by James Axler
“Or Montana,” Mildred said.
Jubilee stared at the vista in amazement and delight. She had never seen so much green in all her life.
The sweet scent of wildflowers drew them away from the entrance and to the meadow below. It was dappled with pale blues, pinks, yellows. A crystal-clear brook ran through the tall grass. The jump had made them all thirsty, and they lay down on their bellies and drank their fill.
Across the narrow valley, at the base of the mountain on the other side, a line of large, four-legged creatures browsed the edge of the forest.
“Plenty game here,” Jak observed.
“That’s what I was thinking, too,” J.B. said. “We shouldn’t have any trouble finding dinner.”
“Look at your new wife,” Krysty said to Ryan.
The girl was sitting cross-legged in the grass, putting the finishing touches on a flower bracelet to match the brightly colored blossoms that she had woven into her hair.
“Forced marriages don’t count,” he said. “You know that.”
“I don’t see any sign of a settlement,” Mildred said. “No buildings. No smoke. No nothing. This is wild country. We can’t leave her here. We’re going to have to take her with us.”
“That’s fine,” Ryan said. “She can come along until we find some good folks who’ll take in her and the baby. There must be someone, somewhere in some ville who will provide room and board in exchange for work.”
“What about Little Pueblo?” Krysty asked. “What’s going to become of it, now?”
“The trannies are loose in the middle of the ville,” Mildred said. “There’s no way to contain them. I’d say Little Pueblo is done for.”
“Justice comes, a hundred years late,” Ryan stated grimly.
Epilogue
From the edge of the canyon rim, Pilgrim Plavik surveyed Paradise for the last time. To his back the sun was setting, casting rays of soft orange light across the spread of cultivated fields and tiny, clustered settlement of Little Pueblo.
Looking down from that distance at what had happened in a single, terrible night was almost impossible to believe. A night of blood-curdling screams and volleys of blasterfire. And afterward, the sounds of wretching.
A chorus of wretching that swelled and faded, swelled and faded until nearly dawn.
No one alive had dreamed that such a thing could happen. Certainly not Pilgrim Plavik.
The offerings to the demons had been more than ample and made on schedule, he had seen to that. On his orders, the only door to Bob and Enid’s tomb had been piled high with boulders.
The demons hadn’t used the door, of course. They had burrowed out through the face of the tomb and through the roof. Too many holes to count. And once free, they moved too quickly to see.
The hour was late.
The whole ville had been asleep.
Everyone but Plavik. He had awakened after an hour or so, restless, energized in the aftermath of his victory over the one-eyed man and his companions. Sex with any one or combination of his wives hadn’t interested him. He had put on his boots and left city hall. In the dark, he had climbed the familiar path to the top of the dam, and there watched the moon dance on the surface of the placid lake. He took stock of his kingdom and marveled anew at his fountain of luck.
It was from the dam crest road that he heard the agonies of Little Pueblo begin. He had no idea what was happening below, but he was unarmed and there was nothing he could do.
Blasterfire and screams echoed in the canyon for hours, followed by the wretching.
Then as the sun came up everything became still. Natural sounds, comforting sounds took over. Birds tweeted. Bugs chirped. A soft breeze rustled in the corn.
Plavik waited until well after sunrise before descending the dam and returning to the city center.
He found an open air charnel house. Bodies lay in the streets, some torn limb from limb, all of them sat in rank yellow pools. At first glance, and first smell, he knew that it wasn’t the work of human beings.
Bodies lay inside the buildings, too. The rooms of city hall were choked with corpses. The other pilgrims, their wives, and their children had been butchered in their sleep.
Little Pueblo’s field hands had fared no better. Some had made it out of the low buildings that circled the square; most had not. The chillers had come in through the doors and windows. Sealing off the exits, they had trapped and slaughtered the men amid the debris of their household furnishings, broken beds and spilled mattress stuffing. And that done, they had drenched everything in yellow slime.
Fearing the worst, Plavik had stood on the curb and shouted at the top of his lungs. Shouted for someone. Anyone. His cries echoed off the canyon walls and faded. He shouted himself hoarse. No one came. They were all dead.
His was a kingdom of one.
From the trees that lined the edge of the park, he could see the holes that riddled the tomb. If there had been any doubt in his mind what had happened, it vanished in that moment.
The demons had broken out.
In the cover of night they had laid a table for themselves. In darkness they would come back again to feast.
Plavik had spent his final night in Little Pueblo.
It was hard for him to decide what to take. He remembered the ordeal he’d endured to reach Paradise. He knew he couldn’t carry enough water to last the entire journey, and that every extra ounce on his back reduced the chance of his surviving the crossing.
He had been much younger then. Stronger. His flesh tempered from fighting. But even more important than that, the young, hot-tempered Plavik hadn’t known what he was getting into when he set off. The pain that would come. The suffering. The nearness of death. He no longer had the luxury of that ignorance. He knew precisely what he faced, and how slim the odds were.
Plavik looked up into the still-bright sky. High overhead, riding the towering thermals created by the canyon’s walls, the buzzards of Deathlands slowly wheeled and circled.
ISBN: 978-1-4603-7337-8
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