by James Axler
"Temperature's up a little," Ryan observed. "Might be rain rather than snow."
"Either way, I think I would rather have a roof over my head. Even if if's this smelly den behind us." Doc hunched his shoulders and sniffed miserably at the prospect.
Ryan desperately wanted to get out after the creatures that had stolen his son. There was no way of knowing whether Dean was still living, but the attempt had to be made.
Would be made.
But not yet. Not with the deep purple and black clouds that were tearing in from the northeast, reaching toward the ville like the clenching fist of an angry giant. Silver lightning crackled and tore at the sky, leaving narrow pink strips through the clouds. The wind was rising, blowing scraps of rubbish across the street opposite.
"No, lover," Krysty said at his elbow.
"What?"
"You were thinking about going after the boy."
"So?"
"Going out into that storm."
"I wasn't."
Then she grabbed him, fingers biting into the flesh below the elbow. "Don't lie to me, you bastard, Ryan!"
"I…didn't really…" he stammered, knowing she was right. He had been about to take an insane chance and go off into the rushing maelstrom.
"You die and what are his chances? You stupe, Ryan! Sit it out and then go. Can't be that difficult to find hundreds of scalies, even in a ville of this size." She let go of him. "And don't lie to me. Don't let this son of yours come between us and the way it's always been."
THERE WAS TIME to throw out the decaying bodies of the dogs, making the cellar a little less oppressive. But moving the carcasses also disturbed nests of maggots and great swollen blowflies, which hummed around them, settling on faces and hands and leaving the shuddering feeling of filth.
One of the insects stung J.B. when he slapped at it, leaving its mark on the side of his face. The Armorer wasn't the kind of man to make a lot of unnecessary fuss, but he stamped and cursed, pressing his hand against the sting.
Mildred offered to look at it for him, but he refused, insisting on helping to dispose of the rotting bodies.
"Should take care," she said.
"Don't fuss. It'll be fine."
THE OLD MAN APPEARED outside just as they were about to batten down against the storm. He came from nowhere, watching them, his rheumy eyes darting toward the heap of dog meat lying in the ice-slick highway. Less than five feet tall, he wore a coat that positively glistened with dirt and ancient grease. His feet were hidden inside boots of different sizes and shapes. The wind was tugging at strands of silvery hair.
Mildred glanced at Ryan. "Can he… ?"
"No," he said.
"Why?"
"Because…" His anger flared and he looked at the black woman. "Because he could have any kind of weapon. No point."
The old man had shuffled nearer. "You friends of them they took?" he asked.
"Why?" Ryan dropped his hand to the butt of his blaster, then changed his mind. He struggled to paste a smile on his unshaven face.
It wasn't very successful, as the stranger took several stumbling steps backward, hands up to stop himself from being struck. "Don't, outie. Don't. I was—"
"I won't hurt you. Want shelter against that?" Ryan pointed at the roiling waves of leaden blackness, now almost overhead, blanking out the sunshine.
"In there?" He gestured with a shaking head toward the cellar.
"Sure."
"Don't like being ass-fucked."
Both Ryan and Mildred froze, staring at him.
"What?"
"You heard, mister."
"Well, you have my word I won't ass-fuck you."
"Goes double for me." Mildred grinned.
"Just s'long as it's understood. I heard about you outies and what you do t'each other."
"You can get inside," Ryan said. "First, you said something about the people who were staying here."
"Good they was. Gave me food. Jolt if they had it. I got 'em fish sometimes. Know where t'go. Old docks. Watch for them lizard bastards. Shove their cocks up your ass 'fore you can dodge."
"Thanks for the warning. You got a name?"
"Called Bluff."
"Best get inside, Bluff. Storm's right on top of us."
HIDDEN BENEATH THE PILE of firewood were a number of coils of good rope. J.B. split them up and gave everyone a length to wear wrapped around the waist. "Be useful when we try and get back to the gateway," he told them.
Krysty had been putting more wood on the fire, building it up again from the dull ashes. Doc took a spare hank of rope and used it to fix the makeshift door into place.
Before it was completely shut, Ryan went back out for a last look at the weather. The wind was so strong that he had to steady himself against the fallen wall, his hair lashing all over his face. There was a pelting mixture of rain and hail beginning to fall from the black sky. The lightning still danced, but he couldn't hear any thunder above the screaming of the gale. Visibility had fallen to a dusklike gloom so that he could barely see across the width of the street toward the featureless Chelsea Park.
Once they were battened down, Ryan intended to have a word with Bluff about the group that had been living in the basement. And about the young boy who'd been with them.
His ears sang with the pressure of the wind and he ducked, tears brimming in his good eye. He wiped it with his sleeve, readying himself to return down the steps, when he noticed a flurry of movement low to the ground, near the scattered corpses of the dogs. It looked like a man on his belly, crawling to steal some of the rotten meat. But if it was a man, then he was exceedingly tall.
The curtain of sleet parted momentarily, and Ryan blinked as a great sheet of glowing lightning tore the sky apart.
The sight took his breath away.
Creeping away from the stinking heap of meat were two enormous, pale-skinned alligators as big as anything Ryan had ever seen down in the bayous. In that moment of frozen magnesium whiteness he figured them to be thirty feet long, with gaping jaws and razored teeth.
The lightning frightened the reptiles, and they slithered away, each with its mouth jammed with mangled haunches of dog.
Ryan had once read an old book about people having alligators as pets before sky-dark had come. When the reptiles grew too big, their owners flushed them down the toilets. The book claimed they bred in the sewers and grew to enormous lengths.
But he remembered that the book said the creatures were all a fantastic myth.
Fantastic, yes.
Myth, no.
AT LAST THE CORE OF THE storm came swooping down with a murderous intent on the ville of Newyork.
Ryan clambered inside and lashed the door firmly into place. The barrier trembled under his hands, quivering with the power of the slashing rain. A little water was already leaking around the sides, and he could feel a chill draft knifing into the cellar.
But the fire was now blazing brightly, and he joined Krysty, who was sitting on the stone floor. Bluff squatted opposite them, hands held out toward the lapping flames.
"You knew these people?"
"Sure did. Kind they were, and I gave 'em fish."
Ryan leaned forward. "Tell me about the little boy."
The old man looked puzzled. "Little boy? There weren't no little boy living here."
Chapter Twenty-Seven
"NO LITTLE BOY?" Ryan wasn't even aware he'd moved, but his fingers were locked into the old man's wattled neck. Bluff's seamed face was turning purple, and his yellowed tongue was protruding so far from the mouth that it looked like a dying snake.
"Leave him, lover." Krysty slapped Ryan across the back.
"He said there wasn't any little boy. The lying bastard!"
"There wasn't! No babies at all."
"I didn't say babies. I said a little boy, you deaf stupe!"
Bluff rubbed at his throat, stretching his neck like a trapped turtle. "What do you mean by a little boy? There was a
kid there, all right."
"What like?"
"Like about tall as me. Taller. Yes, taller. Not a little boy at all. Be about twelve years old. Hard as… I can't remember his name."
"Try."
"Dean. Real black hair. That was it. Mother was the one with the bad-cut face. Nice, though. Looked after Dean. Like a she-gator with young ones. Dean. Yeah. But he's not a little boy, you murderous bastard. Taller than me, he is."
Ryan gave a grunting, reluctant laugh. "Taller than you! Shit."
BLUFF DIDN'T HAVE too much to tell them about Dean Cawdor.
It rapidly became obvious to Ryan and the others that the old man was a born scrounger, used to attaching himself to groups that might help him to survive, offering any sort of help he could, in any way anyone might want. But he hadn't been close to the previous inhabitants of the cellar.
The old-timer was aware of the boy, though it seemed as if he and the lad hadn't hit it off. He complained that Dean hadn't trusted him and had tried to persuade the others to bar him from the shelter of the cellar.
"But the scalies got him just the same. Dodged the first raid. Clever at that, he was. Got 'em all they did."
Outside the storm was cataclysmic, seeming to make the whole building shiver. Rain was pouring through the gaps around the door, trickling across the uneven floor, collecting in one corner in a growing pool.
Thunder pealed and crashed, lightning bright around the door's edges. The air was scented with the bitter tang of ozone from the storm, riding over the woodsmoke and the lingering aroma of the dead dogs.
Ryan sat close to Krysty. Conversation was difficult.
"Want to talk about it, lover?" she finally asked.
"I don't know. Yeah, in some ways…course I do. But it isn't real yet. Maybe the woman was wrong or crazy. Or the kid's already dead in some gutter or floating facedown in the river. Maybe he isn't really my… my son. And if he is, then we have to try and find him and rescue him."
"We can do that. A few scalies won't stop the old team."
Ryan smiled and nodded. "I guess so. But that's what's filling my mind, and I can't sort of clear my head to talk about it. Not yet."
THE AFTERNOON DRIFTED BY in a timeless haze of noise and darkness.
J.B. joined Ryan and Krysty. Doc had fallen asleep, and Mildred was also dozing. Bluff had rolled over in a corner, looking like an ugly bundle of rags.
"Getting late to start trying to track the boy," he commented.
"Yeah. Best stay here the night and then move first thing."
"This sting hurts like a bastard. Throbs. Worse than any skitter I ever knew."
Krysty reached over and laid the palm of her hand on the Armorer's forehead. "Feels hot, J.B. Best take care."
"Too late. Bastard's already bitten me. Be okay in the morning."
THE MASSIVE STORM finally spent itself, the noise and turbulence moving off to the south.
The cellar was warm and snug, the fire whispering to itself, smoke curling up the chimney.
"I'll take a look outside," Ryan told Krysty. "Scalies might be around now the hurricane's gone. Want to see if the smoke's likely to give us away."
"We going to post a guard?" she asked.
"Might."
He untied the ropes, the knots difficult and tight from the wet. The heavy door slid sideways, and he breathed in the cool, fresh air.
It was full dark, with a sliver of watery moon floating uneasily among scudding walls of frayed clouds. The storm was just visible, way off beyond the southern tip of Mattan, the silent lightning still ripping at the blackness.
The temperature was well above freezing, and the street glistened with spilled rain, huge puddles gathering at its edges. The place where they'd thrown the canine corpses was empty, and Ryan glanced around uneasily, wondering if the giant alligators were still crawling in the shadows.
But the ville was quiet, seemingly deserted.
There was a sound behind him, and he turned and saw that Bluff had woken up.
"You moving on?" Ryan asked.
"No. Going for a small walk. Got something I want to hunt on down. Bring it back if I find it."
"Food?"
"Nearly, Captain, nearly. Be a bit of time, then I'll be here again."
"I'M A MITE CONCERNED about John," Mildred said standing at the bottom of the steps.
Three-quarters of an hour had passed since Bluff had vanished, and Ryan was beginning to feel a touch of concern. The hairs at his nape were prickling. It didn't take a giant leap of the imagination to think that the old man had gone to earn himself some sort of reward for betraying them.
"Krysty thought he had a touch of fever. Getting worse?"
"Some."
"Sort of flu? Not like J.B. to go and catch himself a cold."
Mildred joined him, looking out over the silent debris of the city. "God, it's desolate, isn't it? Flu, did you say? Sorry, Ryan, wasn't concentrating. No, not flu. I just wonder about that insect that stung him. The swelling's worse, and he keeps saying it feels like someone's injected him with acid."
"I didn't see what did it."
"Me, neither. And I feel real tired myself. Need something to pick me up."
"Must be plenty of jolt around a ville of this size."
She laughed quietly. "In my day it'd be parties with mirrors and razor blades and a few fine white lines laid out. Wouldn't mind doing a couple of lines right now."
"Addictive?"
"What they called 'psychoaddictive,' Ryan. Means that coke made you feel a new person, and the new person really wanted to do some more coke. Sure it was addictive. Most things are."
"Most things are what?" The voice came from the entrance to the cellar.
Ryan didn't even turn around. "Addictive, J.B. Talking about needing something to keep going in the bad times."
The Armorer moved into the open, the moonlight's gleam making him look as pale as death. Beads of perspiration stood out on his forehead and cheeks.
"Nobody needs anything to get through the good times," he said. "I never did. Never will. Times I wonder about what keeps us going. You know, Ryan? What's the point when I'm going to die alone?"
"We all will," Mildred said quietly. "Why not come and keep out of the cold, John?"
"John?" He repeated his own name, running it around his mouth like someone trying to identify a fine and rare wine. "Nobody calls me that, Mildred."
"I do. Come on in."
"Fucking cold, Mildred. Body like ice."
Ryan watched as the woman took his friend by the arm and helped him down into the cellar. The idea of J.B. being ill was so alien that it was difficult even to consider. "Be better in the morning," he called down after them.
BY THE TIME Bluff eventually returned, another hour had passed. J.B. had slipped into a fitful sleep, watched over by Mildred. The lump on his face had grown larger, and she said the glands in his neck and armpits had also become swollen.
Twice he came to a sort of half-waking and mumbled lines from a song about being up on Cripple Creek.
"Where he was born," Ryan explained. "If's almost the only thing I know about his background."
"Cripple Creek?"
"Sure."
"Well, I'll be… I took part in a big shooting competition there a couple of years before I got myself frozen." She shook her head. "Anyway, got to get back to my patient."
Bluff had returned with a bottle of joltsky that he grudgingly offered around.
Doc woke up long enough to take a sip, carefully wiping the neck of the bottle first. He handed it back to the raggedy man with a grimace of disgust. "Thank you, my dear fellow. But no thank you."
Krysty, Mildred and Ryan all refused it. J.B. was sleeping more comfortably by now and wasn't to be disturbed.
Ryan was sitting at the bottom of the steps, keeping a watch outside. The fire was burning well, keeping the cellar cheery and warm. He'd been outside to check on the chimney, but there was virtually
no smoke showing. With the Armorer ill, the risk was worth the taking.
"Sure you don't wanna slug of joltsky, huh?" Bluff asked, standing unsteadily in front of him.
"Sure. Man on guard needs to be alert. Not with his head stoned sideways."
The old man giggled. "Nice way with words, outie. Talk good. All of you. All but that old prick. He speaks double-stupe."
"Doc has his own world."
"Stupe. Got to be clever in Mattan. Or you don't pull by."
Bluff was already high, his tongue running away with him. Ryan kept nodding, half listening to his rambling, most of his concentration on watching the street.
"Thought I couldn't remember where I put this little love." He waved the dark green bottle.
"Yeah. Know the feeling."
"Hid it good. Like when you was a kid and you got a reward for bein' good."
"Sure."
"This my reward for bein' good."
Suddenly Ryan focused his complete attention on the small man. "You got that joltsky as a reward, Bluff?"
"Yeah, fucking good." He laid a filthy finger along the side of his nose to indicate his cunning. "Good. Hey, I meant t'ask you if you found somethin' here?"
"What?"
"The kid had a knife. Real pretty. Green handle. Never found it when they came. And they said I could have it. Asked 'em special. Part of my reward." His mouth sagged open in a soft grin at his own cleverness, his eyes rolling, unfocused, blasted by the jolt.
"The scalies gave you the bottle as part of your reward for betraying the people who lived here?" Ryan asked slow and quiet.
"Now I didn't say that."
"You did. I bet you do real well from the scalies, here and there, don't you, Bluff? I truly admire your cleverness."
"You do?"
"Yeah."
In the cellar, beyond the old man, he could see that both Mildred and Krysty were awake and listening, open mouthed, to the conversation.
"Well, that's nice, outie. Got my bottle. Didn't see none of them scalies tonight."
"That's really what I wanted to know. So you didn't tell them about us being here?"