by James Axler
At that exact moment, Krysty let out a piercing shriek, the loudest yet.
Gritting his teeth, Ryan forced himself not to run to her side. Instead, he methodically fired rounds at the two nearest muties, driving one back underground and killing the other with a shot to the eye socket.
That gave the five in the fourth trench time to get off a series of shots—but the barrage didn’t last. Fresh from clearing the second trench, Jak and Ricky moved up and added their blasters to the front line.
Together, the four companions unleashed their own barrage, forcing the five muties down; then they advanced. As J.B. took care of the single shooter left in the third trench, Ryan, Jak and Ricky hopped over it and darted to the rim of the fourth. Bullets flew up at them, preventing them from getting a clear look over the edge, so they settled for flicking out their blaster barrels and laying down fire where the shooting was happening.
As screams erupted and the blasterfire from below became sparser, Ryan, Jak and Ricky grew bolder and leaned over the rim for a better view. By then, only three of the muties were still on their feet; Ryan and Jak each picked off one, and J.B. joined the party and took out the third.
“Think we got ’em all?” J.B. threw down more rounds from the Mini-Uzi, making sure everyone in the trench was dead for real.
“Who know?” Jak swung up his Python and turned a slow circle, looking around. “This place full surprises.”
For a moment, the landscape was quiet except for the soft trickle of settling dust in the bullet-riddled trenches.
Then, suddenly, Krysty let loose the loudest scream of all. It was so long and loud and full of pain, it could have been a howl released from the depths of torture or childbirth.
Ryan whirled in her direction, ready to run…and then he froze. A familiar stillness closed in around him, like the calm he’d felt before the rock wall had appeared between him and the grenade-launching mutie.
Once again, he had that feeling of something lurching out of place, followed by powerful suction and expulsion in perfect balance. When the balance broke, a wave of force shot through him, holding him paralyzed.
An instant later, the wave let him go. The release spun him and nearly bowled him over, but he stayed on his feet through sheer force of will, which meant he had a ringside seat to see what happened next. J.B., Jak and Ricky had fallen around him, but Ryan was upright and alert.
As he watched, dizzy and shaking, the ground at his feet rippled and changed. There were flashes of light, popping across the plain one after another like giant fireflies, and the trenches that held the corpses disappeared, becoming indistinguishable from the rest of the flatland.
Still, the ripples continued to flow forward, heading for the trio of human targets in the distance.
Heart pounding with urgency, Ryan ran toward them. He saw Krysty continuing to writhe on the ground, flinging her head from side to side while Mildred tried in vain to restrain her. Doc stood over them both with his sword in one hand and the LeMat in the other, shouting something as he watched the ripples flow toward them.
Impact would come in mere seconds. Ryan ran as hard as he could, his legs pumping like pistons in the engine of a speeding wag, but he knew he wouldn’t reach his friends in time.
“Krysty!”
The ripples on the ground rushed up ahead of him and encompassed his three friends. Krysty, Mildred and Doc all seemed to quiver at once; even the air around them seemed to vibrate.
As Ryan increased his speed, redoubling his effort to reach them in time, the quivering effect intensified. He felt the hum again, the same as before, building to a rumble in his chest and bones…in his heart. It was an irregular thrumming rhythm in counterpoint to his own pulse and footsteps, distorting his natural cadence.
Ryan fought through it, determined to reach Krysty and the others. If the effect was going to do something to them, he wanted to share the same fate. He was determined not to be separated from his lover and his friends.
Up ahead, the oscillation reached a fever pitch, accelerating until it blurred his view of his friends, creating a shivering patina of light and color in their place. Then there was a blinding flash of light.
The ground under Ryan heaved, knocking him off his feet. He landed on his back and quickly pushed himself up to see what had happened.
In that instant, he experienced a wave of panic. Instead of his three friends, all he could see was a rocky hill that had mysteriously appeared between his position and theirs.
Scrambling to his feet, Ryan ran for the hill. As he circled it, he felt a terrible sense of doom and fear that the woman he loved more than anyone in the world was gone now and forever.
His heart was slamming in his chest as he dodged around the far edge of the hill, dreading what he was about to see. His eyes zoomed to the spot where Krysty had been and he saw that she was still there, with Mildred by her side.
Instantly, a flood of relief coursed through Ryan’s body. Krysty was no longer writhing and twitching on the ground. Instead, her body was limp, her face relaxed for the first time since they’d been ambushed by the band of muties.
But Ryan quickly realized that not everyone’s situation had improved. Looking around, he saw that the third member of the group was nowhere to be seen.
“Where’s Doc?” Ryan asked. “What happened to him?”
Mildred shook her head. “Damned if I know.” She was scowling, her face crusted with dirt. “He was here just a second ago.” Her brown eyes flashed to the hump of rock. “And if you ask me where that came from, I’ll tell you the same thing. I don’t know what the hell just happened.”
Krysty’s eyelids fluttered open, and she gazed up at Ryan. Though she was no longer rolling and screaming in pain, her green eyes still looked dazed, her face haggard. “There’s something horrible here…something unnatural.” Her voice was hoarse as she spoke.
“What do you mean?” Ryan asked.
She looked at him, her fiery red tresses flowing around her face like a parted veil. “Something here is warping Earth itself in a way I’ve never felt before. I feel as though it’s killing Gaia…and me.”
Chapter Two
Doc had vanished into thin air.
The companions recced the area where they’d been attacked by the muties, but they found no trace of the old man and no trace of any opening into which he might have fallen.
“Where Doc go?” Jak asked as he finished his latest search pattern and met up with Ryan. “If trapdoor or tunnel, I not see.”
Ryan sighed. “People don’t just disappear, Jak.”
“Walls not appear, either.” Jak nodded at the rock wall that had materialized during the battle. It stood not thirty feet away, as solid as if it had always been there.
The companions had examined that particular formation with great care, guessing it might hold some clue to what had happened to Doc. But they had all come to the same conclusion: if the rock wall contained any clue, it could not be detected by their senses.
Just then, Krysty approached, grimly shaking her head. “I’m coming up empty,” she said. “If Doc is anywhere nearby, I can’t feel the slightest trace of him.”
“But you still think his disappearance is connected to the…disruption you felt?” Ryan asked.
“How could it not be?” Krysty shrugged. “The disturbance, the changes in the land we saw during the battle. Then Doc disappears.”
“Not coincidence,” Jak said. “That for sure.”
“Then, what the hell is it?” Ryan gazed at the stark Nebraska landscape, watching as his friends continued to scour the area for a clue to Doc’s whereabouts. They were coming up just as empty as Krysty and Jak had.
It was beyond frustrating. In the Deathlands, problems tended to be straightforward: battles in need of fighting; hardships in need of surviving; helping allies deal with tangible threats. A person had to be tough and wily and able to think outside the box…but a person didn’t usually have to think outside the bounds of
reality. The companions didn’t usually have to face the impossible.
“What next?” Jak asked.
Ryan shifted the weight of his Steyr Scout longblaster cradled in his arms. Keeping the weapon at the ready was crucial; if the muties could take them all by surprise once, they could do it again.
“We keep looking. The land here changed before. Mebbe it’ll change again, and this time we’ll see where Doc went.”
“Not give up on friend.” Jak nodded firmly. “Always good plan.”
“Something has to turn up.” Ryan met Krysty’s green-eyed gaze, searching for confirmation of his hope.
Krysty smiled. “It always does,” she said before turning away to resume her search, leaving Ryan to wonder how much of the conviction in her voice was for his benefit.
* * *
AFTER A FEW more hours of searching, sundown came and put an end to it. Going over the same barren ground after nightfall made no sense. If the trail was nonexistent in broad daylight, it wouldn’t likely become visible in the beams of flashlights.
Still, the group stayed in the area and pitched camp at the rock wall, in the hope that Doc might reappear.
The companions broke open their packs, dining on MREs they’d scrounged from the redoubt they’d jumped to.
“How long are we going to stay here?” Mildred asked as she threw down her bedroll in the dirt.
“Until we find a lead on what happened to Doc.” As he said it, Ryan stole a glance at Krysty, who was also rolling out a sleeping bag. The truth was, they couldn’t stay long at all, not if the place was killing Krysty. He wasn’t about to risk losing her.
J.B. flashed him a look that said he could see right through him.
“I hope that lead turns up damn soon,” the Armorer said.
Ryan nodded. “You and me both.”
“Supplies low,” Jak said, smacking the side of his backpack for emphasis.
“I know that,” Ryan replied.
“Can’t build fire,” the albino added. “No firewood near.”
Ryan nodded. He knew Jak and Ricky had looked hard for it, to no avail. This part of Nebraska—the Sandhills, according to a map in the redoubt—was rich in sand and rock and not much else. If there was a stick of wood or a growing thing anywhere in a five-mile radius, they hadn’t come across it yet.
“We’ll take it as it comes, like we always do.” Ryan met the eyes of his companions, each in turn, projecting all the strength and confidence he could muster. “For now, we need some shut-eye.” Gripping his longblaster tightly, he stared into the moonlit night. He didn’t ask for anyone’s opinion; he was taking the first watch, looking out for muties on the move.
So was J.B. “I kind of hope one of those damn muties shows up.” Mini-Uzi in hand, the Armorer walked up to stand beside Ryan. “Mebbe he could give us a lead on Doc.”
“You think the muties took him?” asked Ricky, who was sitting with his back against the base of the rock wall, cleaning his Webley Mk VI revolver.
“Good chance of it, if you ask me,” J.B. stated. “They seemed to know exactly what changes were coming, and when. It was like they could read the phenomenon.”
“Or control it,” Mildred suggested. “If that’s even possible.”
“Why not?” J.B. shrugged. “We know certain people can be attuned to the Earth Mother.” He glanced over his shoulder at Krysty. “Why not control her, as well?”
“Whatever they’ve done, whatever’s happening here, it’s awful.” Krysty scowled and rubbed her temples. “It’s wrong. Beyond wrong.”
“And Doc’s out there alone in the middle of it.” Mildred stepped up alongside J.B. and cast her gaze into the night. “Either that, or he’s…” Her voice trailed off.
No one wanted to finish her sentence.
Chapter Three
“Am I dead?”
As Doc blinked his eyes open, he could see nothing but darkness. He tossed his head one way, then the other, and the result was the same. More darkness.
But not emptiness. He could feel a solid surface beneath him, like rock, and he could sense some kind of walls around him. “Hello? If this is the afterlife, I’m really not complaining, you know. Life in the Deathlands has rather worn thin, to be perfectly honest.” When he spoke, there was no echo; he could tell from the sound of his voice that he was in an enclosed space.
And more than that, he was somewhere dank and damp. He could smell moisture in the air, feel a chill against his skin.
But there was no draft of any kind, no air moving anywhere in that space, not even the faintest breeze.
Wherever he was, it didn’t feel as if it was out in the open, which was odd, because that was exactly the last place he could remember being. Out in the open.
Reaching down, Doc felt a cold, damp sheet of smooth stone. Bracing against it, he boosted himself up to a sitting position, instantly regretting it when his head collided with a rock-hard ceiling.
“Ow!” He dropped back down, clutching his aching skull. “That hurt!”
At that exact moment, Doc realized two things: one, he was still alive and, two, he was in an even smaller space than he’d expected.
These two realizations generated a terrible thought, a possibility that was starting to seem increasingly likely. If he wasn’t out in the open, and he wasn’t dead…
“Have I been buried alive?” The thought of it made involuntarily clench the pit of his stomach. Fear seized him, as cold and primitive as a stone ax or the plunging beak of an ancient carnivore.
Had the ground opened up and swallowed him, then closed itself over him? Was he doomed to suffocate in this tiny, dark cell in the bowels of the earth?
“Help! Somebody, help me!” As Doc cried out, he scrabbled with his fingers at the ceiling, instinctively trying to dig his way to freedom. But the ceiling was all rock, as unyielding as the stone surface on which he lay.
Panting, Doc dropped his arms at his sides. “Help me!” Even as he shouted, he knew it was in vain. Even if Ryan and the others were directly overhead, they could never hear his wailing through a layer of rock. “Please help me!”
Taking a deep breath of the chilly, damp air, he fought to get control of himself…and won, at least for the moment. He knew panic was never the answer. Calm thinking and resourcefulness were the only qualities that ever saved a person in the damnable Deathlands.
“Perhaps my tools…” Doc reached into the folds of his frock coat, seeking the holster of his LeMat revolver, with no success. Next, he rolled onto his right side, searching the stone around him for the blaster or his ebony swordstick. He did the same on his left side, with the exact same result. He found a hard rock wall within arm’s reach, but no revolver and no swordstick.
“I am bereft.” Slumping back on the stone, he sighed loudly. “Without a tool to effect my escape or another mortal soul to offer solace.”
Just then, Doc heard a scuffling sound in the direction of his feet. “What now?” He pushed himself up on his elbows, staying low enough that his head wouldn’t hit the ceiling. “Rats, I suppose? Some other burrowing vermin come to feast on my flesh?” He reached around for a rock to throw but found nothing. “Begone, vermin!” Noise would have to suffice. “I shall not be your dinner yet!”
The scuffling came closer, got louder. Doc peered toward it but saw nothing in the pitch-blackness.
“Begone, I say!” He drew up his legs, pulling away from whatever was there. “You won’t find me an easy prey, I promise you!”
Suddenly, he heard a different sound from the same place, a distinctive sound that could not be mistaken for any other.
Giggling.
Doc’s mouth fell open in shock. The question was no longer what was over there—it was who.
That was no vermin scuffling in the darkness. It was a person.
Doc’s heart hammered in his chest. He meant to snap out some words of defiance to try to intimidate his giggling visitor.
But before a single word could
leave Doc’s lips, the visitor scrambled forward. Hands grabbed hold of Doc’s ankles and wrenched his legs straight with an iron grip.
Then a voice, high-pitched and girlish in the lightless void, said, “You’re mine now. All mine.”
Doc gathered his bravado and snapped, “Now, see here!”
But those were the only words he got out before the person—or thing—in the night dragged him from his stony cell.
And then, all of a sudden, there were many more hands, coming from all directions. And all of them were grabbing at Doc.
Chapter Four
Krysty woke screaming from a deep sleep, her dreams shattered by a lightning bolt of pain.
Her eyes shot open, seeing predawn grayness all around. Dimly, she was aware of other bodies stirring on the ground nearby, snapped awake by the sound of her screams.
Then another bolt slashed through her mind, throwing her into a mindless seizure of agony.
As she writhed on the ground, she heard footsteps running toward her and familiar voices calling out—Ryan’s, J.B.’s, Mildred’s. But Krysty couldn’t sort out the words they were saying or attempt to respond to them. She was too consumed with pain and the crazed need to make it stop…and one other thing.
Dread. An overwhelming feeling of dread at whatever phenomenon the pain might be signaling, just as it had signaled the earlier onslaught that had swept away Doc.
Suddenly the pain abated, and Krysty slumped. Heaving for breath, she fought to clear the haze that had shrouded her senses and stolen her ability to function normally.
“Krysty!” Ryan knelt at her left side, gazing worriedly down at her.
Krysty felt him gripping her hand and suddenly realized he’d been holding it for a while, tight enough to give her pins and needles.
