Dark Carnival

by James Axler

  Without another word the sec man walked away from Ryan, vanishing around a bend in the winding path that led toward Paraglide Paradise.

  RYAN TOLD Krysty everything, sitting beside her on the bed in their room. Dean was watching the television, locked into a crackling vid about some dead crazies in an isolated cabin. Every time Ryan glanced across at the screen, there seemed to be heads flying through the air, or empty eye sockets or severed hands coming through walls.

  "We going to try and break out?"

  Ryan closed his eye, feeling a sudden wave of exhaustion. The whole place sickened him, with its patina of swift and evil corruption. "They may be getting ragged around the edges, but Larry's still got one of the best sec forces I've seen. Not easy to get away."

  "The gateway?"

  "Might be our best chance. If it wasn't for—" he nodded toward the back of his son's head. "—I'd think about hanging around a day or so and seeing what we could do about swatting the flies away from the ville. Needs doing."

  Without looking around, Dean spoke to his father. "Why does Traven want me? He an ass fucker?"

  "You got good ears, son. Truth is, I don't know. That's what makes it creepy. Seems like Traven gets his kicks from dominating folk. His posse does what he tells them."

  "Let me go with him, and I can slit his throat and then we get away."

  Ryan smiled. "I reckon you could do it, Dean. But it's a triple-risk."

  "Rona used to say all living's a risk."

  "True, but this is something special. If there was some safe place I could take you, then we could do something about Traven."

  "I don't want to lose you."

  "I know. But—" There was a long pause. "Dean, go tell the others to come in here. We all have to talk."

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  "NOT OUR BUSINESS," Mildred said.

  Krysty agreed with her. "They don't know about the redoubt. Lost in the woods. We can get out of the ville that way."

  "Don't much like someone throwing me my blaster and telling me to get out," J.B. said, busily polishing his glasses, "but the boy has to be made safe."

  "Oh, incidentally, Larry gave me this radio. Worked on it himself." Ryan pulled it out of the pocket of his long coat, the crumpled scrap of paper falling onto the floor. Ryan stooped to pick it up.

  "What is that?" Doc asked.

  "Found it under that old cap just outside the gateway. Hardly read it. Need a strong light."

  "Would you mind awfully if I attempted my poor eyes on it? Thank you, Ryan, my dear fellow. Most kind of you."

  J.B. took the radio, holding it as though it were a nugget of pure gold from the mother lode. "This is fabulous. You reckon that poor brain-dead lump of dripping put this together?"

  "Said so. His place is flowing over with all sorts of techno gear. Most I ever saw in one room. Said you can talk and listen over two or three thousand miles. But I figure there aren't many people in the whole of Deathlands who got this kind of equipment."

  The Armorer was fascinated.

  He switched it on, flipping open a slot in the back. "Sol power," he said. "Larry's better than I thought. He really figures it's got that sort of range?" He moved the tiny dial that controlled the frequency. There was nothing but a sibilant hissing and crackling. As J.B. eased it along, they suddenly heard a faint voice that swam into the room like the ghost of yesterday's dreams. Faint and immeasurably far off, it spoke what sounded like a Mexican dialect. It almost immediately faded back into the ether.

  "Works," Mildred said. "How about that, Doc? Walkie-talkie with the rest of— You listening to me, Doc?"

  There was no reply.

  The old man had gone into the alcove where the washbasin and bathroom were concealed. He'd switched on the bright light over the tarnished mirror and was staring intently at the piece of paper.

  "Doc?" Ryan called.

  "What is it?"

  "You found something?"—

  Doc turned, his face alight, eyes wide. "By the three Kennedys! Did I hear you asking me whether I had found something?"

  "Yeah. What is it?"

  "If my memory hasn't gone wandering off down Alzheimer Avenue

  , I think this could be a gateway code. Someone risked a fearful wigging for this sort of security breach."

  "You mean the code to make jumps to particular places?" J.B. switched off the little radio and threw it on the bed.

  "Only one or two that I can decipher," Doc said hastily.

  He laid the paper on the flat surface by the basin, angling it to catch the best of the light. "Down this side are a sequence of numbers, each prefixed with the letter J?"

  They could all see that, huddled around: "R.I., R.2.," and so on.

  "I believe this may mean simply 'redoubt.' The digits may relate to some master code. The sequence of numbers at the end is, I believe, linked to the control panel that we have seen by every doorway."

  Krysty pointed to the scribbled writing. "And that tells you where the redoubt is."

  "Since this is the very nub of the business, I'm desolated to say that only about three or four are even minimally legible."

  "LASW."

  Dean read out the four letters. "What's that mean, Doc?"

  Krysty answered. "Guess it's southwest Los Angeles, isn't it?"

  "That was also my supposition. This one is a shorthand for northern Missouri close to the Iowa state line."

  "The one in Los Angeles is a last-train venture," Ryan said. "That part of California was one of the first places to go at sky-dark. Slid under the Pacific Ocean. Parts of Missouri and Mississippi got swallowed up by Big Muddy changing course."

  "Third one I can make out seems to have been in Alaska. Could be the one we passed by when we encountered that Zimyanin fellow you spoke of the other day, Ryan? And this other one, number five."

  "S NMex nr Tex."

  Mildred looked at the others with dawning recognition. "One of the first places I jumped to. Southern New Mexico, not far from the border with what used to be Texas. And that—"

  Ryan completed the sentence for her. "That's not far from the Ballinger spread, where Jak Lauren and Christina are living." He hesitated. "Where they were living, anyway."

  "Only problem is that the redoubt blew up. Took the whole mountain with it."

  Ryan had remembered that even before J.B. spoke. The place had been boobied with all sorts of self-destruct devices that they'd triggered trying to escape. The resultant explosion had come close to wasting them all and had blown away the whole of one flank of the hillside.

  "Not the whole mountain," Ryan said thoughtfully. "We were stuck because that sec door dropped and cut us off from the gateway. It was way deep and on the farther side of the complex. Good chance it's still secure down there."

  Krysty was standing by the mirror, brushing her long hair. "One thing we've never found out, lover, is what happens when you jump into a gateway that no longer exists. That's a thousand feet under the sea or pulped beneath trillions of tons of dirt. This could be the time to find out."

  Dean had picked up on what they were discussing. "You going to take me to this Jak Lauren man?"

  "Maybe, son. Question of safety."

  "So why don't we all go?"

  It was a good question.

  For several long heartbeats nobody answered the young boy.

  Finally Ryan said, "Trader used to say that there were some things that a person couldn't always just ride around."

  "But I can stay and fight." Dean's voice broke, and Ryan realized that his son was on the edge of tears. "Don't send me away."

  "I'm not sending you away." He knelt by Dean and put his arm gently on his shoulder. "I'm taking you to see if Jak can have you for a few days. No longer. If there's a problem there, we both come back here. It's not that I don't care, son. It's that I do care about you. Understand?"

  "Suppose so."

  "Soon as we've kicked Traven's skinny ass, we'll all be down to see you," Mildred told him.<
br />
  "Promise?"

  Doc laid his gnarled hand across the center of the boy's chest. "Regardless of what this raggle-taggle parcel of sturdy rogues might claim, Dean, you have the sworn oath of Dr. Theophilus Tanner that we shall see you again, very soon."

  "What an old jerk-off you are, Doc!" Mildred grinned.

  RYAN PASSED ON TO Doc the news that Sky might well be calling on him later that night, after the posse had been to what she'd referred to as "dark snaking."

  "Means Dean and I have to get away before midnight. Don't want her creeping around and watching us break for it."

  "Surely. But what will we tell the sec men or Boss Larry?"

  "Part truth. Me and the boy went for a late walk and didn't come back. With any luck they'll suss the Cajuns. That'll be my story if I make the return jump safely."

  Ryan had already discussed with Krysty what they should all do if he wasn't back in seventy-two hours.

  "Chill anyone you have to and get out. If I can get hold of a communication device, I'll try and contact you some time on the radio. One hundred band."

  They'd sent Dean outside for a while so they could enjoy a brief moment together.

  Krysty had been quiet and introspective. "You know why, Ryan. Being away from you is like losing a part of myself. And I'm scared."

  "Scared of what?"

  "Uncle Tyas McCann told me an old, old saying. Said it was Latin."

  "Where's that?"

  "More than two thousand years ago, in Europe. Ruled most of the known world. Want to know this saying, lover?"

  "Yeah." He was lying on the bed beside her, running his hand gently over her thighs.

  "He said 'Timor mortis contrubat me.' Know what it means?"

  "Tell me."

  "It means that the fear of death moves within me, lover."

  RYAN AND DEAN LEFT the ville a couple of hours before midnight.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  THERE'D BEEN A brief rain shower while they were eating supper. Now the night was filled with a heavy scent of vegetation, and water still dripped off the jagged edges of leaves. Beneath their boots the ground was moist and clinging.

  To the east, against the concrete desolation of what had once been Miami, the sky showed the remains of a violent chem storm. Streaks of purple-and-pink lightning tore open the banks of low cloud, and the faint rumbling of thunder was discernible.

  "You sure you can get back, Dad?" Dean whispered as they crouched together in the lake of black shadows outside their motel.

  "Sure. Mildred tumbled to the bit on the bottom of the scrap of paper. The letters L and D. Just press those for the 'Last Destination.' Shrewd guess."

  "But how do you know that's what that means? What if she's wrong?"

  Ryan managed to sound a hundred percent confident. In fact, there'd been a long argument about whether the letters were indeed an L and a D.

  Most of them were agreed on the first letter being an L, but the D was the subject of much more discussion. Krysty had held the paper sideways to the light and announced that she thought it looked much more like a P.

  "What if the place is demolished like J.B. said it might be?"

  "If it is, then the gateway won't function and we stay where we are. If we get to it and there's a problem, then there's a thirty-minute automatic reset on all the mat-trans units. So we'd finish back here in the ville a half hour after we made the jump. No problem, son."

  "Yeah, but…"

  Ryan lowered his head, managing to control his anger. "You got any more questions? Then let's have them now, Dean."

  "Just… Will Jak Lauren like me, Dad?"

  "He's only about fifteen. Maybe sixteen by now. Never had anything you could call a childhood. Like you, son."

  Dean was silent. "I finished with the questions, Dad."

  "Then we can go."

  THEY HID among some ornamental orchids as a sec patrol passed them. Ryan thought he caught a mention of Kelly's name, but he couldn't hear what was being said about the noncom.

  They didn't see anyone else before reaching the cutoff into the impenetrable deeps of the positronic jungle. The temperature was way into the high seventies, despite the lateness of the evening, and Ryan was aware of sweat trickling down into the small of his back.

  The moon reluctantly eased its way through a rift in the low clouds, helping father and son to pick their way toward the long-lost redoubt.

  Ryan was relieved to have the light, aware of the pits of sucking mud that lay all around waiting to drag at an unwary footstep.

  He heard the deep croaking of a frog, and something flew through the air from under his boots, landing with a splash in one of the gleaming pools.

  Dean was at his heels when he suddenly slipped, falling with a squeak of shock into a cluster of waxen flowers with long tendrils.

  "You all right, son?"

  "Got fuck…wet knees. I'm— Hey the leaves are sort of grabbing at me."

  "Don't be a stupe. Get up."

  "It's holding me." The voice was louder, carrying a frayed edge of rising panic. They were still only a few hundred yards away from the patrolled regions of the ville.

  In the thick undergrowth the moonlight was filtered and dissipated. Ryan dropped to his knees and felt with his hands, finding that Dean had fallen awkwardly, arms and legs spread. The bushes were mainly long vines, with tendrils thicker than a man's finger, strong and resilient. As Ryan touched his son, he had the illusion of the plants moving, coiling over Dean's leg, wrapping themselves around him.

  "Pull me up, Dad!"

  "Keep your voice down," Ryan snapped, getting his hands under his son's arms, bracing himself to lift.

  As he heaved the boy up, he heard the clear sound of some of the vines snapping like whipcord, rustling around on the ground like a nest of young moccasin snakes.

  "You all right?"

  "Guess so. Were they alive?"

  Now that they were both standing, it was easier to see. The boy's black denim jacket glistened with slimy green strings, some of them seeming to move and writhe. Ryan brushed them all off into the muddy earth.

  "Never come across mutie plants like that. Could've been real bad. Step careful and follow me close. I'll go out at point."

  There were no further alarms, though Ryan started several times, reaching for his blaster, at sudden movements and sounds in the swamps.

  "Made it," Dean said, breathing a loud sigh of relief.

  "So far, so good," Ryan agreed, opening the outer sec doors to the redoubt.

  "We staying here or going straight on to make the jump?"

  "Straight on. Quicker we can try and get to Jak's place, the better. Don't like leaving everyone here to the sick mercies of Traven."

  The entrance doors closed solidly behind them, and they moved fast through the various sections of the complex until they reached the tumbled steel door in the rotted frame that opened up to the gateway itself.

  Ryan's combat boots echoed dully off the metal slats of the stairs down. The memory of the giant mutie rat was fresh in his memory, and he carried the SIG-Sauer drawn and ready.

  The passage was completely silent, the air still overwhelmingly moist, though it did seem a little fresher than a couple of days ago.

  They reached the main doors into the mat-trans section without incident.

  "Can I do the code?"

  "Yeah. Remember it?"

  "Three, five and two."

  "Do it."

  There was the usual breath-checking moment when nothing seemed to be happening. But the century-old mechanism was still functioning, and the double sec doors rose ponderously.

  The cameras still swayed back and forth, the red light gleaming on each of them. When father and son reached the other doors, Ryan heaved up on the green control lever and opened the way into the main control room of the gateway.

  The Atlanta Braves baseball cap lay where Dean had dropped it on the muddied floor of the small anteroom.

  "It'll be
okay, Dad?"

  "Sure. Let's see if we were wrong or right about this little piece of paper." Ryan had copied onto a postcard the bits of information and code that the companions more or less had agreed on.

  The fifth notation—if they were right—referred to a redoubt that was situated in southern New Mexico, not far from Texas, in a military complex that had been largely reduced to rubble by several explosions several weeks earlier.

  "You go in."

  "You're coming?" Again Ryan heard that tiny scrap of threatened panic at the idea that he might be left in this alien chamber on his own.

  "Sure. Got to punch in these numbers."

  "Should I sit down?"

  "Back against the wall. Legs out straight, or maybe knees up and your arms around them. Kind of tuck your head in. Main thing is to get comfortable, ready for the jump."

  Dean walked in gingerly, avoiding the metal disks in the floor, and sat on the far side. He picked a spot where he could keep an eye on Ryan, who stood by the control panel.

  The console felt slightly sticky to Ryan's finger as he punched in the long code. He glanced at the L and the D buttons, wondering if they really meant "Last Destination" as they hoped. If they did, then he'd be back in the blue-green walls without any serious difficulty.

  Wouldn't he?

  A second later he finished the sequence, paused, then joined Dean. He squatted by the boy and put his arm around the slight figure.

  "Hang on, everybody," he said. "Here we go."

  There was the growing swell of the humming noise, and the familiar mist began to gather near the roof of the chamber. The disks started to glow, brighter and brighter.

  "Can I try and keep my eyes open for the jump, Dad?" the boy asked, his voice faint and receding down a limitless corridor.

  "If you want to. But I don't…think…you'll be…"

  The dark carnival revolved inside his skull, the whistling music of the calliope growing louder and ever more shrill.

  Ryan felt his son starting to shudder, his whole body vibrating.

  Someone out in the dazzling blackness was beginning to scream.