Axler, James - Deathlands 62 - Damnation Road Show

by Damnation Road Show [lit]

  Below the decks of the great, storm-tossed ship called Cawdor , a tiny voice screamed, "No!"

  LEELOO BUNNY WALKED hand in hand through the caverns with her mother, Tater. Neither carried a burning torch because it wasn't dark in the narrow passage. Their winding path was lit by hundred-foot-high bright tentacles in orange, pink, red and yellow. The rock walls and ceiling had turned transparent; all Leeloo could see were the filaments. And she could see them twisting all the way up to the summit, like the root ball of some enormous plant with the dirt knocked loose. The tendrils blurred and shifted, and became candy trees and popcorn bushes. In the distance, she could faintly hear cymbals and brass playing a lively marching song.

  "Please don't leave me again," Leeloo said to her mother.

  "But I never left you."

  "I couldn't see you. We weren't together. I was lonely."

  "We will always be together now."

  "And Dean?"

  "You like him, don't you?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "He's your Prince Charming."

  "He's wonderful. He's brave and smart. I don't want to lose him. Can he come with us? Please?"

  "He'll be with us, too. When you get released, and he gets released, we'll all be together."

  Leeloo understood without being told that "released" meant being freed from her body. "But what happens then?" she asked.

  Tater Bunny put a hand on her daughter's head.

  Leeloo beamed up at her adoringly.

  The facial resemblance between mother and daughter was uncanny. Daughter could have been mother at age eight. Mother could have been daughter at age twenty-six. And their expressions mirrored each other exactly, reflecting absolute joy.

  "You will climb," Tater said, "like a cloud of smoke. Straight up into the sky. You will be everywhere at once. Flying."

  "Like a bird?"

  "Much better than a bird. Faster. Freer. There will be no wind you can't fly through. No height you can't soar to. No place you can't go by just thinking about it."

  "You can do all those things?"

  "I can. And so will you."

  "Will I have to wait long?"

  "No, my darling. Not long."

  "And will I always be safe?"

  "Always."

  Leeloo reached up and with her wooden tool pried free a huge lollipop, the flat disk of candy much bigger than her face. It was red and green and white, the colors swirling in a pinwheel shape. She closed her eyes tightly and touched it with the tip of her tongue.

  "It's peppermint!" she exclaimed.

  Leeloo eagerly licked the scratchy gray skin of the nodule, the clear sap from its cut surface sheeting off her tiny chin.

  JAK SENSED that he was being stalked, and by something big. He advanced alone through the dark cave; the light of the torch he carried dwindled away fifteen feet ahead of him and fifteen feet behind. Deep inside the mountain, there were no openings to the sky to let in light or air. The farther and deeper he went, the warmer it became. The cave he had picked to follow angled down into the earth. The water that trickled over the cave floor ran in the direction he was headed. He paused to listen for his pursuer. Although his hearing was very sharp, it picked up no scrape of boot on rock, no rustle of dirt as a body brushed a wall. There was only the steady hiss of the burning torch in his hand, and the babbling-brook sound of the water flowing around his boots.

  Jak pressed on, looking for what he had been told to look for and was eager to find. Whether it was called "bounty" or "dinner," what he'd been given at the burn barrel was some of the best roast pork he'd ever eaten. He was looking forward to stuffing himself with more.

  After he had traveled perhaps ten yards, the sensation of being followed returned. He felt it as a tingling at the back of his neck and across his shoulders. It didn't make him nervous that he was being trailed. It made him curious. He adjusted the ride of the Colt Python in its holster.

  When he found a likely looking tendril, he stuck the end of the torch in a cleft in the rock and started prying on it with the wooden tool. It didn't take him long to break the thing free from the wall. Under its armpit was a bounty the size of his head. As he plucked the ripe nodule, he knew that someone or something was watching him from behind. He put the bounty on the floor and picked up the torch. Holding the flame out in front of him, he took several steps toward it.

  "Who there?" he demanded.

  There was no answer.

  Then in the shadows of the next bend in the walls, he saw something shift. It was big. The same size as the lion. As he advanced on it, whatever it was retreated out of the reach of the torchlight.

  "That you?" he said.

  He recognized the voice that entered his mind.

  Of course it's me.

  Said couldn't come, Jak thought. Said knew how ended and you not part of it.

  I just wanted to surprise you. Are you surprised?

  Yeah, guess so. You help me fight?

  Fight who?

  Carny chillers.

  There is nothing and no one to fight. Not anymore. You've got to get your mind around that. You've got to put the lid down on your killer instinct. It will only get in the way from here on.

  How?

  This isn't Deathlands. This is the border of someplace else. Someplace far better. If you want to cross over, you've got to stand in the snowstorm, and eat your bounty.

  Why want go someplace else?

  So that you can see Christina again.

  Dead.

  There's no such thing. I've tried to explain that to you many times before. You don't listen.

  Listen. I not understand.

  Life as you know it doesn't exist. Life as you know it is an illusion. You must shed the scales over your eyes. You must know the truth. You must see the other side. I can help you. Come closer to me.

  No.

  Jak's right hand automatically reached for the Python, but his holster was empty. His fingers dipped under his shirt. The leaf-bladed knives were gone, too. Jak felt a shiver of fear. Unaccountable. He wasn't afraid of the lion.

  Come to me.

  Jak's legs began to move, stiffly. He couldn't stop them. As he approached the bend in the cave, and the thing that waited for him there, he could see that the details of the shape were wrong. The ears were long and stiff and pointed. The eyes were small and luminous green. The skin was hairless, as was the tail. A pair of leathery wings lay folded along the jutting knobs of the spine.

  Not lion, Jak thought. Enemy.

  No, I am the victor.

  With a great effort, Jak managed to retreat a step, then two. Then he turned and ran.

  Don't forget your bounty!

  Cruel laughter rolled through Jak's head as he stopped and scooped it up.

  Chapter Thirty

  It was getting on into evening when Doc followed the others out of the caves and back toward the ville. The sun was just starting to dip below the fringe of trees along the ridgeline; from the mountain above came a threatening growl of thunder. Everyone was carrying their "bounty." Everyone but Doc. He was starting to get hungry, but he knew he'd never be that hungry.

  All around him, his friends and the rousties were talking, but not to one another. They spoke only to themselves, or to imaginary companions. Each was wrapped up in his or her own world. Some were agitated to the point of shaking their fists. Some were beatific. Some were morose.

  They reminded Doc of inmates of an insane asylum, out for a bit of exercise and fresh air.

  There was more thunder as the others deposited their wormy prizes on the ground beside the already roaring drum fire. The rumbling grew steadily louder and louder. Doc could feel the storm's intensity building. In a matter of minutes, a bank of churning clouds appeared above the ville. Darkness descended. There was no lightning, but there was a blistering wind and snow. Sideways sheets of yellow snow as fine as table salt swept down the mountainside and over the square.

  It was dry.

  It wasn't co
ld.

  It stung Doc's face like windblown sand. He hunched his shoulders and turned his back to it.

  The others in the square made no concessions to the strange downpour. They leaned against the driving wind and let it hit them straight on. The tiny granules bounced off their heads and shoulders.

  And then the clouds dropped lower and grew even thicker, the snow came down even harder and it became difficult to breathe. Doc was forced to take refuge in one of the nearby scabrous lean-tos, crawling on elbows and knees over the pounded-dirt floor.

  Outside, the storm crescendoed. The winds whipped the tattered plastic sheeting and crudely lashed cross members above Doc's head, threatening to flatten the flimsy structure. The nearly constant thundering shook the ground beneath him. The snow came down in a blizzard of yellow, rapidly building into ankle-deep drifts. Doc's visibility out the lean-to's entrance dropped to five feet or less. Then, as quickly as it began, it was over. The thunder stopped, as did the snowfall. The darkness lifted.

  When Doc crawled out of the hut, he saw a clear, turquoise sky above and the sun dipping below the tree line. The ville's square was peopled by living statues, everything dusted with pale yellow.

  All around him, the snowdrifts were visibly shrinking. He bent and scooped up some in his hand.

  It wasn't made of flakes, as he had thought, but individual grains. Like pollen. Or crystals.

  In seconds, the pile of stuff on his palm grew smaller. He could see it wasn't melting into a liquid; nothing was dripping off the heel of his hand. It was just disappearing, which was impossible. Doc knew the basics of physics and chemistry. He knew that matter couldn't disappear, couldn't be created or destroyed; however, it could be made to change form. In this case, it appeared that solid matter, the snow, was turning into a gas, perhaps upon contact with air. According to the laws of physics, this required the application or release of some kind of energy. But the material wasn't hot.

  What he was observing seemed to violate the most fundamental principles of science.

  Doc dumped what was left of the snow on the ground and brushed off his hands.

  Moments later, he began to notice a tingling numbness in his fingers and feet. It spread rapidly to his mouth and lips. He clenched his fists, heart pounding up under his chin as he anticipated being turned to stone like the others. But the numbing sensation didn't travel any farther. He quickly rubbed back the circulation in his hands and face.

  Doc hurried across the square, walking between the rigidly upright human forms. The snowfall had produced immediate and total paralysis in every other person present. Even the baron, the black man who had tended the cookfire and three who had come out of the Baja Bug were frozen.

  When he reached Ryan, Doc laid his hand on his friend's chest. The one-eyed man was breathing, but only just barely. His heartbeat was very slow, but steady. The pupil of his eye was dilated, and its blink reflex was stifled. Doc took hold of Ryan's arm and shook him, then he shouted in his ear.

  Nothing.

  No response.

  It was the same with all the companions. He couldn't rouse them from their stupor.

  Doc retreated to the front wall of the blockhouse, despairing and at a loss as to how to help his friends.

  After a few minutes passed, he was relieved to see the paralysis starting to wear off. Gradually everyone began to stir. As they regained their faculties, there was a noticeable change in their behavior. They were all quiet, tranquil and smiling. Behavior that the circumstances hardly called for. It seemed to Doc they were now all suffering from the same variety of madness. He sensed that whatever was influencing them had reestablished complete control. The evidence so far pointed to some chemical in the snow.

  Doc reflected on what the baron had said about the pool being the source of everything here. He had no doubt that a complex system was in operation. A living system. Its size, its power and its menace were almost tangible. If it existed as a single entity, as the baron had suggested, it was the largest creature Doc had ever encountered, indeed had ever heard of. Of course, the baron's view wasn't necessarily accurate. He was as impacted by the snow as the others. And he was not trained as a scientist.

  If the tendrils were fungal, as Doc had speculated, then the snow would be fungal spores. If they were vegetable, the snow would be plant pollen. Either way, they were the entity's genetic material.

  Doc could recall no sign of anything growing in, on or around the pool. That didn't mean much. Fungi and plants could be living out of sight and in profusion on the pool's bottom. Because fungi were such simple structures, and tended to grow so closely together, it was sometimes difficult to separate one individual from others of the same type in the same area. Whether it was one gigantic creature or a population of ten thousand smaller ones, the danger was palpable.

  Doc asked himself why he hadn't been paralyzed by the spore fall. Was it because he was already stark raving mad when exposed to the stuff? It seemed to have had the opposite effect on him as it had on everyone else: it had straightened out his thinking instead of confusing it. And the spores had only brought a mild numbness to his hands, feet and face. Perhaps he was immune to the chemicals they contained. Perhaps that immunity had something to do with his time travel. With the rearrangement of his atomic structure. Perhaps everyone else's susceptibility had to do with skydark-produced mutations in their genetics. Mutations that he didn't have since he had been born one hundred and forty years before it had occurred. None of these speculations satisfied him.

  As the others turned to face the baron, Doc pushed away from the wall and moved to the back of the crowd.

  "Bring out the chair!" Kerr said.

  Two of the men who had ridden in the Baja Bug with the baron pulled a metal office armchair out into the middle of the square. The third rider placed a long pipe with the rag-wrapped handle in a four-wheeled cart and pushed it near the chair. Everyone pressed in closer until they were shoulder to shoulder, ringing the center of the square. They seemed expectant and eager, as if they knew what was coming. They all wore stiff, unnatural grins on their faces.

  Doc wasn't grinning. He didn't understand what was about to happen, but he had a very bad feeling about it, a premonition that turned out to be well-founded.

  Baron Kerr waved the black man over to his side and slapped him in the middle of his broad, muscular back.

  "The burning pool is hungry," Kerr said to the circled crowd. "And we must feed it. As it feeds us. Eat the body. Become the body."

  Doc was taken aback when the audience, without prompting, immediately picked up the chant, "Eat the body. Become the body. Eat the body. Become the body."

  Even the notoriously closemouthed Jak added his voice to the chorus, his ruby-red eyes wide with excitement.

  "This evening we celebrate three departures," Kerr said, pointing at the men who'd been passengers in the Bug. "The road to where they're going starts right here." The baron patted the back of the chair. Then he asked, "Who's going to be first to take the load off?"

  The question started a shoving match between the three men to see who would take the seat. The pushing escalated into full-power punches and kicks. When one of the men fought his way to the chair, the others stopped wrestling on the ground and quickly strapped down his wrists and ankles. The winner smiled as this was happening, showing his bloodied teeth to the crowd. The black man with the dreadlocks took the iron pipe from the cart and made a whistling practice swing. Overhead and down, he drove the end of the pipe into the dirt.

  Doc watched as the cook then moved to the back of the chair. Planting his feet, he reared back on one leg and swung the pipe over and down, putting all his weight behind the blow and grunting from the effort.

  Like pounding in a tent stake with a twenty-pound mallet.

  At the last second, Doc instinctively averted his gaze. But he didn't have time to stop up his ears. He heard the hollow whack of the pipe and the sound of crunching bone.

  Dean, who stood
next to him, flinched at what he saw, but didn't look away.

  From the crowd there was a unison gasp of amazement.

  I am imagining this, Doc thought, shaking his head to clear it. This can't be real.

  But when he looked back, there was no doubt that it was. The top of the seated man's head was caved in, his body jerking and kicking against the restraints. The old man's stomach heaved mightily, and he knew he was going to be sick. As he gritted his teeth, stumbling to the side of the blockhouse to vomit, the others were just standing there, staring at the horror that sat quaking in the chair, and smiling. It was as if they were seeing something completely different than he was. Leaning against the blockhouse with a hand, Doc retched into the dirt. He didn't have much to retch.

  He was still bent over, dry heaving when one of the two remaining men pulled the body out of the seat and dumped it over backward into the waiting cart. The third man took the opportunity to slip past the other and sit in the chair, firmly gripping the arms and wrapping his shins around the front legs. When the second man couldn't drag him out of the seat, he buckled down the wrist and ankle straps. The man in the chair beamed at the audience as if he were about to be crowned king of the world.

  Instead of being simply crowned.

  AS RYAN MADE his way out of the caves, the entourage of people from his past trooped alongside and behind him. Their happy chatter began to fade as he approached the exit. And when he turned to look at Trader and his father, he saw their shapes rippling, then disintegrating like campfire smoke in a breeze. A terrible sadness struck him. He didn't want them to go, but he couldn't make them stay. Outside the cave, Ryan the passenger became Ryan the captain, the sole commander of his own body. Fully conscious as he filed along with the others toward the square, he understood that he had been hallucinating, that he had been talking to ghosts, to imaginary presences. That he had been utterly lost in those hallucinations. It was worse than any jump nightmare he had ever suffered because it was real. And because he knew without a doubt that he was being held against his will, and made to perform like a puppet or a mutie in the zoo.