by James Axler
Already he was staggering back the way he'd come, toward the front. Again he bent over, eyes still glued to his right, and again his fingers felt for the switch housing. Damned thing wouldn't budge, wouldn't fall open. He wrenched it, his heart pounding, his breathing tortured into ugly grunts. He knew his fingers were by now slick with blood, though he could feel no pain. He could feel almost nothing in them at all. The casing suddenly flicked down and he jabbed at the switch inside...
And reeled sideways, a hoarse racking howl ripped from him as something solid smashed into the side of his skull. His arms scraped along rough metal as he crashed to the ground.
Shit, he thought, they came around the back.
He lay in the mud, breathing hoarsely, his body twisted, grimacing with the pain that was daggering through his head, slowly opening his one eye and making out two figures looming over him in the downpour. Strasser. Kelber.
Both had pieces, handguns jabbed down at him, at his face. He spat mud and water out and thought, Finis.
Strasser was screaming at him, shrieking insanely, beside himself with rage. Ryan got up, he couldn't make out what he was saying, and probably Strasser didn't know himself. Then Kelber was dragging him to his feet, smashing a hand repeatedly across his face.
Strasser howled, "You think you're smart, Ryan, but you're shit, you're shit, and you're going to die like shit!"
Kelber kicked his legs and Ryan staggered, toppled, collapsed to the ground, spraying mud and slop into the air. He lashed out, too, savagely, but there was no target and Strasser lunged at him, falling across one of his legs, jamming an outspread hand into his face. Ryan kept kicking, flailing around with his other foot, but it was difficult to do anything destructive with his hands still tied.
Strasser was yelling, "The box, the box! Get it out, you cretin!" He glared down at Ryan, and to Ryan the scene took on a nightmarish quality as water sluiced across the gaunt man's skull-like battered face, a bucketing deluge of hot rain hammering down on him with punishing force.
Ryan saw Kelber with the box in his hands, his fat sausage fingers ripped at the lid and not getting it right, the box becoming a live thing in his hands so that he was suddenly juggling with it, Strasser yelling frenziedly.
Strasser caught it and opened it. And Strasser thrust a fist down into Ryan's mouth, uncaring whether Ryan bit him or not, both hands now brought into play, fingers gripping his jaw, clenching his teeth, yanking Ryan's mouth open. Kelber leaned over, suddenly laughing like a madman, the box in his hands starting to tip up.
With an almost superhuman strength jolting through him like an electric charge, Ryan heaved himself from under Strasser's knees in a desperate scrabbling roll, and as he did so he felt the cords at his wrist tear and snap. He wrenched his arms around, pain blazing up from his wrists, and caught Strasser's open coat, clutched it, heaved, the panic and terror that was flooding through his system at the thought of that insect more than enough to send the gaunt man crashing into Kelber's legs. Kelber disappeared from view and Ryan smashed a fist into Strasser's gut, deep, powering it in, before pulling himself away and staggering to his feet. Only a grab away from him, a handgun lay in the mud. As he reached for it and held it, the thought flared through his brain that there was probably mud up the blasted barrel, but he was past caring.
He swiveled, firing at Strasser as he swung, and Strasser was flung back, winged, the bullet skinning one shoulder. He hit the mud, slid, scrabbled sideways on his knees and one arm like some ungainly spider that had lost some of its legs. He was soaked to the skin, filthy with mud. His teeth were bared, his eyes blazing with hate and fury at what he'd lost.
Ryan advanced two steps, the automatic in his right hand, his body aching and his head throbbing. His teeth, too, were bared, but in a terrible grin of triumph.
Strasser croaked, "Bastard! All that hardware! You must be insane!"
"Just wary of crazies like you, Strasser," Ryan said, his voice icy. "There are self-destruct mechanisms throughout the fleet. In every truck and land wag and buggy, automatically running if a switch is not thrown every hour, or as soon as a vehicle is safety locked from the inside on a four-hour fuse. If there's no one there to throw that switch — or if there is, but they're all dead — bang!"
He was aware of Kelber close to him on his left. He seemed to be having difficulty getting up, or so it appeared. He was on his knees, both hands to his throat, making ghastly gobbling noises. One hand went out to Strasser. It looked as though he was pleading, begging Strasser for mercy. His eyes were almost popping out of his head and Ryan could see the whites of them clearly.
The beetle, he thought — what the hell happened to the beetle when I banged Strasser into him?
And then he laughed out loud, a harsh and chilling sound even to him. So perish the wicked, he thought.
"Your friend. I think he swallowed the beetle."
Kelber, still on his knees, scrambled toward Strasser, pleading, imploring. Ryan couldn't imagine why — Kelber ought to know by now there was no help there, no pity in the gaunt man — but he could imagine those tusklike mandibles sinking into gullet flesh so determinedly that no amount of hawking and gagging would clear the filthy little bastard out. The hell with the pair of them, he thought, and fired at Strasser.
No sound but a metallic click.
No round.
He realized it was Strasser's gun and the eight-clip had been all used up. He hurled the weapon at Strasser, and the heavy automatic struck the gaunt man full in the mouth. Strasser squealed, fell back, spitting blood and bits of tooth. Ryan made to jump for him but Strasser was back on his feet again, sprinting away, clutching his shoulder, his long legs stabbing at the ground, boots splashing into puddles.
At that moment Kelber gave forth a high-pitched bubbling wail of pain and terror and stark, beyond-the-last-ditch horror. He pitched sideways, still screaming, and Ryan saw black blood welling up out of his mouth like dark chocolate. Kelber lay on his back, his body twisting and writhing, his legs kicking in the air. His screams died sloppily as he began to drown in his own blood.
Ryan flung himself around and jumped for the short ladder to the door, knowing that the seconds were clicking away, nearer and nearer to a total wipeout. He wrenched open the door and fell inside. There was a faint and musty smell to the interior. He felt a prickling at the back of his throat, but nothing more. He yanked the door shut, on personal full-auto now, sheer survival the only consideration. It was too late for the rest of the convoy. It would have been physically impossible to make safe the other vehicles. The explosions to the east had ceased, only fire consuming what remained lit the sky now, an angry orange dancing against the deeper red of the night.
He knew that the Trader would have automatically thrown the On as soon as he heard the train had been nerved out and as soon as he realized he was surrounded. And the captains of the other vehicles would have done the same. It would have been a reflex action. Therefore, the convoy was set to blow only minutes after the land wag train.
He shoved Cohn unceremoniously out of his radio chair, felt for the box under the table, snapped over the lever there. Then he dived for the ladder up to the machine gun blister in the roof. O'Mara was still in his seat, slumped forward, dead to the world. Ryan reached past him for the MG grips, canted the weapon, opened up and proceeded to flay the truck parked beside the war wag at almost point-blank range. Blazing tracers ripped into the back of the truck's cab, opening it up, chewing it apart, and Ryan could hear nothing but the terrible chatter of the gun, could see nothing but the devastation it created.
He jumped back down to the main cabin and dived for the drive seat. Ches was lying on the floor beside it, and Ryan stepped over him and sat down. He began to play the console, feeling a stupendous relief flooding through him as the engine bellowed into life. He glanced to his right, saw flames in the cab of the parked truck, a guy silently screaming and haloed in fire as he struggled to claw himself out the open window — then that scen
e was wiped as the huge MCP lurched forward, gathering speed. He flicked the spotlight on, and the gloom became bright day in an instant. He saw fireflies all around him, red muzzle-flash winking in the dark beyond the spotlight's beam, and could hear the rattle of rounds on the sides of the cab. They could still kill him. All it needed was tracer at the front and the temporary screen would blow apart and him with it. He jabbed one of the firing buttons on the console and cannon fire hammered out its death song from below, pounding a buggy in front that suddenly ripped apart in a gout of white fire as its gas tank erupted. Figures fled away from his spot beam; any one of them could have been Strasser.
To one side another buggy lurched into life, and Ryan savagely swung the wheel to send the war wag barreling into it. The smaller vehicle was smashed sideways, and Ryan felt the MCP rise and yaw, crunching through a sudden tangle of steel, twisting and crushing the other vehicle beneath its ponderous weight. He swung the wheel again and felt the rear tracks ride over what was left.
Where the hell was Krysty?
He saw her, a fleet figure sprinting into his beam along the road. He sent the war wag crashing up and onto the blacktop, aimed it for Mocsin and geared it into full-auto mode. Then he scrambled over Ches and moved fast across the cabin area to the door to unfasten it. The war wag ground on along the road, medium fast, and the young woman appeared in the doorway, running alongside before grabbing Ryan's outstretched hand. He hauled her in as more bright light tore the night apart and the war wag shuddered. Ryan slammed the door shut, cutting off the worst of the thunderous explosions that were now ripping through the convoy.
"Co-driver's seat," he yelled, hurdling sprawled bodies and diving back into the chair, snapping the brute vehicle out of auto and wrenching the wheel as another shock wave from the self-destructing convoy hammered at them.
Krysty collapsed into the seat beside him, wiping an arm across her mud— and sweat-stained face.
She gasped, "Is life with the Trader always like this?"
Chapter Eleven
The smoke from the fire coiled uneasily, circling upward among the branches of the surrounding trees. The lodgepole pine burned with a crackling intensity, spitting out sap in spluttering bursts like rifle fire. Ryan lay back against the trunk of a fallen cottonwood, watching the gray pillar of smoke as itdisappeared above him, vanishing long before it reached the top of the forest.
The wind was rising, bringing the stinging taste of a cold blue norther. The patches of sky that he could see through the trees were raven black, torn across every few minutes by the jagged silver lace of lightning. Above the crackling of the pine logs he could hear the far-off rumbling of thunder in the tall peaks of the Darks.
In the clearing around him were all the survivors of the massacre at Mocsin, sitting or lying sprawled. There had not been the time or the opportunity to save anyone outside of War Wag One. Even as Ryan had driven away, heading north and west through the sleeting rain, the heavy vehicle had rocked and twisted against the explosions of the rest of the train. The time bombs had all done their work successfully, just as they'd been designed to.
The big combat carrier now stood fifty paces away, on the edge of the rutted track. In the quiet, he could hear the clicking of the armor plate as it cooled in the evening chill. There were four or five men still on board, carrying out essential maintenance checks. Loz was clearing up after the meal of heated stew and beans. Cohn was running around the dials of his radio of many parts, trying to pick up news of pursuit.
The rest of the survivors were all around Ryan, some already asleep. Something rustled out among the pines, and Ryan's hand dropped to his pistol. Abe grinned at him from the far side of the fire.
"Only a marmot."
Abe had the best eyesight of anyone Ryan had ever met, except for muties. Ryan relaxed and lay back again, trying to ease the tension from his sinews. It had been a bad couple of days.
"Real bad," he muttered, hardly aware that he had spoken aloud.
"Very true," nodded Hovak to his left. She had the strained look around the eyes that they all had from the effects of the gassing. Her speech was slurred and the whites of her eyes were tinted pink. But she'd been luckier than some. When Ryan had finally stopped the war wag two hours out of Mocsin and helped Krysty to collect everyone together, seven of the crew hadn't made it, their hearts and lungs stilled by the nerve gas.
There was enough of a crew to operate the war wag, but if they came into a heavy combat situation, they'd be short on firepower. Ryan ticked them off on his fingers.
Apart from those in the vehicle, there were he and Krysty. The fire glinted off her vermillion hair as it rolled about her neck and shoulders where she slept on the opposite side of the clearing. Ches, the driver, and O'Mara were next, heads together, talking quietly. Kathy lay, smoking a crudely rolled tobacco cigarette, next around the rough circle. Rintoul, Hooley and Lint, were all either sleeping or sitting up and looking vacantly into the darkness. In all he made it twenty-four. It wasn't a whole lot to tackle the Deathlands.
The glitter of firelight off steel caught his eye and he saw the chubby figure of Finnegan, whittling away at a broken hunk of the dead cottonwood with his razored butcher's knife. The man saw Ryan watching him and held up the piece of wood for him.
"Recognize the bitchin' bastard?" he asked with a grin.
Even in the poor light, Ryan could make out in the rough planes of white wood the gaunt features of Cort Strasser.
That was a debt to lay on the table. A debt that would get settled one day, Ryan had no doubt. Though their situation was dismal, with so many friends and good comrades dead and stiff behind them, it was a damned long way from being desperate.
"Ryan."
"Yeah?"
"Here."
He rose and stretched, feeling the tightness of his muscles, picking up the LAPA and moving to squat down at the side of the Trader.
Over the years Ryan had seen a lot of men, good and bad, go and buy the farm. Some of them had been wiped away in the blinking of an eye, and others seemed to have death standing silently at their shoulders for weeks before the scythe had fallen.
He'd never seen that midnight reaper more clearly than he saw him now, in the gloom behind the Trader.
"That you, Ryan?"
"Yeah."
"Everyone fed?"
"Sure. You want anything?"
Trader shook his head. "Not less'n you can call back the dead. That mongrel, Strasser. We'll regroup and get us some more good men, Ryan. Then go back and wipe Mocsin off the earth."
"Sure. In time."
Trader nodded his grizzled head. The gas still had him in thrall and he coughed, his shoulders quivering with the effort. His face turned away from Ryan and the younger man heard him bring up saliva. As Ryan had already observed several times in the past year, the spittle was flecked with bright blood.
"Thirty years since me and Marsh Folsom found them war wags. Now that fire-blasted scab done 'em in. Just that one left." He coughed again, then straightened, pasting a thin-lipped smile unsteadily in place. "But one's enough, eh, Ryan?"
"Maybe. I wish J.B. was with us. Right now his miserable face'd look like the risin' sun."
Trader sighed. "They come and they go, Ryan. Heard someone say 'bout bein' here today and gone tomorrow. I seen better than fifty summers and winters come and go. I lost count of the dead."
"The dead's yesterday. Our worry is tomorrow. You certain we should go into the Darks?"
A flash of lightning seemed crimson against the pink-gray sky. The tumbling roll of thunder lasted several seconds. Behind Ryan, Rintoul threw another couple of jagged logs on the fire. Inside the war wag he could hear someone — Cohn, he thought — whistling. Trader was right. One was enough, when you had comrades with that kind of spirit.
Trader nodded. "Too many reasons, Ryan. All you told me these last days. The girl's story 'bout her folks. Then that man... what's his name?"
"Kurt? One hid up in Charlie
's?"
"Went up in the high country. Saw a fog. Then that old guy at Teague's, one you say they called Doc. He told 'bout what you could find. Called it a Redoubt. Heard the name before. And he said the fog was a way out. That right?"
Ryan nodded. He was close enough to the old man to catch the dry, sickly odor of his breath. Like the scent of an open grave.
"So we go up there and see what there is," Ryan said. "How long will it take us?"
"No more trouble from muties, stickies or Strasser, and we can be up there close to the tree line day after next. You got guards out?"
"Sure. Two on a ranged perimeter, crossing in and out. Due for a change in about ten minutes."
"Good. Give me a hand up. Want to go lie down in my bunk. Sleep that gas away. You wake me if..." Another grin, this time more convincing. "Sure you will, Ryan."
The Trader stood, gripping Ryan's wrist to steady himself. Gripping it so hard that the marks would still be livid-clear the following morning. Ryan watched him go, seeing the way that pride held the old man erect, stiff backed, all the way through the lowering trees to the steps of War Wag One. Pulling himself up and then vanishing into the cramped interior.
A touch on his shoulder made him start and he turned to stare into the green eyes of Krysty Wroth. "He's dying," she said, voice flat and calm.
"I know it. He knows it. And now I guess you know it."
"The others?"
"They don't know nothin'." He blinked and hissed through his teeth in irritation at himself. "I keep meanin' to stop that. I mean that they don't know anythin'. I've seen the blood when he coughs."
"How long's he got?"
"Year. Month. Weeks. How do I know? I'm not a medic. And Trader won't see one."
Ryan realized he was still carrying the LAPA and he tucked it back into the looped rig inside his coat. The girl stood by him, running a hand through her mane of dazzling hair, and Ryan watched her. In the flickering light of the campfire he had the momentary illusion that the red hair had a life of its own. That it had some odd sentience. It was almost as if it responded to her hand, moving in long fronds about her fingers.
