Zero City

by James Axler

"Thank Gaia for that building," Krysty said. "Without street signs or maps, it'd be easy to get lost in here. But just check the angle of the sun and you have a location."

  "Like a sundial," Dean said, chewing over the notion. "Pretty smart."

  She smiled. "Your father taught me that."

  "Stop," Jak said, leaning way out of the wag, studying the ground.

  Shifting into neutral, Ryan eased to a fast halt, and the Cajun hopped out, walking back a few yards to bend low to the ground and brush his fingertips across the smooth sand. To Dean, there didn't appear to be any marks on the sand, but Jak stood and pointed decisively.

  "Eight," he stated, then pointed down an alleyway. "Six."

  "Damn alley is too small for the Hummer," J.B. noted, estimating the opening. "Want to circle around again?"

  "Too close," Jak said, frowning. "Hear and run."

  "And we don't want to go chasing them all over the ruins," Krysty said. "There are far too many places they can reach that we can't."

  "On foot, then," Ryan said, leaving the wag. "Krysty, stay with the Hummer. We'll follow the six."

  "If you come back running, I'll be ready," she promised, handing over the Steyr. "The M-60 might reduce dinner to hamburger instead of steaks, but at least it'll be us on the outside digesting them, instead of the other way around."

  Snorting a laugh, Ryan bent close to exchange a fast kiss, then checked the longblaster and ammo belt. Satisfied, he started across the street. "Full weapons, everybody, and stay close. Packs fear other packs."

  With Jak in the lead, the companions eased into the alleyway, following the trail of faint depressions in the loose sand. The next street down came into sight, but the two companions conferred and took a side alley. Coming out a block to the east, Jak raised a hand, then closed it into a fist. The group froze and got ready for combat.

  Just a block away was a smashed store window, the only gap in the endless seam of white store windows that lined the street.

  Spreading out, the companions eased toward the gaping hole, Dean and Mildred watching the windows above for any signs of snipers. It could be another trap, and better safe than dead.

  Above the smashed window, words were chiseled into the marble lintel of the building, but time and the winds had worn the engraving down to vague unreadable squiggles. But recently somebody had neatly painted the huge single word across the stone lintel.

  " 'Supirmarkit,' " Doc quietly read in disgust. "Not only thieves and liars, but illiterates, as well."

  Mildred scowled in agreement while Ryan studied the crude sign. Another bastard trick for travelers in the city. Solos or explorers looking to loot would find this open food store and naturally go inside to check for canned goods. That's when the wolves charged and the victims would get herded straight to the ville like sheep.

  "Hopefully not to the slaughter," J.B. whispered, obviously having the same train of thought.

  Jagged daggers of glass jutted like teeth ringing the opening. From their vantage point on the sidewalk, they could see bare floors inside, a bank of linked carts to the left, registers to the right and rows upon rows of shelves stretching out of sight. A fine sprinkling of sand lay over top of everything for yards, and the rear of the store was masked in darkness.

  Signaling for silence, Ryan tapped his eye and gestured at the store. Rifle in one hand, he drew his SIG-Sauer and knelt on the sidewalk, listening for any sounds of movement inside. The ghostly moan of the desert wind whispering down the street was discernible, but nothing else. No dripping pipes, no ticking clocks, not a snarl or a cough.

  Extracting a small plastic mirror, J.B. eased it past the jamb of the window and tilted it inward to scan the area.

  "Behind the registers," he silently mouthed, pocketing the mirror.

  Eagerly, Dean started forward, but Ryan stopped him with a single raised finger. The boy retreated, and the elder Cawdor first pointed at Jak, then Doc. Keeping his blind, left side to the wall, Ryan poked the muzzle of his Steyr around the jamb just as J.B. did the same on the other side with the Uzi.

  The lead wolf was large and heavily muscled, with brindle markings showing it was from the forestlands. The rest were smaller and leaner, similar to whippets, but none seemed to be starving and that was a bad sign. Hungry animals would just attack, and any organized group of defenders could easily withstand them. However, a well-fed pack would wait and watch until a mistake was made, then charge when its victims weren't paying attention.

  "Wait for it," Ryan said quietly. Then with a roar, the Hummer bounded into view, a barking pack of wolves surrounding the vehicle. Driving with one hand, Krysty was firing at the leaping animals with a blaster gripped in a bloody fist.

  "Behind us!" Doc cried, firing the LeMat into the store.

  Ryan spun, and there were the other six wolves crawling around the registers moving as silently as ghosts. In a heartbeat, the hunters had been the hunted.

  "Hummer!" Dean shouted, announcing his target as he cut loose with the G-12. The blaster hissed a stuttering zip of caseless rounds, and six of the eight animals were torn into pieces under the incredible fusillade of subsonic steel. But then the HK stopped, and the youth realized he was out of ammo. Dropping the spent weapon, he drew his handblaster. Ryan discharged the Steyr, and a wolf in the store flipped over, crashing into an ancient display rack.

  Free from the attentions of the beasts for a moment, Krysty scrambled into the back of the Hummer and cut loose with the M-60, the weapon chattering a deadly hellstorm at the beasts. Two danced in the air as their bodies were torn to pieces before the rest spread out, running wildly in every direction, one even darting under the vehicle.

  But there was method to the madness, and Ryan cursed as he realized the wolves were combining into a pack again; the running around was merely intended to disorient the humans before a unified charge.

  "Move to the wall!" he shouted, dropping the empty Steyr and drawing his panga while firing the SIG-Sauer. "Get the leader!"

  The largest wolf snarled at the one-eyed warrior, and the rest of them repeated the challenge.

  "Brace!" J.B. cursed, fumbling in his munitions bag. "Going to use a gren!"

  But as if they knew what those words meant, the animals stopped running and crouched in fear, their haunches raising in submission. Uncaring, J.B. raised a gren and pulled the pin, pausing to gauge for distance. But then their eyes glazed over and a third eye blossomed wide, the yellowish orb glaring with monstrous hatred.

  "They're muties!" Mildred yelled. At her words, the foreheads of the wolf pack split open to display a third eye with a large square pupil, like a goat's. Then they charged, moving across the sandy street with nightmare speed.

  Krysty got in one more shot, and J.B. burped the Uzi twice in short controlled bursts, chilling one wolf and wounding another, before the animals swarmed over them from every direction.

  Kicking at the slavering muties, the companions fired nonstop, wounding the animals over and over, but not one dropped. Snarling and snapping, the animals took wild bites, but only got layers of cloth. They spit the material out in disgust. Krysty fired the M-60 one final time, then was forced to stop, her hands helpless on the trigger of the deadly machine gun. Without a clear view, she could chill her own people instead.

  Slamming in a fresh clip, Ryan shot the leader in the leg and as it closed upon him, he kicked the wolf in the jaw, his steel-toed Army crunching bone. Spitting teeth, the animal backed away, drooling blood.

  Sidestepping a charge by two wolves working together, Dean punched one in the face with his empty blaster and buried his knife into the other one's muscular shoulder. Jak quickly fired his booming Magnum pistol twice, nicking a darting wolf, then his blaster clicked on a spent shell. He was out of ammo, and there was no chance in hell of reloading it. Sputtering a virulent curse, the albino teen dropped the blaster, and two knives appeared in his pale hands. With a flip, one was reversed with the flat of the blade resting along the bone of his forearm,
and the teenager went into a knife fighter's attack crouch. A wolf flew past him, and he slit the beast's belly open as it went by. Spilling out its writhing guts, the wolf trembled and fell over, its long legs starting to paw the sand as if it were still charging. Incredibly, it started to rise again, so J.B. discharged his shotgun directly into the hole where the third eye had been. Its head blew apart into bones and blood, and the animal dropped.

  Darting and dodging, the wolves bit more cloth, the rips now exposing vulnerable flesh. Steady as a rock, Doc stood amid the yipping muties and calmly fired a seventh, eighth and ninth time, his huge .44 LeMat booming hot lead death. The booms shook the walls of the store, and blood sprayed out from the hip of the wolf. But the animal neither slowed nor stopped from the glancing blow.

  Her back against the wall, med kit laying protectively at her feet, Mildred banged away carefully with her ZKR 551 target pistol, finally wounding one animal in the shoulder, blood forming a geyser from the severed femoral artery. The wolf staggered from the wound, and Ryan rammed the stock of his Steyr into its face, bursting apart the third eye. Puss and wiggling filaments gushed from the cranial wound, and the wolf froze, motionless from the pain. Ramming his 9 mm blaster into its ear, Ryan fired and brains sprayed out the other side of its head. The corpse stiffly toppled over to the bloody sand.

  Dean charged a wolf, shoving his Browning blaster into its misshapen face. He yanked the trigger as the wolf dodged. The bullet missed, but the muzzle-blast seared the unblinking third eye and the wolf retreated, howling in agony.

  A wild honking noise announced the violent arrival of the Hummer as Krysty slammed the military wag against the brick wall alongside the companions, the headlights shattering as she crushed a wolf into pulp. Now safely bracketed in a corner, the companions concentrated their weapons on the animals, blowing away chunks of flesh with every round.

  The alpha wolf recoiled as half its head was torn away, and two smaller muties alongside it crumpled from the impact of the hollowpoint rounds. Another pair of muties was slammed to the ground, blood gushing from hideous wounds.

  The last mutie dashed madly about between the moving human legs, zigzagging wildly as it sought escape. Blasters fired and knives stabbed, but missed. Desperate, it leaped onto the hood of the Hummer. Krysty burped the M-60, but the .38 hollowpoint rounds only grazed its body, removing wads of mangy fur.

  Diving among the humans, it bounced off the side of Dean, ducked between Ryan's legs and broke free from the group, sprinting for freedom. But it suddenly stopped with a full yard of shining steel thrust through its laboring chest. Snarling himself, Doc twisted the blade of his sword, enlarging the wound, and dark blood gushed onto the sidewalk. Whimpering in agony, the mutie struggled to get away, its goat eye rolling backward into its head until only the yellow showed. Bracing a boot on the writhing beast, Doc yanked the blade free and thrust it back in again and again, skewering the chest, the stomach, the throat, searching for the vulnerable heart. Still trying to crawl away, the beast emptied its bowels as its whole body violently shuddered and went abruptly still.

  Withdrawing his blade from the corpse, Doc cleaned the Toledo steel on the animal's fur, then again on a bit of cloth from a pocket. Visually inspecting the long shaft for any damage, he returned it to the ebony sheath of his walking cane, where it snapped tightly into place.

  "Blasted muties," Jak growled. Watching the interior of the supermarket for any further movement, he cracked open the cylinder of his Colt Python, pocketed the spent .357 shells and thumbed in fresh ammo.

  Retrieving a dropped clip for the Uzi, J.B. stood and tucked it away. "Never seen this type before."

  The filaments of her hair waving about in agitation, Krysty clicked shut the reloaded cylinder of her S&W .38, tucking the blaster in a holster at her hip. "Thankfully, these wolves are a lot easier to kill than those hellhounds we encountered in Ohio," she remarked without humor.

  "Easier ain't easy," Jak said, rubbing a set of parallel scratches on his throat. "Bastards fast."

  Mildred walked over and took hold of his jaw, turning the teenager's head to inspect the red marks on his albino skin. "Didn't break the dermis," the physician announced, and released him. "You should be okay. But let me clean it, so you don't go septic." Opening her bag, she anointed him with a splash of alcohol.

  "Thanks," he muttered, gingerly touching the scratch.

  "Just be glad it didn't chew your ass." She grinned.

  Brushing the snowy hair off his face, Jak snorted in response.

  The distant rumble of an approaching storm sounded in the cloudy sky as Dean picked up the ejected brass from his blaster and dropped it into a pocket for later reloading. One of them seemed bent, which meant it was useless, but he could check on that later. Carefully, the boy inspected his Browning for any signs of fouling from being dropped in the sand, and when satisfied, he inserted a fresh magazine. Snapping off the safety and working the slide, the boy walked away from the group and stood guard at the corner of the intersection.

  "Mildred, check the bodies," Ryan directed, retrieving his rifle from the ground.

  Kneeling at a warm corpse, the woman displayed a bloody knife. "Already doing that."

  "Good." Brushing the sand off his dropped rifle, Ryan worked the bolt, slid in a fresh clip and slung the weapon over a shoulder. Then checking the area, he noted that Dean was already standing guard without waiting for directions. He felt a rush of pride.

  "J.B., Doc, recce the market," Ryan ordered, the longblaster held easily in both hands. "See if there are any more of these bastards around."

  "Or supplies," Jak added.

  Doc eased back the hammer on the LeMat as the Armorer pulled out a gren. Together, the men stepped through the broken window and into the grocery store, J.B. pausing at the registers to let Doc proceed, then the old man doing the same at the head of the first aisle as J.B. crept past him in a standard two-man defensive rotation pattern.

  "Slick move with the Hummer," Ryan told the redhead as he walked over. "You okay?"

  "Fine," Krysty replied, pumping gas and trying to start the engine. It took two tries before the big power plant caught. "Just angry that they got so close before I saw them."

  As she backed the wag away from the brick wall, the wolfs body stayed where it was as if nailed in place.

  "Headlight's broken," Ryan reported. "So no more night driving until we can replace it at the redoubt. Pop the hood."

  She did, and he listened to the humming engine.

  "No real damage," Ryan stated, closing the hood and latching it in place. "Thankfully, the Army built these things to take damage and keep going:"

  A whistle heralded the appearance of J.B. and Doc from within the predark store.

  "Clear," J.B. reported. "No more wolves, not even cubs. Also, nothing much usable on the shelves. All of the cans are empties, just there to make the store look like it's full of goods. It was expertly cleaned out long ago."

  "This was all we appropriated," Doc added, lifting a plastic bag of bottles and glass jugs. "Some grape preserves, Band-Aid bandages and a few odds and ends."

  "I expected as much," Ryan said with a sour expression. "But it never hurts to check. Stow it away, and check the side streets, will you?"

  Doc deposited the bag of food carefully in the cargo area of the Hummer, while J.B. climbed into the wag and set the safety on the M-60 before easing off the bolt. The military blaster was one hundred years old, and even though it was in perfect operational condition, it wasn't wise to keep tension on the firing spring. Otherwise, next time he used it the weapon would break, becoming a twenty-two-pound paperweight.

  A brisk wind formed little dust devils on the street, the miniature tornadoes twirling madly before slowing into nonexistence.

  "Storm coming," Jak said. "Soon."

  "Yeah, I know. How's it going, Mildred?" Ryan asked, cradling the Steyr in his arms.

  "This is the last," the black woman replied, running her hands o
ver the corpse of another wolf. Not all of the beasts had that third eye of a mutant, but this was the last one to check. Carefully, she inspected its forehead, teeth, eyes, then legs, bending the joints to observe the configurations.

  Satisfied for the moment, she pulled a knife from a sheath inside her boot and began to make incisions in the chest and abdomen, turning the internal organs around to review everything. Ryan and the others waited impatiently, watching her every move.

  A tumbleweed rolled across the intersection, traveling with the wind on a endless journey to nowhere.

  After a few minutes, Mildred raised her head, smiling. "Clean!" she declared. "This one isn't a mutie."

  Pushing his hat into a more comfortable position, J.B. smiled. "Hot damn. Steak tonight."

  Jak and Dean stayed at their posts, while Ryan and Krysty joined Mildred at the dead animal. They produced knives and began dressing the stiffening carcass. Incisions were circled around the paws and throat, then down the belly to the tail. The skin was peeled off, the fur carefully kept whole and the meat wrapped in the skin with pieces of bloody ligament used to tie the package closed.

  "Time to leave," Ryan announced, wiping his sticky hands on a rag from the Hummer's toolbox. "The gunshots and the smell of blood will attract both kinds of animals we don't want to deal with right now."

  "One additional problem," Mildred said, shouldering her med kit. "All of these were males. Not one bitch among the pack."

  Passing off the rag, Ryan frowned. "Great. So this was just a hunting party, and the rest are out there somewhere."

  "Probably a whole lot more than fourteen," Krysty said. "And when their mates don't come back, the females will come hunting."

  With a guttural cry, Doc spun, drawing his blaster. The rest of the companions copied the action and separated slightly, an automatic reaction learned the hard way from countless ambushes.

  "What is it, Doc?" Ryan snapped, the long barrel of the Steyr resting on the hood of the wag, giving him stability and cover.

  "Somebody on the roofs?" Krysty asked, her S&W .38 tracking the sky.