by James Axler
Doc made a halfhearted effort to stifle a belch. "I do most beg your pardon, friends. My rumbling abdominal is simply phenomenal. Run rabbit, run." He belched again, turning it into a sort of part-muffled cough.
"Think it's time we got moving, Ryan." Mildred yawned and stretched. "Help this disgusting old man to get his gastric juices flowing."
As they all stood and readied themselves to get back on the trail, there was a distant rumble of thunder. Through occasional gaps in the swaying high branches, it was possible to see, far north and west, a belt of pewter clouds, scarred and seamed with purple-pink chem lightning.
"Tall pines like this must be vulnerable to lightning strikes," Mildred stated. "We going to try and make it to the old national park and see the really big trees?"
"I'd like that. How about you, lover?"
Ryan grinned. "Sure."
FUELED BY THE RABBIT MEAT, they made good time along the old highway, pressing on through the clear air, gradually climbing higher.
Doc suddenly stopped and sat down, pressing his knuckles to his temples, eyes squeezed tight shut.
"By the Three Kennedys! But I have the most demonic headache."
"Could be altitude sickness," Mildred said, kneeling by Doc. "Any other symptoms?"
"Little tired. Breath short. Nausea. What more can I tell you, madam?"
The woman patted him on the shoulder. "Told me enough, Doc."
"What sort of height are we at?" Krysty asked. "Feel like eight thousand or so."
J.B. checked his pocket comp sextant, which had a reading on height above sea level. "Seven thousand nine hundred. Mebbe we could stop early for the night and take a rest. Give Doc chance to acclimate before we climb higher."
"I am sorry to be such a crashing bore," the old man muttered. "I can hear my pulse beating in my ears. A most unpleasant sensation."
"Rest's best." Mildred glanced over at Ryan. "Could be that he'll be real sick if we don't take a break. Stop for the night now, maybe?"
He looked around. The trail wound temporarily downhill, rippled by the quakes of skydark, lined with scarlet Indian paintbrush, and Sierra poppies, blazing orange against the dark green forest.
"Fine," he said. "Should be water close by. If Doc can make it, we'll take it slow and steady, then camp once we find the river again."
AFTER THEIR ENCOUNTER with the Apaches, Ryan kept them to a strict skirmish line, going on point himself. With only one eye, his peripheral vision was strictly limited, and he walked cautiously, head constantly turning.
Doc seemed to recover a little, stalking along, ferrule of his cane clicking on the blacktop, the wind ruffling his silvery hair. The temperature had dropped, and the sky was once more darkening ahead of them.
From a few steps behind him, Krysty drew Ryan's attention to a figurine fixed to the flank of a stout, lightning-split pine just off the trail to the right.
"Not the Children of the Rock again?" He stopped and peered at the mannequin. It looked like it had once been a child's toy, but it was stripped naked, with a coil of razored barbed wire wrapped around its sexless loins. Daubs of paint represented blood, as though it had been flogged.
It was crucified, upside down, to the tree, steel pins through the center of each hand and through the crossed ankles. The face was oddly blank, with a water-stained crew cut, indifferent to the myriad tortures the body was suffering.
"Some sickos around here," Mildred said. "Look at the burn marks around the groin."
"It much resembles some sort of religious totem," Doc suggested.
Ryan nodded slowly. "Could be. Seen similar things all over Deathlands."
"Sicko," repeated Mildred, turning away from the tree in disgust.
"Seen animals impaled in swamps," Jak said. "Voodoo medicine."
Doc was breathing hard, his face pale, holding his chest. "Forgive me, but there has been talk of stopping early to take a good rest? I would appreciate that."
"Fine." Ryan looked around. "We'll get a distance away from this place, then camp."
Chapter Eight
It was a peaceful night. They had a tiny fire, glowing bright in the darkness while they sat around it, talking of old days, old stories.
The conversation had turned to the weather. It was obvious there was a storm brewing. J.B. told the tale that Ryan knew from the Trader days, about a sudden tornado in the open plains of old Kansas.
"Sky had gone dark as a beaver hat. Wind rising over the prairie from the north, tasting of winter ice. Flurry of hail pattered down, hard enough to sting if it hit you in the face. The cattle and horses on the farms all spooked, sensing that something bad was coming down on them."
Krysty reached across and tossed a length of broken, dried timber onto the fire, sending a column of golden sparks into the velvet sky.
"There was this guy, had a wife and three little children. They only moved there a few months earlier, from Montclair in Jersey. He thought he knew everything, did Jerzy Pollinger. Fat, with a thin little voice, like a spoiled child. He hadn't listened to the locals who warned him to build well and solid, with a decent storm cellar for shelter against the tornadoes."
"I recall that a cousin of mine was once trapped in a tornado," Doc began, then looked across at the Armorer. "A thousand apologies, dear friend. I have interrupted you in your story, have I not? Pray proceed."
"Sure, Doc, thanks. One day, with this storm threatening, Jerzy was looking across the windswept plains. Always a wind in Kansas. Drives folks insane. And out in the distance, where the sky meets the land, he saw the beginnings of a twister. Fat and sullen. Wide bellied near the top, sweeping down to a sucking mouth, maybe fifty paces across."
"That all?" Jak asked. "We never got them in swamps."
J.B. looked across the fire at the white-faced youth. "Sure. Mile across at the top. This one was shimmying and advancing toward Jerzy's farm. The air was still all around, but you could hear the storm advancing, rumbling on. Jerzy's wife, Lorena, came out and gave a feeble, despairing sort of cry when she saw death rolling in their direction. By now it was less than a mile off."
Dean lifted a hand to his face and barely managed to smother a yawn. Something large, with white wings, came swooping down from the highest branches, through the clearing, swooping only a few feet above the group of friends, making all of them duck. Then it vanished, twisting and weaving between the trees, before anyone could see it properly.
J.B. carried on with his story. "Jerzy looked around their yard, desperately seeking somewhere to hide from the ravening monster heading their way. He spotted the deep well, bucket hauled up and hooked off at the top. Called out to his wife to look after the children and ran to the well. He hopped over the rim and let himself down, vanishing from sight. Lorena cursed him as she stood there, helpless, knowing that if he'd waited they could have gotten into the well and likely been saved. But as it was, his action had doomed them all to almost certain death."
"What a bastard," Krysty said. "Should have—"
J.B. took off his glasses and polished them carefully on his sleeve, holding up his other hand to quiet her. "Just wait, Krysty."
"Sorry. Go on."
"Lorena saw nowhere to hide. Just a broken-down concrete culvert that used to be part of the cattle-feeding system, way back before skydark. She caught hold of the little ones and dragged them after her, screaming and crying, and squeezed herself under the old trough, pulling them after her, holding them as tight as tight could be. Keeping her face down, she told them to close their eyes tight shut, say a prayer, and waited for the end."
Mildred was sitting close to the Armorer and now she reached out and gripped his hand, huddling herself close to him. "Sounds like a story that'll end in tears, John," she commented.
He didn't answer her. "The tornado came down on top of them, sucking and howling like a banshee. Louder than the loudest thunder, she said. It sort of skirted past the house, sucking out the windows, but leaving the roof intact. Then it brushed past t
hem and tugged at Lorena, ripping off most of her clothes, the sand scouring at her skin. She could feel the children crying out. Not hear them. Felt them. Then, just as suddenly as it arrived, the twister was gone again. She bunked open her eyes and looked out and saw it tunneling its way across the prairie, off toward the east. And she could make out bits of rubbish and branches and chunks of stuff flying around in it."
"I heard tell of slivers of straw being driven clean through stout trees," Doc said.
J.B. nodded. "True enough, Doc. Anyway, Lorena got herself up and dusted herself and the children down and went to look for her cowardly husband, fully intending to give him a real piece of her mind."
"Hear, hear," Ryan said, even though he knew the end of the story.
"She reaches the well and peers down into it. Now the clouds have broken up and there's bright sunlight, illuminating right to the bottom of that well. And all the water's gone. Bone-dry. Sucked clear out from the bottom. Bucket and chain gone. Jerzy Pollinger gone. And they never saw hide nor hair of him again, from that day to this. Plain vanished."
There was a ripple of applause from the others, sitting around the smoldering embers of the fire.
"Excellent tale, John Barrymore," Doc said. "Upon my soul but I have seldom heard a more moral story, so finely narrated. Divine vengeance, indeed."
"Listen," Jak said suddenly. Everyone fell instantly silent, straining to hear the noise that had attracted the attention of the teenager, listening for some sound above the gentle murmur of the dying campfire. At first, there was nothing.
"I hear it," Krysty said, brushing back an errant tendril of her fiery hair. "Singing. No, more like chanting. Quite close. Other side of river."
Jak stood, uncoiling with the ease of a serpent. "Yeah."
Now all of them could make it out.
"Reminds me wondrously of the Gregorian chant of monks at their devotions," Doc said.
Krysty stood, looking across at the old man. "Yeah. I can hear what you mean. Sort of spiritual and chilling at the same time."
"Not the kind of church singing that I'm used to," Mildred said. "Too much head in it and not enough heart. Real cold and scary."
"We goin' to take a look?" J.B. asked.
Ryan thought about it. "Could be something to do with that crucified, tortured doll back there. Might be safer to stay where we are and keep quiet."
"I'd like to take me a look, lover."
He sighed. "Guess there can't be any harm if we keep under cover. No noises. Doc?"
"Yes, my dear fellow?"
"That especially means you."
Doc looked hurt. "I can walk just as silent as a vaporous midnight dream picking its tippy-toed way through an endless beach of soft sand, my dear Ryan. When the occasion merits it, that is, of course."
"Then do it, Doc. Do it. There's something about that noise I don't much like."
THEY HEARD THE FIRST SCREAM when they'd only moved about a hundred yards through the woods, a single piercing shriek of gut-wrenching, jagged pain, almost instantly muffled.
"Could be you were right, Ryan," Mildred said, eyes gleaming in the dappled moonlight. "Maybe this falls under the category of not our business."
"Someone out there getting goose cooked." Jak's hair blazed like a magnesium torch in the gloom. His eyes glowed like living rubies.
"Can't be too far away from here." Ryan paused and listened. It might have been his imagination, but the singers seemed to have missed a beat when the cry came before resuming their dogged, droning chorus.
"I vote for going on." Krysty looked around. "How's anyone else feel?"
The decision was unanimous.
AS THEY MOVED SLOWLY through the forest, the sky was clouding over, veiling the moon. It grew suddenly cooler and the wind began to rise from the north, disturbing the topmost branches of the old pines.
Though the scream had seemed to come from not far away, they had been walking for several minutes without a sign or sound of anything.
Ryan held up his hand, bringing the others huddling around him. "Anyone hear anything? Krysty? Can you feel anything out there in the dark?"
"Nothing, lover. Nothing really positive. Just a sort of a vague sense of the dark forces of chaos." She pointed ahead of them, to where the narrow hunting trail wound alongside the river. "There. That way."
The singing had stopped, and there was only the rising breeze, slicing through the woods.
Ryan beckoned them on, picking his way carefully along the overgrown path, knowing that a false step could easily leave one of them with a twisted ankle or worse.
The chanting suddenly resumed, so near in front of them that it made Ryan jump with surprise. He stopped immediately, shading his eye and peering through the blackness, catching a glimpse of glowing fire, less than a hundred yards ahead. As he stared intently at the flickering flames, he could make out several figures moving back and forth against the light.
"Not muties," Krysty whispered.
"What's that cracking noise?" Dean asked curiously.
"Sounds like small-gauge blaster shots. Or firecrackers," J.B. suggested.
"If I might cast my beaver into the ring," Doc said, clearing his throat, "I am of the opinion that the noise is actually the sound of a lash striking sullen human flesh." He shrugged. "Though I may be in error."
Ryan nodded. "Could be right, Doc. Whipping."
THE WIND VEERED, bringing a fountain of crimson-and-golden sparks from the large fire that stood at the center of a clearing, about twenty paces in width. Ryan felt a thin flurry of rain strike his cheeks as he crouched in the shelter of some thorn bushes.
Smoke was drifting toward them, bitter and acrid, the scent of pine, overlaid with some sort of herbs. Ryan covered his mouth, taken with the desire to cough.
If it came to a firefight, he guessed they would be able to win easily enough, against eighteen naked men and women. But there was no way of knowing whether there was a ville nearby, perhaps with dozens of armed men.
It still wasn't possible to determine the focus of the shuffling snake of people. Each of them held a short-hilted, multilashed whip, which they were using on the back of a person in front of them, giving rise to the wet, sticky sound that Doc had correctly identified. In the flickering light of the big fire, it was easy to see the tendrils of dark blood that were trickling down over the glistening buttocks of each of the participants in the ceremony. But their eyes seemed fixed on something or someone that was out of sight of Ryan and the others. It seemed to be something attached or standing against a broad oak that had its back to Ryan and the watchers.
"We'll move around the edge of the clearing. See what we can see," he whispered, gesturing to the others.
As he led the way, the powerful SIG-Sauer cocked in his right hand, finger on the trigger, Ryan came close to inadvertently opening fire. He was suddenly aware of a creature of some kind, snaking unexpectedly from the leaf mold beneath his boots, a reptile that appeared to have dozens of tiny, stubby legs, carrying it sinuously across the trail, its iridescent orange scales damp with the steadily falling rain.
The singing was growing louder and faster, gathering momentum, the shuffling figures moving more quickly, the blood-clotted lashes rising and falling. Ryan realized now what the ragged, panted words were. It was the old, old hymn about meeting at the river, the river that flows by the throne of God.
The cold rain was coming with serious intent, slanting down, filtering through the pine needles, dripping onto the forest floor all round them. Ryan could catch the sound of the drops hissing off the burning logs.
Finally he could see the center of attraction fixed to the trunk of the oak tree.
It was uncannily like the little plastic figure that they had seen crucified upside down. Only this figure wasn't made of plastic.
Chapter Nine
"Jesus Christ!" Mildred was so close to Ryan that he could almost feel her revulsion, sensing her swallowing hard, seeking to avoid throwing up.
<
br /> "Goodness, gracious me," Doc said, his voice surprisingly mild, considering the horror of the spectacle that the firelight revealed to them.
"Dad, how could they do that to someone?" Dean asked, transfixed by the horrible sight.
It was exactly like the tortured mannequin that they had seen earlier, a naked male, upside down, head dangling toward a pile of dry brushwood beneath the long dark hair. The heads of iron nails glittered at the center of both spread palms. Another, longer spike had been hammered bloodily through the crossed ankles, splintering the bones.
His eyes had been either burned or gouged from their sockets. It was difficult to see, among the dancing shadows, whether the dark caverns were filled with ashes or with clotted blood. The fingers dangled limply, all broken and wrenched out of place. It looked as though the wretch's knees had both been broken with a sledgehammer.
The pallid skin was marked with a number of slicing cuts and purpled bruises, indicating a lengthy period of torture over the previous few hours.
Ryan brushed a few drops of rain from his face. Clearing his vision, he saw that the hideous burning of the plastic man's groin was reproduced here for real. The genitals had been severed, a torn hole filled with congealed blood all that remained of the victim's manhood.
"We could take them all out," J.B. whispered, shoulder pressing against Ryan's arm.
As the rain grew heavier, the cavorting naked figures seemed to be slowing. The singing became even more ragged, their flagellation less frenzied. The water mingled with the streaks of splattered blood, turning it pink, sending it flowing all the way across emaciated bellies and wrinkled thighs and down over the bare feet.
The fire was dying under the torrential downpour, the light sinking in the clearing.
Ryan wondered whether there was any point at all in interfering. The sacrificial prey was doomed. The kindest thing would be to put a 9 mm bullet through his skull and end his suffering.
