Strontium Swamp

by James Axler

  “I can understand why we are so hungry, and yet you, too, eat as though you had been starving.”

  Beausoleil stopped, openmouthed, for a moment, and shot a venomous glance at Marissa before answering. “Some say that we should use a lot of stocks to impress you. Some say that you help us fight Dr. Jean if you think we have much to offer. Some do not realize that if we lie to you like this, we cannot lie to our own stomachs.”

  “You mean to say that you’ve been rationing your food to make it last, and now you’re blowing it on making yourselves look good to us?” Mildred asked in amazement. “Are you people crazy?”

  Marissa threw her plate at Beausoleil and turned her dark eyes, flashing fury, on Mildred. “Crazy? It crazy to want to live free and not hide? It crazy to risk a few less days with food or get a sec force that can smash Jean and his stupe ville? That can free everyone so we can go back to what was before, mebbe even make something better? Yeah, then crazy it is. But stupe old bastards like him more crazy if they want to die like rats slinking in the mud,” she added, directing her glare now to Beausoleil.

  “Things not that bad,” Prideaux said, spitting onto the floor of the hut. “Could be worse. We free, we hunt and so if we don’t catch we make do. How many of us? How can we go up against Jean? Mebbe some people think slinking in mud better than throwing ourselves into firefight we can’t win. Better a live rat than a chilled hero. Or is that what you want, Rissa? You want to be like your pa and be a chilled hero that no one remembers?”

  “You stinking bastard…” The woman threw herself at Prideaux, a left haymaker coming around as she landed. It caught him at the temple, and despite the fact that he was heavier than her, she took him down. They rolled on the floor, fighting and yelling curses at each other until two of the other dwellers pulled them apart. Prideaux dusted himself down and smiled slyly.

  “Hey, baby, think I could smell your pussy, there… That what it is? Fighting get you hot?”

  “Scumfucker. You’ll never find out,” she hissed. It seemed that there was history between the two of them that had colored their spat. And yet to the watching companions, who had been almost forgotten in the exchanges, it seemed as though this kind of infighting would make any kind of action to break out of their hiding place a fruitless task.

  Beausoleil had been thinking on similar lines, as he turned to them, raising his voice to be heard above the arguments that had broken out among the others. Eventually, his louder tones—and what he had to say—quieted the arguments around.

  “You see why this is pointless? Jak Lauren left the swamp for a good reason—because he knew we were too stupe to survive for long, and weak enough to let some other dipshit baron come in and take over. And that’s exactly what happened. So we waste food trying to persuade him and the ones who took him away to come back and do our shit-clearing for us, ’cause half of us don’t want to do it and the other half are so hotheaded that they would buy the farm as soon as a firefight started.

  “Face it, people, we’re fucked whatever way up. We fight among ourselves, and soon Dr. Jean is gonna find where we are and come for us. And when he does, some of us are gonna buy the farm and some of us are gonna get in line and worship his ugly fat ass. Just gotta make your minds up which.”

  He walked up to Jak so that he was staring him in the face, so close that Jak could feel his hot breath. The albino stayed impassive and unblinking.

  “You should never have come back, son,” Beausoleil said softly.

  Then, turning to the rest of the now silent room, he added, “We’d be better off giving up or chilling. This isn’t any way to live.”

  Slowly, and with no sign of the pent-up anger that had spurred him, he turned and walked out of the hut, pulling the door closed behind him.

  He left a room that was silent. The settlement dwellers didn’t know what to make of his outburst—particularly, in the case of Marissa, as it blew any chance she had of showing a united front to the companions; and the companions were left to digest the implications of what he had said.

  They were in a small settlement that had little food, and seemed to be in disarray, with a split over whether they should fight the new baron, and even if they should request the help of the strangers. Come to that, the companions knew nothing about this new baron and his far-reaching powers beyond the fact that he used some kind of voodoo—or something that traded on the old ways—and that he seemed to have had little trouble in sweeping his way through the Bayou.

  Which made him a formidable enemy to watch out for whether they stayed to fight, or decided to move on and find the redoubt.

  The first thing they had to do, though, was to stop the dwellers arguing among themselves and get some answers that made sense.

  “Fireblast! Will you people shut the fuck up?” Ryan yelled over the swell of argument. It worked; they all turned to the companions. Some were just dumbstruck that an outsider had yelled at them in this way. Others were prepared to do something about it. Prideaux raised his blaster.

  “Just who the fuck you think you are, telling us what to do?” Prideaux gritted, his temper barely contained.

  Jak stepped forward. More than that, he moved across the room with a speed that was startling. Before Prideaux had time to move, Jak had snatched the blaster from his hands and had it turned on him. It sat well in his grasp. It was an M-4000 like J.B.’s, and so Jak was familiar with its weight and workings. Then, with a grin breaking across the otherwise blank features as he saw the sweat begin to spangle the ponytailed warrior’s forehead, Jak emptied the shotgun and let it fall to the floor, useless.

  “Think quicker, move faster, know out there better than you. That’s who I am,” he said quietly. He stepped back to let Prideaux bend and retrieve the blaster and its cartridges.

  “That’s why you’re the one who can help us,” Marissa said softly. “The only one who can, mebbe.”

  “And mebbe we can all help you, if we know what the hell we’re supposed to be up against,” Ryan countered. “So far, you haven’t told us anything that makes any sense.”

  Marissa looked around at the four other settlement dwellers in the room. Impressed by Jak’s speed—and the fact that he hadn’t taken out Prideaux when he had the chance—they agreed to her unspoken request. She indicated that the companions should be seated, and then began to speak. While she told them her story, the other dwellers remained silent. It meant either that she had included every detail, or that the others thought her best equipped to speak.

  Ryan kind of hoped it was the former. Otherwise they might get a few unwelcome surprises at a later date.

  But for now, they listened without questioning her. Her story was long, at times rambling, but answered a lot of the questions they had wanted to ask.

  It seemed that soon after Baron Tourment had been routed by the companions on their first trip to the bayou, the entire swampland had descended into internecine warfare. The peoples who had been ruled by Tourment couldn’t come to terms with the different way of living that the rebels from West Lowellton had wanted. It seemed to them too soft after the iron fist of Tourment. The irony being that it took more strength to try to live in a fair society than it did to knuckle down to an oppressor.

  So small groups appeared within the populace, all vying for some power over the others. But none of them had a man of the physical and mental stature of Tourment to lead them. Despite the fact that he was a perverted and sadistic lunatic as well as being a giant of a man, he had a great intelligence and an instinctive grasp of gaining and holding on to power. There had never been anyone like him in the bayou before…or, so they thought, since.

  But there had been one man biding his time. A man named Dr. Jean. There had been rumors that he had been one of Tourment’s sec men, and had watched and learned from the master. Other rumors suggested that he had come from out of the bayou. If that was the case, then he had picked up the ways and superstitions of the bayou with ease. Whatever the truth, the only thing known
about him for certain was that he had suddenly appeared deep in the swamps with this name that no one had heard before, and he soon started to attract followers with his use of voodoo ceremony, and talk of going back to the old ways to go forward into the new—a better world where there would be more of everything.

  The old ways were still spoken of, but no one had taken them seriously for generations. The fact of the matter was, when the old world had been eradicated by the old tech of skydark, then the idea of spirits and ghosts vanished. But it meant a chance to dress up and go wild. Perverse sexual rites and blood sacrifice were all part of the “old ways” espoused by Dr. Jean. Rumors also spread that ghosts and demons had been seen at his rites, conjured up by his hand. Perhaps, after all, there was something in the old ways?

  It soon became apparent that these were hallucinations caused by the powerful drugs he was giving to his followers. They had the same high and addictive kick of jolt, but were cut with some kind of hallucinogen—like licking a toad’s back or eating the right mushrooms, as Marissa put it.

  Even when the secret of the “spirits” became known, people no longer cared. Those who were addicted followed him blindly; others wanted to be part of his ville because he offered them something—no matter what—other than the existence they already had.

  As if that weren’t enough, he had another weapon in his armory. Somehow, the reinvented man who became the baron known as Dr. Jean had access to old tech resources. He had comps and other items that were indescribable, but had the effect of subjugating any who may prove “difficult” in his quest to rule the bayou. To the companions, this sounded like some of the brainwashing weaponry developed by the whitecoats of the Totality Concept, which they had encountered along the way. The real worry for the companions was the question of where he had obtained this equipment: did it mean the redoubt they had been headed for was now under the jurisdiction of Dr. Jean, crammed with sec forces? And had he worked out how to operate the mattrans unit?

  But that would have to wait. For now, Marissa still had more to tell. For Dr. Jean had a master plan: once he had gathered together the people of the bayou and had them under his control, he planned to use them as an army to spread out and take over the Deathlands, ruling it according to his own ideas of preserving regional purity and building races in each sector that could be used as his tools as his plans grew larger and more ornate.

  He sounded insane. But dangerous, for he had power to go with that madness.

  “So we have to stop him, ’cause he won’t let us be. If he get more powerful, then we chilled meat anyway. “Least if we go trying to stop him, we go free. No matter what Prideaux say, we not be free for long,” she concluded.

  None of the settlement dwellers contradicted her. Instead, they were focused on the companions.

  “You expect us to answer without discussing it among ourselves?” Ryan asked in amazement.

  Marissa shrugged. “Easy answer.”

  “To you, mebbe. No, we talk first among ourselves, then we come back to you.”

  He led the companions out of the hut. They didn’t go back to their tree house, but instead walked down to the edge of the lake, where curious eyes followed them from the huts and tree houses around.

  “So what d’you reckon, Ryan?” Mildred asked. “It’s a crappy call no matter which way we go.”

  “Got that right,” Ryan agreed. “I figure that this Dr. Jean is nowhere near as powerful as Marissa says. Even if he is, he won’t have the manpower once he gets beyond the swamps to do anything. But at the same time, we’re gonna have to get past him to get to the redoubt and get out of here. So mebbe it’ll be better if we have some help—make it of mutual benefit to us all.”

  “While I agree with your reasoning on broad lines, my dear Ryan,” Doc mused at length, “I feel we should turn to the good Mr. Lauren for guidance. He knows this area and the people far better than we ever will. So what do you say?” Doc asked, turning to Jak.

  The albino shrugged, as unreadable as ever. “Ryan leader. Let him decide.”

  With which, Jak turned and walked away into the darkness.

  “What’s he really thinking?” Ryan wondered out loud. He felt Krysty’s arm on his shoulder.

  “Mebbe he doesn’t know himself, yet. Leave him for a while.”

  They let Jak wander off into the darkness. A darkness that was inside him as well as all around. Was this all that was left? The rebels that had fought so hard to defeat Tourment now reduced to a bunch of starving people, fighting among themselves and wallowing in the mud to survive.

  JAK KEPT WALKING until he was sure that the settlement was far behind him, then he sat on the rocks by the lakeside, looking out over the featureless darkness of the water. He was trying to reconcile his thoughts and feelings when he heard a noise behind him. In an instant he was on his feet, one of his knives in his hand, balanced for attack.

  He only halted himself when he saw that it was Marissa emerging from the darkness.

  “Figured you’d find this spot. Only one around here that’s away from the other fuckers, and dry enough to sit and think,” she said, pointedly ignoring the knife, coming up beside him and settling herself on the rocks.

  Jak sank down beside her. She was cool enough to be a good fighter when it counted, he figured.

  “So what you thinking about?” she asked after a long pause, knowing that he wouldn’t be the one to break the silence. “About how you alone now?”

  Jak gave her a sharp glare. “How you figure that?”

  She shrugged. “Lost my family to Dr. Jean. Lost my dreams, too. Got nothing except those miserable bastards back there.”

  Jak spoke without looking at her, his eyes focused somewhere out in the dark. “Yeah. Figure everything gone. Nothing left inside now. Pa chilled by Tourment, didn’t want to stay. Knew others keep fighting. Knew they carried on. Went, made new life, had family of own. Taken away from me. Bastards pay for it, but not bring back wife, not see daughter grow up…but still had something. Still belonged here, even if not live anywhere near. But now that gone, like tree roots ripped up and tossed aside.”

  The words came slowly. Jak couldn’t remember the last time he’d talked that much in one speech, and when he’d let something of what went on inside come out for someone else. But he figured Marissa would understand better than Ryan or the others. She was from here, too.

  “So what you gonna do about it?” she pressed. “Walk away ’cause there’s nothing there for you? Or try to get some of it back in some way?”

  Jak looked at her, his unblinking red eyes a match for her own dark, fiery orbs in their intensity. “Inside like fire that not stop burning until something done…vengeance not bring back, but it feels good, stops the bastard doing any more shit.”

  A sly grin crossed Marissa’s face. “Fuck it, Jak Lauren, I knew you were sent to save us. How else, why else would you be here right now?”

  And to Jak’s surprise, she grabbed him and kissed him. It was long and hard. It had been a long time since he had felt a woman this close to him.

  “Hey, Jak Lauren—we don’t have to go back and tell the good news right away, do we?” she said as she pulled away from him, lifting her dress over her head. “Shit, can’t do anything else till sun up, anyway.”

  Chapter Nine

  A ray of sun creeping across the rocks, penetrating the cloud and foliage cover, woke Jak with a start. The albino blinked, turning his face away from the light, and found himself looking into the face of Marissa.

  “Hey,” she said sleepily, “you ready to go?”

  “Mebbe. You?”

  She nodded. “If you were serious last night, then the sooner we get going, the better.”

  Jak merely nodded in return, hauling himself to his feet and dressing. Despite the warmth of the sun, he felt chilled to the bone through having spent half the night asleep and naked in the open. He had to take his patched jacket from over Marissa, where the woman had dragged it when half asleep
.

  Without exchanging words, they both dressed and set off through the swampland, heading back to the settlement. At some time during the night, he had asked her why the place had no name, and she had told him that they had always felt it been a temporary settlement, and so had never named it in any way. But as time had gone on, and the likelihood of breaking free of Dr. Jean’s tyranny had receded further into the distance, they had just thought of it as home.

  It took little time to reach the area around the lake where the huts and tree houses were clustered, and they found that people were going about their everyday business as though they hadn’t been missed. Ryan and Krysty were washing clothes by the shore, while J.B. was checking the inventory from all their blasters and his canvas bags, which had obviously been returned to them at some point the previous evening. Marissa took this as a sign that the companions had, independently of Jak, agreed to fight, and could hardly contain her excitement. Jak, on the other hand, preferred to hold his own counsel until he found out more.

  There was no sign of Mildred or Doc, but as soon as they saw Jak, the other three expressed their relief in seeing him.

  “Thought you might have walked out on us for good, that time,” Krysty said, eyeing Marissa as she spoke. “But mebbe you were just otherwise occupied.”

  “Lot to think about,” Jak said flatly.

  “I’m sure…” Krysty murmured.

  “We need to talk,” the albino said to Ryan.

  Ryan ran his gaze over the dark-eyed woman at Jak’s side. “That we do,” he agreed, “but I think we should do it alone.”

  For a moment a flicker of anger and suspicion crossed Marissa’s face, but after a glance at Jak, she agreed. “That’s only right. I’ve got some talking of my own to do,” she added as an afterthought before leaving them.

  “When you get those back?” Jak asked with a frown, indicating the blasters J.B. had been working on.