Latitude Zero

by James Axler

  And nowhere else to go.

  Lightning pulverized an outcrop of sandstone boulders that had been about fifty paces to Ryan's right, making the earth shake and his hair stand on end. The air filled with the flat stench of released ozone, and the immediate roll of thunder was literally deafening.

  "Fireblast!" Ryan shouted, trying to lift his voice against the maelstrom around him. He knew he'd shouted, but he couldn't hear himself.

  Hanging on to the bridle, he slipped down off the back of the horse, pressing against its quivering flanks to try to give himself some minimal shelter. At one point he made the mistake of trying to look at the sky above him. The rain was so total that he had the momentary panic that he might drown.

  Rain beat at his face, making the skin taut and painful, coursing into his nose and into his mouth as he gasped for breath. He coughed and choked, spitting into the thick mud that oozed around his boots. The horse stamped, and a red shower splattered his pants.

  After another few minutes, Ryan felt himself becoming totally disoriented. It was like OD'ing on jolt. His head was rocking from the weight of water that streamed ceaselessly onto it, and his senses rolled at the overwhelming barrage of noise from the hissing lightning and endless thunder.

  His back and head began to sting as the rain turned to hail, pebbles of ice rattling viciously on the stones around him. Ryan's mind turned to tales he'd heard around the campfires of the war wags, of hailstorms so cataclysmic that men had been killed, their bodies smashed to pulp.

  This time it was unpleasant but mercifully brief, the hail turning back again to the torrential rain.

  In the blinding storm Ryan was aware of something moving past him, catching a glimpse of a streaming neck and rolling eyes, hooves flailing at the slippery road, then vanishing into the murk. There hadn't been enough time for him to make out which of the horses it had been.

  He was also aware of something else. Though he was soaked from top to toe, there was a tugging chill around his ankles that whispered problems. Peering down Ryan was able to make out a stream of bloodred mud flowing over his boots, already halfway up to his knees.

  It prompted him to think about the topography they'd been riding through—steep slopes to the right and then falling away toward a riverbed on their left side. Classic territory for a flash flood.

  He hung on to the reins, trying to stop his mount from spooking, only too aware that a lost horse in this harsh terrain would be more or less the same as a .45 round through the back of the neck.

  Suddenly, like a faucet being turned off, the rain stopped and the wind eased. The lightning held its breath and the thunder was silenced. It was an eerie moment.

  A moment that become almost supernatural.

  In that great stillness Ryan distinctly heard a sound he'd only ever heard a few times in his life, on old vids, but a haunting noise that one could never forget or mistake.

  Far-off, echoing, came the heart-chilling sound of a locomotive whistle.

  But there was no time to try to think about that enigma as the eye of the hurricane passed over and the rain and wind came back with the same vicious force. Lightning again curtained the land in silver lace and the thunder beat at the stones.

  The horse tugged at him, taking a few skittering steps forward, pulling Ryan remorselessly with it. His boots dug furrows through the muddy water, which was now only just below his knees.

  He thought for a moment that he heard someone screaming, a man in desperation, or a woman calling for help. The others had been in front of him when the rains struck, but by now they could be anywhere. Certainly one of them had lost a horse. But the others weren't likely to be in much better straits.

  The long gun strapped across Ryan's shoulders limited his movements and made him clumsy. He considered trying to swing himself back up into the saddle, but the risk of a fall was too great.

  The horse jerked its head suddenly, heaving Ryan off his feet, trailing helplessly after the powerful animal.

  Above the noise of the thunder he heard a pounding roar. Ryan knew what it meant, and there was nothing he could do about it. A moment later the horse was knocked off its feet and Ryan went with it, freezing water closing over his head.

  Chapter Nine

  "ME THINKS WHAT PAIN it is to drown," Doc said in his usual sonorous, declamatory voice, the words ringing across the desert.

  "Yeah. Fucking right," Jak agreed, running his bony fingers through the matted sandy tangle of once-white hair.

  "Never was much of an expert at swimming," Mildred complained. "There's something about the way the fat's distributed through my body."

  Krysty was emulating Jak, muttering as her nails snagged in her lank hair. "I really thought I was done for."

  J.B. had laid his sodden hat to dry on a sunbaked boulder, rubbing at his shoulder where the force of the flash flood had ripped away his Heckler & Koch MP-7 SD-8 and carried it off. "Only just got that blaster," he said, shaking his head. "Nice rifle. Integral silencer. Laser-optic sight. Nice feel. Still, at least I took off my glasses and put them safe before that big red wave came down the pike and hit us."

  Ryan looked around at his friends, realizing that it had been sheer luck that had brought all six through the disaster. The wave of water and mud had rushed across the old highway at lethal speed, carrying all the horses and the mule with it. At least everyone had been able to keep their heads above the flood, and they'd all managed to battle out of the rending current. As far as they knew, not one of their mounts had come through. Certainly the land was bare of life.

  A hundred yards to the south he could see the limp carcass of a horse, which looked to be Doc's powerful black stallion. He'd been the biggest and strongest of the string, so if the black hadn't come through, it wasn't likely any of the other animals would have made it.

  The storm had gone.

  The deep purple clouds were now only a blur to the east, the occasional streaks of lightning barely visible, the thunder silent. But its passing had been disastrous for the six friends. It wasn't just the mounts that had gone—the pack mule and saddlebags had carried their supplies of food and water. Paradoxically the murderous flood of house-high water had nearly killed them, but it was gone, leaving the air humid and the sand a dark, damp orange. Within an hour or so, all traces of that torrential downpour would have completely vanished, and death by thirst was again a threatening reality.

  Ryan coughed and spit, tasting grit in his teeth. He eased up the patch and ran a cautious finger around the puckered skin of the empty socket, still wincing at the delicacy of the sensation, twenty years after he'd lost it to his psychopathic older brother's hatred. He rubbed his hands together, cleaning them, and looked at what damage had been done. A nail had been ripped on his left thumb, and both hands were covered in grazes and small cuts. Most of the group had suffered in similar ways.

  Jak had a deep cut across his upper arm, and Mildred had lost a tooth. Doc had lost a clump of hair, and blood still trickled from a gash beneath the lobe of his left ear. Krysty had a deep bruise across her ribs that made her wince when she tried to turn quickly. J.B. had dislocated his right thumb but had popped the joint back himself.

  It had been a close call.

  Night was still some way off and the sun was hot. There was no point in sitting around. The nearest hope of safety was probably the Ballinger spread. Jak Lauren pushed hard in their discussion for turning back.

  "Go on, fucking chilled!"

  Ryan couldn't find much of an argument to use against the teenager. To go on now, without any kind of provision or transport, was to invite a merciless death in the wilderness. But they'd taken the best of the horses from Christina Ballinger. To try to find enough mounts to move on again could take months—could take forever.

  "We might find another ranch if we keep heading south," he suggested.

  "And pigs might fly," Mildred snorted, shaking her head at him.

  "And there's this Skullface person that Christina mention
ed to us," Krysty said. "Could be we're moving into his territory."

  Ryan batted a persistent fly away from his face. "Okay. Can't argue much with that." Everyone stood and began readying themselves for the long trudge back north.

  It was Mildred, surprisingly, who raised her voice against the plan. "I know what I said about not finding a ranch in this dead land, but I surely would like to find another cryo-center. If we give up now it could be months before we can start south again. Six months in Deathlands is like an eternity."

  "How typical," Doc commented. "Always changeable, are you not, ma'am? One moment there's flying pigs and the next—"

  She interrupted him. "Button the flap, Doc. I'm just saying that on the far side of that dry creek there's a rise. Anything beyond it is in dead ground. It'd only take a half hour to get over there and take a look. Sure, there's probably damn all! But at least we'll know for certain."

  "Why not?" Ryan said.

  As they walked through the drying sand, Krysty fell back to join Ryan.

  "In the storm," she began.

  Ryan hesitated. "You heard something?"

  "Yeah, in that quiet moment as the eye passed over us. You heard something, lover?"

  "I think I mebbe heard something. Mebbe."

  "Train whistle?"

  "Mebbe."

  She persisted. "But it was a train. Like the old locomotives before Deathlands got itself born. Is that what you heard, lover?"

  Ryan stopped a moment, the buzzing flies becoming more insistent. He flapped at them irritably, looking ahead up the rise where Doc and Mildred were stalking along, side by side, obviously involved in a heated argument. J.B. was a few paces behind them, and Jak picked up his own path farther along to the left.

  "Lover?" Krysty said.

  "Sorry?"

  "The sound."

  "Trader used to say there's no point in talking about something that may happen tomorrow."

  She smiled. "And Mother Sonja used to warn me never to get involved with a one-eyed man. She said they saw too little and thought too much."

  Ryan tried to think of something witty to say in response, but a call from Doc, now at the top of the hill, put it from his mind.

  "What is it, Doc?"

  "Come and see for yourself, my dear friend," the old man replied.

  His boots slipping in the soft sand, making three paces forward and two paces back, Ryan moved to join the others.

  "Look," Mildred said, pointing across the featureless plain that stretched ahead of them.

  "Where?"

  "There."

  Shading his eye with his right hand, Ryan peered into the heat-blurring brightness.

  "Wags," he said doubtfully.

  "Ox-drawn wags," Krysty clarified, her sight that much better.

  "Dozen or so," Ryan offered.

  "Fifteen. Can't count people. Too much dust getting kicked up."

  "They're not heading south. Looks like it's a train moving west."

  Krysty nodded. "You got it, lover. If we step out, we could be with them by evening. They can't make more than three, four miles an hour. Not over this kind of trail."

  "Then let's go."

  IT'S OFTEN THE case in a vast wilderness that judging distances is difficult.

  It was well past dark before the six friends finally closed in on the wag train. Their progress had been slowed by Mildred's suffering a violent headache. She'd complained of pain around her right eye. After an hour she had to take a rest, saying that the sun was surrounded by a great shimmering halo of light, and she thought she was going blind. While they stood helplessly around, she crouched in the dirt, doubled over, eventually throwing up in the sand. Gradually the attack subsided, and they were able to resume their journey toward the distant wagons. But by now the evening had come and gone and they could only trace the camp by the sparkling specks of red and orange that were the fires.

  "Fifteen ox wags going west," Ryan mused. "Could mean something like your train, Krysty, when you was young."

  "Were young, lover. Not was. But I guess you're right."

  "How many in each wag?"

  J.B. answered. "Just before I fell in with the Trader I had a job swatting flies away from an ox train like this one. Most had a family. Man and woman and anywhere up to six kids."

  Ryan nodded, eye locked to the pinpoints of bright light a quarter mile off in the darkness. "Probably reckon on twenty to thirty men able to fight. Same number women and young women. And… and a shitload of kids."

  "You thinking of taking them on, Ryan?" Mildred asked, sitting with her back against a large boulder.

  "No. I'm thinking about this man Christina called Skullface. If he's around here with some chillers, then I just wonder how strong and prepared that train is down there."

  "Best take care," J.B. suggested.

  "Sure. They'll have guards out. Place like this, miles from anyplace, there could be Indians, muties, or—"

  "Skullface," Jak said, finishing Ryan's sentence.

  The loss of the Armorer's long gun was bad news for them. Now they had only Ryan's G-12 assault rifle for distance shooting. Everyone had a hand blaster, but there were times when a rifle was needed.

  There was a sailing moon that sometimes peeked out from behind tattered shreds of high cloud, which provided enough light for them to see that the wag train had found a reasonable place for its campsite.

  The trail dipped and there was a wide plateau, close to two hundred yards across that sloped toward the riverbed. Whether anything of the flash flood was now left was questionable. But at least it wasn't possible for anyone to come at the wags from cover. And whoever was in charge of the train had taken reasonable precautions.

  "Four guards," Jak reported after he'd bellied forward to scout the camp. "Walk around. Two left and two right. Could get in easy."

  Though he'd said nothing to any of the others, it had crossed Ryan's mind to get in by force of arms, take the travelers by surprise and then break out with a couple of the wagons. If they'd been horse-drawn, then the temptation would have been stronger. But oxen lumbered at their own tedious pace, and they would easily have been overtaken.

  No. It had to be done straight. Straight and very careful.

  He led them forward until they were within fifty yards of the nearest guard. Motioning for everyone to keep under cover, Ryan stood and cupped his hands to his mouth.

  "Hello, the train!!" he shouted, then ducked under a fusillade of bullets.

  Chapter Ten

  "HOLD YOUR FIRE!" Ryan shouted.

  The gunfire was spasmodic and mostly ill aimed, coming, Ryan guessed, from some hoarded M-16 carbines and a variety of self-mades and patch-ups, which was the usual kind of weaponry that was found in the frontier wilderness of Deathlands. A lot of the ammunition was poorly charged, and even at short range was barely reaching them.

  "Hold your fire, you double-stupe brain-dead bastards! Think we're goin' to tell you we're coming if we want to chill you?"

  The shooting slowed but didn't stop. It sounded like every man or woman with a blaster on the wag train had come rushing over to use it. Ryan considered that any intelligent attacker would have caused this kind of diversion and then marched in the far side of the defense perimeter and shot everyone in the back. Easy as taking jack from a dead mutie.

  Suddenly they all heard a voice, rising above the noise of the firing.

  "Hold your guns, men!! Hold your dad-blasted guns! Some of you get over the other side! Harry and Buck. You get there. You're supposed to be on watch. Now stop that piss-ant useless shooting!"

  One by one the guns ceased.

  The angry voice bellowed again, this time without the biting edge. "You people out there! You hear me?"

  Ryan answered. "Yeah, we hear you."

  "Name's Major Ward. This here's my train aiming for the west. Over the Sierras."

  "Not too much over the Highs except a lot of sea, Major," Ryan called, making sure he kept his head well below the le
vel of the ridge.

  "I heard that, son. Also heard there's Americans up there in space. Right now. Been there, circling and breeding for a hundred years. You heard that, son?"

  "No."

  "How many of you boys out there, son?"

  "Six of us. Name's Ryan Cawdor. Got three men and two women. We were heading for the Grandee when the flash flood took our horses and the pack mule after noon today."

  "You lost everything?"

  "Kept our clothes. Most of the blasters. Not a lot beside."

  "We're good Christian folks here, Mr. Cawdor. If you and your friends would like to come in you're right welcome to share any vittles we got. Stand slow and easy and walk in the same way. Best you keep your hands out where the boys can see 'em. You'll have likely noticed some of them are real edgy."

  "Real poor shots, Major. Wouldn't back them to hit the door on a shithouse if they were sitting there on the hot seat."

  He was rewarded with a cackle of laughter.

  "Guess you got it right, son." They heard someone else's voice, but they couldn't catch the words. Major Ward continued. "Oh, yeah. Fella here says how we know you aren't with this Skullface and his chillers? What do you say, son?"

  Ryan put an edge to his voice. "I say that's real stupid. I say we're tired and hungry and I'm not going to wait much longer. If we come in without your say, there'll be blood, Major."

  "Guess if you was Skullface you wouldn't tell us." The invisible wagon master laughed.

  Cautiously, keeping his arms out from his body, Ryan stood and took a few steps toward the circle of wagons. The others stayed hidden where they were, ready to give covering fire at the first sign of trouble.

  "We see you, Mr. Cawdor! Don't see your friends yet."

  "I come in and you see me. When I think it's safe I'll call them in."

  So it was.

  MAJOR SETH WARD—Ryan never learned where he claimed the military title from—was in his early fifties, a grizzled man with a weather-beaten face and a neat silver mustache. He dressed like an old-fashioned cowboy with a pair of nearly matching Colt Peacemakers cross-strapped on his hip.