Cannibal Moon

by James Axler

  “You think he’s really coming for us?” Mildred said.

  “You can bet jack on it.”

  Mildred craned her head, looking at the edge of the hatch a hundred feet up. It might as well have been a mile. There were no foot- or handholds for climbing.

  “How are we going to get out?” the Cajun said.

  “I might know of a way,” Mildred told him, “but there’s no guarantee it’ll work.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The grounded freighter loomed before them, taller from keel to wheelhouse than a twenty-story building. Ryan took in the rusting hull and superstructure, and at the stern, its enormous propeller, high and dry. The deck was tilted toward them, revealing hundreds of cannies drumming and dancing. Pillars of black smoke rose from oil drum fires, and torches burning along the rails.

  Ryan saw the vessel as a military objective, perhaps unattainable, but tangible.

  At his side, Doc viewed the freighter and the road of skulls leading to it as symbols of something much larger, something more profound, something incarnate.

  “It is nothing less than Satan’s ark,” the old man remarked with venom. “Having ridden out the unholy storm of the Apocalypse, that hellship has safely brought ashore, two by two, every evil known to man. So that as the black, polluted waters receded and drained from the land, they might multiply and spread…”

  Ryan couldn’t walk in the old man’s cracked knee boots, nor could he see through his ancient eyes. But he understood that Doc was desperately seeking to make sense of something that was at its core senseless, this by tying together bits of this and that from dusty decades of half-remembered study and reflection.

  From his private conversations with Mildred, Ryan had learned a little about the mind-set of the Victorian Age into which Doc Tanner had been born. It was an age of global conquest and subjugation, all in the name of ending savagery and ignorance, and spreading the benefits of civilization to the primitive corners of the Earth. In their arrogance, the Victorians defended their crimes against the weak and vulnerable as being not only noble, but ordained by and in the service of their God.

  Confronted in the present by the unspeakable and the unthinkable, Doc had reverted to the unknowable.

  “Doc, don’t go there,” Ryan warned.

  The old man turned to him and said, “There is a limit to what even I can stomach, dear friend, and we passed that highwater mark hours ago.”

  With that, Doc strode purposefully away from him, walking past the Cajuns to take the point at the head of the line of fighters.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Krysty asked. “Is he having another one of his spells?”

  It wasn’t unusual for Doc’s brain to slip the odd cog now and again. The double jump forward in time had done him damage. Whether it was his inconsolable grief over the loss of his family, his beloved wife Emily, his treasured children, Rachel and Jolyon, or whether some trauma related to time travel had injured the tissue of his brain, there was no way of determining. At times Doc rejected lock, stock and barrel the new reality that surrounded him. He faded away from the present into memories and fantasies of the world he had been torn from.

  “Mildred might know what’s going on, but she’s not here to straighten him out,” Ryan said. “Cannies have really gotten under his skin. He’s been ranting on about how what they are goes against the rules of his old-time religion…”

  “I might be remembering it wrong,” the redhead told him, “but I don’t think the Ten Commandments said anything about not eating your neighbor.”

  “Bad joke,” Ryan said, even though he cracked a smile. “We take this world at face value because we don’t know any different. For you and me and J.B. and Jak, there have always been cannies. They are the boogeymen we’ve had to watch out for since we were little. There weren’t any cannies running wild in Doc’s day. If they existed anywhere, they were someplace far, far away from his home.”

  “I get it, lover. Mebbe we should keep closer tabs on him?”

  “Yeah, but not too close. Mood he’s in, he won’t stand for us looking over his shoulder.”

  As they approached the side of the ship, they passed within ten yards of the jumble of tumbled-down cargo containers. Doc made an abrupt right turn, stepped off the path and walked over to the nearest container. Alarm bells ringing, Ryan followed a few discreet paces behind him. Every one of the corrugated steel boxes was tended by an leather-aproned cook; every box spewed coils of sickly sweet smoke from the holes hacked in its roof. Piles of cordwood and hickory chips stood at one end or the other, in front of the jury-rigged oil drum fireboxes.

  A squat lump of a man, sweaty, bare chested and hairy, looked up from his work as Doc neared. Ignoring the rag of a T-shirt hanging on a hook outside the crude doorway, he wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. It was stained crimson to the wrist from the basting sauce in the plastic bucket at his boots.

  As Ryan hurried forward to close the cap, he heard the cook tell Doc, “If you’re looking for the best smoked peeps, you’re in the right place. I got a secret recipe. It’s all in the sauce.”

  Then he held out the rag mop basting brush for Doc to try a sample.

  “I’ve got a secret, as well,” Doc said, releasing the ebony sheath on his swordstick and drawing out the blade.

  The cannie cook blinked at him, puzzled by the show and tell, but unafraid. What happened next was something he didn’t expect.

  Ryan knew exactly what was coming. He lunged forward, reaching out to deflect Doc’s arm.

  Too late.

  Without another word, Doc lowered his point and ran the cannie through with a single thrust, half the length of the rapier blade piercing the bib front of the leather apron. A deft, figure-eight twist of the wrist followed, using the leverage of the sword and its keen double edge to neatly sever the major arteries of the cook’s heart.

  The cannie’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. He dropped his baster into the dirt, a look of astonishment on his face.

  Doc reared back and booted the dying cannie off his sword. The cook staggered three steps in reverse, stumbled over the doorway sill and fell into the smoker box.

  Ryan darted around Doc, bent and flipped the legs inside the jamb. Then he closed the makeshift door. He looked around, prepared for all hell to break loose. But none of the other cooks had seen what happened. It was over too quickly, and there were no screams to attract their attention.

  Pure dumb luck.

  “For nuke’s sake Doc, get a grip,” Ryan said as Krysty, J.B. and Sprue joined them.

  Doc shook the blood off his blade and wiped it clean on the dead cook’s T-shirt rag. His eyes flashed. “Is that not what we’re here for?” he said “To chill them all?”

  “Yeah, but not one at a time, if we can help it,” Ryan said. “If I can’t trust you to keep it together until the right moment, I’m going to take your weapons and tie you up until it’s all over.”

  “You would do that to me? You would leave me defenseless against these godless devils?”

  “Damn right, I would. To protect your life and ours, I’d triple hogtie you. And I’d have plenty of help doing it.”

  Doc looked from face to face and saw that they were all of one mind. And it was against him.

  “I’m going to give you another chance,” Ryan said. “No more targets of opportunity. I want your word. I want it now.”

  “This is one battle I will not sit out,” Doc told him. Then he sheathed the rapier with a flourish. “I defer to your wishes and stay my hand,” he said. “You have my solemn word.”

  While the wagloads of captives slowly climbed the earthen ramp towing their awful burdens, the Cajuns and companions had to wait on the path below. The line leading to the ship advanced in fits and spurts. When the drumming suddenly stopped and the cheering started, the companions were standing too close to the hull to see what was going on above.

  A few minutes later, at the top of the ramp, i
t sank home to all of them just how outnumbered they were. Without the help of freed prisoners, they had no chance.

  “At least we’ve got them all in one place,” Krysty said.

  “And the downside is,” Sprue added, “they’re all in one place.”

  Ryan scanned the milling bodies in dismay. “We’ve got our work cut out finding Mildred and Jak,” he said. “Don’t see La Golondrina up in the tower, either.”

  “If she’s up there, she isn’t showing herself,” Krysty agreed.

  “She’s up there,” Cheetah Luis said. “I guarantee it.”

  Ryan walked to the edge of the open hatch and looked down into the hold. The others did the same.

  “Guess we found out where they keep all their prisoners,” Sprue said.

  A few faces looked up at them, radiating fear and hate. Most of the captives were hunched, sitting with their heads on knees.

  “No sign of Jak or Mildred,” Krysty said.

  “Can’t see into the corners from here,” J.B. said. “They could be down there.”

  “You missed the medicine,” said a familiar voice at their backs.

  Ryan turned to face the cannie hag from the barge. She had been partying hearty. Her hank of white-streaked horse hair had come half unbraided, it stuck out on one side like a busted bale of straw. There were ruddy spots in the centers of her cheeks and a crust of dried blood in her fan of chin whiskers.

  “All the cure’s gone,” she said. “There won’t be any more until tomorrow.”

  “Is this all of the cannie nation?” Ryan asked her, waving his arm to take in the revelers.

  “No, some are down in the crew quarters on B Deck, resting up between dinner courses and dancing. The near-goners are there, too. Too sick to celebrate until the cure kicks in. Better go get yourselves something to eat. You’re gonna need your strength for the all-nighter.”

  The hag slapped Ryan hard on the shoulder, then wandered away into the crowd.

  “You Cajuns never got this far,” he said to Cheetah Luis, “so we don’t have any idea what’s belowdecks. We’re going to have to recce the ship.”

  The Cajun nodded in agreement.

  “On the barge that cannie bitch told me there was fuel oil and gasoline stored aboard,” Ryan said.

  “Got to be bunkers of ammo and blasters, too,” J.B. stated.

  “We free the prisoners, get them weapons, take control, then blow the ship,” Cheetah Luis said.

  “We can’t blow the ship until we have the queen in hand,” Ryan said. “We can’t risk her getting away in the confusion.”

  Doc was staring into the flames of a burn barrel at the knob ends of human long bones glowing in the intense heat. As Ryan steered him away, a piercing scream split the air.

  The companions looked up in time to catch the last thirty feet of free fall. A dark figure plummeted from the tower, arms and legs flailing. It vanished behind the heads of the crowd, landing with a wet thud on the steel deck.

  The cannies didn’t let a little warm splatter spoil their mood. They applauded like it was a carny act, then resumed their gyrations.

  At that point, a crew in orange vests exited a doorway near the bow. They marched like little tin soldiers over to the row of corpses, hitched them up by their heels and started dragging them back the way they had come.

  “That’s the way down,” Cheetah Luis said.

  The companions and Cajuns followed the draggers along the deck to the doorway. As they waited at the entrance, they could hear the bodies thunking heavily on the metal steps below. The draggers couldn’t be bothered carrying them down the stairwell.

  They descended the stairs in a solid mass. The reek of slaughterhouse was like a billowing toxic cloud. On the second landing they found a door marked with a stenciled sign. A Deck. The door opened onto a central, torchlit corridor that ran the length of the ship. It offered access to the immense holds on either side. A few cannies walked the metal hallway. When they passed by, they didn’t challenge the newcomers. They smiled and nodded at what had to have been a familiar sight—brethren heading for the ship’s armory to replenish their supplies.

  There was no guard on the armory half door. And it wasn’t even closed. The companions and Cajuns walked right in.

  The cannie cache was most impressive, assembled no doubt from the villes they had looted and the convoys they had ambushed. One wall of the room was lined with long, flat wooden boxes, weapons’ crates clearly marked as AK 47s of Egyptian and Polish manufacture. There were open fifty-five-gallon drums of loose 7.62 mm ComBloc ammunition and bins of 30-round AK magazines still wrapped in Cosmoline. In a far corner were a few more drums, however these were still hermetically sealed. If their labeling was accurate, they contained enough RDX high explosive to turn the freighter into a mile-wide circle of smoking scrap.

  The last Cajun through the door pulled it closed behind him.

  J.B. walked straight over to a long rack of RPG-16s. Beside it were crates of individually bubble-wrapped HEAT rockets.

  A pair of cannie armorers rose from a cluttered worktable in the center of the room.

  “What can we do for you folks?” said the larger of the two. He seemed eager to please, until he got his answer.

  “You can die,” Cheetah Luis said, pointing his assault rifle at the man’s chest.

  Cajuns swept in behind the pair and slipped wire nooses over their heads. After that, there was no more talking, just kicking.

  “J.B., better start prepping the blasters,” Ryan said. “As many as you can.”

  “I’m on it,” the Armorer replied. “Need some help loading the mags, though.”

  “Stay here and help him,” Cheetah Luis told three of his fighters.

  As the rest of the companions and Cajuns turned to leave, J.B. began checking the brand-new blasters, making sure actions and barrels were clear, and dry-firing them before loading them up with fresh mags.

  The next hold contained the stores of gasoline. Wooden pallets were stacked with full fifty-five-gallon steel drums.

  “This will make a pretty boom,” Cheetah Luis said.

  “Need to make triple sure it ignites,” Ryan said. “Give me a hand.”

  With the help of Doc and Sprue he pried the lids off a half dozen drums, then dumped the contents onto the deck under the rows of pallets. The Cajuns followed suit, emptying a dozen more.

  The fumes were dizzying.

  They hurried back out into the hall, shutting the hold’s door after them, sealing in the explosive vapor.

  At the far end of the corridor was the door that led to the captive hold. There were no cannies standing guard. The lock was a simple but massive steel crossbar arrangement.

  Doc immediately began to lift it up.

  “Don’t open it,” Cawdor told him. “We can’t free them yet. We’ve got to wait. If Mildred and Jak are inside, they’re safe for the moment. We can’t afford to show our hand too soon.”

  They retraced their steps down the corridor, past the armory, to the stairway door. They descended the stairs to B Deck, where the cannie hag had told them the crew quarters were. The freighter’s second level was even danker and moldier that the first. The floors were slick with a thin film of slime. The metal walls and ceiling sweated orange drops of corrosion.

  They found the crew quarters in the bow end of the hall. Again, the door was wide open, perhaps in faint hope of snagging a fresh breeze. Unlike the rooms in the deck above, the riveted ceiling was low. It, too, was lit by smoky torches, which only added to the caustic bear pit smell. String hammocks hung like insect cocoons from the girders overhead. About half were occupied by sleeping cannies, some in stained underwear, some fully clothed. Below the hammocks, their weapons were neatly stowed.

  “What do you think?” Krysty said.

  “At least another fifty,” Ryan replied as he surveyed the dim expanse.

  “Too many to chill without using blasters and raising a ruckus,” Cheetah Luis said.

&
nbsp; Nobody woke up; nobody noticed when they slipped back out into the corridor.

  “The door is solid steel,” Ryan said. “We can jam it shut from the outside. There aren’t any windows for them to crawl through. They don’t know it, yet, but that room is going to be their coffin.”

  On the bottom deck, they found the ship’s engine room, which was deserted and dark. They had to take down torches from the hall to see inside. The engine’s immense, elephant-like back stuck up from a sump of black oil surrounded by a catwalk. Its cylinders were as tall as a man.

  At the other end of the hall there were signs of life, and the overpowering stench of mass death. They pushed through double-swing metal doors into the meat hold.

  Inside, men and women in orange vests labored over the fruits of the cannie harvest. At workstations around the room, they barbered, disemboweled and drained hanging carcasses.

  Even Ryan, the seasoned warrior, was taken aback at the sight. His blood ran cold and he tasted acrid bile in the back of his throat. This was the subbasement of Hell. As if to underscore that point, the savage drumming from the main deck started up again, echoing through the cavernous hull.

  Ryan looked at Doc, worried that he wouldn’t be able to control himself. But Doc seemed just fine.

  The Cajuns were the ones who lost it when they recognized their own kin being butchered.

  Cheetah Luis walked over to a steel-topped table and picked up a large wooden mallet used for hammering a blade through bone. He tested its weight in his hand.

  The worker behind the table beamed at him, his face and vest spattered with blood and bits of fat.

  With an overhead swing of the mallet, Cheetah Luis crushed the top of the worker’s skull like a raw egg, from crown to temple, dropping him like a stone.

  The other Cajuns took that as a signal for the mayhem to begin. They rushed through the room, grabbing up cleavers and boning knives from the tabletops. They hurled the butchers onto their own chopping blocks and pinned them down while they hacked and stabbed their vengeance.