Deathlands 074: Strontium Swamp

by James Axler

  Her sentient hair, sensing that this was a moment of triple-red danger, was gathered close to her scalp, wrapping its tendrils so protectively around her neck that she felt as though it might inadvertently choke her. She ignored it and watched as her intended target swam in and out of range. She was trying to judge the rhythm of its movement, to gauge the best moment for a leap from pole to pole. But the pole moved erratically and she’d just have to rely on blind instinct.

  She unwrapped her hand from the rope, so that only her balance was keeping her on the pole, and tried to clear her mind completely. She remembered those far-off days when she was a child, growing up in Harmony. Mother Sonja and Uncle Tyas McCann, the two people who had meant more to her than the world then, had always told her that the power of Gaia ran through her, and that even if she didn’t call upon it, all she had to do was trust in it. The Earth Mother would guide her.

  Mildred would have called it following your gut, and watching Krysty from behind, she could see the change come over her as the Titian-haired woman let her instincts flow. From a tentative crouch, she seemed to suddenly grow more fluid and graceful, body tensing lightly before she leaped into space.

  Krysty herself hardly knew that she had jumped, only that she had blanked her mind and let her body take over. Suddenly she was sailing through the air between the two poles, feeling the splashes of surf against her exposed skin, the salt tingling in her still open cuts.

  She hit the pole heavily, the wood thudding into her rib cage as she wrapped her arms around the pole, the air driven from her stomach and lungs by the sudden impact, the wood coming at her with a sudden force as it changed direction in the current. She could feel it under her; she had made it. But little else registered for a moment as she fought to get the air back into her lungs, gasping heavily and coughing as some salt water went down her throat. She was aware of something softer than the wood beneath her legs, and realized that she had partly landed on Doc.

  Even in the middle of the surf, clinging for grim life to the pole, it occurred to her that it would be ironic if she’d tried to save him and only broken his neck on her landing.

  No time to think about it. Taking air deep into her lungs, feeling the oxygen pump into her brain, she moved up, using the ring driven into the top of the pole as a handhold while she maneuvered. She wanted to get a better look at Doc before she started trying to free him, and also leave room for Mildred to make her way across.

  “Lord, if I get out of this, remind me to try to find somewhere to lead a nice quiet life…” Mildred muttered to herself as she saw Krysty land. Now it was her turn to make the first leap onto Krysty’s now empty pole.

  Problem was, the lack of weight meant that the damn thing was waving around with an even wilder arc in the crosscurrents behind the boat.

  Mildred blew air out and shook her head, took a deep breath and just jumped.

  The pole moved toward her as she was in midair. It was like slow motion, as though time had slowed to allow her to see everything clearly everything like the piece of wood being caught in another swell and being whipped away from the arc of her trajectory, leaving her with only water to fall into.

  She snaked out an arm without thinking about it, and her hand closed around the rope securing the pole to the boat. As she hit the water, the weight and momentum dragged her hand down the rope, the burn making her yell and take in a mouthful of salt water. Coughing and spluttering, ignoring the burning in her chest and the burning on her hand, she flung out her other arm and got a stronger grip, hauling herself toward the empty pole, which she clung to with a sense of relief.

  Dammit, this was only the first jump; she still had to reach Doc and Krysty.

  Looking across as she steadied herself, she could see that Krysty had started to check the old man for signs of life, and also try to free him from his bonds. There was little time for her to waste. She shot a glance toward the boat: so far they had been lucky. No one on the deck had given them a second glance while the vessel was moving into the target area waters, but sooner or later they were duty-bound to check the bait. What would they say when they saw Ryan, Jak and J.B. inching their way up the ropes toward the back of the vessel, ignoring the buffeting of the sea and staying focused only on their progress?

  Shit, if they were making progress—and they were just over halfway to the stern of the boat—then she sure as hell should move herself.

  Mildred steadied herself and made ready to jump again. This one may prove a little easier, as the extra weight Krysty’s presence had brought to Doc’s pole meant that it was no longer moving so wildly and erratically in the water. It was reacting less to the current, and the arc of movement was smaller. There was a good chance that she could make this jump with ease.

  Mildred blinked twice, didn’t think and jumped. She aimed for the very top of the pole, hoping to catch the metal ring for a handhold. She’d managed to judge that right, and she wrapped her fingers around the metal, feeling the wrench on her shoulder as her momentum tried to carry her past the pole and into the churning sea beyond. For, at the last, she had overestimated the movement of the pole in the water, and her jump had almost taken her past it.

  Cursing incomprehensibly, she flailed with her free hand to gain another hold and felt fingers like iron clamp around her flailing forearm, hauling her onto the pole where she nestled up against Doc. Looking up, she could see that Krysty’s eyes were glowing with a strength that she was drawing from something other than herself. It wasn’t the power of Gaia that Mildred had seen her draw on in the past, with devastating effect both to her opponents and herself, but rather it seemed to be some kind of reserve within herself.

  Hell, I must have some of that somewhere down inside myself, Mildred thought, her resolve hardening. If she needed any other encouragement, the sight of Doc gave it to her. The old man was deathly pale, his skin almost whiter than his mane of hair that was plastered to his skull. His eyes were open, but were staring without focus, the whites only showing as they rolled up into his head, seeing only some vision that was within and nothing of the outside world.

  First they had to get Doc free, then they had to bring him around enough to climb up to the boat under his own steam. The first would be relatively easy, even though she and Krysty had nothing but their broken-nailed and bleeding fingers with which to unpick the salt-swollen, slippery knots. It was the second that may prove to impossible, for once Doc was gone, there was no knowing when he would come back…or even if, for every time might be the last.

  Without speaking, the two women worked on the old man’s bonds as he lay against the pole, moaning and muttering to himself, lost in some strange world of his own imaginings. They picked at the knots, sometimes only with one hand each as they gripped the pole and those lines still secured to protect themselves from the buffeting of the ways. It was an irony that their being on the pole made it easier to work on the knots. The drag of the extra weight on this pole had significantly cut down on the amount of movement in the water.

  Dark shapes moved through the water around the poles, large enough for their wake to cut across the wake of the boat and cause another crosscurrent. As Mildred looked up, one of the shapes broke surface briefly, tiny cold eyes and rows of razor-sharp teeth showing in a wide mouth, tiny specks of foam covering the blunted snout.

  It was like no shark she could ever remember seeing in the years before the nukecaust: larger, maybe thirty to forty feet in length, and about half that in width and breadth. It was bulkier, less streamlined. It probably ate enough sea life to feed an average ville every day; they had to find an area, strip it of its marine life, then move on. No wonder the fishing village had been desperate, their stock depleted by this beast, and… She tried to count the shapes as they moved around the boat and the poles, scenting the blood. She reckoned on at least a dozen, perhaps as many as twenty. They moved so fast it was impossible to tell.

  All she knew now was that they had to redouble their efforts and get themsel
ves—and Doc—out of the ocean. If the sharks didn’t get them, then the villagers would. They were the intended prey of these beasts. How long before the crew took a look over the stern of the boat to see if the sharks had taken their bait, only to find the bait was biting back?

  While Mildred and Krysty worked at Doc’s bonds, Ryan, Jak and J.B. were slowly inching their way toward the boat’s stern. They concentrated on going hand-over-hand, palms raw. Each movement was like white-hot needles into their palms as their body weight pulled them toward the water. For Ryan, as the heaviest, it was the worst, but the one-eyed man gritted, biting his cheek until he could taste the same blood in his mouth that ran down to his wrists.

  The ropes swung wildly as the lightened poles were tossed around freely in the crosscurrents behind the boat, threatening with each move to throw the companions off and into the water if their grip slackened for a moment. They hung beneath the ropes, moving hand-over-hand with their ankles wrapped around the rope to secure them, the rope burning their already raw ankles and calves as they moved upward.

  Their progress seemed interminably slow, but was fast enough for them to each be at least halfway up to the stern when the sharks began to circle the boat. Ryan caught sight of one of the dark, massive shapes from the corner of his eye as he weathered a sudden tug and swing at the rope. He cursed, as he knew that it would bring the crew to the side of the boat, and all three of them were currently in a vulnerable position. He couldn’t get a good look at the other two—wouldn’t want to, as to twist his body to try to catch sight of them would be to risk losing his own grip or impede his own progress—but figured that they wouldn’t be that much ahead of him, if at all.

  In fact, Jak was making rapid progress. The albino hunter had focused the immense strength of his will into ascending the rope with the minimum of effort and the maximum of speed. Ignoring the pain from his hands and calves, and concentrating instead on breathing steadily, timing each movement of his hands and legs to work to the rhythm of his breathing, he was moving toward the mooring of the rope on the rail running around the vessel’s stern. He didn’t look up, neither did he look down. It didn’t matter, he could do nothing to affect what may go on above or below. All he could do was get up that rope and leave the rest to fate.

  On the deck of the boat, the eight-man crew that had been chosen by Erik to pilot and man the vessel on its journey was relaxing before it had to tackle its enemy. Two women—one of them Collette, who had been in the hunting party—and six men were on board. They were at the prow, armed with remade Heckler & Koch MP-5s, flare guns and scavenged air-pressure harpoons. They had no idea if the SMGs would be any use against the creatures, knew that the flares would be explosively effective if they hit at close range, and trusted their fisher skills to use the harpoons when the creatures came in range.

  They were watching the waters ahead, apprehension churning in their guts. They were hunter-gatherers, not warriors, and a predator like the school of sharks that had devastated their fishing stocks was an enemy that they had no experience tackling. All were hoping that the bait they dragged in their wake would attract the school, and as they saw the dark shapes move in the water, and start to cluster at the wake of the boat’s backwash, they snapped out of their relaxation and primed their weapons.

  The companions’ belongings and blasters, weighted and ready to be dumped overboard as per the orders of Erik, sat neglected in the corner. There had been too much to consider on the way out. In much the same way, the crew hadn’t thought to check what was happening to the bait they trailed behind them. If they gave it any thought at all, it was merely to wonder if they would still be alive when the predators came in to take them. If they were, then their thrashing in the waters would stir up the bloodlust of the school and attract them all to the one area for a cleaner chill from the fishermen. And besides, to still be alive when the sharks began to eat them would be a suitable fate for those who had chilled people from their village so mercilessly.

  So when they saw the school of predators approach and begin to circle the vessel, when they had primed their weapons, when they had steeled themselves for the battle, when they turned to the stern of the vessel…

  When they did all of these things, the last sight they expected to greet them was the wraithlike vision of Jak Lauren, dripping wet, hair clinging to his skull in tendrils, white scarred skin covered in a film of blood from still open wounds, blood that also stained his clothes and trickled down his arms and over his hands, which hung free at his sides. He was breathing heavily but steadily, and stood slightly forward, resting on the balls of his feet, poised to spring. His eyes blazed like malevolent hot coals, boring into those who faced him, the fury in them making them flinch.

  He was one against eight, and unarmed, but he had surprise on his side. And he had the ice-cold heart of vengeance. They might try to chill him, but all he had to do was hold them until Ryan and J.B. reached the stern, as he was sure they would.

  For a second, nothing happened. Jak faced the eight-strong crew and they were too stunned to react. If Jak could make his first move count, then he would have the initiative.

  Like an unholy avenging angel, Jak sprang forward into the midst of the crew. Fortunately for him, they had been clustered together in the center of the deck, about to allocate sections of rail from which to fire. He took advantage of that, knowing that as long as they were in a cluster, he could take down more than one with a single impact.

  Jak was small, but strong. He got a lot of lift from his leg muscles, and his momentum over the short distance was enough to send the eight-man crew flying in all directions. Blasters and harpoons scattered across the deck as the unprepared fishermen found themselves in the middle of a whirlwind. Although he had no weapons—his knives were in his jacket, along with his Colt Python—he had his hands and feet. Despite the cuts and ragged rawness of his flesh, he was still wearing his combat boots, and his fingers and palms were hard ridges of muscle, sinew and skin that had been honed over years of fighting and hunting. Ally that to the intense anger and red mist of hate that he felt for the people who had treated himself and his friends in such a manner, and it was little contest.

  Outnumbered, he first struck out at those who were still armed—two men with flare guns. One of them brought his weapon up to fire directly into Jak’s face, but found his arm snapped as the albino youth gripped his wrist like an iron band and twisted it back. He yelled a high-pitched scream of shock more than pain, and before the note had left his open mouth he found himself pitched into the other flare holder. A woman of about forty, she had the flare gun grasped in both hands and aimed at Jak. When she squeezed the trigger, Jak swung his first opponent around so that his body was between them. The flare exploded with a dull, loud “whump,” splattering the ribs and waist of the fisherman as it hit him. He made no sound this time, as he had no lungs left from which to expel air. The woman slumped to the deck, in shock over the fact that she had just chilled one of her own.

  But this was no time for reflection.

  Jak was already on to his next target: Collette, whom he recognized from the woodlands, was bending to retrieve an MP-5 that lay on the deck, where it had fallen in the confusion. Jak noticed that she was still wearing that stupe bullet belt across her chest. He noticed this as he took a flying kick at her, the sole of his combat boot crunching into the side of her head, knocking her jaw and temple toward an acute angle. She grunted, feeling her vertebrae shatter at the base of her neck as they failed to take the strain of being twisted with such sudden violence. She felt little more as the lights dimmed on her world, the MP-5 clattering to the deck once more from her nerveless fingers.

  Two down, one out of action…but the other five had scattered across the deck, leaving him vulnerable whichever option he chose to take.

  Or perhaps not. Without registering it on his always impassive face, Jak noted that Ryan and J.B. had reached the rail and were hauling themselves over. As the five crew members were
facing him, they hadn’t spotted the companions. Jak launched himself off to the left, to tackle a fat man with a harpoon gun. This took their attention away from the section of the stern where Ryan and J.B. had arrived.

  Jak didn’t see what happened next. He relied on his friends to get it right while he took on his man. Like a stupe, the fisherman waved the harpoon gun as though he wanted to use it like a club. Perhaps, in the back of his mind, he wanted to save the harpoon for their original target, not realizing that he would never get the chance to use it this way unless he dealt with Jak.

  The albino teen stepped in toward the man, ducking under his swing with ease. The movement left the fisherman’s torso open and undefended. It was almost too easy as Jak hit him in the chest with the heel of his hand, shocking the heart. The fisherman gasped for breath, trying to suck air into lungs that didn’t want to work. It distracted him some more and left him open to a blow to the throat, straight fingers, hard like rock, that caved in the cartilage around his windpipe and made a mess of the artery and veins that fed his brain.

  While he attended to his prey, Jak also drew the attention of the other crew members. There were four in all, ranged in a semicircle around the middle of the deck. Jak had deliberately chosen the one isolated man to attack because of his position. If the fishermen had been fighters, they may have questioned this strange tactic… But they had little combat experience and didn’t think to look at the deck to their rear.

  With a quick exchange of glances, Ryan and J.B. divided the four into pairs, electing which two to take out. Both were exhausted, but they were driven by adrenaline and the will to survive.