Crucible of Time

by James Axler

  "Most national parks did," the Armorer stated. "Visitor centers and motels and chalets. All kinds of accommodation. Just keep going along this trail here and we're bound to come across something."

  THE SIGN WAS crudely painted, white lettering daubed with scant respect for spelling, across a broken hunk of dark blue plastic, about four feet square: Mom's Fyness Jerkiee. Best In Weste. Just The Myle A Long This Trayle.

  " 'Mom's finest jerky,' " Jak read slowly. "That what says?"

  Ryan nodded. "Close enough. A mile along the trail. Hope the cooking's better than the writing."

  "We going to risk it?" J.B. pushed back his hat, glancing up at the lowering sky. "Got to be getting closer to the HQ of these mysterious Children of the Rock."

  Ryan sniffed. "Step careful. Recce on the way in. We should have enough firepower to take on most hostiles."

  "A mile on." Mildred looked over at Doc, who was blowing his nose vigorously into his blue swallow's-eye kerchief. "You all right?"

  He turned bleary eyes toward her. "I would be the first to admit that my health has deteriorated a little within the last few minutes, Dr. Wyeth. A closeness of the chest and tightness in the throat." He coughed again. "And a pernicious trembling in the joints."

  "You well enough to carry on a ways, Doc?" Ryan asked. "To this Mom's place?"

  "I believe so. Let us put the issue to the testing place, shall we?"

  Ryan grinned. As long as the old man could still talk like that, then he couldn't be feeling too bad. "Fine. Let's move onto extended skirmish line, friends. Condition red."

  A CLOUD OF DRIZZLE swept through the dripping pines, as cold as charity. Ryan, leading the way, almost missed the second notice, tipped on one side like a drunkard's dream, half-hidden among some long-thorned brambles: Mom Jerkee. Ahed On Ryte. Soon.

  The rain had stopped almost as quickly as it had started, leaving the trail dotted with silvery puddles among the wag-rutted mud.

  The sky was like unpolished pewter, dismal and oppressive, casting deep shadows beneath the trees that pressed up against the edges of the track. The movement caught Ryan's eye. His hand dropped in a conditioned combat reflex onto the chill butt of the SIG-Sauer as he half turned, crouching slightly, perfectly balanced.

  Behind him, everyone reacted fast—everyone except Doc, who was busily involved in blowing his nose again. Blasters were drawn, and everyone stopped, looking around them.

  In among the blackness, Ryan caught another flicker of deeper darkness, the glint of golden eyes. Now his blaster was drawn and cocked. Doc muffled a liquid cough, fumbling the massive Le Mat from its deep-cut holster.

  "What is it, dear boy?" he whispered. Ryan gestured for silence, concentrating on whatever it was that had snatched his attention. The creature was larger than a beaver and smaller than a hunting dog, short legged with a long scaly tail glistening wetly behind it. It moved slowly, parallel to the blacktop.

  His very first thought had been a cougar, but it didn't seem to be making any attempt to conceal itself from him. There was something in the way it moved that put him in mind of a rat, but he'd never seen a rat that size, not even in the mutie rad-cancered hot spots in the bleakest wilderness of Deathlands.

  "Other side," J.B. whispered, pointing with the stubby muzzle of the Uzi.

  Whatever the creature was, there were two more of them on the left side of the trail.

  Ryan stood still and waited.

  "By the…" Doc's voice faded into silence, the words vanishing.

  Ryan felt his finger tighten on the trigger of the blaster, the barrel of the SIG-Sauer swinging to cover the nearest of the creatures as it came lumbering out from the dark fringe of the forest.

  It was a rat.

  At least, before the rad sickness burned its way into the genetic codes of its ancestors, it had to once have been an ordinary domestic rat, the sort of rodent that would have skulked in barns and outbuildings and moist cellars.

  But several generations over the long winters and the subsequent century had changed it into the monstrous apparition that fumbled its way onto the blacktop, less than thirty yards from Ryan.

  It moved slowly, its overgrown claws ticking on the gravel. Its pelt was a bizarre cross between scales and fur, oddly charred. The tail was covered in leprous patches of flaking, infected skin. Its head turned slowly from side to side, trembling with some kind of frightful ague.

  The skull was blackened and elongated, earless, ending in a running sore where the nose would have been on a normal animal. The hooded eyes were pale yellow, crusted with a hard white froth. The lower jaw was underslung, gaping open with a triple row of stained, serrated teeth showing between the swollen, obscenely delicate pink lips.

  Ryan guessed that its body was around four feet in length, with an extra five or six feet of twitching tail.

  "Look left," J.B. breathed, his voice suddenly hoarse and high.

  There were two more of the monstrous rodents, creeping slowly out from the undergrowth to join the other mutie, where all three stood together, their weeping eyes locked to the seven invaders into their territory.

  Ryan looked cautiously around, checking that there didn't seem to be any more of the giant rats, trying to decide whether it was best to let them go unharmed, or to wipe the face of the earth a little cleaner by chilling them.

  There was always the risk of gunshots attracting the wrong kind of interest.

  The mutie rats didn't seem able to decide what to do. Threaten or retreat?

  "Let's terminate them," Mildred whispered, a few paces behind Ryan.

  "They're monsters, Dad!" exclaimed Dean, unleathering his blaster.

  The rats were so disgusting that Ryan felt his instincts taking over from common sense.

  The SIG-Sauer had a built-in baffle silencer that he'd replaced some months earlier. It wasn't as efficient as it had once been, but it was still better than nothing.

  "I'll take them," he said. "Mildred, stand ready to pick up anything I miss. Once I start shooting, them there's no turning back."

  The three creatures were still huddled together, eyes staring incuriously toward them. The golden eyes were oddly dead, showing no emotion, like a great white shark's. The long, crusted tails were whipping from side to side, as though they were considering making a charge.

  "Fireblast!" Ryan said quietly. He leveled the pistol, steadying his right wrist with his left hand, standing in the middle of the blacktop, legs slightly apart, in the classic shootist's crouch.

  The first of the powerful 9 mm rounds hit the leading rat through the side of the head, just below the dripping orifice where its left ear would have been. The jolt of the explosion ran clear to Ryan's shoulder, but the noise of the shot was satisfyingly muffled.

  The mutie squealed, like a buzz saw slicing through a sheet of plate glass. It rolled on its side, legs kicking up a spray of slurried mud, blood jetting from its shattered skull, shards of bone dappling the ground.

  Ryan didn't wait to see how successful his shot had been. He knew that it was a terminal hit.

  Shifting his aim a little to the left, he centered the foresight on the throat of the second of the monster rodents, squeezing, steadying the blaster and firing a third round. The full-metal-jacketed bullet hit the last of the vile trio in the chest as it began to turn toward him.

  In less than five seconds, all three of the mutie rats were down and done for. One choked on its own sluggish blood, as it scrabbled to try to get back on its paws, but all the lines were permanently down.

  The second had simply slumped down, chest and belly in the dirt, dimming eyes staring vacantly ahead into the walls of the dark forest.

  The last of them made a halfhearted effort to pull itself deeper into cover, but thick blood pumped from the gaping exit wound. The bullet had splintered the spine, paralyzing the stumpy rear legs. It was making a feeble, mewing sound, like a drowning kitten, its tail lashing from side to side, banging against the fungus-covered stump of a diseased sy
camore. Chunks of flesh fell from it, ripped off, scaled and revolting, sending a spray of dull crimson across the trail.

  "Pretty shooting, lover," Krysty commented, relaxing her breath in a loud sigh.

  Ryan nodded slowly, holstering the warm blaster. "Sound of the shots shouldn't travel too far through thick trees. Not with the silencer."

  Doc sneezed, doubled over and sneezed again, groaning as he put away the big Le Mat and reached for his kerchief.

  And a fourth rat came rushing out of the shadows of the forest, a little behind the group of friends, heading straight toward Ryan.

  The mutie resembled a scuttling, burned log, clawed feet kicking up the slimy mud. Its razored teeth were bared, saliva drooling over the matted hair of its muscular chest.

  Mildred was quickest to react. She hadn't holstered her target revolver, but was still holding it by the checked grips, the barrel pointing down at her side.

  "Mine!" she yelled, dodging to the right to avoid shooting Doc, bringing the blaster up to the aim. But she hadn't taken into account the treacherousness of the earth under her combat boots, and she slipped over to her left, momentarily off balance. Triggering off a .38 at the charging mutie rat. The bullet gouged up a chunk of dirt six or seven inches from the questing muzzle, making it jink sideways and hesitate for a moment.

  Ryan was reaching for his own blaster as he saw his death closing in on him, crazed yellow eyes fixed to his face, greasy fur glistening with damp.

  The moment's hesitation gave Mildred the fraction of a second that she needed.

  Still unsteady, she snapped off a second round at the giant rat, the bullet narrowly missing the base of the skull, where she'd aimed. But it still hit home in the left shoulder, knocking the creature over, rolling and squealing in the trampled dirt.

  It was less than six feet from Ryan, and it was simple for him to aim at the writhing creature and put a big 9 mm round through its spine, halfway along its body, paralyzing it.

  "Any more?" he asked, surprised at how calm his voice seemed to sound.

  Jak and Dean answered simultaneously. "No."

  The last of the vermin was struggling to turn its head to snap at Ryan, and he reached for the big panga on his hip. Shaking his head at the thought of the clean steel being contaminated by the blood and sinew of the vile mutie rodent, he fired another round into the angular skull, chilling it instantly, whistling softly between his teeth as he replaced the SIG-Sauer in its holster.

  "Good shooting, Mildred. Thanks."

  She nodded and grinned, shaking her head in wonderment at the size of the quartet of massive rats. "Welcome."

  "Big fuckers," Jak stated, looking down at the four corpses. "Biggest ever saw."

  "Same here." Ryan stood still and quiet, listening for any sound of activity from anywhere around them. But the noise of the shooting and the dying animals' cries had driven the wildlife into silence.

  Doc sneezed, blinking as he did so. "Bless me, father, for I have sinned."

  "Don't start again, Doc," Mildred warned. "Just seal it in a can, will you?"

  "Apologies, my dear Doctor."

  "Now what, lover?"

  "Head on for Mom's place and try her advertised jerky?" Ryan replied.

  Krysty smiled, her teeth dazzling in the gloom of the limitless forest. "Yeah."

  The Armorer stopped, head to one side, taking in several deep breaths. "Now, that smells real good," he said. "Sets the old taste buds tingling."

  "Mom's jerky?" Mildred said.

  "Gotta be."

  Dean grinned. "With baked potatoes or creamed rice or a mess of whipped potatoes or refried beans or—"

  Ryan lifted a warning hand. "That's enough, son. But it sure does smell fine."

  The taste of cooking meat was drifting through the pines from almost directly ahead of them. There was a faint haze of whitish smoke, hanging at the level of the drooping lower branches. As they stood there, grouped close together, they all heard a sudden burst of loud, raucous laughter, sounding about fifty yards away, along the blacktop.

  Ryan looked around at the others. "Got to be Mom's Place. Let's go and see what it's like." He paused a moment. "And let's keep alert out there."

  Chapter Thirteen

  It was a squat log cabin. The roof looked like it had collapsed several times and on each occasion had been rebuilt with a little less care and attention. Moss grew thick between the heavy timbers, and all kinds of fungus sprouted down along the broken guttering.

  There was a hitching rail just outside the lopsided front porch, with three spavined mares and a crook-back mule tethered there.

  A hand-painted sign nailed to the wall, by the single cobwebbed window, proclaimed the single word Mom. It seemed to have been there for a number of years, cracked and heavily weather stained.

  The door was ajar, and they heard another roar of laughter from inside.

  Lively conversation stopped the moment Ryan, leading the others, pushed his way inside the small restaurant.

  It took a few moments to acclimate his vision to the darkness. There were about six tables, each one with a smoking oil lamp at its center. Half of them were occupied.

  At first glance it didn't look like there was a woman in the place. Two men sat at the table nearest the door, middle-aged, wearing a ragged assortment of furs. The next table had a single man, much older, white bearded, dressed in sober black. The last table had a trio of younger men, all of whom wore white cotton shirts and pants of light brushed denim. Ryan noticed that they each wore identical chisel-toed Western boots in polished black snakeskin.

  From habit he also noticed what kind of weaponry was on display.

  The pair of hunters had long-barreled Kentucky muskets leaning against the wall by their chairs. The older man didn't appear to be carrying any kind of blaster, but Ryan had a sneaking suspicion that he might be sporting a hideaway derringer, spring-loaded against his forearm. The trio at the last table didn't seem to be wearing any sort of blaster.

  "Hi, strangers!" The voice was deep and hoarse, floating out from the darkness behind the bar that ran along the farther wall of the cabin, and carried the flavor of too many black cigars and too much bootleg liquor. It was impossible to tell whether the voice belonged to a man or a woman.

  "Hi, there," Ryan replied casually, his hand resting informally on the butt of the SIG-Sauer. "This'd be Mom's Place, would it?"

  A throaty laugh. "This downright would, mister, and what's more to the point, I would be Mom."

  The figure moved sideways into the light of a gently swinging brass lamp. Mom was close to five feet ten inches tall and looked like she'd tip the scales somewhere around the 250 mark. Her grizzled hair was cropped shorter than of most men, and she wore a plaid shirt about three sizes too small, bursting open across the front. Ryan put her at about forty years of age, with the etched lines around her mouth and puffy, watery eyes that bespoke a heavy drinker.

  "Seen enough, mister?" An acerbic note of hostility crept into the voice.

  "Didn't mean to stare, lady. Just that you're about the first human we've seen for quite a few days. You serve food here? Jerky?"

  "Seen the 'rising signs, have you? Well, I like to say this is the best jerky east of the Cific Ocean. Right here on God's little acre."

  "Sounds good. What's it come with?"

  "What would you like it to come with?"

  Jak answered, from just behind Ryan. "Beans and heap whipped potatoes."

  "Christ on a mule, child!" she exclaimed, catching sight of the albino teenager, the fading sunlight spearing through a window into the mane of snowy hair. "When the Lord Jesus made you, he must've been having a kind of an off day."

  "Amen to that," added one of the young men, his words echoed by his two companions. All three of them crossed themselves, eyes never leaving the companions.

  The pair of trappers both laughed loudly, the same noise that Ryan had heard from outside the isolated eatery. He also noticed that each of them had sh
ifted a little in their chairs, to be that much closer to their flintlock muskets.

  "Don't think funny," Jak said, thin lipped. His hand was a long way off from the butt of the Colt Python. But, Ryan knew, it was near enough to the taped hilt of one of his concealed throwing knives.

  "Take it easy, Jak," he said quietly. "No point in forcing blood."

  The woman had sensed the sudden tension and moved a couple of steps to her right, hands disappearing behind the bar. Ryan would have staked a fistful of jack that she had a sawed-down scattergun there.

  "Everything cool, strangers?"

  Ryan nodded to her. "Everything's fine. Dry handed. All right if we set down?"

  "Sure. Make yourself at home. Jerky and beans and creamed potatoes all around?"

  Ryan glanced at the others, getting nods from everyone. "Sounds fine."

  "You come far, mister?" the old man asked as they arranged themselves at two of the remaining tables.

  "Enough. We're traders. Travel in clothes of all sorts. Had us some bad luck. Lost our rig into a swollen river about three days back. South of here."

  Mom had been on her way through a pair of dirty bat-wing doors toward the kitchen out back. Now she halted. "That mean you're out of jack?"

  "No."

  "Sure?"

  Ryan nodded. "Sure I'm sure."

  "We had us some trouble with outlanders. Ate their fill and then sat there calm as sunshine on a cloudy day and told me they can't pay."

  "What happened to them?" J.B. asked, assiduously polishing his glasses on a corner of the check tablecloth.

  "They paid."

  The taller of the trappers finished the dregs of a mug in front of him. "Everyone gets to pay at Mom's Place. One fuckin' way or another."

  He laughed, joined by his companion. Ryan observed that none of the three younger men at the table together had shown a flicker of expression since they came in.

  "You boys done?" the woman asked. "Want it added on your slate?"

  Chairs scraped back, and the muskets were picked up. "Yeah, Mom. Be good. We'll be back in ten days."

  "Unless the Apaches get you first," the old man said quietly.