by James Axler
"A cure?" Doc asked. "Well, if he's giving out cures, any of you could get up and leave at any time you wanted to."
"That's not the way it works, Doc," Albert said. "Kirkland's inoculations buy you only a little more time. They don't cure you."
"But that makes precious little sense," Doc said. "It would be much more difficult for a medical person to design a partial cure than one that would totally counteract the affliction."
"But that's what Kirkland did," Albert insisted. "Come on downstairs and we'll talk about it."
"Downstairs? I thought we were on the bottom floor." Doc glanced around, noticing how uneasy Cobb was acting. Keeping the big man in sight, he crossed the room and took up the Le Mat blaster from the table where it had been left. "Got a basement level," Albert said. He turned his attention to Cobb. "Show him."
"Fucked if I will. Should have never shown you."
Albert approached the man. "Cobb, you've been a good thinker, a good planner. But you haven't seen these people operate. I have. Mebbe they're our only chance of getting out of here."
Cobb stared hard at Doc, then reluctantly backed down. He walked to the rear of the room and stood behind the counter. The back wall held a carved fish head. Cobb picked up a yardstick and rammed it down the fish's open mouth.
A hollow pop echoed inside the room, followed by a clattering noise. Cobb grabbed a lantern off the counter and lighted it. He glared at Doc. "Well, come on, then." He took a step forward and disappeared from view.
Doc rounded the counter and looked down at the floor. Cobb climbed through a recessed area, moving slow with the lantern. Doc looked at the inky shadows waiting below and thought about his current position again. He hadn't had the upper hand in his dealings with the other men. But in the narrow tunnel through the bottom of the floor, he would be totally at their mercy.
Cobb kept climbing. In a short while he reached the bottom of the ladder and held the lantern up. "Come on, then. You wanted to know." He twisted the wick, turning up the light.
And the yellow gold illumination spun out through the hurricane glass, opening up into a cavernous space by comparison to the narrow tunnel. Where there had been a few shelves with tattered paperbacks, hard covers and magazines littering the shelves on the first floor, the hidden floor below seemed covered with books. There had to have been thousands of books in all.
"By the Three Kennedys," Doc whispered hoarsely. All thoughts of walking into a trap left him. He stepped through the hole and followed the ladder down.
IN THE FORESTED AREA, Dean moved quietly and panther quick. He kept the Browning Hi-Power in his fist as he slunk through the brush where the man had vanished. Dean wasn't as good in the brush as Jak was, but then nobody was. It scared him some, creeping through the branches and bushes, wondering if he was as good as the man he hunted. But he knew Jak was counting on him.
He breathed through his mouth in shallow, rapid breaths that were almost soundless. The man he pursued wasn't as disciplined.
The man gasped a few feet to Dean's right, and the boy turned slowly, letting his weight shift to keep his line tight against his chosen cover. He brought up his blaster, following its lead. Once he had the weight shifted properly, making no noise at all, he completed the turn.
A footfall sounded in front of him, followed by another. The noise was almost lost in the snorting and blowing of Jak's captured horse.
Dean caught the movement in his peripheral vision. He stared at the—edges of the shadow that drifted into view in front of him rather than at it. Even before his father had found him, Sharona had taught him the value of skylining. Metal glinted in the shadow's fist. Dean knew it was the long blaster the man carried. He sighted above it, taking another step closer to get around low-hanging branches that might have deflected his shot.
The moon moved into a clearer space of the sky between scudding clouds, and the man spotted Dean. He whirled and brought up the long blaster. Coolly Dean moved into the clearest position he found, his finger tightening on the Browning's trigger. The long blaster crashed thunder in front of him, the muzzle-flash looking like it might explode from the barrel and touch him. He felt the heat of a bullet sizzle past his face, then the Browning's hammer fell on the first round. He managed a tight group of three as the man levered another cartridge into the breech.
The 9 mm hollowpoint rounds drove the man back, slamming him back through the brush. He stumbled and fell to the ground, sitting with his back to a warped oak tree.
Dean moved forward, the Browning leveled at his target. The man struggled to bring up his weapon. Dean fired again, centering the round between the man's eyes. His face went bloody as his brain evacuated his skull and plastered the tree bole behind him. The corpse gave a spasmodic jerk and released the long blaster.
Staying careful and alert, Dean reached the corpse and kicked the weapon aside. The missing fragments of the man's head assured that he'd never be back in this life, but Dean had seen too many people with a strain of mutie blood in them that rewired nervous systems. Folks who should have been dead got stubborn about it, like a snake with its head chopped off. He stripped away two handblasters, as well, tossing them to one side. The stink of blood filled the air. Mosquitoes descended in a swarm, settling over the bloody stumps of the man's skull. Night crawlers slithered through the brush and across the ground. A fat, toad-looking creature plopped from the tree overhead and dropped onto the corpse's face. Extending a prehensile tongue into the open mouth, it started feasting on the spilled blood.
"Dean?" Jak called softly.
"Yeah." Dean went through the corpse's pockets, his quick fingers identifying objects before his eyes could cut through the darkness.
"You chill him?"
"That's an ace on the line." One of the shirt pockets yielded a handful of 9 mm ammo that would fit the Browning. Dean appropriated it and shoved it into a pocket.
"You do, you tell. Get ass shot off, you no yell out." Jak sounded irritated.
"Forgot." Dean continued his search, turning up a fancy vinyl case not much bigger than his hand.
"Read nice on grave marker," Jak offered. "Ryan pretty pissed off have to write it, though."
"Okay, okay," Dean said. "I get the message. Get off my back." He popped the lock tabs on the small vinyl case. A small collection of feathered darts lay on a sponge pad, sheathed by leather straps. "Hot pipe! I found something here."
"What?"
"Darts for those compressed-air guns." Dean held one up against the full face of the moon. The liquid trapped inside the thin glass walls glowed vile amber.
"Tranks," Jak suggested. "Shoot. Make go sleep."
Dean looked at the liquid in the dart shell. "I don't think so. Mebbe we got something a little nastier here. Those men opened up on us without warning. I don't think they were intending to take us back to Hazard."
"Got one here. Ask him."
"Be there in a minute." Dean finished up his search, turning up a box of 9 mm reloads in a thigh pocket of the dead man's pants, a metal box of self-lights that looked waterproof and a packet of jolt. "We'll ask him together." He put the packet of jolt into his pocket. None of the companions used the narcotic, but in a lot of places it could be used in the place of jack for trade. Of course, a man had to watch his back when trading in those places.
Dean picked up the two handblasters he'd tossed aside and discovered one of them was a compressed-air pistol. He examined it in the moonlight. The pistol was a single-action, requiring a dart to be loaded into the breech each time it was fired. When he pulled the bolt back, he saw that it was empty.
Taking the pistol and the vinyl case of darts, he went back to join Jak. He reloaded the Browning's magazine from the loose 9 mm rounds in his pocket. Firelight from the burning man on the ground played over the albino, his captured horse and his hostage.
"Anybody else?" Dean asked.
"No." Jak nodded toward the man on the saddle in front of him. "Cover."
Dean leveled th
e Browning, making the man flinch. "Sure. I got him."
"He tries run, shoot legs, dick, not head or chest. Only need him live for little while." Jak shoved the hostage to the ground. The horse, relieved of its burden and already spooked, reared and snorted in fear at the new sound. It tried to run, but the albino kept it under control.
Dean locked the Browning squarely on the man's crotch.
The captive scrabbled at the ground, trying to find purchase to pull himself up.
"No," Dean said. He squeezed the trigger and put a bullet through the man's pants at the V of his legs.
"Oh, goddamn!" the man shrilled, sitting up to grab himself with both hands.
Jak gentled the horse again and hopped down. He tied the reins to a tree, then returned to look at the hostage.
The man brought his hands up with a look of perplexion on his face. The animal mewling sounds he made continued. There was no blood on his hands, but clearly the 9 mm round had cored a hole through the loose folds of his pants.
"Missed," Dean said. "Can you believe it?"
"Mebbe small," Jak suggested. He held his forefinger and thumb a half inch apart. "Splinter dick." He crouched beside the man, a bloodthirsty grin spreading across his scarred face. He held one of the leaf-bladed throwing knives in his hand. "That right?"
"Fuck you," the man snarled, his voice still shaking with fear.
"Already got it figured," Dean said, "that you aren't equipped for that. Could be you piss off my friend here, he'll use that knife of his to do a conversion on you so you're all set to receive instead of give. If you catch my drift."
"Piece of meat," Jak said. "Cutting change all that."
"Don't," the man begged. "Don't cut me."
"Answer questions," Jak suggested. "Lie, I cut off piece."
The man nodded, both hands protectively around his crotch. "Sure, sure."
"Tell us about the darts," Dean said.
The man swallowed hard.
Without hesitation, Jak flicked out the knife and cut across the knuckles of one of the man's hands. The man screamed out in pain, his eyes drawn to the wound across the back of his hand. But he didn't let go of his crotch.
"What did you do that for?" he demanded.
"You hesitate," Jak replied, "gives time think up lie. I want lie, I ask you question today, come back for answer tomorrow. Tell about darts."
"They got the plague in them," the man responded. "They got the plague in them, and that's all I know."
Chapter Ten
J.B. sipped coffee sub and regarded his host. "What plague are you talking about?"
Phillips massaged his hump unconsciously with one hand, grimacing a little like the action gave him some pain. "Kirkland got everything organized here in Hazard. Invited folks in. Then he kind of picked and chose who was staying and who was moving on. Took him about a year to get it all straightened away with who was what."
J.B. sopped corn bread into the soup at the bottom of his plate and chewed as he listened. He ate in spite of the churning that started at the pit of his stomach. The Trader always said that a man who didn't know for sure when or where his next meal was coming from shouldn't be shy about bellying up to a table that was offered.
"Once he had mostly everybody here that he wanted, Kirkland announced that the plague had spread. Had a few poor bastards found out in the forest that died of it."
"My husband died of the plague," Anna said.
"Sorry to hear that," J.B. stated. "How many folks died in the ville?"
"None," Tinker answered.
"You find that interesting?" J.B. asked.
Phillips grinned coldly. "Bastard right, we did. Found it more than interesting. Found it downright fucking suspicious."
"What about the bodies?" J.B. asked. "Were you allowed to claim your son's body?"
"Allowed to see it," Phillips replied. "Some of the sheriffs deputies found Eddie out in the forest."
"What was he doing there?"
Phillips scowled and looked away. "Eddie got it in his fool head that he could mebbe outrun the plague. We've been watching Kirkland and his people all this time. He's got a roving band of thugs under a man named Liberty that keeps most folks clear of the ville."
"Not anymore," J.B. said.
Phillips looked at him. "Not anymore?"
"They've all been consigned to crow meat this morning," the Armorer said. "Should be little bitty crow piles squirted out all over the ground now."
"Heard you came in with Albert," Phillips admitted. "That's what set me to suspicioning so much."
"Good thing Kirkland isn't as suspicious as you," J.B. said.
"And if he was of a mind to be?"
"Reckon we'd find out if we could feed a few more crows before we got out of the ville." J.B. held up his cup as the coffeepot made the circle of the table.
"We got more to eat," one of the young men at the table offered.
J.B. thought briefly of Mildred probably sleeping back in their room at the hotel. He wondered if she'd eaten yet or was waiting for him to come back. Then he decided she'd probably eat before he got back. It didn't look like he was going to be leaving any time too soon. He pushed his plate forward, and it was filled again. "What made Eddie take off out of the ville?"
"Took off in the middle of the night," Phillips said. "Figured mebbe he could make it. Every now and then, you hear stories about somebody who made it out of Hazard."
"Any truth to it?"
"That's what we were going to find out. Eddie slipped off after his inoculation, figured he'd know something damn quick. Two days later they brought his body back."
"How long had he been dead?"
"Animals and insects had been at him," Phillips said. "Kind of hard to figure."
"Mebbe as much as both of those days he was gone?" J.B. asked. He helped himself to another square of corn bread. One of the young men pushed a tub of homemade butter toward him. "Mebbe."
"Did you get to check the body over?" J.B. noticed that Anna was growing more uncomfortable with the subject of the conversation, but he had to press on with it. He and his friends were in the middle of the present situation.
"No. Kirkland always has the bodies of the reclaimed plague victims wrapped all special. Look like mummies time he's through with them."
"So what could you see?"
"Eddie's face was all blotched up. Black looking." The old man's voice roughened and broke, but he pulled it back on track soon enough.
"Rad burn will do that sometimes." J.B. spooned up more beans and meat.
"Wasn't rad burn," one of the men stated. "Damn plague is what it was."
"Kirkland come around asking any questions?"
"Oh, yeah," Phillips answered. "Wondered what Eddie was doing out in the forest. Told him I didn't know, that him and Anna had a fight. A young man during something like that forgets his good sense."
"He believe you?"
"Hell, no. That's when we started barricading ourselves in here a little tighter."
"Kirkland doesn't want you to leave." J.B. looked at the old man.
"Me and mine," Phillips announced, "we were one of the first families in Hazard. Time was we took a certain pride in that. No longer."
"Lot of work for a man who knows weapons," the Armorer said.
"Yep." Phillips gave him a wry grin. "Can't say that I see you hanging out a shingle anywhere and settling down. So don't be saying it like it's a thing to be done by just anybody."
"Too much traveling with the Trader," J.B. replied. "Fiddle-footedness gets in a man's blood after a time. Always wandering."
"Well, you and your companions surely wandered in the wrong direction this time."
"Low on ammo," J.B. explained. "We didn't have much choice."
"How come you didn't know about the plague?" Anna asked.
J.B. returned her gaze full measure. "Liberty didn't answer a whole lot of questions before he caught the last train to the coast."
"If you wander around i
n this area, you'll find people talk about the plague," Anna said. "Still get some folks in from time to time for trading, but it's generally those who know Kirkland's got the plague under control who show up. It doesn't set right that you wouldn't know about it."
"We've been running low to cover," J.B. said. "Before we got here, we just left a whole peck of trouble." And that was true enough.
Phillips rubbed his hump again and fixed the Armorer with a steel-hard stare. "Well, J. B. Dix, I'll promise you one thing—that trouble that you left, it isn't anything like what you got on your hands now. If Kirkland let you and your companions into this ville, it was for a reason. Whether he makes you stay here or ups and chills you people outright when the time comes remains to be seen."
"Also remains to be seen whether he can hold us." J.B. glanced back at Phillips. "Or if he can chill us."
"I like the way you talk," the old man said. "Let's freshen up that coffee sub and hear some more."
"THOSE ARE plague darts." Jak held three of the darts in his hand. Instead of feathers along the back of the shaft, vinyl triangles in red and yellow were designed to act as stabilizers. "What plague?"
Their captive licked his lips nervously. He was strapped to a tree in a sitting position, held in place by leather thongs Jak had found among one of the saddle kits. "Kirkland's plague."
Jak squatted on his haunches in front of the man. He flicked one of the leaf-bladed throwing knives across the fingers of his other hand with unconscious grace. He sat deliberately so the moonlight would glint off the razor-sharp edges. "He name it?"
"Yeah." The man nodded enthusiastically, but the albino noted the glance the man flicked at the cut on the back of his knuckles.
"That all he did?"
"Yeah."
Jak glanced at Dean. The boy looked impassive standing only a few feet away. Dean held one of the captured single-action long blasters in his hand, keeping watch over them. With an economy of motion, Jak stabbed the throwing knife into the man's thigh. When the prisoner opened his mouth to scream in pain, the albino yanked the knife from the man's leg and slashed his lips, cutting in a quarter inch at both corners of his mouth.