Dark Carnival

by James Axler

  As they drew near, she ran and clasped Ryan to her, trying to draw Dean into her embrace. But the boy pulled away, uncomfortable.

  "You did brilliantly, kid," she said.

  "Don't call me that," he muttered. "Not a kid. Don't like it."

  "Sure. You both all right?"

  "Thanks to the boy," Ryan told her. "Got an ace on the line and stabbed that big mother in the eye and saved me. Did good."

  "Better get out to the wag. J.B'll be worrying where we are."

  Ryan nodded. He shivered as the wind began to penetrate the soaking clothes and was aware of the boy trembling at his side. "Sure. Don't want them coming back to look for us."

  "How about the scalies?" Dean asked. "Bound to be after us real soon."

  Ryan took the G-12 rifle from Krysty. "Let them come. We're ready." He turned to the woman. "Lead the way, lover. I'll watch our asses for the scalies."

  But it seemed as though the decimating slaughter caused by the rapid triple bursts from the G-12 had been more than enough for the lizardlike muties. The tunnel opening gaped blank and empty.

  Snow had covered most of the beach, stretching out white and untouched. Nothing moved in the night, except the silently falling flakes and the ceaselessly rolling small waves of the Hudson.

  The rocks and tumbled concrete of the jutting pier were also coated with snow and glazed with a layer of treacherous ice. Krysty picked her way along it, her silver-pointed boots slipping repeatedly.

  Dean was far more surefooted, balancing with arms outstretched, dancing through the whirling blizzard like some elemental wraith, a part of the storm's soul. Ryan, shivering with cold, brought up the rear, glancing behind every now and again, unable to understand why the scalies were letting them escape so cheaply.

  A shout erupted up ahead, and Ryan recognized the deep voice of Doc Tanner. Krysty called in reply, and then they were right by the recce wag, its metal flanks rattling as the swell on the water carried it against the rocks.

  Mildred stood by the stern rope, Doc by the bow. J.B.'s head emerged from the driver's hatch, his gloved hand waving a greeting.

  "Didn't want to risk starting her up until you made it. You got the kid?"

  Dean was staring admiringly at the light-armored vehicle, dark eyes fixed on the powerful blaster on the turret. He didn't hear the Armorer call him "the kid."

  "Get aboard, Dean, and hunker down. It was a tight fit before you came along."

  "Sure, Ryan." He hopped on the slippery top of the wag and vanished down the open personnel hatch.

  "Fire her up, J.B., and let's lay us some good safe space."

  "I'll get on, lover?"

  "Sure. Doc, you and Mildred cast off when the engine starts up and get on quick. Still don't trust those scalies. Could come after us out of the snow at the last minute."

  The six-cylinder supercharged Detroit diesel rattled harshly as J.B. tried to get it going again. Considering that the recce wag was around a hundred years old, it was something of a miracle that it was still running at all.

  "Give her another shot!" Ryan shouted, jumping cautiously on the top deck, clinging to the muzzle of the Bushmaster cannon.

  The engine turned, coughing. Once. Twice. Then there was a full-throated roar, and the whole wag began to vibrate with the controlled power. Ryan beckoned to Mildred, who threw off the bowline and leaped on board, balancing effortlessly, following Krysty down the main entrance hatch.

  "Come on, Doc!"

  The old man fumbled at the loop of rope, while J.B. gunned the engine. The wag was now bouncing harder against the pier and its blunt nose was starting to swing out, making it harder for Doc to get aboard. Ryan thought he was going to have to help him, but the mooring line eventually jerked loose.

  "Jump, quick!"

  The northerly wind swooped down, pushing the twenty-five thousand pounds of armored steel away from the shelter of the dock. The gap was three feet and widening fast.

  Doc hesitated, hands stretched out for balance. The top of the jetty was so rough there was no way of taking a run at it. Just when Ryan had decided the old man had left it too late, Doc jumped, a peculiar, straddle-legged convulsive leap, like a frog struck with an electric prod. He landed on the sloping side of the vehicle and reached up desperately for Ryan's hand.

  "Gotcha!" His fingers tightened around the scrawny wrist, and he heaved Doc alongside him, using brute force.

  "Thank you, my dear fellow. Much obliged for your assistance."

  The gale and the snow, combined with the thunder of the engine, made conversation almost impossible.

  "Get below!" Ryan shouted. "I'm staying here as lookout."

  Doc nodded, pausing for a moment to gather his breath. Glancing behind them toward the open river, his body stiffened and he tapped Ryan on the shoulder, his bony forefinger pointing.

  Ryan looked through the blizzard and saw what Doc had spotted.

  "Fireblast!" he breathed.

  Chapter Three

  RYAN'S FEARS HAD been confirmed. The scalies weren't intending to let them get away that easily.

  The snowstorm had reduced visibility, but it didn't hide the three boats that were heading around the northern end of the jetty. Each one seemed to be packed to the gunwales with a whooping gang of scalies.

  "Get below, Doc!"

  "Whatever you say, Captain."

  Ryan leaned down, putting his mouth close to the old man's ear. "And warn J.B. Tell him to watch that his ob slit isn't too far open. Just head straight west for about four hundred yards, then turn north. Should shake them off. Got that?"

  Doc nodded, easing his way into the passenger compartment and disappearing. Ryan clung to the barrel of the blaster and watched the approaching boats. He felt confident that the scalies would have no weaponry that could do more than scratch the sides of the big wag.

  From what he'd witnessed inside the subterranean lair of the muties, their armament didn't seem to run to much more than spears and arrows. And their boats were powered only by paddles, like long, clumsy canoes.

  J.B. was maneuvering the LAV in a lumbering circle, bringing it close to the shore, then swinging back toward open water.

  Ryan brought the G-12 to his shoulder, using the nightscope. He hesitated with his finger on the trigger. Since they were planning on leaving the ville, there was no profit in slaughtering more of the lizardlike muties. They'd just waste more bullets.

  But the wag moved so slowly that the scalies' craft would be able to get alongside, and it might prove difficult to repel boarders. Reluctantly, knowing how incredibly cramped and uncomfortable it was below, Ryan moved to the main entry hatch.

  An arrow whispered by his feet, rattling on the icy metal. Ryan half turned, raising the rifle, then checked himself. He stooped by the rectangular hatch and peered into the semidarkness.

  "Coming in," he called.

  There was general moaning and scuffling as everyone tried to shift to let him in. The interior was filled with equipment and was now packed with three adults and the boy.

  While he waited, two more arrows hissed through the night air. Ryan heard the crack of a rifle, but on the pitching river there wasn't too much risk of being shot at medium range.

  "Take your time," he called. "Got at least fifteen seconds before the scalies get alongside us. Don't hurry on my account."

  "Come on down," Krysty called. "Just watch where you put your boots."

  He wriggled in until only his head and shoulders were outside the hatch. Hands reached up to help him, as if trying to fit in the last piece of a difficult three-dimensional puzzle.

  The trio of small boats was coming closer, handled with greater skill than he'd have expected from his experience with muties. They skimmed over the glistening ribbon of dark water, their paddles working in unison. Each boat had what seemed like a kind of officer in the stern, handling the tiller. And two or three scalies were armed with either bows or blasters.

  J.B. had finally brought the wag around s
o that its bow was pointing toward the center of the Hudson, where the current flowed fastest.

  One of the scalies in the nearest boat was shouting something to them. Despite his best intentions, Ryan couldn't resist the opportunity. He shifted the G-12 to single shot and put a bullet through the creature's throat.

  Without waiting to check to see what effect the caseless round had, Ryan heaved his way down into the compartment and lowered the hatch, making sure that it was both sec locked and bolted.

  J.B. sensed his movement and finally opened the throttle all the way. There was a surge of power, and they began to roar forward at something close to six miles an hour.

  Ryan, squashed, cold and wet, was also totally blind in the confines of the wag.

  "You see out, J.B.?" he bellowed.

  "Got the ob slit nearly closed, so… One boat right ahead and other two splitting… one each side. Going to board us, Ryan."

  "Can we stop them?" Mildred shouted somewhere underneath him and a little to his left.

  "No. Go out on top and they'll pick us off. Just keep moving and hope not many get on."

  "Sure they don't have grens?" J.B. called.

  "Never saw any," came a squeaky, muffled reply.

  "What?"

  "Boy said he never saw any," Ryan repeated for the benefit of J.B.

  "Might they not— My apologies for my elbow, Miss Wyeth. Might these villainous creatures not attempt to puncture our tires?"

  "Not with what they got, Doc."

  "Hang on. Dark night!"

  There was a crash from the front of the vehicle, and for a few moments its forward momentum slowed. Then the impediment was gone, and they rolled steadily on.

  "Sank one boat," J.B. reported. "Went right under us."

  "Hope the bastards drown," Krysty muttered.

  "Swim real good, like fucking fishes. Sorry, Rona told me not to use bad words."

  Ryan wished he were closer to Dean, able to comfort the boy. But movement was impossible. They had to endure the cramped conditions for as long as it took.

  All of them heard the clattering of nailed boots above their heads. Something bumped on the right side, and there were more feet.

  J.B. swerved the wag, trying to deter any other boarders. Immediately next to Ryan there was a ferocious clanging on the hatch, but the locks were strong enough.

  "See the other boats?" he shouted.

  "No. Had to close the ob slit in front. Some triple-bastard tried to push a spear through it. Definitely one sunk. Think one of the others got swamped. One on the left. But we got us around six extra passengers."

  The little light in the compartment barely reached the panel of instruments, eighteen inches below Ryan's right hand.

  "Which one did you hit that moved the turret, Doc?" he called.

  "I'm not sure. Upon my soul, but I'm running a mite short of breath. I think it was the big round one, to the left."

  Ryan stretched down, peering to try to read the label beneath the control. But it had long faded into illegibility. Still, it was worth a try. He got his fingers on it and turned it sharply to the right.

  Even through the plated steel and above the thunder of the engine, they all heard the screams.

  "What was that?" said Dean.

  "Scalies going swimming," Krysty replied.

  J.B.'s voice came crackling over the intercom. "Shifted some. Hear anything up top?"

  It was difficult to make out anything above the noise of the engine. Ryan was closest and he strained to hear, but there didn't seem to be any sound.

  They now had a serious combat dilemma. Since there was no way of seeing out in the darkness, they had no means of knowing whether the swiveling gun had swept all their attackers into the Hudson.

  Or just some of them.

  "Can't tell," Ryan shouted. "You got your ob slit open again?"

  "Yeah. Nothing either side. We're going against the stream and the wind. Bastards'll be pushed to keep up in the boats they got left. Reckon we've got clear of them."

  Mildred spoke up. "How are we going to get back to the gateway?"

  It was a fair question. In his desire to head away from the scalies' base, Ryan had automatically chosen to move north, along the western side of the ville. But he knew that the hidden redoubt was in the opposite direction. To turn back meant going past the muties again, and he had no idea how much fuel the wag carried or what its consumption might be.

  "That river," he said, "the Harlem. Anyone know where it comes out?"

  It was the boy who answered. "Comes out about twelve miles north of where we are. Into the big river. Then runs down into the other big river, clear through the ville."

  "Sure?"

  "Sure, Ryan."

  "Hear that, J.B.?"

  "No. Something about the Harlem River."

  "Boy says if we keep north, about two hours, then we'll see it on our right. Follow it on down and we can get back."

  EVENTUALLY RYAN TOOK a chance and cautiously unlocked the main hatch near his head. He lifted it a scant quarter inch and peered out into the cold air, fresh in his face after the stinking fug inside the wag.

  He could see most of the deck of the vehicle, except what was directly behind him. Holding the drawn SIG-Sauer in his right hand, he took a further chance and heaved the hatch all the way back. When it struck the steel top with a resounding clang, Ryan heaved himself up, facing toward the rear, ready to shoot down a lurking scalie.

  "Empty," he muttered.

  THE REMAINDER OF THE TRIP northward was almost pleasant. The biting norther eased back, and J.B. was able to throttle down, chugging along at a steady three miles an hour.

  Gradually the sky began to lighten toward the east.

  Seen from the wide, powerful river, it was possible to appreciate the appalling devastation that New York had suffered more than a hundred long, long years earlier.

  Ryan, J.B. and Krysty had seen pictures of occasional snatches of crackling vid that had given glimpses of prenuke life. But to Doc Tanner and Mildred Wyeth, the past was almost their present. Their concept of "then" was close to "now."

  As the dawn rose gently to their right, all of the companions left the cramped compartment and stood on the cold deck of the recce wag.

  J.B. had his ob slit thrown fully open, and he was actually humming quietly to himself, thoroughly contented with the goodness of life.

  Mildred had managed to work her way forward and was now perched close by him, on the sloping bow of the vehicle as it thrust through the shallow swell. She constantly turned her head to the right, toward the shattered, silhouetted ruins of the ville. Krysty had been moving to join her when she saw that there were tears streaming down the black woman's cheeks. She turned away to join Ryan, sitting with Dean in the lee of the turret.

  Doc was standing up, his gray hair streaming behind him, looking like some wild-eyed prophet seeking a promised land of golden spires.

  Dean was looking toward the Jersey swamps, arms around his knees. Krysty noticed that Ryan had given him back the small knife with the Navaho turquoise hilt, and it was stuck in his belt. Seeing them huddled close together for warmth, her heart was wrenched by the similarity between the two. Whatever Ryan might pretend to himself, there was no doubt at all that they were son and father—they had the same sharp, stubborn profile, with the slightly hooked nose; deep-set serious eyes and tight black curls.

  Feeling the cold wind about her, making her own sentient hair cling closer to her skull, Krysty looked all around them, seeing the charred remnants of concrete buildings drifting by, with coils of cooking smoke rising farther inland. As far as she could see there was nothing else moving on the river.

  Faintly she could hear the sound of Ryan and the boy talking, and she nearly went to join them, wondering what strange secrets they were telling each other.

  For the first time since she'd met Ryan Cawdor, Krysty felt a violent pang of jealousy.

  "Mind if I stand with you, Doc?" she asked.
/>   They moved steadily onward, toward the beckoning mouth of the Harlem River.

  Chapter Four

  WHEN THE TEN-year-old came and sat on the cold, damp stern of the recce wag, Ryan took several long, slow breaths. He could face a dozen ravening stickies without flinching, but knowing he was going to talk with his own son was inconceivably difficult.

  "Warm enough?" he asked, conscious that his voice was tighter and higher than usual.

  "Yeah."

  "Shouldn't be too long before we get to the gateway and make the jump."

  "What's a gateway?" The boy paused. "And what's a jump? Never heard of them."

  Ryan tried to explain about the mat-trans units, mostly buried or hidden and long lost, about how none of them knew how they worked or how to control them.

  "You get in this room, and then you're someplace somewhere else and you don't know where? Is that it, Ryan?"

  "Sure. But it's not magic. Science. Lost science. Doc knows a bit about it." He wondered whether he should try to explain to the boy that Doc had been trawled forward from the nineteenth century, then pushed forward just before sky-dark ended the old world. No. Better to leave Doc for some other time.

  "There's lots I don't know," the boy said, one hand playing nervously with the greeny blue hilt of the slim knife.

  "Man I used to know, called Trader, used to say that he didn't mind a man admitting he didn't know something. But he couldn't stand someone pretending to know something he didn't."

  "Rona told me about Trader. Said he was real triple-scary."

  "Only to people who didn't know him. Best friend a man could have."

  "Where is he?"

  "Dead. I think, dead. Yeah, dead."

  "Tell me about these people."

  "Who?"

  "Doc and the redhead and the black woman and the guy driving."

  "Friends."

  "Did they know my mother?"

  "No. Well, J. B. Dix knew her. But only sort of casual, for a few days back in Towse. Ten years or so away."

  "Rona said you…" The boy stopped. "Tell me about your friends."