Black Harvest

by James Axler

  “Find them.”

  Eleander ran off toward the kiosk.

  “Want to consider another wag?” Ryan asked.

  J.B. was still in the truck’s cab. “This is the one that will get us out of here. Besides, the others are probably rebuilt just like this one. Same problems.”

  Ryan turned to see Eleander return with a ring full of jangling keys.

  “Which one?” he asked.

  Eleander shrugged.

  Ryan passed the key ring to J.B., who began to try the most likely keys in the wag’s ignition.

  Several keys slid into the slot, but none of them turned.

  Just then, there were voices shouting outside the barn.

  “Keep trying,” Ryan told J.B. “Don’t stop for anything.”

  He headed toward the door with Eleander in tow.

  “Stay with J.B.,” he said, then went to see what was going on outside.

  THE SEC MEN were getting closer.

  Krysty and Mildred checked their weapons and that of the sec men usually stationed outside the wag pool. He had a hunting longblaster that had been remade several times and didn’t look all that accurate or reliable anymore. They’d use the weapon if they had to, but only after they’d used up their own ammo and only in close when they were sure they could hit something with it.

  Two sec men had run up to the fence and were inspecting the lock and chain hanging broken from the gate.

  Krysty kept low behind the sandbags, making sure that only the sec man’s western-style hat was visible from the gate.

  “You guys all right?” a sec men called.

  Krysty waved, keeping her hand tightly clenched in a fist so as to not betray her feminine features, and to give the sec men a good look at the dead man’s jacket.

  Over in the other position, Doc waved the ball cap.

  Seeing that the area was secure, the sec men began moving on.

  Krysty and Mildred brought their blasters to the ready.

  But before they’d taken a dozen steps toward the wag pool, Doc rose and shouted, “They went that way!” He pointed to the left, toward the ville wall. “We wounded two of the rat bastards. If you hurry, you can catch the fucking assholes before they reach the wall.”

  And then Doc was gone from view, hidden behind the sandbags.

  The sec men looked uncertainly in the direction Doc had pointed.

  A moment later Doc was up again. “Hurry,” he shouted. “Don’t let the rad-blasted outland scum get away!”

  That seemed to do the trick.

  The sec men turned and began to run toward the wall several hundred yards away.

  When they were gone Doc looked over at Krysty and raised his head just high enough to let her see his smile.

  Krysty was only sorry that Jak hadn’t been there to see it. He would have appreciated the way Doc’s mouth had come in handy.

  She gave Doc a nod and a thumb’s-up, and resumed watching for sec men.

  JAK LEANED against the sandbags that surrounded him on all sides and tried to catch his breath. The wound in his shoulder had settled down into a constant dull ache. The pain was nothing he couldn’t handle, but there was something else wrong with his body. His skin was wet and clammy, and his heart seemed to be beating triple fast.

  The world was spinning slowly to the left.

  Jak squeezed his eyes closed and shook his head, hoping to shake away the demons that were haunting his body.

  He could barely stand up straight, and all he wanted to do was lay on the ground and fold himself up into a ball, like a child.

  But he couldn’t do that, he had a job to do.

  So Jak planted his boots in the dirt, steadied himself against the sandbags and resumed his watch.

  SATISFIED DOC HAD SENT the sec men off on a goose chase, Ryan returned to the wag where J.B. was still trying out keys.

  “Any luck?” Ryan asked.

  “Some fit,” J.B. answered, “but they don’t turn.”

  As if on cue, the latest key he tried slid easily into the ignition. J.B. looked hopeful a moment, but then the key wouldn’t turn.

  “Keep trying,” Ryan said, then turned to Eleander. “Are there any weapons stored here? Anything we can use?”

  “Uh, there are some fuel tanks stored at that end of the barn. Some tools…”

  “Show me.”

  She led him to the far corner of the barn where red metal and plastic cans were lined up against the wall next to a workbench covered with tools, some handmade, others pre-Dark. Ryan marveled at the selection of screwdrivers, wrenches, pliers and other tools he didn’t even know the names of, or what they could be used for. If they had the time, Ryan would have had J.B. look over the tools to see if there was anything he could use and that was light enough to carry, but there was no time.

  He moved to the fuel cans and opened up a few of them. They all contained some sort of alcohol-based fuel that was nothing like what was in the tanks of the large wag.

  They couldn’t use any of it to extend the vehicle’s range, but it would still come in handy.

  “Help me carry these to the wag,” he told Eleander.

  Ryan grabbed the two heaviest cans he could find and carried them back to the wag. Eleander followed, with a pair of slightly smaller plastic cans.

  When they reached the wag, Ryan looked for a way to open the large steel door at the back of the wag’s box, but the big flap wouldn’t budge.

  Without looking up from the job he was doing with the keys, J.B. said, “Won’t open unless the box is raised, and I can’t raise it unless the engine’s running.”

  Ryan nodded, pleased to know that no one would be able to open the rear door to get at them, but unsure how he was going to get them up into the big steel box.

  A moment later he climbed up into the box and reached down, gesturing to Eleander to lift the cans up to him as best she could. She struggled with the heaviest cans, but managed to get them high enough for Ryan to grab hold and haul into the box. When he had all four cans inside with him, he turned his attention to J.B. “How many more keys are there?”

  “Three more,” J.B. answered.

  A moment of silence was followed by the faint sound of a key being unsuccessfully tried in the ignition slot.

  “Two more.”

  Another moment of silence and then the same faint sound again.

  “Last one.”

  Ryan took a breath.

  “Fits!” J.B. said.

  Ryan leaned out over the box and looked down into the cab.

  “Turns, too!”

  But the wag’s engine didn’t rumble to life.

  Ryan climbed down from the box. “Know what’s wrong?”

  J.B. scratched his head. “Could be anything. Dead battery. Fuel starvation. Fuel flooding. Bad wiring… Anything.”

  “You’ve got five minutes. If you can’t get it going, we walk out of this ville on foot.”

  J.B. shook his head as if he didn’t like the alternative, and then began scanning the instruments and switches without a word.

  Ryan climbed down off the wag and kept watch on the door to the barn.

  Suddenly, the wag’s engine turned over, then rattled to life. A black plume of smoke erupted from the exhaust behind the cab, and the inside of the barn suddenly grew a bit darker.

  “Needed to flick one of these switches,” J.B. said with a smile, obviously appreciative of the ingenuity of the baron’s mechanics. “Turns it on.”

  “All right, then. Let’s move.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Baron Robards led a group of sec men into the baron’s residence. In pre-Dark days it had been an apartment building with twenty-eight units spread over three floors. Over the years, the baron had spent a small fortune converting the top two floors of the building into a single residence, leaving the rest of the units for his staff, friends, sec men and supplies.

  “We’ll do it floor by floor,” Robards told them. “I want every exit on the ground covered
by two men. A team of four will go up each stairwell, with two on each team searching the floor and then teaming up with the two at the other end of the building. I don’t want the stairs left unattended for a moment. The only way out for these bastards is going to be to jump off the roof, or to fall off it dead. Understand?”

  There were mumbles and mutters from the assembled sec men and none of them seemed too excited about running into the building after a group of deadly outlanders.

  Robards had known that giving members of the sec force access to the ville’s drugs had been a dangerous step. But it had been a calculated risk on his part and so far it seemed as if it had paid off. The sec force had been compromised, but their allegiance to Robards was already secured and Baron DeMann had quickly been forgotten. However, the sec force had become undisciplined and unmotivated in the past months, and judging by the looks on the men’s faces, they really didn’t care if the outlanders were caught or not.

  “A week off for anyone who chills an outlander, and a month’s worth of dreem to the one who chills the most of the scum.”

  That seemed to bring them back to life. Even the sec men who weren’t hooked on dreem knew the value of what was being offered.

  “I’ll lead the north stairwell. Grice, you take the south stairs. We’ll start in the basement.”

  The man named Grice nodded.

  “The rest of you watch the ground floor, and the roof, in case they show up on top of the building.”

  The sec men broke up into three groups.

  “I’m coming with you,” Baron Schini told Robards.

  “I don’t need you,” Robards said.

  Baron Schini smiled as she shook her head. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that, but I’m not coming with you to find the outlanders. With the deal we made, I’m coming along to protect my interests, keep you from getting chilled.”

  Baron Robards turned away and headed into the building without another word.

  RYAN LEANED toward J.B. so his ear was near the Armorer’s mouth. The wag’s engine was so loud, especially inside the wag-pool barn, that it was the only way they could communicate.

  “Doesn’t run too bad,” J.B. said, gunning the accelerator and listening to the engine rev. “But I can’t be sure how much power the fuel mixture will give it.”

  “Faster than walking speed?” Ryan asked.

  “That shouldn’t be a problem, but we’re not going to outrun anything, especially another wag. Mebbe not even a man on foot.”

  Ryan considered the problem.

  “Keep it running. I’ll be right back,” he said.

  Ryan hurried over to the corner of the barn where the rest of the fuel cans remained. He picked up two of the heaviest and ran toward the school bus. Once there he uncapped one of the cans and splashed the fuel all over the bus’s tires, as well as the engine compartment. He did the same to the rest of the wags in the barn, using less and less fuel on each one so he would have some fuel left over for the barn itself.

  “Open the barn door!” he told Eleander.

  The woman ran to the large sliding door that measured twenty by ten feet and slid back and forth on a rusty cast-iron rail. She unlocked the latch that kept the heavy wooden door closed, then pushed against it using the handle on the latch.

  The door barely budged at first, but after a few moments it began to slide to the right, allowing a blade of sunlight to cut into the interior of the barn, lighting it up as bright as day.

  When the door was open wide enough for J.B. to drive the wag through, Ryan tossed the fuel can aside and searched his pockets for a piece of flint.

  He had a shard of the stone in one of his pants pockets and rubbed it clean of lint with his fingers. Then he found a patch of dry stonework foundation at the base of the barn and began drawing the flint across it. He rubbed the stone slowly at first to see if it would spark the flint, and when it did, he repositioned himself and began striking the concrete more deliberately, trying to aim a spark at the soaked wood that sided the barn.

  It took five tries before a trio of sparks landed against the wet wood, glowing red for a moment, then erupting into a bright orange flame that wasted no time in climbing up the side of the barn and fanning out in all directions.

  “That’s it,” Ryan shouted. “We’re out of here!”

  J.B. tried the wag’s horn and to his surprise it gave a decent blast, hopefully warning the friends outside that they were on the move.

  Ryan caught up to J.B. just before he exited the barn and climbed up inside the heavy steel box where he found Eleander trying to hold the four fuel cans in place with her body.

  The wag rumbled out of the barn where all of the friends were waiting.

  J.B. brought the wag to a stop.

  Ryan reached down and pulled Krysty into the box. Next came Mildred, still wearing the clothes of the dead sec men.

  “This is rather impressive,” Doc said, sizing up the wag. “This should get us out of here rather nicely.”

  “Shut it, Doc, and climb aboard!” Ryan said.

  “I must insist you take young Jak next,” Doc replied. “I fear he’s looking a little more pale than usual.”

  Mildred glanced at Eleander, then leaned over the edge of the box. “You all right, Jak?”

  The albino teen nodded, then clenched his teeth and said, “Doc first. Age before beauty.”

  Without another word, Ryan, Mildred and Krysty pulled Doc into the box. Then the four of them reached down and helped Jak up and over the steel sides.

  Mildred held on to Jak’s hand until he was seated in the box and leaning comfortably against one of its sides. Jak’s skin felt clammy and a little bit hot.

  “He’s burning up!” Mildred said.

  Eleander put a hand on Jak’s forehead.

  “Well, I daresay he has every right to,” Doc muttered. “That barn is rapidly turning into Dante’s Inferno and the last man out would certainly feel the heat. I know I am feeling rather tepid myself.”

  “No, he’s running a fever.”

  “From his wound?” Ryan asked. “Is he infected?”

  Eleander looked at Mildred and shook her head.

  Mildred sighed, then turned to Ryan.

  “He’s not infected, and he’s not sick.”

  “What then?”

  “He needs a fix.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  J.B. pulled the wag onto the streets of the ville. The flames had reached the top of the building, and black smoke began to billow out of the seams in the steel roof. A few people were running inside the barn carrying buckets of water.

  “Which way to the gate?” J.B. shouted.

  Ryan turned to Eleander. “Give him directions!” Eleander nodded and climbed to the front of the box, then lifted herself over the left side of it so she could give J.B. instructions. “Turn left here!” she said.

  J.B. nodded, released the wag’s clutch and the huge vehicle lurched forward.

  In the back of the steel box, Ryan watched over Jak, who looked to be in even worse shape than he’d been a few minutes earlier.

  “What’s going to happen to him?” Ryan asked.

  Mildred shrugged. “Can’t be sure, since I don’t know what sort of drug they gave him, but if it’s any kind of narcotic, he’ll be screaming like a madman in no time. And if he’s like any of those addict muties we came across before, he’ll want to slash our throats first chance he gets.”

  “Will it pass?”

  Mildred just looked at Ryan. “I don’t know.”

  Ryan turned to Eleander. “Do you know?”

  “He couldn’t have had much of the drug, so if he makes it through the need for a fix, he’ll probably be back to normal in a day or so.”

  “What do you mean, if he makes it?”

  “If they gave him a pure dose, then going without another fix might kill him. But if it was diluted, he should make it, although it won’t be pretty to watch.”

  The wag slowed.

  Elean
der and the others peered over the sides of the box and saw that they’d come to a crossroad.

  “Turn right,” she told J.B.

  Slowly the wag started to move again.

  “What do we need to do?” Ryan asked.

  “Tie him up and make sure he can’t get a hand on anyone. He’s going to be strong, and determined, so don’t take any chances on the way you secure him.”

  Ryan nodded.

  “Mildred, Doc,” he said. “Give me the sec men’s clothes.”

  The pair slipped out of the vest and jacket that had once belonged to the sec men guarding the wag-pool barn. Holstering his SIG-Sauer, Ryan took his panga from its sheath and began cutting the clothing in strips.

  When he was done, Ryan looked at Jak.

  The albino teen’s eyes were glassy and half-rolled up to the sky. His breathing was coming in short bursts, and his skin was damp with sweat.

  “You understand what’s going on, Jak?” Ryan asked.

  The youth barely moved his head in a nod.

  Doc put a hand on Jak’s arm. “If anyone has the strength and resolve to make it through such an ordeal, I know you are the one, Master Lauren.”

  Jak reached out, put a hand over Doc’s mouth, then grabbed a strip of cloth from Ryan’s hand and draped it over his own wrist.

  “Right,” Ryan said. “Cut the chatter, Doc, and let’s get him tied up.”

  The friends set to work.

  THE SEARCH HAD REACHED the third floor, but there were no signs of the outlanders anywhere.

  After letting his sec men cover the basement and first floor, Baron Robards decided to check the second and third floors himself, thinking that his men had to have missed something in their search.

  But there was no evidence anywhere that the outlanders had gone through the building. Not a footprint, not a broken door or window, not even a body.

  And the farther they went up the building, the more danger there was of the sec men looting the baron’s quarters. There were all kinds of valuables laying about in there, from music boxes to weapons, books to new boots. There were piles of jack, gold and silver, even stockpiles of jolt and dreem. If he let the sec men wander through there on their own, none of them would be able to resist the temptation of pocketing a few items for themselves. Normally Robards wouldn’t mind—he himself had stolen from Baron DeMann in the past—but now they wouldn’t be stealing from DeMann, they’d be stealing from him.