Prodigal's Return

by James Axler

  “This seems to be working,” Mildred said hopefully.

  “So did the last one,” Krysty retorted harshly.

  Grabbing a wheeled chair from in front of a control board, Ryan pushed it through the anteroom and over to the gateway door. Working the access lever, J.B. opened the portal, and the one-eyed man shoved the chair into the mat-trans unit. He stepped back and waited while J.B. closed the door firmly.

  A minute passed, then another. Nothing happened. The great machine didn’t initiate a jump. It remained as still as a stone in the dirt.

  Silently, the companions turned and walked away.

  Two redoubts down, one to go.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Leaving the redoubt, the companions stopped in the armory to take a couple nuke batteries, then left through the sheriff’s department and reclaimed their horses.

  “Not sure what Alan and his people are going to do with these,” J.B. said, easing the heavy battery into a saddlebag.

  “They can always sell them to a ville,” Ryan replied with a shrug. “Walls need lights.”

  “Wish we could have hit the showers,” Krysty said. “But there wouldn’t be any way to explain to the others how we happened to come back freshly scrubbed and wearing clean clothes.”

  “Yeah, me, too,” Ryan replied, climbing into the saddle and starting along the road at an easy trot.

  Spotting the remains of a firehouse across the ville common, Mildred rode her horse in through the smashed doors, hoping for some medical supplies. But the trucks were gone and the shelves clear. However, perched on top of a locker, where it couldn’t be seen from the ground, was a slim aluminum cylinder. Thoroughly repulsed, she almost left it there, then felt guilty, and tucked it into a pocket.

  “Find anything good?” Krysty asked hopefully.

  “Something for John, anyway.” Mildred sighed, proffering the tube.

  Accepting it, J.B. curiously glanced at the tube and burst into a wide grin. “A cigar! A predark cigar!” He chuckled. “I’ll bet something like this has been buying blasters, horses and gaudy sluts for a dozen owners since skydark!”

  Popping off the cap, he tilted the tube, and out slid four slim homemade cigarettes.

  “Wolfweed.” J.B. snarled in disgust, casting the drug into a puddle on the pavement. “I’d rather smoke my own socks than that shit!”

  “Sorry,” Mildred murmured, even though she was secretly pleased. Ever since they first met she had been encouraging him to stop smoking, with some success.

  “Well, I appreciate the effort.” J.B. sighed, pocketing the tube. “At least this’ll still be good for protecting the next cigar I find. Or I can always pack it with plas-ex to make one hell of a anti-pers!”

  “Don’t you have one of those already?” Ryan asked, guiding his mount around a pothole filled with murky yellow water.

  “Never hurts to have a spare,” J.B. said with a chuckle, kicking his horse into an easy gallop.

  AS THE NOISE of the horse hooves rang across the acid-washed ruins, a low growl came from the direction of city hall. Broken granite pillars lay askew around the collapsed marble dome, and from the darkness underneath, two sets of red eyes glared hatefully at the departing two-legs and their beasts.

  Loose rocks shifted, and pillars loudly cracked as the thing trapped beneath the dome attempted once more to get free. But the ancient steel beams set inside the granite columns had been driven into the hard ground like the bars of a cage, and the colossal mutie could only silently rage against its inadvertent prison.

  Then a section of the terrazzo floor settled, exposing the basement level. Sensing a possible route to liberty, the mutie began to claw aside the mounds of moldy furniture, stained marble walls and concrete flooring. Soon it was tunneling into the compacted earth, angling slowly back up toward the sun and the rapidly escaping meat…?.

  STOPPING HIS HORSE near the skeleton of a two-headed cow lying on the sidewalk, Jak unscrewed the cap off a U.S. Army canteen and took a long drink.

  “Hi, Adam,” a familiar voice whispered from the dark interior of a crumbling store.

  Caught in the middle of a swallow, Jak almost choked on the water, and needed a moment to catch his breath. “The name’s Alvin,” he replied, screwing back on the cap. “Nice know you alive.”

  “Hard to chill a Cawdor,” Dean said, stepping into view from the shadows inside a crumbling ice cream parlor. “Thanks for leaving such an easy trail for me to follow.”

  “Well, you came up with broken star idea.”

  “You twist those twigs into a star while riding?”

  “Sure, easy do,” Jak said, shrugging.

  “Where’s my father?” Dean asked, looking at the line of big wooden wags and horses trundling along the ancient road.

  “Hunt for you,” the albino teen replied, slinging the canteen over the pommel of his saddle. “Where Sharona?”

  “Don’t know. We got separated in a flood a few months ago,” Dean replied stiffly. “I’ve been living with the Angels since then.”

  “Willingly?” Jak asked with a scowl. In truth, he barely recognized this young giant for the child who had traveled with the companions. Then it occurred to him that Dean was now almost sixteen, older than Jak had been when he first joined the companions.

  Dean grimaced. “Hell, no!”

  “Why not leave?”

  “Hostages,” Dean replied. “If I left, I know Camarillo, the gang leader, would have sent a dozen slaves to the lashing post.”

  Somberly, Jak nodded in understanding. “So you set free first?”

  “Yes, we did,” Althea said, appearing behind Dean, the reins of a limping stallion in her hand.

  Studying the young beauty, Jak started to ask a question, then saw that it wasn’t necessary. From the way they looked at each other, it was clear the two were a couple. “Jak Lauren,” he said simply.

  “Althea Stone.”

  “What happen horse?”

  “The first got aced by a flapjack,” Dean said with a scowl.

  “Then this one caught a hoof in a gopher hole and sprained a muscle,” Althea added, patting the stallion’s neck. Softly, the animal nickered in reply.

  “Any chance of getting another?” Dean asked, hitching up his gun belt. “We can trade for it.”

  “Nope,” Jak stated bluntly. “Lost about half last night in fight during storm.”

  “What attacked this big a group?” Althea asked, glancing at the rattling convoy of wooden wags and horses.

  “Everything.” Jak heaved a sigh.

  Dean grinned. “Found the local safe place, eh?”

  “And so did every mutie in the valley,” Cordelia declared, riding her horse closer. She held the reins loosely in one hand and cradled a flintlock longblaster across her lap. The hammer was cocked, but her finger wasn’t resting on the trigger. “So, are these the two that Ryan and the others really went searching for?”

  “Dean, Althea,” Jak said as an introduction, jerking a thumb.

  After a moment, Cordelia tilted her head in greeting, then shouted over a shoulder. “Hey, Dewitt! We got a lame horse here!”

  Instantly, the rear doors of a wag slammed open, and Dewitt jumped to the cracked pavement, his fishing tackle box in hand. But before he got halfway there, something powerful exploded in the distance, the concussion making ripples in every puddle in the road.

  Pulling out blasters and crossbows, everybody looked around for the source of the detonation, but nothing was in sight except for decaying ruins. Then it happened again and again, the dull thumps coming ever faster until they sounded like the beating of a human heart, or—

  “Nuking hell, they found us!” Dean snarled, drawing the Browning Hi-Power.

  Only a half-second slower, Althea pulled out the Ruger and jerked back the slide on top. Trained in combat, the lame horse backed deeper into the shadowy interior of the ancient structure.

  A moment later, the brick wall of a movie theater exploded into
the street and the Atomsmasher rolled into view with the steam whistle screaming. Close behind was a boiling mob of coldhearts on horses and sandhogs, as well as a dozen people in matching uniforms, riding horseback in a tight formation.

  “Alton ville sec men!” Jak shouted in recognition, even as his M-16 started chattering at the better-armed sec force. Only the best shots got the good weapons, so he always aced those first.

  The spray of 5.56 mm rounds stitched several of them across the chest, but the coldhearts only flinched as tufts of splinters erupted from their bulky canvas jackets. Damn, he had forgotten about the bastard body armor!

  “Aim for their heads!” Cordelia yelled, triggering her longblaster. Smoke and flame vomited from the pitted muzzle of the black-powder weapon, and a hundred yards away, a coldheart flew backward off a sandhog with most of his face removed.

  A flurry of blasters answered back, the bullets humming past the woman as thick as summer flies. As if she didn’t have a care in the world, Cordelia coolly reloaded, directing her horse to move backward with some knee jabs.

  “Blue Thunder!” Camarillo yelled from within the tiny control room of the pounding steam truck. “Blue Thunder!”

  At the code phrase, the coldhearts promptly spread out in a skirmish line to flank the massive war wag, leaving the middle avenue wide open for the Atomsmasher to charge through, coming up behind the convoy of wooden wags.

  “Scatter!” Alan bellowed, discharging both his blasters at the colossal machine. The .63 miniballs slammed against the iron bars covering the windows, but ricocheted off harmlessly.

  As if in reply, Camarillo released a long blast from the steam whistle, the unnatural sound terrifying people and horses alike.

  Rapidly increasing in speed, the Atomsmasher headed for its target. Frantically whipping their horses, the drivers attempted to get out of the way of the machine, a handful of the wags arching into the ruins. The rest of the convoy foolishly tried to outrun the steam truck.

  Looming like the armored fist of God, the modified locomotive rammed into the rear wag. The wooden slats disintegrated into splinters and the broken wheels went flying, people and horses vanishing under the armored bulk of the Atomsmasher.

  Angling sharply away, the second wag received only a glancing blow. But it burst apart anyway, and boxes and barrels went tumbling, along with the hapless passengers. However, the galloping horses escaped intact. Still harnessed together, they pelted away, dragging along the driver. Cursing wildly, he was scraped along the cracked pavement until reaching a pothole. Then he was gone, a severed arm still holding on to the flapping reins for a few seconds before finally coming off yards away.

  The next three wags were even less fortunate, with travelers and horses ruthlessly slaughtered by the rampaging iron juggernaught. Laughing triumphantly, Camarillo careened off into the ruins, only to start circling back toward the convoy for another chilling pass.

  Ignoring everybody else, Hannigan headed directly for Dean, only to be cut off by the sec men on sandhogs.

  Firing in every direction, the travelers let loose with their assortment of blasters. Several of the coldhearts and sec men jerked as the miniballs hummed past them, but nobody fell, wounded or aced. Then the dense cloud of dark gun smoke rolled toward the invaders, and they were forced to slow their advance, or risk going into a pothole and breaking their necks.

  “Ryan! I want Ryan Cawdor!” Chief Ralhoun bellowed from a sandhog, firing a Beretta steadily into the mob of travelers and horses. Her white scarf billowed in the wind as she drove over the dead and the dying in her mad search for revenge.

  Suddenly, a flurry of boomerangs darted from the wags. The coldhearts ducked low. The sec men didn’t, and two of them fell, their faces crushed into jelly. Blindly, the dying sec men continued to shoot, the rounds mostly hitting empty air, or shattering a predark window.

  Pausing to chill a big black dog that started coming his way, Jak slapped a spare magazine into the M-16, then kicked his horse into a full gallop.

  Drawing her Navy flare gun, Cordelia stayed right alongside, sending the fat magnesium charges sizzling into the invaders. Screaming, a sec man fell with a flare buried in his chest, the brilliant vermilion flame extending outward for almost a yard.

  Crouched on a sandhog, a coldheart aced a traveler with his sawed-off scattergun, then triggered the second barrel toward Cordelia. She loudly grunted as the spray of broken glass and bent nails peppered her side, starting a red stain spreading across her shirt. Then she fired back, the flare punching through the sandhog’s gas tank. The vehicle erupted into flame, the coldheart falling out of the saddle a human torch.

  “Fix!” Jak commanded, tossing her a clean cloth. “I cover!”

  “No time, Jak!” she bellowed in reply, grinning like a madwoman as she threw away the flare gun. Coughing blood, she sagged a little in the saddle, then sat straight and began to calmly fire the Mauser at the scattering enemy.

  Discharging the LeMat as fast as possible, Doc took out a cougar and a coldheart, then stumbled backward as an arrow slammed into his thigh. Reaching down, he snapped off the wooden shaft at skin level, then dumped the spent brass from his blaster. He’d started to reload when a sec man came pounding toward him, waving an ax and grinning widely.

  Quickly, Doc switched to the second barrel, and waited until the rider was almost on him before discharging the miniature shotgun. The 12-gauge cartridge tore open the throat of the horse in a bloody geyser, and the animal veered sharply. Caught off balance, the sec man sailed out of the saddle to land on the sidewalk with an audible crack. Incredibly, the panting man tried to rise once more, and Library sent an arrow straight down his gullet, the barbed tip coming out his neck.

  With a snarl, a coldheart cut loose with a short burst from a MAC-10 rapidfire. Dropping the crossbow, Library clutched her stomach and doubled over in pain.

  His face ablaze with anger, Doc snapped shut the cylinder of the LeMat and sent two booming rounds into the coldheart. Spinning away, the man lost his life and his blaster at the exact same time.

  Shooting her stolen blaster nonstop, Althea darted into the fray to grab the MAC-10, then rummage in the pockets of the corpse for any spare magazines. A coldheart aimed a longblaster at her, and Dean stroked the trigger of the Browning Hi-Power. The .38 dumdum round hit the coldheart in the shoulder and exploded out his back like a cannonball, blood squirting from a severed artery. The man was fumbling to staunch the flow when Althea sent a burst across his chest, then continued onward, cutting down two more coldhearts, and a sec man working the arming lever of a longblaster.

  “Short bursts!” Dean yelled while firing twice, hitting the coldheart in the chest and wounding his horse.

  Starting to laugh in disdain at the miss, the coldheart abruptly stopped when the horse charged away. As the animal tripped over the crushed remains of a destroyed wag, its rider took a nosedive and landed on a wrought-iron fence surrounding a burned-down synagogue. Impaled, he could only make gurgling noises and flail about helplessly as his life trickled down the rusty iron spikes. Then the front lawn of the synagogue stirred, and a horde of tiny beetles raced up the fence to begin feasting upon the unexpected bounty of fresh meat.

  “Tiger, ace me!” the coldheart shrieked, as the insects crawled into his oozing wounds. “Please, in the name of friendship… Ace me!”

  Turning away from the neutralized enemy, Dean checked to make sure Althea was undamaged, and then they marched deeper into the fight, chilling everybody in sight, their blasters steadily dealing hot, unforgiving justice.

  Completing its turn in the remnants of a kindergarten school yard, the Atomsmasher crashed through a rusty jungle gym to start back toward the travelers once more. Baring his teeth in rage, Camarillo tried to find Dean in the chaos of explosions and billowing smoke. He didn’t want to run over his own people, but if a few of the sec men got aced in the fight, well, that would only save them from going to the post afterward. In his opinion, anybody who
walked a ville wall was never to be fully trusted.

  Unexpectedly, a dull thump sounded, and Camarillo was slammed across the control room as the front of the steam truck was rocked by a powerful explosion. The ancient headlight vanished in the blast, and the front bumper broke loose to fall under the spinning wheels. Two of the tires blew off their rims, but the rest easily carried the weight, and the modified locomotive neither slowed nor swerved in its collision course toward the milling wooden wags.

  “Hit it again!” Ryan snarled, sliding off his horse to send a long burst from the Galil toward the coldhearts in a classic sideways figure-eight pattern. Stitched from knees to throat, the coldhearts staggered, but none fell, given the splintery blocks of wood clearly revealed under their lumpy clothing.

  Smacking her horse on the rump to get it out of the way, Krysty opened the gren launcher underneath the M-16 combo and dumped the spent shell.

  Taking cover behind the rusty chassis of a Buick, a grim Mildred shot the Winchester as fast as she could work the lever, to cover the other woman. But the soft-lead .38 rounds only drove the coldhearts back. When she stopped to reload, they surged forward once more, shouting in delight. Oddly, they were all heading toward Ryan, not her or the others.

  Stepping out from behind a pile of loose bricks, J.B. unleashed the full fury of the Uzi, sweeping the mob with a withering hail of 9 mm Parabellum rounds. Then the rapidfire jammed. Ducking behind the bricks again, he struggled to clear the blaster, and cursed himself for ever trusting the old police bullets.

  Shooting a traveler in the back, Natters then dropped low and crawled over to the corpse to rip off the bloody shirt. Quickly, he removed his own canvas jacket, then donned the stolen shirt. These outlanders were just too nuking good with their blasters. But now, if the battle went badly for the Stone Angels, he could pretend to be aced, and sneak away when the travelers weren’t looking. Natters didn’t consider himself a coward, merely sensible. Fuck the rest of gang, he thought. His own survival was the most important thing in the world. No matter what the cost.