Eden’s Twilight

by James Axler

  Without releasing the wheel, Ryan bumped Krysty with an elbow. She nudged him back with a hip, the silent communication between the two lovers saying more than a thousand hurried words.

  Coming straight across a small island, the kraken was engulfed in a brief flurry of explosions from buried land mines. The detonations hardly slowed the beast, and it loudly roared like the fevered delusions of a madman come to horrid life.

  With a rush of white smoke, a missile launched from the aft MRL pod of War Wag One. The sleek warbird streaked across the watery swamp and slammed into the kraken, the blast blowing away the moss and sticky mud to reveal a leathery form advancing on a writhing nest of jointed tentacles. The bulbous head possessed multiple eyes, like some kind of an insect, while the mouth was a yawning pit full of the needle-sharp teeth of a carnivore. Everybody else in the Deathlands might call the thing a mutie, but the companions felt sure that when a kraken bled, if it could bleed, that the fluid would be the telltale yellow of another triple-damned biowep. The giant seemed designed just for chilling, which meant that it probably had been built in some predark lab for just such a purpose. Nature designed animals to live and breed; only humanity built creatures for the sole purpose of sowing death.

  Another missile launched from the chained war wag, and J.B. added one of their own. The missiles hit the kraken dead-on, but did scant damage, the wounds closing almost as fast as they were formed.

  At that chilling sight, every machine gun chattered into life, and rapidfires yammered into operation from every blasterport. Streams of lead hammered the onrushing kraken, but the bullets merely sank into the mottled flesh and disappeared.

  Seeing how far away the shore was, Ryan decided to take a gamble, and lifted the fork from the mud. With that removed, their speed increased exponentially, and the kraken dropped behind slightly. As if infuriated by the escape, the huge creature redoubled its efforts and rapidly closed the gap, the lashing tentacles reaching out to slap the armored hull of War Wag One with ringing force. A blaster was snatched out of a blasterport, fingers caught in the trigger guard coming along. The vented barrel of the Fifty was bent, the chattering machine gun instantly backfiring; a piercing shriek of pain came from the armored blister, then red blood flowed freely from the air vents.

  Positioned directly in front of War Wag One, it was difficult for the companions to aim at the kraken, so they switched from full-auto to single shots, and went for the eyes. One of the orbs burst, then another, but then the kraken raised a tentacle in front of its face in a protective gesture.

  “Sweet Jesus, how smart is this thing?” Mildred demanded, dropping a spent clip and slamming in a reload.

  As the question did not seem to need an answer, none of the companions responded. They simply kept shooting.

  Unexpectedly, a roof hatch crashed open on the aft wag, and Jessica scrambled into view holding a Molotov cocktail, the rag around the neck of the bottle already burning. She threw it at the kraken, but the container merely bounced off the leather hide and fell into the lake to disappear into the mud.

  Stretching out a tentacle, the kraken tried for the woman, but Jessica dived back into the hatch…only to reappear a split second later holding a machete and a gren.

  Grabbing a gren, Doc stepped away from the blasterport, then bitterly cursed at the sight of their roof hatch welded tightly into place. Rushing to the aft doors, he threw the bolt and kicked one open, weaving back and forth, trying to get a clear view of the kraken. Then the scholar coldly smiled at the explosion from just behind War Wag One, and a severed tentacle went flying off, gushing yellow blood.

  Moving away from War Wag One, the kraken started toward the UCV, and the companions stopped firing, urging the creature to come closer. It was almost upon them when there came a sharp whine from the laser on top of the war wag, and a scintillating beam of coherent light stabbed outward to slice across the kraken, opening the body wide, intestines slithering into the mud, along with a great rush of golden blood.

  Screaming louder than a thousand steam calliopes, the creature spun and the laser fired again, piercing the kraken completely through. It sagged, then rallied and threw itself on the front of the transport, the tentacles slithering along the sides, seeking any purchase or entry. Weapons were hastily withdrawn and the blasterports slammed shut as the kraken began to tighten every tentacle, inhuman muscles bunching as the creature began to squeeze the armored vehicle, the metal audibly creaking from the incredible pressure.

  No longer in danger of shooting a friend, the companions gathered at the rear doors and cut loose with a barrage of blasterfire at the biowep, the big Fifty on the roof chattering nonstop.

  With the added weight of the kraken, the UCV slowed again, but Ryan could now see the edge of the lake. Dry land was only fifty feet away. Once there, they could drop the chain and simply outpace the thing, leaving it easily behind. To stay alive, they had to reach the shore, but to reach the shore, they had to stay alive. Unbidden, the recipe for rabbit stew came to mind. Step one: catch a rabbit.

  “Use the Molotovs!” Ryan bellowed over the sounds of battle.

  Pausing in her furious wiping, Krysty gave the man a puzzled look, but the others understood. Lighting a rag fuse, Doc gently lofted a firebomb bottle at the creature. As the bottle landed, Mildred triggered the rapidfire, shattering the glass. Flames spread across the kraken, and it howled even louder than before, then again as J.B. aimed the Fifty at the flames, trying to pound the blaze inside the accursed thing.

  “Whatever you did, do it again!” Roberto yelled over the radio, the signal coming through much clearer than before as they approached the edge of the lake. “Keep this thing busy for a couple of minutes, then get ready to release the chain!”

  “Never! We will not abandon you!” Mildred snarled over the chattering rapidfire. The spent brass arched from the ejector port and bounced musically off the armored doors to splash into the black muck.

  “Just tell us when!” Krysty shouted, reaching out a hand to grab the release lever for the winch.

  As Doc tossed another Molotov, Mildred was caught off guard by the unexpected remark and almost missed the bottle. But as the firebomb exploded across the kraken, she suddenly understood and grinned fiendishly. That just might work!

  With a lurch, the UCV surged ahead, and the prow began to rise from the lake. “We’re at the shore!” Ryan shouted.

  “Not yet!” Roberto answered. “Not yet!” There was a terrible grinding noise and numerous voices were cursing or shouting orders. Oddly, no blasters were firing.

  As the front tires of the UCV dug into the firm soil, the tandem engines loudly revved and Ryan was forced to hit the brakes in order to not snap the tow chain. It was made of thick steel, but nothing had ever been designed to handle the double load of wag and biowep.

  “Now!” Roberto shouted over a crackle of static. “Cut us loose!”

  Instantly, Krysty yanked the release lever and the chain went free, snaking away into the air. Freed of the awful drag, the UCV raced forward, and Ryan let the wag get a few yards away from the lake, then turned the wheel and braked hard, turning the UCV to directly face the machine and monster. Flipping a switch, Krysty lowered the fork to what she hoped was a killing height. J.B. swung around the rocket pod, while Doc and Mildred leaped out of the wag with firebombs in their hands.

  But before anybody could act, the kraken screamed insanely as a wild corona of blue sparks crawled over the creature. With a few of its tentacles still in the lake, the kraken became a conduit for the massive electrical discharge coursing through the armored hull of War Wag One. Literally galvanized motionless, the kraken could only shudder as wisps of steam began to rise from every pore and orifice. The cooking eyes turned solid white, piss-yellow blood started pouring from the convulsing mouth, then flames erupted from the bubbling skin. The dirty water around the war wag began to churn as pieces of the animal blackened and fell off to reveal the ropy muscles, various internal organs, a st
range flexible skeleton and finally a large pulsating brain, obscenely dripping golden fluids.

  At the sight, the companions banged away with everything they had, riddling the throbbing mass until the lead began to ricochet off the windshield of the vehicle. Standing in the control room, Roberto yanked a switch set into the wall, and the lethal surge of power was terminated, the electrical discharge fading away in cycling stages. Fried alive, the last remaining pieces of the kraken limply slid off the grille and prow of the armored machine to splash impotently into the filthy lake.

  With every tire still spinning madly, War Wag One slowly moved toward the shore, then lurched ahead as the wheels finally touched solid ground. Erupting from the mud lake, the transport braked to a rocking halt only a few yards away from the UCV.

  “Behold!” Doc exclaimed joyfully, brandishing his rapidfire. “Odysseus escapes from the island of Calypso!”

  And for once, Mildred could only look questioningly at the old man as she honestly had no idea what in the world he was talking about.

  Whooping and cheering, crewmen poured from the wag, led by a muddy Jak, wearing a pair of pants several times too large. The companions joined them on the shore.

  “What fight!” the albino teen declared proudly. “Didn’t think anything could ace kraken but nuke!”

  “Neither did I,” Ryan admitted. “What happened to your laser? I would have thought you’d use that as often as possible before doing something as risky as electrifying the hull.”

  “We had no choice in the matter,” Roberto growled, limping closer. “All of our diamonds are gone.”

  “Thought you folks had gotten a whole bag full from the last supply cache,” J.B. said curiously, tilting back his fedora.

  “We did!” Jessica answered with a snarl. “They’re gone, all of them!”

  It took a moment for Ryan to realize what was not being said. “You had a mole,” he said simply.

  “Yates!” Roberto barked, expelling the name as if it was made of human waste. “When Eric went to load the reaction chamber, the diamonds were gone. Every damn one of them! Then he found Tex missing.”

  “When Shelly went to check on Yates, she found Tex lying in his bunk with his throat slit,” Jessica finished. “Don’t take a whitecoat to figure out he stole the diamonds and did Tex.” She looked across the fetid expanse of the mud lake with open revulsion. “It must have been before we started across the lake.”

  “Obviously, Yates was secretly working for Broke-Neck Pete,” Doc espoused thoughtfully. “A dastardly Quisling, a wolf in sheep’s clothing set to make sure we never reached Cascade alive!”

  “Never did trust a healthy doomie,” a crewman snarled hatefully, balling a fist. “If I ever find the mutie-loving freak, it’ll take him a week to die! Two weeks. Tex was a bud!”

  “More importantly, he was crew,” Roberto stated. “Which means that Yates belongs to me!” Then the trader smiled without any trace of humor whatsoever. “However, there will be plenty of him left over for everybody else to have a…taste.”

  The furious crew growled their approval of the idea, several of them pulling out knives to test the edges for sharpness.

  “Is everybody else all right?” Mildred asked, looking over the assemblage of angry men and women for any wounds. “I saw somebody lose fingers when their blaster was yanked away.”

  “That was Chuck. Shelly already has him in sick bay,” Roberto said, dismissing the matter. “Ryan, how’s your wag? Is it fit to roll?”

  “Just have to let the engines cool down some,” Ryan said warily. “Why, did you take damage?”

  “Plenty.” Roberto sighed, his exhaustion showing for just a moment, then he stood tall once more. “We have structural damage, a cracked blister, jammed doors, radar aced, busted fuel lines and a cracked housing on the transmission. It was sheer luck that we made it out of the lake!”

  “How soon till you’re mobile again?” Krysty asked, keeping a careful watch on the lake for any additional moving islands.

  “Don’t know if the wag will ever roll again,” Roberto said truthfully. “But Scott and the Big Joe will be here once they get the bridge built.” He frowned. “However, by then Pete might’ve already destroyed Cascade. So…here.” He thrust out something at Ryan.

  Without comment, the one-eyed man took the leather-bound journal and tucked it into his gunbelt. He didn’t have to ask if the big man had made a duplicate. No trader worth his brass would ever rely upon a single map.

  “Quinn is hauling over some belts for your Fifty,” Roberto said. “As well as replacement rockets for the two you launched.” Then reaching into a pocket, he pulled out a gren. “And you might need this, too.”

  Slightly confused, Ryan wondered if the gren was something special to the trader, then he saw the markings. “Son of a bitch,” the man muttered in surprise. “An implo gren! I haven’t seen one of those in a long while.”

  “It should be enough to take out those steam trucks,” Roberto stated with marked satisfaction.

  “Steam trucks? Dark night, that will compact an army tank down to the size of a soup can!” J.B. exclaimed, reaching out to reverently take the ferruled sphere. It lay lightly in his palm, giving no indication of the staggering destructive power that was harnessed within the high-tech piece of ordnance. He should have suspected that the trader would have something like this tucked away. If you lived inside a steel can, it only made sense to have a can opener available in case of trouble. That gave the man pause, and J.B. made a mental note to keep a sharp watch out for whatever Pete had stashed away for an emergency inside the Road Dragon.

  “You will never know how close I came to using it on the kraken,” Roberto said softly. “And there’s a price.”

  “Pete,” Ryan said without prompting.

  “No,” came the astounding reply. “Cascade. Protect them at all costs. We can handle Pete, and Yates, too, for that matter.” Roberto pointed at the companions. “You folks save Cascade.”

  “Done and done,” Ryan said with a nod.

  Just then a dull boom sounded in the distance.

  Instantly everybody pulled blasters and looked around for danger, but only the two wags were visible on the shore of the vast mud lake.

  With a hydraulic sigh, a door to War Wag One swung down and out walked Eric, his face a mask of consternation. Like most techs, he wore a vest covered with tiny pockets full of tools, but there was also a big-bore .44 Webley handcannon at his side.

  “What’s wrong?” Roberto demanded, the sawed-off blaster still in his grip.

  “Chief…” Eric paused and changed his demeanor. “Sir, we have received a coded message from Scott Gordon of the Big Joe,” the man reported formally, then swallowed hard. “They have been ambushed and…and they…”

  “And they did a sixteen,” Roberto said, slowly holstering his piece.

  “Y-yes, sir. They did.”

  Jessica closed her eyes.

  “If I may ask, what has happened?” Doc said in his most gentle voice.

  “It’s not always possible to get a full message through the radio,” Roberto said tightly, “so we use a number code. Nine means this, nineteen means something else. Saves a lot of time and trouble.”

  “Never heard of that before,” Ryan admitted.

  Jessica frowned. “You don’t know half of our secrets, newbie.”

  “And what does sixteen mean?” Krysty asked, although she already knew the answer from their dark expressions.

  Rubbing his sore leg, Roberto turned away and started toward the wag. “It means Scott was ambushed, the Big Joe disabled,” the big man said over a shoulder. “And rather than be taken alive to be tortured for information…or worse…they…”

  “Blew up the wag while still on board,” Mildred finished for the man.

  “Traders and crew don’t go into chains,” Jessica stated proudly, holding her head high. “We live free, or die.”

  Several of the crewmen in the crowd repeated the
phrase as if it was a holy mantra, and one of the women fought back tears.

  “Live free or die,” Ryan said in agreement.

  “Pax vobiscum,” Doc added solemnly in Latin.

  Stiffly climbing onto the stairs set into the metal door, Roberto rested a hand on the armored hull of War Wag One as if drawing strength from the massive machine. “Well, what the fuck are you gleebs waiting for, the summer solstice?” the trader bellowed, not looking in their direction. “Get that fragging piece of drek moving! We’ve…got repairs to do.”

  Knowing anything they could say would be pointless, the companions silently returned to the urban combat vehicle and got the mud-splattered wag rolling, no longer quite so sure of the success of the long journey ahead of them.

  Chapter Twenty

  Gradually, the muddy shoreline changed into flat grasslands, and then a scraggly forest of pine trees. Once the mud lake and War Wag One were out of sight, the companions stopped in a small gully and held a fast war council. First and foremost, they decided that for the rest of this trip, their name code was to be reversed; Charlie no longer meant that it was clear, but “chill me.” Able did not mean an ambush, but that it was “all clear,” and so on. Ryan and the others liked the gruff trader and trusted him more than most people, but these were unusual circumstances, so they needed to be especially wary.

  Next, they got busy with knives and rope, trimming off branches and attaching them to the UCV until it was thickly covered. The windshield and tires were still exposed out of necessity, but from a distance the parked vehicle would hopefully appear to be only a pile of fallen branches and not an armored war wag.

  With Doc and Jak standing guard, Ryan and Krysty put the finishing touches on the camouflage. Walking into the dull sunlight, J.B. pulled out his minisextant and watched the clouds overhead until there was a brief break in the cover. He quickly shot the sun to get their exact position. Jotting down the figures, he consulted the journal and then the battered old map he carried tucked inside his munitions bag. Hmm, they were currently in…West Virginia. Yeah, the man had kind of assumed that from the sheer size of the mountains. At the moment, the UCV was parked in what had once been the small town of Buena Vista.