go up in two groups. You, me and Krysty will recce upstairs. After we've cleared the area, then Mildred, Doc, Dean and Jak can come up. We'll have to do this one at a time. I don't want to put too much weight on the top of the car or have anybody accidentally fall off. Go in order of how we usually approach a triple-red sit­uation."

  From within the elevator, J.B. assisted Krysty up. Once the red-haired beauty was safe, Ryan took to the ladder, giving enough room on the elevator roof for the Armorer to scramble up safely.

  The climb was smooth and easy. At a few points, the rungs were slippery with old grease and grime, but it was nothing Ryan couldn't handle. When he reached the end of the ladder and realized he was staring at a hairline crack where the top-floor eleva­tor-shaft doors opened, he was almost surprised.

  "We're here," he said in a whisper.

  "Good," Krysty whispered back.

  "I'll have to force the shaft doors. Hold on until I signal you."

  After carefully removing the panga from the sheath at his side, Ryan used it to help open the doors, slid­ing the finely honed blade into the thin slit, then twisting his wrist back and forth, executing as much pres­sure as he could on the handle while trying to stay balanced on the rung of the ladder. He had crooked one arm through the rung for extra support, but that limited the amount of pressure he could put on the knife.

  Krysty, seeing Ryan's predicament, made her way up next to him. She pressed her firm body against his own to help hold him firmly in place, with her chest against his back as she reached out on either side and gripped the rungs of the ladder tightly.

  "Looked like you needed an assist, lover," Krysty whispered. "Be careful up there. Something doesn't feel right."

  "What? Squatters living in the redoubt, like those bastard twins back in Old Colorado?"

  "Could be that, or friends of the four men we found below."

  Ryan nodded. With Krysty's support, he was now free to use his full upper-body strength against the closed doors. Sweat dripped down his face and arms as he exerted pressure.

  Finally, with a sluggish squawk of protest, the ele­vator doors slid apart a few inches. Replacing his panga in its sheath, Ryan now had enough room to wedge his fingers in the newly created gap. He felt a fingernail on his right hand peel back as he strained to pull the doors open wide enough to squeeze his body through.

  Inch by inch, the doors pulled apart, finally creating a space just wide enough for a man to slip through.

  Balancing his feet on the top rung of the emergency ladder, Ryan used the upper part of the now open door for a handhold. He took a deep breath and stepped through to what he hoped was safety.

  The area outside the elevator was as dim as the darkness in the shaft. The electricity was apparently out up here, as well. Ryan paused, straining his eye and scanning for any signs of movement.

  Nothing. He took one step forward, and a piece of stray plastic snapped underfoot, the cracking sound leaping forward as swiftly and surely as a broken twig in a silent forest.

  In immediate response, the wall next to the elevator doors erupted in an answering barrage of sound, small indentations rattling down from floor to ceiling in a sloping pattern of gunfire.

  Ryan dived away from the doors for cover, hoping the noise would keep Krysty and J.B. in place on the ladder and not drive them into doing anything heroic. An empty plastiform-and-steel cargo container was lying open on one side. Ryan took cover behind it, knowing from past experience any military redoubt's storage pods were made of sturdy stuff.

  Since he was still alive, Ryan figured the shooter didn't have infrared. His guess was that the assailant had been forced to aim by sound, using noises to track as Ryan slipped out the doors from the elevator shaft. He crouched on his hands and knees behind the con­tainer and waited, but the shooter kept firing random bursts. That was reassuring. Ryan now knew for a fact he could safely discount a night scope by the way the bullets kept ineptly chewing up the scenery.

  The sniper was firing blind.

  Ryan kept his head low, listening, attempting to pinpoint the exact location of the gunman over the rapid drumming of what sounded to him like an M-16 assault rifle. Obviously the shooter was firing from a vantage point located around a corner of the walkway—across from the elevator. While this was a safe place to hide for an ambush, it also meant the sniper's aim was compromised.

  In one practiced move, Ryan unleathered the SIG-Sauer and waited until the M-16 stopped stuttering. The way his hidden assailant had been spraying ammo, Ryan deduced the shooter had to be reloading.

  He reached down and as before, carefully, quietly picked up a handful of the scattered bits of discarded rock and metal on the floor; gracefully overhanding them toward a mass of empty storage pods to his right. The thrown debris hit the plastic, clattering a warning to the person with the assault rifle.

  The hidden M-16 responded by spreading an un­even skittering pattern of destruction away from Ryan's hiding place and in the direction of where the new noise had come from.

  Sloppy, but Ryan was used to stupes who let weap­ons do their thinking in a combat situation.

  In fact, he counted on it. Such foolishness had kept him alive many times during his long career, if one wanted to call riding back and forth in war wags and traveling by mat-trans across Deathlands a career. Not that Ryan relied on luck. Going into any situation, anytime, anywhere, he was ready for the unexpected, for that was the only kind of luck Deathlands ever seemed to offer.

  Surviving was what Ryan and his friends did best, and if their opponents were sloppy, so much the better for them.

  There was a pause in the barrage of steel-jacketed death. Ryan had easily placed the shooter by ear, now all he wanted was a final visual confirmation, which came soon enough as the M-16 spit a fresh hail of bullets. This time Ryan clearly saw the white flash from the barrel of the weapon.

  Ryan brought his own weapon to bear. Aiming by instinct, he squeezed off three bullets, one of which wormed high into the front of the sniper's left collar­bone and out his back. A second bullet punched into the already critically wounded man's cranium and through in a mass of grue. The final slug punched through what remained of the man's forehead. As the sniper's body grew slack, the M-16 fell silent. The next thing Ryan heard was the clatter of the assault rifle hitting the floor, followed by a series of gargling sounds from the dying man as he followed the weapon.

  The interior of the hall outside the elevator shaft became loud with silence.

  "Ryan?" came a subtle whisper from Krysty.

  "Shh! Not yet." Ryan stood and walked warily to the fallen body. As he had hoped, the sniper had been alone. He looked down impassively on the slain killer, striking a self-light while kneeling for a close inspec­tion. The tight circle of light revealed a thin man of about thirty, with dirty long blond hair and a ratty goatee. The upper l
eft of his forehead was missing where the slugs from the SIG-Sauer had struck.

  The dead man wore a powder blue dress shirt that had already turned dark with blood from his wounds. A pair of combat boots had the cuffs of baggy, dirty trousers stuffed into their high tops. On the pocket of the shirt was a black-and-white skull patch identical to the ones on the sleeves and pockets of the corpses on the lower floor of the redoubt.

  Ryan was getting ready to tell Krysty to come through the elevator access hatch when the interior of the redoubt lit up. For the second time since his ar­rival in the humid hellhole, Ryan found himself lung­ing down flat on his stomach, every nerve in his body screaming with alertness. He squinted, his vision col­ored with tiny explosions of color from his single overloaded cornea.

  The pupil of his blue eye had been stretched open to maximum in the dimness, and it now involuntarily misted over in shock from the light as Ryan struggled to recover from the unexpected illumination.

  As he blinked, Ryan grimly realized he was tem­porarily in the earlier blind position of the sniper. He reached out and retrieved the man's rifle, adding the stripped-down M-16 to his own portable arsenal of the SIG-Sauer. Hearing approaching voices, he crawled in the opposite direction back toward the oversize cargo container. Temporarily safe for a second time behind the makeshift cover, he listened, waiting for his best opportunity, depending on who or what came around the corner.

  "Geez, this joint makes me nervous," a youthful voice said.

  "Everything makes you nervous, Breaux," came a sarcastic response from about twenty feet away. "Gambling makes you nervous. Gaudy sluts make you nervous. I say, take advantage of anything you can and go for the moment. Use your nerves, man."

  "Whatever you say, Dunlop. I just wish I'd get assigned to do something more exciting than hiding out and guarding an empty shithole. Aw, Christ! Look at this!" the voice identified as Breaux wailed. "What a bastard mess."

  Ryan, his vision now back to normal, peered out from behind his haven and took in the scene. The man with the slight Cajun accent had to be Dunlop. He came running up warily into Ryan's rapidly improv­ing view. He was a tall black man, with a mass of thick dreadlocks sticking out in all directions atop his sweaty face. He was dressed in baggy, ill-fitting pants and a patched tie-dyed T-shirt that read All-Nite Funk Machine in silver iron-on letters. A white headband stretched across his forehead. In its center was the skull patch.

  "Makes a convenient target," Ryan muttered.

  The black man also carried an M-16 identical to the one the slain man had been using.

  The other man—or rather, the other boy—Breaux, was white, and wore a red flannel shirt open in the front, black jeans and a threadbare pair of white can­vas tennis shoes that were now splattered with crim­son from where he'd stepped into the growing pool of blood leaking from the slain sniper's shattered cra­nium.

  Sunglasses with darkened lenses were perched high on the forehead of his moon-pie face. He looked every bit of fifteen years old. His hair was cut close and stood up on his scalp like freshly shorn wheat. The shirt and jeans were too short, and his young­ster's wrists and sockless ankles were showing. Ryan guessed the boy hadn't had a change of clothing in some time, and was rapidly growing out of what attire he owned. An H&K .32 automatic blaster was gripped tightly in his right hand.

  "He's dead, then, is he?" Dunlop asked, gazing past his companion and scanning the dead end of the hallway.

  "What do you think? Half of his damned head's gone!" Breaux said nervously, eyeballing the thick red pool he'd stepped into. Already the blood was starting to congeal around the ruin of the corpse's head and left shoulder.

  "Poor Mikey, he dead. Scared of a little blood?" Dunlop chucked, using the toe of one foot to nudge the dead man. "Got to grow up sometime, little one. Learn to laugh at red."

  "Fuck, no—I ain't scared," Breaux protested. "Not of a dead body or some blood. I'm scared of who did this to him. Smells horrible."

  "Here's some free advice—try not to step in it.

  Shit will stick to your shoes like hot glue. Lucky for your delicate nose Mikey here is done deader 'n dick," Dunlop said, keeping his rifle level as he peered down with a clinical eye. "And not long dead. Otherwise he'd be stinking a whole lot worse than usual in this heat."

  "Who do you think did him?" the younger man asked, cutting his eyes warily back and forth.

  "Don't know. Guess the boss knew someone might be coming back here sooner or later—otherwise he wouldn't have bothered posting guards. Lucky break for you, man."

  "Lucky break how?"

  "Could be you chilled there on the floor. I walked out here with you from camp as a favor. What if you found such a terrible sight alone, eh?" Dunlop's voice was sarcastic. "Wet your pants and come back crying for help. Too bad Mikey couldn't handle it better than this, though, the stupid son of a bitch."

  "Mike was cool, man. Ease up," Breaux said softly, feeling guilty about being so flip over a friend's death.

  "Sure, sure. Look, he's been made, too," Dunlop said, pointing down at the corpse.

  "How do you know that?"

  "His gun's gone, stupe. Unless the man's weapon decided to run for cover, somebody beat us to turning him over."

  "You're right," Ryan said flatly as he stood up from hiding with the SIG-Sauer leveled at the men.

  Chapter Four

  Ryan knew his sudden appearance would result in one of two possible reactions from the pair.

  The expected one wasn't long in coming.

  Dunlop gasped out a curse, swung his M-16 around and prepared to fire. Ryan didn't hesitate, and the SIG-Sauer thrummed a second payload of death, two rounds drilling into his adversary's upper chest and neck. The man gurgled as his body fell backward, his arms pinwheeling wildly as a wet spray of crimson flew in the wake of the exit wounds. His feet stumbled over the body of his former acquaintance, and he fell flat on his back across the chest of his dead associate.

  Breaux merely stood there, not making a sound. His right cheek and head were spotted with red, but he made no move to wipe the gore from his face. The only noticeable change in his composure was how pale his head suddenly looked sticking out of the open collar of the flannel shirt. A slight sheen of sweat covered his ears. He kept his hands low and at waist level.

  "So much for the Funk Machine," Ryan said dryly as he stepped out from behind the table, the SIG-Sauer leveled at the standing Breaux. "I'm hoping you're smarter."

  "Compared to those two, I already am," Breaux said in a wobbly tone. "I'm still alive."

  "For the time being. Drop the blaster now, before I chill you, too."

  Breaux followed the order, opening his hand and letting the weapon fall to the ground with a clatter. Ryan stepped forward to kick the pistol away when the nervous Breaux decided to make a move. With surprising speed for someone so young, he lunged forward in an attempt to grab the SIG-Sauer from Ryan with his free right hand.

  Ryan had seen the plan of attack coming. To his practiced combat eye, the boy was moving in slow motion, the grab for the blaster an obvious distraction to cover the small but lethal stiletto that had slid down Breaux's checkered shirt sleeve and into his waiting left hand. An old dodge, but a good one in a bar fight over a drunken slut or an unpaid beer tab.

  Only this was no bar, and Ryan was no drunk.

  "I was really hoping you were smarter than those two wonderful examples. Guess not," Ryan snarled, and lashed out fiercely, catching his surprised attacker flush in the teeth with the barrel of the SIG-Sauer. Blood and drool mixed with bits of white enamel poured from the young man's ruined mouth as he dropped to his knees with a whimper.

  The stiletto fell to the floor, forgotten in the haze of pain the youth was suffering. Ryan used the toe of his boot to flick the fallen blade out of range.

  "Listen close," Ryan grated as he reached down and pulled up the weeping boy by his collar. "I don't like liars and I like liars with knives even less. I've been on the defensive sinc
e walking into this scum-soaked hole, and I don't even know who you losers are or why you're lurking around here. So spill it."

  Breaux stared dully at Ryan. All of the white heat of the attack had been doused with the taste of cold steel against his now bleeding gums. "Who are you?" he asked painfully through his broken mouth.

  "Who I am doesn't matter. Talk to me, boy. And make the story interesting."

  "We're part of Northern Panhandle. Sec squad of three. We were sent here to keep an eye on this place." He spit out a gob of pink-tinged saliva.

  "Sec squad? That explains the twin M-16s and ut­ter lack of training to use them, I suppose. Who trained you?"

  The boy's defiant look from earlier returned in force. "Rollins. Rollins trained me personally back at the barracks in Mobile."

  "Alabama?" Ryan recalled there was a ruin of a military base there.

  "Yeah. Trained me good. I'm a professional," Breaux said indignantly.

  "So tell me, professional, what's up with the skull patches?" Ryan pointed the muzzle of the SIG-Sauer at the round black spot sewn to the pocket of the boy's shirt.

  "All of Rollins's men wear them."

  "Who is this Rollins?"

  The boy clammed up. Ryan gestured with the pistol. "Do I have to shoot you in the leg to help your memory?"

  "Rollins is the boss of all bosses," the boy recited in a chant. "Gonna take over all of Deathlands some­day."

  "Oh," Ryan said sarcastically. "King of the Deathlands. Now there's a title for you." The one-eyed man shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "How'd you get in here, anyway?"

  "Through the door, you old fart."

  Ryan's free hand lashed out, cuffing the boy's head.

  "Watch your smart mouth, stupe."

  "Th-this place was open. Been open for months. Doors were broken up in a quake. You should know! You had to have—"

  Then Breaux's gaze fell on the partially opened elevator, and a look of understanding fell across his face. His eyes narrowed suspiciously.