by James Axler
"Right in the cross hairs," yelped Hovak triumphantly, banging her gloved fist on the side of the seat. Ryan joined in the general chorus of cheers at her success.
Ryan picked his way to the stern of the war wag, moving Rint out of the rear observation port. Setting his eye into the soft rubber socket of the backward-facing periscope, he used the self-centering gyro system to focus on what was happening back at their camp.
The sec men were coming out of the forest, seeing their prey escaping, their ambush failed. At a word of command from the Trader the shooting had ceased, and the war wag rolled on northwest, then westward on the crumbled remains of a two-lane blacktop.
Ryan adjusted the focusing screw, turning the milled edge until the faces of their attackers swam into sharp detail. He saw the usual brutish, vulpine expressions that he knew from Baronies and communes all over the Deathlands. Small men with a taste for cruelty.
He ranged along the line, stopping at one of the sec men who pushed through to the front.
"Strasser," he breathed.
The high-definition, directional mikes at the back of the war wag were out of action, but he did not need them to know what Strasser was shouting after them. The whole set of the man's body told it all.
The gaunt body, taller than any of his men, agitated with anger. As Ryan watched him, Strasser pulled off the visored cap and threw it in the mud, kicking it with his boots. Rain glistened on the bald skull, trickling over the thin cheeks, into the host of a mustache. Ryan grinned with wolfish satisfaction as he saw there was still blood clotted around the police chief's mouth where the thrown pistol had struck him.
Strasser was shaking his fist at them. Far behind him, in the fast-brightening dawn, Ryan could make out a monstrous column of greasy smoke rising from the tomb of Jordon Teague.
The ruined tomb of Mocsin.
AS THEY DROVE STEADILY toward a kind of safety, the Trader took to his bunk once more, the rush from the action leaving him drained and sallow. Ryan organized the crew into their usual rotas, as far as was possible with their shrunken force. Only then did he find a quiet spot and sit down to relax. After a while Hunaker came to join him.
"Have a word, Ryan?"
"Yeah. What?"
The woman seemed oddly ill at ease, rubbing her cropped green hair, adjusting the slim-bladed knife on her hip.
"Come on, Hun. What's got you? Still feelin' for Ange?"
"No. Well, some I guess. She was a sweet kid and I figured we might… Oh, burn all that, Ryan, it's over and out. That's not what…"
"What?"
"When we was back in Mocsin, me and Sam an' Koll an' J.B. was talkin' and we—"
"Hun. You want me to pull your helldamned liver up through your neck?"
"No. Why d'you—"
"I'm tired. Just say it."
"Sure." With a rush, like a swimmer entering cold water. "We was talkin' 'bout you and we thought nobody knows what your name is. Ryan. Just Ryan. Got to be another name. Not even J.B. knew it."
Ryan grinned at her. "That all?"
"Yeah. You don't mind me askin' like this?"
"No. Why should I? It's Cawdor. Ryan Cawdor. Not a secret, Hun."
"Ryan Cawdor. That's not too special, is it? So how come you never told nobody before?"
"I guess because nobody ever asked me before."
They smiled at each other, a look passing between them that held a certain kind of gentleness as War Wag One, now the only war wag, ground deeper into the Darks.
Chapter Thirteen
KURT DIED JUST BEFORE SUNSET on the next day.
The flight from the blazing carnage of Mocsin and the horrible death of his only friend, Fishmouth Charlie, finally and irrevocably tipped the balance of his mind into madness. The war wag's medic, Kathy, did what she could, loading him with sleepers, but it was obvious that the shrieking had taken him over.
"Claws an' teeth! Claws an' teeth!"
Over and over and over again, even when the drugs were shutting down the lines. Even when his eyes were closed and his pulse had eased, still the peeled lips kept moving. The charred skin of the face twitched as though worms crawled through the muscles around his mouth. Always the same. Always about the fog that he'd seen, long months back, on his terrible journey into the peaked wilderness.
"Claws an' teeth."
The two-lane blacktop had given way to the broken and weed-infested concrete of a wider highway. It made for generally better motoring for the war wag, enabling Ches or Hunaker to drive on at a steady pace. All the doors were open and clean air flowed through the vehicle, purging it of the stench of sweat and death. Ahead of them, the mountains grew closer and more threatening. Their tops smoked with windblown snow.
Now and again they had to slow down because of the results of the great holocaust a hundred years before. Many times the solid road turned into corrugated ribbons of distorted stone from the effect of the nuking. Bridges were often down, embankments collapsed.
"Claws an' teeth."
Once, with Ches at the helm, face taut with concentration, they maneuvered along a ledge through an earth-slip, with less than a hand's span either side. On the right a wall of glistening gray mud, speckled with fragments of dolomitic limestone. On the left, a long, long drop to a tumbling river. The Trader was still spending most of the time in his bunk, his coughing fits audible to everyone in the war wag. J.B. and Ryan Cawdor shared the leadership of the party, taking six hours on and six off.
Apart from the Trader's declining health and Kurt's raving madness,.the war wag was running smoothly. Every cog turned as it should, and everyone knew his or her role. Krysty was wise enough to keep out of the way, offering help when she could. The only other outsider was the stranger called Doc.
Once they were safely away from Strasser and his murderous sec men, J.B. and Ryan told Koll to bring the old man to them in the nav room.
"Here he is." He deposited the shambling wreck at the door.
"Leave him be. Close that door, Koll."
Doc's fingers knotted nervously like newborn rattlers. It was the first occasion that Ryan had been able to find a little time to speak to Doc and Ryan studied him. There was something about the man…something in addition to his brain-blasted condition that Ryan could not put a finger on.
"Sit down," said J.B., motioning to one of the steel-and-canvas chairs.
"I am most obliged, sir. Most obliged."
"You're called Doc? And Teague and Strasser treated you like shit."
"Indeed, I fear that there is considerable truth in that terse observation, Mr—"
"Cawdor. I'm Ryan Cawdor. This here is J. B. Dix, the weapons master on the war wag."
Doc made a courtly bow, removing the battered hat from his thinning gray hair, which hung around his shoulders like an unhealthy growth on rotting meat. His boots were cracked and worn. The shirt was faded to the palest of yellows and his coat was torn and smeared with what looked to Ryan like gobbets of pig shit. Yet, despite all that, the old man had style.
"I'm delighted to make your acquaintances, gentlemen. Forgive me that I'm not able to show my gratitude in a more positive way, but I am temporarily a little short of funds, or I would not have hesitated… hesitated to… to seek… I fear…" His hand went to his brow and he attempted a conciliatory smile. "The words have somewhat trickled away from me down the culverts of time."
Ryan stood suddenly, intending to pass Doc a mug of water. But the old man recoiled, hands flying to cover his face against the blow.
"No, don't…!"
"Doc, I'm not goin' to burnin' hurt you. Chill that kind of idea. This isn't Mocsin."
"Ah, Mocsin. Sweet pearl set in… Do you know what Mr. Teague and Mr. Strasser made me do if I displeased them in aught?"
"We don't want to talk about that," said J.B. "We're more interested in the Darks."
But Doc wasn't to be sidetracked. Once his mind set off, there was no checking him. Not until his thoughts reached some blind corner and the
n lurched into a siding.
"I was taken to the pigpens. I…I who was once… But I disremember that." There was a momentary pause. Then he continued, in the same, deep, rich baritone voice and the peculiarly old-fashioned way of speaking. "I was stripped and made to attempt carnal union with our porcine brethren." A ghost of a smile, revealing the excellent, strong white teeth. "Perhaps sisterhood is a better turn of phrase. Only when I had succeeded in such a union was I allowed free once more. This happened many, oh, so many times."
J.B. took off his thin-rimmed glasses and busied himself polishing them. If the old man hadn't been so damned tragic, Ryan would have smiled at the unusual sight of J. B. Dix lost for words.
"How did Teague get his blubberin' claws into you?" asked Ryan.
"I believe… Ah, I fear me that such things are lost in the far-off mists."
The door opened and Krysty appeared, the brightness of her hair flooding the nav room with crimson light. "Kathy says Kurt's goin', Ryan."
Very faintly Ryan heard "Claws an' teeth" from the main part of the war wag.
"I'll be along. Thanks."
Doc bowed at the appearance of the woman. But Krysty did not notice.
"Should I absent myself, Mr. Cawdor? Cawdor… I have the feeling I have heard the name before, but I confess that I think that about many things. The price of my age."
Ryan realized that the old man's brain was nine-tenths scrambled. It was amazing after what Strasser's evilly fertile imagination had done to the old man that he still lived and functioned. But there was no hope of getting any worthwhile or reliable information out of Doc.
Maybe one day?
"You can go, Doc. Talk to you again, huh?"
"It would be my pleasure, sir." Nodding to J.B., he added, "Mr. Dix, my best wishes."
In the doorway, the old man paused. "Did I understand you to say something about our ultimate destination? Our ultima Thule, perhaps, is what you call the Darks?"
"It is." Ryan caught J.B.'s eye. Maybe this was one of the glimmerings of sanity.
"Known, I believe, as one of the great parks of the nation. One nation, in… How did it go? Glacier, that's it. That was the name of the Darks. Great hills, ice tipped. Ravines dark as graves. Water pure and clear. I think I have been to the Darks more than once." The man's brow furrowed and the eyes became veiled, their milky blues vanishing under a thin membrane.
"Doc? Go on."
"I fear I can no longer 'go on,' as you put it, Mr. Cawdor. There is nowhere to go. But in the Darks there were many wonders. Wonders of F to G and G to H and on from alpha to omega, they told me, but I saw only… Saw what, I wonder. Ah, well."
Shaking his head, Doc walked through the door, reaching behind him and softly closing it. J.B. looked at Ryan.
"I'd have said he was crazed as an out-brain mutie. Then he ups and talks like he did just."
"You think it's all mutie talk?"
"Who knows?" J.B. shrugged, reaching for his leafy, crudely packed cheroots. "One of these days I'll give these things up. I'm told they'll kill me." Through the billowing smoke he reviewed the situation. "Seems from Doc, and Kurt and Krysty, that there might be somethin' secret up there. Maybe…"
"Maybe what? Come on, J.B. What?"
"This talk about moving. Suppose there really was a transmitter of matter. I've read about things like that in old books. It was fiction, of course, not fact. But if there was… I've seen them called 'jumpers' in books. Worth thinking on, old friend. A way of getting from Deathlands to the Western Islands in the wink of an eye. Or from the Baronies out east to beyond the Big Black Water. That, instead of weeks of danger in a war wag. Think on that."
Ryan stood up. "I've got to go see Kurt."
As he moved into the corridor, he could hear the screams of the dying blaster.
"The fog. Claws an' teeth!" But the voice was now weaker.
Out of one of the ob slits, Ryan stood and watched the setting sun on the left side of the war wag. The sky was dappled pink, streaked with shades of darker, menacing maroon. There was a big wind starting up outside and all the doors had been closed, but it was still possible to hear the muted whistling of the gale. Banks of trees all around them crowded up the edges of the ruined highway, most of them with their upper branches stunted or broken by the weather.
Once the doors were battened and bolted and the ob slits locked shut, the voices in the war wag became quieter and the oppression became a tangible thing, sitting on everyone's spirits.
Now, with a man dying, hardly anyone was talking. Those on duty were busy enough, but the rest either dozed or listened to tapes through the cans. Ryan eased his way along to the tiny sick bay. Generally it was not much used. In a firefight there were rarely any wounded.
Krysty was sitting on the edge of the bunk, wiping Kurt's forehead. Even in the past few hours the man had sunk. The mouth was relaxed, the eyes open. Even the babbling had finally stopped. The eyes followed Ryan as he moved into the room.
"How is he?" asked Ryan.
It was Kurt himself who answered. "He's near finally fucked, Ryan."
"Looks that way."
He was conscious that someone had come in behind them. Out of the corner of his eye Ryan recognized the shambling figure of Doc.
"Better here than back in hellsuckin' Mocsin, Ryan," said Kurt.
"Yeah."
"Man could choose worse company than this to die in."
"Guess so. Anythin' you want?"
"Mebbe a long drink and a tall blonde. No, make that…make that two of each." There was a dreadful spasm of strained breathing and the man's whole body racked upward, mouth gaping, the air hissing in his chest. Then Kurt lay still a moment, eyes fixed to Ryan's face. Finally his eyes closed and the flurried movement of his chest ceased. Ryan glanced across at Krysty, who shook her head and reached down to pull the gray blanket up over the blackened features.
"Gone beyond the river from which no man returns," said Doc quietly.
"He's chilled, Doc. The rest is crap. Life's just somethin' you lose."
"Ah, I was meaning to ask you, Mr. Cawdor, if by any chance any of your people had come across a possession of mine."
"What possession, Doc?"
"Plural, I think. There are two of them. Past tense. Were two of them. Small, gray spheroids, about… about so big." He held his fingers apart to indicate something roughly the size of an implode-stun grenade.
"Haven't seen them. What were they?"
Just for a moment a look of foxy cunning faded across the old man's wrinkled face. And went just as quickly. "Nothing of importance, my dear sir. Nothing at all."
The war wag bumped over a particularly deep rut, making the scalpels rattle in their shallow dishes. Doc adjusted his ancient hat, which he insisted on wearing despite being inside the war wag.
"Upon my soul, but these roads are not what they once were."
Ryan's eye opened wider. "How in the big fire d'you know what they were like before the nuke-outs?"
"Slip of the tongue," said Doc hastily. "I have read of these great roads, that is all." He rubbed his eyes with the stained cuff of his frock coat. "In the Darks, there was a dreadful fog!" His voice rose to an eldritch shriek that made Krysty jump, looking around her in concern.
"Mistake," he rambled on. "Escaped. Heads rolled. Fog like… like Cerberus."
"What the fuck's that?"
"A frightful hound of many ravening heads that guards the very mouth of Hades. Oh, yes, Cerberus. That was the name of the project. Once. Then it changed. Changed. A fog, Mr. Cawdor."
"A fog, in the Darks?"
"A fog. With claws and teeth. Such claws and teeth."
EVEN IN THAT PEACEFUL, desolate land, with not a single human being seen in three whole days, there was still the presence of death.
They had been forced into a swinging detour about one of the few hot spots in the region, around what had allegedly once been a town of seventy thousand souls called Grand Falls. It had been hit by So
viet missiles for its special industrial importance and power plants, and it was still a place to avoid, its ruins toxic.
Toward evening of the following day, Ryan received the message that the Trader wanted to speak to him. It was Krysty who conveyed it to him. With every day that passed the girl looked in better and better shape, all the horrors now behind her. She was wearing pale green overalls, with a bandolier of ammunition for her pistol that was crossed over with a broad leather belt that carried three leaf-bladed throwing knives. A larger knife hung on her right hip with a counter-draw holster for the automatic on the left side of the belt. The fiery hair was bright and lustrous, tumbling nearly to her narrow waist. The top of the overall was unbuttoned, showing the shadow of her breasts.
Ryan Cawdor found it increasingly difficult to conceal his desire for her. Asking himself whether it was desire or whether it was lust. The word love never entered his mind.
He followed her through the war wag, conscious of the click of the heels of her polished high boots and the movement of her buttocks against her outfit.
Doc was leaning against a wall near the Trader's cabin, his eyes hooded and far away. As Ryan squeezed by him, Doc spoke quietly.
"After the missiles had fallen, and the forty-fourth President was up in the 767, how did he begin his message to the States?"
Ryan pursed his lips. What went on under that craggy brow? Madness, or hidden intelligence?
"How did he begin his speech, Doc?"
"My fellow American! You understand it, Mr. Cawdor? In the singular. My fellow American!"
The cackling laughter followed him as Ryan stooped to enter the Trader's cramped room. He was met with the sour smell of illness. By the side of the bunk was a porcelain bowl splattered with blood and spittle. Torn rags, also stained crimson, lay on the floor. The Trader had always been a man of the fiercest pride, and now all that was done as his race neared its ending.
"Close the door, Ryan. I figure another two days at the most and we'll be in the Darks. I can taste the thin air. You know what to do?"
They had discussed the options, with J.B. sitting in, over the past three days, trying to cover every eventuality. Now there was no more planning or talking to do.
