by James Axler
The fire restored, J.B. ran back to the wag and waited for Ryan, Krysty, Doc and Eleander to return.
Hopefully they wouldn’t be too much longer.
The flames would protect them, but they wouldn’t last forever.
“BUT YOU MUST come with us,” Doc pleaded. “After they have learned that you helped us escape, the baron’s men will chill you, or even worse.”
“I can handle myself in this ville.”
Doc shook his head. “I do not understand. When we first came upon you and Moira, I got the impression you were trying to escape. Now you have the opportunity to leave this ville behind forever, and you are refusing.”
“I can’t leave my daughter behind.”
“We shall come back and get her.”
Eleander shook her head.
It was obvious to Doc that no matter what he said, Eleander was going to say no for one excuse or another.
“I can’t leave,” she said. “It was foolish of me to think I could leave this place behind.”
Doc felt it was hopeless, but he had to keep trying.
“All right then, if you cannot leave this place, do not think of it in that way. Think of it as coming with me. I have seen many excellent pieces of land in my travels. We could pick one, grow our own food. We could start up a business, anything you like, as long as we are together.”
Eleander smiled at that. “You’re so sweet.”
Doc returned the smile. “Then you will come with me, with us?”
“No, I can’t. There might have been a way, but I haven’t prepared for it.”
“I don’t understand.”
She raised her hand and gently placed the back of it against Doc’s cheek. Then she reached over with her other hand and pulled back the sleeve covering her right arm.
Doc glanced at her arm. “Oh, Eleander, no.”
Eleander simply nodded.
Doc looked more closely at her arm, which was pitted and scarred with dozens of needle marks and sores.
“I can’t leave this place because it has what I need. If I left, I would go mad within a week, and then the memory you’d have of me would be a painful one. It’s better that you leave now, and remember me as a love you will cherish forever.”
Doc’s eyes darted quickly about as if he were searching for a solution to this tangled situation. “I could get you through this. Mildred Wyeth’s a doctor, a real pre-Dark doctor, and she could get you off that junk so you would never need it again.”
Eleander just shook her head. “I’ve been on it so long the withdrawal would probably kill me. Just go, before you put your life and the lives of your friends in danger.”
Eleander leaned forward and gave Doc a kiss. “Goodbye Theophilus Algernon Tanner.”
Doc struggled to say the word. “Goodbye.”
And then he was gone, running toward the wag.
THE BUS WAS about to drive through the line of flame when the vehicle suddenly came to a jarring halt.
“What the fuck’s wrong?” Robards shouted.
“The fire’s started up again…burning hotter.”
Robards ran to the front of the bus and slammed his fist on the dashboard. “Damn outlanders!”
“What do you want me to do?” Grayson, the driver, asked.
“Go through it!”
Grayson hesitated.
“I said go through it!” The baron’s left hand shot out and struck the driver in the side of the head.
Grayson recovered, rubbed his head and put the bus into gear.
“WHERE’S THE WOMAN?” Ryan asked when Doc reached the wag.
“She elected to remain behind to open the gate for us.”
“Not joining us?” Krysty asked, helping Doc up into the box.
“No, she must stay for reasons—” he shook his head “—that I do not quite understand.”
Krysty put a hand on Doc’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Doc.”
“As am I,” Doc said with a sigh. “As am I.”
“Talk about this later,” Ryan said. “We got a busload of sec men on our tail.”
The friends turned and saw the yellow bus approaching, its engine racing as it plowed through the wall of fire. When it burst through the fire, licks of flame clung to the sides of the vehicle and the rear tires ignited, sending plumes of black smoke trailing behind it like it were some ancient pre-Dark locomotive.
“Hang on!” J.B. warned.
The big wag the friends were riding in started to move.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Sherman and Roy moved as close to the ville’s main gate as they dared. Any farther and they would have a crowd of muties to contend with before they even got inside the ville.
There was a mob attacking a man to the left of the gate. He’d fallen from the crow’s nest overlooking the ville and within seconds of his hitting the ground, more than a dozen muties were tearing into his flesh.
“Think the baron will be able to get the gate open for us?” Sherman asked as the sec force waited.
“You doubt the baron?” Sec chief Viviani answered.
Sherman realized his mistake. “No, not at all, it’s just that she only went in with two men. The gate’s guarded and—”
“Do you see the smoke rising up from the ville?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think everything is calm inside, that it’s business as usual in there?”
“No, but, uh—”
“The gate will be opened for us, either by the baron or someone under her control.”
And then as if on cue, a sliver of light appeared between the two doors.
“Hey, it’s opening.”
Viviani sneered at Sherman in a show of disgust over his doubting the baron. “Get ready to move!”
RYAN CLIMBED UP into the box.
“Mildred,” he commanded, “take the forward position and keep the muties away from J.B.”
“Right.”
“Doc, take the left side, Krysty the right.”
Ryan then looked at Jak. He was breathing heavily through his nose and his head moved from side to side as if he were trying to shake off some demon. His face looked as if he were racked with pain. His body strained to get free of his restraints, but the effort just caused him more pain and frustration.
Ryan picked up the scattergun that had belonged to one of the dead sec men guarding the armory and rested it against the top of the back wall of the box. Then he looked over the lid so he could take aim.
The wag hit a bump in the road as he squeezed the trigger, and the big blaster’s load of lead was off the mark. Instead of hitting the driver and everyone else at the front of the bus, he sprayed the engine compartment with buckshot.
Steam poured out of the front of the bus. The vehicle slowed slightly, but it didn’t stop.
Ryan checked the blaster to see if there was a shell in the second chamber and was happy to see there was.
If he could lift the blaster off the steel box, he could have a better shot, no matter the condition of the road. He moved the last gas can so he could use it as a step, but his plan was called off by J.B.
“Brace yourself!” he shouted up from the cab. “Gate’s not opening fast enough.”
Ryan turned and looked forward. The gate was opening, but too slowly to be out of the way by the time the big wag passed through it. They were going to have to partially ram the gate and hope that the wag’s frame was solid enough to withstand the force of the impact.
Ryan jumped down onto the floor of the box. “Everyone get down!” he ordered.
All of the friends, except for Jak, got into a crouch and waited for the moment of impact.
THE BUS DRIVER CHOKED on the steam that rose up from the front of the bus. The temperature gauge, one of the only things that still worked on the big wag, was quickly rising. A few more minutes at this rate and the whole engine would blow, or seize up.
“I’ve got to stop,” he said.
“What?” Robards asked. “You
’re not stopping for anything. I want those bastards for what they did to my ville.”
“Your ville?” Grayson asked. “What do you mean, your ville?”
“Baron DeMann’s dead. He was murdered by those outlanders, and I want them to pay for what they did.”
“Didn’t the baron ever name a successor?”
“He never said a word to me,” Robards said. “I’m in charge now, and I say keep driving.”
“But the engine is going to overheat, and after it seizes up you’ll never be able to use it again.”
Robards had had enough with Grayson. His job was to follow orders, not to question them. And it would do Robards no good to have sec men questioning his authority, not now in a time of crisis, or later when everything had been sorted out.
He raised his blaster and put a round into Grayson’s head.
Then he grabbed him by the jacket and pulled him from the driver’s seat, throwing him down the steps and out the open doorway.
The bus swerved slightly to the left without a pair of hands keeping the wheel steady, but Robards took the driver’s seat and managed to bring the bus under control.
While he’d been arguing with Grayson the bus had slowed to a crawl and the big wag had pulled away. Robards stomped on the accelerator and the bus jumped forward.
More steam began to billow out of the front of the bus, but the engine was still running.
Hopefully it would run long enough for them to catch and kill the escaping outlanders.
THE HUGE WAG’S front end struck the heavy wooden gates and seemed to stop dead in its tracks, but then the doors burst apart into thousands of splinters and the wag was through.
But instead of the way being clear, the road was covered with muties. They all had their hands stretched out toward the wag and their teeth bared and ready to rip into flesh.
Ryan and Krysty climbed up onto the steel sheet over the cab. Ryan switched the SIG-Sauer to single shot, and Krysty unleathered her .38-caliber Smith & Wesson. Together they began to clear the way of muties, shooting at anything standing in the wag’s way.
Ryan took out a pair of muties with rounds to the chest, as they stood in the middle of the road reaching out to the wag as if they could stop it with their hands. They fell to the ground in a heap, and the wag easily drove over them, spraying blood and gore in every direction.
After a few moments it became obvious that the muties in front of the wag were no more than ants in its way. The real problem was with the muties trying to climb into the cab.
Ryan let his right arm hang over the side and began to take out muties as they tried to crawl up into the cab to get at J.B. Head shots were easy at this range, and Ryan took his time with each mutie, making sure he chilled the muties with a single round.
On the other side of the wag, Krysty was also keeping the cab clear. Ryan counted four shots from the Smith & Wesson and hoped Krysty had a few extra rounds in her vest pocket.
But after the first rush toward the wag, the muties backed off, or rather were content to tear apart the bodies of their fallen comrades, instead of being made mutant meat by the friends’ blasters.
“I think we’re clear,” Krysty said.
Ryan took a look and the road was indeed clear in front of them, but there was a need to remain on alert. “Stay ready,” he cautioned. “We’ve still got a bus full of sec men on our tail.”
Ryan and Krysty climbed off the metal sheet and into the steel box. There was blasterfire coming from the bus behind them, but the rounds bounced harmlessly off the rear steel door in a series of staccato tinks.
“Need armor-piercing rounds to cut through that steel,” Ryan said. “Let’s just hope we keep moving and they don’t have anything more powerful than what they’re using.”
The metal-on-metal sound stopped for a moment, and then a loud pop sounded.
“They’re going for the wheels,” Mildred said.
“Considering that there are eight rather large wheels at the back of this monstrous wag, probably belted with steel,” Doc said, “I can only assume that they are in rather dire straits.”
Ryan peeked over the top of the box and noticed the bus was falling behind them. More importantly, there were great plumes of steam gushing out of the bus’s front end, signifying that the radiator had finally broken open. There was also more black smoke coming from the tires at the back of the bus. Presumably all four wheels back there were on fire.
“Their bus broke down,” Ryan reported.
“That’s it?” Mildred asked. “We’re out?”
Ryan nodded. “Looks that way.”
“Good, at least now I can attend to Jak.”
Ryan turned to Krysty. “Tell J.B. he can take it easy now.”
“Right.” Krysty went to the front of the box, but stopped to steady herself when the wag took a sharp turn to the left.
Ryan was about to ask what was going on when he heard them.
Engines.
Gas-burning, diesel-burning, alcohol-burning engines. He looked over the right side of the box and saw a dozen vehicles heading toward the ville. The lead vehicle was a war wag, followed by a Hummer, and a ragtag bunch of old cars and trucks, each of them adapted or modified to carry weapons and men.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say that the ville is about to be invaded.”
“By who?” Mildred wondered.
“Another baron, most likely,” Ryan answered. “The visiting baron who was watching us in the arena would be my guess. Probably been waiting for a chance like this for years.”
“And we gave it to her,” Krysty said.
Ryan shrugged. “I don’t care who runs the ville. I get the feeling one baron’s as bad as the next around here. Important thing is we’re out…and safe.”
They all turned to look at Jak.
His eyes were turned up and his skin was covered in sweat. Mildred put a hand to his forehead, then shook her head. “Cut him down, quickly.”
Ryan’s panga was in his fist a moment later, cutting at the ties binding Jak to the back door of the steel box.
The friends eased the albino teen onto the floor.
Ryan knelt by Jak’s side and turned to Mildred. “Is it withdrawal?”
“It shouldn’t be.”
“Then what?”
“I’m not sure. All I know is that it’s bad.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Baron Robards pumped the accelerator several times, but the engine wasn’t responding. The steam pouring out of the bus’s engine was creating a fog so thick he couldn’t see more than a few yards in front of it.
Finally the engine stopped running, expiring with a rough clanking, followed by a sound that was very much like a very tight spring being unsprung. With the engine seized, the bus came to an abrupt halt and several of the sec men standing in the aisle between the seats fell forward onto the floor.
“Outland scum!” the baron exclaimed.
The outlanders had managed to slip away, but that was the least of his worries now.
There were muties all around the bus, every one of them eager to ravage their bodies for something they could trade for bang. They would have to move quickly if they wanted to get back into the ville alive, and even then with the main gate shattered, it would be difficult just keeping the muties out of the ville.
Robards was out the driver’s window, unseen by the muties on the other side of the wag.
His wag.
But that bit of luck allowed him to move away unnoticed and head back to the ville.
When he was halfway to the gate he heard blasterfire behind him. He looked back and saw several sec men trying to fight off the muties, but failing miserably. There were too many of them to hold back, and the mob had already gotten their hands on blasters and ammo….
The sec men wouldn’t stand a chance.
That might just give Robards the chance he’d need to rebuild the gate and secure the ville.
Just then he heard the soun
ds of several powerful wags approaching. There was a war wag at the front of the line, followed by a number of other wags that had been modified for fighting.
“That bitch!” Robards swore, realizing what was going on.
He recognized the eagle insignia on the lead wag as the Schini family seal. Obviously she had been planning an attempt to take over the ville for some time, and the appearance of the outlanders was just the catalyst she needed to put her plan into action.
The ville was in ruins, its wags had all been torched save for the one that had been stolen and his sec force was in shambles with countless dead, and the living left without a will to fight.
He’d been baron of the ville for all of half an hour.
Robards fell to his knees. Tears began to well up in his eyes as he began to laugh and laugh…
The wags roared past him and raced into the ville. He could feel the power of their engines, and smell the well-oiled mechanisms of their blasters.
Robards had never felt so small in his life.
One of the wags stopped beside where he knelt in the roadway.
“Hey, isn’t this guy the sec chief of the ville?” someone said.
Another wag came to a halt beside the first. Robards recognized the man in the passenger seat of the wag as Sec chief Viviani.
“I’ve seen you before,” Viviani said. “You’re Sec chief Robards right?”
Robards shook his head “no,” and then raised his blaster to the side of his head, pushing the barrel tight against his temple.
An alert sec man in the first wag jumped onto the road and pulled the blaster from Robards’s hand.
“Take him,” Viviani said. “He might be of some use to us.”
Two men grabbed Robards under the arms and tossed him in the back of their wag.
And then the procession continued on into the ville.
Schiniville.
“WHICH WAY do you think we should go?” Ryan asked J.B. as the Armorer sat in the driver’s seat of the wag, his wrists resting lazily on the steering wheel.
“I wanted to take a reading with the sextant but couldn’t get to the roof of the baron’s mansion to do it. And there was too much ground light to get a reading from the street. But from what I could tell from overhearing the sec men, my guess is that we’re somewhere in the middle of what used to be Indiana.”
