by James Axler
“And they disarmed everyone at the gate,” J.B. added.
Doc nodded. “But if it did not work, the disappointed bathers would surely leave and ruin its reputation with their gossip. I would like to give this some thought,” he told the others. “Perhaps it would be best if we all retire for the evening.”
The companions split up then, with Krysty and Mildred disappearing to their room while Ryan and J.B. remained with Doc, taking their beds. Soon after, the oil lamps dimmed and the building block went quiet.
SOMETHING CAUGHT Jak’s attention as he exited from the alley between the buildings. He peered into one of the windows and heard voices, one of which he recognized.
Jak listened for a moment, before striding down the alley, peering in windows as he passed. The third window showed a group of people sitting around a table, and Jak halted, ducking to the side and listening intently. There were fifteen of them, all young, and they sat around a too-small table chatting and laughing, smoking and drinking. One group was trying to play cards, but the room was too crowded and they kept having to swap cards around a girl, perhaps seven or eight years old, engaged in braiding her friend’s long hair.
Jak scanned the faces until he spotted Daisy and Alec, along with the other man who had disappeared with them that morning. They clearly knew the people in the room, and Daisy was engaged in an animated conversation with two boys who looked just about old enough to shave.
Jak watched, wondering whether he should be suspicious.
There was no glass in the window, just wooden shutters that folded open into the room, allowing the night air to flow into the downstairs of the shack. Jak stood there beside the open window, watching and listening.
He saw Daisy greet a young woman of similar age—which was to say, she looked to be about eighteen—with long brown hair that reached halfway down her back, as she entered the room. The young woman was thin, awkward and gangly, and she wrapped her long arms around Daisy, pulling her close in a hug. Standing beside them, Alec scratched at the back of his head as he looked at the floor, embarrassed.
“Daisy Lee, when did you get back?” the dark-haired young woman asked.
Jak pulled back a little more from the window, keeping to the shadows as he picked through the various conversations he could hear, tuning in to what Daisy and her friend said. A little farther along the alley, one of the sec men was still drowning as his own blood filled his throat.
“Hannah,” Daisy was saying, “it feels like ages.”
“What happened to your hair?” Hannah replied, gently stroking Daisy’s bangs out of her eyes.
The young women shrieked and giggled, speaking too fast for Jak to catch. He waited, watching them, trying to make sense of their words in much the same way as Daisy had tried to make sense of his when they had shared a wag.
The dark-haired teen was saying something else now, and Jak half caught the words, piecing them together over the other sounds coming from the room. “How’s Dad?”
Jak saw Daisy roll her eyes, biting her lip in a kind of “I don’t know” gesture. “We lost the wag, but he’s taking it real well,” she said. “You’d think he’d be mad as a freaking stickie.”
Jak realized immediately about whom they were talking. Jeremiah Croxton had lost his wag in the fight with the nocturnal scalies. Jak and Ryan had come upon the scene of the battle just after J.B. had blown the man’s wag to smithereens.
But hadn’t the other girl just called him “Dad”? If Jeremiah was Daisy’s father, then what had he been doing on this little excursion to the pool?
Warily, Jak made his way out of the alleyway and back toward the accommodation buildings.
DOC STOOD IN FRONT OF the mirror in the bathroom once more, running a razor over his chin and jowls. He looked up into the mirror, and his clear blue eyes locked with those of the mirror man for a moment. He was a young man again, the wrinkled lines having ebbed from his face, leaving him a man of thirty once more. He worked the razor through the lather of soap, removing all trace of the stubble.
There came a knocking at the door then, and Doc held the razor steady, tensing momentarily. “Yes?” he inquired.
“Come on, Father,” a voice came from the door, “we’re going to be late.”
“Wanna see Mother,” a second voice chimed in, this one high as a piccolo.
Rachel and Jolyon, Doc’s children.
Brow furrowed, Doc realized then that he was back in Nebraska. This aging and de-aging was all frightfully confusing.
Out in the corridor, Doc joined his children, feeling the rawness on his jowls where he had just shaved.
“Come on, Father,” Rachel said, already so much the grown-up in her ways. “We must not be late.”
Three years old, Rachel had dressed in the outfit of a society woman, a somber colored wrap over a black dress that trailed to the floorboards. Beside Rachel, Jolyon was not yet two, and he sat down against the wall, looking up at his father with innocent eyes. Like Rachel, Jolyon was dressed in his Sunday best, a little suit with a white shirt. Evidently, Rachel had tried to tie his tie, but the material looked crinkled and hung askew to the collar.
“We must not be late,” Rachel repeated, tugging at Doc’s sleeve.
“Just a moment, little one,” Doc instructed, giving his daughter a favorable smile as he lifted Jolyon from the floor. He straightened the boy’s clothes and retied his tie before the three of them exited the dark house.
It was morning and the sun was bright outside, so bright it dazzled Doc Tanner for a moment when he opened the door. Rachel led the way, trotting along in something that resembled a skipping run, urging her father to hurry as he carried Jolyon in his arms. The streets were sparsely populated, but the few people who passed them stood to one side as Rachel skipped by, tipped their hat and offered a greeting to Doc.
In a few minutes the three of them were at the top of a hill that overlooked the town. “Come on,” Rachel urged again, looking at her father with anxiousness.
At the top of the hill, Doc stopped and peered about him. There was nothing here, just a skeletal, leafless tree beneath the gray, foreboding sky. Cawing miserably, a tar-feathered crow landed on one of the tree’s spindly branches, and the branch dipped under the bird’s weight. Rachel merrily skipped around the tree, giggling as she went around and around.
“I must have quite forgotten,” Doc said, “why it is we have come here. Could you refresh your father’s memory, Rachel, my dear?”
Still laughing and skipping, Rachel’s words came to Doc’s ears like the rolling waves of the sea, soft then loud. “We’ve come to see Mother, of course.”
Confused, Doc looked around, feeling the burden of Jolyon becoming heavier in his arms. And then there was a noise, a shuffling from the ground, and Doc looked down just in time to see a crack appear in the dry soil. Doc stepped back, clutching Jolyon closer as he backed away from the opening rent in the ground. “Come over here,” Doc instructed Rachel, but she ignored him, continuing her giggling-skipping dance around the lifeless tree. “Rachel, stand over here with me.”
Rachel’s skipping never slowed, and her words came once more, colored by her giggling. “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” she trilled. “It’s just Mother.”
A hand burst from the soil, reaching up into the sunlight. The nails were long and ragged, the fingers bent inward like a claw, and light glinted on the yellow band of metal that was wrapped around the third finger. Emily.
Doc stepped back farther, calling Rachel to his side. The soil churned over and over as the corpse that had once been his beautiful wife struggled out of her grave, pulling herself out of the sod. It was Emily Tanner, unmistakably so.
She clambered from the soil, straightening in a series of stuttering, jagged movements, all sharp elbows, shoulders and knees. As Rachel frolicked around the tree trunk, the corpse that had been her mother stood, the moist earth clinging to the tattered remains of her wedding gown, its veil fluttering from the movemen
ts of the beetles, maggots and worms that clung beneath it, feasting upon her cold flesh.
She was just a skeleton now, really, the fragile remains of her skin rotten and holed like something eaten by moths. Her once-luxuriant hair clung to her scalp in clumpy strands, and its rich color had faded into a patchwork of tan streaked with white.
Bent over, lopsided, the corpse of Emily Tanner looked at Doc with empty eye sockets.
Horrified, Doc felt himself take another step back, pulling Jolyon close to his chest. What had happened to Emily? When had she become like this? Doc didn’t even remember burying her, couldn’t recall her death.
At the tree, Rachel finally stopped dancing and skipped over to her mother’s side, reaching to tug at the corpse’s bloodstained, white dress. Doc watched as the dress split apart at Rachel’s touch, flaking to dust in her hand.
“Rachel,” Doc said firmly, “come here now. Quickly, Rachel.”
Rachel pulled a face and ignored her father’s instruction, tugging at her mother’s disintegrating bridal gown.
The thought flashed into Doc’s mind then, about his dear sweet Emily and what had become of her. Was this the trade he had somehow made, in wishing to be young again? Had she sacrificed herself for his happiness, as he felt sure he would for hers? Was she a moldering thing that he might retaste his youth?
The moving corpse staggered forward, with Rachel chasing beside her, and her footsteps were lumbering, arms swaying back and forth, as though she could no longer balance without great force of will. And then Doc saw Emily’s arm strike Rachel as it swung in that relentless, pendulum-like manner, and Rachel’s face began to change, to melt away. Doc watched, his heart thumping in his chest, as Rachel, his little girl, hurtled through the aging process, went from three years old to five to ten to a hundred in a matter of seconds. In those brief moments, Doc saw every face the girl would ever wear, maiden to crone, like the phases of the moon.
Jolyon screamed as Rachel’s dress slumped to the floor, just bones and dust left inside it. Beside the dress, the corpse of Emily Tanner took another shaking step, and her skeleton hands reached out longingly for her crying son. Doc turned, pulling the sobbing boy away, shielding him with his own body.
With Jolyon clinging to his left side, Doc felt the other weight in his right hand, the familiar weight of the LeMat pistol. He didn’t remember releasing it from its holster, couldn’t even recall carrying it on this pilgrimage to hell. But he didn’t care anymore, he simply knew what had to be done.
Doc raised the percussion pistol, aiming it at the approaching corpse of his dead wife, and pulled the trigger.
AWAKE.
“Come on, Doc, snap out of it.” J.B. was above him, shaking the old man ungently by the shoulders.
“Wha—?” Doc struggled, the dream still searing his thoughts like a sizzling cattle brand.
“Wake up,” J.B. whispered, his voice low but carrying that definite note of urgency. “Jak’s here.”
Confused, Doc looked around the room. It was still dark. Ryan was standing close to the doorway, discussing something in a low voice with Jak.
“What’s going on?” Doc asked.
Jak looked at the old man and, even in the unlit room, Doc saw the boy’s eerie eyes gleaming red.
“Everyone dead,” Jak said.
Chapter Sixteen
“I would estimate that there’s at least twenty-five sec men here in the compound,” J.B. stated, keeping his voice low.
Krysty and Mildred had been awakened to join them as the companions scattered themselves around one of the shared bedrooms to discuss Jak’s discoveries.
“We’ve taken on twice that number,” Krysty dismissed.
“I’m talking about the ones I’ve counted,” J.B. clarified, “the ones who are walking around the ville bearing arms. If you include the residents…”
“I think we have to,” Ryan added solemnly.
“Then there’s mebbe fifty or sixty people here,” J.B. finished, running the numbers over in his head. “And we were disarmed at the gate, don’t forget that.”
“Some of us,” Doc said, toying with the swordstick in his hands.
“You don’t like the odds,” Mildred summarized.
“I couldn’t give two hoots for the odds,” J.B. grunted. “What bothers me is that they have all the blasters and we’ve got two knives and a pebble to throw at them.”
Doc looked through the open doorway before he spoke up. “You are sure of what you found?” he questioned Jak.
“Buried bodies,” Jak said. “Lots. No mistake.”
Mildred reached out, placing a consoling hand on Doc’s arm. “You wanted this to be true, Doc, we know that.”
Doc shook his head sorrowfully. “You must all think I am a damned fool,” he said.
“No, we don’t,” Ryan said immediately. “None of us think that, Doc.”
“I would not blame you if you did, Ryan,” Doc admitted. “J.B.?”
“You’re the smartest man I know, Doc,” the Armorer told him. “Even the smartest man gets sucker punched once in a while.”
Jak brought them back to the topic in hand—the field of dead bodies and the lingering threat of Babyville. “What now?” he asked.
“They’re killing everyone who comes here and burying the evidence,” Doc summarized. “We have to stop this practice. We simply have to.”
“I agree,” Ryan said, “but we need to get our timing right. As J.B. pointed out, if we’re not careful we’ll find ourselves on the wrong end of a blaster-fight, with no weapons to defend ourselves.
“J.B., how long do you think we have?”
“Eddie and Michelle kept talking in terms of three or four days,” J.B. recalled. “That’s how long this miracle cure takes to work, they said.”
“I guess,” Krysty said thoughtfully, “that’s to give them plenty of time to chill visitors.”
“You don’t want to be rushed when you’re performing mass executions,” J.B. said.
“So, the longer we leave it the more people will get bumped off,” Mildred said, irritation in her voice.
“And, if we leave it too long,” Ryan added, “they’ll no doubt come for us. Fireblast, we may even be the first they plan to off.”
J.B. shook his head. “They’re cowards. They’ll go for the easy marks first.”
ELSEWHERE IN THE VILLE, in one of the huts where Jak had fought with the sec men, the majority of the locals were gathered together for an urgent meeting. Eddie and Michelle were among the group, as were Daisy and Alec from the group of travelers that Ryan and his companions had protected.
“I’ve been watching that one-eyed fella, Ryan, for a few days now,” their leader announced, “and I think now’s time we got rid of him.”
Raising her hand, Daisy spoke up. “I told you that when I first saw him, Pa. That old guy—Doc—he fell for the story hook, line and sinker. But I always thought his friends was too dangerous.”
Beside her, the blond-haired Alec offered his thoughts. “There’s six of them and they’ve been disarmed,” he said. “They won’t cause us any trouble now, Pa.”
At that their leader, Jeremiah Croxton, gave Alec a cold look. “They had better not,” he said. “We chill them tomorrow morning—first thing—understand? Start with that mutie white fella—Jak is his name. His devil’s eyes have been creeping me out since I first saw him, and the little runt’s dangerous as forest fire.”
“Crazy runt killed my team,” a sec man at Jeremiah’s elbow whined. “And he saw everything out in the fields, I swear he did.”
Croxton bowed his head. “You’ll get your chance, Jamie,” he assured him. “We’ll chill them all.”
The thirty-strong crowd acknowledged their leader’s request. They may have come searching for immortality, but Ryan and his companions’ lives were now numbered in hours and minutes.
OVER BREAKFAST—a simple meal of unleavened bread and goat’s cheese—Michelle explained to the tables that thre
e of the “friends” had already left.
“I’m pleased to be able to announce that friends Felicia, Harry and Paul won’t be joining us today,” she said brightly, giving everyone her perkiest smile. Felicia and Harry had been the elderly couple whom the companions had followed up the stairs the night before.
Everyone looked surprised and Nisha Adams was the first to ask why.
“The pool works differently for different people,” Michelle explained. “Some folks are very lucky and they feel the effects immediately.”
“So they just upped and left?” Julius asked. “Without even saying goodbye?”
Eddie’s booming voice came from the doorway as he strode into the room, with young Daisy and a young man by his side. “If my experience with the pool of youth has taught me anything, it is that life is for living. I imagine that friend Paul and the others felt the same.”
Michelle nodded. “It’s an amazing experience to finally be young and healthy again. Sometimes people just can’t wait to leave.”
“I left before dawn when it happened to me,” Daisy added. “Just had to spread the word.”
At the table, Jeremiah Croxton chewed on his bread and began to chuckle. “Let’s hope it changes all of us so absolutely,” he said. “And soon. I cannot wait to be running laps of the ville wall, and surely I cannot be alone in that desire.”
A number of people at the table chimed in with their agreement, and everyone got back to their meal before their trip to the pool of rejuvenation.
As conversations buzzed around the table, Krysty leaned close to her companions, her voice low. “I liked Paul Witterson,” she said sadly. “He didn’t deserve…”
Ryan fixed her with his gaze. “Nobody does.”
“It’s just like we thought,” J.B. growled. “They’ve started closing in, chilling everyone. Old folks in their beds, like shooting fish in a barrel.”