Black Harvest

by James Axler

  Upward didn’t understand why the mother of the baron’s mistress had to be chilled, but there were a lot of things he didn’t understand about the baron, the sec chief and the way the ville was run. It seemed like continuous chaos to him, with very little order and routine.

  And now he was going to be adding the death of a whitecoat to the mix. If all went according to plan and people believed the sec chief’s account of what happened, mebbe there’d be some order in the ville for a while.

  Or, mebbe all hell would break loose.

  He came upon Eleander’s door and stood there in the hall for half a minute while he caught his breath. It was one thing to chill a mutie in defense of the ville, or a whitecoat trying to escape the wall, but this was something different. This was premeditated, cold-blooded chilling. Upward knew that if he did this job he would be a favored sec man in the sec chief’s eyes and be promoted quickly through the ranks.

  But could he do it?

  Yes, he could.

  He was a sec man, and he’d been given an order by his chief. It was a no-brainer. If he was guilty of anything it was of thinking about it too much.

  He tried the door.

  It was unlocked.

  He pushed it open. Luckily, the door swung silently on its hinges.

  There was a form lying on the cot, fully covered by sheets and a blanket.

  Her head was near the pillow.

  He would strike there first, silencing her with the opening blow and making the rest of his task that much easier.

  Upward held the angle iron in both hands and slowly raised it above his head.

  The heavy piece of steel wavered there, as if he were considering not going through with the chilling one last time…his last chance to change his mind.

  But then he shook his head slightly and brought the steel down onto Eleander’s head. There was a loud crack! of bone and a simultaneous thump! of flesh as the angle iron connected with the bony plates of her skull.

  And then, silence, except for Upward’s ragged breathing as he stood over the body waiting for it to move, to twitch, to cry out in pain.

  But there was nothing.

  No sound.

  He kept looking at the bed for a splatter of blood, the stench of fresh gore.

  But there was none.

  He brought the steel down on the body again. There was another loud thump, a tiny crack, but nothing more.

  No blood.

  He pulled the sheet back and saw that the figure he’d thought was Eleander had been nothing more than a down pillow, some extra clothing and a few sticks of kindling wood.

  Eleander wasn’t there.

  At first, Upward felt relief, knowing that he hadn’t chilled the woman and wouldn’t have to do the deed tonight. But then other thoughts occurred to him, troubling thoughts.

  First of all, if Eleander had gone to such lengths to make it appear she was in her room, she probably knew that someone was out to chill her. And second, and perhaps worst of all, Upward was now faced with the task of telling Sec chief Robards that Eleander wasn’t in her room.

  That she hadn’t been chilled.

  The sec chief wouldn’t be pleased, to say the least.

  THE FRIENDS returned to their rooms, more than ready for a good night’s sleep. The incident with the invading muties hadn’t been much of a fight, but it had come at the end of a long day.

  Mildred went into the fourth room to check on Jak and relieve Doc. She could sleep well enough in the room with Jak, and Doc would appreciate spending the rest of the night in his own room.

  “How has he been?” Mildred asked.

  “Sleeping soundly,” Doc answered.

  She stood over Jak, felt his forehead to check for fever, and listened to his breathing. His fever had gone down, and his breath was regular. He was sleeping fine.

  “What was all the fuss about outside?” Doc asked.

  “Bunch of muties tried to breach the wall.”

  Doc looked confused. “I am not much of a military strategist, certainly not anywhere in the same league as Ryan or J.B., but it strikes me that such an invasion would be doomed to fail. Perhaps even termed suicidal.”

  “It was,” Mildred said. “It was like a shooting gallery out there.”

  “What would make mutants want to commit such an act?”

  Mildred sighed. “There are drugs inside these walls. And whether it’s in pre-Dark times or after the blast, drugs have been known to make people do some pretty strange and desperate things.”

  “Well, I bow to your knowledge of such things, my dear Mildred. While my own knowledge is limited on the subject, I do recall the character of Alice in Lewis Carroll’s books having quite the adventure thanks to pills and pipe-smoking caterpillars.”

  Mildred just shook her head.

  “What is it?”

  “Funny you should mention that book,” Mildred said. “This ville is like an Alice in Wonderland situation. A lot of things we’ve seen are absurd and defy logic, yet somehow the whole thing seems to work.”

  “Not to worry. We shall be on our way soon enough.”

  “Right now wouldn’t be soon enough, if you ask me.”

  BY THE TIME Doc made it back to his room, he was looking forward to a good night’s rest.

  In the morning he’d be meeting Eleander again, and hopefully they would be able to spend some time together.

  The thought of the woman brought a smile to Doc’s face. He hadn’t felt this way in, well, a very long time. It was as if he were a teenager again, filled with excitement and lust over a woman he couldn’t wait to get his hands on.

  How things had turned. Usually it was Jak who managed to capture the interest of the ladies on their various journeys, but here he was, Theophilus Algernon Tanner, feeling like a schoolboy again, and loving every minute of it.

  He opened the door to his room, and immediately felt there was someone inside it, waiting for him. Without a moment’s hesitation he unsheathed his swordstick and took up a fighting stance in the doorway.

  “I know you’re in here,” he said, holding the swordstick in front of him. “I suggest you come forward and reveal yourself, or my blade will be the one to discover your whereabouts.”

  “Doc? Is that you?”

  It was a female’s voice.

  “Eleander?”

  “Yes.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  She stepped out of the shadows, and was absolutely radiant in a long-sleeved white nightgown that hugged her body closely, yet was thin enough to be see-through. “I…I didn’t want to spend my night alone.”

  “Well, I, uh, well, in addition to being speechless, I am flattered. Oh, more than that, I am thrilled.”

  “I hoped you would be.”

  “How could I not be, in the company of such a lovely, lovely lady?”

  “You’re too kind,” she said, undoing the string that kept the front of the nightgown together.

  Doc watched her pull aside the halves of the gown, exposing fully rounded breasts that were capped by a pair of pert nipples.

  “In addition to being kind, I can be naughty, too,” Doc said.

  “Of that, I have no doubt.”

  Doc closed the door behind him.

  It didn’t open again until morning.

  Chapter Ten

  Baron Schini was up before the dawn.

  She had three sec men riding with her in her wag. The wag was shiny, big and black, and although it was missing two of its four doors, it was still an impressive vehicle.

  The messenger’s two-wheeled wag had been serviced by the baron’s mechanics and had been topped up with alcohol.

  “Ready to go?” the messenger asked.

  The baron leaned up against her wag and moved her head in the direction of one of her sec men.

  “His name is Slade,” she said. “I wanted you to meet him before we headed out.”

  Slade was a big and dirty man with long scraggly hair, and several missi
ng teeth.

  The baron nodded in the man’s direction. “He’s carrying a Gewehr 43. Ever heard of that make of blaster?”

  The messenger shook his head.

  “’Course you haven’t. With that sight on top it’s an excellent sniper’s weapon. So if you think we’ll just rumble out into the Deathlands and you’ll take off on that little machine of yours, just remember that Slade here is good with the blaster and will blow a hole through your head before you’re able to put twenty yards between you and my wag.”

  The messenger swallowed, and licked his lips.

  The baron smiled sardonically. “Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Baron, I understand.”

  “I thought you might.” A pause, then, “All right, then let’s move out.”

  TWENTY MINUTES after the baron and the messenger had left Indyville, Sec chief Viviani gathered together a group of six wags and led them out of the ville. Five of the wags carried sec men while the sixth vehicle was a war wag with a .303-caliber machine blaster on a swivel mount.

  The plan was simple.

  Baron Schini would get inside DeMann’s complex. When the baron was told that his guest was the same outlander who murdered his brother, he’d become incensed. Then, while Baron DeMann was busy getting rid of the outlanders, Sec chief Viviani would enter the ville and take it over from the inside.

  There was going to be a bloody firefight, but Baron Schini had had her eye on DeMann’s operation for years, and this seemed like the best time to make her move.

  She had the blasters.

  She had the element of surprise.

  And there would be six outlanders who would be keeping DeMann’s sec men busy while Baron Schini took control of the ville.

  Sec chief Viviani smiled at the thought of his baron’s plan. With the baron taking over from DeMann, it would leave him as the second in command who controlled Indyville for Baron Schini.

  How long would it take, he wondered, to take full control of the ville and have Baron Schini chilled?

  It was an interesting thought, one that kept the sec chief’s mind occupied for almost the entire journey.

  MILDRED CHECKED on Jak in the morning and found he was doing better. He was a still a little hot, but the wound looked to be healing nicely.

  “Hungry?” Mildred asked him, stretching out the stiffness that the night on the cot had given her.

  “Could eat horse.”

  Mildred smiled. “The baron here has got plenty of things, but I haven’t seen one of those yet. You might have to settle for stale bread and an apple.”

  Jak licked his lips. “Be good, too.”

  “I’ll see what I can find.”

  ELEANDER LED the friends to the kitchen where several people were already busy serving breakfast to the baron’s sec force. They were each given a bowl of what looked like cornmeal, a slice of bread and cup of water flavored—or perhaps just colored—with fruit juice.

  “Not great,” J.B. said, cleaning the bottom of his bowl with his slice of bread. “But not bad.”

  “Had worse,” Ryan said. “A lot worse.”

  “I don’t think this is what Jak had in mind when I mentioned breakfast, but I don’t think he’ll complain.”

  As the friends made small talk, several of the sec men seemed to grow interested in their conversation. The previous night’s episode at the wall hadn’t made Ryan and the others any friends among the ville’s sec force, and it seemed the sec men were looking for a reason to start a fight.

  “Something wrong with your food?” one of the sec men, a dirty black-haired man with a thick beard and big nose, said. What few teeth remained in his mouth were yellow and rotting.

  “On the contrary, my hirsute friend,” Doc said. “We have not had gruel this good in months. I’m tempted to ask for seconds.”

  The sec man was moving closer to the group of friends. “You got a smart mouth, old man.”

  Doc nodded graciously. “I shall take that as a compliment, but while I appreciate being called ‘smart,’ my mouth merely says what my brain tells it. So in fact, what you are saying is that my brain is smart, and I have known that for years…thank you.”

  The sec man continued to approach Doc, his hand on the butt of his blaster.

  Ryan watched the sec man closely, taking out his SIG-Sauer and keeping it concealed under the table in case he needed to use it in a hurry. Around the table, he knew that the rest of the friends were doing the exact same thing.

  “You’ve got a big mouth, too, I see.”

  Doc shrugged. “No larger than most. Over the years I have found it to be large enough to allow sufficient quantities of food in, and a sufficient number of words out. Some might say more than a sufficient number of words, but I have never had any trouble making myself understood.”

  Everyone in the room seemed to be on triple alert, and the situation was seconds away from erupting into a firefight.

  “You think you’re all better than us?” the sec man said. “You think you’re something special, don’tya?”

  Eleander moved to get up from the table, but Doc put his hand on her shoulder to keep her seated at his side.

  “Better? Not at all.” Doc shook his head. “But, my good sec man, I do happen to be a very special human being, several hundred years old, as a matter of fact.”

  The sec man stared at Doc with a confused look on his face, as if he wasn’t sure if he should laugh or be insulted.

  “I was alive when your great-great-great-grandfather was still in diapers and the world was a much kinder and gentler place.”

  A couple of sec men at the tables laughed, but it turned out that the sec man confronting Doc had no sense of humor. “I’ve had about as much bullshit from you as I can stand, old man,” he said, racing forward with a clenched fist.

  Ryan and the rest of the friends raised their weapons and aimed them at the charging sec man.

  The other sec men also had their weapons out, each one leveled at Doc’s head.

  But rather than pulling out his LeMat, Doc unsheathed his swordstick and held the blade horizontally before him in the path of the charging sec man.

  The sec man stopped in his tracks, as if the blade was a line in the sand that would bring dire consequences if crossed.

  For a moment the room was deathly silent, neither side wanting to make the next move, a move which would undoubtedly end up with people getting chilled on both sides.

  “Put the blasters away,” a voice said with a mixture of tiredness and irritation.

  Ryan turned to see the baron standing in the doorway.

  “I’m happy to see tensions running high,” he said. “A genuine dislike of the opposition will make for a great game this afternoon.”

  Blasters were lowered, then replaced in their holsters.

  “Linsley,” the baron said, “save it for later.”

  The sec man took several steps backward, but never took his eyes off Doc. “Yes, Baron.”

  Doc nodded to the man, then put away his blade. “I look forward to testing our skills in good-natured sporting competition.”

  Sec man Linsley turned and joined the other sec men at the table without another word.

  “Did you really mean what you said?” Eleander asked, when everyone returned to their meals.

  “About what, my dear?”

  “About being hundreds of years old.”

  “How old do you think I am?”

  She looked at him a long time. “Not a day over fifty-nine.”

  “You’re very kind,” Doc replied. “But I have always believed that you are as young as you feel, and while my actual age can at times be the subject of great debate, you have made me feel positively young again.”

  Eleander laughed like a young girl. “Would you like to go for a walk, or a tour of the production facilities?”

  “Yes, I would like that,” Doc replied. “I would like that very much.”

  MILDRED RETURNED to Jak in the friends’ quarters,
bringing the injured albino teen his breakfast.

  “What this?”

  “It’s cornmeal, sort of. It’ll make you stronger.”

  Jak took a spoon of the gruel and sampled it. Then he shook his head, making sure not to move his shoulder too much.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Not taste like chicken.”

  Mildred just looked at him.

  And then Jak smiled, and continued to eat.

  RYAN, J.B. AND KRYSTY went to the game arena after breakfast to check the setup and develop a battle plan for beating the baron’s sec men.

  J.B. paced out the arena and learned it was roughly thirty yards wide and seventy yards long. The wall around it was chest high and was curved evenly in each of the corners. The dirt floor surface of the arena was dissected by several lines crossing the width of it in the middle and almost at the midway point between the middle and each end. Apparently, the center of the arena was a neutral zone, while each end was either a defending zone, or an attacking zone, depending on which team you were on. There were also several obstacles strewed about the arena floor, such as concrete walls, burned-out wags, and trapdoors set into the floor, some which led under the arena and connected with other trapdoors, and some which led a few feet and then stopped abruptly at a dead end, making the trapdoors aptly named. Exits were situated at each of the four corners and led out into the ville. Finally, on the south side of the area was a line of targets, the splatters of which they’d seen from the wag when they’d entered the ville. On the other side of the arena was a line of stalls where the sec men stood while shooting at the targets.

  “It’s like the ruins of a rad-blasted ville,” Krysty said, giving a black hulk of a wag a push with her boot, only to discover that the thing still rolled on its wheels.

  “Been in places like this plenty times before,” J.B. remarked. “Only it was no game.”

  “Let’s check all of the trapdoors,” Ryan commanded. “I want to know where all of them lead. And I want to know where these exits go, too, just in case we have to use one to get away.”

  “Expecting trouble, lover?”