by James Axler
Natters held his breath for as long as possible, and was unfortunately still conscious when his compressed body reached the acid-rain-filled belly of the beast. Then searing pain filled his universe, and it seemed to last forever…?.
PLACING A SMALL BOUQUET of white daisies on the fresh mound of earth, Dean stiffly rose from his knees. His left arm throbbed inside a cloth sling, but he found the pain strangely reassuring. It said that he was still alive.
“Better fix the headstone,” he growled, dusting off his pants. “The name is Cawdor.”
“You sure about that?” Dewitt asked, leaning on a shovel. “I was told the name was Stone.”
“Then you heard wrong,” Dean stated, walking closer to press two live brass into the man’s palm. “Her name was Althea Cawdor.”
“Fair enough,” Dewitt said, giving back the brass. “And there be no charge for such things. All part of my job as a healer for the convoy.”
Nodding his thanks, Dean limped away from the long row of new graves. A lot of good folks had been aced in the fight the previous day, too many in his opinion, and the travelers had buried them all, including the sec men and coldhearts. Alan said it had to do with not wanting to give the local muties a taste for human flesh. But privately, Dean thought it might have something more to do with the travelers general regard for the sanctity of life. He disagreed, of course. If a person acted like a mad dog, then he or she should be treated like a mad dog. Shot in the head and forgotten. It was as simple as that.
The air was crisp that morning, cool and clear, with every trace of the acid rain gone. Softly, there came the sound of hammers and saws at work as the weary travelers doggedly salvaged whatever they could from the wreckage of the smashed Conestoga wags, to reinforce the remaining four. Each of them would have a full team of horses again, as well as a lot of fresh steak for dinner. Plus a lot of new blasters to replace their black-powder muskets.
After the destruction of their steam-powered war wag, the coldhearts and sec men had scattered far and wide, running for their lives. Alan and most of the companions had stayed with the travelers, while Ryan, Cordelia and a few others had promptly given chase. They came back several hours later with their horses laden with blasters, brass, boots and gun belts. The spoils of war. Nobody had bothered to ask what had been the outcome of the deadly manhunt.
Going to his horse, Dean checked to make sure the tether to the parking meter was still secure, then patted the animal affectionately. Dewitt had worked wonders. The stallion nickered softly in reply as Dean pulled out the Enfield longblaster to clumsily work the bolt with his wounded arm, and chamber a round. This had been an old weapon even before skydark, but it still worked perfectly and suited him fine. Accuracy was more important than firepower. His father had taught him that many years ago.
Angrily ramming the longblaster back into the gun boot, Dean dutifully performed the ritual of patting his weapons: the Browning Hi-Power on his hip, bowie knife at the small of his back, switchblade in his left boot. Then he slowly reached inside his coat to touch the Ruger riding in a repaired shoulder holster. The memory of his first night with Althea came unbidden to his mind, and he tenderly stroked the slightly raised flesh on his face, his thoughts deeply personal.
Boots crunched on loose gravel, signaling someone’s approach. Lowering his good arm, Dean touched the cushioned grip of the Browning, his heart pounding wildly.
“Son, I—”
“Shut the fuck up,” Dean said through gritted teeth, bending to tighten the saddle’s belly strap.
The outburst completely startled Ryan, who felt a hot rush of anger at the response, but held it in check.
“Fireblast, I didn’t know who she was,” he said in a carefully measured tone. “All I saw was a coldheart with a blaster running toward you from behind!”
Turning his head, Dean looked at his father with a hard stare, his thoughts unreadable. With a jerk, he released the reins and climbed into the saddle.
“It was an accident,” Ryan said, the words ringing oddly hollow. His chest felt tight, the layers of bandages wrapped around his ribs having nothing to do with the sensation.
“Goodbye,” Dean said without emotion, nudging the stallion with his boot heels.
As the horse walked away, Ryan reached out a hand, but somebody took hold of his shoulder.
“Let him go, lover,” Krysty said gently. “The last thing in the world he wants right now is to talk to you. Or anybody else, for that matter.”
“Yeah, I know,” Ryan replied, watching Dean disappear around a crumbling movie theater. “But still—”
“Think how you’d feel if I had accidentally chilled Krysty,” J.B. interrupted, removing his fedora to smooth down his thinning hair. Then he set the hat firmly back into place. “Or if some coldheart had aced me. Brother, you wouldn’t be sane again until next winter.”
“But she couldn’t have been that bastard important,” Ryan said hesitantly. “Althea wasn’t blood kin, or…anything.”
“There you are wrong, my dear friend,” Doc rumbled, limping closer. His right leg was bandaged, and he was leaning heavily on his sword stick. “I briefly saw them right before the attack. It was obvious that they were a couple. Not merely friends, or bed partners.”
“He’s just a kid,” Ryan said stubbornly, opening and closing his hands as if reaching for something that wasn’t there anymore.
“I bury wife and daughter when same age,” Jak said simply, resting the M-16 on a shoulder. “He not kid anymore. Man.”
The noisy repair work on the wags stopped as Alan and Cordelia walked out of the crowd. Both of them looked exhausted and were covered with bandages. But new autofire blasters were tucked into their gun belts, along with a couple of grens recovered from the sec men.
Hefting his munitions bag, J.B. tried to hide a smile. They had only found the explosive grens, because he had already taken all the newer versions: thermite and white phosphorous.
“Well, we saw Dean leave,” Alan said, hobbling over. There was fresh leather wrapped around his broken ankle. “Hope you don’t mind, but Della and I agreed to give him some of the brass you had coming.” He waited, as if expecting a rebuke.
“Anybody who fights should get a slice,” Ryan said flatly.
Alan nodded. “Fair enough.”
“So, are you folks still riding along?” Cordelia whispered, obviously trying not to speak any louder than necessary. Her throat was wrapped in several layers of bloody cloth.
“We have a deal,” Ryan stated, using stiff fingers to brush back his long, curly hair. “We’ll ride with the convoy until you reach the Green River in Kentuck, then we go our ways.”
“You know, we’re gonna build a ville,” Cordelia whispered, studiously not looking at anybody in particular. “You could stay as sec men. Be glad to have you.”
“Always good to have another healer,” Alan added hopefully. “Not to mention a second Library.”
“Indeed, your generous offer is greatly appreciated,” Doc rumbled, casting a glance at Library, who was laughing with Dewitt while they cleaned his instruments together. “As for myself, I would be delighted to open a school. But, alas, we are not yet ready to settle down to hearth and home. Eh, my friends?”
“Miles go ’fore sleep,” Jak misquoted with a shrug.
“Until Kentuck,” Ryan repeated, stiffly walking away, his pensive face a somber study of reflection.
Epilogue
Five weeks later the convoy reached the Green River, which snaked along the wild border of southern Kentuck. There were no tearful goodbyes at the parting of ways, but nobody seemed very pleased at the separation, either.
Waiting until the travelers were over the horizon, the companions now headed northeast for several more weeks before locating the next redoubt, hidden inside a cave at the foot of a dormant volcano.
The exterior access tunnel of cooled lava reeked of sulfur fumes, and a forest of stalactites hung from the irregular ceiling. Watch
ing those very closely, the companions finally reached the end of the tunnel, to find a set of blast doors. The area before them was unnaturally cool, as if the redoubt was siphoning away the awful heat to keep the entrance clear.
With the other companions on guard, Ryan tapped in the access code, and everybody braced as the huge doors rumbled aside to thankfully reveal an empty access tunnel. Leading their horses along the zigzagging tunnel, the companions eventually found the garage level was jammed full of hastily parked vehicles, civilian wags, motorcycles, trucks, and even a LAV-25 armored personnel carrier.
Tethering the horses to the rear stanchion of the APC, the companions did a quick recce of the base to make sure there were no sec hunter droids hidden about, or anything else for that matter, then proceeded directly to the fifth level.
The comp room seemed the same as always, the colored lights on the control boards blinking in an irregular pattern, a lone monitor dully flashing binary code sequences.
Grabbing a wheeled chair, Ryan hastily rolled it into the antechamber, then gently placed it into the mat-trans unit and shut the door. A minute passed and nothing happened. Then they heard an odd revving noise from the comp room, and strange white mists rose from the ceiling and floor of the unit to engulf the chair…and it was gone.
“Yee-haw, working again!” Jak yelled, grinning widely.
“Wonder what changed?” Ryan growled, rubbing the long-healed wound in his side.
Returning to the comp room, the companions looked over the array of controls for the main computer.
“What deviltry is this?” Doc muttered uneasily.
“Dear God in heaven, could it really be that simple?” Mildred whispered, going to the monitor and tapping a few basic commands on the keyboard.
Instantly, the monitor sprang to life, the screen filled with scrolling alphanumeric sequences. Some of them were marked with a plus sign, while other had the symbol for minus, but most of the sequences were unadorned.
“What’s going on, Millie?” J.B. asked, easing his grip on the Uzi.
“How many redoubts have been destroyed over the past few years?” she asked, sounding almost amused. “And how many homemade gateways have we learned about? A dozen, maybe more? Hell, we once found a small mat-trans unit inside an aircraft carrier!”
“So?” Ryan prompted impatiently, crossing his arms.
Mildred grinned. “I think the supercomputer was defragging the system.”
“For a couple of months?” Krysty snorted, her hair flexing in annoyance.
“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” Mildred replied, reaching out a hand to brush the controls. “We have all noticed that the computers seemed to have been operating slower as time passed. The system was clogged with data, so the computer simply went off-line to fix itself.”
“Gotta clean blaster and curry horse,” Jak said with a shrug. “Guess comp same. We seen redoubt fix damage.”
“Exactly. This was just some routine maintenance!”
“Never mind what happened. Works now. More important, no food here,” Jak stated bluntly.
“Jak’s right,” Ryan said, turning around and marching from the room, followed by the others.
Returning to the top level, the companions retrieved their backpacks and bedrolls, then took the saddles and bridles off the horses and set them loose outside the blast doors. Once the animals got hungry enough, they would find their own way out of the lava tunnel.
While the rest of the companions went down to the fifth level, Ryan headed directly to the kitchen and drew a six-pointed star on the cafeteria whiteboard. Then he rubbed out the part pointing toward the dishwasher. Lifting the lid, he placed an envelope inside with a private message for Dean. Just in case.
Joining the others, the one-eyed man found everybody waiting in the antechamber. Without comment, they stepped into the mat-trans and sat on the floor. Ryan shut the door, then went to sit beside Krysty. A few moments later, the air became filled with a low hum that rapidly built in power and volume, then a white mist filled the space. As it thickly swirled around the companions, static electricity began to painfully crackle over their bodies, and they fell headlong into a thundering void of absolute chaos.
Journal Entry
AFTER DINNER, Mildred took a cup of coffee and excused herself from the table. Walking down to the third floor, she chose one of the better offices, and went in.
Sitting at a wooden desk, she extracted a small book kept hidden inside a secret compartment of her medical kit. Sharpening a pencil with her knife, she composed her thoughts, then began to write in the journal using a simple alphanumeric code.
It has been quite a few months since I last had the chance to write in my journal, and if the truth be known, I always feel a bit foolish doing so. But what the heck.
My earlier theory as to the possible origin of muties is clearly wrong. I have no idea what the damn things are—a mutated human, genetically designed weapon, cyborg, robot, or just a freak of nature. Your guess is as good as mine. The one piece of advice I can offer is to always attack them from behind. That seems to be their only weak point.
This new redoubt should be easy to identify. The antechamber is burnt pink, with black rectangles lining the floor. Highly distinctive. See drawing of location at back of this journal. The armory here is packed with military weapons of all types, LAW rocket launchers, M-60 machine guns, mortars, land mines, flamethrowers, and boxes and boxes of ammunition. Sadly, there’s no food, but we’re seriously thinking about repairing one of the vehicles on the garage level, an armored APC in pretty decent condition, and stuffing it to the gunwales with weapons, to do a little traveling and trading in the area.
However, be warned! There was a class four tarantula droid waiting for us inside the elevator. The laser almost removed John’s head before we blew it apart with a pipe bomb. At the moment, the droid is trapped inside an Abrams tank just outside the redoubt. Ryan and Krysty welded the hatch shut, while Doc and I disabled the engine. However, the tarantula might escape someday. Remember: always go for the belly-mounted weapon first, whatever it is, laser, needler or microwave beamer. Without them, the droid is relatively harmless, aside from being able to punch a hole through your chest with one of those telescoping legs, that is.
When fighting an armored war wag, attack the driver, not the machine.
Flapjacks turn white when they’re dead. Any other color, or lack of color, means they’re very much alive, and merely trying to lure you closer. Beware!
A group of travelers that we met, and traveled with some, plan to start a ville along the Green River by the name of Conestoga, which seems rather fitting, in my opinion. They’re good folks, and it should be a safe haven for you in times of trouble.
According to Dean, you can use the residue from acid rain to make black powder. Early in this journal, I listed directions on how to convert black powder into the much more powerful gunpowder. Take your time. The only time you should move fast is when you hear a soft hoot in the night. Then run your ass off!
As for Dean Cawdor, to be honest, we have no idea where he has gone. I read the wooden grave marker that Dewitt carved, and fully understand why Dean left. Yes, it was an accident, I think he understands that in his mind, but the heart is a different matter entirely. We will probably never see Dean again.
However, Ryan left him a map to Front Royal, so be might he there, depending upon when you are reading this, of course. Dean is a tough hombre, but has a gentle heart, and you can always trust his word.
Speaking of which, I will steadfastly keep my word to you, unseen reader, to always be honest in this journal. Is willowbark tea good for a headache? Absolutely. Are there ancient battle satellites orbiting the moon still fighting the last war? Who knows?
Just then, J.B. called to her from down the hallway.
More later. Next time, I’ll explain how to set a broken leg. That could be useful.
Closing the journal, Mildred tucked it safely away once
more, then slung the medical kit over a shoulder to go join John in the shower. It had been a long day, but there was food in her stomach, bullets in her blaster and, more important, a few moments of peace and quiet with the man she loved. That really was all anybody could ask for, this deep in the savage heart of the Deathlands.
ISBN: 978-1-4592-1257-2
PRODIGAL’S RETURN
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