by James Axler
“A bit of the old-fashioned,” Doc snarled as the sec man fell into unconsciousness.
Behind Doc, the man with the nightstick had forgotten all about his bloodied nose and was rushing to renew his attack on his foe. As he swung the nightstick at the back of Doc’s head, something solid slapped against his raised hand, and his whole arm went numb. He turned to see Mildred standing over him, hefting the spade in her hands ready for a second blow. Then, the spade’s metal blade crashed into his head and his vision blurred into darkness as he lost consciousness.
“Come on, Doc,” Mildred instructed. “No time to rest.”
WHILE HE HAD BEEN lying on the ground, Jak had been working at the strands of the net with one of his hidden blades. When Ryan had tricked Croxton into stepping close enough, Jak had seized the opportunity, lunging at the man and cutting a mean wound as high as he could reach in the Croxton’s leg. That had been the catalyst, and, as soon as the battle had kicked off, Jak had found himself rolling to avoid bullets and kicks as he clambered out of the net through the hole he had cut.
Now, Jak was a little way from the main battle, finding himself a little space so that he could better use his throwing knives. Alec, Daisy and the other young woman, the one he had identified previously as Hannah, broke from the main group to follow Jak, and Alec raised his bow, the string pulled taut as he targeted an arrow at Jak’s skull. Daisy and Hannah stood at Alec’s side as he let the arrow fly, and the shaft tore through the air toward the albino youth.
Jak let himself fall backward, his arms whirring as he flicked the two knives from his hands. The spinning knives cut through the air as Jak dropped to the ground under the arrow’s path. As the arrow zipped overhead, Jak’s knives connected with their targets—Alec’s right wrist and his forehead. The former had been a security measure on Jak’s part, just in case the forehead blade had missed. Jak leaped back to a standing position as Alec fell to the soil, two leaf-shaped blades embedded in him.
Still standing beside the fallen teen, Daisy and Hannah were now in openmouthed shock. Daisy reached into her bag and pulled out what looked like a sharpened screwdriver as Jak closed the distance between them at a dead run. He was on Daisy in a flash, his right fist swinging at her breastbone as his left hand revealed another blade. Before Daisy could react, Jak drove the blade into her right eye, rending a bloody line across her face before slashing through the eyeball with the knife’s sharp edge.
As Daisy fell, Jak dropped with her and his leg swept out at the other young woman. Jak’s foot connected with the side of Hannah’s knee, and her leg buckled, dropping her to the floor.
The blonde girl was shrieking herself hoarse. Jak approached Hannah where she lay in the dirt. Her leg now lay at an awkward angle where his kick had connected; her kneecap had popped out.
“Please,” Hannah begged as she lay there before the albino outlander. “Please don’t kill me.”
Jak looked down at her pitifully. He wasn’t known for his mercy, but he could see she was out of commission, a mixed-up child in way over her head. “Daisy lives,” he said. “You, too.”
With that, Jak walked over to the corpse of Alec and pulled his blades free. Behind him, Hannah sobbed as she crawled over to where Daisy lay. “It’s okay, cousin,” she was saying, trying to hush the screaming girl. “It’s over now.”
Jak took off at a run back to the main field of battle, just twenty feet away.
JEREMIAH CROXTON WAS running, the pain of Jak’s knife cut searing through his leg. He ignored the battle raging behind him now, knowing in his gut the likely outcome. He had seen Ryan’s companions fight with mutie wolves and those crazy nocturnal creatures they had run into in Tazewell; they were soldiers, warriors whose minds were at their sharpest in the heat of battle. And his kids, the ones he’d produced with his own loins and a handful of women he’d met on the road, the ones he’d come to use to populate this little venture—they were nothing but cannon fodder. Chilling unarmed old folks was one thing, any brat could do that. But Ryan and his people—they were something special.
Croxton had a solution to that, though. Up in the old watermill he had stashed an old Russkie AK-47, ready for emergencies just like this one. He’d mow the lot of them down if he had to. There were kids here, orphans that had been incorporated into Babyville as slaves to work the fields. Those kids had no one. Once all of this was over, they would turn to him and, if he kept a low profile for a while, he could raise them into his own personal army and start the whole Spring of Eternal Youth scam somewhere else. Screw that. Once Ryan’s people were dead he could keep the operation right here, who’d ever know?
The wooden bridge was just ahead of him now, and Croxton forced himself onward, feeling that dreadful burn in his leg where the albino freak had knifed him. Didn’t matter, not now. “Give me a blaster and a target and nothing’ll get in my way,” he told himself, his breath coming heavier and heavier. He regretted his pretense of innocence while out on the road now, looking for marks. I should have carried a blaster from the start, he cursed in his thoughts, lived like a lord.
Croxton’s feet pounded on the wooden planks as he ran across the bridge. Once over it, he turned and made his way toward the mill. There was no one around, nobody. The night before, Croxton had ordered almost everyone to come chill Ryan and his companions, even the sec team on the main gate. He knew Ryan was dangerous, and he hadn’t wanted anything going wrong. In spite of himself, Croxton almost smiled at how wrong things had turned out. Funny that.
Croxton panted as he climbed the wooden steps over the waterwheel and pulled open the door to get inside the mill. As he did so, he heard a noise behind him and he turned. There, sprinting across the bridge like a runaway train, his feet slamming into the wooden structure, came Ryan, his single eye trained unwaveringly on Croxton.
“There’s nowhere left to run,” Ryan called when he saw that the old man had spotted him.
Jeremiah Croxton ignored the one-eyed man, shoving his way past the door and into the mill.
USING THE HECKLER & KOCH, J.B. mowed down the last few sec men with any fight left in them, driving short bursts of bullets at the first few until the others finally saw the foolishness of their attempt. As one, the handful of remaining sec men and women threw down their weapons and held their hands where the companions could see them.
J.B. turned around checking everyone was okay. “Think we’re about done here,” he announced, then he realized that Ryan had disappeared during the scuffle. “Anyone seen Ryan?”
Mildred looked off toward the main area of the ville. “He ran after Croxton,” she said. “Maybe someone should go after them.”
J.B. swiftly ordered Krysty join Mildred in the search. Jak picked up a blaster from one of the sec men and headed after them a moment later. “Might need backup,” he said.
That left just J.B. and Doc standing guard over the eight conscious locals who had tried to chill them. Good odds.
RYAN RAN THE LAST FEW YARDS across the muddy path before coming to a halt at the bottom of the wood stairs leading into the mill on the stream’s bank. His hands were empty, and he reached down and pulled the panga from its sheath at his boot. Though not ideal, the eighteen-inch machetelike blade made an acceptable combat weapon.
The one-eyed man watched the stairs for a moment, acutely aware that the higher ground made for an ideal spot to ambush him. After a moment, Ryan made his way up the stairs, the panga held ready in his hand.
At the top of the stairs, Ryan warily nudged the door open, letting it swing inward while he stood to one side in case of attack. Nothing happened. Standing beside the door, blade at the ready, Ryan could hear the sounds of the great millstones turning, grinding wheat into flour as the huge wooden wheel below his feet turned in the current of the stream. The water splashed from the struts of the wheel, and there came the continual hissing and creaking just below where Ryan stood.
Slowly, carefully, the one-eyed man popped his head over the lip of the door
, before ducking back.
Again, nothing happened.
Tentatively, his senses on high alert, Ryan risked his head over the threshold, peering into the dull interior of the shacklike mill. Bulging sacks lined one wall, and filled several chairs. The bulk of the room, however, was taken up with the milling machinery. The heavy grindstones whirred around, crushing grain to dustlike flour beneath them, but the sack that had been placed to catch it had been knocked over, spilling white powdery flour across the floor. The millstones continued to turn, and flour trickled to the floor in a continual white stream, like grains of sand through an hourglass.
Ryan hunched, dropping his head so as to make a smaller target of himself as he stepped farther into the room. His attention was drawn across the room, and he spotted Jeremiah Croxton’s balding head behind a clump of filled sacks. As Ryan took a step toward the man, his panga raised, Croxton turned and saw him, his face twisted in anger.
The former carnie blasted at Ryan with some kind of automatic weapon. The sacks in front of Croxton exploded in a burst of wheat grain and clouds of beige-white flour, the billowing dust obscuring the room like a fog as his stream of bullets ripped through the sacks toward Ryan.
The one-eyed man dived to the floor, scrambling and rolling as he made his urgent way toward his adversary. At the far wall, Croxton continued to drill bullets into the flour-filled room, sweeping the muzzle of his blaster left and right as he tried to locate his target through the white clouds obscuring his vision.
The sound of the blaster was loud in this enclosed space, its echoes rebounding from every surface. Narrowing his eye against the onslaught of the flour cloud, Ryan searched for the telltale flash of the blaster through the sheet of white that obscured both men’s vision. He located the spitting red-gold flashes from the weapon, watching from the floor as Croxton swept the room again and again. The old man was on the move, clearly trying to find his way to the door and out to freedom, and his shots were whizzing over Ryan’s head. Crouching on his haunches, the one-eyed man judged the distance to his foe and, drawing back his right arm, tossed the panga. End over end, the long blade flew away from Ryan’s powerful hand, disappearing into the cloud of white as Croxton’s stream of blasterfire continued to sweep the room. Then there was a cry and the volley of bullets went from horizontal to near-vertical, drilling into the ceiling of the wooden mill as Croxton fell.
Ryan was on his feet immediately, running across the room, eating up the distance between himself and his opponent. The blaster stopped spitting bullets, and Ryan could see the dark shape of its muzzle poking through the settling cloud of flour. He drew back his fist and swung at the form waiting in the whiteness behind that dark, steel muzzle.
Croxton grunted as Ryan’s punch slammed like a jackhammer into his chest.
Ryan brought up his other fist in a follow-through, the sound of Croxton’s groan confirming his opponent’s location. Ryan’s fist connected with the side of Croxton’s head in another solid blow.
The dust was settling, and Ryan could see his opponent now, his round face and clumpy beard turned ghost-white with the explosion of flour, like some awful impersonation of Jak Lauren. Ryan’s panga was embedded in the old man’s breast, far to the left, too far and too high to have hit the heart. Ryan swung his right fist again, knocking Croxton’s head back on his neck.
Croxton staggered backward, crashing into the wall behind him. Bullet holes riddled the wall, and the wooden boards creaked, complaining at the stress of the impact. Ryan swung again, driving his left fist into the old man’s gut, forcing him to double over.
“This is as close to eternal life as you’ll ever get,” Ryan snarled as Croxton floundered against the wall of the mill.
“Dammit,” Croxton grunted, struggling to catch enough breath to speak. “It doesn’t have to be like this, Ryan. We could still work together. What d’you say?”
“Since you just tried to chill me and my friends,” Ryan responded, “I’m disinclined to accept your offer.”
“Too bad,” Croxton spat. He held an AK-47, and now he swung it at Ryan, knocking the man away from him.
A moment later, Ryan found himself struggling for balance as Croxton brought the length of the Kalashnikov rifle down on him, driving the butt into the back of his head. Ryan slumped to the floor, landing amid the sprinkled carpet of strewed wheat and flour. He saw the shadows move as Croxton pulled the AK-47 around to shoot him, heard as he fought with the oversize weapon in such close quarters. The whole operation took less than a second, any quicker and Ryan would already be dead, a bullet to the back of the head, catching a one-way ride on the last train to the coast.
Ryan kicked off from the floor, driving himself forward and up at the figure looming over him, driving his head into the man’s gut, just below his ribs. Together, the two of them plowed onward, Ryan’s powerful legs driving him, Croxton crumbling over the man’s attack as he staggered backward, the AK-47 blasting random fire into the flour-filled room.
A cracking noise sounded behind Croxton, and both men felt something split and break as the wall of the shack gave way. The wood of the wall was old, and it had been abused by the bullets and the pounding that Croxton’s form had given it just moments earlier. The wall splintered, no longer a solid barrier.
As wood fell all around them, Ryan and Croxton tumbled out of the shack, plummeting into the stream with a colossal splash.
KRYSTY LED THE WAY as she, Mildred and Jak ran through the field and headed for the wooden bridge leading back to the ville. As they reached the bridge, they saw the wall of the watermill give way and two grappling figures drop through the gaping hole in its side.
“That’s Ryan,” Krysty barked as the two men splashed down into the water.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Krysty arched her back and dived into the rushing stream.
DOC AND J.B. MADE the sec team kneel in the dirt, while they disarmed them, heaping their weapons out of reach in one of the freshly dug graves.
Standing before the defeated locals, Doc returned his rapier blade into the sheath of the swordstick with a flourish. Other than the older woman, they seemed to be mostly teenagers or folks in their early twenties, all of them young and fit.
“Young bunch of whippersnappers, aren’t they?” J.B. observed. “You’d think they could take an old man.”
“Experience should never be underestimated, John Barrymore,” Doc told J.B. as he looked over the dejected locals.
“Sure, Doc,” J.B. agreed, “but this is one experience I’ll be damn glad to put behind me.”
“So say we all,” Doc assured him as he walked past the group, knocking the last few weapons aside with the tip of his cane.
As he passed one of the group, there was a sudden movement and the man closest to Doc leaped at him, driving something at his leg. Doc fell to the ground, howling in pain as Eddie, the young man who had played the role of founder of Babyville, took another swing at him with a rock the size of his fist.
Doc struggled, rolling aside as Eddie slammed the sharp rock into the ground where Doc’s head had been an instant before. As the blond-haired man continued his attack, Doc reached up and grabbed his wrist. Together, the two of them wrestled for the rock, Eddie driving it at Doc’s face while Doc struggled to push it wide of that target. “John Barrymore?” Doc pleaded as the pair fought on the ground.
CROXTON HIT THE WATER with a crash, and its surface felt like a solid block slapping into his back. A moment later he was below the surface, the breath bursting out of him and water filling his mouth and nostrils. Above him, he saw the one-eyed man open his mouth, unleashing a stream of bubbles as his own breath burst forth with the impact.
Croxton realized he had dropped the AK-47 in the fall, as it was no longer in his hand. Improvising, he rabbit-punched at Ryan’s side, driving his round fists through the water, feeling the liquid’s subtle resistance leech the momentum out of the blows.
Croxton’s chest was hurting already, and
he felt a cough ripple through him where it was trying to expel the water he had swallowed. Ryan didn’t seem to be doing much better, still struggling under the surface before him. Croxton watched as his scarred adversary swam toward the surface, and he lashed out with his leg, kneeing Ryan in the crotch, forcing the man to blurt out the last of his breath.
As Ryan flipped over himself under the water, Croxton searched around for the AK-47, determined to use it to finish off the man. A red cloud of blood was obscuring the water, and Croxton realized with horror that it was his own, pumping from the knife wound in his chest. The panga was still there, half of its long shaft buried close to where his left arm met his chest. As he looked, Croxton’s eyes lit on something else, something large and mechanical beneath the surface of the stream—the waterwheel. Its wooden blades cut through the water, rotating around as it dipped close to the bottom of the stream.
Croxton surfaced then, drawing a long, desperate breath of air, feeling nauseous with its intake. Beside him, swimming about three feet away, Ryan surfaced and struggled to do the same. Croxton’s hand lashed out and he tried to punch Ryan in the face, but the impressive man was just quick enough to avoid the blow. Instead, Croxton’s arm caught Ryan across the throat, knocking the one-eyed man back and below the water’s surface once more.