by James Axler
“Know it.” The albino teen ducked out of the doorway, leaving Ryan and Donfil in the thick-walled chamber.
“You know what to do?” An unnecessary question, but suddenly Ryan didn’t want to leave the other man to his fate so quickly. He’d seen what the rad sickness could do. Ryan had no idea what lie beyond that windowless inner door, but he hoped Donfil’s death would be quick.
Donfil nodded. “All I need you to do is close that door behind you. I will take care of the rest.”
The two men faced each other for a moment, then Ryan extended his hand, which Donfil grasped and shook, his grip strong. The shaman grinned, showing his strong teeth. “It is a good day to die.”
“We’ll let the ville know what went down here.” Ryan swallowed through an uncharacteristically thick throat. “They’ll be singing your praises for years.”
“Only if we stop the muties here.” Donfil nodded at the outer door. “Time to go, One-Eye Chills. Until we meet again.”
“Yeah.” Ryan walked to the door, unable to stop himself from looking back once more. Donfil stood beside the door, one hand resting on the wheel to open it. His lips moved, and words came out, the chant soft at first, but growing louder: “Great Spirit, make me like a strong bear, Great Spirit, make me like a strong bear, This I pray…Make me strong…”
“Farewell, Donfil More.” Stepping outside, Ryan pulled the heavy door shut after him, spinning the wheel hard until it snicked into place. He gave it one more twist to make sure it was sealed, then turned to the others. “Time to go.”
Leading the way back to the ladder to the main level, Ryan was about to put his hand on a rung and haul himself up when a slight scrape from above caught his attention. He jerked back just as a spearhead jabbed down through the space where his head had been a moment earlier.
His blaster blurring into his hand, Ryan triggered three shots at the dark opening. Hearing a gurgle, he stepped back as a dark form plummeted through the hole to slam onto the metal floor, the dying lizardman’s lifeblood geysering from his perforated throat. A quick glance confirmed what Donfil had suspected would happen—the muties had returned in force.
“Can’t go that way.” He grunted, looking at the right and left passageways. “Can’t tell which way is which in this place.”
“One good as another right now,” Jak said, pointing to the left. “Take that one.”
“Why?” Krysty asked.
“Heads away from where came in. Gotta come out somewhere.”
Ryan frowned. “Or dead-end and trap us in here.”
“Got better idea, I’m waitin’,” Jak challenged.
“All right. Give them a blast from that cannon of yours. Something to think about while we go.”
Bracing his right hand with his left wrist, Jak pointed the .357 at the hole, through which furtive scuttling could be heard. When Ryan and Krysty had covered their ears, he squeezed the trigger twice, the Magnum weapon’s barrel exploding with flame in the narrow passageway as the heavy pistol bucked in his hands. As the concussions died away, they heard an agonized howl that was suddenly cut off by a meaty thud.
“One less to worry about. C’mon!” Ryan waved Krysty down the narrow corridor, then Jak, taking the rear himself. He waited until a clawed foot cautiously appeared at the top of the ladder, took aim, and squeezed off a shot, hitting it near the ankle, and causing the maimed limb to vanish out of sight. With a last glance at the thick metal door, Ryan ducked into the hall, hurrying to catch up with the bobbing light ahead.
This tunnel was cramped and musty, with the dust on the floor blending with the water vapor to form a thin, slippery layer on the tiles. Ryan kept one hand on the wall as he trotted down the corridor. He caught up with Krysty and Jak just as they rounded a corner and stopped only a couple steps beyond, nearly causing him to bump into them in his haste.
“What the hell—”
“Shh!” Krysty’s urgent whisper cut him off. When Ryan craned his head over hers to see what was making them so quiet, he suddenly understood.
Ahead was a large chamber that might have been a power generating room at one time, but was now a huge indoor lake. Water had submerged the entire floor, the grated stairs in front of them disappearing under the waterline. The opposite wall of the room was at least thirty yards away. The odor, redolent of fuel, lubricant and mold, was so strong it made Ryan breathe through his mouth. The shells of half-submerged machines, perhaps generators of some kind, rose out of the water in rows, covered in dark orange rust and slime. Around them, the water flowed strangely, forming strange eddies and whirlpools on its oil-slicked surface, as if something underneath was lazily moving around the perimeter. The entire room was ringed by a metal walkway with a railing on one side. It reached almost to the other side, but had been broken off near an identical doorway on the far wall several feet above the water, leaving a gap between them and the exit.
“Head out there?” Krysty asked, wrinkling her nose at the stink.
Ryan ducked back and played his light along the walls, searching for any kind of alternate way out. “Looks like. At least there’s no one here.” He glanced around the room, sensing something that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. “No blasting, however.” He’d caught the acrid stink of fuel fumes. Hearing a far-off thump shake the floor under his feet, the decision was made. “Get out there.”
Jak had already edged out onto the catwalk, testing it with tentative steps. The struts underneath trembled a bit, but held firm. “Looks all right.”
“Head out a few more yards first.” A splash from below caught Ryan’s attention, and he shone his light at where the sound had come from, but saw nothing except an eddy of black water. He turned back to Krysty. “Give him a few more steps, then you go. I’ll follow in a bit.”
“No more heroics, lover.” She leaned up and kissed him hard. “Already saved your hide once today, and I don’t want to have to come back for you again.”
“Hey, who saved who in here?”
“I’d already freed myself and killed the lizardmen, remember? You were a few seconds late. Now hurry up— I’ve had enough of this hellhole to last a lifetime.”
“You and me both. Go! I’ll be right behind you.”
Krysty stepped onto the walkway, which settled a bit more under her weight. Sticking close to the wall, she began her trek around the room. Jak had already rounded the far corner and was heading toward the door, picking up speed to leap the gap between him and freedom.
Ryan checked the hallway behind them one more time, hearing the slap of many bare feet against the metal floor. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Krysty carefully easing around the near corner. Across the room, Jak was framed in the doorway, waving them on.
Drawing his panga, Ryan set his flashlight on the floor and crept noiselessly back to the corner where the hallway turned and waited, blade poised to slash. The point of a spear suddenly thrust around the corner, the tip missing Ryan’s waist by a fingerwidth. Grabbing the weapon behind the head, he yanked it forward, pulling a startled lizardman around the corner. The mutie looked up just in time to see the eighteen-inch blade slice down at its head. Ryan buried the edge a good inch into its skull, parting the skin and spraying black blood into the air. Wrenching his knife free, he shoved the dying creature back into his fellows and ran for the large room, snatching his light off the floor at the entrance as he passed. Rounding the corner, he hit the catwalk and slowed to a cautious walk, feeling the grated surface flex and shift with each step. Krysty was almost at the doorway now, tensing to make the leap across.
He had just turned the first corner when a chorus of furious howls erupted from the passage behind him, and Ryan looked back to see a cluster of raging lizardmen erupt from the dark passageway and stream across the walkway on both sides of the room. Others stayed near the entrance, but lobbed harpoons at him—a few coming too close for comfort.
Ryan took off just ahead of the advancing horde, pounding down the catwalk wi
th huge jumps, feeling it creak and strain with each step. It only had to stay up for a few more seconds, he thought.
He was about halfway across when he heard an ominous snap, and felt the section of walkway he was on tilt dangerously toward the water. Only a leap away from the next part, Ryan crouched to spring forward just as the first of the oncoming lizardmen hit his section of walkway. Its added weight was the last straw, and with a shriek of overstressed metal, the path gave way, pitching both Ryan and the mutie into the dank waters below.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Falling headfirst, Ryan plunged through the thick, top layer of sludge into the dark water below. The cold hit his ribs like a punch, taking his breath away and leaving him spluttering and gasping as he fought his way to the surface.
He had just gotten there when a clawed hand clamped onto the top of his skull and pushed him back down right as he drew a breath. Ryan went under again, and in the light, through the clouds of bubbles caused by his thrashing, he saw something that made his blood run even colder.
Several of the giant muskies swam around the protected pool, doing lazy figure eights among the useless hulks of the giant power generators. But what startled him even more was the long, tubelike appendages, half as thick as his waist, attached to the sides of several. At first, he thought they might be some sort of vestigial appendages, but as one fish swam past, he saw a large eye regard him coldly, and he realized what they were.
Lampreys! He knew about the cold-blooded parasites. Once, during his travels with Trader, Ryan had seen a large school of them attacking a huge whale in the water, sucking the blood and life out of the huge animal until it beached itself to slowly die, at which point the lampreys, each as thick around as he was, dropped off and squirmed back into the water. Curious, Ryan had gone down on the beach and taken a closer look at the carcass, seeing the holes bored into its hide, some as large as his head. He had never forgotten how those small animals had brought down something much larger, just by clamping on and sucking it dry.
In his crazily bobbing light, he saw several of the unattached bloodsuckers weaving through the water toward him and his attacker. Grabbing the lizardman’s hand, Ryan wrenched it off his head and bent the limb back, forcing it around the mutie’s back and up between its shoulder blades into a hammerlock. He forced the creature to turn just as the first lamprey reached them.
Ryan saw its circular mouth, filled with rows of sharp teeth, along with the rasping tongue that flicked back and forth, as if tasting the water. He shoved the lizardman into its path, and the lamprey struck at the movement, its mouth attaching to the mutie’s chest, causing him to gurgle in pain. Unlike the lampreys in the ocean, this one whipped its body around its victim, nearly catching Ryan in a thick coil. The lizardman tried to pry off the greedily sucking head, but he was already weakening from the sudden loss of blood. When another one swam up and fastened high on his inner thigh, the mutie’s eyes rolled back in its head, and its blows grew weaker as it beat listlessly against the large parasites.
Pushing his bait away, Ryan clawed his way to the surface, feeling something brush by him, but unsure whether it was a muskie or a lamprey. Not sticking around to find out, he swam toward the nearest generator casing, spotting a row of thick bolts he hoped to use to climb onto the rounded, slick metal.
Once there, he grabbed the nearest one, uncaring of the cuts it inflicted on his already battered hands, and hauled himself up, scrabbling for every inch of progress. He managed to get his boots onto one of them, only to have the bolt snap off under the pressure, nearly sending him back into the pool. Glancing down, he saw one of the lampreys approaching, saw its open, pulsing mouth, as big around as his clenched fist, saw it gather itself and rear up out of the water at him, those teeth ready to slice through his pants and fasten onto his thigh, where that saber-sawed tongue would go to work rasping away the skin and flesh to suck his blood out….
“Fuck you!” Ryan lashed out with his foot, the combat boot catching the lamprey in the head and sending it splashing back into the filthy water. He reached up and hooked his fingers onto the row of bolts at the top of the housing, pulling himself up with one final heave.
The last of the sludgy water dripped from his ears, and he heard the hoots and screams of the lizardmen on the railings as they saw him emerge. Amid the chaos, he thought he heard Krysty or Jak yell something, but he couldn’t be sure. One or two spears whizzed by, but the furious muties hadn’t taken the time to aim properly, the missiles clattering on the tank or splashing into the water. However, they’d figure out how to get at him soon enough, whether by taking their chances through the lamprey-infested waters, or possibly leaping at him from the catwalks.
As if reading his mind, one of the lizardmen jumped up to the top of the railing and pushed off, soaring out into the air toward him. Ryan tensed for a moment until he realized the mutie was going to fall several feet short. The lizardman arced into the water with hardly a splash. Ryan peeked over the side to see where he had gone, and nearly got his face bitten off when the humanoid burst out of the water in front of him a moment later, leaping into the air to land on the edge of the large cylinder in a graceful crouch.
Rearing back, Ryan stumbled, slipping on the curved surface and falling hard on his rear. He started to slide off one side, and only a desperate lunge for the far row of bolts prevented him from taking another dip in the lake. The lizardman stood and stepped forward on sure feet, unbothered by the slick surface. Ryan rose as well, one hand going to his panga to finish his adversary off with a couple of well-placed chops. To his right, he saw Krysty taking aim with her Smith & Wesson, and shouted, “No blasters!” Ignoring her puzzled frown, he tugged the blade free of its scabbard. Or tried to. Looking down, he saw the panga blade stuck halfway out of the wet sheath. “Shit!” Before he could yank it out, the lizardman was on him.
It barreled into his body, muscular arms wrapping around him and lifting him off the housing in a spine-cracking bear hug. Ryan matched its peculiar, hissing roar with a loud one of his own as he raised his arms and brought his cupped hands down on the mutie’s ear holes. It staggered, but didn’t release him, so he did it again. This time his attacker dropped him, but immediately launched itself at him again, intent on tackling him and driving him into the metal housing. Ryan tried to keep his balance, but slipped again on the wet metal and fell, the impact jarring his spine and making his teeth click together.
The lizardman came at him again, clawed hands seeking his face. Ryan blocked one questing arm with his own, levering it away from his eye. With his left hand, he grabbed the mutie’s other wrist and pushed it to the side. The lizardman thrust its face forward, trying to sink its teeth into Ryan’s nose. He avoided the snapping fangs by turning his face to one side, then brought his own head up, cracking the lizardman in the jaw with his forehead. The blow caught it by surprise, and Ryan did it again, this time catching his opponent in its vestigial nose, and making it rear up, bellowing with pain and anger.
Ryan followed up his advantage by twisting his hips to one side, half throwing the mutie off. It tried to recover, but he was faster, clubbing it in the side of the head with his fist, and knocking it over. Scrambling out from under it, he jumped to his feet and tried to draw the panga again, which refused to budge from its scabbard.
Seeing the mutie about to get to its feet, Ryan stepped forward and kicked its foot out with all his remaining strength. It crashed down, and he drew back his foot and lashed out again, catching it where the temple would have been on a human. The steel-capped combat boot impacted the creature’s skull with the force of a brick dropped on an egg, shattering the temporal bone and sending fragments into the brain. The lizardman fell over, twitching, its eyes rolling back in its head.
Ryan took a deep breath, wincing as the movement caused a flare of pain in his aching ribs. Looking up from the dead body, his eye widened as he saw two more of the ugly muties climb onto the tank and start toward him. Ryan looked toward t
he doorway, and the generator he would have to swim to in order to get to it. A quick glance around confirmed his increasing peril, with more lizardmen crowding onto the catwalks, and several jumping into the water, heedless of the lampreys and muskies in their single-minded determination to get at him. The occasional spear or harpoon still whizzed by, but they were more cautious about hitting their brethren, so the throws weren’t as furious as they’d been earlier. Still, in the few seconds he stood there, four harpoons sailed through the air at him, one close enough to graze the back of his leg before skittering off into the water.
Gripping the bottom of his scabbard with one hand, Ryan wrenched at his panga one last time, twisting it as he did so. This time the eighteen inches of honed steel slid free as if it had been greased, and he smiled.
Whirling, he drove the blade into the shoulder of the lizardman that had been trying to sneak up on him from the side of the generator. The mutie howled in agony, and Ryan planted a foot in its face and shoved it off the side, following it down into the water and driving the injured creature under the surface with a huge splash as he stepped on it, using its body as a crude launching platform to get a another foot of distance toward the last generator.
The second he hit the water, Ryan clamped his knife in his teeth and swam as hard as he could. The injured lizardman tried to grab him, but it was attacked by a pair of lampreys and was too busy fighting for its own life. He heard more splashing around him as other muties hit the water, but he was almost to the housing. Reaching it with one last lunge, he climbed up. Three-quarters out of the water, he felt claws on his leg, and, holding on to a bolt with one hand, he took the panga out of his mouth and swept it down and behind him, feeling the familiar shock up his arm as the blade bit into muscle and bone. The grip weakened, and he wriggled out of it as he pulled himself onto the metal.
“Ryan!” He lifted his head to see Krysty in the doorway, only a few yards away, but it might as well have been a mile. Lizardmen were clustered on either side of the doorway, one making a leap for the opening, only to be repelled by Krysty with a front kick to the face, sending it splashing into the water below. On the other side, they gained a bit of a respite when the entire section pulled away from the wall and hit the water, spilling the scaly berserkers off in every direction. “We have to shoot them!”
