Hellbenders

by James Axler

  “Always play as comes,” he said flatly. “That why not yet bought farm.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Ryan—Ryan Cawdor,” the voice whispered, harsh in the almost total silence of the room, broken only by the breathing of the others.

  The one-eyed man awakened in an instant, his arms coming up and grabbing at the source of the voice, still half in a dream of his brother Harvey and Front Royal. His strong fingers grasped at soft flesh, feeling the arteries and windpipe of someone’s throat.

  Small hands shot up to grip his wrists, the countergrip incredibly strong for the size of the short, stubby fingers. There were no nails as the grip tightened, as if whoever owned the hands was a compulsive nailbiter.

  “Fucking stupe—let the fuck go,” hissed the whisperer, the voice now strangled by his grip.

  Ryan, still not fully awake, could feel the blood cutting off in his wrists as the grip of the other tightened, desperation lending strength. His vision adjusted to the gloom of the room, only a faint patina of light penetrating from the redoubt corridor as the door to their quarters wasn’t fully clothed. In the faint light, he could see a blond head before him, with green eyes dark in the shadows but still piercing enough to be defined.

  Suddenly realizing where he was and recognizing his alleged assailant, he released his grip.

  Catherine staggered back a step or two, coughing as quietly as possible and trying to force air back into her closed throat.

  “Nuke shit, what were you trying to do?” she husked hoarsely when she was able to speak once more.

  “I was in the middle of a nightmare,” he replied quietly. “Triple-stupe thing to do, sneak up on a man like that—”

  “Yeah, well, it’s not something I’d do from choice,” she returned bitterly. “I usually like ’em to know when I’m coming.”

  “Then what are you doing here?” Ryan asked, rising from his bunk.

  “Papa Joe sent me to fetch you. He figures there’s something you should see, but he said not to disturb the others. Which is why I was trying to be delicate and gentle about it. And all you do is try and fuckin’ chill me.”

  Ryan grinned, made crooked by the scar down his face—the scar of which he had been dreaming so vividly.

  “You don’t get much in the way of delicate and subtle on the outside,” he said.

  “If that’s the best I’m going to get from you by way of an apology, then I s’pose it’ll have to do,” she answered, still rubbing her throat. “But it’s a bit—well, crap, really. Anyway, stop pissing around. There’s things to do.”

  She turned and left the room, slipping out through the door by opening it to the barest minimum and letting in the least possible light. Ryan figured this was to enable the others to stay sleeping, and did likewise as he exited the room, blinking as he came into the stronger light of the corridor.

  Catherine was already some way down the corridor ahead of him. She turned and hissed, “Come on, fuckwit, we haven’t got all night.”

  Ryan allowed himself an inward smile at the bad temper of the small blonde, and also allowed that such spirit would probably make her good in a firefight as he quickened his pace to catch up to her.

  She led him through the deserted corridors and down a level to where one of the berths contained old sec camera equipment. Ryan followed her into the room, to find two of the Hellbenders sitting in front of the screens, with Correll standing behind them. He turned to acknowledge Ryan as he heard them enter.

  “You were slow,” he admonished Catherine.

  “Sorry about that,” she replied, rubbing her still sore throat, “but some people think that trying to wake them in the middle of the night means you want to fuckin’ chill ’em. And mebbe you should.”

  Correll allowed himself a rare flash of humor. “Mebbe Rudi’ll figure that one out one day,” he said to her. “Subtlety isn’t your strong point, is it? Still, he’s here now.”

  “So can I go and get some sleep, and dream about my neck being covered in hot tar all night instead of getting ready for a firefight, then?” she said with a heavy sarcasm that was directed at the one-eyed man.

  Correll assented, and Catherine left them with a glare at Ryan that could have struck him down as stone if preDark mythology had been accurate.

  “I apologize,” Correll said as she retreated. “I should have sent someone better, but she was the first to hand as she’d just come off watch. That put her in a bad temper anyway, as she does like to sleep. A good and true fighter, though.”

  “I don’t doubt that,” Ryan said, recalling the iron grip of her small hands as they tried to tear his fingers from her throat. “So why did you bring me here?”

  “Look,” Correll said simply, standing back so that Ryan could see the monitors.

  Most of them were for the interior of the redoubt, as he recalled from the occasion when the companions had viewed this room earlier in their sojourn. At this moment, they showed a skeletal watch preparing some last-minute details for the attack to be mounted on the morrow, and little else. The vast majority of the Hellbenders were, as had been Ryan himself, getting some much needed and all-important rest.

  But four of the monitors on the bank were for the outside. They covered north, south, east and west, rotating through almost 180 degrees on their respective mountings, and taking in almost all the territory that surrounded the rock outcrop where the redoubt was based. There could be little, if any, of the surrounding desert that wasn’t covered—no blind spots where potential attackers could hide.

  It was, however, no human or animal agency that had taken the attention of Correll. The night was lit up by the raging clouds of a chem storm, the chemical reactions inside the rad-blasted clouds creating flashes of light that made the outside seem almost as bright as day. Rains lashed down horizontally onto the rock, eventually scoring across the sandy and dry soil, churning it up with the winds and the force of the water into a quicksand of mud and deep puddles that would make the journey treacherous as they set out the following day. As the sun came up and burned into the earth, then the soil would dry out and make the going easier, but it would also harden the tracks they had left behind them—tracks that wouldn’t have existed on the dry earth, and tracks that could give away their position and movement, and thus betray the ambush.

  That was always assuming, of course, that the chem storm would abate by morning. It was also highly possible that it could continue for hours, even days, and so completely wipe out the planned rendezvous for the two convoys.

  All this raced through the one-eyed man’s mind as he watched the monitors.

  “How long has this been going on?” he asked.

  “About two hours,” Correll replied.

  “How long do they usually last?” Ryan queried.

  Correll shrugged. “Hard to say, friend. We don’t really get much in the way of chem storms out here. This is only the third I can remember in as many years.”

  “Fireblast,” Ryan cursed softly to himself. “You’ve got to admire the timing of it.”

  Correll nodded, his lips set grimly. “There’s no way they’ll rendezvous if this continues,” he said in an artificially even tone, trying to keep his temper. “It’d be suicide to try and move through that.”

  They remained silent for a moment, watching the images on the screen. The storm was awesome in its fury, with the rolling clouds crashing together, sparking off flashes of lightning colored by the residues of chemicals carried within the acid rain that beat strange patterns into the soil, fashioned by the conflicting drifts of wind that beat into each other, causing eddies and whorls of dust and mud to whirl around the sparse vegetation, which was being ripped from its fragile rooting. Any animals or reptiles that wished to risk the storm were soon chilled, the majority opting to take whatever cover they could find. The unearthly, orange-gray sulfurous light that spread and suffused across the land cast an unearthly pallor on the landscape, making it seem even more alien and unfriendly than
it had ever seemed before.

  “If it abates before the sunrise, then we’ve got a chance of things going ahead,” Ryan mused. “I can’t see the rendezvous not taking place unless it’s as absolutely impassable as this.”

  Correll shook his head slowly. “Jourgensen and Hutter both have a mutual need. They’ve taken long enough to get this far with each other. They’re not likely to blow it out their asses unless necessary. For a start, they need to communicate with each other to arrange a mutual point and time, and that won’t be easy…especially as they won’t know whether or not the other has sent their convoy out.”

  Ryan mused on this for a moment. Things were starting to get complicated. Should they risk a move?

  “How about us?” he asked, turning to face Correll, tearing his eye away from the terrifying spectacle that was taking place outside the redoubt.

  “What—should we stay or go?” Correll posed.

  “No, I mean what about your spies? Is there any way that they could let us know about changes of plan?”

  “No reason why not if it’s a rearrangement,” Correll said tightly. “Thing is, they can’t let us know in this bastard chem storm. This is when I wish we already had the secrets of the old tech.”

  “I don’t know,” Ryan said quietly, stroking his chin as he scanned his memory. “I can’t think of anything I’ve ever come across that could penetrate successfully through the rad interference you get with such a storm. You’ve got spies in both villes?”

  Correll nodded. “One in each. And up to now they’ve been able to keep us informed with some old radio equipment that we worked out how to use—well, Danny did. That boy’s useful to us, despite the fact that I reckon he’d buckle in a firefight. But these old handhelds are only so effective. The signal gets too broken up too easily, even with the usual rad shit that’s in the atmosphere, let alone with some bastard storm like this.”

  Ryan nodded. “If it abates before morning, they’ll get in touch as soon as they can to let us know if it’s still on, won’t they?”

  Correll smiled mirthlessly. “They know they have to—let us down at this point, and they might as well kiss their asses goodbye about ever linking up again. Same reason our man in Charity didn’t help the recce party. No way could he afford to blow his cover, not at this point. If they got into trouble and got themselves chilled, well, that was their problem, right?”

  Ryan nodded almost imperceptibly. “Had to be,” he replied; but he did wonder if Correll’s hardline discipline didn’t run the risk of engendering rebellion. As long as it held for the next day, then they would be okay. On reflection, it did seem that, despite his tendency to harsh judgment, he had little to fear from his people, all as driven in their own manner as their leader.

  All the while he and Correll had been exchanging views, the other two inhabitants of the room had been sitting in silence, monitoring the storm. Now one of them spoke.

  “Look at that!” he whispered in awe.

  Outside, the storm was showing no signs of abating. If anything, it had decided to whip itself into even more of a frenzy than ever before. Two banks of clouds, tinged in alternate shades of orange and blue, were buffeting each other from opposing directions, the cross winds that drove them making them clash with a force and speed that caused the dense mass of liquid contained within them to visibly shake, the chem-ridden clouds shuddering at impact, raining all the more heavily and driving their packets of chem-ridden water into the earth. The immovable objects and forces of the clashing clouds caused great sparks of static electricity to shoot across the sky, bolts of orange, red and blue lightning clashing and lighting up the sky until the images from the monitor screens in the darkened room were bright enough to show every line of hate and revenge etched across the face of Correll as Ryan cast an eye over the Hellbenders’ leader. The man’s eyes blazed almost as bright and fierce as the storm.

  “Shit,” Correll whispered. “If this doesn’t calm down, there won’t be any Charity or any Summerfield to fight against. I figure we must be safe enough down here—unless a bolt of that lightning hits the rock full on and splits it—but it must be hell on earth to be in those villes right now.” But despite the words, Ryan could detect not a single note of sympathy in Correll’s voice.

  “Let’s hope they hold out—come to that, if there’s casualties, let’s hope that your spies in each ville aren’t among them,” Ryan added. “No way we’d know if it was being chilled or fucked-up equipment that stopped them getting in touch.”

  Correll didn’t reply. He snorted, almost a sigh as he breathed out heavily. There was an almost imperceptible shaking of his head as his eyes, unblinking, stayed fixed on the screen.

  “Nothing we can do,” Ryan said eventually, his attention divided between the screen and the Hellbenders’ leader. “I figure we should try to get some rest and prepare in the morning as though we were setting out. If the storm’s still raging, or if we hear the rendezvous is off from either side, then at least we’re practiced for the real thing.”

  His words were practical, but he tried to frame them in a manner that Correll would also find soothing. Not for the first time, Ryan was aware that the gaunt man beside him was walking a knife-edge of sanity, driven almost beyond human endurance by his desire for revenge. If Correll went over the edge, then they would all be doomed, for there was no way that the companions could detach themselves from the Hellbenders at this stage.

  For a few moments, it seemed as though Correll hadn’t heard Ryan. Then he turned to face the one-eyed man, his eyes at first cold and blank, then firing with recognition as he dragged himself back from his own personal hell.

  “Yeah,” he said finally with the briefest of nods. “Guess you’re right.”

  Ryan turned and left the room, but as he paused on the threshold and looked back, he saw that Correll wasn’t about to follow. The gaunt man had turned back to the monitors, his eyes still unblinking.

  RYAN FOUND IT difficult to get any more rest during the remaining few hours of night. The memory of Correll’s gaunt, unblinking stare haunted him. The Hellbenders’ leader was reining in all his anger and rage, all the hatred that drove him on. The problem was, if he kept doing this, then there would come a point when it would explode. And the likelihood was that it would explode when they mounted the attack on the twin convoys.

  Danny had been right to point this out to Dean, as the younger Cawdor had told them. It was something of which the rest of the companions had also been aware. But Ryan felt, as the leader of the group, that there was little he could do to avoid confrontation over this matter. Their only chance of getting out was to go to the mat-trans and jump, but if they did that they would have to fight their way past Correll’s people, in all likelihood, and this would just exacerbate the man’s rage and bring it out earlier than they had otherwise thought.

  Ryan hoped that the chem storm would abate, so that the convoy rendezvous could go ahead, and so that the attack could likewise proceed. At least they could cover their own backs out in the field, with a wag of their own, no matter what may happen to Correll and the Hellbenders.

  But having to fight their way out of a three-cornered fight wasn’t the best way to end this encounter. And still the CD-ROM they had in their possession needed to be decoded. From what Dean had described, the stash of old tech that Baron Al Jourgensen was holding could actually contain the key to unlocking the CD, and perhaps tell them all they wanted to know.

  Ryan had a bad feeling in his gut. So many things to juggle, so many variables to go wrong. And at the head of it all, a man who was becoming, more and more, completely unstable and unpredictable.

  So it was that, when Travis poked his head around the door of their berth a few hours later and briefly informed them that the hour had come to rise and prepare, Ryan had managed little rest and was in the middle of a shallow, dream-filled sleep where Correll had turned into a stickie whose sucking fingers were ripping at his heart, trying to tear it from his body. />
  When the rest of the companions had risen, and Ryan was on his feet, his eye looking sunken and red, Mildred took one look at him and nodded.

  “You too, eh? Can’t say I was able to get much rest thinking about Papa Joe’s team talk coming up. I’d be much happier if we could play this our own way.”

  Mildred was aware that Ryan had discussed with Correll the manner in which the attack could be mounted, and the tactics that could be used. She was also aware that, although ostensibly taking notice of the one-eyed man, Correll was liable to dismiss them all for his own, tunnel-vision aims.

  Even more so when Ryan told them of the chem storm.

  J.B. shook his head, pushing his spectacles onto the bridge of his nose. “It would have to stop right now for us to get out there—and there’ll still be enough rad interference in the atmosphere to make radio communication impossible right now. If it’s over, we’ll have to assume they’re going ahead.”

  Ryan agreed. “That’s how I see it, but how’s Correll going to read it?”

  “I think we’ll go,” Krysty said. Her hair was waving slightly, as though caressed by a breeze despite the fact that the redoubt’s air-conditioning didn’t disturb the air in such a fashion. The movement could only mean that her mutie sense was telling her that there was a dangerous situation ahead. “I can’t see Correll stopping now. Not after waiting so long. This is the culmination of all his dreams. He’s not going to throw this away unless it’s totally impassable out there.”

  It was a view with which the rest of the companions could only concur. So when Travis reappeared to summon them to eat, they left their berth in silence, anticipating what could lie ahead.

  The entire community was gathered in the large room that served both for the feeding of their minds and bellies. The latter was the case at the moment, as the forces of the Hellbenders ate heartily, readying themselves for the confrontation that lay ahead. Certainly, they were acting as though the chem storm had abated.