by James Axler
Taking point, Ryan started down the hallway, keeping his blind side to the wall. There seemed to be a lot more commotion upstairs than he would have deemed likely, and the man guessed that the coldhearts were trying to make it sound as if there were greater numbers than they really had. Several more times he heard the word bonemen. That had to be what the coldhearts called themselves. Interesting.
The ceramic-tile hallway was lined with military posters from a place called Korea and ended at a suite of offices, the desks and filing cabinets removed to convert the rooms into barracks. Expecting to be attacked at any moment, the companions moved from cover to cover, their blasters ready. There were a dozen bunks with disheveled clothing scattered about and a lot of gun racks, all of them empty. But the barracks proved to be deserted. Nobody was hiding in the closets or anywhere else for that matter. Their suspicions of a trap steadily growing, the companions paused when they reached the marble flight of stairs that led to the ground floor. There was only silence and darkness at the top of the staircase.
“Mutie shit,” Jak drawled. “This ambush.”
“Then it’s time to kick over the table,” J.B. said meaningfully, hefting the bulging canvas ammo pouch in a palm.
Without comment, Doc offered the butane lighter to the man, but Ryan waved that aside and took out the unprimed pineapple gren and flipped it up the stairs. It hit the wall and rolled out of sight. Instantly, there came a flurry of activity, and several blasters spoke, blowing chunks off the wooden banister.
“What the… It’s a dud!” A boneman laughed contemptuously.
“No, the idjits forgot to pull the fragging pin!” a man said in a gravelly voice.
“Then throw it back!” another boneman encouraged.
“Don’t touch that!” a man yelled in warning, but his words were terminated by the powerful explosion, closely followed by shrieks of pain.
Boldly charging up the stairs, Ryan and the other companions stayed close to the walls and erupted into the lobby of the museum, their weapons firing into the roiling cloud of smoke. Debris and broken furniture were scattered on the terrazzo floor, along with several hunks of flesh. Wearing a variety of uniforms, several more bonemen were clutching wounds and blindly triggering their assorted weapons in a wild cacophony of destruction, ricochets zinging everywhere.
A screaming boneman was staggering about, his arms ending at the elbows, torrents of blood pumping from the severed arteries. Kneeling to take aim, Mildred put an arrow directly into his heart, then tossed away the crossbow to rush over and take his gun belt. The blaster was a bulky handcannon of blue steel that she was unfamiliar with, but the loops were full of live brass, and that was all that mattered right now.
Taking refuge behind a water-cooled machine gun missing an ammo belt, J.B. kept guard over the woman while she strapped on the gun belt, his 12-gauge sawed-off blowing a two-stage maelstrom of death at some bonemen behind a sandbag wall. The bags jumped from the arrival of the bent nails, sand pouring out like desiccated blood. The bonemen responded in a flurry of small-arms fire, the .22 blasters snapping away, while the .38 revolvers banged steadily.
Holstering the weapon, J.B. swung the pepperbox. Resting it on top of the machine gun, he braced for the recoil and fired. The roar of the black-powder weapon filled the lobby of the museum, the barrage of miniballs catching two of the coldhearts on the rise. Torn to pieces, the men fell backward with most of their faces removed.
“Son of a gaudy slut!” a boneman snarled, popping up with a World War I–era Enfield longblaster.
But as he clumsily worked the bolt, Mildred hammered the man with .38 rounds from her blaster, the seventh discharge sounding unnaturally loud to the woman.
Closing the breech of the reloaded sawed-off, J.B. blinked in surprise as she ejected the spent shells and shoved in seven more. Mildred shrugged in reply, then together the man and woman moved onward, hunting for more targets.
Quickly reloading, Jak aimed and blew the arm off a boneman wearing military camouflage and carrying a flintlock longblaster. However, when the albino teen knelt to ram home a fresh load of powder and ball, the crippled man insanely charged, screaming obscenities and waving a cavalry saber. Sidestepping the rush, Jak slammed the longblaster into the stump of the mutilated arm, the explosion of pain knocking the boneman unconscious. Ducking behind a medieval suit of gilded French armor, Jak reloaded the bloody longblaster, then took the saber from the coldheart, along with a U.S. Navy flare gun.
Placing her shots, Krysty aced a big boneman with a Nazi swastika tattooed on his bald head who was clumsily trying to work a crank-operated Gatling gun. Then she inhaled sharply as something went through her hair. Instantly, Krysty braced for the terrible onslaught of pain, but her animated filaments were undamaged, merely tousled. Mentally thanking Gaia, the woman answered with a single shot from her Police Special. The glass reservoir of the alcohol lantern hanging from the wall shattered, and liquid fire rained down upon a boneman fumbling with a gren launcher as he hid behind a bust of George Washington.
Shrieking in pain, the man cast away the big bore blaster and stood to wildly slap at the flames with his bare hands, which only spread the crackling blaze to his loose sleeves. In seconds, he was a human torch, impotently flapping his fiery arms. As Krysty took aim to end his misery, the boneman unexpectedly disappeared in a thunderclap as the 40-mm shell in the launcher ignited from the heat. Steaming goblets of flesh and bone smacked into the posters on the walls.
Firing at darting figures on the second-floor balcony, Ryan aced a boneman wearing a rain poncho, and the man tumbled over the railing to land on the terrazzo floor with a sickening crunch. A split second later an AK-47 assault rifle crashed alongside the mangled corpse, the weapon bursting into pieces, springs and loose brass flying in every direction. Then another rapid-fire chattered from the balcony, the 7.62-mm rounds digging gouges across the flooring as the gunner tried to track Ryan. As he fired back, Jak appeared to send a sizzling magnesium flare into the balcony. The lambent glare filled the entire landing and temporarily blinded the snipers. Bitterly cursing, their shots went out of control, chilling a boneman on the ground floor and smacking the plumed helmet off the French suit of armor.
A sandbag nest had been built in the middle of the lobby, a brass Napoleon cannon supported by a wheeled carriage aimed directly at the front door. Several wounded bonemen were attempting to rotate the heavy cannon to point toward the companions. At the ominous sight, Doc stopped triggering single rounds from his blaster and held down the trigger to fan the hammer with his palm and fire the remaining four rounds incredibly fast. Two of the bonemen were hit, but not seriously. The deadly Napoleon cannon was shifted into position and the fuse lit.
“Incoming!” Doc yelled, scrambling for distance.
Separating fast, the companions dived to the sides just as the cannon thundered smoke and flame. The air loudly hissed from the passage of a hundred miniballs, and an entire section of the lobby was swept clean of bodies, weapons and furniture. However, this close to the Confederate Army artillery, the powerful concussion slapped into the companions like a punch in the back, and they fell in a stunned daze.
His ears ringing, a disorientated J.B. unleashed both barrels of the shotgun at nothing in particular. Moving with practiced ease, a boneman started ramming a damp rag down the hot barrel of the Napoleon as a necessary prelude before reloading. Momentarily unable to find his dropped flintlock, Jak threw the bowie knife. Gurgling horribly, the boneman dropped the mop as steel sprouted from his throat, crimson life pushing out the sides. As the others rushed to his aid, Krysty shot one of them, Ryan got another and Mildred the last.
Stumbling over, J.B. cut open the ammo belt of a boneman and placed a .68 miniball on the touchhole of the cannon. Grabbing a cannonball from a small pyramid, he hammered the soft lead round into the hole until it was flat.
“Not firing this again today,” he said loudly, clear liquid trickling from a badly bruised ear.
Sprinting ahead of the other companions, Ryan barely reached the next level before a Molotov cocktail came sailing down from the third floor. He fired twice, and the bottle exploded into a harmless fireball that continued on to the ruins of the lobby. Cleared of anything flammable by the Napoleon cannon, the blaze simply pooled on the terrazzo floor and soon died out.
Raising another Molotov, the boneman lit the rag around the neck, and Doc fired, missing the man’s head by an inch and chipping off the marble from the column alongside. The boneman grinned in triumph, then froze motionless as the hatchet thudded into his belly. With a low groan, he slowly knelt and toppled over sideways, the lit Molotov gently slipping from his twitching fingers to roll away and harmlessly clunk against the wall and sputter out. Charging forward, Jak recovered the hatchet and took a handblaster from the fancy shoulder holster on the warm corpse.
Sweeping fast through the second floor, the companions saw that this level was mostly a kitchen and laundry. Barrels of soapy water stood about with underwear soaking, washed clothing drying on rope tied between the marble pillars. Dried vegetables hung in thick clusters from the ceiling to protect them from rodents, and slabs of meat lay inside glass display cases on thick beds of white salt. Burbling merrily, a heavily patched still stood in a corner, the coil of copper tubing steadily oozing a thick liquid into a waiting plastic bucket. Nearby were wicker baskets of dry wood, cases of empty glass bottles and a bathtub piled with some weird kind of potato or possibly turnips. Across the balcony, a colossal iron stove was visibly radiating heat, an aluminum pot of something boiling on top, the tantalizing aroma brutally reminding the companions that their last meal had been raw lizard.
Moving past rows of redwood picnic tables, the companions saw a lot of toppled-over chairs next to steaming plates filled with hot stew and trays of lumpy corn bread.
“Musta caught in the middle of meal,” Jak whispered, his blaster sweeping the kitchen for targets.
“Their last meal,” Doc retorted, snatching a square of corn bread and taking a huge bite before passing it on to the teen. Jak stuffed the rest in his mouth, and the men continued their hunt, quickly chewing and swallowing. Oddly, there were some plates of food on the floor.
Finished with the recce, the companions started for the third floor, when Ryan raised a fist. Instantly, everybody stopped moving. Dropping to his stomach, the one-eyed man slid forward to inspect a piece of nearly invisible fishing line stretched taut across the bottom of the stairs. It was attached to the safety ring of a gren, the arming lever of the square canister on the floor nearby.
Drawing a small knife, Ryan cut the trip wire and reattached the arming lever when the familiar rattle of a rapid-fire sounded from above, the rounds smacking into the banister just above his head and throwing off a corona of splinters. Rolling away fast, Ryan reached the safety of the wall, while the rest of the companions gave cover fire.
“Nice try,” Ryan growled, releasing the lever once more and yanking out the pin.
Rushing to the edge of the balcony, he hit the banister hard and whipped the primed charge upward. The rapid-fire spoke again, the boneman sweeping the stream of lead toward Ryan. The canister erupted into a staggering fireball that filled the central passageway. The writhing plasma washed over the wooden banister to flow like lava across the third floor.
As the companions raced up the marble stairs, three bonemen screamed and began to run about, waving their arms, their clothing and hair ablaze. Snatching a rapid-fire off the floor, Mildred sprayed the men with death until the weapon cycled empty. Not seeing a spare magazine lying anywhere, she dropped the weapon and leveled her handblaster to keep going.
Checking a dark alcove, J.B. found it was full of pornography, the walls lavishly covered with posters depicting the most amazing things. Chuckling, the man turned to leave, when there came a soft scuffle of boots from behind a tapestry, followed by a hard metallic click. Knowing that sound well, J.B. triggered both barrels of the sawed-off. The small rocks and buckshot rebounded from the heavy ballistic cloth, but the bent nails punched through, and several men grunted in pain.
“Shoot the curtains!” J.B. yelled, stepping out of the way, as he cracked the breech to eject the spent cartridges.
Instantly, the companions riddled the curtains with blasterfire, making it flutter as if caught in a strong wind.
Closing the breech with a snap of his wrist, J.B. fired both barrels again from the side, blowing the curtains open and riddling the man behind. For a moment, there was so much smoke from the discharges that nobody could see, then the fumes dissipated and there were four more bonemen aced on the floor. The bodies were propped around a weird blaster mounted on a tripod, and it took J.B. a few moments to realize it was an Atchisson. The autoshotgun used 12-gauge cartridges like a rapid-fire did brass! One burst of that, and the companions would have been reduced to a hamburger.
Kicking the bodies out of his way, J.B. turned the autoshotgun toward the wall before clicking on the safety and then yanking out the huge aluminum drum of cartridges. There were too many cartridges to stuff into his pockets, but the man took what he could and left the rest of the partially filled drum on a wooden table covered with candles and alcohol lanterns.
That was when J.B. noticed the chairs placed near the window, the alphabet painted along the ceiling and the multiple shelves of books. A reading room? That was quite literally the last thing the man had ever expected to find inside this military fortress. Then again, somebody obviously knew weapons, and how to convert the black powder of the slavers into the much more powerful gunpowder to use inside the rapid-fires.
“That’s gotta be Big Joe,” J.B. said aloud, reloading the sawed-off with sure hands. Unless the chief boneman was chilled downstairs, they had yet to meet the man, and that was surely going to be a bloody confrontation.
Going back to the others, J.B. told them of the discovery, along with his suspicions. Moving a little more warily, the companions finished the sweep of that level, finding no more traps or snipers.
“Upstairs?” Krysty asked, closing the cylinder of her blaster.
“Gotta be,” Ryan growled, reloading his weapon with his last four rounds.
Checking for traps every step along the way, the companions proceeded to the top level of the building. The area was strangely still; the only sign of recent activity was a doorway marked Exit that had been bricked shut, the concrete still fresh enough to smell.
“Has our elusive Pimpernel bricked himself inside a stairwell to deter our pursuit?” Doc postulated, hefting the assault rifle. “Or have these bonemen offered him a final drink from the dreaded cask of Amontillado?”
“Stop mixing your literary references,” Mildred whispered, gesturing with her blaster toward a set of double doors. One of them was ajar, and lantern light could be seen coming from inside, the glow dancing on the smooth floor.
Ready for anything, Ryan took the lead. Stopping along side the open door, he peeked around the hinges to see inside before boldly walking into the room. The place was large, the ceiling covered with a sculpted relief, the walls lined with Doric marble columns. The floor was dark marble, no terrazzo this time, and there were a lot of shiny brass fixtures everywhere. The effect was a kind of quiet dignity, but what it was doing inside a military museum, not even Mildred could hazard a guess. However, these days it was clearly being used as a combination private suite and audience hall, the bedroom and throne room for Big Joe, king of the bonemen.
Off to the side was a curtained alcove containing a four-poster, overflowing bookcases, liquor cabinet, gun rack and even a bathtub, of all things. However, at the far end of the hall was a ra
ised dais with a huge man sitting in an elaborately carved wooden chair. Big Joe was a giant. His muscular body had probably once been almost too big to fit into the ornate throne. But now a pair of empty boots sat on the floor in front of the throne. Both of his legs were gone from the knees down, the stumps swaddled in bloody cloth held in place by leather belts. His left arm was also missing, as were both of his eyes, the unshaved face deeply scored with fire damage. However, his intact right hand was gripping an Ingram machine pistol pointed straight at the open door.
“My ears are fine,” Big Joe rumbled, moving the rapid-fire back and forth like a metronome. “So, stop fucking around, Peter, and come on in. Let’s finish this, once and forever.”
“We’re not him,” Ryan said, staying behind a Doric column.
At that, the man jerked up his head. “Say…that again,” he softly demanded.
“Nobody here is called Peter,” Ryan stated. “Is that the name of the coldheart who took your legs?”
“Coldheart…” Big Joe repeated as if he’d never heard the word before, his dour expression morphing into a belly laugh. “Nuke, yes, he took my legs, eyes and arm! Tossed a stick of dynamite over his shoulder while speeding away on my best hog! Blew twenty of my bonemen to hell that day. By the lost gods, we never had such a beating before!” He paused. “Fragging bastard even stole some of my books. Probably for fuel. He always was smart.”
“Fuel?” J.B. asked confused.
Dismissing that with a shrug, Big Joe raised his head, tears in his blind eyes. “My son!” he stated. “My boy did that to us, with three of his fragging friends! Three, and one of them so small you could tuck her into a pocket like a spare brass. The Pig Iron Gang, they call themselves.”
“Everybody loses a fight now and then,” J.B. stated. “Anybody says different is a liar.”
“True enough,” Big Joe muttered. “That’s true enough.” Then his voice came back strong. “So who the nuking hell are you folks? Sec men from the ville?”
