Latitude Zero

by James Axler

  They hit the stickle across the shoulder and the side of the head with a satisfying clunk, sending her staggering sideways, dropping her blaster. She gave a high, thin mew of rage.

  Doc had a couple of moments longer, and he used them well, dropping his water bottles and reaching for the Le Mat on his right hip, hefting the heavy pistol and thumbing back on the hammer.

  Seeing the blaster, the stickies hesitated a moment, drawing closer together, around twelve feet away from the old man in the faded frock coat.

  They made a perfect target for the scattergun barrel of the unique pistol. Because of the short barrel, the .63 round was useless at anything over twenty feet or so. At close range the effect was utterly devastating.

  The gun gave a deafening roar, kicking so hard in Doc's hand that the barrel ended up pointing directly toward the flock of buzzards.

  Mildred, already reaching for her own ZKR 551, was astounded by the explosion of the Le Mat. To her astonished eyes, Doc and the four male stickies that were threatening him had vanished behind a billowing cloud of powder smoke.

  As it cleared away, Doc was stooped over his gun, his fingers nimbly changing the position of the firing hammer. There didn't seem to be too much pressure to hurry as all four of the stickies were down in a tangle of arms and legs and smeared blood.

  The one with the sword was dying, his throat and most of his face ripped away by the starring cascade of lead.

  One of the others had almost lost its left arm, only a few strings of sinew keeping the limb attached to the shoulder. The third mutie had taken a scattering of pellets in the chest, a few of them dotting his jaw and cheeks. He was trying to get up, spitting blood and broken splinters of teeth into the earth.

  The fourth one looked like he'd hardly been hurt at all and was groping for his fallen knife.

  Out of the corner of her eye Mildred saw that the female stickie was coming at her again, bare-handed, gibbering with a maniacal anger.

  Mildred hadn't the lifetime of experience in Deathlands that Ryan and the others shared. All she knew was that a .38-caliber round from her pistol would be enough to put down any normal person. She aimed and fired, seeing the impact of the bullet, a neat dark hole drilled between the mutie's residual breasts. The creature staggered back several paces under the impact of the shot.

  And kept on coming!

  Meanwhile Doc had his own trouble. His Le Mat was proving stubborn. Despite all of the exhortations from J.B., he hadn't always been as scrupulous as he should about fieldstripping and cleaning his antique blaster.

  Now he was paying the price. To adjust the gun from the sawed-off barrel to the revolver should only have been the work of a few seconds. It was nearly done.

  Nearly.

  Stickies weren't indestructible, but they took a lot of chilling. Just losing an arm might slow one down, but it would keep on at you. And a few scattergun pellets in the mouth would hardly hinder a murderous stickie at all. So Doc had three of them, in varying states of health, closing in on him again.

  "Blast 'em, Doc!" Mildred yelled, unable to see what his problem was, aware only that the female stickie was moving toward her, fingers flexing.

  "I'm trying, you lack-brain pavement-pounder!" Doc retorted, backing away and still desperately struggling with the recalcitrant weapon. His feet were on the brink of the pool.

  Mildred squeezed the trigger of her customized target pistol twice more, taking careful aim for the stickie's head. Both bullets hit precisely the same spot, leaving a single entry wound. But they hit differing degrees of bone on the way through and started tumbling and distorting in different ways, exiting at the same microsecond four inches apart.

  "Yeah," Mildred breathed.

  It was about the most amazing thing that Mildred had ever seen—the simultaneous exit of the two rounds caused the stickie's head to explode.

  For a moment the mutie's face remained in place, like a two-dimensional mask, but with nothing behind it. The whole rear part of the skull, from the ears back, had vanished in a mist of blood, brains and flying splinters of bone. A large watermelon hit simultaneously by both barrels of a 10-gauge might give some idea of what it looked like.

  The female took two horrific, tottering steps toward Mildred, bringing up the short hairs at her nape in atavistic terror. Then the strings finally cut and the corpse dropped to the dirt.

  The crack of the blaster and the extraordinary passing of their companion stopped the other three survivors dead in their tracks, goggling eyes turning toward Mildred.

  Doc saw his chance and took it, backing away a few paces into the scummy pool until he was knee deep, all the while working on the Le Mat. He finally succeeded in shifting the stubborn hammer.

  "Now, you demons from the deepest circle of purgatory…" He began to thumb back the hammer, and squeezed the trigger.

  Each of the stickies collected three of the .36-caliber bullets. Doc wasn't the greatest marksman in the world, but at fifteen feet even he was capable of reasonable accuracy.

  He'd also learned enough not to waste lead on the bodies of the stickies. All nine rounds hit their heads.

  Mildred had bolstered her own revolver, clapping her hands as the three stickies jerked and danced under the impact of the bullets.

  "Good shooting, Doc!" she shouted. "Wins you a prize!"

  They were back at the wag train with the containers of water before the sun had completely set.

  Chapter Fourteen

  RYAN JERKED AWAKE, his hand automatically closing on the butt of his blaster. Only when he had the gun firmly in his fingers did he start to think about what had awakened him.

  He lay under a couple of blankets, head resting on his folded coat. The bed of one of the wags was over his head, his feet touching one of the large wooden wheels. Krysty was at his side, and Ryan sensed that she, too, was awake.

  "You heard it?" he whispered.

  She reached across the small space between them and squeezed his hand. "Yeah. Woke me. Think anyone else heard it?"

  "Don't know. Probably it touches them and they come close to the surface, then sleep pulls them down again. Like a tiny muffled bell heard in a dusty back room of a huge house."

  Krysty grinned. "Hey, that's real poetic, lover. Like some of those old books. I know what you mean. Think there really could still be a train running someplace, lover?"

  "Why not? Barons out east are supposed to have whirly wags. We saw that flying wag a few months back. Why not a train?"

  "Didn't they run electric? Can't be that sort of power left in Deathlands."

  Ryan finally let go of the SIG-Sauer. "Some did. But some of the old ones ran on coal and wood. If there really is one still going we might see smoke as well as hearing the whistle in the middle of the night."

  Before leaving the valley of death, where the carcasses of the muties were now stripped of all edible flesh, the wag train filled up their barrels, buckets and bottles with water, preparing for the trip farther west. Major Ward's map was a little vague on where the next water hole might be located, though it did show an old township, around two days' travel ahead of them.

  "Called Salvation," the wag master told Ryan, showing him the inked name on the piece of paper.

  "Be there around evening tomorrow," J.B. guessed.

  As usual, the Armorer was right.

  THE NEXT COUPLE of days drifted by in a haze of dust and heat. From Ryan and his group, there was only one noteworthy incident.

  During the evening of the first day, Jak had gone outside the circle of wags to relieve himself. He was gone for nearly a quarter of an hour and when he came back, it was obvious that something had happened.

  He ignored his five friends and went straight to his own blanket, lying down with his back to the others.

  Ryan exchanged glances with Krysty, J.B., Doc and Mildred, raising a questioning eyebrow. But all of them shrugged their own bewilderment.

  Since they'd left the Ballinger spread, the teenager had been slig
htly more reticent than usual. But Jak was never a great one for idle chatter. Since they'd joined the wags, his only worry seemed to have been caused by the attention of Sharon Vare.

  "Go ask him," Krysty urged.

  "Okay," Ryan agreed. He stood and stretched, looking around as the train readied itself for the night. Guards were being set, and the last residue from supper was being tidied away. The young children were in their sleeping clothes, scampering around and trying to avert the evil hour when they'd be sent to their beds.

  Ryan stood looking down at Jak for a moment, knowing the boy was aware of his presence. From behind, Jak looked even younger than his fifteen years, his slight frame and the cascade of pure white hair making him seem more like a little girl.

  "Something wrong?" Ryan asked, hunkering down to lean against the metal-rimmed wheel of the rig.

  "No."

  "No?"

  "Yeah."

  Ryan half laughed. "That mean 'yeah' there's something wrong or 'yeah' there's nothing wrong?"

  Jak muttered, "Yeah."

  "Still no wiser."

  The boy half turned, squinting up at the man. "Means something's fucking wrong. You know that, Ryan."

  "Thought so. What is it?"

  "My business."

  "You said that about Christina Ballinger. Is this about her?"

  "No."

  "Sharon Vare?"

  It was a fairly obvious guess, but Jak reacted as though someone had just pushed a branding iron halfway up his ass.

  "Who told?" He threw the blanket to one side, jumping to his feet, his hand dropping to the massive blaster on his hip.

  "Cool down," Ryan said, "and don't you ever move to draw down on me, Jak. Not now and not ever. You understand me?"

  There was a lethal chill to the one-eyed man's voice, which Jak recognized. He nodded slowly, his body relaxing.

  "Sit down."

  "Don't want talk."

  "The girl's pestering you, talking foolish and teasing. That sort of thing?"

  "No."

  "No?"

  Jak looked directly at Ryan, licking his pale lips. "No. More."

  "How d'you mean 'more,' Jak?" Ryan felt the first tug of worry.

  "Was pissing. Nobody near. Sharon came. Talked fucking. Dropped pants. Lay down, legs open. Said fuck or would tell father."

  Ryan had a flash of insight as to what had gone through the teenager's mind. Jak wasn't like other fifteen-year-olds and wouldn't be pressured by anybody to do anything he didn't want to do.

  "Jak," he said, pitching his voice lower, "you didn't chill her? Didn't slit her throat, did you? Did you?"

  The boy grinned, showing wolfish teeth. "No. Would have told you."

  "You fuck the girl?"

  Jak hesitated. Finally, "No."

  Ryan sucked at his front teeth. "Let me just get this straight, Jak. Sharon Vare came outside the wags, while you were pissing, said she wanted you to fuck with her, and if you didn't she go tell her father that you'd done it anyway. Claim you'd raped her. That it?"

  "Guess so."

  "You didn't, and since I haven't heard anyone screaming about a lynching, it looks like she hasn't told her father anything."

  "Yeah," Jak agreed. "But said she wouldn't."

  "What?" Ryan dropped his head in disgust. "Fireblast! I'm getting really puzzled, Jak." ,

  "Says loves me. Says won't cause trouble. But says will tell if I don't change mind. Fuck her. Marry her."

  "Which, fuck or marry?"

  "Both."

  "Oh, great." Ryan looked around them, catching the scent of wood smoke from the guard fires. "You don't much want to do either, Jak. Is that about right? Neither?"

  "Right. No fuck. No marry."

  "We won't be with this train that long. Soon as we get someplace we can find some transport we'll leave. Horses. Wags. Anything. There's a town coming up tomorrow. Might be something there. Until then, be careful, Jak."

  "Sure."

  THE TRAIL BECAME broader and easier to follow, and the wags made better time. J.B. announced that there were recent wheel marks on the dusty surface of the blacktop.

  "Could be real close to that ville, Major," he said.

  "Salvation?"

  "That's it. And it looks as if there's some action around there. Must be the tracks of eight or ten different wags here."

  Ward slapped his hat against his thigh. "By cracky! That's the best news I heard in a while."

  "Unless the wags belong to Skullface," Ryan commented.

  Elder Vare still refused to allow any scouting to go on.

  "If the Lord wants us to plunge into the abyss, then that's his will. We'd just anger him by trying to guess what he's doing. We share our luck together."

  "And get fucked together," Ryan whispered, angered by the tactical stupidity of the preacher.

  It was close to sunset when the first of the wags breasted the hill that had slowed them throughout all the afternoon. The driver reined in, yelling for Ward to come forward. Almost everyone in the party came to see what the fuss was.

  Ryan and his companions were among the leaders, trying to walk near the front and to one side of the wags, avoiding the dust thrown up from the big wheels. They stood together and stared out across a wide plain, which was cradled by some low hills about twenty miles to the west.

  Ryan eased the G-12 caseless on his shoulder, where the strap was rubbing. Though the light was almost gone, it wasn't difficult to make out the remains of a town below them. From where they stood, there was no way of determining how badly it had been damaged by the nuking a hundred years ago.

  But it wasn't the clutter of buildings straggling off a narrow main street that held everyone's attention—it was the rod-straight railroad lines running away from Salvation and the tiny object that moved along them toward the hills, trailing a plume of dark smoke.

  Everyone saw a tiny thread of white steam, and heard the lonesome sound of the locomotive whistle.

  Chapter Fifteen

  DAWN BROKE from a dull, overcast sky, a light drizzle filtering through from the north.

  Ward called a meeting, attended by Elder Vare and his cabal as well as Ryan and his friends. They'd eaten breakfast, and all of them now hugged metal mugs of coffee sub, steaming in the cool air. The major opened things up.

  "That's Salvation. Map shows it right smack-dab where it should be."

  "Water there?" Ryan asked.

  The wag master shook his head. "Not so's I know it."

  "Doesn't look like any signs of life there. No water. So why go there?"

  Elder Vare answered Ryan's question. "I believe there will be food there. The Lord provides, even to those who do not believe."

  "Oh, I believe, Elder Vare. I believe in a whole lot of things. But I don't believe in going blind into a ville that looks deserted. Not unless there's some real good reason."

  "I wish to go," Vare said pompously. "That is reason enough."

  "And you'll go in first?" The sting in Ryan's voice made the older man hesitate, eyes shifting nervously from side to side.

  "Me?"

  "You. First man in gets the first bullet from the shadows."

  "What bullet? How do you know there will be a bullet from the shadows?"

  Ryan smiled grimly. "I don't. Then again, neither do you."

  "How about that train?" asked one of the other preachers, a stout man with a ready grin. "That means someone's around."

  "Sure," J.B. agreed. "But do we all go in at once? Or do you want us outlanders to test the water for you?"

  Ward looked from Vare to Ryan and back again, rubbing his chin worriedly. "I'm darnationed if I know what's best. Elder, you pay the piper. You get to call the tune."

  Ryan watched, interested. He'd raised his questions partly to antagonize the preacher, who he'd come to greatly dislike. Krysty had spent ten minutes just after first light gazing down into the small ville, and she'd seen no sign of life. Nor did she "feel" any imminent danger. So as far as Rya
n was concerned, Salvation was safe to visit.

  "Perhaps," Vare began, swallowing hard. "The Lord's will must be served. We seek only the place of green grass and fresh spring water. Far to the west from here."

  The wag master looked puzzled. "Yeah, I know that, Elder. But… but how's about this ville yonder? Do we go around or through? Or does Ryan here go take a look first?"

  "Let 'em look," Vare snapped, spinning around and walking briskly to his own wag.

  ALL SIX OF the companions went. The drizzle had stopped, and the clouds were slowly clearing from the south. Ryan looked out in that direction, wondering if there truly was another cryo-center off toward the Grandee. He decided that they should leave the wag train in the next couple of days, steal horses, food and water and head out. The guards weren't fighting men, and they could get away easily enough.

  The moral imperative was simple for Ryan Cawdor. He and the others couldn't get where they wanted to go without transport, and that meant horses, since there were no power wags anywhere. Unless you counted the mysterious locomotive.

  "There doesn't seem much structural damage," Krysty announced. "Neutron bombs, I guess."

  One of the few things that saved Deathlands from being even worse was the neutron bomb. Some of the nukes used in 2001 had been conventional "dirty" weapons, causing enormous devastation and 99.99 percent mortality from ground zero to eight miles out. And seeping rad leakage wiped out millions more over a larger radius, leaving the breeding genetic mutations to multiply until mankind became the inheritor of fleshly chaos.

  A neutron bomb killed just the same as any other kind of nuke missile, but left buildings standing—as long as they weren't too close to the strike zone. That didn't help the general populace, but at least it was something for the next few enfeebled generations that came after.

  Ryan knew places in Deathlands, mainly the once-great conurbations, that were totally and irreversibly destroyed. But there were also a lot of villes that had been hit by concentrations of neutron bombs. There, the people had gone but the walls remained.