Deathlands - The Twilight Children

by James Axler

  Abe remembered the last one, just before they moved out of the ghostly chamel house, into the cleaner air of the Cascades. It had been a skinny, hard-eyed man who carried blasters. He had a small black-and-white pony, with a number of handmades and rebuilds in his saddlebags. He was off on his annual trip to the Northeast the next morning, traveling alone across the windswept solitude of the high plains country, through the Dakotas and south of the Great Lakes into New England.

  They'd come across him sitting by a small fire, backed into the corner of a broken wall, in a place the locals called Gasworks Park, with rusting metal pipes and tanks, many of them still showing the faded graffiti of the predark era. One said, inexplicably, Grunge Lives. Neither Abe nor the Trader had ever come across anyone whose name was Grunge.

  They had explained to the gun trader that they were trying to get in touch with a group of old friends, that they didn't know where in all Deathlands they might be, but they wanted a message delivered to them.

  Lonnie had asked for jack. Trader had worked the action on the Armalite and the gun dealer had agreed that he'd be real happy to do it for nothing.

  "Man with one eye. Name of Ryan Cawdor."

  "Funny to give a name to an eye," Lonnie commented.

  Abe had ignored him. "Woman with hair redder than the best chem sunset you ever saw. Skinny little guy with glasses and battered fedora hat. Called J. B. Dix. And don't say that you think it's funny to give a name to a hat. Black woman with plaited hair. Mildred Wyeth. Two younger ones. Little kid called Dean, aged around eleven or twelve. And a teen called Michael Brother. Oh, yeah. And there's a double-crazie old guy called Doc Tanner. You see them you'll know them."

  They'd sat around for most of the night, talking about places they'd been, frontier gaudies and bars that they all knew, shootists and sluts. Some of them chilled. Some alive.

  They'd parted company in the morning, with Trader giving Lonnie a final warning. "Deathlands is really a triple-small place, friend. I ever get to hear that you met up with Ryan Cawdor and didn't pass on our message, then I'd make certain sure you knew it was a bad move."

  THE LAND WAS RICH IN GAME, and the living for the two men was easy. At one point it looked like they were running low on ammo, and they'd killed a fine eighteen-point deer and hauled it to the local store. The owner was a middle-aged woman with an ugly skin condition, and she hadn't been keen to take the venison in exchange for bullets.

  Trader looked around the shop, noticing a glass display case filled with delicate porcelain dolls, all wearing old-fashioned costumes.

  " Pretty, those."

  "Sure. My pride and joy. Want a look?" She went over and opened the cabinet, taking out an Oriental doll in a silk kimono. The pock-marked woman had handled it as though it were a new-hatched butterfly, smiling down at it. Her face had become transfigured, making her seem almost beautiful.

  Trader reached out for it, but she pulled back.

  "I'll be real careful," he said, brushing with a long forefinger at the sleek, black hair of the doll. "Truly is a work of art, ma'am."

  "Please don't squeeze her too hard or muss up her dress, mister."

  "We was talking about some ammo for this," he said, gesturing with the doll toward his own Armalite. "And for the big blaster of my little friend with the mustache. Few .357s and he'll be happy as a hog in muck."

  "I don't trade much, mister." Her face showed her worry. "Mostly straight jack deals. That venison sure looks good, but I got no need for it."

  "Could be making a mistake, lady."

  "How's that?"

  For a moment Abe had expected Trader to pluck the head off the Japanese doll and crush it underfoot, or take the butt of the rifle and destroy the entire cabinet.

  "Anyone could ride on by and all they want is a haunch of good deer meat. And you'd have to disappoint them and who knows what kind of damage they might do."

  "If they started to.. .if anyone started to do some harm to me or anything in this store, then my three sons would take that plenty ill, mister."

  "That so?" Trader stood very still, his head slightly on one side, listening. "I hear the wind through the

  trees. Stream running fast some place out back. And you got some hungry chickens there, as well. I hear them. Hear them ail. Don't hear anything much like three sons, lady."

  "They're likely sleeping."

  "Mebbe I should go and make sure. Could be they got taken by some choking sickness while we out here passing the time of day." He took three long strides toward the curtained rear of the small building.

  "No!"

  Trader stopped, still holding the fragile doll with the greatest of care. "No? You sure about this, ma'am? Could be they're out working in the forest. Likely they'd relish a good meal of roast venison when they comeback?"

  The woman seemed to have aged twenty years in a single minute. "Mister..."

  "What?"

  "You are a real low-life son of a bitch, ain't you? Picking on a lone widow lady."

  The Trader bad appeared to be genuinely surprised and shocked. He laid the Japanese doll gingerly on the chipped counter that ran across the center of the store. "Now, I never thought to be spoken to like that, ma'am."

  She gestured to the shelf to the right of a window that had two panes of glass replaced by waxed paper. "Bullets is there. Take what you want and then get out."

  "Thank you kindly. We'll leave the meat out on your porch, if that's agreeable."

  "Sure, sure." She was almost crying. "Do what you , you mean old bastard, and leave me alone."

  AWAY TO THE WEST, toward the Cific Ocean, Abe heard a rumble of thunder. The sky had been darkening even before the sun went down, promising a chetn storm.

  "Best get under cover, Trader," he said.

  "Yeah. Wonder if any of those messages got through to Ryan yet?"

  "We sent enough. One of them'll reach him, Trader. Bound to find them."

  "How long did we say we'd wait up here for him and J.B. and the others? Was it a couple months, Abe?"

  "Three months."

  "Sure. I remember now." He stood, stretching until his muscles cracked. "Hey," he said, "did I ever tell you about the time we got caught in a trap in War Wag One, up on an old freeway bridge?"

  "Yeah." Abe kept his face blank. "Yeah, Trader. You told me about that."

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  All seven of them ate their breakfasts together. Michael had come in late and gone immediately to bed, answering with monosyllabic grunts Ryan's questions as to where he'd been and what he'd done.

  Now, with a bright sun outside and a fresh wind from the north, he seemed in better spirits.

  "Had the black dog at your side last night, Michael," Ryan said.

  "Yeah. Sorry. Went walking with Dorothy and we sort of talked a lot and I wanted to think about some of the things that she had said to me."

  Ryan cut a slice off a watermelon. "Want to tell us about it yet?"

  "Not yet. Needs thinking."

  "Lot of skeeters in the woods, were there?" Dean asked innocently.

  "Some gnats. Why?"

  "Just you got a real nasty bite on the side of your neck, Michael."

  The teenager blushed, clapping his hand immediately to the sore-looking red mark. "Oh, yeah," he muttered. "Remember it was a kind of big insect."

  "With blond hair and blue eyes," the eleven-year-old sniggered.

  JEHU ARRIVED just as they were finishing their food, with half a dozen of the young men and women from the ville, including Dorothy, Isaac and Frank.

  "Moses wants some fresh fish for his meals for the next two or three days," the ponytailed leader said. "He suggested that you outlanders might wish to spend a day out in the sun on Shamplin Lake."

  "Sounds good." Ryan looked around at the others. "Anyone object?"

  "I am notorious for not being one of the best sailors in this heathen land," Doc said ruefully. "But I would relish the fresh air and kick of the wheel and the song of the wind
and... something about a jolly fellow rover." He shook his head. "But, let it pass, let it pass."

  "What kind of fish we going after?" J.B. asked, as he picked up the Uzi.

  "The best," Isaac replied. "Moses won't think about eating anything that isn't perfect and cooked perfect."

  "How come he eats fish and tells you to only eat vegetables?" Krysty asked. "I know we talked about this before, but I still don't honestly understand."

  Dorothy answered. "Moses isn't like the other men and women. When one of us moves on, Moses takes on himself all the sins and imperfections of the flesh." She recited the last part like a child carefully remembering a lesson. "So, he also has to test himself against all evils."

  "What piscine treats- I'm sorry, evils, does your prophet and oracle intend to have offered to him today? Delicate baby carp? Trout, plucked from the bone and rolled between the thighs of young virgins? Eels, smoked to mouth-watering wonder over hickory wood? Or salmon, cosseted for his dining pleasure and served with a helping of tiny vegetables, picked at dawn and sliced by blind watchmakers until..." Doc looked around, sensing the bewildered silence that hung about him. "Ah, I see that once again I have made the cardinal error of allowing my mouth to operate before I have properly engaged my brain."

  "Rainbow trout, mainly, from Shamplin," Jehu said, breaking the uneasy stillness. "We'll catch several and then select the best for Moses."

  "Lake should be well stocked." Mildred looked out across the water. "Can't have been fished much for a hundred years or so. Must be some monsters out there."

  "There are huge pike," Isaac replied, licking his lips nervously. "Bigger than a grown man,"

  "And eels," Dorothy offered. "Every year, as the greening comes to the land and the ice melts, we lose little ones to the works of the deep."

  Dean glanced nervously at his father. "Mebbe I'll stay behind here," he said.

  "We'll be fine." Ryan looked at Jehu. "When do we go?"

  ON THE SEAS, lakes and rivers all around Deathlands, it wasn't that unusual to see gas-powered boats, using the crudely refined gasoline that was one of the chief items in the complex barter chain.

  But it was no surprise to find that Quindley relied on old-fashioned human power.

  The boat was a clinker-built dory, about fifteen feet long, with enough room for about a dozen people. It was made from narrow strips of varnished oak, and high-sided-

  "We could step a mast in her, but the wind is gusting quite strong." Jehu looked away to the far north, where there was a thin bank of blue-gray clouds. "Best we watch the weather that way. Shamplin can be a treacherous mistress when there's northerly squalls about."

  He took his place in the stern, holding the tiller. Dorothy went into the bow, where there was a pile of weighted nets. She called to Michael to join her. The rest of them found places on the thwarts, handing along the heavy oars and slipping them into the oarlocks.

  Ryan sat with Krysty, J.B. with Mildred and Dean with Doc. Isaac sat at stroke, with Frank on his right. There were two other young ones from the ville, named Nanci and Calvin, who took the last empty places.

  The boat was tied up to the side of the main causeway. Most of the little children, about to be escorted into the forest again, stood and stared at the outlanders, as they prepared to take to the water.

  "Everyone ready?" Jehu called, turning to the teenage boys who waited to loose the ropes. "Let go front and back. Give us a good push out. Keep the oars out of the lake for a moment. Start when I say."

  The boat drifted out onto the rippled water, the wind immediately catching it, making it drift awkwardly sideways, toward the south.

  "Oars in. Pull when I say. And pull! Out and in! Out, in, out, in. Good. Not too hard, Doc. Save your energy for later in the morning."

  IT WAS SURPRISING what good progress they made. Jehu steered them in a roughly northerly direction, into the prevailing wind, pointing out that it would make their return journey that much easier when they might all be feeling a little tired.

  They soon established a good rhythm, following the pace set by Isaac, under Jehu's orders. The oars rose and fell in unison, sending tiny whirlpools spinning through the dark, mirrored water. The wake was straight and true, and the lake bubbled merrily beneath the stem of the dory.

  "Someone should sing us a chanty..." Doc said, panting a little at the unusual exercise.

  "What's that?" Dorothy asked from behind him.

  "Old sea song, my dear child. Helps to keep us all together. Older even than me, some of them. Back to the days of beating around the Horn and reefing t'gallants in the teeth of a raging easterly gale."

  "You know any, Doc?" Jehu called.

  "It's advertised in Boston, New York and Buffalo, A hundred jolly sailors, a'whaling for to go,

  Singing, blow ye winds of morning, blow them to and fro, Haul away the running gear and blow, boys, blow."

  Krysty gave a piercing whistle of appreciation between her teeth. "More, Doc, more."

  "I fear that I shall become overdrawn on my already weakened state of breath. However, I know a verse or two more. Everyone must come in on the chorus. The bit about 'blow ye winds of morning.' All right?"

  Isaac glanced over his shoulder, grinning at the old man. "Doin' good, Doc. Helps us along into the sharp teeth of this chilly wind."

  "I'll sing you of the clipper ships,

  A-speeding in and out,

  They say we'll take a thousand whales

  Before we're three months out.

  Singing blow ye winds of morning, Everyone!

  Blow them to and fro..."

  Despite his appearance, Doc was blessed with a powerful, tuneful voice, and he led them through the old sea song.

  Doc also gave them "Unfortunate Miss Bailey" and "The Leaving of Liverpool," while Mildred chipped in with "Shenandoah."

  If it hadn't been for the wind, which seemed to be getting stronger every mile into the expedition, it would have been a perfect morning.

  A few miles north, the shore came sweeping out in a wide, thickly wooded promontory. Jehu encouraged the oarsmen, telling them the best fishing grounds lay only a short distance beyond the point.

  "Then we can rest."

  As they pulled steadily past the spit of land, all of them looked at it.

  There was no sign of life, just the endless rolling slopes of the hills, almost covered hi conifers. No trace at all of the advanced civilization that had once stamped its mark upon the landscape.

  "Wouldn't have thought this was once a big tourist area," Mildred commented.

  "The planet recovers itself, from even the deepest wounds." Doc held his oar clear of the water and leaned on it for a few moments. "like the old lost road that ran through the woods, where the rain and the wind had destroyed it so completely that you would never have known that there had been a road. There is a poem on that very subject, but I fear that the bones of it have fled from my memory.

  Krysty also took a breather, staring at the land that scrolled slowly past them.

  "There's..." she began. "No. I thought I saw someone watching us from the edge of the trees."

  "Stickies?" Jehu called.

  "Gone now. Might have been."

  Everyone stopped rowing and the dory quickly lost Way, coming to a gentle halt, then starting to move backward as the wind grasped at it.

  "Can't see anything," Michael said from his place in the bow.

  "Probably my aged eyes failing," Krysty replied.

  "Start rowing again," Isaac s houted. "Wind's getting bad. If it rises any more we should think about turning around for home, Jehu. You reckon?"

  "Only another quarter mile," the long-haired young man replied. "Can't go back without some good fish for Moses."

  Dean had been trailing his hand hi the cool water while they drifted. But he suddenly jerked it out, giving a gasp of shock. "Something touched it," he said.

  "Fish?" his father asked.

  "Felt big. Sort of rolled under the boat."r />
  "The Emperor Pike," Calvin said.

  "Maybe." Jehu leaned over the stern, shading his hand to try to see beneath the broken surface. "Thought I saw something as well, but-"

  Without any further warning, something lunged beneath the bottom of the dory and turned it over, tipping everyone into the lake.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight